Saturday, February 5, 2011

Mrinalini Devi (contd-4)

Rabindrnath was caring to his wife and children and kept himself updated writing letters to his wife.
"Yesterday, I received from Dickinson's a bill for Rs. 182, together with a reminder for payment. I shall have to borrow from Satya (his nephew and a finance manager of sorts for the Jorasanko household) again. I shall then owe him nine hundred rupees. Has he given you four hundred rupees? He has not written to me about it yet. There is news of you in Bibi's (his niece Indira Devi Choudhurani) letter today. She writes that you often visit them- that our little one makes all kinds of gestures and sounds in mejo-bouthan's lap. I so long to see her. She will have changed a lot if I spend the whole month of Ashar in the country . Is Khoka also learning to sing along with Beli? Is his voice shaping well? He should be taught not just the sa re ga ma  for voice training but also a song as a start. Otherwise, he soon will lose interest. When I was a boy, I disliked being taught sa re ga ma by Bishnu. I used to be so happy on the days he taught me a song. Why don't you also learn singing with the children? You and I can sit together on a rainy day and talk of music when I am back home. What do you feel?"
He wrote another day,
"You know from my letter to Beli that I was not able to come today. I have stayed home. The post arrived, there were three letters but none from you . I did not expect one but wondered if by divine chance you could have written one by mistake! The joy of living separately is in writing letters to one another. It can be more rewarding than being together. When we write letters we can come closer to each other with only a few words and get as much of each other as possible by way of those few words. What we say to each other when we meet can fade away in the instant excitement of meeting each other. Really and truly, writing letters can become a deeper and more intimate experience of  knowing ourselves than just seeing each other. Don't you agree?"
" I do constantly try not to worry about our children. It is our duty to see to it that they are well behaved and that they get a good education Beyond that it is a mistake to dwel on them. They will grow up to do their life's work in their own way be it good , bad, or indifferent. It is, of course, true that they are our children, but they are also individuals in their own right. We will not have much control over the way they live their lives.Let us do our duty by them but let us not expect too much from them. It is God's hands how they turn out as human beings. It is from a certain vanity that we expect the best from our own progeny. We have no right to do that. After all, are we all that concerned about other children who had hard lives?"
" The future is uncertain no matter how we live. Therefore, it is only sensible that we should simply do our duty and not think of the outcome . We have to forever learn to take both good and bad -- and we must restrain ourselves every time there is an urge to deviate from that path. We have our past, and we can have no prior knowledge about our future . Therefore, all that is possible is to do our work diligently, wherever we are and  whatever the work is . We must also try to be happy and make others happy. If after that we fail it should no matter to us. We must accept and remember that the results are in God's hands once we have done our part. We must at least try to free our minds from expectations."