Hindi Folk-Songs

Extract

Some ten years ago a Brahman scholar was travelling by rail from Jaunpur to Allahabad. At a country station there was an incident familiar in those parts: a number of women crowded the platform, weeping and bidding farewell to their men-folk, who were going to Calcutta to find work. Two or three of the women got into the carriage with their husbands, and, as the journey continued, began a, song. One line of this made a great impression on the Pandit. “The railway, my rival, has carried away my beloved.” A bold metaphor. In the poetry to which he was accustomed, the rival wife with her interference would be compared to the swan with its mythical power of dividing milk from water. But, after all, was not the railway simile much more natural and vigorous ? The swan simile was part of the stock in trade of centuries of poets, and required a special education and tradition for its understanding. The railway simile spoke from the heart to the heart.