Chaitanya and Mira

Act One

Full moon night of Jhulan Purnima. In Miras temple at Brindavan she is singing before her Image of Gopal. On the right of the altar her Gurudev Sri Sanatan Goswami is seated beside the temple-priest, Pundarik. On the left, four sombre, whiskered pundits are watching intently. Behind her sit, with folded hands, a motley crowd of pilgrims, come from far and near, drawn by her name, music and holiness.

MIRA (singing in a mystic ecstasy, standing before the Image):

Friend, shall I tell you how I wooed

And won my Lord Gopal?
How the One for whom pine mighty saints
Responded to my call?

I knew but one code, trod one path:

Alone to the Alone.
They worship Him as the King of kings:

I claimed Him for my own.

The sages seek Him far and near

And still sigh unfulfilled:

I searched for Him in my yearning heart

And there He stood revealed!

I conned no books nor performed feats

Of high austerities.
I gladly hailed what He ordained:

My joys and miseries.

The learned fail to fathom Him,

The Vast and Mysteried:

He answered because I prayed to Him

My way lost soul to lead.

How can I ever, friend., plumb His ways ?

Can a bird span the space ?
I only fell at His lotus-feet

And He smiled on me, in Grace.

I cried for Him as for the mother

The child cries in the night,
And compelled. He leaned like sky to earth,

In love's divine delight.

{In tears of ecstasy she sang, describing

How Krishna, her one blue dream in desert life,

Delivered her from the underworld of Night

To boon her with the freedom of the sky,

Calling her His own child of dateless dawn

And she sang how she had groped for years for Him:)

MIRA (sings)

I sought Him in idols, temples, shrines,
Woods, hills and dales, alas, in vain!
With mantras and rites I worshipped Him
With lights and incense, time and again.

Till the saints revealed to me — how one
Must love the Lord one yearns to see
And I sang: 'I know I am dark and flawed,
Still I am Thy child and cling to Thee.'

So Mira, the derelict. He redeemed
And gave asylum at His feet
When, lo, in a flash, the ages' chains
Fell off— as He came her to greet!

(Her voice rose in a resonant crescendo

And, as she sang and danced in a mystic fervour,

The devotees acclaimed and kissed her feet;

Men bowed down to the ground; the women wept

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And even the children stared, bewitched — as she
In simple similes delineated
How the Blessed Lord installed her lowly slave
In His tender heart of evergreen delight.)

SANATAN (in a moved voice)

Oh you are bless ed, blessed Mira, my child!
For surely 'tis He, your Gopal, who inspires
Your ecstatic songs and dances, raining His Grace
On our earth's heart of drouth. Your mother is blessed
And blessed are all -who come to your holy feet.
0 lotus of light, flowering on darkness' stem,
Who have grown into a legend in your lifetime,
In this our world of din how shall we hail
You, minstrel of Gopi-love, to whom our Lord
Of bliss and loveliness, comes to reveal
His inviolable self of harmony,
Beauty and bliss, music and compassion
To manifest His soul of dream delight?
How through your voice He sings, day after day,
In ever-new lilts. His deathless melodies,
And visits the temple of your soul to seek
Your pure love's hospitality! 0 daughter
of divinity and stainless purity!
Sing on ... ever on ... dispense His nectarous ruth's
Lavish bounty...

(Thickly)

In this our world of greed

And gloom you come, missioned to teach us, misers,
How to win all thro-ugh staking one's all for Him,
To grow blue wings, with the sole power of faith
And make love's rose bloom on a mantra's stem,
The love that defies the wisdom of worldly prudence!
O incarnate audacity, who abandoned all
You cherished — to attain the viewless Peak
By dint of your one yearning for the heights!
We salute you who have come to initiate

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Our storm-sky lives with the dare of your star-poised soul!

(With a sigh)

We are, indeed, fool cripples who still prefer
Crutches to wings — we, realists, who applaud
The testimony of those who have not seen
And scotch the rapturous evidence of the seers!
The mud-lipped worms are real, but not the eagles
That pierce through clouds to revel in stratospheres.
The ghostly shadows are true because they abound,
But rainbows are pointless because their angel glances
Are few and far between! We indict Heaven
As heartless because none can have for the asking
Its endless riches! A few do, indeed, sing
Of the blissful Brindavan of selfless love
They come to know through the Evergreen Lover's Grace;

But nay, we must have a Grace on our own terms,

Build a religion of stark power and greed

And impose it as the unique real gospel

That can make us all happy on this earth!

Oh, when shall we accept the heart's lead of love

And aspire to see light where we see today

But a kingdom ruled by hatred's gloom or half-lights

Of transient pleasures which fail even to please?

So we appeal to you, O His beloved

Minstrel maid, you sing ever on — uncaring

Whether we, fools and dotards, respond or not.

You sing on and — who knows — you may achieve

With your unearthly voice and moving songs

What Pandits, priests and pulpit-preachers have

Striven in vain to bring home to our minds:

That faith and love are the twin angel wings
On which we all can soar to His Vaikuntha.

MIRA (falls, in tears, at his feet; then rises and, standing
before the Image with folded hands, starts singing again)
We home in His love's own domain,
Love is our heart's one refrain:

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When for love we lose our all,
We know all all we'll attain.

In love, in rapture, we sing,

Drink at love's pure virgin spring;

Come joy or come deep pain,

We'd live and die for our King.

Love-intoxicate are our eyes

Which strain but for love's sunrise:

We, minstrels of Brindavan,

Love His Face in our soul's dream skies.

We chant His one Name all day,

Consigning our lives to His sway
And, enthralled by His call, we dance

When He starts His flutelet to play.

We reck not of virtue nor sin,

Knowledge nor wisdom serene,
We hymn but His beauty and thrill

In His laughter's lilts evergreen.

Sings Mira: "We are love-mad, friend:

On love alone we depend:

Like love-lorn moths, in His flame

Of love we will merge in the end."

PUNDARIK (rises and folds his hands)

O mother, how you do transport our souls
With your angel voice, celestial songs and dance!
A time was when I did wonder at heart
If what you claimed you had seen were true! I felt
At a loss ... because I myself never had seen
In all my wanderings a saint who had
So swiftly attained the Goal: His lotus feet.
But your incredible personality,

So radiant, strong and yet so flower-pure,

Whittled away my crust of scepticism

And helped me glimpse in you the Lord's own maid.

As Gurudev so aptly said just now.

The Gopi-heart of Brindavan is yours

And so it is you can, in a moment, unveil

The starry secrecies of our great Lord's

Love and compassion through your beautiful songs

And heavenly dances of pure ecstasy.

(His voice grows husky)
And may I tell you something? 'Twas because
You blessed me with your Grace that I caught, at last,
The contagion of your vision creating faith
Which laughs dark doubts to scorn. For 'twas this faith
That fostered within me the Eye of Light
Which can see into the heart of things. And so
My doubts gave place to a deep reverence
For all that you stood for. Thereafter, oh!
Your every message and dance and song and smile
Did give a fillip to my aspiration.

(He bows his head and drops his voice)
I wanted, mother, to confess to you;

But a fear held me back lest you renounce me

If I owned that once I had dared dismiss

Your vision of Him as mere hallucination

And your claim to have compelled Him to descend

To dwell for ever in your heart as a sad

Delusion if not sheer pretension. Thus

I had deeply sinned because I had refused

To listen to the dictates of my heart

Which would fain have me bow to you at once

As one whose even anklets showered sweet lilts

Of Gopi-love that comes in this dark age

Only to a few, the blessed elect,

Whom His love, like a ruthless hurricane

Wrenches off their anchorage to be granted

Eternal refuge at His lotus-feet.

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(He heaves a sigh)

But something within me sought refuge in
My recalcitrance when your deep Grace had gripped me,
Till, slowly it dawned on me that those who spoke
Like your inviolate self, from summit-vision
(Attesting what we, on the plains, alas,
Can never glimpse) must first be venerated
Before we could presume to verify
Or scotch their findings, as the Gita says:

Shraddhavan labhate jnanam

For
How could one judge of what transpires on peaks
When one wallows in abysmal ignorance?

(With a sigh)
But even this is not all. He says in the Gita:

"Disclaiming all commandments, codes and dharmas
Take refuge in me alone. Have no misgivings:

For I undertake to deliver you from all sin."

I waved aside even this breath-taking pledge

As fabricated by His unscrupulous priests.

"For is not He," I asked, "the peak and plinth

Of spiritual life which must be grounded in dharma's

Inviolable codes? If so, how could He

Thus lead us astray — sundering trustful souls

From their eternal moorings: the moral codes?"

(Smiling a bitter smile of self-pity)
But the great Lord knows that fools cannot help but adore
Their folly and so must resent if His
Light comes down to deliver them from their blindness.
So little wonder that I saw the Gita's
Profoundest truths distorted through the haze
Of my idiot conceit.

(After a brief pause)

'Twas then you came,
Like moon on her golden chariot, cleaving my dusk
And, singing your way to Heaven, carried my dark,
Doubt-weary, peaceless soul to the very gates

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Of the Paradise of certitude — the eternal
Brindavan where the Evergreen still plays on
His haunting love's flame-flute. 'Twas only then
The meaning of love's surrender dawned on me,
The love which, once attained, we overpass
All moral codes, commandments, formal rites —

FIRST PUNDIT

Halt, fool yokel! A truce to blasphemy!
It is stark, staring lunacy!

(Bitterly)

To think

That you an old and sober priest should thus
Take leave of your senses — genuflect like this
To a woman, hailing her as your eye-opener!

(Snapping his fingers in contempt)
But you are but a stooge. 'Tis she who is
Responsible — the prime mover, chief offender
Against Divinity — His will and fiats
To which all among us must bow, or be
Excommunicated by Manu's law.

(Consternation among the devotees. A stifled outcry

ripples through them)

PUNDARIK (bridling)

How dare you, sire-

SANATAN (putting a restraining hand on his shoulder, in a

whisper)
Hush, Pundarik, my son!
There is no need. Mira can hold her own
Against them all.

PUNDARIK (surprised, in a subdued voice)

But still, must you allow
Insolent fools to insult our holy mother?

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SANATAN (smiles )

Can insolent rockets ever insult the star
By merely hissing at her diamond gleam?
I have an object. Let us witness His lila.

(Meanwhile the First Pundit has been answering back
excitedly at a dissident colleague in a low voice. At the
very moment he finally shakes his head and bursts out.)

FIRST PUNDIT

No, no! I will not listen. For I do feel
The call is urgent : accept her challenge we must.
Did you ever hear the like — a gospel of love
Gone mad! She must be told now some home-truths,
And made to see how grotesque seem her claims
When mirrored in the good sense of sobriety.

MIRA (smiling sweetly)

Forgive me, sire! For what I sang was not
The gospel of madness but of the sober Soul's
Discovery of the last Reality.
Whose other name is Divine Love. And when
This is borne home to our Radha-soul, she sings:

"Austerities, virtues, learning, genius, pomp,

Scholarship, prudence — these move not the heart

Of the world's Unique Beloved, the Evergreen

Swain for whom the eternal Radha-bride

In the soul of every one of us lives. And

He can be only won through simple love's

Petition and the ultimate surrender

Of all one has and is; my Gopal being

Pure love — He's best propitiated by

The offering of the guileless heart's deep yearning.

FIRST PUNDIT (his glance ranges the baffled faces of his

colleagues)
Did I not tell you? She is unrepentant

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And it is serious — I warn you all —
Because there is a method in her madness.
She has a way with her and so infects
Effusive women and simple rustics like
This senile priest who, in his turn, will start
Recruiting similar half-wits, calling trustful
Yokels to gather under her banner. So,
It is high time we put her in her place ...

(Turning hotly on Mira)
You do have a tongue which you know how to wag
To draw the credulous with your swift allure.
But you shall never take in those who can
See through your ruses. Humph! How can sobriety
Endorse your version of Lord Krishna's ways
And coming and going? It sounds all too quixotic!
You glibly mouth a string of hyperboles,
Feminine and absurd! Do we not know
How unattainable is our Lord, Sri Krishna?
Did not even the resplendent saints and sages
Apostles and Messiahs find the Path
To Him, the Lone, strait, difficult to tread
As the razor's edge? Is He not far-off like
The galaxies, elusive like the sky,
Vast like the sea, ineffable like Om
And, above all, is He not hard to please?
And yet you, garrulous maid — who are not versed
In the Vedas or philosophy, who know not
A word of Sanskrit, the alphabet of the Gods —
How dare you arrogate the Sage's status
And brag you are cradled in "your Gopal's" Love!

(He makes a grimace of contempt and turns his eyes upon

his colleagues}

Do use your brains, gird up your loins, friends!
I appeal to you: be scandalised and shocked!
To think that such an ignorant babbler should
Expect us, learned pundits, to believe
That the Omniprevalent, One-without-a-second

Has deigned to descend to abide for ever with her
And eat out of her hand, her little Gopal!

(He blows his nose angrily)
Humph! do we not know all about His ways
Through our high erudition and Yoga of knowledge?
Has He not over and over again proclaimed
In our hoary scriptures that none ever on earth
Can attain to Him save after years and years
Of stern and arduous austerities:

Self-discipline, fasting, vigilance, meditation,
And last, an intensive study of the Vedas?
Has He not promulgated: "Only the strong
Shall win through to the Self's inviolate light?"
Yet she vaunts — "her Gopal" never once exacts
From her what He imposes on us all!
"Her Gopal", indeed! Humph! The One who is
The Creator of the cosmos, the Absolute,
The immaculate Supreme who ensouls all!

(He takes a pinch of snuff, then jabs his friend seated

next to him)
Oh, wake up, friend! Say something, for God's sake!

SECOND PUNDIT (bridling)

Wake up? How do you mean? Surely, I
Am no somnambulist — nor was I dozing!
Only I wondered if one should in a temple
Flare up into a fracas. But you are right:

Our honour is at stake. We —

(turning with sudden heat on Mira)

Mira, listen:

You are delirious. You know Him not.
Is it not written: we must be pure as light,
Perfect as crystal, thunder-strong and, lastly,
Delivered from the siren Maya's bondage,
Live in the forest, for long years vowed to silence
And comtemplation and philosophy,
Embodied in the Tantras, Vedas and Gita,

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Before we can glimpse Him? Do we not all
Know to our cost that He smiles never on our
Manifold flaws and foibles of the flesh?
Your puerile, sentimental rhapsodies
And popular songs, I warn you, never shall find
Favour with Him, the Superconscient Brahma!

THIRD PUNDIT (in a tone of raillery)

I applaud you, my self-righteous friend! And therefore,
I also, duly furious, shall take now ...
Ahem ... my cue from you. We must all growl
In a body like a pride of wounded lions,
Maimed and down, but... ahem ... not out. Oh, no!
For lo and behold: are we not bristling with
Righteous indignation? And joy, as well,
Of course ... for is it not in tedious life
Delightful to explode and feel... ahem ...
Superior to a woman? And when one is
As cock-sure as we are (in a body, again)
That one is a paragon of wisdom and those
Who genuflect to other idols are fools,
Does not one walk on air, athrill that one
Is born peer of angels, model of virtue,
Sponsor of dogmas, teacher of saints and proctor
Of morals?

(Taking a heroic pinch of snuff)

So Mira! I say, you are doomed!
For you are innocent of all that we
Have learned through memorising reboant phrases.
Ergo, you have not the ghost of a chance against
Our august selves when you dare claim you see
Light where we ... ahem ... see but silhouettes
For your poor evidence is only ... ahem ...
A woman's, whereas ours is masculine
And therefore ... ahem ... strong, impeccable!

(The raillery becomes more pronounced)
You see, we are so erudite and can quote

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Torrents of fearsome dicta from the Vedas.

But you, frail thing, even if you have seen

Are out because you never burnt midnight oil,

Cramming on earth blue rumours of the Beyond.

So I ... ahem ... deduce ... I know not what

Follows from this ... but never mind ... for this much

Is certain that the great Vyas knew what he

Wished to convey when he blared like the trump of doom!

Kalena sarvam vihitam vidhatra

paryayayogat labhate manushyah;

Which means, most probably, that as one grows older
With time the present vanishes momently
Into the past, and that, the older one grows,
With the march of dreadful time, one is expected
To grow even wiser till one ripens ... ahem ...
Into an awful oracle, shall I say?
Never mind. Only ... where was I? Ah yes,
It all comes back ... we must rebuke you sternly
For being what you are. So Mira, I, too,
Must with my learned colleagues lash at you
For venturing to have seen what we have never
Glimpsed even once nor dare hope ever ... ahem ...
To see with our mortal eyes till they grow glassy
With cataract or deepening wisdom. Well, well!

(His eyes range the faces of his three colleagues and his

lips curve into a smile)
Is not that just what you would have me say?
I mean ... ahem ... thus crushing her with the weight
Of authority of books and howling down
With multiple frenzied voices that of a simple
Dame who can only sing and dance and thrill
But not overawe as we great pundits ... ahem ...
Do, first and last, and even in the middle ...
Oh, why must you shoot a fire-fly with a gun?

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FIRST PUNDIT (frowning)
Fool! hold your tongue!

SECOND PUNDIT

Nay, he's a flippant knave,

As we all know to our cost. But we, who are
Responsible guardians of society, must
Take action since it is no laughing matter.

FOURTH PUNDIT
I do agree. But how shall we —

THIRD PUNDIT

— in chorus

Drown with our scandalised tears her sparkling folly?
(A low titter of laughter ripples through the audience)

FIRST PUNDIT (in stentorian tones')

Silence! Good heavens! Is this a temple — or
A circus of clowns?

(To Mira)

I say, you must not mind

What my friend, the buffoon, said just now. I mean

We have no wish to be hard on you. But ... er ...

I mean ... you must learn to bow down to your elders,

Nor presume to ridicule the wise, our Sanskrit

Vedas and Tantras and the holy rites.

We only evolve in light through living in light

And not in the primitive world of our blind instincts

And impulses of the untutored mind.

Besides, an unlettered woman should be humble

And ignorance must never sermonise.

MIRA (placidly)

I assure you all, my venerable elders,
That I luxuriate not in sermonising,
Still less in ridiculing the holy codes.

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I only dance and sing to my Gopal
And speak my mind. But I do understand
Why you misunderstand me. I subscribe
To your verdict on my humble self. I own
I am an ignorant, unlettered woman
Unversed in the Vedas, innocent of Sanskrit.
Only I cannot help but wonder how
Can an intensive study of the Vedas
Or Tantras liberate us from our chains
Of worldly attachments? How can, sires, a mental
Philosophy lead us to the One who baffles
The mind and senses ? And how shall scriptures
Memorised heal the cravings of the flesh
Or curb the passions that lay us under the yoke
Of what the wise call Fate? And lastly, how
Shall ever learning help one glimpse Gopal
Who resides not in the books but in one's soul?
The sages who have realised Him have,
Indeed, attested: "We have known the One
Stationed beyond the mist of ignorance
And to see Him is to achieve the Goal of goals:

To taste the Nectar of Immortality."

But what have you achieved and known in life?

You merely cite the testimony they gave

With an eloquence more sonorous than convincing.

The saints have seen; you only prate the news

Of their great vision and experience.

But can mere erudite talk that someone else

Has tasted honey help one ever to know

How honey tastes and thrills and fortifies?

Can quoting the experience of a sage

Afford you even a clue to the deep fulfilment

Which he won through direct experience?

(As the pundits, nonplussed, looked at one another
And fidgeted and hummed and hawed in deep
Embarrassment, the loyal devotees

Of Mira, tickled, tittered again. She gave
A beatific smile and her twin eyes
Glistened with unshed tears as she resumed):

MIRA

But one who is touched by His own love, who's called
By His Flame-flute does pass beyond all cults
And the maya of words, words, words!

(With sudden animation)

But what have I

To do with the hollow drum of words — I who
His Presence feel in the adytum of my heart?
I assure you that my Friend and Mate Gopal
Does come to play at hide and seek with me
And sings and dances, too, with me, and daily
Nay, hourly, teaches me the art of love.
He knows, indeed, my countless flaws and foibles,
My sins and lapses, falterings and stumblings;

But He also knows that I do cling to Him
As my one and only life-line to salvation.
I count the world well lost for Him and draw
My every single breath from His love's breath
And see at every step by His eyes' light
And lean on Him and Him alone in life:

So He told me: I am His and He is mine.

(A hint of raillery creeps into her tones)
I do know, sires, how limited is my knowledge;

I know I am weak and frail and helpless. Only
One thing I know which you are yet to know,
Which may I tell you in all humility?

FIRST PUNDIT (cuts in sarcastically)

Humility, indeed! One who presumes
To bandy words with her superiors,
Erudite elders versed in the mystic lore
Of the Vedas! We will leave you to your fate
And visit your temple nevermore. You are

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Beyond redemption.

SECOND PUNDIT (indignantly)

You are right. Why cry
In the wilderness ? Come, friends, it is a sin
To hear her denigrate the hoary wisdom
Of our sacrosanct Vedas — we must ostracize her.

MIRA (folding her hands, deprecatingly)

I have said I plead guilty to the charge
Of being untutored, unsophisticated.
But how can it be a sin for one who is
Not learned to talk of what one has, indeed,
Experienced with one's every pore and cell?
Besides, why must I retire into silence,
Like guilty souls in torment, when I have
Known and seen, day after marvellous day,
What few have glimpsed in life? Sires, why must I,
Who have been in the clasp of my Gopal,
(The end and aim of even the greatest sages)
Disclaim such an apocalyptic vision?

FOURTH PUNDIT
But the Vedas —

MIRA (with a deprecating smile)

Woe is me! the old, old story!
The Vedas speak of what was seen by the sages
Who lived the Truth and so was authorised
To testify to what they had realised.
But those who never have glimpsed Gopal, alas,
Fall only into the snare of make-believe,
A maya of words which weaves a pitiful veil
Of noisy pride to get one reconciled
To a life of grievous gloom or phantom half-lights
And still — such is the maya of grandiose words —
That one who's domiciled in a land of dearth

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Unwittingly becomes its advocate,

Until he forgets that the soul's deep thirst

Can never be quenched by resonant quotations.

I claim I was answered by His Grace because

I did not seek Him in the world of words,

In overawing tomes of holy books,

Which our great forbears penned to help us follow

In their footsteps, but you prefer, alas,

To memorise them to mouth void shibboleths.

(with a sigh)
But from my childhood, I yearned for one thing:

The Raasa Tryst with my one dream: Gopal,
The savour of His love which no scholastic
Can ever know through books. I was impelled
By my deep thirst to seek His love's caress
With every breath and throb of my lone heart.
And so I only appealed in derelict tears
To my one Beloved whose love's Flute I had answered,
Who had wrenched me off my moorings, made me homeless
Till I found my home in Him and, to my joy,
Discovered that He can never stay hidden if one
Cries out for His union, staking one's all for Him.

SECOND PUNDIT (a little impressed in spite of, himself)

You mean you really found Him — your Gopal
Whom we call Krishna, the Lord Himself—the One
Who is the Primal Cause of causes, the Lone
Inviolate Light of lights, the One-in-all —

MIRA

Yes, sire, 'twas He, the world's Evergreen Beloved,
Who gave me asylum at His feet. You find
This incredible perhaps because the authors
Of the holy books omitted to put on record
That He comes to ignorant women even though
They have never sought Him in the way approved
Of the Vedas. In life, you hold, the bygone sages'

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Pronouncements are the only beacons and so
The zones their torches fail to illumine must be
Scouted as undivine and non-existent.

(With a smile)
How grand the verdict of your summit-wisdom:

"What bears not the Vedas' seal is a chimera!"
But can it not be that life has not yet
Been fully fathomed or mapped out by even
The holiest scriptures like your hoary Vedas?
(She draws a sigh)

But I'll bow down to you. Since you dismiss

My findings as invalid, I will not venture

To submit before your bench an evidence

So unorthodox and shocking. If you are loath

To listen — I shall be silent.

THIRD PUNDIT

But I demur.
For I do, mother, long to listen. Let them
Depart in outraged majesty in a file,
I propose to stay on to receive your blessing.

FOURTH PUNDIT (to the others, equally embarrassed)
What shall we do?

THIRD PUNDIT

The answer you'll find in the Vedas:

The frog thrives best in its little world — the well.

SECOND PUNDIT (indignantly)

Silence! ... We might as well give her a chance.
For after all, one should be kind.

FIRST PUNDIT (reluctantly)

As you wish.
(turning to Mira, sententiously)
We decide to give you a hearing. Tell us now

8

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What you meant when you said you knew one thing
Which we are yet to know?

THIRD PUNDIT

Wait — let me put in

A clause — to safeguard our resplendent status
That we wise men are not committed ... ahem ...
To anything ... and whatever you may urge
Can make no difference to us ... since ... ahem...
We know all there is to know on earth.

FIRST PUNDIT (shaking his fist at him)
You ... you black sheep! You ... you shall pay for this —

FOURTH PUNDIT

Oh, let him be—a chimpanzee will grin,
Dogs bark and insects screech.

(turning to Mira)

Now, Mira, tell us

What is it we know not and yet you know?

MIRA (with a faint smile flickering on her lips)

You know not, sires, that you go to Gopal
As a daughter-in-law goes to her mother-in-law
Who weighs her constantly, relentlessly,
Upbraiding her whenever she is found wanting,
And making an issue of her every stumbling.
But I look to Him as a daughter does
To her own mother in whose loving eyes
A child is to be treasured, never judged
Harshly as a delinquent brought to dock.
The mother, too, desires that her children may
Grow hour by hour into a perfect shape
And would not let them stoop to unworthy acts
Or have truck with the ones who are impure.
She corrects and curbs, but all the time with love's
Charity, understanding. She does, indeed,

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Chastise her child when it is called for — only

Never in the manner of a martinet

Or a stern judge. And this her daughter knows.

She knows: she never can grow old and ugly

In her mother's eyes, nor would she quail before her;

For she knows that from the moment she is born
She's bound to her mother with the strongest tie:

The golden cord of love, a love that could
Never misunderstand, still less denounce;

Gives but never expects to be repaid.

(The pundits glance at one another, looking somewhat

deflated)

SECOND PUNDIT (uncertainly)
Does it... er ... mean ... do you imply ...

THIRD PUNDIT (chimes in breezily)

Perdition!

SECOND PUNDIT (in a towering rage)
Behave yourself... or we will ostracize you.

FOURTH PUNDIT (impatiently)

Oh hold! Let us now hear her — for a change,
A little tranquilly what she implies.

MIRA

I imply that I approach my Gopal with
Full faith in His all-comprehending love
But you would treat Him — I'm amused to note -
As though He were your mother-in-law and so
You brood or wonder, argue or speculate
What he is like and how you'd cross the hurdles
He poses. I regard Him as my own
Own mother and father in one — I am, I feel,
The child of His dream, the apple of His eyes,
The breath of His indulgent, loving heart.

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FIRST PUNDIT {flaring up again)

We wished to give you a hearing, but... humph! your ...
Your subtle flings at us ...

MIRA (folding her hands)

Oh, do forgive one
Who is unversed in social etiquettes.
Believe me, I gave this simile not to have
A fling at your deep dignity. I only
Wanted to stress that I should have to act
Utterly out of character were I
To approach my Gopal with deep awe — because
To me He came day after rapturous day
As my Beloved Teacher who taught me only
With His sweetness and His charm that beggar description.
In sum, I submit that He came to greet me
Like moon's kiss on eve's brow. 'Twas so I came
To know through Love the miracle of His Love.
(She shivers and then breaks out into song)

Daily because of thy love. Lord, clay flowers into rose:

Wan water-vapour, soaring, &s a regal rainbow glows,
The dim worm is transformed into a radiant butterfly
And night's dark pain dissolves in sungold laughter of

the sky.

THIRD PUNDIT (in tears')

How exquisite! What music, images,
And, above all, expression!

FOURTH PUNDIT (reluctantly)

I must concede
Music can move our hearts in a way our minds
Can never understand nor reason explain.

SECOND PUNDIT (in a moved voice)
I know not, mother, how, all on a sudden,

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My heart's subdued with tears of ecstasy!
I sometimes felt of yore that all this vaunting
About high scholarship and formal ethics
Was hollow. But whenever a questioning
Made me uneasy I would look away —
Dreading to face the issue — to come to terms
With my incipient malaise or, shall I say,
Admonitory conscience? I am unsure.
But now something incredible happened to me:

When you were singing of life's night of pain
Melting in the sungold laughter of the sky,
I saw, lo! on your Gopal's lips a faint
But indubitable smile. I rubbed my eyes
And looked again — when this mysterious voice
(That often of old had warned me like a kind
But stern friend's voice before I stifled it
With all my erudition's studied folly)
Aye, this familiar, long-lost angel voice
Came to the fore again and whispered: "Do,
For a change, give me a chance. I want to take
You under my wing, but how can I — if you
Elect to flock to phantom banners and idols!"
And my heart was in a heave and I... I... I...
(He paused to gulp his tears)

FOURTH PUNDIT (after struggling with himself, capitulates)

Well, it's remarkable ... for I, too, glimpsed
Something inexplicable ... I saw her standing
In an aura of blue light!

PUNDARIK (smiling)

And so you have
To regret to own that this old priest before you
Had not taken leave of his senses, after all?

FOURTH PUNDIT (unable to contain himself)
Forgive, ) O mother, this your foolish son!

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How often have I not lectured on the Vedas'

Dictum that intellect nor learning nor

The claim to having heard deep words of wisdom

Can help one to attain the Lord — but only

The ones who are elected by His Grace

Can know His ultimate Self of Light and Love!

Nayamatma pravachanena labhyo

Na medhaya na vahuna shrutena
Yamevaisha vrinute tena labhyas-

Tasyaisha atma vivrinute tanum shvam

But not till today's revelation could

I really grasp the meaning of this couplet.

So you, the elect of His Grace, do bless me

That I may never again put on my blinkers

Nor let my conceit build a wall once more

Between my soul and the Light I have now glimpsed.

FIRST PUNDIT (theatrically stopping his ears with both his hands)

Sa no buddhya shubhaya samyunaktu

O, Lord, for mercy's sake, do keep me anchored
To good sense!

(to the other pundits accusingly)

Shame, shame, shame on all of you!
To think that all we have been taught since childhood
Should be thrown out to the four winds on an impulse
Of hero — or shall we say heroine-worship?

(turning hotly on Mira)
But 'tis you — you — who are the poisonous flux
Which vitiates the atmosphere. So I
Hold you to blame for all this heresy
And folly that have gone to their heads, alas!
And I warn you for the last time, Mira, now:

Playing with fire is not a harmless pastime!
Beware! Such false claims must doom you, in the end,

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To irrevocable disaster. You are dancing

On the brink of a dark precipice, nor delude

Yourself that wise men can be taken in

By such transparent ruses. Still less can

The Lord Almighty, be duped by a slip

Of a capering priestess posing as His agent,

Missioned to dower the blind with summit-vision!

(he laughs contemptuously)
Those who live in the Lord are shy, secretive
And, loth to parade the high boons they have won,
They dwell in caves, nor will, like you, set out
With all this cajolery to catch the eye.
Is it not written that one who attains His peace
Is changed into a vast and tranquil ocean
No deluge nor cateclysm can affect?

(sententiously starts declaiming)

Apuryamanam acalapratistham

Samudramapah pravishanti yadvat

(as Sanatan smiles, he turns on him in high dudgeon)
Why do you grin — you who are versed in scriptures
You should know better than to mock at wisdom!
Did not the Gita enjoin on all aspirants
To strive to attain the illuminate's sober poise,
Scorning the levity of charlatans?

SANATAN (giving a bland smile)

My furious friend! Whatever little insight
Has accrued to me at long last, I do owe
To her, the maid of Brindavan, the Eternal
Gopi whom they adore as Mira, the Queen,
Who turned a mendicant in Gopal's Name.
Aye, valiant friend! 'tis she who came to guide
And show me the sunlit path of Love when I
Was groping in the dark of pedantry,

The so-called jnana, waylost in the daedal

Forest of cryptic words. Her Godrapt life,

A canticle of all-surrendering love,

Has served me, in the late phase of my Yoga,

As the ultimate commentary of the scriptures.

So why not ask her — when she can, in a moment,

Untie a knot which takes such scholars as we

Years to unloosen?

FIRST PUNDIT (with a grim smile)

I will take you at your word,
Though I am no heroine-worshipper, I warn you,
Nor susceptible to sentimental gush,
Or the cult of lachrymose love. I can be only
Convinced by real achievement — not tall claims.

(turning to Mira, grandiloquently)
Mira, beware of the vulgar rabble — the fools
Who fall at your feet and blubber through their tears
Because you sing and sway in a trance of joy.
At your peril entertain the gullible,
To be, in return, idolized by them.
We, the wise, demand indubitable proof
That this your grandiose love has achieved wonders.
So hedge not nor mouth cliches: we insist on
A simple answer to a simple query:

If you are what you claim to be, to wit,
One who has met the great Lord face to face,
(The Unborn, Everliving One whom countless
Sages and saints and seers have, in all climes,
Hymned as the last Goal of evolving life,
The Sentinel whose consciousness broods over
The flux of Time and the vast, star-studded Space,)
How can you stoop to sing and dance before
All and sundry, a puppet of your emotions,
Utterly powerless to contain yourself?

MIRA (trying in vain to repress a smile)
0 fabulous omniscience! Have you never

Page 112

Seen how a mountain-stream descends when snow
Thaws on the heights — when gigantic swirling waters,
In a rapturous canter to meet the viewless deep,
Burst all embankments that stand in the way?
'Twas so His Peak Love rushed my love-starved soul,
Flooded my life and swept away all dams
Of social codes and moral interdictions.
picture to yourself, sire, a sudden hurtling
Avalanche of ecstasy shattering all
Tradition-worshipped dogmas and taboos,
And you will not find it in your gentle heart
To condemn me for my uncontainable joy
Which made me ride rough-shod over all man-made
Edicts and bans. Remember Who flashed out
Of the blue to court my hospitality
In a beggar's hovel: 'twas He, my Gopal,
Whose miracle Gleam transfigures oceaned glooms
Into rich rapturous continents of light!
Now tell me, when you meet such a glorious Being
(The touch of Whose marvel feet makes deserts quiver
Into song-gardens of amaranthine flowers)
And are told He has come to stay with you
As your heart's Guest forever, can you still
Refrain from dancing and singing in ecstasy,
To emulate the deportment of the ones
Who nod or frown or doze in sombre grandeur
Or tread the beaten track with faultless steps,
Never once stumbling till they, in due course,
Come to journey's end to merge back in the dark
Of fitful sleep hereafter?
(she rushes on in joy)

And so you see,
Failing continually to conform
To the laws laid down by the sober worldly-wise,
I laugh and sing and dance before you all
Because I have attained my dream: Gopal,
The Evergreen, of fadeless loveliness

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Whose love, through beauty manifesting, leads
To deathless bliss in our world of pain and strife.

(She points to the Image)
I have achieved the Eternal Light of lights
And housed in my heart as Guest the Primal Host
Of the universe, an achievement envied of angels,
A fulfilment even colossal seers and saints
Have craved in vain for aeons! Thrice-blessed am I
That the God of gods, beyond the reach of gorgeous
Emperors, should have come to stay with me!
How can you, sire, expect me, after this,
To comport myself like matrons prim and staid?

(She claps her hands in glee, like a child)

(As Mira's ecstatic voice rose by and by
In a mounting rush of mystic adoration,
The expression on the irate Pundits face
Underwent a gradual change. His angry eyes
First lost their hard glint, then, as she raced on,
The frown on his face gave place to a startled wonder
And the tension of his face relaxed. He gazed
From time to time at Gopal's face as Mira
Pointed to Him in tremulous rapture. Then,
As she emphasised her blessedness, he gave
An involuntary shiver and stood rapt,
Staring, like one bewitched, at Mira's Face....
Then as her voice trailed off, he faltered out:)

FIRST PUNDIT

O mother, I know not ... how ... it is so strange...
And incredible ... just now as I looked ... His face
Shone with an unearthly lustre. And a voice ...
An inner whisper ... spoke and ... how it, lo,
Tore at my heartstrings ... Now that I know ... at least ...
But no ... I only know that I have been
A pedant half-wit rich but in sterile pride.

(He gulps his tears and resumes)

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That is why I ... presumed to question your ...
Deep blessedness.

(He falls at her feet. She blesses him, after which he

rises and goes on, in tears.)
Only ... mother ... an egotist never can see
Truth in its true perspective. We all, alas,
See in the measure we grow and so we fail
To realise the crazy folly of pride.

(After a brief pause, suddenly blurting out)
O mother, I saw behind you Radha's face!

MIRA (smiles')
I know you did, my son, you are thrice-blessed.

FIRST PUNDIT (smiling through his tears)

I am, indeed ... because ... 0 mother, she came
To convey to me her blessing ... through your touch!
So the scales have fallen from my eyes at last.
Only you ... who know all there is to know ...
Must know how we grow to hug our folly... and how
Our egos blind us in such subtle ways.
And so, alas, we fail to see how we
Learn seldom from the school of experience!

(with a sigh)

We read, indeed, of bliss but only know
Brief joys which, too, alas, in this drab world,
Are few and far between and have, besides,
To be always bought with some pain or repining,
Because our revels never redeem their pledges ...
We are disenchanted and still... such is the maya
Of pride.... We tell ourselves that all is well
With the world and our blind world-enamoured selves.

(After a pause, with folded hands)
Only, mother, may I ask one more question

To have my darkness redeemed by your light?

(Mira nods and smiles)

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FIRST PUNDIT (after a brie/pause a/hesitation)

I humbly want to ask: if our great Lord
Has come to stay for ever in your heart,
Then why must you still intermittently
Cry out in pain? ... Why must your ecstasies
Leave desolate legacies of gloom and fear?

MIRA {gazes tenderly at the Image for a few seconds, then

turns back to the Pundit)
Let me tell you a mystic parable, my son.

(After a pause)

Once upon a time, in a far-off village,
A destitute woman begged from door to door.
They gave her alms, a pitiful quota was hers;

But she, poor starveling, somehow subsisted.
Now once, as she returned to her hut, she was
Startled to find a jewel in her sack:

An entrancing thing that sparkled, scintillated!
She loved the strange self-luminous talisman
Which transformed her hut into a paradise.
She hugged it to her bosom, guarded it
Jealously from all alien gaze till she
Began to be obsessed by fears lest thieves'
Should rob her of her one and the only treasure.
For it was not an earthly jewel: it made
Even dark clods and clay irradiant,
As though by a magic as incredible
As thrillingly indubitable!

(She gives a faint smile)

Now, sire,
Tell me: can it be that you have to be told
Why the beggar woman's heart would palpitate
In fear lest a chance robber should pounce on her
And wrest from her the jewel of jewels she had
Received in token of God's Grace!

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FIRST PUNDIT

I ... know Grace.

MIRA (cutting in, impetuously)

Pardon me, son! It is impossible
For us to know Grace truly so long as
We go on living tethered to happy homes,
Basking in the sunshine of security.
What His Grace is we cannot realise
Save through a shipwreck of our hopes and dreams.

(Folding her hands and ranging with her glance the

faces of the Four Pundits)

Sires, you are leaders of light and knights of knowledge,
Who are served by rich disciples, idolised
By all and sundry for your genius,
Eloquence, strength and personality:

How can you ever understand what has

Transfigured a lost derelict like Mira?

I had no talents to commend myself

To the One on high and yet He came to me!

I often ask myself: "Can this be real?

For suppose it were a make-believe, a phantom

Touch of an angel who, like lightning, flashes

To vanish again! Who knows?" In dread I cry

Lest I should lose once more my nonpareil

Jewel of jewels, the Lord who came to make

His home with me — my dream Beloved, whose

One little smile can fill the boundless Vast

With trillions of stars and galaxies,

Whose one glance can transform the dreary deserts

Into an Eden laughing with fadeless flowers.

(Her voice quavers and eyes glisten, but she quickly

masters her emotion and resumes)
Sires, only those who have trudged on leaden feet
Life's tortuous ways and sloughs of dark despond;

Who have borne the cruel flails of Destiny
And bled through stabs of traitor Calumny;

Page 117

Who staked their all at one throw of the dice,
Then lost all to be jeered at by the world,
And who still can nevermore hark back to the voice
Of calculating prudence playing safe:

Aye, only such paupers know the meaning of Grace.

(She breaks into a smile of irony)
Those whose houses are fenced with fortune's ramparts
Can never know the supreme bliss of His
Deep clasp of tenderness. He who on earth
Has all can never win the One who is
Beyond all. He comes only to embrace
Those who have none but Him to turn to ... Sire!
I cannot speak for others. I can tell
Only of what I know; so I can say
That His help came to me in the midnight hour
Of abysmal helplessness. And then I thrilled
And asked myself over and over again:

"Can it, indeed, be true — the Blessed Lord's
Answering the lone call of derelict Mira
And making her the recipient of His Love?
Was it not, indeed, incredible that I
So recalcitrant to His Light should be touched
By His resplendent Grace to incandescence?
Nor could I believe this till, one day, the heart
Of the hoary mystery was revealed to me.

FIRST PUNDIT (eagerly)
The hoary mystery? Of what?

MIRA

Of His Grace,

His alchemist compassion which brings off
Divine miracles in a human world
With just one touch of the mystic Flame of Love
The all-transfiguring, dross-intolerant Flame;

And this I understood when, one day, I
Witnessed an accidental forest fire.

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(After a pause for breath)

I saw gnarled, ugly trees and withered grass,

Sere leaves, dead twigs and miserable shrubs,

All came to glow in a moment in the fire

That touched them to its hue of liquid gold!

Even so, came my Lord to me, and then,

By the magic of His Flute's flame-alchemy,

He performed the miracle and kindled in me

The resistless conflagration of His love.

(Mira now paused and then, with folded hands
Upgazed at Krishna's Image, as pearl-like tears
Streamed freely down her beautiful cheeks. Then, swaying,
She chanted in a world-oblivious rapture:)

Mira {sings)
0 Peak of Love, O Deep of Grace,

0 all-transfiguring mystic Fire !
Who dancest thy victorious way

To golden all — clods, murk and mire !

Do I not know that Mira was
A drop athirst and thou the Deep ?
Hail, marvel Grace, who comst at last

To me, thy slave. Love's troth to keep !

(Mira pauses in tears and looks at Sanatan who beckons
to her. She comes and falls at his feet. He places both
his hands on her head in token of blessing.)

SANATAN (in a thick voice)

We are all blessed to have seen what few
Have seen on earth. And even among those
Who have seen how few do truly understand
You who are missioned with the Lord's behest
Inviolate our atheist world with your
Inviolate purity outflowering in
A carnival of heavenly songs! My child!

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Your life is a baptism of Heaven's own fire
That burns away earth's dusk of centuries
And, like a wizard, turns all obstacles
Into a crystal stairway to His Home!

MIRA (in tears, holding his eyes)
Bless me Gurudev, who led me to Him.

SANATAN (giving a radiant smile)

Oh, need you ask my blessing? Did I not
Bless you years ago — when you were a sweet
Child of delight and even then you sang
And danced to invoke His light — although you knew not
Your stainless self of Gopi-minstrelsy.

(His eyes glisten)

But who am I to bless one who is blest
By the deathless Minstrel-swain of Brindavan?
I only pray: may your great life be a beacon
Of all-fulfilling Grace that outlaws doubt
And initiates us in Radha's Love, revealing
Her everliving soul in each of us,
Singing her way to Him. You flow ever on,
A naming flood that sweeps away all dams
And hales even wan clods to be merged in the blue
Deep of His compassion where all is Light
And Love is coronated on Beauty's throne,
The Brindavan of bliss and harmony!

(Mira rises as all prostrate themselves at her feet; then
they, too, rise, including the Pundits who start singing
with her alternately, as tears course down their cheeks)

MIRA (singing with the others)

All, all, 0 friend, is a play of love

He sustains sleeplessly,
And binding us all with His love's chain,

He dances in harmony.

In love still rise the moon and stars

And the great sun gleams in love:

In love the oceans, rolling, glass

The sky-blue Lover above.

The clouds pour rain in love and the bird

In love in the woodland sings
And the shy buds laugh as smiles on them

Aloft the King of Kings.

In love woos Him the saint, and the sage
Merges in love in Him:

The Yogi renounces all in love

And in love He comes to redeem.

Love is the eternal law of life,

In love begs alms the Queen,
And Mira lost the world for the love

Of her Lord, the Evergreen.

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