Motilal Babu, zamindar of Kathaliya, was returning home with his family by boat. One afternoon he moored the boat near a riverside market so that their meal could be prepared. A Brahmin boy came over and asked, 'Where are you going, Babu?' The boy was not more than fifteen or sixteen.
"Kathaliya," replied Motilal Babu.
"Could you drop me at Nandigram on the way?" _handwritten note: "unfeet of goddess Kali"_ Motilal consented. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Tarapada," said the boy.
The fair-skinned boy was beautiful to look at. His smile and his large eyes had the grace of youth. His body – bare except for a stained dhoti – was free of any excess: as if lovingly carved by a sculptor, or as if in a previous life he had been a young sage whose pure religious devotion had removed all grossness, honed him to gleaming, Brahminical perfection.
"Come and wash, baba," said Motilal Babu tenderly. "You can eat with us."
Motilal's servant was Hindusthani: he was not very good at cutting up fish. Tarapada took over, and soon had the dish ready and had cooked some vegetables too with practised skill. He then took a dip in the river, and, opening his bundle, produced a clean white garment and a small wooden comb. He sleeked his long hair away from his forehead and down to his neck, adjusted his glistening sacred thread, and stepped on to the boat.Motilal Babu invited him into the cabin his wife and his 9 year old daughter was there his wife Annapurna was tenderly attracted to the boy when she saw him, and wondered, 'Whose child is he? Where has he come from? How could his mother bear to abandon him?' She placed mats for Motilal and the boy to sit on, side by side. The boy was not a big eater. Annapurna felt he must be shy and tried to get him to eat this or that; but when he had finished, he would not be tempted to more. He clearly did everything according to his own wishes – but with such ease that there was nothing assertive about him. He was not at all shy
When everyone had eaten, Annapurna sat him next to her and asked him about his background. She didn't gather much. All she could establish was that the boy had run away from home of his own volition at the age of seven or eight
"Isn't your mother alive?" asked Annapurna.
"She is," said Tarapada.
"Doesn't she love you?" asked Annapurna.
Tarapada seemed to find this question peculiar. 'Why shouldn't she love me?' he said, laughing.
"Then why did you leave her?" said Annapurna.
"She has four more sons and three daughters," said Tarapada.
Tarapada was young, so his life-story was brief; but the boy was a complete original. He was his parents' fourth son, and was still a baby when his father died. Despite there being so many in the house, Tarapada was the darling of all; mother, brothers, sisters and neighbours doted on him. So much so, that his tutor never beat him – everyone would have been appalled if he had. There was no reason for him to leave. Half-starved boys who constantly stole fruit from trees and were thrashed by the owners of the trees – they never strayed from the village or their scolding mothers! But this darling of everyone joined a touring jatra-troupe and left his village without a thought.
Search parties went out and he was brought back. His mother pressed him to her breast and drenched him with tears; his sisters wept too. His elder brother tried to perform his duty as guardian, but he soon abandoned his feeble attempts at discipline, and welcomed him back with open arms. Women invited him to their houses, plied him with even greater displays of affection. But he would not accept ties, even ties of love: his stars had made him a wanderer. If he saw strange boats on the river, or a sannyasi from a distant region under the local peepul-tree, or if gypsies sat by the river, making mats or wicker baskets, his heart would stir with longing to be free, to explore the outside world. And after he had run away two or three times, family and villagers gave up hope of him.
Again he joined a jatra-troupe at first. But when the master of the troupe began to treat him almost as a son, and the members of the troupe, young and old, had all fallen for him – and even the people in the houses where they performed (especially the women) began to make a special fuss of him – one day, without saying a word, he disappeared, and could not be found.
Tarapada was as wary of ties as a young fawn, and was also like a deer in his love of music. The songs of the jatra were what had first lured him away from home. Melodies sent a trembling through his veins, and rhythms made his body swing.
Impelled by this passion for music, it was not long before he had joined a group of panchali-singers. The leader of the group carefully taught him songs and trained him to recite panchali by heart. He too began to love him as his own. Like a pet cage-bird, Tarapada learnt a few songs, and then one morning flew away.