By Sunil Kumar (My Short Story) – Written Recently Selected by a Publishing House
“He who I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I am ever busy
building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day I
lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.”
– Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
Victoria’s mind often flashed back to her intellectual, emotional tryst with
Gurudev, the sage of the East, whose poems stirred souls with their mystical
embrace of happiness and sorrow. It was a dualistic dance, meant to evoke
transcendence.
Her home, Villa Ocampo, was an estate lined with venerable trees in the heart
of Argentina, standing as a shrine to the intellect and the arts, often drawing in
the luminous and the profound.
Tagore had arrived in Buenos Aires ten years after her first reading of the
Gitanjali. She was leaning against a white marble fireplace, when a dear
friend Romain Rolland’s letter arrived which she had opened with excessive
anticipation.
“ Villeneuve, Switzerland
22 March 1930
My Dear Victoria,
As I sit here at my desk, soaking in the serene expanse of Lake Geneva, a
scene so starkly contrasted by the flurry of excitement in my hear, I pen this
letter bearing news of great signficance. It is with immense pleasure that I
write to inform you that our dear Eastern messiah, Rabindranath Tagore is
soon to grace your illustrious shores.
I am often reminded of your great fascination and reverence for this voyager
of sea and soul. So, when he expressed a burning desire to explore the
enchanting and vibrant lands of Latin America, and most fortuitiously, to
recover his health, that has been assailed by the chill of our harsh European
winters. It was sheer joy when he confided in me his plans, and with
eagerness did I recommend that he seek you out in Buenos Aires.
I am sure, Victoria, that you will arrange for him the poetic pulse, tranquility
and stimulation that he so craves at this juncture of his life. He seeks the new
and the nuanced. Although slightly old now in appearance, his mind and spirit
is younger than all of us. I could think of no better sanctuary and refuge than
your home, where the arts flourish, the muses dance and philosophies are
kindled and forged in the hearth of warm conversation.
Prepare your home and gardens, dear friend, for they shall soon host a soul
whose thoughts bloom like the rarest orchids. I am sure your famed hospitality
will provide him with respite and rejuvenation that only a confluence of the
East and the West can provide. Glad to prove Kipling wrong.
I eagerly await your accounts of this auspicious meeting.
With warmest regards,
Romain Rolland.
P. S. He is especially fond of the quiet hours of the morning; perhaps the
beautiful Argentine sunrises will evoke poetry in him, as your company
undoubtedly will.
“Flatterer.” Victoria murmured with a smile as he put down Romain’s letter on
the mahogany desk, the ink still fresh, the words repeating themselves like a
melody in her mind.
Her life had been one of intellectual pursuit, an unending quest for knowledge
and cultural understanding. Asia, especially India was a land of secrets and
mystique with modern luminaries and saints like Gandhi and Tagore. Despite
the objections of her family, she had brought him, an Asiatic to Villa Ocampo.
“Do you not feel,” Victoria had asked Tagore one evening , her voice a gentle
silken breeze, “that the stars are closer here in the pampas? As if they are not
celestial bodies, but the mystic spirit of the universe that calls out to us, draws
us to the womb of creation. The Prakriti or Shakti, the divine feminine force
your culture talks about?”
Tagore smiled, his eyes reflecting the twilight. “Indeed, the universe whispers
to us all, Victoria. But, this is a language understood in contemplation, the
solitude of our souls, meant to be felt, not heard.”
“Is it the same with love?” Victoria ventured forth, her heart heaving with
anticipation, hanging on the perceived precipice of his words.
“Love,” Tagore paused, scanning the horizon, “is profound solitude. A deep
echo that resonated between two beings, where one may reach out, yet never
truly touch the other.”
Victoria momentarily turned away, his eyes stinging with the truth she had
long feared. Her love, like the wind, could touch him, move around him, but it
could never latch on to him, never claim him as her own.
She still managed to keep her intellectual poetic facade alive. “As a poet, your
ink seems to flow from the very rivers of live, some primordial stream beyond
the ravages of space and time. How do you see these fleeting days, these
small gatherings in your life journey?”
Tagore’s enigmatic smile seemed that it was staring into the depths of her
soul.
“Each encounter, every conversation is like a petal that falls into the surface of
a pond, creating ripples that travel far beyond its initial touch. It is like the
Upanishads my father loved so much. Our discussions here, these shared
silences- they are not mere gatherings or futile conversations but the sowing
of seeds, which will bloom in ways we may never see.”
With a mind as expansive as the pampas itself, Victoria often wrestled with
thoughts that soared and dipped with the volatile grace of storm-born birds.
Her intellect, often acknowledged as a sharp and shimmering tool, carved
through conversations and literature with equal fervour, dissecting Nietzsche
and Woolf with a dancer’s poise.
Tagore’s poetry and each verse spoke of an intimacy with the eternal, a
romance with the universe that she yearned to share. Her admiration for the
poet was to be like a secret sonnet, its verses etched deeply in the hidden
chambers of her heart, unspoken yet vividly felt.
“What are you thinking about, Victoria? And people say that I am lost in my
own universe,” Tagore’s words shook her out of the self-imposed reverie.
“Fascists. That Italian rogue, Mussolini. I despise such people, Gurudev. They
are also on the ascendant in Spain, Germany, here in my beautiful Argentina.
Your country is a paragon of virtue in comparison, saintly and unblemished.”
“I truly wish that was the case, Victoria. The West has injected its special
venom in us, exploring and expanding fault-lines. I believe in universalism and
brotherhood, but the partition of Bengal, the barbarism of Jallianwala Bagh,
the unspeakable torture, brutality and poverty of my country under the British
disillusioned me greatly.”
“So, you choose to hide in poetry and writing, Sir?,” Victoria said, gently.
“Sarcasm does not suit you, Vijaya,” Tagore replied, smiling, his austere
sage-like face cowing her into submission. Vijaya was the Indian name he had
given to her as a term of endearment.
She smiled inwardly. Perhaps, her mind had been hasty in labelling her own
culture shallow and materialistic, and the East as exotic and spiritual. Her
marriage with one of Argentina’s most famous oligarchs, Luis Estrado had
been a disaster.
Within a year, she had embarked on an affair with her husband’s cousin
Julian Martinez. Writing had been a solace, something the men in her life
never really understood. Tagore had been like an illuminating beam that
shook the foundations of her soul. Like him, India was a paradox, a country
like no other on the planet. Women were worshipped there, and also
abandoned, vilified and burnt.
The master often kissed her forehead or her cheek but like a true gentleman,
never went further. He had experienced much sorrow in his life, but never
showed it. His pagan tenderness was spiritual, quite different from his
secretary the ruffian Leonard Elmhirst who had tried to kiss her forcefully.
Years later, in late glow of the afternoon, as the sun lay like a golden cloak
across the gardens of her estate, the memories of his visit still seemed to
linger in the air, each breath carrying whispers of those shared moments that
bordered the realms of the intellectual and subtly ventured into the intimately
personal.
Her fingers now traced the edge of Tagore’s book, generously and lovingly
autographed by him. The tactile memory of his hands had once brushed
against her body, his touch light but pulsating with an inexpressible energy
that pulsated through the air between them.
“How curious,” he had said, a smile playing at the corners of his eyes, “that
paper and ink can feel so alive under the fingers.”
“Yes,” she had replied. her voice a murmur, lost in the depths of his piercing
gaze, “as if the words themselves pulse with a heaving heartbeat.”
The gardens around them felt like they were breathing in the lengthening
shadows, and she could almost feel his presence even now.
“Do you not think, Victoria,” he had teased one evening, a mischievious glint
in his eye,” that perhaps you should consider marrying my secretary,
Leonard? He is capable and quite charmed by your brilliant mind.”
Victoria had laughed pretentiously, reminded of two things, Leonard’s
engagement with Dorothy Whitney Straight, his earnest and lively fiancee and
the forced attempt at kissing her, proving that Elmhirst was attracted by things
other than her intellectual prowess.
“Would you have me break a lovely pair,
Gurudev. Leonard and Elmhirst, such a lovely pair. I fear that would make
quite the scandal, even for modern sensibilities including yours?”
In a rare display of mirth, Tagore had chuckled, his laughter mingling with the
rustling leaves around them. “But think of the art, the writing, the poetry that is
born from such a scandal. We artists are meant to live intensely, Victoria.
Larger than life, feel more, suffer more, transcend everything. Love, like life,
thrives on a little chaos, does it not?”
Her heart fluttered at such a suggestion, playful though it was. There was a
tension, unspoken but palpable that drew them to each other, a force as
natural and powerful as the gravity that held the stars in its bosom. Was his
austere highness attracted to her, preferring such obfuscation of his real
intent. Always hints, never consummation.
Years later, in the twilight of her life, she knew the real answer. Rabindranath
Tagore, India’s national poet was indeed interested in Victoria Ocampo,
devoting a whole poem to things that happened only between them.
Europe bled precariously in the Second World War, engulfing the entire world
in the violent flames of its hateful war, orchestrated by the madman Hitler.
Tagore’s precious country, India, the cradle of mankind in many ways became
independent. Its tryst with destiny drowned in a mad orgy of violence,
bloodshed and partition. But, the saintly poet died much before in 1941,
escaping his nation’s violent birth pangs.
She picked up his final heartfelt letter, tears streaming from her eyes.
“Dear Vijaya/Victoria,
I hope this letter finds you enveloped in the warmth and splendour of your
beloved pampas, which I so fondly remember as a sanctuary of thought and
beauty. As I sit to pen this correspondence, the winds of my beloved Bengal
stir around me, each gust laden with the scents of jasmine and the distant
murmurs of the sea, reminding me of our cherished dialogues and intimacy
under your Southern skies- San Isidro.
Latin America is a place where physical beauty has been bestowed on
women generously by the creator, along with wit and brilliance. It is the
precious gift of feminine love that makes life worthwhile.
I must urge you, dear friend, with a heart and mind that has seen much and
yearns for deeper understanding and transcendence, not to place your trust in
the mundane world of politicians. Their limited realm is often shadowed by
fickle interests and transient allegiances. Remember, the scales of justice in
this grand theatre of humanity too often weep in silence, hidden far away bu
the curtains of expedience and untramelled power.
All through my life, travels, reflections, I have advocated for freedom of
choice, particularly for women in matters of love and life. It is a fundamental
right- the liberty to choose one’s partner, to forge one’s path without the
fetters of societal compulsions. Genuine expression of the soul’s inherent
desires is the only way to true happiness and ultimate enlightenment.
Furthermore, it disheartens me to witness the shameless rapacity and
inhumanity of th West, draped in a garb of superiority smug in its own stupor,
indifferent to the throes of Africa, Asia and my very own India. The colonised
peoples of the world continue to suffer under the heavy hand of exploitation,
their cries muffled by the drumbeat of Western progress and shallow industrial
triumph.
In the tumultous symphony of this flawed world, voices like yours, Victoria,
resonate with the power to instigate change, challenge the old guards of
tradition and ignorance. In our shared commitment to enlightenment, and the
potent vehicle of our pens, we can perhaps rouse the world from its slumber.
I earnestly hope for a future where justice no longer weeps in silence, and
every soul basks in the pursuit of its ultimate goal- the glorious liberty of self-
realisation.
With kindred spirit and abiding respect,
Rabindranath Tagore.
The final missive from her intellectual, loving mentor had acted as a beacon
throughout her life. She had uncovered his painting skills, the ‘tango’ of their
relationship a mutually flamboyant dance that created sparks merely by
mental contact.
Tagore had led her from the ‘unreal’ to the ‘real’, opened up the doors of
perception that obscured reality. He had helped her experience a joy that was
not physical or carnal, but of the spirit and a higher truth.
She could sense death in the horizon, but the great poet, that great love and
guru for the ages seemed to speak hauntingly from radiant shores.
“It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world and gives birth
to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky.”
– Gitanjali
