This turbid air is like
suffocation
to the eyes; I
cannot see.
cannot see.
Tagore - Creative Unity
he
passes me by in sorrow, and I know my mirth was vain.
I have often seen a smile in his eyes when my heart ached, then I knew my
sorrow was not real.
Yet I never complain when I do not understand him.
8
I am the boat, you are the sea, and also the boatman.
Though you never make the shore, though you let me sink, why should I be
foolish and afraid?
Is reaching the shore a greater prize than losing myself with you?
If you are only the haven, as they say, then what is the sea?
Let it surge and toss me on its waves, I shall be content.
I live in you whatever and however you appear. Save me or kill me as you
wish, only never leave me in other hands.
9
Make way, O bud, make way, burst open thy heart and make way.
The opening spirit has overtaken thee, canst thou remain a bud any longer?
III
1
Come, Spring, reckless lover of the earth, make the forest's heart pant for
utterance!
Come in gusts of disquiet where flowers break open and jostle the new
leaves!
Burst, like a rebellion of light, through the night's vigil, through the
lake's dark dumbness, through the dungeon under the dust, proclaiming
freedom to the shackled seeds!
Like the laughter of lightning, like the shout of a storm, break into the
midst of the noisy town; free stifled word and unconscious effort,
reinforce our flagging fight, and conquer death!
2
I have looked on this picture in many a month of March when the mustard is
in bloom--this lazy line of the water and the grey of the sand beyond, the
rough path along the river-bank carrying the comradeship of the field into
the heart of the village.
I have tried to capture in rhyme the idle whistle of the wind, the beat of
the oar-strokes from a passing boat.
I have wondered in my mind how simply it stands before me, this great
world: with what fond and familiar ease it fills my heart, this encounter
with the Eternal Stranger.
3
The ferry-boat plies between the two villages facing each other across the
narrow stream.
The water is neither wide nor deep--a mere break in the path that enhances
the small adventures of daily life, like a break in the words of a song
across which the tune gleefully streams.
While the towers of wealth rise high and crash to ruin, these villages talk
to each other across the garrulous stream, and the ferry-boat plies between
them, age after age, from seed-time to harvest.
4
In the evening after they have brought their cattle home, they sit on the
grass before their huts to know that you are among them unseen, to repeat
in their songs the name which they have fondly given you.
While kings' crowns shine and disappear like falling stars, around village
huts your name rises through the still night from the simple hearts of your
lovers whose names are unrecorded.
5
In Baby's world, the trees shake their leaves at him, murmuring verses in
an ancient tongue that dates from before the age of meaning, and the moon
feigns to be of his own age--the solitary baby of night.
In the world of the old, flowers dutifully blush at the make-believe of
faery legends, and broken dolls confess that they are made of clay.
6
_My world_, when I was a child, you were a little girl-neighbour, a loving
timid stranger.
Then you grew bold and talked to me across the fence, offering me toys and
flowers and shells.
Next you coaxed me away from my work, you tempted me into the land of the
dusk or the weedy corner of some garden in mid-day loneliness.
At length you told me stories about bygone times, with which the present
ever longs to meet so as to be rescued from its prison in the moment.
7
How often, great Earth, have I felt my being yearn to flow over you,
sharing in the happiness of each green blade that raises its signal banner
in answer to the beckoning blue of the sky!
I feel as if I had belonged to you ages before I was born. That is why, in
the days when the autumn light shimmers on the mellowing ears of rice, I
seem to remember a past when my mind was everywhere, and even to hear
voices as of playfellows echoing from the remote and deeply veiled past.
When, in the evening, the cattle return to their folds, raising dust from
the meadow paths, as the moon rises higher than the smoke ascending from
the village huts, I feel sad as for some great separation that happened in
the first morning of existence.
8
My mind still buzzed with the cares of a busy day; I sat on without noting
how twilight was deepening into dark. Suddenly light stirred across the
gloom and touched me as with a finger.
I lifted my head and met the gaze of the full moon widened in wonder like a
child's. It held my eyes for long, and I felt as though a love-letter had
been secretly dropped in at my window. And ever since my heart is breaking
to write for answer something fragrant as Night's unseen flowers--great as
her declaration spelt out in nameless stars.
9
The clouds thicken till the morning light seems like a bedraggled fringe to
the rainy night.
A little girl stands at her window, still as a rainbow at the gate of a
broken-down storm.
She is my neighbour, and has come upon the earth like some god's rebellious
laughter. Her mother in anger calls her incorrigible; her father smiles and
calls her mad.
She is like a runaway waterfall leaping over boulders, like the topmost
bamboo twig rustling in the restless wind.
She stands at her window looking out into the sky.
Her sister comes to say, "Mother calls you. " She shakes her head.
Her little brother with his toy boat comes and tries to pull her off to
play; she snatches her hand from his. The boy persists and she gives him a
slap on the back.
The first great voice was the voice of wind and water in the beginning of
earth's creation.
That ancient cry of nature--her dumb call to unborn life--has reached this
child's heart and leads it out alone beyond the fence of our times: so
there she stands, possessed by eternity!
10
The kingfisher sits still on the prow of an empty boat, while in the
shallow margin of the stream a buffalo lies tranquilly blissful, its eyes
half closed to savour the luxury of cool mud.
Undismayed by the barking of the village cur, the cow browses on the bank,
followed by a hopping group of _saliks_ hunting moths.
I sit in the tamarind grove, where the cries of dumb life congregate--the
cattle's lowing, the sparrows' chatter, the shrill scream of a kite
overhead, the crickets' chirp, and the splash of a fish in the water.
I peep into the primeval nursery of life, where the mother Earth thrills at
the first living clutch near her breast.
11
At the sleepy village the noon was still like a sunny midnight when my
holidays came to their end.
My little girl of four had followed me all the morning from room to room,
watching my preparations in grave silence, till, wearied, she sat by the
doorpost strangely quiet, murmuring to herself, "Father must not go! "
This was the meal hour, when sleep daily overcame her, but her mother had
forgotten her and the child was too unhappy to complain.
At last, when I stretched out my arms to her to say farewell, she never
moved, but sadly looking at me said, "Father, you must not go! "
And it amused me to tears to think how this little child dared to fight the
giant world of necessity with no other resource than those few words,
"Father, you must not go! "
12
Take your holiday, my boy; there are the blue sky and the bare field, the
barn and the ruined temple under the ancient tamarind.
My holiday must be taken through yours, finding light in the dance of your
eyes, music in your noisy shouts.
To you autumn brings the true holiday freedom: to me it brings the
impossibility of work; for lo! you burst into my room.
Yes, my holiday is an endless freedom for love to disturb me.
13
In the evening my little daughter heard a call from her companions below
the window.
She timidly went down the dark stairs holding a lamp in her hand, shielding
it behind her veil.
I was sitting on my terrace in the star-lit night of March, when at a
sudden cry I ran to see.
Her lamp had gone out in the dark spiral staircase. I asked, "Child, why
did you cry? "
From below she answered in distress, "Father, I have lost myself! "
When I came back to the terrace under the star-lit night of March, I looked
at the sky, and it seemed that a child was walking there treasuring many
lamps behind her veils.
If their light went out, she would suddenly stop and a cry would sound from
sky to sky, "Father, I have lost myself! "
14
The evening stood bewildered among street lamps, its gold tarnished by the
city dust.
A woman, gaudily decked and painted, leant over the rail of her balcony, a
living fire waiting for its moths.
Suddenly an eddy was formed in the road round a street-boy crushed under
the wheels of a carriage, and the woman on the balcony fell to the floor
screaming in agony, stricken with the grief of the great white-robed Mother
who sits in the world's inner shrine.
15
I remember the scene on the barren heath--a girl sat alone on the grass
before the gipsy camp, braiding her hair in the afternoon shade.
Her little dog jumped and barked at her busy hands, as though her
employment had no importance.
In vain did she rebuke it, calling it "a pest," saying she was tired of its
perpetual silliness.
She struck it on the nose with her reproving forefinger, which only seemed
to delight it the more.
She looked menacingly grave for a few moments, to warn it of impending
doom; and then, letting her hair fall, quickly snatched it up in her arms,
laughed, and pressed it to her heart.
16
He is tall and lean, withered to the bone with long repeated fever, like a
dead tree unable to draw a single drop of sap from anywhere.
In despairing patience, his mother carries him like a child into the sun,
where he sits by the roadside in the shortening shadows of each forenoon.
The world passes by--a woman to fetch water, a herd-boy with cattle to
pasture, a laden cart to the distant market--and the mother hopes that some
least stir of life may touch the awful torpor of her dying son.
17
If the ragged villager, trudging home from the market, could suddenly be
lifted to the crest of a distant age, men would stop in their work and
shout and run to him in delight.
For they would no longer whittle down the man into the peasant, but find
him full of the mystery and spirit of his age.
Even his poverty and pain would grow great, released from the shallow
insult of the present, and the paltry things in his basket would acquire
pathetic dignity.
18
With the morning he came out to walk a road shaded by a file of deodars,
that coiled the hill round like importunate love.
He held the first letter from his newly wedded wife in their village home,
begging him to come to her, and come soon.
The touch of an absent hand haunted him as he walked, and the air seemed to
take up the cry of the letter: "Love, my love, my sky is brimming with
tears! "
He asked himself in wonder, "How do I deserve this? "
The sun suddenly appeared over the rim of the blue hills, and four girls
from a foreign shore came with swift strides, talking loud and followed by
a barking dog.
The two elder turned away to conceal their amusement at something strange
in his insignificance, and the younger ones pushed each other, laughed
aloud, and ran off in exuberant mirth.
He stopped and his head sank. Then he suddenly felt his letter, opened and
read it again.
19
The day came for the image from the temple to be drawn round the holy town
in its chariot.
The Queen said to the King, "Let us go and attend the festival. "
Only one man out of the whole household did not join in the pilgrimage. His
work was to collect stalks of spear-grass to make brooms for the King's
house.
The chief of the servants said in pity to him, "You may come with us. "
He bowed his head, saying, "It cannot be. "
The man dwelt by the road along which the King's followers had to pass. And
when the Minister's elephant reached this spot, he called to him and said,
"Come with us and see the God ride in his chariot! "
"I dare not seek God after the King's fashion," said the man.
"How should you ever have such luck again as to see the God in his
chariot? " asked the Minister.
"When God himself comes to my door," answered the man.
The Minister laughed loud and said, "Fool! 'When God comes to your door! '
yet a King must travel to see him! "
"Who except God visits the poor? " said the man.
20
Days were drawing out as the winter ended, and, in the sun, my dog played
in his wild way with the pet deer.
The crowd going to the market gathered by the fence, and laughed to see the
love of these playmates struggle with languages so dissimilar.
The spring was in the air, and the young leaves fluttered like flames. A
gleam danced in the deer's dark eyes when she started, bent her neck at the
movement of her own shadow, or raised her ears to listen to some whisper in
the wind.
The message comes floating with the errant breeze, with the rustle and
glimmer abroad in the April sky. It sings of the first ache of youth in the
world, when the first flower broke from the bud, and love went forth
seeking that which it knew not, leaving all it had known.
And one afternoon, when among the _amlak_ trees the shadow grew grave and
sweet with the furtive caress of light, the deer set off to run like a
meteor in love with death.
It grew dark, and lamps were lighted in the house; the stars came out and
night was upon the fields, but the deer never came back.
My dog ran up to me whining, questioning me with his piteous eyes which
seemed to say, "I do not understand! "
But who does ever understand?
21
Our Lane is tortuous, as if, ages ago, she started in quest of her goal,
vacillated right and left, and remained bewildered for ever.
Above in the air, between her buildings, hangs like a ribbon a strip torn
out of space: she calls it her sister of the blue town.
She sees the sun only for a few moments at mid-day, and asks herself in
wise doubt, "Is it real? "
In June rain sometimes shades her band of daylight as with pencil
hatchings. The path grows slippery with mud, and umbrellas collide. Sudden
jets of water from spouts overhead splash on her startled pavement. In her
dismay, she takes it for the jest of an unmannerly scheme of creation.
The spring breeze, gone astray in her coil of contortions, stumbles like a
drunken vagabond against angle and corner, filling the dusty air with
scraps of paper and rag. "What fury of foolishness! Are the Gods gone mad? "
she exclaims in indignation.
But the daily refuse from the houses on both sides--scales of fish mixed
with ashes, vegetable peelings, rotten fruit, and dead rats--never rouse
her to question, "Why should these things be? "
She accepts every stone of her paving. But from between their chinks
sometimes a blade of grass peeps up. That baffles her. How can solid facts
permit such intrusion?
On a morning when at the touch of autumn light her houses wake up into
beauty from their foul dreams, she whispers to herself, "There is a
limitless wonder somewhere beyond these buildings. "
But the hours pass on; the households are astir; the maid strolls back from
the market, swinging her right arm and with the left clasping the basket of
provisions to her side; the air grows thick with the smell and smoke of
kitchens. It again becomes clear to our Lane that the real and normal
consist solely of herself, her houses, and their muck-heaps.
22
The house, lingering on after its wealth has vanished, stands by the
wayside like a madman with a patched rag over his back.
Day after day scars it with spiteful scratches, and rainy months leave
their fantastic signatures on its bared bricks.
In a deserted upper room one of a pair of doors has fallen from rusty
hinges; and the other, widowed, bangs day and night to the fitful gusts.
One night the sound of women wailing came from that house. They mourned the
death of the last son of the family, a boy of eighteen, who earned his
living by playing the part of the heroine in a travelling theatre.
A few days more and the house became silent, and all the doors were locked.
Only on the north side in the upper room that desolate door would neither
drop off to its rest nor be shut, but swung to and fro in the wind like a
self-torturing soul.
After a time children's voices echo once more through that house. Over the
balcony-rail women's clothes are hung in the sun, a bird whistles from a
covered cage, and a boy plays with his kite on the terrace.
A tenant has come to occupy a few rooms. He earns little and has many
children. The tired mother beats them and they roll on the floor and
shriek.
A maid-servant of forty drudges through the day, quarrels with her
mistress, threatens to, but never leaves.
Every day some small repairs are done. Paper is pasted in place of missing
panes; gaps in the railings are made good with split bamboo; an empty box
keeps the boltless gate shut; old stains vaguely show through new whitewash
on the walls.
The magnificence of wealth had found a fitting memorial in gaunt
desolation; but, lacking sufficient means, they try to hide this with
dubious devices, and its dignity is outraged.
They have overlooked the deserted room on the north side. And its forlorn
door still bangs in the wind, like Despair beating her breast.
23
In the depths of the forest the ascetic practised penance with fast-closed
eyes; he intended to deserve Paradise.
But the girl who gathered twigs brought him fruits in her skirt, and water
from the stream in cups made of leaves.
The days went on, and his penance grew harsher till the fruits remained
untasted, the water untouched: and the girl who gathered twigs was sad.
The Lord of Paradise heard that a man had dared to aspire to be as the
Gods. Time after time he had fought the Titans, who were his peers, and
kept them out of his kingdom; yet he feared a man whose power was that of
suffering.
But he knew the ways of mortals, and he planned a temptation to decoy this
creature of dust away from his adventure.
A breath from Paradise kissed the limbs of the girl who gathered twigs, and
her youth ached with a sudden rapture of beauty, and her thoughts hummed
like the bees of a rifled hive.
The time came when the ascetic should leave the forest for a mountain cave,
to complete the rigour of his penance.
When he opened his eyes in order to start on this journey, the girl
appeared to him like a verse familiar, yet forgotten, and which an added
melody made strange. The ascetic rose from his seat and told her that it
was time he left the forest.
"But why rob me of my chance to serve you? " she asked with tears in her
eyes.
He sat down again, thought for long, and remained on where he was.
That night remorse kept the girl awake. She began to dread her power and
hate her triumph, yet her mind tossed on the waves of turbulent delight.
In the morning she came and saluted the ascetic and asked his blessing,
saying she must leave him.
He gazed on her face in silence, then said, "Go, and may your wish be
fulfilled. "
For years he sat alone till his penance was complete.
The Lord of the Immortals came down to tell him that he had won Paradise.
"I no longer need it," said he.
The God asked him what greater reward he desired.
"I want the girl who gathers twigs. "
24
They said that Kabir, the weaver, was favoured of God, and the crowd
flocked round him for medicine and miracles. But he was troubled; his low
birth had hitherto endowed him with a most precious obscurity to sweeten
with songs and with the presence of his God. He prayed that it might be
restored.
Envious of the repute of this outcast, the priests leagued themselves with
a harlot to disgrace him. Kabir came to the market to sell cloths from his
loom; when the woman grasped his hand, blaming him for being faithless, and
followed him to his house, saying she would not be forsaken, Kabir said to
himself, "God answers prayers in his own way. "
Soon the woman felt a shiver of fear and fell on her knees and cried, "Save
me from my sin! " To which he said, "Open your life to God's light! "
Kabir worked at his loom and sang, and his songs washed the stains from
that woman's heart, and by way of return found a home in her sweet voice.
One day the King, in a fit of caprice, sent a message to Kabir to come and
sing before him. The weaver shook his head: but the messenger dared not
leave his door till his master's errand was fulfilled.
The King and his courtiers started at the sight of Kabir when he entered
the hall. For he was not alone, the woman followed him. Some smiled, some
frowned, and the King's face darkened at the beggar's pride and
shamelessness.
Kabir came back to his house disgraced, the woman fell at his feet crying,
"Why accept such dishonour for my sake, master? Suffer me to go back to my
infamy! "
Kabir said, "I dare not turn my God away when he comes branded with
insult. "
25
SOMAKA AND RITVIK
SOMAKA AND RITVIK
_The shade of_ KING SOMAKA, _faring to Heaven in a chariot, passes other
shades by the roadside, among them that of_ RITVIK, _his former
high-priest_.
A VOICE
Where would you go, King?
SOMAKA
Whose voice is that?
This turbid air is like suffocation to the eyes; I
cannot see.
THE VOICE
Come down, King! Come down from that chariot bound for Heaven.
SOMAKA
Who are you?
THE VOICE
I am Ritvik, who in my earthly life was your preceptor and the chief priest
of your house.
SOMAKA
Master, all the tears of the world seem to have become vapour to create
this realm of vagueness. What make you here?
SHADES
This hell lies hard by the road to Heaven, whence lights glimmer dimly,
only to prove unapproachable. Day and night we listen to the heavenly
chariot rumbling by with travellers for that region of bliss; it drives
sleep from our eyes and forces them to watch in fruitless jealousy. Far
below us earth's old forests rustle and her seas chant the primal hymn of
creation: they sound like the wail of a memory that wanders void space in
vain.
RITVIK
Come down, King!
SHADES
Stop a few moments among us. The earth's tears still cling about you, like
dew on freshly culled flowers. You have brought with you the mingled odours
of meadow and forest; reminiscence of children, women, and comrades;
something too of the ineffable music of the seasons.
SOMAKA
Master, why are you doomed to live in this muffled stagnant world?
RITVIK
I offered up your son in the sacrificial fire: _that_ sin has lodged my
soul in this obscurity.
SHADES
King, tell us the story, we implore you; the recital of crime can still
bring life's fire into our torpor.
SOMAKA
I was named Somaka, the King of Videha. After sacrificing at innumerable
shrines weary year on year, a son was born to my house in my old age, love
for whom, like a sudden untimely flood, swept consideration for everything
else from my life. He hid me completely, as a lotus hides its stem. The
neglected duties of a king piled up in shame before my throne. One day, in
my audience hall, I heard my child cry from his mother's room, and
instantly rushed away, vacating my throne.
RITVIK
Just then, it chanced, I entered the hall to give him my daily benediction;
in blind haste he brushed me aside and enkindled my anger. When later he
came back, shame-faced, I asked him: "King, what desperate alarm could draw
you at the busiest hour of the day to the women's apartments, so as to
desert your dignity and duty--ambassadors come from friendly courts, the
aggrieved who ask for justice, your ministers waiting to discuss matters of
grave import? and even lead you to slight a Brahmin's blessing? "
SOMAKA
At first my heart flamed with anger; the next moment I trampled it down
like the raised head of a snake and meekly replied: "Having only one child,
I have lost my peace of mind. Forgive me this once, and I promise that in
future the father's infatuation shall never usurp the King. "
RITVIK
But my heart was bitter with resentment, and I said, "If you must be
delivered from the curse of having only one child, I can show you the way.
But so hard is it that I feel certain you will fail to follow it. " This
galled the King's pride and he stood up and exclaimed, "I swear, by all
that is sacred, as a Kshatriya and a King, I will not shrink, but perform
whatever you may ask, however hard. " "Then listen," said I. "Light a
sacrificial fire, offer up your son: the smoke that rises will bring you
progeny, as the clouds bring rain. " The King bowed his head upon his breast
and remained silent: the courtiers shouted their horror, the Brahmins
clapped their hands over their ears, crying, "Sin it is both to utter and
listen to such words. " After some moments of bewildered dismay the King
calmly said, "I will abide by my promise. " The day came, the fire was lit,
the town was emptied of its people, the child was called for; but the
attendants refused to obey, the soldiers rebelliously went off duty,
throwing down their arms. Then I, who in my wisdom had soared far above all
weakness of heart and to whom emotions were illusory, went myself to the
apartment where, with their arms, women fenced the child like a flower
surrounded by the menacing branches of a tree. He saw me and stretched out
eager hands and struggled to come to me, for he longed to be free from the
love that imprisoned him. Crying, "I am come to give you true deliverance,"
I snatched him by force from his fainting mother and his nurses wailing in
despair. With quivering tongues the fire licked the sky and the King stood
beside it, still and silent, like a tree struck dead by lightning.
Fascinated by the godlike splendour of the blaze, the child babbled in glee
and danced in my arms, impatient to seek an unknown nurse in the free glory
of those flames.
SOMAKA
Stop, no more, I pray!
SHADES
Ritvik, your presence is a disgrace to hell itself!
THE CHARIOTEER
This is no place for you, King! nor have you deserved to be forced to
listen to this recital of a deed which makes hell shudder in pity.
SOMAKA
Drive off in your chariot! --Brahmin, my place is by you in this hell. The
Gods may forget my sin, but can I forget the last look of agonised surprise
on my child's face when, for one terrible moment, he realised that his own
father had betrayed his trust?
_Enter_ DHARMA, _the Judge of Departed Spirits_
DHARMA
King, Heaven waits for you.
SOMAKA
No, not for me. I killed my own child.
DHARMA
Your sin has been swept away in the fury of pain it caused you.
RITVIK
No, King, you must never go to Heaven alone, and thus create a second hell
for me, to burn both with fire and with hatred of you! Stay here!
SOMAKA
I will stay.
SHADES
And crown the despair and inglorious suffering of hell with the triumph of
a soul!
26
The man had no useful work, only vagaries of various kinds.
Therefore it surprised him to find himself in Paradise after a life spent
perfecting trifles.
Now the guide had taken him by mistake to the wrong Paradise--one meant
only for good, busy souls.
In this Paradise, our man saunters along the road only to obstruct the rush
of business.
He stands aside from the path and is warned that he tramples on sown seed.
Pushed, he starts up: hustled, he moves on.
A very busy girl comes to fetch water from the well. Her feet run on the
pavement like rapid fingers over harp-strings. Hastily she ties a negligent
knot with her hair, and loose locks on her forehead pry into the dark of
her eyes.
The man says to her, "Would you lend me your pitcher? "
"My pitcher? " she asks, "to draw water? "
"No, to paint patterns on. "
"I have no time to waste," the girl retorts in contempt.
Now a busy soul has no chance against one who is supremely idle.
Every day she meets him at the well, and every day he repeats the same
request, till at last she yields.
Our man paints the pitcher with curious colours in a mysterious maze of
lines.
The girl takes it up, turns it round and asks, "What does it mean? "
"It has no meaning," he answers.
The girl carries the pitcher home. She holds it up in different lights and
tries to con its mystery.
At night she leaves her bed, lights a lamp, and gazes at it from all points
of view.
This is the first time she has met with something without meaning.
On the next day the man is again near the well.
The girl asks, "What do you want? "
"To do more work for you. "
"What work? " she enquires.
"Allow me to weave coloured strands into a ribbon to bind your hair. "
"Is there any need? " she asks.
"None whatever," he allows.
The ribbon is made, and thence-forward she spends a great deal of time over
her hair.
The even stretch of well-employed time in that Paradise begins to show
irregular rents.
The elders are troubled; they meet in council.
The guide confesses his blunder, saying that he has brought the wrong man
to the wrong place.
The wrong man is called. His turban, flaming with colour, shows plainly how
great that blunder has been.
The chief of the elders says, "You must go back to the earth. "
The man heaves a sigh of relief: "I am ready. "
The girl with the ribbon round her hair chimes in: "I also! "
For the first time the chief of the elders is faced with a situation which
has no sense in it.
27
It is said that in the forest, near the meeting of river and lake, certain
fairies live in disguise who are only recognised as fairies after they have
flown away.
A Prince went to this forest, and when he came where river met lake he saw
a village girl sitting on the bank ruffling the water to make the lilies
dance.
He asked her in a whisper, "Tell me, what fairy art thou? "
The girl laughed at the question and the hillsides echoed her mirth.
The Prince thought she was the laughing fairy of the waterfall.
News reached the King that the Prince had married a fairy: he sent horses
and men and brought them to his house.
The Queen saw the bride and turned her face away in disgust, the Prince's
sister flushed red with annoyance, and the maids asked if that was how
fairies dressed.
The Prince whispered, "Hush! my fairy has come to our house in disguise. "
On the day of the yearly festival the Queen said to her son, "Ask your
bride not to shame us before our kinsfolk who are coming to see the fairy. "
And the Prince said to his bride, "For my love's sake show thy true self to
my people. "
Long she sat silent, then nodded her promise while tears ran down her
cheeks.
The full moon shone, the Prince, dressed in a wedding robe, entered his
bride's room.
No one was there, nothing but a streak of moonlight from the window aslant
the bed.
The kinsfolk crowded in with the King and the Queen, the Prince's sister
stood by the door.
All asked, "Where is the fairy bride? "
The Prince answered, "She has vanished for ever to make herself known to
you. "
28
KARNA AND KUNTI
KARNA AND KUNTI
_The Pandava Queen Kunti before marriage had a son, Karna, who, in manhood,
became the commander of the Kaurava host. To hide her shame she abandoned
him at birth, and a charioteer, Adhiratha, brought him up as his son. _
KARNA
I am Karna, the son of the charioteer, Adhiratha, and I sit here by the
bank of holy Ganges to worship the setting sun. Tell me who you are.
KUNTI
I am the woman who first made you acquainted with that light you are
worshipping.
KARNA
I do not understand: but your eyes melt my heart as the kiss of the morning
sun melts the snow on a mountain-top, and your voice rouses a blind sadness
within me of which the cause may well lie beyond the reach of my earliest
memory. Tell me, strange woman, what mystery binds my birth to you?
KUNTI
Patience, my son. I will answer when the lids of darkness come down over
the prying eyes of day. In the meanwhile, know that I am Kunti.
KARNA
Kunti! The mother of Arjuna?
KUNTI
Yes, indeed, the mother of Arjuna, your antagonist. But do not, therefore,
hate me. I still remember the day of the trial of arms in Hastina when you,
an unknown boy, boldly stepped into the arena, like the first ray of dawn
among the stars of night. Ah! who was that unhappy woman whose eyes kissed
your bare, slim body through tears that blessed you, where she sat among
the women of the royal household behind the arras? Why, the mother of
Arjuna! Then the Brahmin, master of arms, stepped forth and said, "No youth
of mean birth may challenge Arjuna to a trial of strength. " You stood
speechless, like a thunder-cloud at sunset flashing with an agony of
suppressed light. But who was the woman whose heart caught fire from your
shame and anger, and flared up in silence? The mother of Arjuna! Praised be
Duryodhana, who perceived your worth, and then and there crowned you King
of Anga, thus winning the Kauravas a champion. Overwhelmed at this good
fortune, Adhiratha, the charioteer, broke through the crowd; you instantly
rushed to him and laid your crown at his feet amid the jeering laughter of
the Pandavas and their friends. But there was one woman of the Pandava
house whose heart glowed with joy at the heroic pride of such
humility;--even the mother of Arjuna!
KARNA
But what brings you here alone, Mother of kings?
KUNTI
I have a boon to crave.
KARNA
Command me, and whatever manhood and my honour as a Kshatriya permit shall
be offered at your feet.
KUNTI
I have come to take you.
KARNA
Where?
KUNTI
To my breast thirsting for your love, my son.
KARNA
Fortunate mother of five brave kings, where can you find place for me, a
small chieftain of lowly descent?
KUNTI
Your place is before all my other sons.
KARNA
But what right have I to take it?
KUNTI
Your own God-given right to your mother's love.
KARNA
The gloom of evening spreads over the earth, silence rests on the water,
and your voice leads me back to some primal world of infancy lost in twilit
consciousness. However, whether this be dream, or fragment of forgotten
reality, come near and place your right hand on my forehead. Rumour runs
that I was deserted by my mother. Many a night she has come to me in my
slumber, but when I cried: "Open your veil, show me your face! " her figure
always vanished. Has this same dream come this evening while I wake? See,
yonder the lamps are lighted in your son's tents across the river; and on
this side behold the tent-domes of my Kauravas, like the suspended waves of
a spell-arrested storm at sea. Before the din of tomorrow's battle, in the
awful hush of this field where it must be fought, why should the voice of
the mother of my opponent, Arjuna, bring me a message of forgotten
motherhood? and why should my name take such music from her tongue as to
draw my heart out to him and his brothers?
KUNTI
Then delay not, my son, come with me!
KARNA
Yes, I will come and never ask question, never doubt. My soul responds to
your call; and the struggle for victory and fame and the rage of hatred
have suddenly become untrue to me, as the delirious dream of a night in the
serenity of the dawn. Tell me whither you mean to lead?
KUNTI
To the other bank of the river, where those lamps burn across the ghastly
pallor of the sands.
KARNA
Am I there to find my lost mother for ever?
KUNTI
O my son!
KARNA
Then why did you banish me--a castaway uprooted from my ancestral soil,
adrift in a homeless current of indignity? Why set a bottomless chasm
between Arjuna and myself, turning the natural attachment of kinship to the
dread attraction of hate? You remain speechless. Your shame permeates the
vast darkness and sends invisible shivers through my limbs. Leave my
question unanswered! Never explain to me what made you rob your son of his
mother's love! Only tell me why you have come to-day to call me back to the
ruins of a heaven wrecked by your own hands?
KUNTI
I am dogged by a curse more deadly than your reproaches: for, though
surrounded by five sons, my heart shrivels like that of a woman deprived of
her children. Through the great rent that yawned for my deserted
first-born, all my life's pleasures have run to waste. On that accursed day
when I belied my motherhood you could not utter a word; to-day your
recreant mother implores you for generous words. Let your forgiveness burn
her heart like fire and consume its sin.
KARNA
Mother, accept my tears!
KUNTI
I did not come with the hope of winning you back to my arms, but with that
of restoring your rights to you. Come and receive, as a king's son, your
due among your brothers.
KARNA
I am more truly the son of a charioteer, and do not covet the glory of
greater parentage.
KUNTI
Be that as it may, come and win back the kingdom, which is yours by right!
KARNA
Must you, who once refused me a mother's love, tempt me with a kingdom? The
quick bond of kindred which you severed at its root is dead, and can never
grow again. Shame were mine should I hasten to call the mother of kings
mother, and abandon _my_ mother in the charioteer's house!
KUNTI
You are great, my son! How God's punishment invisibly grows from a tiny
seed to a giant life! The helpless babe disowned by his mother comes back a
man through the dark maze of events to smite his brothers!
KARNA
Mother, have no fear! I know for certain that victory awaits the Pandavas.
Peaceful and still though this night be, my heart is full of the music of a
hopeless venture and baffled end. Ask me not to leave those who are doomed
to defeat. Let the Pandavas win the throne, since they must: I remain with
the desperate and forlorn. On the night of my birth you left me naked and
unnamed to disgrace: leave me once again without pity to the calm
expectation of defeat and death!
29
When like a flaming scimitar the hill stream has been sheathed in gloom by
the evening, suddenly a flock of birds passes overhead, their loud-laughing
wings hurling their flight like an arrow among stars.
It startles a passion for speed in the heart of all motionless things; the
hills seem to feel in their bosom the anguish of storm-clouds, and trees
long to break their rooted shackles.
For me the flight of these birds has rent a veil of stillness, and reveals
an immense flutter in this deep silence.
I see these hills and forests fly across time to the unknown, and darkness
thrill into fire as the stars wing by.
I feel in my own being the rush of the sea-crossing bird, cleaving a way
beyond the limits of life and death, while the migrant world cries with a
myriad voices, "Not here, but somewhere else, in the bosom of the Faraway. "
30
The crowd listens in wonder to Kashi, the young singer, whose voice, like a
sword in feats of skill, dances amidst hopeless tangles, cuts them to
pieces, and exults.
Among the hearers sits old Rajah Pratap in weary endurance. For his own
life had been nourished and encircled by Barajlal's songs, like a happy
land which a river laces with beauty.
passes me by in sorrow, and I know my mirth was vain.
I have often seen a smile in his eyes when my heart ached, then I knew my
sorrow was not real.
Yet I never complain when I do not understand him.
8
I am the boat, you are the sea, and also the boatman.
Though you never make the shore, though you let me sink, why should I be
foolish and afraid?
Is reaching the shore a greater prize than losing myself with you?
If you are only the haven, as they say, then what is the sea?
Let it surge and toss me on its waves, I shall be content.
I live in you whatever and however you appear. Save me or kill me as you
wish, only never leave me in other hands.
9
Make way, O bud, make way, burst open thy heart and make way.
The opening spirit has overtaken thee, canst thou remain a bud any longer?
III
1
Come, Spring, reckless lover of the earth, make the forest's heart pant for
utterance!
Come in gusts of disquiet where flowers break open and jostle the new
leaves!
Burst, like a rebellion of light, through the night's vigil, through the
lake's dark dumbness, through the dungeon under the dust, proclaiming
freedom to the shackled seeds!
Like the laughter of lightning, like the shout of a storm, break into the
midst of the noisy town; free stifled word and unconscious effort,
reinforce our flagging fight, and conquer death!
2
I have looked on this picture in many a month of March when the mustard is
in bloom--this lazy line of the water and the grey of the sand beyond, the
rough path along the river-bank carrying the comradeship of the field into
the heart of the village.
I have tried to capture in rhyme the idle whistle of the wind, the beat of
the oar-strokes from a passing boat.
I have wondered in my mind how simply it stands before me, this great
world: with what fond and familiar ease it fills my heart, this encounter
with the Eternal Stranger.
3
The ferry-boat plies between the two villages facing each other across the
narrow stream.
The water is neither wide nor deep--a mere break in the path that enhances
the small adventures of daily life, like a break in the words of a song
across which the tune gleefully streams.
While the towers of wealth rise high and crash to ruin, these villages talk
to each other across the garrulous stream, and the ferry-boat plies between
them, age after age, from seed-time to harvest.
4
In the evening after they have brought their cattle home, they sit on the
grass before their huts to know that you are among them unseen, to repeat
in their songs the name which they have fondly given you.
While kings' crowns shine and disappear like falling stars, around village
huts your name rises through the still night from the simple hearts of your
lovers whose names are unrecorded.
5
In Baby's world, the trees shake their leaves at him, murmuring verses in
an ancient tongue that dates from before the age of meaning, and the moon
feigns to be of his own age--the solitary baby of night.
In the world of the old, flowers dutifully blush at the make-believe of
faery legends, and broken dolls confess that they are made of clay.
6
_My world_, when I was a child, you were a little girl-neighbour, a loving
timid stranger.
Then you grew bold and talked to me across the fence, offering me toys and
flowers and shells.
Next you coaxed me away from my work, you tempted me into the land of the
dusk or the weedy corner of some garden in mid-day loneliness.
At length you told me stories about bygone times, with which the present
ever longs to meet so as to be rescued from its prison in the moment.
7
How often, great Earth, have I felt my being yearn to flow over you,
sharing in the happiness of each green blade that raises its signal banner
in answer to the beckoning blue of the sky!
I feel as if I had belonged to you ages before I was born. That is why, in
the days when the autumn light shimmers on the mellowing ears of rice, I
seem to remember a past when my mind was everywhere, and even to hear
voices as of playfellows echoing from the remote and deeply veiled past.
When, in the evening, the cattle return to their folds, raising dust from
the meadow paths, as the moon rises higher than the smoke ascending from
the village huts, I feel sad as for some great separation that happened in
the first morning of existence.
8
My mind still buzzed with the cares of a busy day; I sat on without noting
how twilight was deepening into dark. Suddenly light stirred across the
gloom and touched me as with a finger.
I lifted my head and met the gaze of the full moon widened in wonder like a
child's. It held my eyes for long, and I felt as though a love-letter had
been secretly dropped in at my window. And ever since my heart is breaking
to write for answer something fragrant as Night's unseen flowers--great as
her declaration spelt out in nameless stars.
9
The clouds thicken till the morning light seems like a bedraggled fringe to
the rainy night.
A little girl stands at her window, still as a rainbow at the gate of a
broken-down storm.
She is my neighbour, and has come upon the earth like some god's rebellious
laughter. Her mother in anger calls her incorrigible; her father smiles and
calls her mad.
She is like a runaway waterfall leaping over boulders, like the topmost
bamboo twig rustling in the restless wind.
She stands at her window looking out into the sky.
Her sister comes to say, "Mother calls you. " She shakes her head.
Her little brother with his toy boat comes and tries to pull her off to
play; she snatches her hand from his. The boy persists and she gives him a
slap on the back.
The first great voice was the voice of wind and water in the beginning of
earth's creation.
That ancient cry of nature--her dumb call to unborn life--has reached this
child's heart and leads it out alone beyond the fence of our times: so
there she stands, possessed by eternity!
10
The kingfisher sits still on the prow of an empty boat, while in the
shallow margin of the stream a buffalo lies tranquilly blissful, its eyes
half closed to savour the luxury of cool mud.
Undismayed by the barking of the village cur, the cow browses on the bank,
followed by a hopping group of _saliks_ hunting moths.
I sit in the tamarind grove, where the cries of dumb life congregate--the
cattle's lowing, the sparrows' chatter, the shrill scream of a kite
overhead, the crickets' chirp, and the splash of a fish in the water.
I peep into the primeval nursery of life, where the mother Earth thrills at
the first living clutch near her breast.
11
At the sleepy village the noon was still like a sunny midnight when my
holidays came to their end.
My little girl of four had followed me all the morning from room to room,
watching my preparations in grave silence, till, wearied, she sat by the
doorpost strangely quiet, murmuring to herself, "Father must not go! "
This was the meal hour, when sleep daily overcame her, but her mother had
forgotten her and the child was too unhappy to complain.
At last, when I stretched out my arms to her to say farewell, she never
moved, but sadly looking at me said, "Father, you must not go! "
And it amused me to tears to think how this little child dared to fight the
giant world of necessity with no other resource than those few words,
"Father, you must not go! "
12
Take your holiday, my boy; there are the blue sky and the bare field, the
barn and the ruined temple under the ancient tamarind.
My holiday must be taken through yours, finding light in the dance of your
eyes, music in your noisy shouts.
To you autumn brings the true holiday freedom: to me it brings the
impossibility of work; for lo! you burst into my room.
Yes, my holiday is an endless freedom for love to disturb me.
13
In the evening my little daughter heard a call from her companions below
the window.
She timidly went down the dark stairs holding a lamp in her hand, shielding
it behind her veil.
I was sitting on my terrace in the star-lit night of March, when at a
sudden cry I ran to see.
Her lamp had gone out in the dark spiral staircase. I asked, "Child, why
did you cry? "
From below she answered in distress, "Father, I have lost myself! "
When I came back to the terrace under the star-lit night of March, I looked
at the sky, and it seemed that a child was walking there treasuring many
lamps behind her veils.
If their light went out, she would suddenly stop and a cry would sound from
sky to sky, "Father, I have lost myself! "
14
The evening stood bewildered among street lamps, its gold tarnished by the
city dust.
A woman, gaudily decked and painted, leant over the rail of her balcony, a
living fire waiting for its moths.
Suddenly an eddy was formed in the road round a street-boy crushed under
the wheels of a carriage, and the woman on the balcony fell to the floor
screaming in agony, stricken with the grief of the great white-robed Mother
who sits in the world's inner shrine.
15
I remember the scene on the barren heath--a girl sat alone on the grass
before the gipsy camp, braiding her hair in the afternoon shade.
Her little dog jumped and barked at her busy hands, as though her
employment had no importance.
In vain did she rebuke it, calling it "a pest," saying she was tired of its
perpetual silliness.
She struck it on the nose with her reproving forefinger, which only seemed
to delight it the more.
She looked menacingly grave for a few moments, to warn it of impending
doom; and then, letting her hair fall, quickly snatched it up in her arms,
laughed, and pressed it to her heart.
16
He is tall and lean, withered to the bone with long repeated fever, like a
dead tree unable to draw a single drop of sap from anywhere.
In despairing patience, his mother carries him like a child into the sun,
where he sits by the roadside in the shortening shadows of each forenoon.
The world passes by--a woman to fetch water, a herd-boy with cattle to
pasture, a laden cart to the distant market--and the mother hopes that some
least stir of life may touch the awful torpor of her dying son.
17
If the ragged villager, trudging home from the market, could suddenly be
lifted to the crest of a distant age, men would stop in their work and
shout and run to him in delight.
For they would no longer whittle down the man into the peasant, but find
him full of the mystery and spirit of his age.
Even his poverty and pain would grow great, released from the shallow
insult of the present, and the paltry things in his basket would acquire
pathetic dignity.
18
With the morning he came out to walk a road shaded by a file of deodars,
that coiled the hill round like importunate love.
He held the first letter from his newly wedded wife in their village home,
begging him to come to her, and come soon.
The touch of an absent hand haunted him as he walked, and the air seemed to
take up the cry of the letter: "Love, my love, my sky is brimming with
tears! "
He asked himself in wonder, "How do I deserve this? "
The sun suddenly appeared over the rim of the blue hills, and four girls
from a foreign shore came with swift strides, talking loud and followed by
a barking dog.
The two elder turned away to conceal their amusement at something strange
in his insignificance, and the younger ones pushed each other, laughed
aloud, and ran off in exuberant mirth.
He stopped and his head sank. Then he suddenly felt his letter, opened and
read it again.
19
The day came for the image from the temple to be drawn round the holy town
in its chariot.
The Queen said to the King, "Let us go and attend the festival. "
Only one man out of the whole household did not join in the pilgrimage. His
work was to collect stalks of spear-grass to make brooms for the King's
house.
The chief of the servants said in pity to him, "You may come with us. "
He bowed his head, saying, "It cannot be. "
The man dwelt by the road along which the King's followers had to pass. And
when the Minister's elephant reached this spot, he called to him and said,
"Come with us and see the God ride in his chariot! "
"I dare not seek God after the King's fashion," said the man.
"How should you ever have such luck again as to see the God in his
chariot? " asked the Minister.
"When God himself comes to my door," answered the man.
The Minister laughed loud and said, "Fool! 'When God comes to your door! '
yet a King must travel to see him! "
"Who except God visits the poor? " said the man.
20
Days were drawing out as the winter ended, and, in the sun, my dog played
in his wild way with the pet deer.
The crowd going to the market gathered by the fence, and laughed to see the
love of these playmates struggle with languages so dissimilar.
The spring was in the air, and the young leaves fluttered like flames. A
gleam danced in the deer's dark eyes when she started, bent her neck at the
movement of her own shadow, or raised her ears to listen to some whisper in
the wind.
The message comes floating with the errant breeze, with the rustle and
glimmer abroad in the April sky. It sings of the first ache of youth in the
world, when the first flower broke from the bud, and love went forth
seeking that which it knew not, leaving all it had known.
And one afternoon, when among the _amlak_ trees the shadow grew grave and
sweet with the furtive caress of light, the deer set off to run like a
meteor in love with death.
It grew dark, and lamps were lighted in the house; the stars came out and
night was upon the fields, but the deer never came back.
My dog ran up to me whining, questioning me with his piteous eyes which
seemed to say, "I do not understand! "
But who does ever understand?
21
Our Lane is tortuous, as if, ages ago, she started in quest of her goal,
vacillated right and left, and remained bewildered for ever.
Above in the air, between her buildings, hangs like a ribbon a strip torn
out of space: she calls it her sister of the blue town.
She sees the sun only for a few moments at mid-day, and asks herself in
wise doubt, "Is it real? "
In June rain sometimes shades her band of daylight as with pencil
hatchings. The path grows slippery with mud, and umbrellas collide. Sudden
jets of water from spouts overhead splash on her startled pavement. In her
dismay, she takes it for the jest of an unmannerly scheme of creation.
The spring breeze, gone astray in her coil of contortions, stumbles like a
drunken vagabond against angle and corner, filling the dusty air with
scraps of paper and rag. "What fury of foolishness! Are the Gods gone mad? "
she exclaims in indignation.
But the daily refuse from the houses on both sides--scales of fish mixed
with ashes, vegetable peelings, rotten fruit, and dead rats--never rouse
her to question, "Why should these things be? "
She accepts every stone of her paving. But from between their chinks
sometimes a blade of grass peeps up. That baffles her. How can solid facts
permit such intrusion?
On a morning when at the touch of autumn light her houses wake up into
beauty from their foul dreams, she whispers to herself, "There is a
limitless wonder somewhere beyond these buildings. "
But the hours pass on; the households are astir; the maid strolls back from
the market, swinging her right arm and with the left clasping the basket of
provisions to her side; the air grows thick with the smell and smoke of
kitchens. It again becomes clear to our Lane that the real and normal
consist solely of herself, her houses, and their muck-heaps.
22
The house, lingering on after its wealth has vanished, stands by the
wayside like a madman with a patched rag over his back.
Day after day scars it with spiteful scratches, and rainy months leave
their fantastic signatures on its bared bricks.
In a deserted upper room one of a pair of doors has fallen from rusty
hinges; and the other, widowed, bangs day and night to the fitful gusts.
One night the sound of women wailing came from that house. They mourned the
death of the last son of the family, a boy of eighteen, who earned his
living by playing the part of the heroine in a travelling theatre.
A few days more and the house became silent, and all the doors were locked.
Only on the north side in the upper room that desolate door would neither
drop off to its rest nor be shut, but swung to and fro in the wind like a
self-torturing soul.
After a time children's voices echo once more through that house. Over the
balcony-rail women's clothes are hung in the sun, a bird whistles from a
covered cage, and a boy plays with his kite on the terrace.
A tenant has come to occupy a few rooms. He earns little and has many
children. The tired mother beats them and they roll on the floor and
shriek.
A maid-servant of forty drudges through the day, quarrels with her
mistress, threatens to, but never leaves.
Every day some small repairs are done. Paper is pasted in place of missing
panes; gaps in the railings are made good with split bamboo; an empty box
keeps the boltless gate shut; old stains vaguely show through new whitewash
on the walls.
The magnificence of wealth had found a fitting memorial in gaunt
desolation; but, lacking sufficient means, they try to hide this with
dubious devices, and its dignity is outraged.
They have overlooked the deserted room on the north side. And its forlorn
door still bangs in the wind, like Despair beating her breast.
23
In the depths of the forest the ascetic practised penance with fast-closed
eyes; he intended to deserve Paradise.
But the girl who gathered twigs brought him fruits in her skirt, and water
from the stream in cups made of leaves.
The days went on, and his penance grew harsher till the fruits remained
untasted, the water untouched: and the girl who gathered twigs was sad.
The Lord of Paradise heard that a man had dared to aspire to be as the
Gods. Time after time he had fought the Titans, who were his peers, and
kept them out of his kingdom; yet he feared a man whose power was that of
suffering.
But he knew the ways of mortals, and he planned a temptation to decoy this
creature of dust away from his adventure.
A breath from Paradise kissed the limbs of the girl who gathered twigs, and
her youth ached with a sudden rapture of beauty, and her thoughts hummed
like the bees of a rifled hive.
The time came when the ascetic should leave the forest for a mountain cave,
to complete the rigour of his penance.
When he opened his eyes in order to start on this journey, the girl
appeared to him like a verse familiar, yet forgotten, and which an added
melody made strange. The ascetic rose from his seat and told her that it
was time he left the forest.
"But why rob me of my chance to serve you? " she asked with tears in her
eyes.
He sat down again, thought for long, and remained on where he was.
That night remorse kept the girl awake. She began to dread her power and
hate her triumph, yet her mind tossed on the waves of turbulent delight.
In the morning she came and saluted the ascetic and asked his blessing,
saying she must leave him.
He gazed on her face in silence, then said, "Go, and may your wish be
fulfilled. "
For years he sat alone till his penance was complete.
The Lord of the Immortals came down to tell him that he had won Paradise.
"I no longer need it," said he.
The God asked him what greater reward he desired.
"I want the girl who gathers twigs. "
24
They said that Kabir, the weaver, was favoured of God, and the crowd
flocked round him for medicine and miracles. But he was troubled; his low
birth had hitherto endowed him with a most precious obscurity to sweeten
with songs and with the presence of his God. He prayed that it might be
restored.
Envious of the repute of this outcast, the priests leagued themselves with
a harlot to disgrace him. Kabir came to the market to sell cloths from his
loom; when the woman grasped his hand, blaming him for being faithless, and
followed him to his house, saying she would not be forsaken, Kabir said to
himself, "God answers prayers in his own way. "
Soon the woman felt a shiver of fear and fell on her knees and cried, "Save
me from my sin! " To which he said, "Open your life to God's light! "
Kabir worked at his loom and sang, and his songs washed the stains from
that woman's heart, and by way of return found a home in her sweet voice.
One day the King, in a fit of caprice, sent a message to Kabir to come and
sing before him. The weaver shook his head: but the messenger dared not
leave his door till his master's errand was fulfilled.
The King and his courtiers started at the sight of Kabir when he entered
the hall. For he was not alone, the woman followed him. Some smiled, some
frowned, and the King's face darkened at the beggar's pride and
shamelessness.
Kabir came back to his house disgraced, the woman fell at his feet crying,
"Why accept such dishonour for my sake, master? Suffer me to go back to my
infamy! "
Kabir said, "I dare not turn my God away when he comes branded with
insult. "
25
SOMAKA AND RITVIK
SOMAKA AND RITVIK
_The shade of_ KING SOMAKA, _faring to Heaven in a chariot, passes other
shades by the roadside, among them that of_ RITVIK, _his former
high-priest_.
A VOICE
Where would you go, King?
SOMAKA
Whose voice is that?
This turbid air is like suffocation to the eyes; I
cannot see.
THE VOICE
Come down, King! Come down from that chariot bound for Heaven.
SOMAKA
Who are you?
THE VOICE
I am Ritvik, who in my earthly life was your preceptor and the chief priest
of your house.
SOMAKA
Master, all the tears of the world seem to have become vapour to create
this realm of vagueness. What make you here?
SHADES
This hell lies hard by the road to Heaven, whence lights glimmer dimly,
only to prove unapproachable. Day and night we listen to the heavenly
chariot rumbling by with travellers for that region of bliss; it drives
sleep from our eyes and forces them to watch in fruitless jealousy. Far
below us earth's old forests rustle and her seas chant the primal hymn of
creation: they sound like the wail of a memory that wanders void space in
vain.
RITVIK
Come down, King!
SHADES
Stop a few moments among us. The earth's tears still cling about you, like
dew on freshly culled flowers. You have brought with you the mingled odours
of meadow and forest; reminiscence of children, women, and comrades;
something too of the ineffable music of the seasons.
SOMAKA
Master, why are you doomed to live in this muffled stagnant world?
RITVIK
I offered up your son in the sacrificial fire: _that_ sin has lodged my
soul in this obscurity.
SHADES
King, tell us the story, we implore you; the recital of crime can still
bring life's fire into our torpor.
SOMAKA
I was named Somaka, the King of Videha. After sacrificing at innumerable
shrines weary year on year, a son was born to my house in my old age, love
for whom, like a sudden untimely flood, swept consideration for everything
else from my life. He hid me completely, as a lotus hides its stem. The
neglected duties of a king piled up in shame before my throne. One day, in
my audience hall, I heard my child cry from his mother's room, and
instantly rushed away, vacating my throne.
RITVIK
Just then, it chanced, I entered the hall to give him my daily benediction;
in blind haste he brushed me aside and enkindled my anger. When later he
came back, shame-faced, I asked him: "King, what desperate alarm could draw
you at the busiest hour of the day to the women's apartments, so as to
desert your dignity and duty--ambassadors come from friendly courts, the
aggrieved who ask for justice, your ministers waiting to discuss matters of
grave import? and even lead you to slight a Brahmin's blessing? "
SOMAKA
At first my heart flamed with anger; the next moment I trampled it down
like the raised head of a snake and meekly replied: "Having only one child,
I have lost my peace of mind. Forgive me this once, and I promise that in
future the father's infatuation shall never usurp the King. "
RITVIK
But my heart was bitter with resentment, and I said, "If you must be
delivered from the curse of having only one child, I can show you the way.
But so hard is it that I feel certain you will fail to follow it. " This
galled the King's pride and he stood up and exclaimed, "I swear, by all
that is sacred, as a Kshatriya and a King, I will not shrink, but perform
whatever you may ask, however hard. " "Then listen," said I. "Light a
sacrificial fire, offer up your son: the smoke that rises will bring you
progeny, as the clouds bring rain. " The King bowed his head upon his breast
and remained silent: the courtiers shouted their horror, the Brahmins
clapped their hands over their ears, crying, "Sin it is both to utter and
listen to such words. " After some moments of bewildered dismay the King
calmly said, "I will abide by my promise. " The day came, the fire was lit,
the town was emptied of its people, the child was called for; but the
attendants refused to obey, the soldiers rebelliously went off duty,
throwing down their arms. Then I, who in my wisdom had soared far above all
weakness of heart and to whom emotions were illusory, went myself to the
apartment where, with their arms, women fenced the child like a flower
surrounded by the menacing branches of a tree. He saw me and stretched out
eager hands and struggled to come to me, for he longed to be free from the
love that imprisoned him. Crying, "I am come to give you true deliverance,"
I snatched him by force from his fainting mother and his nurses wailing in
despair. With quivering tongues the fire licked the sky and the King stood
beside it, still and silent, like a tree struck dead by lightning.
Fascinated by the godlike splendour of the blaze, the child babbled in glee
and danced in my arms, impatient to seek an unknown nurse in the free glory
of those flames.
SOMAKA
Stop, no more, I pray!
SHADES
Ritvik, your presence is a disgrace to hell itself!
THE CHARIOTEER
This is no place for you, King! nor have you deserved to be forced to
listen to this recital of a deed which makes hell shudder in pity.
SOMAKA
Drive off in your chariot! --Brahmin, my place is by you in this hell. The
Gods may forget my sin, but can I forget the last look of agonised surprise
on my child's face when, for one terrible moment, he realised that his own
father had betrayed his trust?
_Enter_ DHARMA, _the Judge of Departed Spirits_
DHARMA
King, Heaven waits for you.
SOMAKA
No, not for me. I killed my own child.
DHARMA
Your sin has been swept away in the fury of pain it caused you.
RITVIK
No, King, you must never go to Heaven alone, and thus create a second hell
for me, to burn both with fire and with hatred of you! Stay here!
SOMAKA
I will stay.
SHADES
And crown the despair and inglorious suffering of hell with the triumph of
a soul!
26
The man had no useful work, only vagaries of various kinds.
Therefore it surprised him to find himself in Paradise after a life spent
perfecting trifles.
Now the guide had taken him by mistake to the wrong Paradise--one meant
only for good, busy souls.
In this Paradise, our man saunters along the road only to obstruct the rush
of business.
He stands aside from the path and is warned that he tramples on sown seed.
Pushed, he starts up: hustled, he moves on.
A very busy girl comes to fetch water from the well. Her feet run on the
pavement like rapid fingers over harp-strings. Hastily she ties a negligent
knot with her hair, and loose locks on her forehead pry into the dark of
her eyes.
The man says to her, "Would you lend me your pitcher? "
"My pitcher? " she asks, "to draw water? "
"No, to paint patterns on. "
"I have no time to waste," the girl retorts in contempt.
Now a busy soul has no chance against one who is supremely idle.
Every day she meets him at the well, and every day he repeats the same
request, till at last she yields.
Our man paints the pitcher with curious colours in a mysterious maze of
lines.
The girl takes it up, turns it round and asks, "What does it mean? "
"It has no meaning," he answers.
The girl carries the pitcher home. She holds it up in different lights and
tries to con its mystery.
At night she leaves her bed, lights a lamp, and gazes at it from all points
of view.
This is the first time she has met with something without meaning.
On the next day the man is again near the well.
The girl asks, "What do you want? "
"To do more work for you. "
"What work? " she enquires.
"Allow me to weave coloured strands into a ribbon to bind your hair. "
"Is there any need? " she asks.
"None whatever," he allows.
The ribbon is made, and thence-forward she spends a great deal of time over
her hair.
The even stretch of well-employed time in that Paradise begins to show
irregular rents.
The elders are troubled; they meet in council.
The guide confesses his blunder, saying that he has brought the wrong man
to the wrong place.
The wrong man is called. His turban, flaming with colour, shows plainly how
great that blunder has been.
The chief of the elders says, "You must go back to the earth. "
The man heaves a sigh of relief: "I am ready. "
The girl with the ribbon round her hair chimes in: "I also! "
For the first time the chief of the elders is faced with a situation which
has no sense in it.
27
It is said that in the forest, near the meeting of river and lake, certain
fairies live in disguise who are only recognised as fairies after they have
flown away.
A Prince went to this forest, and when he came where river met lake he saw
a village girl sitting on the bank ruffling the water to make the lilies
dance.
He asked her in a whisper, "Tell me, what fairy art thou? "
The girl laughed at the question and the hillsides echoed her mirth.
The Prince thought she was the laughing fairy of the waterfall.
News reached the King that the Prince had married a fairy: he sent horses
and men and brought them to his house.
The Queen saw the bride and turned her face away in disgust, the Prince's
sister flushed red with annoyance, and the maids asked if that was how
fairies dressed.
The Prince whispered, "Hush! my fairy has come to our house in disguise. "
On the day of the yearly festival the Queen said to her son, "Ask your
bride not to shame us before our kinsfolk who are coming to see the fairy. "
And the Prince said to his bride, "For my love's sake show thy true self to
my people. "
Long she sat silent, then nodded her promise while tears ran down her
cheeks.
The full moon shone, the Prince, dressed in a wedding robe, entered his
bride's room.
No one was there, nothing but a streak of moonlight from the window aslant
the bed.
The kinsfolk crowded in with the King and the Queen, the Prince's sister
stood by the door.
All asked, "Where is the fairy bride? "
The Prince answered, "She has vanished for ever to make herself known to
you. "
28
KARNA AND KUNTI
KARNA AND KUNTI
_The Pandava Queen Kunti before marriage had a son, Karna, who, in manhood,
became the commander of the Kaurava host. To hide her shame she abandoned
him at birth, and a charioteer, Adhiratha, brought him up as his son. _
KARNA
I am Karna, the son of the charioteer, Adhiratha, and I sit here by the
bank of holy Ganges to worship the setting sun. Tell me who you are.
KUNTI
I am the woman who first made you acquainted with that light you are
worshipping.
KARNA
I do not understand: but your eyes melt my heart as the kiss of the morning
sun melts the snow on a mountain-top, and your voice rouses a blind sadness
within me of which the cause may well lie beyond the reach of my earliest
memory. Tell me, strange woman, what mystery binds my birth to you?
KUNTI
Patience, my son. I will answer when the lids of darkness come down over
the prying eyes of day. In the meanwhile, know that I am Kunti.
KARNA
Kunti! The mother of Arjuna?
KUNTI
Yes, indeed, the mother of Arjuna, your antagonist. But do not, therefore,
hate me. I still remember the day of the trial of arms in Hastina when you,
an unknown boy, boldly stepped into the arena, like the first ray of dawn
among the stars of night. Ah! who was that unhappy woman whose eyes kissed
your bare, slim body through tears that blessed you, where she sat among
the women of the royal household behind the arras? Why, the mother of
Arjuna! Then the Brahmin, master of arms, stepped forth and said, "No youth
of mean birth may challenge Arjuna to a trial of strength. " You stood
speechless, like a thunder-cloud at sunset flashing with an agony of
suppressed light. But who was the woman whose heart caught fire from your
shame and anger, and flared up in silence? The mother of Arjuna! Praised be
Duryodhana, who perceived your worth, and then and there crowned you King
of Anga, thus winning the Kauravas a champion. Overwhelmed at this good
fortune, Adhiratha, the charioteer, broke through the crowd; you instantly
rushed to him and laid your crown at his feet amid the jeering laughter of
the Pandavas and their friends. But there was one woman of the Pandava
house whose heart glowed with joy at the heroic pride of such
humility;--even the mother of Arjuna!
KARNA
But what brings you here alone, Mother of kings?
KUNTI
I have a boon to crave.
KARNA
Command me, and whatever manhood and my honour as a Kshatriya permit shall
be offered at your feet.
KUNTI
I have come to take you.
KARNA
Where?
KUNTI
To my breast thirsting for your love, my son.
KARNA
Fortunate mother of five brave kings, where can you find place for me, a
small chieftain of lowly descent?
KUNTI
Your place is before all my other sons.
KARNA
But what right have I to take it?
KUNTI
Your own God-given right to your mother's love.
KARNA
The gloom of evening spreads over the earth, silence rests on the water,
and your voice leads me back to some primal world of infancy lost in twilit
consciousness. However, whether this be dream, or fragment of forgotten
reality, come near and place your right hand on my forehead. Rumour runs
that I was deserted by my mother. Many a night she has come to me in my
slumber, but when I cried: "Open your veil, show me your face! " her figure
always vanished. Has this same dream come this evening while I wake? See,
yonder the lamps are lighted in your son's tents across the river; and on
this side behold the tent-domes of my Kauravas, like the suspended waves of
a spell-arrested storm at sea. Before the din of tomorrow's battle, in the
awful hush of this field where it must be fought, why should the voice of
the mother of my opponent, Arjuna, bring me a message of forgotten
motherhood? and why should my name take such music from her tongue as to
draw my heart out to him and his brothers?
KUNTI
Then delay not, my son, come with me!
KARNA
Yes, I will come and never ask question, never doubt. My soul responds to
your call; and the struggle for victory and fame and the rage of hatred
have suddenly become untrue to me, as the delirious dream of a night in the
serenity of the dawn. Tell me whither you mean to lead?
KUNTI
To the other bank of the river, where those lamps burn across the ghastly
pallor of the sands.
KARNA
Am I there to find my lost mother for ever?
KUNTI
O my son!
KARNA
Then why did you banish me--a castaway uprooted from my ancestral soil,
adrift in a homeless current of indignity? Why set a bottomless chasm
between Arjuna and myself, turning the natural attachment of kinship to the
dread attraction of hate? You remain speechless. Your shame permeates the
vast darkness and sends invisible shivers through my limbs. Leave my
question unanswered! Never explain to me what made you rob your son of his
mother's love! Only tell me why you have come to-day to call me back to the
ruins of a heaven wrecked by your own hands?
KUNTI
I am dogged by a curse more deadly than your reproaches: for, though
surrounded by five sons, my heart shrivels like that of a woman deprived of
her children. Through the great rent that yawned for my deserted
first-born, all my life's pleasures have run to waste. On that accursed day
when I belied my motherhood you could not utter a word; to-day your
recreant mother implores you for generous words. Let your forgiveness burn
her heart like fire and consume its sin.
KARNA
Mother, accept my tears!
KUNTI
I did not come with the hope of winning you back to my arms, but with that
of restoring your rights to you. Come and receive, as a king's son, your
due among your brothers.
KARNA
I am more truly the son of a charioteer, and do not covet the glory of
greater parentage.
KUNTI
Be that as it may, come and win back the kingdom, which is yours by right!
KARNA
Must you, who once refused me a mother's love, tempt me with a kingdom? The
quick bond of kindred which you severed at its root is dead, and can never
grow again. Shame were mine should I hasten to call the mother of kings
mother, and abandon _my_ mother in the charioteer's house!
KUNTI
You are great, my son! How God's punishment invisibly grows from a tiny
seed to a giant life! The helpless babe disowned by his mother comes back a
man through the dark maze of events to smite his brothers!
KARNA
Mother, have no fear! I know for certain that victory awaits the Pandavas.
Peaceful and still though this night be, my heart is full of the music of a
hopeless venture and baffled end. Ask me not to leave those who are doomed
to defeat. Let the Pandavas win the throne, since they must: I remain with
the desperate and forlorn. On the night of my birth you left me naked and
unnamed to disgrace: leave me once again without pity to the calm
expectation of defeat and death!
29
When like a flaming scimitar the hill stream has been sheathed in gloom by
the evening, suddenly a flock of birds passes overhead, their loud-laughing
wings hurling their flight like an arrow among stars.
It startles a passion for speed in the heart of all motionless things; the
hills seem to feel in their bosom the anguish of storm-clouds, and trees
long to break their rooted shackles.
For me the flight of these birds has rent a veil of stillness, and reveals
an immense flutter in this deep silence.
I see these hills and forests fly across time to the unknown, and darkness
thrill into fire as the stars wing by.
I feel in my own being the rush of the sea-crossing bird, cleaving a way
beyond the limits of life and death, while the migrant world cries with a
myriad voices, "Not here, but somewhere else, in the bosom of the Faraway. "
30
The crowd listens in wonder to Kashi, the young singer, whose voice, like a
sword in feats of skill, dances amidst hopeless tangles, cuts them to
pieces, and exults.
Among the hearers sits old Rajah Pratap in weary endurance. For his own
life had been nourished and encircled by Barajlal's songs, like a happy
land which a river laces with beauty.
