Opposites
BALA is nearly four. There are so many much younger things in the
nursery, that Bala feels almost grown up: four will be quite grown up;
it will be nice to be four. Bala takes life seriously, she has always
done so; she thinks it would be monotonous to have too many frivolous
babies. But Bala's eyes can sparkle as no other eyes ever do; and her
mirth is something by itself, like a little hidden fountain in the heart
of a wood, with the sweetness of surprise in it and very pure delight.
When Bala came to us first she was between one and two, an age when most
babies have a good deal to say. Bala said nothing. She was like a book
with all its leaves uncut; and some who saw her, forgetting that uncut
books are sometimes interesting, concluded she was dull. "Quite a
prosaic child," they said; but Bala did not care. There are some babies,
like some grown-up people, who show all they have to show upon first
acquaintance and to all. Others cover the depths within, and open only
to their own. Bala is one of these; and even with her own she has
seasons of reserve.
Her first remark, however, shown rather than said, was not romantic. She
was too old for a bottle, and she seemed to feel sore over this. But
she noted the time the infants were fed, and followed the nurses about
while they were preparing the meal; and when they sat down to give it,
each to her respective baby, Bala would choose the one of most uncertain
appetite, and sit down beside it and wait. There was an expression on
her face at such times which suggested a hymn, set it humming in one's
head in fact, in spite of all efforts to escape it. More than once we
have caught ourselves singing it, and pulled up sharply: "Even me! Even
me! Let some droppings fall on me."
[Illustration: "God's Fire."
Taken on the bank of the Red Lake, near Dohnavur.]
Most of our family remind us very early that they trace their descent to
the mother of us all. Bala, on the contrary, was good: so we almost
forgot she was human, and began to expect too much of her; but she got
tired of this after a while, and one day suddenly sinned. The surprise
acted like "hypo," and fixed the photograph.
The place was the old nursery, which has one uncomfortably dark corner
in it. Something had offended Bala; she marched straight into that
corner and stamped. We can see her--poor little girl--as she rumpled her
curls with both her hands, and flashed on the world a withering glance.
"Scorn to be scorned by those I scorn" was written large all over the
indignant little face.
After this shock we were prepared for anything, but nothing special
happened; only when the demands made upon her are unreasonable, then
Bala retires into herself and turns upon all foolish insistence a face
that is a blank. If this point is passed, the dark eyes can flash. But
such revealings are rare.
When Bala was something under three, she was very tender-hearted. One
evening, after the first rains had flooded the pools and revived the
mosquitoes, the nursery wall was the scene of many executions; and Bala
could not bear it. "Sittie, don't kill the poor puchies!" she said
pitifully; and Sittie, much touched, stopped to comfort and
explain. The other babies were delighting in the slaughter, pointing out
with glee each detested "puchie"; but Bala is not like the other babies.
Later, the ferocious instinct common to most young animals asserted
itself in a relish for the horrible, which rather contradicted the
mosquito incident. Bala visibly gloats over the gory head of Goliath,
and intensely admires David as he operates upon it. Her favourite part
of the story about his encounter with the lion is the suggestive
sentence, "I caught him by the beard"; and Bala loves to show you
exactly how he did it. But then that is different from seeing it done;
and after all it is only a story, and it happened long ago.
I have told how the ignorant once called Bala prosaic. Bala knows
nothing of poetry, but is full of the little seeds of that strange and
wonderful plant; and the time to get to know her is when the evening sky
is a golden blaze, or glows with that mystic glory which wakens
something within us and makes it stir and speak.
"God has not lighted His fire to-night," she said wistfully one evening
when the West was colourless; but when that fire is lighted she stands
and gazes satisfied. "What does God do when His fire goes out?" was a
question on one such evening, as the mountains darkened in the passing
of the after-glow; and then: "Why does He not light it every night?"
"Amma! I have looked into Heaven!" she said suddenly to me after a long
silence. "I have seen quite in, and I know what it is like." "What is it
like? Can you tell me?" and the child's voice answered dreamily: "It was
shining, very shining." Then with animation, in broken but vivid Tamil:
"Oh, it was beautiful! all a garden like our garden, only bigger, and
there were flowers and flowers and flowers!"--here words failed to
describe the number, and a comprehensive sweep of the hand served
instead. "And our dolls can walk there. They never can down here, poor
things! And Jesus plays with our babies there" (the dear little sisters
who have gone to the nursery out of sight, but are unforgotten by the
children). "He plays with Indraneela--lovely games."
"What games, Bala?" I asked, wondering greatly what she would say. There
was a long, thoughtful pause, and Bala looked at me with grave,
contented eyes:--
"New games," she said simply.
Bala's opposite is Chellalu. We never made any mistake about her. We
never thought her good. Not that she is impossibly bad. She was created
for play and for laughter, and very happy babies are not often very
wicked; but she is so irrepressible, so hopelessly given up to fun, that
her kindergarten teacher, Rukma, smiles a rueful smile at the mention of
her name. For to Chellalu the most unreasonable thing you can ask is
implicit obedience, which unfortunately is preferred by us to any amount
of fun. She will learn to obey, we are not afraid about that; but more
than any of our children, her attitude towards this demand has been one
of protest and surprise. She thinks it unfair of grown-up people to take
advantage of their size in the arbitrary way they do. And when,
disgusted with life's dispensations, she condescends to expostulate, her
"Ba-a-a-a" is a thing to affright. But this is the wrong side of
Chellalu, and not for ever in evidence. The right side is not so
depressing.
It is a brilliant morning in late November. The world, all washed and
cooled by the rains, has not had time to get hot and tired, and the air
has that crystal quality which is the charm of this season in South
India. Every wrinkle on the brown trunks of the trees in the compound,
every twig and leaf, stands out with a special distinctness of its own,
and the mountains in the distance glisten as if made of precious
stones.
Suddenly, all unconscious of affinity or contrast, a little person in
scarlet comes dancing into the picture, which opens to receive her, for
she belongs to it. Her hands are full of Gloriosa lilies, fiery red,
terra-cotta, yellow, delicate old-rose and green--such a mingling of
colour, but nothing discordant--and the child, waving her spoils above
her head, sings at the top of her voice something intended to be the
chorus of a kindergarten song:--
Oh, the delight of the glorious light!
The joy of the shining blue!
Beautiful flowers! wonderful flowers!
Oh, I should like to be you!
"But, Chellalu, where did you get them?" for the lilies in the garden
are supposed to be safe from attack. Chellalu looks up with frank, brown
eyes. "For you!" she says briefly in Tamil; but there is a wealth of
forgiveness in the tone as she offers her armful of flowers. Chellalu
wonders at grown-up hearts which can harbour unworthy suspicions about
blameless little children. As if she would have picked them!
"But, Chellalu, where did you get them?" and still looking grieved and
surprised and forgiving, Chellalu explains that yesterday evening the
elder sisters went for a walk in the fields, and brought home so many
lilies, that after all just claims were met there were still some
over--an expressive gesture shows the heap--so Chellalu thought of her
Ammal (mother) and went and picked out the best for her. Then by way of
emphasis the story is attempted in English: "Very good? Yesh. Naughty?
No. Kindergarten room want flowers? No. I" (patting herself approvingly)
"very good; yesh." With Chellalu, speech is a mere adjunct to
conversation, a sort of footnote to a page of illustration. The
illustration is the thing that speaks. So now both Tamil and English are
illuminated by vivid gesture of hands, feet, the whole body indeed;
curls and even eyelashes play their part, and the final impression
produced upon her questioner is one of complete contrition for ever
having so misjudged a thing so virtuous.
[Illustration: "AIYO!"
(Fingers and toes curled in grieved surprise.)
"Did you think I would have done it?"]
But Chellalu wastes no sympathy upon herself. She is accustomed to be
believed; and perfectly happy in her mind, casts a keen glance round,
for who knows what new delights may be somewhere within reach!
"Ah!"--the deep-breathed sigh of content--is always a danger signal
where this innocent child is concerned. I turn in time to avert
disaster, and Chellalu, finding life dull with me, departs.
Then the little scarlet figure with its crown of careless curls scampers
across the sunny space, and dives into the shadow of a tree. There it
stays. Something arresting has happened--some skurry of squirrel up the
trunk, or dart of lizard, or hurried scramble of insect, under cover out
of reach of those terrible eyes. Or better still, something is "playing
dead," and the child, fascinated, is waiting for it to resurrect. And
then the song about the lilies begins again, only it is all a jumble
this time; for Chellalu sings just as it comes, untrammelled by thoughts
about sequence or sense, and when she forgets the words she calmly makes
them up. And I cannot help thinking that Chellalu is very like her song;
here is an intelligible bit, a line or two in order, then a cheerful
tumble up, and an irresponsible conclusion. The tune too seems in
character--"Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing"; the swinging
old Jacobite air had fitted itself to a nursery song about the brave
fire-lilies, and something in its abandon to the happy mood of the
moment seems to express the child.
It is not easy to express her. "If you had to describe Chellalu, how
would you do it?" I asked my colleague this morning, hoping for
illumination. "I would not attempt it! Who would?" she answered
helpfully.
"Chellalu! Oh, you need ten pairs of eyes and ten pairs of hands, and
even then you could never be sure you had her"--this was her nurse's
earliest description. She was six months old then, she is three and
three-quarters now; but she is what she was, "only more so."
Before Chellalu had a single tooth she had developed mother-ways, and
would comfort distressed babies by thrusting into their open mouths
whatever was most convenient. At first this was her own small thumb,
which she had once found good herself; but she soon discovered that
infants can bite, and after that she offered rattle-handles. Later, she
used to stagger from one hammock to another and swing them. And often,
before she understood the perfect art of balance, she would find
herself, to her surprise, on the floor, as the hammock in its rebound
knocked her over. She felt this ungrateful of the baby inside; but she
seemed to reflect that it was young and knew no better, for she never
retaliated, but picked herself up and began again. These hammocks, which
are our South Indian cradles, are long strips of white cotton hung from
the roof, and they make delightful swings. Chellalu learned this early,
and her nurse's life was a burden to her because of the discovery.
"She could walk before she could stand"--this is another nursery
description, and truer than it sounds. Certainly no one ever saw
Chellalu learning to walk. She was a baby one day, rapid in unexpected
motion, but only on all fours; the next day--or so it seems, looking
back--she was everywhere on her two feet. "Now there will be no place
where she won't be!" groaned the family, the first time she was seen
walking about with an air of having done it all her life. And appalling
visions rose of Chellalu standing on the wall of the well looking down,
or sitting in the bucket left by some careless water-drawer just on the
edge of the wall, or trying to descend by the rope.
Before this date such diversions as the classic Pattycake had been much
in favour. Chellalu's Attai (the word here and hereafter signifies Mrs.
Walker, "Mother's elder sister") had taught it to her; and whenever and
wherever Chellalu saw her Attai, she immediately began to perform "Prick
it and nick it" with great enthusiasm. But after she could walk,
Chellalu would have nothing more to do with such childish things. "Show
us Edward Rajah!" the older children would say; and instead of standing
up with a regal dignity and crowning her curls with the appropriate
gesture, Chellalu would merely look surprised. They had forgotten. She
was not a baby now. Such trifles are for babies.