Three Plays

by Gurcharan Das

  ACTOR 2: I am already that.

  ACTOR 1: We are thirsty.

  ACTOR 2: I shall get some water.

  ACTOR 1: When drinking water remember the source.

  ACTRESS 1: (Chanting.) On top of the highest heaven, above the dwelling place of the gods, by the dark and gentle river lives Krishna, the eternal lover.

  The sunshine on the riverbank blues his slender shoulders as he joyously bathes to the sound of the Name, the sound current.

  In the dusk of the day an eon long, beside the blue-flowered meadow where cattle graze, peacocks dance and nightingales sing, the blue-lover plays his flute.

  Women of the world and goddesses of the heavens hear his call and leave their homes and husbands, and honour go to him. And they love him.

  The blue-god, ever young, laughs and plays and wrestles with them in the shade of the scented sallow wood tree, and fulfills their yearning hearts—every single one of them.

  Krishna the beautiful, the radiant, the graceful, the exciting, is giving and receiving joy.

  ACTOR 1: Here we are! Where is the Rani? Doesn’t the Rani come to greet the Rana?

  ACTRESS 2: Prepare the fire for the holy anointment!

  ACTOR 1: The Rana has lost, and there will be no fires.

  ACTRESS 2: The Rana has won the biggest victory.

  ACTOR 1: It is all over, and I am tired.

  ACTRESS 2: Mirabai is the Rana’s victory.

  ACTOR 1: It is all over, and I want the Rani.

  ACTRESS 2: The Rana cannot touch Mirabai.

  ACTOR 1: Since when, is she Mirabai?

  ACTOR 2: What has happened to her?

  ACTOR 1: What is wrong with our sister?

  ACTRESS 2: I gave her a cup …

  ACTOR 1: Is there another man?

  ACTRESS 3: She is the purest queen in the world.

  ACTRESS 2: To preserve the honour of the family, forgive me, O Krishna, I gave her a cup of poison.

  ACTOR 1: The Rana slaps his sister.

  ACTRESS 2: She drank from the cup, and it was nectar to her lips. She sang and we knew.

  ACTOR 1: Mira has gone mad.

  ACTRESS 3: That is not all. Two days ago, she was in the garden picking flowers. I was with her. In her flower basket I saw a snake. I screamed with terror and asked her to run inside …

  ACTRESS 2: I heard the scream and came out. She was playing with the snake.

  ACTRESS 3: She was singing to a deadly poisonous cobra.

  ACTOR 1: Jhali has also gone mad.

  ACTRESS 2: She has changed us all.

  ACTOR 1: Women without men become mad.

  ACTRESS 3: She is a saint!

  ACTOR 1: She is my wife.

  ACTRESS 1: (Song Celestial.) There is true knowledge,

  Knew it is this:

  To see one changeless life in all the lives,

  And in the separate, one inseparable!

  ACTOR 1: Does the whole kingdom know that my wife is mad? The peasants want any excuse to swallow miracles. But my sister should know better.

  ACTRESS 2: Dear brother, she has raised Mewar to its highest.

  ACTOR 1: I have lost the war; I have lost my wife.

  16. Why Should I be Angry?

  ACTRESS 1: Enter Mira looking detached, serene and beautiful in white.

  (Procession of the idol.)

  ACTOR 1: Mira!

  ACTRESS 1: Yes, Rana.

  ACTOR 1: Are you well?

  ACTRESS 1: Yes.

  ACTOR 1: Why didn’t you come to greet me when I arrived?

  ACTRESS 1: I was praying.

  ACTOR 1: Did I disturb you?

  ACTRESS 1: No.

  ACTOR 1: Rana trying to keep the conversation going.

  We have come home.

  ACTRESS 1: Yes, I know.

  ACTOR 1: Aren’t you happy that we have returned?

  ACTRESS 1: Yes.

  ACTOR 1: I failed.

  ACTRESS 1: No.

  ACTOR 1: Come here and sit down.

  ACTRESS 1: She sits down beside him.

  ACTOR 1: He takes her hand and tries to sound enthusiastic. I missed you.

  ACTRESS 1: Did you?

  ACTOR 1: Why is your hand so cold?

  ACTRESS 1: Is it?

  ACTOR 1: Are you angry with me?

  ACTRESS 1: Why should I be angry?

  ACTOR 1: Rana trying to make a joke, but actually deadly serious.

  I should be angry. You have been playing with snakes and drinking cups of poison, and making a fool of yourself.

  ACTRESS 1: When wine finishes you turn elsewhere; when youth finishes you turn inside.

  ACTOR 1: You are going!

  ACTRESS 1: The real treasure is inside me.

  ACTOR 1: Come upstairs to sleep with me.

  ACTRESS 1: I have to wait for Krishna.

  ACTOR 1: Where is he?

  ACTRESS 1: He is inside me. Just as the seed is in the tree and the tree is inside the seed; so I am in him and he is inside me.

  ACTOR 1: Come later.

  ACTRESS 1: Krishna stays with me the whole night.

  ACTOR 1: I’ll lie down here.

  (And he lies down.)

  ACTRESS 1: Mira begin to fan him.

  ACTOR 1: You too, lie down.

  ACTRESS 1: I am not sleepy.

  (He feigns sleeping for his own pride’s sake. She continues to fan him.

  She gets up, blows out the lamp and is about to leave when the Rana tries to embrace her forcibly.)

  Don’t touch me.

  ACTOR 1: You are my wife.

  17. Don’t ask the Blindman the Way

  ACTRESS 2: Does the Rana know that we are leaving?

  ACTOR 2: Yes.

  ACTRESS 2: Did he say anything?

  ACTOR 2: Nothing.

  ACTRESS 2: What did you tell him?

  ACTOR 2: I told him that … that Mirabai and Uda were going off to the Vrindavan forest.

  ACTRESS 2: Did he believe you?

  ACTOR 2: He knows he has lost you both forever.

  ACTRESS 2: How is he?

  ACTOR 2: Lonely.

  ACTRESS 2: Oh Jai!

  ACTOR 2: He is having a temple built for Mira. He forgets she is going away forever.

  ACTRESS 2: Jai, why don’t you stay on a while, and look after him.

  ACTOR 2: This is his wife’s duty.

  (Pause.)

  I have to live my own life. (Passionately).

  If you wise and saintly people have given up living, why should I?

  ACTRESS 2: Rana appears in the grey light of the door. He has a tragic radiance.

  ACTOR 1: Jai, I think we need more colour in Mira’s temple.

  I feel fresh after a cold bath in this hot weather. Let’s have a drink to cold baths!

  I remember the day she arrived. She brought youth, love—so much of it. She used to go to the garden to pick flowers early in the morning.

  She used to follow me like a shadow, wherever I went, afraid we would be separated. She wouldn’t eat until she had fed me by her hand …

  (The Rana repairs the tank after it is empty.)

  ACTOR 2: Time doesn’t turn back.

  ACTOR 1: Ask them to stop those bells! If the people want to follow Mira’s god let them do it quietly.

  ACTOR 2: Those are Kali’s bells, Rana.

  ACTOR 1: Kali is leaving us. If Kali wants to leave, let her leave quietly.

  This house is doomed. There will be no more Ranas, no more victories, no more Kali, no more Mewar. It is over!

  ACTOR 2: The house of Mewar must live forever.

  ACTOR 1: When you’re not going to live a hundred, why plan for a thousand.

  You are going too, Jai?

  ACTOR 2: Yes, Rana.

  ACTOR 1: It is going to be quiet here with everyone gone. I can smell the emptiness. I am going to spend the rest of my days amusing myself by counting the spider webs growing from floors to the ceiling. Old age comes slowly, especially if you have to wait for it.

 
18. I’m Blinded

  ACTRESS 1: Shh … my friends. Silence! I hear the flute. He has come. Oh look, he smiles at me. The time has come. I have waited all my life for this moment. The time for the play is over and I must leave. I am a bride today and I’m going to his home of infinite happiness.

  He is calling now.

  Dance, my heart! Joy! Mira is in the arms of her beloved.

  Listen to His melody. O world, hear His divine Name—the glory of His Word. And see how the hills, the sea and the earth sway to the rhythm of His sound current.

  (Mira’s Song.)

  Mira’s heart feels so light. I am free—free from life and death and time. Look at his light, shining like a thousand, thousand suns. My eyes shrink from his splendour, brilliant like fire, blazing, boundless. Ah, it ravishes me! O light of lights! He outshines the brightest moon and star. I am blinded. But how I love my blindness. I’m blinded.

  (Fade)

  Note

  The play is in one act to be performed in one sitting. All actors are on stage all the time; there are no exits or entrances. When actors speak their stage directions, they do not generally enact what they say. Action does not stop when a dance is indicated—the dialogue continues throughout the dance, as a visual and emotional aid to the actors’ words.

  It is best to use Mira’s original songs. The best translation is by Shama Futehally (In the Dark of the Heart: Songs of Meera, Harper Collins, New York, 1994) from the original by Deshrajsinh Bhati, Mirabai aur unki Padavali, Ashok Prakashan, Delhi, 1962.

  9 JAKHOO HILL

  The first performance of the play took place on 6 June 1996 at Kamani Auditorium, New Delhi, with the following cast:

  Karan Chand (Mamu)

  Bhaskar Ghose

  Chitra

  Sinia Jain

  Deepak

  Rupin Jayal

  Amrita

  Kusum Haldar

  P.N. Rai (Rai Saheb)

  Ajay Balram

  Ansuya

  Shyama Haldar

  The production was designed by Anjolie Ela Menon and

  Produced by Joy Michael/Ajay Balram

  Directed by Sunit Tandon

  Characters

  [In order of appearance]

  MAMU (KARAN CHAND)

  CHITRA

  DEEPAK

  AMRITA

  RAI SAHEB

  ANSUYA

  The action of the play takes place over two days around Diwali in 1962 in an upper middle class house at Jakhoo Hill in Simla. The play is in four acts, divided by an interval during Act 3 when Ansuya and Deepak leave for her room

  Act One

  [Opens on Karan.]

  KARAN: Thank you for coming this evening to watch the unfolding of the events at 9 Jakhoo Hill, Simla. The play is set in 1962. It revolves around two families of Lahore and what happened to them after Independence, or, more correctly, after the Partition—that great tearing apart, which reduced people to elemental, fearful creatures; desperate to survive, clinging to the vestiges of dignity.

  Well, these two families survived. One of them consists of a lady from a fine old family, her young daughter and her brother. Her husband died in the riots; they lost all they had in Lahore and came away to Delhi, where they had a couple of mills and a big, sprawling house in the Civil Lines. But she and her brother were no managers and, after their father died a few years later, they were all at sea. As the losses mounted, they had to sell the mills, then their house, and they moved to Simla—to 9 Jakhoo Hill, once their summer residence.

  This was all they had been left with, and a meagre income from bonds and shares, much too inadequate for their way of life.

  The other family is of a young man, a successful executive in Bombay and his mother, who endured the terrors of Partition, and moved to Mumbai, where the mother, with an obsessive devotion, ensured that her son got the best education and then a good job in a good company. She has a husband, but he doesn’t count, so you won’t see him.

  (Enter in a separate area, Chitra and Deepak, carrying luggage. They sit on a bench.)

  Here they are, waiting at Kalka station for their connecting train to Simla. This is Deepak, the young man. He’s a bright, cheerful young man, eager to get on, and very, very conscious of his mother. His mother, Chitra, is a survivor: street-smart, calculating and unconcerned about her ways. She has one item on her agenda: to push her son up.

  (Enter Amrita, in the upstage area, adjusting her sari, examining herself in a mirror, and obviously getting ready to go out for the evening)

  The other family now: Amrita, over there, was born into a distinguished family, as I said, into a world of grace, refinement and good taste, and, of course, great wealth. That world is gone, but she clings to her memories.

  (Doorbell rings. Amrita goes to the door and receives Rai Saheb, and ushers him to the sofa, chatting and collecting her purse, shawl and umbrella.)

  Gentle and caring, she is trying to cope. She is talking to a family friend, Mr P.N. Rai, ICS, a Secretary to the Government of India, who is one of that breed which is more British than the British. As you will see, he plays a major role in the events that follow.

  (Amrita calls for Ansuya and the latter enters. Amrita tells her she is going out; she and Rai Saheb leave. Ansuya is left looking out of the French windows.)

  And that girl there is Ansuya, Amrita’s daughter. She was not born to lead a staid, conventional life. Lonely, withdrawn, but with an almost fierce vitality, she wants to live fully and passionately.

  Finally, there is her uncle, Amrita’s brother, Karan Chand. (Looks around on stage, sees no other actor. Turns to audience with a sheepish smile)

  Me. I incurred my father’s wrath by becoming a teacher and taught for a while at the University. But the crisis in our family obliged me to give up my job and, after an hopeless attempt to run the mills, I gave up … well, just gave up, to live with my sister and with Ansuya, my niece … Ansuya, who was the centre of my … but we must get on with the story.

  (Lights fade out on the two areas of Chitra – Deepak and Ansuya.)

  I must take you back now to (looks at newspaper on the table.) the twenty-fourth of October, 1962, just before Diwali. The Chinese have invaded India and every day the papers are full of sad, humiliating news of Indian defeats. It is breaking Nehru’s heart. The country hasn’t yet realized that it is dangerous to put dreamers in power. It saddens me, as it does many of us, because we once believed in the same, hopeless dreams.

  This is the living room of our home, 9 Jakhoo Hill. Tatty? Well, it is: it reflects our condition, but you can see that it was once an elegant room, like the house itself. The house was about a way of life; the way we were.

  It is nearly midnight. So, let’s start the story.

  (Full lights on the drawing room. The furniture, drapes and upholstery—all conspire to convey the impression that the occupants have seen better times. There is a large, old-fashioned radio prominently placed on stage left.

  It has been a damp October, but the fire at the back makes the room appear cosy. Mamu is sitting near the fireplace on an easy chair, next to a standing lamp. He has a shawl around his shoulders and is engrossed in the final moves of a chess game. He is forty-eight years old.

  There is another chair directly opposite him, which is empty. It is late, almost midnight. The bells of Jakhoo Temple can be heard in the distance.

  Ansuya enters with a cup of tea. She is twenty-six, intelligent but impulsive. She wears a comfortable salwar-kameez.)

  ANSUYA: Here is some tea, Mamu. It will warm you.

  MAMU: (Without looking up.) Knight to queen six. It’s a mate. I’m afraid

  … um … you can’t move anywhere. (Taking the tea.)

  ANSUYA: But you always win. (She goes up to him affectionately, puts her arm around his neck. She sneezes.)

  Mamu, you must do something about your cat. It drank the milk again today. I had to make tea with powdered milk.

  MAMU: (Drinking the tea.)
It tastes all right.

  ANSUYA: But we can’t have the cat drink our milk every day.

  MAMU: It’s late, and your mother still hasn’t come back.

  ANSUYA: Is that surprising? Dinner rarely gets to the table before eleven at the Rai Saheb’s, even on a normal day. (Frowning.)

  Besides, Amma will be desperately trying to recapture her past.

  MAMU: The past always looks better because it isn’t here. Why didn’t you … er … go to the party?

  ANSUYA: (Wearily.) You know the types at Rai Saheb’s parties—you can always predict what they are going to say. There’s a war on, but they’ll be laughing drinking and talking about everything else except what matters. Simla contains two types of people—those who are bored and those who are bores.

  MAMU: (Laughs.) But you never go out, Ansu.

  ANSUYA: I hate parties, Mamu. I feel as if I’m on display like a sari at Leela Ram’s shop. I can tell by their looks. (And she mimicks.)

  ‘Such a nice girl, Ansuya Malik—I wonder why she hasn’t got married?’ It is humiliating, Mamu.

  MAMU: (Hesitantly.) Shall we … um … have another game?

  ANSUYA: (Petulantly.) No, no. I’m tired of playing.

  MAMU: (Hurt.) With me?

  ANSUYA: Look at us. It’s the night before Diwali and here we are, killing time, playing chess. Of course, there’s no question of celebrating this year, but it’s not just the war. Mamu, do you remember the excitement at Diwali when Papa was alive? The servants bumping into each other, beating carpets, scrubbing the floors, cleaning the drapes—everyone was in a hurry and the house was full of confusion. There’d be new clothes for everyone. And comings and goings and puja. I used to be so excited. I could hardly sleep. What has happened to us, Mamu?

  MAMU: Well, for one thing, we don’t have the money.

  ANSUYA: And why don’t we have the money?

  MAMU: You’re not going to start on your mother again.

  ANSUYA: Yesterday, she gave Bhola a thousand rupees to get married, when the others haven’t been paid for months.

  MAMU: She is generous, Ansu.

  ANSUYA: But someone has to run the house. (Suddenly her eyes are filled with tears.)