Our Elsewheres: An Excerpt From Our Santiniketan By Mahasweta Devi

I must talk about our lessons in Nature Study. Speaking of nature involves talking about plants and trees, water and soil, insects and birds, even snakes and frogs.

Our Nature Study classes were compulsory. Just imagine! Nature Study was a compulsory subject in Patha Bhavana at Santiniketan, back then.

Tejeschandra Sen was our Nature Study teacher. To the right of the Mandir stood his extraordinary house ‘Taldhwaj’, ‘House with a Palmyra Flag’. Why such a name? Built around a tal tree, it was a round cottage with triangular rooms made of clay. A thatched roof overhead. That was Tejes-da’s home.

Tejes-da taught us to recognise plants and trees. 

‘Treading on the grass, do you realise that in a few days’ time, silkworms will appear here?’ he would tell us. ‘Do you know how many yellow butterflies will be seen?’

How true! True indeed! After the Puja holidays, in the field before Sri Bhavana, hanging on every blade of grass, we found silkworms—we called them ‘gutipoka’—all rolled up, tails and mouths conjoined. Now they had become pupae, enclosed in a casing. How dazzling the colours of that covering!

We were taught to procure boxes of soap from the Co-op, our ashram store. On Wednesdays we’d go to the Co-op with one rupee in hand, to buy pencils, oil and soap. Also needle and thread, and an anna’s worth of toffees and lozenges. Sudha-di would dole out the money and give us our Co-op account books. We received four rupees a month as pocket money. But even for that amount, we learnt to keep an account. That was a lot of money, what you’d call excess, but only to be spent on necessities.

You pierced holes in those soap boxes. Collected silkworms and kept them there. Fed them leaves. New leaves each day. And tipping the box over, you discarded the old leaves and insect droppings (we called their excreta ‘maath’).

One day, you’d find the gutipoka all rolled up, tail and mouth together, hanging from the inner ceiling of the soap box. Then a shroud covered their shape. They had developed into pupae, in cocoons. We would say, ‘they’ve tied themselves in bundles’. How attractive those bundles were! When they attached themselves to akanda, the swallow wort shrub, they looked like black Chinese lanterns. And the cocoons on the karabi, the oleander tree, looked like the Chinese lanterns of some fairy tale. Green dotted with gold. Pink. Pale yellow. What an exquisite display of colour!

In our young days at Dinajpur, there were all kinds of trees surrounding our house on three sides. My younger sister Mitul and I would gaze at such cocoons hanging from the karabi leaves. 

‘The fairies were here at night for sure,’ we’d say to each other. ‘They’ve left those lanterns strung up there.’

That’s the problem with growing up, growing old. That karabi tree, those cocoons, that place called Dinajpur—if one spoke of those things, Mitul would say:

‘Yes Didi, I remember.’

Now Mitul is gone. Gone are the two brothers born just after her. We were nine siblings. Now there are five, four sisters and a brother. The ones who are still alive are younger than me by many, many years. If I talk of my childhood, they won’t understand.

During that same stint in Dinajpur, a tiger once entered the cattle enclosure of the farmers who were chor-dwellers, living on the sandbanks in the middle of the river. Baba had to clamber onto the thatched roof of the enclosure to kill that tiger.

The entire town probably boasted of one or two motor cars, no more. The dead tiger was paraded across town, displayed atop the roof of one of those cars. Mitul and I had gone out to watch.

‘Didi!’ Mitul asked avidly, ‘Tell me, is that really a tiger? A real tiger?’

On realising that it was indeed a real tiger, how frightened Mitul became, there in broad daylight, at eleven in the morning! She had to grip my hand tightly all the way home.

Anyway. Let me talk only about the silkworms of Santiniketan. For some days, the silkworm remained like that, all bundled up. Then one day, cutting through the shroud, a dazzling butterfly emerged. The first few instants, it waited, wings still folded, quivering. Then you carried the box outdoors, opened the lid and let the air in. In a trice, off it flew, taking wing effortlessly. Abandoning the transparent shroud. We had to perform this task with our own hands. Later, it became an obsession.

We were learning that different trees bred caterpillars that grew into butterflies of different types. From the silkworms that bred in grass and kalakasundey, you’d get tiny yellow butterflies. From an array of diverse plants—bel, shiuli, karabi, kalke, sal, ishermul, akanda, atasi—what a variety of cocoons we’d harvest! We grew quite competitive about the variety of trees from which we managed to procure cocoons.

It must be admitted that gutis from sal, shiuli and bel fruit trees were rarely to be found. From the sal-tree guti emerged butterflies as lovely as Nur Jahan, their dazzling white wings edged and dotted with gold. In size, much larger. Very few people succeeded in procuring gutis from sal trees. Butterflies bred in akanda shrubs were black, with red and white markings. Ishermul gutis also produced gorgeous butterflies.

Subsequently, I have taught my siblings and other youngsters to recognise and nurture cocoons. The silkworms that breed on the evergreen spring creeper madhabilata are wriggly creatures. They develop into moths, not butterflies. The gutis on spider lily plants look exquisite. But I think they too grow into moths.

What a wonderful life we enjoyed, then! Wandering with Tejes-da, learning about the characteristics, good and bad, of trees and plants.

On our way to the Mandir entrance was a baheda tree, shedding its fruit. We’d scrape the fruit with brick or stone to extract the kernel and devour it. 

‘Look, all these things have medicinal properties,’ Tejes-da would inform us. ‘All these plants and trees, shrubs and bushes, all the grasses that you see—were any of them created without a purpose, randomly? What invaluable qualities they possess!’

‘Come on, taste some of these things!’ he’d urge. ‘Try some baheda! Savour the amlaki! No disease will invade your body, ever again.’

Savour those things we did, like herbivores, creatures of the wild. That probably explains why, to this day, I have rarely been afflicted by fevers and fits, stomach ailments or cold and cough.

We referred to amrul as ‘sour-leaf’. How lovely those leaves! Like clubs in a suit of cards. You’d pluck and eat them at will.

And as for amlaki, it figures in song after song, story after story. Everything about raw amlaki, from its flesh down to its seeds, has curative value for a hundred thousand ailments. We’d shake the tree and devour the amlaki. Chewing, we’d feel a bitter taste in our mouths. Then we’d gulp water, and it would taste fine, rather sweet. Those of you who visit Santiniketan, gather from the earth the amlaki that has ripened on the tree, and taste it. Simply delicious, like the flavour of pickle on your tongue!

Mira Dasgupta, born poet that she was, would pose a query in verse:

Aam, amra, amrul, amlaki—

Jaam exists, jamrul too we see,

But why no jamra and jamlaki?

Why not indeed? We’d marvel at Mira’s brilliance. What incredible talent!

On the stretch of land separating the library from the guest house grew gaab, mango, bakul, kheerkul and various other trees. A few guava trees as well. As for the amlaki trees, just don’t ask about them. Scattered everywhere, those groves of amlaki, wild with the dance of leaves!

Speaking of chhatim trees reminds me of the Chhatimtola of those days, adorned by Debendranath’s bedi, the platform where he prayed. I remember very clearly Rabindranath’s lecture at the Mandir during my college days, and the book Santiniketan which I brought from the library (were there several copies?) to read in the shade of Chhatimtola.

That ancient chhatim tree, bent and gnarled with age, had spread in different directions. From gaps between the branches and foliage, we could see the main tree-trunk soaring up and branching out. But those branches were interspersed with hollows. Put your hand inside those hollows and you’ll find bones, our seniors would say.

‘Whose bones?’

‘The dacoits who infested this area. Their bones. O baba! How scary!’

To students of Class Five, the boys and girls of Class Six seemed grown-up, and those of Class Seven or Eight seemed very grown up indeed. We believed literally everything they told us.

But we heard a ghost story just once. That too not directly from the teller, not first-hand, that is. It was probably the thirteenth or fourteenth adaptation.

I may as well tell you that story. Next to Sri Bhavana was an enormous compound. A pair of kadam trees grew in the part that flanked Kala Bhavana. Exquisite beauties they were, those kadam trees of ours. If you’ve seen a kadam tree, you will have noticed that the shape of the branches is very beautiful. When the trees blossomed during the rains, they appeared extra- ordinary. We’d gather and chew the fallen kadam fruit. The sour taste was delicious. 

Beneath that pair of trees was a choubachcha, a paved water tank which remained empty. The choubachcha next to the Mandir also had no water. Water was scarcely available in Santi-niketan those days, after all! It was due to the water shortage that we had a two-month summer holiday. Anyway, those kadam trees grew right outside the windows of the dormitory we occupied as Class Five students.

I have already told you about the marriage of Mastermoshai’s son with the exquisitely beautiful Baby-di, the daughter of our English grammar teacher Tanay-da. Tanay-da used to cycle to Mastermoshai’s house in the evening. Suddenly it was heard that Tanay-da had reported seeing, on his way home at night, a very tall figure leaning against the outer wall of our room. The figure had very long arms.

As the saying goes, the cow in a story can climb a tree. Who made up this particular story, for whose ears, and how the rumour spread, I can’t say. But we were certainly terrified. We also knew the antidote for terror, though. Write ‘Rama’ on the pillow and close your eyes tight. The moment your head hits the pillow, fall into a deep slumber!

Speaking of trees, so many memories crowd the mind. I’ll tell you more about those beautiful trees. Those deities who reside in medicinal plants and trees—the ones we addressed in our evening prayers—I salute all of them. I don’t know about gods and goddesses. But as for trees, or any form of vegetation, they all serve the needs of this earth, after all. So, when I gaze at trees, I feel that all’s well with the world.

Sometimes, when it rained, the short and roly-poly Tejes-da would watch the rain come down and tell us stories. The stories were probably meant for himself, not for us.

‘Take the arjun tree. Can you tell me why the arjun is so famous?’

I was tactless and outspoken. Empty vessels make the most noise. With my meagre fund of knowledge, I used to talk too much.

‘Arjun must have hidden his weapons in that tree.’

‘Will you shut your mouth?’

I didn’t snivel when Tejes-da scolded me. 

‘Arjun hid his weapons in the shami tree,’ he informed me, patting my head with his thick, heavy hand. ‘Shami is another name for the babla tree, do you understand? Arjun was no fool. The babla is full of thorns. He hid the stuff in its branches.’

‘The wood of the babla is very strong,’ added Dukkhaharan, a village lad. ‘So is the wood of the tamarind tree.’

‘Not only the wood, the babla tree has many beneficial qualities’ Tejes-da said. ‘Whatever Nature creates always has beneficial qualities.’

The babla tree has lovely foliage. The blossom looks like a tiny yellow powder puff. In our times, they used soft puffs to apply powder on infants’ bodies. 

‘Whatever Nature creates has some form of value.’ Tejes-da’s words remain etched in my memory to this day. ‘That’s why, whenever I see plants or trees, I immediately wonder: What purpose do they serve?’

About sixteen years ago, somewhere near Mehrauli in Delhi, an elderly Rajasthani person had pointed out a babla tree.

‘In Rajasthan, this tree is known as kalpabriksha, the wishing tree,’ he told me. ‘Camels devour its branches, thorns and all. The hanging clusters of fruit resemble broad beans. We use the seeds from those pods as fodder for our buffalos, goats and cows, to enhance their output of milk. And the wood has so many uses.’

‘I know.’

‘How do you know?’

‘My teacher taught me these things when I was a child.’

For us, babla and pepe—our word for papaya—also served another purpose. They provided us with tongue twisters challenge each other with:

‘Come on, say babla gachhey baagh uthechhey (a tiger climbed the babla tree)! Say it quickly. No pause, and no mistakes.’

‘Then let’s hear you say kaancha pepe paka pepe (raw papaya ripe papaya)!’

It’s simply impossible to rattle off these words rapidly without making a mistake.

Everywhere, growing wild, we found the kalakasunde. Yellow flowers, fruits like borboti, the narrow bean, and the butterflies that bred there were yellow as well.

‘Observe this plant, learn to recognise it. There’s no saying how many ailments can be treated by its seeds, leaves and roots!’

Could we have learnt to identify the medicinal root called anantamul? It was Tejes-da who taught us to recognise it. The more we listened, the more we learnt from him about the benefits of plants such as anantamul, akanda, chhatim, hibiscus, banyan, bakul, baheda, neem, and dhatura.

‘O Tejes-da! Earthworms are so revolting!’

‘O re! The earthworm is the farmer’s friend. Swallowing soil through its mouth, excreting it through its rear, it turns the earth, making it bator—ready for tilling at the right time.’ Soft and moist. That’s what ‘bator’ means.

Tejes-da addressed these creatures with the respectful pronoun ‘apni’. 

‘The esteemed earthworm consumes soil, and excretes it,’ he’d say, using the formal, deferential mode. ‘What are the honourable birds doing now?’

‘How busy they are!’ he’d say in the same vein, using the respectful form of address. ‘Eating the fruit and discarding the seeds, so new plants can sprout from them. See, likewise, how the butterflies hover, drinking nectar from flowers and scattering the pollen to extend the family of the flowering plant’.

Running about, we’d recite an entire alphabet of plant life. What you would call a quiz for children.

A-a-a!

Ashok aparajita anantamul!

Aa-aa-aa!

Akanda akashnim amlaki!

And so we chanted, as we ran.

Ah! How blissfully we spent our childhood days. What a magic spell was cast by the Santiniketan of yore! It was our infancy that taught us everything. It taught us to love the entire universe.

Why does education in love not feature in today’s curriculum?

Excerpted with permission from Seagull Books.

Mahasweta Devi, one of India’s most powerful literary voices, chronicled Adivasi and other marginalised lives in classics like Hajar Churashir Maa and Rudali. Her activism paralleled a decorated career that included the Jnanpith, Magsaysay and Padma awards.