Rabindranath Tagore in England during his second visit in 1890. On Friday, the 22nd of August, 1890, Rabindranath boarded a ship in Bombay for his second trip to England. He had a round-trip ticket valid for three months. He was accompanied by an elder brother and a friend. He reached London on the 10th of September. Rabindranath stayed in London for a month. Then he decided to return. He boarded a ship on the 9th of October to return home. During his return trip he wrote the following. "The 14th day of October, 1890 Today in the dinner table a very strong white man with swollen mustache and stout fingers was having a conversation with his beautiful companion about an Indian fan-puller (pakhawala). The beautiful woman complained mildly that fan-pullers doze off while pulling fans at night. The strong man said that the only solution was a kick or a stick. They continued their revolution about revolving fans this way. It felt like a hot knife piercing through my heart. No wonder people who have man-to-woman conversation this way would kick the day light out of a weak, native man without any remorse. I belong to the insulted people as well. How can I shamelessly enjoy my food at the same table with them and grin with them? All my anger came up to my throat but despite all my efforts not a single word came up to there. Especially their English language is very alien. When the mind gets excited I cannot handle that language the way I would like. Then from the four directions of my head all Bengali words rush in a large crowd towards my mouth like bees of a disturbed hive. I thought that I should not get so excited. I should calm down and put together a few grammatical English sentences in my head. I should communicate well if I want to have a dispute. Then silently I started articulating the following ideas. Yes sir, you are right. It is very inconvenient if the fan-puller sometimes dozes off at night. To live with a body we need to deal with such inconvenience and for that we need the tolerance of a Christian. These times test a gentleman. Only an extreme coward will abruptly kick a man who is totally unable to hit back in retaliation. It is much worse than not being gentle. It is a fact of nature that as a people we are weaker than you. There is no way we can deny that. Your body is very strong, you are a strongman. But is that such a matter of pride that humanity will be positioned lower than that? You would say: why, are we not better in any other way? Maybe. But when you kick the empty belly of a rickety and poor man with half-empty stomach, and then have a pleasant conversation with women about that, and the good women do not feel much pain, then there is no way you can be judged better. Let's see what the poor man's fault is. Early in the morning he left with half-empty stomach. Worked all day. The unfortunate man, in the hope of making a few more pennies, sold his night's rest to you for a few pennies. He is in this business because he is very poor. He did not conspire to deceive the saheb. The man dozes off at night while pulling the fan. I have to admit he has this fault. But I think this is the result of an original sin of mankind. To sit and pull a fan like a machine, Adam's children are going to doze off. Saheb may give it a try. When one servant does not do the job, you can replace him by another. But the coward who kicks him insults himself, because at that moment he earns a return-kick. The only difference is that nobody is present to apply that kick. Whenever you get a chance, you tell us that since we practice social ills such as child-marriage etc, we are not fit to have any independent rights within the political system. It is more true that the people who hit the weak when it is safe, that is the people whom you call bully, which has no Bengali equivalent, who by nature have unpleasant and unruly behavior, who are polite only to serve their own interest, are not fit to rule any foreign country." Translated from Bengali. Next  Previous  List  Home