Page:Anandamath, The Abbey of Bliss - Chatterjee.djvu/132

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108
The Abbey of Bliss

am an austere woman and will remain so before your Holiness. I have come to practice piety only and not that I may have the pleasure of seeing my husband. I did not come because I was pining under the pang of separation. I have come because I feel that I ought to participate in the mission which my husband has taken up." " Very well, I shall watch you for a few days." " Shall I be permitted to stay in the abbey ? ,J " Where else could you go tonight ? " " After that ? " " Like the mother Bhowani, you too have got fire on your brow ; why should you consume the community of the Children with it " returned Satyananda, and then blessed her and bade her adieu. Santi said to herself, " Bless your old head, man ! I have fire on my brow. Is it I or your mother that has had her forehead burnt."* In truth Satyananda did not mean that. He was speaking of the fire in her eyes, and an old man like him could not possibly speak it plainly to a young woman !

  • Forakapali or a Woman with ajburnt forehead (luck) is a term of

abuse. Santi here mischievously translates Satyananda's reference to the fire on her brow — by which he meant the fire of her eyes — into an insinua- tion ihrxt she was a woman with a burnt brow. The abuse is also other- wise worded e. g. tor kapak agun, 'let the fire be on thy forehead.'