Chapter I.

INDIA may not be a perfect paradise, yet there are in it spots of surpassing beauty and grandeur. The mountainous part of the district of Nassick in the Deccan, where Ganga Godavery takes its rise, is one such spot. Here nature is sublime in its majesty and rugged in its grandeur, here hills rise above hills, some verdure clad, others bare, bleak, and barren, with caves and caverns at their bases through which the waters leap in torrents in the rainy season. Here, not far from the chain of hills that form the glorious Western Ghauts, is situated the sacred city to which I shall give the name Sivagunga.

It is evening and the phantasmagoria, of clouds, lit by the setting sun, lies stretched in front covering the great open space that seems an arid desert for miles around. On the one side are old, stunted, weather-beaten trees and stony hills, and on the other may be seen the city of Sivagunga, extending as far as the eye can reach, with its domes and cupolas, its glistening tanks and its dingy houses, touched by the rays of the setting sun. On a little hillock, not far away, are a few trees, which appear to catch and retain the halo of departing light in their branches, and through them glimmers the suffused redness of the sunset sky. In the glowing light between the trees, the form of a little girl may be distinctly seen. It is that of Kamala, the daughter of the old Brahman recluse. She stands by the ruined temple that tops the hillock, her face resting on her hand, and a weary expression in her eyes. She seems to be gazing at the blue expanse of the plain below. At last a sigh is heard, and the girl murmurs: —“Father is nowhere to be seen. Oh! when will he come home?” The great big idol stares at her from the temple and the trees rustle mournfully overhead. Poor girl! her thoughts are hard to express. The old woman, her granny, has been cross, her father is not there to protect her from the anger of the old dame and to hush the noise of the pujaris who live close by and who keep constantly wrangling among themselves for the temple money. She knows the road her father is to come by. She has often accompanied him to the city to buy vegetables and grain, returning in the evening through the rice fields, all radiant with glints of shining water between the patches of tender green. On such occasions her own hillock would be recognised by her far away, dark and prominent against the evening sky. And the girl would sit on her father’s back with her hands round his neck and wonder whether in the growing dusk the red light was still in the trees, whether the wind, her friend and play-fellow, was there, and whether the old woman, cross but well-meaning was there too; and as she would look up she would see the red light glinting among the trees while all around would be darkening. At the welcome light a dart of happiness would pass through her, as if a friend had kept his word and was waiting for her. She would clap her hands with joy and rest her head on her father’s shoulders, and then go to sleep. Ah! in after years how the memory of those visits haunted her! How often she wished she could rest her head as in days of old, with no thoughts of the future, and sleep the innocent dreamless sleep of childhood! The girl had not to wait long for her father. In the distance she saw a figure wading through the rice fields, and with alacrity she bounded down and joined the old man. He took her up and put her on his shoulders, and lovingly she slipped her hands round his head and said with a tremulous voice: —“Three days, father, three days I have waited for you and you never came, and it grew dark and the idol stared at me, the owls hooted and I was alone.”

“Hush, child! Here we are at home.”

The house was a little hut with a neatly swept cowdunged verandah shaded by trees. The tulsi grew on a pedestal in the enclosure in front, and there was a well on one side with shining water vessels round it. As the father and child entered, the old woman growled and said: —“I see what the girl has been about. Ah! you little truant. You knew your father was coming home.”

The father smiled, and the girl rubbed her face on his shoulder half hiding it. “Is she a bad child?” said he, affectionately.

“Bad enough,” was the rejoinder, “with all your spoiling. Why, she gets more petting than a son would,” and the old dame went in to bring them their supper while the father washed himself at the well. The girl waited for her father with a peculiar wistful expression in her eyes, then the plantain leaves were spread, the food was served, and father and child enjoyed their simple meal of dal bhat.

The hillock, or rather the mound, on which the house was situated, formed part of a great sacred hill famed for its pilgrimages. The scenery around was pretty and homely, but just here it was weird and desolate. The little shrine or temple belonging to this particular part—for each hillock had some sort of a shrine of its own—was mostly in ruins. The trees were stunted, the houses were little better than huts built mostly out of the broken ruins of the temple, and the clear tank that had been supplied by mountain springs had overflowed its stony basin and was rolling down the valley, a noisy tumbling stream. The wind, coniing in tremendous gusts, shrieked and whistled round the temple and roared in the empty passages. Caught in the trees it shook their branches in terrible confusion, then tore past the bare bleak mountain rocks, and moaned over the tank a sad, sad dirge, which mingled with the voice of the stream in weird and mysterious harmony. There was a mountain cave whose pebbly sides showed that in former years it had been the bed of a stream now dried up. Near the cave was the girl’s hut, and other huts lay scattered round it with the thick foliaged neem trees between. Here the whistling of the winds was the loudest, so that neither by night nor by day could one feel all alone. A road from the city led on to the main hill, the great sacred hill crowded with its temples, its shining domes; its stony passages, and pillared halls. From a distance came borne on the breeze the never-ceasing din of tom-toms, bells, and musical instruments.

The little girl, Kamala, was an only child, and she was devotedly fond of her father. Her mother had died when she was quite young, and her recollections of her mother were very faint. The picture of a fair tall lady with large sad eyes often came to her in dreams, and she remembered a time when she was fondled and petted and called sweet names. But that time seemed very long ago, and only the image of her mother’s eyes came before her with any distinctness. Their soft sweet light shone round her in dreams, and sometimes in the starlit evenings they would come back to her. Then she felt the sweet presence of some one near her and in this blessed delusion she would fall asleep.

Kamala’s life had hitherto been a very uneventful one. The dawn of each day was ushered in by the music of the temple close by, the soft ringing of bells, the long drawn chants of the Brahmans saying their prayers, and the hushed refrain of the pujaris who intoned their mantras with a peculiar drawl, and the mingled faint din of the waking city below. The song of the birds was dear to the girl, but not so dear as the soft melody of the chants of the Brahmans which, though she understood them not, filled her soul with feelings of devotion. Thus stirred from sleep she hastened to make her own puja to the gods that gave her all the good things of life. She was fond of the Sudra girls who every morning tended the cows and goats that grazed beside her home. From them she received most willing assistance in the many household duties that she had to preform. By them also the little girl had her head filled with superstitions and exaggerated accounts of occurrences that took place in the neighbouring villages. But her father occupied her attention most. It was her duty to fill his chembu with water, to lay his plantain leaf ready for food, to water the tulsi tree, and to attend to other domestic duties under the direction of the old dame, whom she called granny. The greater part of the day however she spent with her father, who generally sat in the temple verandah which was densely shaded with trees. She would nestle by his side and listen to his learned talk; for he was a recluse and a scholar. Brought up in this way, unlike other girls of her own age, she was shy, retiring and innocent.

Besides the diversions she had by her occasional visits to the city, one incident in particular served as a break in the life of comparative monotony which she led. This was the festival which was celebrated in honour of the presiding goddess of the temple close by. Early in the morning on the day of the festival a troop of little girls ascended the hillock in their gala attire, accompanied by old dames and widows. It was the festival of Anjini, the goddess of wind, which came once in ten years. Pandals were erected round the temple, and all the way down to the city fairy mantapams had risen in the night. The temple music was in its glory, and when it ceased the beat of the tom-tom was heard all around. The wind strangely enough on that day veered towards the mountain side and blew with more than its usual force. It was a delightful sight to see the usually desolate hillock alive with people all bent on mirth and enjoyment.

The festival being only a local one, was not of very great importance, but it was duly observed by the women folk in the city below, who considered it unpropitious to begin a decade without making offerings to the goddess who presided over wind, rain, and sunshine. The people bathed in the stream and filled their chembus with the clear temple water. The girls brought simple offerings of flowers, rice, kunkun, and other things, and went away making silent vows in return for favours asked. There was the religious mendicant dancing quaintly round the margosa tree, blowing on his horn and performing many antics, and getting in return copper coins from the laughing spectators. Near the temple the bhairagis and ghosavis were prominent, each with a brass plate and some kind of crude musical instrument making as much noise as possible. Inside, in the dark recess of the temple, where the goddess was enshrined, were the pujaris, solemn and repulsive, with huge marks on their foreheads. There were also seen men and women silently bowing and prostrating themselves before the goddess. The lights flickered here and there in the dark recess and gave to the whole an air of solemnity.

Near her own hut stood Kamala, shy, not knowing what to do. It was a new experience in her life to see so many people come to the temple which she regarded as her own. She had seen festivals in other places, but at this particular festival she thought she should take a prominent part; for, was not her father the greatest man there and was he not looked up to and revered by all around? She felt possessed of a dignity all her own as she sallied out in her best attire. But the sight of a group of girls of her own age staring at her made her shy, and she would have hid herself had they not gathered round and poured questions on her. They looked at her dress and her jewels and made remarks about her without the slightest respect for her feelings. “Where do you live?” “Where do you come from?” were questions that she heard on all sides. “Surely you are not the sanyasi’s daughter.” “How old are you?” “Why are you not married?” “Have you lived here all your life?” “What a peculiar cloth you have on!”

The little girl was dazed and bewildered at having attracted so much attention. She looked round with tears in her eyes, when an older girl more sympathetic than the rest drew her away, saying to the other girls:—“You are frightening her, don’t you see?” and took her aside. Then one of the girls asked:—”Is it true that you are coming down to the city with your father to live there.”

“I do not know, father never told me.”

“Father! Surely he is not your father, an old man like that,” said an elderly dame with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “Perhaps he has picked you up somewhere.”

At this, Kamala’s eyes again filled with tears, and in a trembling but indignant voice she said:—“He is my father and no one may say that he is not.”

“Where is your mother?”

“Mother! I have none, but I have a grandmother.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the giris. “Do you mean to say that the old crone is your grandmother? We can’t swallow that. We know her well: she is Ganesh’s grandmother.”

Kamala, now crest-fallen, looked completely bewildered while the girls jeered as before. Once more the big girl who took her aside, came to her rescue and said:— “Never mind, you don’t know. They told you to call her grandmamma’ but she is not your grandmamma.”

“Then she is my mother’s grandma,” said the girl, turning round brightly and seeing her way out of the difficulty.

At this there was more jeering. But it was soon suppressed; for the tall girl looked round with great displeasure and checked them saying:—“What fools to laugh! Don’t you see, she knows nothing.” So saying she put her arm round Kamala’s neck and asked her in a soft voice where she got the pearls that glistened on her neck, adding, “Don’t you know they are real?”

The necklace was the only jewel the girl possessed, and her father allowed her to wear it little thinking of its value.

“Pearls!” said all the girls grasping her necklace. “Oh! Oh! Are they really pearls?”

But Kamala drew herself closer to the big girl, Kashi, and simply said:—“They have been always on me. I think I was born with them, and I play with them.” Then turning away from the group of girls round her, she exclaimed:—“See there a father and a mother with their children.” She laughed and the girls laughed too, and left her with the tall girl who exacted a promise from Kamala to come and see her in the city. “Tell your father, ‘Ramkrishna Punt’s daughter is my friend,’ and your father will bring you to me. He knows my father.” Kamala gazed into Kashi’s eyes with such a responsive look of trustful joy that the big girl could not help clasping the little one in her arms.

But soon the temple rounds had to be made. The girls offered flowers to the goddess, drank the holy water, and touched their foreheads with the holy ashes. All these sacred duties they performed with scrupulous care, and Kashi seemed to be the leader of them all. She bought flowers and fastened them in Kamala’s hair, and when going, reminded her of her promise.

The sun rose and beat over the hills and plains with a fierce light. The breeze fell and the morning festival came to an end. Kamala retired to her hut to talk over the events of the festival with her father, and to tell him of the new friend who had so cordially invited her to her home.