Chaitanya and Mira

Act Two — Conflict

Next morning. A bathing ghat in the river Ganga of Navadwip. Two pundits, Keshav and Murari, are seen bathing close together, and a young woman, Romasundari, a few feet from them. Keshav who owns a 'tol' (Sanskrit school) is reputed for his scholarship. A man in the early sixties, with a flowing white beard and of an imposing appearance, he has a high opinion of himself. Murari, in the late forties, owns a similar 'tol' and is gifted with a sense of humour. Roma is a young widow of about twenty-five who, though poor and ekes out a bare living by spinning, comes of a good Brahmin family and was brought up in an atmosphere of culture and learning for which Navadwip has always been famous. But although intelligent and gifted with spiritual insight, she fears equally the Divine and the Devil.

KESHAV (with the Ganges water in his hands formally intoning a hymn)

O thou, red like the hibiscus, born of the Sage
Kashyapa, O vast Glory, who tirelessly
Dost with dark Night thy mystic battle wage
Redeeming all our sins! — I bow to thee.

MURARI
But have you not, sir, mispronounced a word?

KESHAV (nettled)
What?

MURARI

I only mean sir ...

KESHAV

You need not, I say.

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For nothing that you mean has any meaning.

MURARI (ironically)

But you behave like a judge who has gone deaf
And hangs the witness taking him for the robber!

KESHAV (furiously)
You dare —

MURARI

But sir, in daring who can beat you?

For if I have affronted a sombre human,
You insulted the hoariest God in Heaven,
Although the wicked sceptic may indeed
Ask if the Gods live not too far to notice
Your grievous accent you now flaunt so boldly!

ROMA (scared)

O Lord, my Lord Gouranga! Were you here
Ganga would ripple again with happiness.

KESHAV

Stop mumbling, woman! nor invoke a human
When nothing less than the Lord of thunder and lightning
Can blast the irreverent, as the Gita says
And when He'll come to relieve the earth of sinners,

(turning to Murari)

You shall be hauled to hell with your foul tongue
Reduced to silent ash. So shudder, fool!

MURARI (unperturbed)

There I'll obey you willingly, for once,
If only to swell the choir of Gods aghast
And shuddering, sir, at your pronunciation.
For it's for priests like you the Chandi wrote:

(He starts reciting in mock solemnity)

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Smile thou on me, O Goddess of Gods,

If my breath, unwittingly,
Has missed a vowel while I sang

Of thy Divinity.

Or if my tongue has mispronounced

A consonant in between,
In thy deep Grace, O merciful

Mother, absolve my sin.

KESHAV (contemptuously)

Yes, such implorings suit the philistines
Like you and those you teach, the lisping infants,
Who will stay lisping infants all their lives
Even as there are some others ...

(smiling proudly)

it's not boasting,
But truth is truth — although the blind, alas,
Never can see and so shall never know
That a few there are who stand out like to peaks
Whose greatness is thus hymned by the greatest Poet:

He who is master of himself

Will laugh to scorn his chains:

The thunder's boom and lightning's flare

His high-born soul disdains.

MURARI (bowing in mock humility)

Your high humility does, sir, overwhelm.
But even the high peak is laid low by earthquakes,
And that is why you stumbled over a word,
Let Nimai Pundit, the great, adjudicate.

KESHAV (sneering)

A mighty authority, indeed, this green
Infant of yesterday! And pundit! Tut!
Who knows not even the rudiments of grammar!

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ROMA (shocked)

But what are you saying, sir? Our Lord Gouranga
Was reputed as a prodigy of learning
At the age of twelve — when he had read through all
There was to read on earth. They say once came
A fearful scholar whose voice was like a gong
And this blood-curdling giant interpreted
A holy couplet faultily which he,
Our Lord Bishwambhar, pointed out and proved
In a great consistory of priests and poets:

And he was only seventeen at the time!

KESHAV

Oh, hold your wagging tongue, wench! How I loathe
This purblind hero-worship, bred by gossip!
At seventeen to be reckoned a great scholar!
Pooh! Have I not been poring over the great
Panini from the day I learned to lisp,
As everyone knows, and still — behold me, woman!
I have but just won through to the initial status
Of a fool!

MURARI (clapping his hands)

And how I applaud your judgment, pundit!
For the first time in my life — with all my heart.

KESHAV (frowning)
What do you insinuate, sir, may I ask?

ROMA

O sirs! I pray to you with folded hands:

Let not the little light of peace there is,
The little friendliness that still survives
Be blurred for nothing, as says Lord Bishwambhar —

KESHAV
You say it's nothing — when this idiot

Impugns my reputation as a pundit
Saying I mispronounce — I, who, a diver
In the oceaned wisdom of Panini —

ROMA

But sir,
I am a simple woman: yet I wonder ...

KESHAV

You may — and gape, too — since your starless soul
Will genuflect to dismal humans knowing
Naught of Panini's godhood.

ROMA (diffident)

But I, sir,

Was given to understand that your Panini
Was the author of a grammar, was he not?
How then could you, a mighty scholar, worship
A mere grammarian as a Sage of wisdom?

KESHAV (scandalized)

A grammarian? Woman! utter a blasphemy
At your own peril, I warn you! For the great
Panini was a Sage of sages who delved
Into the mysteries of the three worlds.
Only the morons fail to appraise his greatness.
His masterpiece is, even as the Vedas,
A compendium of all our human knowledge,
An apocalypse of life and destiny.
So prattler, beware! — I warn you once again.

ROMA (nervously)

I meant no harm, sir ... I... I... only wanted
To plead that our great Lord Gouranga is
Not a common man, but a holy Avatar,
A God incarnate in the human mould.
And may I humbly add: he too can lecture

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On the three worlds and the mysteries divine.

KESHAV (infuriated)

O hush, I tell you! I have come to worship
The Sungod in this holy river, Ganga,
And not to hark to dire obscenities.
What! Shall a human walking on two legs
Assume the status of Godhood? Oh, fie!

ROMA

Oh be not angry, good sir, I implore you.
But what do we know of God's ways after all?
We may indeed be versed in human things:

But the things divine, because they are divine,
Can hardly be ... I mean ... within our reach.
So how can you presume, sir, to assert
That the high Almighty could not for His own
Lila accept a human mould on earth?
The other day, while singing in ecstasy,
Our Lord Gouranga danced as though on air
And as he cried: "O Krishna, art thou come?"
His body did become self-luminous
As countless witnesses will testify.

(Her voice trembles)

And then. ... Oh, how can I with human words
Portray the superhuman miracle?
For as he went on singing, we saw a halo
Girdle his shining brow and all fell down
Prostrate at his twin feet acclaiming him
As an incarnation, in one human frame,
Of Radha and Krishna in mystic union!

KESHAV (touching his sacred thread in rage)
O horrible blasphemer! You are doomed
For ever: you shall be roasted in black hell
On a frying pan in the stinking oil of sharks
And the dread demons shall belabour you

With red-hot tridents burning all your hair
Till you'll be bald as — as this fool Murari
Who will insult me and yet bend his knees
To a callow youth and call him my superior.
Yes, he too shall be haled to Hades with you.

ROMA (scared)

I crave your pardon, sir. I will not say
One word more, nor ever dare to pitch
My poor opinions against the learned wisdom
Of a great pundit who has touched the bottom
With the plummet of reason lent him by the mighty
Grammarian Oracle.

KESHAV (propitiated)

I may forgive
If you will eat your words.

MURARI (interjecting)

But that's unfair.

If you would have her abjure what she still
Believes as true, then sir, you must not thus
Intimidate her with God's own fear of hell
Thrust into her feeble head. And what a terror!
For shame! A blusterer might sometimes behave
Like a gentleman for a change.

KESHAV (stammering in rage)

You ... you infamous

MURARI (smiling blandly)

Sir, tremble not in wrath. For say, how could you
Have the heart to freeze her timid, feminine soul
By the pathetic prospect of dire baldness?
Fancy, a woman whose long flowing hair
Rippling even as a sable waterfall,
Is envied of the Apsaras in Heaven —

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ROMA (blushing)

Pray laugh not at a girl. For it's, I tell you,
No laughing matter — but a dread nightmare
For a woman to be bald in hell or heaven.

KESHAV (chuckling)

I like that, Roma, and so will forgive you
This once: nor baldness nor hell need you fear.

(He looks upward and recites a Sanskrit couplet invoking absolution)

O Goddess, whose unfailing Grace

Redeems all sinners who cry in pain !
We bow to thee, we bow to thee,

We bow to thee — again and again.

ROMA (with folded hands)

And I too bow, in deep relief. But then, sir,
May I just tell you one thing — but... I mean ...

KESHAV (encouragingly)
Oh come, speak out — now that I have forgiven you.

ROMA (undecided) I'd rather not, sir. For I dread offending
The pitiless agents you just conjured up.
I hope and pray they may not visit me
In my dreams tonight — a poor and helpless wench
With not a friend in the world save mother Sachi,
The one and only neighbour who enquires
With her kind smile if I'm alive or dead.

MURARI (in mock solemnity again)

But I can tell you what she wished to say
But dared not, scared by your prognostications:

She wanted to return the compliment

To you, my pundit, when you recommended

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Her soul to hell and pate to perfect baldness.

KESHAV

You dare again crack such foul frivolous jokes
With me, your elder both in years and wisdom!
To hell you shall be consigned for this grave sin.

MURARI

God bless your tongue, for there I'll meet the youthful
Like Roma and not the senile erudite.
For 'tis not age gives wisdom. Look at Nimai
Who can defeat you in an argument
On anything — from Panini to Vishnu,
And he has lived but four and twenty years
While you are ancient as the barren hills.

(He chuckles mischievously)
Ah, that reminds me, sir, of something priceless.
The other day he gave a merry twinkle,
And said: "Age is a visitant strange like pain
Whose contact makes the wise into oracles
But the fools it matures into imbeciles."

KESHAV (foaming at the mouth)

I — I — curse you ... be doomed to deep perdition
And, solemnly, I challenge you and him
To a public debate where I'll expose you both:

And show you up as a witless ass and him
For a circus clown, a mountebank, impostor.

ROMA (stopping her ears)
Oh, utter such words no more, sir, I implore you:

For hell or not — I will not bear such base
Slander against my heart's one Lord and Guru.

MURARI AND KESHAV (almost simultaneously)
Your Guru!

3

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ROMA (defiant)

Yes — and my life's one peak and plinth
And none shall ever supplant him till I'm dead.
Yes, that was what I wanted now to tell you:

That my heart and soul had bowed to him, first and last,
As a being divine to whom the revealing light
Is native as is warbling to the cuckoo,
Depth to the ocean and wideness to the spaces,
Rustling to leaves and irised hues to rainbows,
Bloom to wild flowers and innocence to children.

(She warms up)
No wonder he's hailed by those to whom he comes:

Lone men and women robbed of joy by Fate,
For 'tis with such souls he consorts, our great
Lord of divine compassion, who will not bow
To the pride and pomp of haughty royalty.
And so he shunned not me, my King of Grace,
Nor ever withheld from me his angel smile,
The unfailing friend of every pauper in this
Our land of empty claims and clamours where
Book-lore banished the One the books have sought,
And resonant slogans came to enslave the mind;

Where the pedant priest talks glibly of things that slake .

No thirst of soul till we faint from pain and drouth,

Or else but mumble, half-deliriously,

Faint airborne rumours of the Ultimate

Ocean of nectar taking these, alas,

For the deep of Krishna sung of by the wise!

But we strive to fill the heart's void with vacuum,

Wooing the flitting shadows for the Form

And echoes for the Song .... Yes 'twas my Guru

Gouranga who has taught me this and all

I know, although 'tis little I have learned.

But what can a woman like me ever imbibe

Through her uneducated understanding?

I only know of one thing, my good sirs

And that's enough for a girl born ill-equipped,

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Who never was by fortune favoured, nor

Marked from her infancy by any gift

Or intellect, who lived through her lonely life,

A childless widow spinning from dawn to dusk

To eke out a bare living. 0 tell me what

Could such an ignorant and feckless creature

Hope to achieve? And yet, sirs, 'twas to me,

A flotsam on the crests of Time, a puppet

Of many moods that the Avatar of Grace

And Light and Bliss and Knowledge and Glory came

Unasked to give me a swift and everlasting

Asylum at his dawn-rose feet I kiss.

Everyday, in my waking hours, and nightly

In sleep or in my dreams I am cradled now

In an abiding peace I never knew.

And so a hope was born that even I

Might reach the Haven beyond my wildest hope.

It's God's truth — all I say, though you may smile.

MURARI

The pundit, mother, may — but I believe you.
For something upheaves in my breast and whispers:

Such miracles may happen even in this

Dark age of little living you described

As one inspired. I feel within my heart

A nameless beat of hope ... an exaltation...

A sudden wing-waft of a Bird of Fire. ...

A momentary glimpse of a mystic Truth

Through some chance opening ... rending of the curtain ,

An adventitious vision through a fissure

In our granite wall of jealous Ignorance.

I fail to account for what I see or why.

But this I know: it's something rich and living

Which is at war with its antipodes:

The phantom falsehood which yet seems more real
Than the great Reality while it holds out.
And so I too have lived a citizen,

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Even though sick of its hollow make-believes,
Of words, words, words — of soulless pendantry
Till it has grown now into a deafening blare.
No wonder we hear nought else but words today
In this our age of din. No wonder we
But grasp at shadows letting slip the Form.
No wonder Krishna has to be born on earth
Again and again and wounded by our arrows
That He may heal our wounds with his own blood:

To simulate our blindness that He may

Deliver us from our blindness grown so dear.

Who knows — our Nimai might be He Himself!

How can they who have not once glimpsed the King

Depose He has not come incognito?

So have no fear of hell nor listen, awe-struck,

To our arrogant friend, but follow your heart's one leading.

KESHAV (taunting)

The Sage never made a brighter observation
Than when he said: "A fool shines at his best
Until he breaks out into speech." And here
A mad fool, harnessed to a doting gossip,
Will be driven to doom, goaded by blasphemy,
Condemning the words of wisdom of the Scriptures
By ravings bred by suicide lunacy,
Little suspecting, while they wag their tongues,
That learning is only mocked at one's own peril.
But, as the Gita says: "Dark ignorance
Must babble true to its own inspiration."
No wonder night holds up to ridicule
The sunbeams when they hymn the bliss of light.

(His mounting wrath now gets the better of his sarcasm)
I pity you both who fail to reverence
The greatness of one who deigns to talk to you
Of sober sense to save you from yourselves.

(grandiloquently)
I am the son of Ramgopal the great

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Philosopher who taught me from my cradle
To lisp in Sanskrit, made me read Panini
From cover to cover when I was barely twelve,
At twenty I lectured on God's ways to mighty
Assemblies of the elect and erudite.
And you dare flaunt before me a simple swindler
Who has mastered only one art in his life:

How to impose on credulous men and women
And be adored of them as an Avatar
Of Vishnu Narayan — a modern Krishna!

(contemptuously)
An Avatar indeed! — a lachrymose
Day-dreamer who, with sentimental tears,
Has won the hearts, I wager, of a few
Gullible housewives! — Oh, what idiocy
Is this, I ask you: to hoist an earthly creature
On the altar of God Himself! No wonder we,
Blind Hindus, are now in full decadence.
No wonder aliens hold us in subjection.
It serves us right: you cannot perpetrate
Criminal heresies and yet stay moral!
I wish I could but once meet this Pretender
Who dare stand on the pedestal of Vishnu.

ROMA(stopping her ears)

0 hush, please — I implore you — or I must
Come here no more to bathe — ah, there he is!
Oh hail, my Lord! Deliver me from this —

(Sri Chaitanya''s voice is heard. ... Presently he comes
into view. He descends the steps of the ghat, singing)

Why will men say they know Thee not

When Thou still callst them so ?
How can the tree its roots ignore,

Or the river its seaward flow ?

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The eye wails: "Light's a myth, alas!"

The night weeps: "There's no dawn /"
Wherever I look — in diverse forms

I only see the One.

We win no peace because we love

The eddies of desire;

We cleave to darkness and then sigh:

"Why must the sun retire?"

No bud outpetals but opens her heart

To the blue's imperial call;

No bliss that visits but leaves a trail

Of Thy joy's carnival.

We hear not for we will not hark,

We would outlaw Thy Light
And then sob, exiles from Thy Gleam:

"Why reigns on earth the night ?"

(Roma ascends a few stepsof the ghat, weeping and falls down at Sri Chaitanya'sfeet. He blesses her. Murari salutes with folded hands. Even Keshav - moved in spite of himself - gives him an involuntary smile of greeting.)

MURARI
Oh, why do you pause? Sing on.

KESHAV

Yes, do my boy!

SRI CHAITANYA (bowing to him)
But, sir, my songs are simple.

KESHAV (somewhat off his guard)

True. But this

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I will concede: your voice has a pleasing timbre.
Can you sing a Sanskrit song — or even a couplet?

SRI CHAITANYA

Just a hymn or two. But I would rather not
Venture to sing before Your Eminence:

I may mispronounce some word. Before a pundit
Of your great altitude, who will not quail?

KESHAV (pleased and complacent)

But I'll correct you. Ignorance is no crime,
Unless, like mist, it clings to its native blur.
It's never too late to mend, my boy! And I
Am ready to give you lessons in Panini
And, through his medium, knowledge of Heaven and Earth.

SRI CHAITANYA

I am grateful. But, sir, I want only one
Knowledge — of Krishna, the One who is the home
And country of all knowledge, divine or earthly.

KESHAV (sententiously)

But that is wrong. You cannot, says Panini,
Attain the skies save on the wings of learning.

SRI CHAITANYA
But I love Mother Earth more than the skies:

It's here my Krishna lived and not in the clouds.
So I will now to Brindavan whose dust
Is hallowed by the touch of His feet divine.

KESHAV (smiling superiorly)

But this is spurious, sentimental gush.
For Krishna could at will defy the skies
And span the void as He revealed to Arjun.

SRI CHAITANYA
I know that, sir: or rather, shall I say,

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He has made me know that I know naught of His
Deep ways. I only know that Him I need
To adore and love more than to plumb or measure.
And even Arjun was overwhelmed, remember,
By what he saw — and, dismayed, supplicated:

"O Blaze of Fire, with suns and moons for thy eyeballs!
Thy multitudinous, universal Form
(With a myriad mouths and orbs and tusks and bellies
And maws which darkle even as the abysms,
And stature which fills the sky and chokes the spaces)
Makes me dizzy with terror dark as doom.
Lo, into Thy gullets rush the mighty heroes,
Even as rivers streaming to meet the ocean
Or moths which enter the flame of their destruction.
0 tell me who Thou art, I bow to Thee.
Discover Thy lone apocalyptic Self
Whose ways are vast beyond imagination."

(He smiles cryptically)

And who was the great suppliant? A giant whom
Krishna Himself assured in His pledge of Grace:

"Thou belongst to Me, 0 Arjun, even as I

Belong to thee: whatever is Mine is thine

And whoever hates thee must My essence, hate

And whoever loves thee shall grow dear to Me."

So when the mighty Friend of God himself

Was baffled after having known and loved Him,

How could I hope to score where he had missed?

I am not made of his great heroic stuff

Or yours, sir. To each his Eden. Nor would I venture

Beyond my depth.

KESHAV

But what then do you want?
A man must be a man and act like one.
Worship is not enough: you must win knowledge
Even as love — unless you hate true vision.
Suppose your Krishna came to you, what would you

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Ask of your Lord, my boy?

SRI CHAITANYA (his eyes filling instantly)

What would I ask

If He, my Krishna, came to me. His slave?
Could there be any asking then? But no,
I would ask something. Shall I say it, sir,
In a Sanskrit song — since you invite me kindly?
(He breaks out ecstatically into song)

Renown nor wealth nor a paragon

Of beauty. Lord, I crave
Nor even the Muses will implore:

I long to stay Thy slave.

Through countless births this boon unique

I sought, may Thou approve:

My heart be surrendered at Thy feet

In an unbargaining love.

KESHAV (once more moved in spite of himself)
This is... not bad. But who was the composer?

SRI CHAITANYA

Why ask the human author's name when all
That thrill our souls derive from Him alone?

KESHAV (with asperity)

If a son is born one wants to know the father's
Name — and the mother answers if she's chaste.
A straight and simple question calls for a straight
And simple answer.

SRI CHAITANYA (smiling sadly with a tinge of irony)

Sir, you walk in light
And I do envy you and yet... I wonder ...
For a question may seem straight to a simple child

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But not to an adult. The one infers the gold
From the outer glitter: not, alas, the other
Who has been disillusioned. And yet how oft
Have I not vainly searched for an answer — when
The Lord of Life has put the question straight:

"If thou hast loved Me more than all the world,
Why dost thou still hark back to siren life
When My Flute calls to thee to leave thy all?"

MURARI

Oh, do not say you are called to leave us all:

Our only light in this dark Navadwip,
The only minstrel in this mart of clowns
And the only poet in this hive of pedants.
None but yourself in this benighted town
Could ever compose the lovely song you sang.

ROMA (enthusiastic)

You guessed aright, sir. Who else but our Bard
Could make such a song divine?

KESHAV (curling his lip)

Impossible!

The song's in flawless Sanskrit. Tell me, Gora —

ROMA (hotly)

But I am telling you: it's he himself,
And he has composed many more as flawless.
Oh, listen, sir! Some seven years ago
A famous poet came with a bunch of poems.
But when he read the poems of our Lord
He sighed and said: "Oh, who will read my stuff
After such lyrics as these?" And then our Bard
Just laughed and flung away his sheaf of songs
Into the Ganga that the other might win
The fame he coveted.

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KESHAV

But that was wrong.
As said our learned poet, Kalidas:

"Pearls never woo men but will be wooed by them."
And the pearl of pearls, the laurel of laurels, is learning.

(reproachfully)
Mother Saraswati is fastidious
Nor visits all and sundry but demands
That those she favours set store by her boons.
Woe betide the philistines who will not
Welcome her smile of Grace.

SRI CHAITANYA (with a smile of sad irony)

You are her favoured
Beneficiary and therefore know, sir,
What is right action and what is the reverse,
Being virile of conscience and enthroned in science
Of the erudite. Only, I never have sought
What you, the pillars of society, crave.
I wrote my poems nor for fame nor lucre:

I wrote them, sir, because I felt like giving
Voice to an urge that clamoured to be born.
And, as I sang now: even from my childhood
I have but longed for one boon and no other
Whose name is Krishna. Him alone I have loved.
And yet I have craved other things as well.
(Not for nothing I feel now too bewildered
To answer a straight and simple question simply,
Nor can I claim my nature is consistent.)
But as time passed, a nameless melancholy
Deepened in me and with it my one yearning
For Him who plays His haunting Flutelet hiding
Behind a veil ... and with my years there grew
In me a strange averseness to our earth
Of shadow and fire and evanescent gleams...
I felt I was being weaned from all I once
Hailed as the most desirable of God's gifts.

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I was dismayed and strove to temporize ...
To dally with what they called life's greatest boons.

(He shakes his head sadly)
But alas, when one is seized with a mystic passion
One cannot help but let oneself be taken,
Even as a ship caught in a violent cyclone,
When naught avails — helm, rudder, stars or compass,
And I must now wend — whither His gale will lead.

KESHAV

Oh, come my boy, all this will never do.
You must not throw away the tangible
For something which no real prudence can
Ever approve. Beware of the mood of folly
Which hankers after the moon — as say the poets.
The Flute of Krishna is a myth, a legend,
An ignis fatuus no wise man would chase.
Come, I now offer voluntarily
(A thing I seldom do — but one must strive
To save one's fellows from dire suicide):

You come to me: I will take you in hand
And wean you from this perilous fantasy.
I confess I judged you harshly from reports.
For I see in you potentialities
Rare as diamond. If a trifle wayward,
You are lovable and gifted and endowed
With humility: I was unfair to you.

SRI CHAITANYA (with a bow, smiling)
O utter not, sir, such a monstrous thing:

For surely you and unfairness could never

Hive together. Can error and erudition

Live locked in love — the sun and morning mist?

KESHAV (taken in)

You are ripe in judgment, dear boy. But, sometimes,
Even mountaineers may stumble on level land.

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However warily one marks one's steps,
Our human mind, like flesh, must come to grief
On occasion, though the wise grow taller in wisdom
Even through pain. And 'tis in this true wisdom
I offer to initiate you, my son!

SRI CHAITANYA

Your Grace is overwhelming sir, I own.
But I regret 'tis too late now: tonight
I leave my home and all for Brindavan,
A mendicant in His name.

ROMA (stifling a cry)

What! You, my Lord!

MURARI

It is incredible, Gora! For you are
The only pledge of sun in our deep night,
The only thrill of song in our wrangling din,
The beloved of all, the hope of Navadwip,
Whatever a few benighted fools may say,
Who do not count.

SRI CHAITANYA (heaving a sigh)

No more than do the others
Who will acclaim me or extol my gifts.
For only one thing counts on our dismal earth:

The loving approbation of Sri Krishna,

Beside whose one sun-smile of welcome pales

The whole world's chorus of applause or jeering.

KESHAV (impatiently)

But what, in the name of sanity, are we here
Debating now? What is this approbation
Of Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma or Indra?
And how can a human consciousness be sure
Of the Gods' approving smile or deep or pale?

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It seems to me, this, stark midsummer madness!

(He fixes Us eyes on Sri Chaitanya's)
You do not claim, I hope, that Krishna plays
His Flute for you alone in this big world?
So I infer you are joking.

SRI CHAITANYA

Never have I
Been more in earnest, sir. Last night my mother
Gave me her sanction that henceforth I may
Put on the ochre garb of a wandering beggar
Living for Krishna on the alms of others.

MURARI

You mean: you will forswear the obligations
You owe to her and to your —

SRI CHAITANYA (nodding)

— wife and friends
And what men in common parlance dub 'the world'.
For I heard Him calling: "Stake your all for me."

(He turns to Keshav)
You may, sir, deem this, too, midsummer madness;

But he who has heard even once that hauting call
Can to another hark back nevermore.

(He shakes his head ruefully)
But no, 'tis futile striving to explain
What happens to one's psyche when one hears
His mystic Flute so soft and yet imperious.
One might as well, sir, strive to put in words
What love's eye sees in the beloved's face.
And so, may I suggest: you put away
My madness, as you call it, from your mind.

KESHAV (insistently)

But this is serious, since your mind, my son,
Is a trifle unhinged; for when you claim that Krishna

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Is weaning you from this our world of Karma,

You indulge your fancies. For no God-note ever

Calls one away from the world of fact to loll

As a lotus-eater in a hanging garden,

Nor sanity desires to drift away

From its cherished moorings toward a meaningless

Life of the parasite — the mendicant's.

Come, come, my lad! You are a green youth still

Who cannot tell the right move from the wrong;

And men of wisdom will unanimously

Tell you: "This giving up the world for God

Springs from a wrong escapist urge — an impulse

Calamitous because it makes one end

In the stagnant bog of a purposeless existence."

SRI CHAITANYA (animatedly)

But what use is this existence we eke out
From day to day, sir — drifting, drifting, drifting
On the crest of circumstance? You talk of the world
Of fact: but what is this world as we see it?
Is it not an aimless round of pointless squandering
Of our most precious energies on — what?
Building on the plinth of hopes a house of dreams
Our dismal wakefulness makes tumble in ruins:

A legacy of tears and questioning sighs,
Composing raptures' overtures that end
In desolate finales of frustration.

KESHAV

Come, come, you are no country innocent
Who fails to understand that two and two
Make four. It is too mad by half, it's senseless,
This ideal, long outmoded, of leaving all
One's given by God Himself for God! My boy,
I adjure you not to barter away the real
For mere moonshine. Besides, where would you go?
To Brindavan? For what? Sri Krishna's Light?

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But as a God He must pervade all space:

How could He live a prisoner king in one
Small hamlet? Come, a householder must keep
His own dear house in order first and last.
Frustration? Can one stave it off by being
A lone escapist, a recreant? Furthermore,
How can a son his duty shirk to his own
Parents who ushered him into this world?
How can a man desert a faithful wife
And, once a father, cease to love his children
And rear them till they grow to their full stature
As men and women? Each has his own dharma
Assigned to him which he may not disclaim.
In the Gita did not your own heart's Lord say:

"Even death accept to fulfil your native dharma?"

SRI CHAITANYA
He did, sir. Only who will tell me now:

What is my native dharma in this world ?

KESHAV (with a superior smile)

Oh, I can answer that. Yours is to be loyal
To your worldly duties which, as a man of the world,
You owe to the world. Had you been born an orphan
Reared by homeless vagrant mendicants,
You might perhaps have roamed the woods and scaled
The hills and gone on begging from day to day,
Knowing no better — living an otiose life.
One could forgive these. But when one has been
Born to a family of birth and breeding,
One cannot even plead one's ignorant;

And so, my son, I'd solemnly remind you
You cannot chase and cull a skyborn bloom,
Nor turn your back upon a useful life
To accept a parasite's whose only claim
To our compassion is that God made him.

Page 42

SRI CHAITANYA

You are a seer and prophet — whereas I
Am born unarmoured for this alien world
Of high-sounding responsibilities.
The Gita says: "One cannot flout one's nature,"
The wise see from their wisdom's aerial towers:

The fool from his abysm of folly and blindness.
One cannot achieve a stature not one's own.
We are born we know not why, and ask in vain:

Why we comport ourselves like helpless puppets,

Driven by unseen forces, lured by strange

Urges — like foams on tides of chance and fate.

We hark at every turn to invisible prompters,

Swayed often against our will this way and that!

We voyage on but rarely come to port,

And what we coveted but yesterday,

Find, when we grasp it, but a thing of shadow.

Like rockets we zoom to return to earth — mere ash.

We are haled by life but our souls stay baulked of peace.

This is the ancient tale of human fate.

It seems a riddle to the outer eye,

A chimera calling the more as it recedes.

The householder reads great sermons on life's march,

Hugging his chains that cause his feet to bleed,

With no destination set — far less a goal!

He cites sonorous phrases from the books

To prove that our hearts' Ever-living Beloved

Is regnant allwhere when, alas, his own

Heart mopes unsated — ignoring the simple truth,

Life's stark experience, that until one loses,

Through loving Him, the last trace of one's ego,

One hunts in vain for a trace of His Omnipresence.

But one who has not loved Him never can know

How the pilgrim soul yearns to the faintest echo

Of the past and through its self-lost concentration

Can work the miracle and resurrect

A frozen cadence into a living Presence.

4

Page 43

How shall he know that love's great magic can,
Through symbols, touch the One they symbolize?
How can stone feel with the heart-beat of the bud,
Or mind see with the eyes of lovelit soul.

(He looks straight into Keshav's eyes and smiles)
But undivining what it has not glimpsed
Nor doubting its own reason's sanity,
It trudges on like the camel who only knows
The load of sandal-wood but not its scent!
The multitude accept this blindly — claim
That the bale he weds must bring forth ultimate bliss.
But does it, sir? Does life fulfil its pledges?
I hope 'tis a question straight and simple as well?

KESHAV (embarrassed)
I know not what —

SRI CHAITANYA

. If you will pardon me,
I'll make it simpler still: have you, sir, ever
Stood before a mirror and scanned your face?

KESHAV (awkwardly)
A mirror? ... What a question? ... I decline—

SRI CHAITANYA
I beg you'd answer. Have you ever looked?

KESHAV (at bay)
Well, yes, I — but — this is preposterous —

SRI CHAITANYA

But why sir? — since Panini never enjoined
On his devotees to shun the mirror like hell?

KESHAV (dignifiedly)
I must resent such childish levity —

Page 44

SRI CHAITANYA (smiling)

I apologise. But suffer me to explain:

When I formulated this my simple question,
'Twas nor irreverence nor levity
Prompted me, sir! I only meant to hint
That if you scanned your own eyes in the glass
You would agree they were not radiant
With bliss nor light that came from self-fulfilment
Nor even the certitude that one was treading
The right path and no other.

(He pauses and holds the other's eyes)

And I will hazard:

Even so rayless are the eyes of all

But a tiny handful. Listen: by chance last evening

I saw a mendicant with a begging bowl

Come to my door. I gave him a plate of rice.

He blest me and then fastened his eyes upon me.

I stood like one bewitched. Then something strange ...

Oh, it was wonderful! ... For as I gazed

Into his eyes effulgent like twin stars,

I felt they sprayed deep bliss into mine own

And a rapture I experienced never before

And a peace of which there is not even a hint

In your great eyes irradiate with learning.

Why must I then, sir, for this famished learning

Come to your door a-begging? What can you give me

Who are at heart a pauper for all your wisdom?

And what is the worth of this your worldly knowledge

Which, for all its opulence, cannot even compete

With a beggar's fortune? A tree, sir, shall be judged

By its last fruit. The tree of human achievement

May be dense with the greenest leaves and rarest flowers,

But never till now has it been known to bear

The fruits of peace and bliss and harmony

Which we must pine for and could never rest

Until we found them. Something deep within us

Must goad us sleeplessly and make us lose

Page 45

Our sleep till the dream of sleep be realised,
And the worldly wisdom is not this last dream
Of our restless aspiration which, as a seed,
Must sprout and grow till it attain its zenith
Fulfilment which is Krishna —as the eyes
Of this strange mendicant reminded me,
Stinging me last night with the peace they shed.
Oh! do not glower at me in indignation,
For I came here not to argue but to bathe:

'Twas your own harangue on my worldly duties,
Your castigation of the beggar's bowl,
Evoked my comment. I would only beg
To submit — science nor art nor worldly wisdom
Can furnish groping life with the clue to life's
Inscrutable purpose, the clue we seek in vain.

(He smiles quizzically)
You did, sir, take my measure when you said:

I was not the fool I looked. I know the Scriptures

And the philosophies with all their commentaries.

You will forgive me if I claim I am

Versed in Panini and the Vedic lore,

And can declaim on entire Brahmasutras,

Lecture on metaphysics and improvise

On these like pundits till the insomniacs

Shall doze off into sleep for weariness.

But I confess — such wordy feats have never

Led me to the Home my homesick, orphaned heart

Longed for in vain — till, last night, in a flash,

The veil was rent and, overwhelmed, I saw

That for that beggar's simple happy heart

Throned in the love and bliss of the King of kings

I could barter all my learning away for good

And the fame I have won as a great scholar and poet

And the envied self-complacence that accrues

To a burgher of respectability.

(He warms up)
And this is no mere fancy of a fool,

Page 46

A sentimental dreamer. For I have drunk
Deep at the fount of worldly bliss as well:

I have known how precious is the mother's love,
How sweet the embrace of a loving wife,
How beautiful a pupil's loyalty,
How delectable the sympathy of true friends.
But still our life, as I feel more and more,
Is a quest ever deepening, through all that attend us,
For something that, starting as a nameless ache,
Grows even as a tree until its every rustle
Dissolves in a dirge, a questioning: "Whither, Oh! whither
Shall wend my Radha-heart to find her Krishna
Who plays at hide and seek, I know not why!"

(He lowers Ms voice somewhat abashed)
I came here not to be theatrical,
Far less to read you a tedious sermon, sir!
How could I, an ignorant, who only knows
That he knows not even what he once believed
He knew infallibly. I speak not of the great,
The elect, who commune with the heart of Krishna.
I cannot even claim I saw my way
Clearly through the maze of wrestling forces
Till 'twas relentlessly borne home to me
That so long as one probes with human eyes,
One cannot even tell an avenue
From a blind alley, and that, when in one's groping,
One takes a forward step — one seldom can
Be sure one will not land in a fatal pitfall.

KESHAV

I take it, you are highly-strung, my boy,
And so imagine ghouls in every bush.
For I wonder if you grasp the implications
Of what you now contend in your deep doldrums.
'Tis true that to be wise is to be wary,
I'll even concede that sometimes one may find
It hard, at life's cross-roads, to know which path

Page 47

Will lead to the heights and which to the abyss.

But even when one owns one's apt to err

Through ignorance or inexperience,

Surely it would be folly to assert

One never could move a step avoiding pitfalls.

Ah no, my alarmist, sentimental pedant!

Only the blind can say: they see no light

In their hearts' caves to guide them to the Goal.

SRI CHAITANYA

But what's the Goal? For unless this were known,
How would the guiding light reveal the Way?
With no sun how would you tell the east from west?

KESHAV (pouncing on him)

Ah, there, my boy, I have got you at long last.
For the sun is there on high and even so
There is in every heart that breathes a sun
Assuring our nights that daybreak's not a myth.

SRI CHAITANYA (with an ironic melancholy smile)

I am defeated, sir. I knew I would be.
Could it be otherwise? Could a humble spark
Prevail against an avalanche of wisdom?
But I too knew the sun must still exist
Even when the ruthless logic of night disproved it.

(with a deep sigh)
Only, my soul now traverses the night
Whose shadows make light dim as a dream-glimpsed face.

KESHAV (triumphantly)

I know, my lad. Man's life can never be
Like to a child's who has no knowledge of death.
To err is human and none can win wisdom
Except through tribulations. And the highest
Knowledge is only born through a painful travail.
And that is why to the learned you must turn

Page 48

And hark to the oracle of experience:

The wise you must consult, and they, our saviours,
Said with one voice: it's folly not to want
To be circumspect — marking one's every step.
None can be reckless with impunity,
Part never, my son, on an impulse of the moment
From the harbour men have built against the fates
With infinite pains and courage and vigilance,
Nor give your ears to Voices of the Night
Which lead men to the abyss with the pledge of Heaven.

(He pats him on the shoulder)
Wake up, sleep-walker! it's high time; remember:

You have a loving mother, a doting wife,

Loyal disciples and admiring friends.

God's all very well: I know the mystic longing;

But He is not ensconced in the skies alone,

A rootless Presence. "All", say the Vedas, "is He,

The Brahman." Also, the Sage of Katha said

Vibrantly: "What is here is there as well,

And what is there must here on earth be traced."

So deny Him here at your own peril, son!

For never then shall you find Him anywhere.

But find Him here and then you'll sing with the Saints:

"Krishna is on land and water and mountain peaks."
One should be sane and normal in one's seeking.

SRI CHAITANYA

Ah, now you are caught, sir, by your own words' snare.
For words are faithless, sir, and will betray us
Alas, too often, conjuring up a world
Of utter unreality and hoist us
On a phantom throne with no sign of a kingdom;

And, constantly invoked, they will induce us
To take chimeras for the flickerless beacons,
The shadow for form and make us home in voids
Of perfidious fantasies and make-believes
Which are worlds away from soul-experience.

Page 49

(He shakes his head sadly)
And so the great Acharya Shankar said
In his own peerless vein of irony:

"You may discuss the boon of a medicine,
But no cure's for you unless you take it, friend!
Even so through great discourses none shall win
What's only by experience attained."
And so be not offended if I tell you
That all you say is true and yet false, false,
Like love or death enacted on the stage,
Whose aim is to perpetuate the Maya,
The great Illusion, which is cosmic life
Espousing compromise to breed perversion.
Forgive me if, when I applaud your thesis,
I flout it still as null — as when you quote:

"Who finds Him here must find Him everywhere."
But what if you miss Him here for all your seeking?

(He heaves a deep sigh)

I too once mouthed these words of hollow wisdom
Of the Sun in the soul, the Guiding Voice in the heart.
But they speak to me no more as once they did
When I, like you, sailed on their nomad crests
And went on drifting, coming never to harbour.
I blame you not, sir. How can I find fault
Who am still unsure of everything but this
That I must burn my boats and may not tarry
A moment more?... My die is cast. I know not
Why this great yearning has possessed me so
That I cannot choose but yield to it — surrender
All, all my cherished lights and preconceptions
To its imperious call and take the plunge.

(A cryptic smile flickers round his lips)
Not that I love life less, sir, I assure you;

Nor even that I am grown too blind to see:

I have a lovely wife who may, in the end,
Die of heart-break. I saw my mother crying
And sobbing till I felt her heart would split.

Page 50

But still I may not linger here although
I long to cling to the painted shore of life
With all its magic gleams! But something stronger
Than destiny will sunder me now for ever
From this our siren world of tears and laughter;

Of voices that ring like sweet familiar bells;

Of eyes that shed caressing love-warm light;

Of dear old footfalls that bring shivers of joy;

Of chequered plains I have explored in rapture;

Of the very dust hallowed by memories

Of ancestral feet; of temple-carillons

That wake me athrill at morn; of chirping birds

That greet me day by day; of loyal cows

That yield me milk so sweet; of faithful dogs

That jump at me in a frenzy of delight;

Of purring cats that woo me for caress;

And not the least, this rippling, purling Ganga
Whom even in dream I hear reproaching me
For leaving her for a nameless far-off phantom....

(His voice grows thick)
All, all have grown into a part of me,
My being's core, the marrow of my bones.
And yet I cannot stay... I know not why,
Or whither I am going. I only know:

I must find Him who, for His mystic Purpose
First tethering me Himself to alien roots,
Will now uproot me thence once more for some
New rhythm of His deep dance to manifest,
Wrenching me from this magic world of beauty
He made me love so dearly. So bid I must
Farewell to you and all: I have no choice.

(He smiles again cryptically)
But take it, pundit, I am sane and normal,
For the hearts of all I still feel with my heart-beat.
I have lived intensely, loved with all my passion
And fire and can still answer love with love
And touch with touch.

Page 51

(He stifles a sigh)

And yet my all I must

Stake for my All-in-all whose haunting Flutelet

Calls to me in my wakefulness and dream:

"Oh come to Me, my Radha-heart, delivered

From thy last anchorage: put out to sea,

The shoreless Deep accept, cutting away

From thy dear moorings set thy bark adrift

To founder, if it must, in My bourneless Bliss."

(He throws his hands up and goes into a trance, Murari
and Roma fall at his feet. ... Keshav gazes fixedly at
him with folded hands as tears trickle down his cheeks.)

Page 52