by Tanika Gupta
RANI:
I hate it here.
HARI:
Tomorrow…we can go to the docks…see if you can get passage…
RANI:
Have there been many other women Hari?
HARI:
What?
RANI:
Am I just one of many stupid young girls you bring back here?
HARI:
Stop talking rubbish.
RANI stands and screams.
HARI:
What? What? Shhhh…
RANI stares in horror at a spot in the room.
RANI:
I saw a rat…there…there!
HARI laughs.
HARI:
Is that all? This is London – it is full of rats.
RANI rushes over to HARI who holds her.
HARI:
You are a big baby Rani Das. And I love you.
HARI giggles again. He falls back on the bed.
Come and lie down. We are friends, yes?
HARI cuddles RANI and sings her a folky song from Bengal to make her feel at ease. RANI joins in falteringly. HARI strokes her face.
HARI:
There, that’s better isn’t it? I am sorry Rani. To be honest, Lascar Sally’s is the only place that would take us for the night, so I had no choice. There are many people from our land who end up living on the streets, starving, begging.
RANI:
In my village, guests are treated as gods.
HARI:
That is the problem. We were too nice to the foreigners and so they decided to stay and then started bossing us around our own home.
RANI:
After all these years, my mistress only saw me as ‘the offspring of her servant’.
RANI and HARI embrace.
HARI:
To me, you are an Empress.
RANI:
I was so happy to come here. Thought I’d have such adventures and stories to tell my grandchildren. Instead I may end up begging on the streets.
HARI:
Rani – your name means ‘Queen’. You could never become a beggar – you’re too clever.
One day, I will make my fortune. There are diamond mines in Africa. I just need to find one little shiny piece of glass and then you and I could live happily. Go back home, buy you expensive silk saris and me, I don’t want much – just a pair of nice shoes. You could open a school.
RANI:
Yes! I would love that!
HARI:
You are a natural born teacher.
And I could make all the furniture in our house. Tables, a little rocking chair, a rocking horse even!
RANI:
Rocking horse?
HARI:
For our children to play on. A girl called Lata, after my mother.
RANI:
And a boy called Prasad after my grandfather.
They both laugh excitedly. HARI kisses RANI. She kisses back.
HARI:
I will be your man and you will be my woman. We will watch our children grow and we will grow old together.
They kiss again but when HARI tries to take it further, RANI pushes him off.
HARI:
What? We were getting on well.
RANI:
No. Not like this. Not in this place.
HARI:
Rani…
RANI:
No Hari. It is not what I want.
RANI gets up and crouches in the corner of the room again.
HARI:
Suit yourself. I thought you liked me.
HARI turns his back on RANI and falls asleep. RANI sits and stares at him.
SONG: CAST ADRIFT THE STARLIGHT
Reeling in the night,
Twilight turning the tide,
A city with a cautious sun.
Sky full of amber, calling
The daylight falling
In circles on the shoreline.
Cast adrift the starlight,
Souls all sailing out in the dark.
Cast adrift the starlight,
Follow the compass of a wheeling heart.
Watching the sparks,
Beacons burning apart
The dream of a distant sun.
Ocean full of amber, calling
’Til midnight falls
In circles on the shoreline.
Cast adrift the starlight,
Souls all sailing out in the dark.
Cast adrift the starlight,
Follow the compass of a wheeling heart.*
As night descends and the revelry downstairs quietens down, RANI takes out the compass ABDUL KARIM gave her and places it in the palm of her hand. She stares at it for some time and then gets up and leaves the room.
In the morning light, HARI sits up in bed and holds his aching head. He looks around the room.
HARI:
Rani?
HARI gets up and calls out.
RANI! (Shouts louder.) RANI! RANI!
SALLY enters, dishevelled hair.
SALLY:
Stop your hollering Hari. Everyone’s sleeping.
HARI:
Is she downstairs?
SALLY:
She’s just gone.
HARI:
Gone? Where?
SALLY:
I dunno. She left you a note though.
SALLY hands over a note to HARI.
HARI:
She’ll get lost…she doesn’t know her way around…how will she…?
HARI stares confused at the piece of paper. (He can’t read very well.)
SALLY:
Read it then…what’s it say?
HARI:
I can’t focus…the drink last night. Oohhh… my head. Can you read it?
* Lyrics by Dom Coyote
SALLY:
How can I? It’s all in Bengali. I dunno what you did to her last night…heard her screaming.
HARI:
Screaming?
SALLY:
Nearly sent the cavalry in but…
HARI:
She was afraid of a rat.
SALLY:
Got a lot of scary times ahead of her then hasn’t she?
HARI:
She didn’t say where she was going?
SALLY:
No. Basically her ladyship was too good for this place and she’s scarpered.
You tried to take advantage of her didn’t you?
HARI looks ashamed.
SALLY:
You men, you’re all the same.
HARI:
She doesn’t know anything about this city.
SALLY:
She’ll learn soon enough to fend for herself. Just pray that she don’t end up in the workhouse…or worse. She’s a pretty girl and we all know what happens to pretty girls in this city. Alright, show’s over.
SALLY exits. HARI looks at the letter upset.
SCENE 7
Windsor Castle.
QUEEN VICTORIA is sitting at breakfast. ABDUL KARIM is serving VICTORIA some food. LADY SARAH is sitting nearby doing some embroidery and watching like a hawk.
VICTORIA:
Thank you Abdul.
ABDUL bows.
How are you today?
ABDUL:
Thank you for asking Your Majesty. Sadly, I am not, shall we say, in the peak of health.
VICTORIA:
Nothing serious we hope?
ABDUL:
I have caught a slight chill ma’am. I am just unused to the climate…it will take some time.
VICTORIA:
Lady Sarah, perhaps we should ask Dr Reid to take a look at Mr Karim?
LADY SARAH:
I shall arrange it, though I suspect the doctor has more pressing engagements seeing to the royal members of the house.
ABDUL coughs ostentatiously.
ABDUL:
Lady Sarah is right. I suspect it is simply a cold that will pass.
VICTORIA:
And are your sleeping quarter
s to your liking?
ABDUL:
They are sufficient to my requirement ma’am, thank you.
LADY SARAH:
I would have thought that the royal servants’ quarters would have been more than ‘sufficient’.
ABDUL smiles and bows.
ABDUL:
Just a little drafty.
LADY SARAH is amazed at ABDUL’s nerve.
LADY SARAH:
I understand Indian blood is thinner than the English. You must feel the cold more than we do.
VICTORIA:
Is that a biological fact Lady Sarah? Surely we all have the same corpuscles and blood cells. We share all the same human physiology do we not?
LADY SARAH:
Yes but, there are differences Your Majesty.
VICTORIA:
We understand that it is very hot in India. We never visited a tropical country you know.
ABDUL:
That is a great pity ma’am. If you had but visited there once, the heavens would have showered the land with rose petals. That is how blessed we would have been with your presence – ma’am.
VICTORIA smiles.
LADY SARAH does not like the Indian’s flamboyancy.
VICTORIA:
Tell us about your city. Agra?
ABDUL:
It is a very beautiful city. Ma’am.
VICTORIA:
(Impatient.)…and?
ABDUL is unsure how much to speak.
ABDUL:
Of course, it is dominated by the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. In memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz. A monument to the most highest love, between a man and a woman.
LADY SARAH looks uncomfortable.
VICTORIA:
Our late husband, Albert was fascinated by the stone work of the Taj Mahal. He would spend hours poring over portraits and sketches of the building.
LADY SARAH:
I have seen sketches too.
ABDUL:
But you have not really ‘seen it’ until you have stood before it.
VICTORIA:
Do describe it to us.
ABDUL:
My words cannot do it justice. In English…
VICTORIA:
Try.
ABDUL:
It is breathtaking, overwhelming.
VICTORIA:
And how does it make one feel when one gazes upon it?
ABDUL:
It feels like…forgive me this is difficult to put into words…
VICTORIA:
Please, in your own time.
ABDUL searches for the words.
ABDUL:
It feels, it feels… As if Allah himself is watching over us.
Filling the air with love and reminding us why we are put on this earth…almost not a building of stone and marble, more a dream floating enticingly, perfectly in one’s line of vision.
LADY SARAH:
The Emperor must have loved his wife very much.
ABDUL:
She was his favourite wife and he was devastated when she died.
LADY SARAH:
Giving birth to her fourteenth child I understand?
ABDUL:
It is said that Emperor Shah Jahan’s hair went completely white overnight and that he went into mourning for two years.
LADY SARAH:
(Barbed.) Only two…?
VICTORIA:
Is it true that it changes colour according to the time of day?
ABDUL pours the QUEEN some tea. She looks at him eagerly.
ABDUL:
Yes ma’am.
VICTORIA:
It must be a most extraordinary vision.
ABDUL:
It was more extraordinary than it is now. I’m afraid your soldiers ma’am and officials have chiselled out the precious stones so now…
VICTORIA:
They are all gone?
ABDUL:
Yes. Looters over the years have stolen the carpets, jewels, silver doors and embroidered tapestries. My father says that when he was a boy English men and women used it as a pleasure resort, dancing on the terrace. May I?
ABDUL: ABDUL puts out his hands to VICTORIA. She takes his hand coquettishly and he pulls her up in a gentle waltz around the room. LADY SARAH stands, outraged.
LADY SARAH:
Ma’am! I must insist!
VICTORIA:
Oh do hush Sarah.
ABDUL dances gently with VICTORIA around the room. LADY SARAH stands and watches in horror. VICTORIA is like a giggly schoolgirl, hanging on ABDUL’s every word.
VICTORIA:
What happened to the Emperor? Wasn’t there some sadness at the end of his life?
ABDUL:
There are stories that he planned to build an identical black marble mausoleum for himself on the other side of the river, which would be joined by a bridge. But he was unable to bring his plans to fruition. His son Aurangzeb led a coup and seized power. He imprisoned the old Emperor in the Red Fort where he died.
VICTORIA:
How tragic. To be treated in such a manner by one’s own blood!
ABDUL:
You can still see that in Shah Jahan’s quarters where he was imprisoned, small mirrors were inlaid into the wall so that he was surrounded by thousands of reflections of his Taj Mahal. Like stars in the sky.
VICTORIA:
Like stars in the sky.
ABDUL:
He was carried over the river after his death where even today he lies alongside his Queen Mumtaz.
VICTORIA:
For all eternity.
ABDUL stops dancing and guides VICTORIA back to her seat. She is quite overcome.
LADY SARAH looks at ABDUL suspiciously.
SCENE 8
It is early morning and we are back at the Tilbury docks.
FIROZA, an Indian woman in her late thirties is sat at the docks. She has a large bag and is eating a piece of bread. She is dressed in a black Victorian dress/uniform of an ayah and is cuddling a baby. She is humming a song and is of a very cheerful and slightly eccentric disposition.
RANI enters. She looks a little dishevelled and worried. She paces. FIROZA watches for a while and then calls out.
FIROZA:
Hey! Girlie!
RANI stops and turns. FIROZA smiles and waves at her. RANI approaches her.
Good morning!
RANI nods.
Lost your way?
RANI:
I am…yes…I…
FIROZA:
Come and sit down. Don’t be frightened.
FIROZA pats the space on the bench next to her.
RANI looks relieved.
FIROZA:
First – Introductions – Firoza Begum, from Nagpur. (FIROZA salaams.) And you?
RANI:
Rani Das – from Calcutta. (RANI does namaste.)
FIROZA:
You looking for work?
RANI:
My family dismissed me – after the voyage over. They promised me a position and then…
FIROZA:
Happens too often I’m afraid.
FIROZA puts her arm around RANI and offers her some bread.
FIROZA:
Go on – eat. It’s a bit stale but ’least it’s something in your belly.
RANI:
(Takes some bread.) You are very kind. Thank you.
FIROZA:
So, what happens next little Rani?
RANI:
They said they’d given me enough money for a passage home – but when I went to try and buy a ticket…
FIROZA:
It wasn’t enough.
RANI looks distraught.
RANI:
I wish I could swim back.
FIROZA laughs heartily. RANI can’t help but smile.
FIROZA:
That’s a good one – swim – eh? Too far to swim, can’t pay for your passage – where have you been staying?
RANI:
>
A sailor took me to a place called Lascar Sally’s last night.
FIROZA:
Lascar Sally? How is she?
RANI:
She seemed…rough.
FIROZA:
She’s a good woman. Has a tendency to get a bit too involved with those rascally lascars. I think she’s rather partial to a bit of brown skin.