I would bind her two wings securely, set her on the bank of the river, and then let her play at fishing with a reed among the rushes and water-lilies.
When the marketing is over in the evening, and the village children sit in their mothers' laps, then the night birds will mockingly din her ears with:
"Whose sleep will you steal now?"
[from a drawing by Asit Kumar Haldar]
THE BEGINNING
"WHERE have I come from, where did you pick me up?" the baby asked its mother.
She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast,-- "You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.
You were in the dolls of my childhood's games; and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made and unmade you then.