Sandhya

(Rendered from Malayalam by Prof. K. R. Pisharoti)

Scene I
(On the slope of the Sunset Mount. Enter Taraka, Smiling)

Taraka

Here has the noble Sandhya promised to meet me. The saintly Divasa will have his suspicions roused if he were to meet me. In this love affair my lord Akasa is the rival of that fiery spirit.

Fie upon Aja's indiscretion! His lovely daughter, created out of his ideal, he made the spouse of Divasa. A bouquet is an ornament, it is a joy; it isn’t a broom to clean with. I shall await her here some time longer.

Yonder comes Sandhya! No wonder that my lord is lost in love over this sprout of loveliness! This timid, sweet form must have been made of soft lustre.

Carrying in her left arm the flower-basket of the earth’s blue orb, and radiating golden lustre all around, here comes from the slope of the Sun-rise Mount, Sandhya, the fairest of the fair, swaying in her sighs, her blue, glossy-laced veil falling away from her glorious forehead, and her loosened cloud-like tresses hanging gracefully on her body!

Welcome to my dear Sandhya!

Good luck to my friend! I’m a little late. What’s it, Taraka? I don’t understand the meaning of your laugh.

Taraka

(To herself) My bashful friend has not noticed my master Akasa, observing her from afar. There the mere vision of my friend creates a flush on the emaciated, pale face of the love-lorn lover. His love, which lay dormant in the ashes of disappointment, has now lept into flame! (Aloud) Nothing, madam, nothing. Do stand thus for a moment.

(Her face more flushed than usual) I must be going. You are making fun of me, aren’t you?

Taraka

Pardon me, Madam, I was afraid that you would put to its place the golden silk Uttariya, slipping from your bosom. Insult not thy breasts which possess the hue of champaka flowers. Do stand thus for a while. (To herself) May my master’s thirsty, drooping eyes at least realise the fruit of their existence!

Flattery is deceit, double-edged deceit. It wounds the hearts alike of the hearer and of the speaker.

Taraka

All praise is, indeed, an insult to this maddening loveliness divine. Look into thy green flower basket: lost in amazement, the beautiful flowers are glancing at you, with their blossomed faces and their hopeful, throbbing petal-lips.

(Suppressing a smile) Love’s messenger, indeed, thou art!

Taraka

The messenger of truth am I, the adorer of beauty; and plain is my speech.

Yes, thou art poetry, the lie charming.

Taraka

Poetry is truth, real and beautiful. To make it more attractive and appealing, a thin veil of untruth is resorted to, when other means fail. Even Heaven’s Creator, who is truth personified, seeks the help of illusion.

Beaten am I. Indeed, love’s messenger art thou.

Taraka

When thou movest thy tender fingers, the heart of time throbs; when thy charming face is visualised, even the southern breeze becomes maddened and the flushed waves of the ocean dance, adorned with garlands of foam. My lord Akasa has become pale through you. Friend, I do not wonder. The creator of the universe went into contemplation for long to create thy form.

(To herself) Why this flutter of heart for no reason? (Looks up, sees Akasa and feels abashed) Ha, he…….the dark handsome figure appears pale and emaciated! (Sighing) O, my heart, be still. Oh speech, help me to hide my emotions. Vain is it. Would not my flushed face reveal the secret of my heart?

Taraka

(With a smile) Why this tremour of the body? Why this deep breath?

(Pale with emotion) I am going to the hermitage. I never thought that my mute emotions would invent a medium of expression and betray me.

Taraka

If thou wilt imprison truth for fear of breach of custom, it cannot contain itself there. If it is not released, great will be the retribution.

My heart’s secret treasure thou hast opened out with a false key. Vain, however, is thy effort. Thy master I cannot love; it is improper even to see him. (She sighs and pats down with her palm the flowers dancing in the flower basket).

Taraka

Lady, if thou desirest……..

My stern lord who is wrought in lustre, thou knowest not well.

Taraka

Why waste this golden life in collecting flowers for the ritual of that ash-smeared lord–a life purer than rituals and fairer than flowers?

Purity is life.

Taraka

Renunciation is death, it’s negation of life. Why dost thou stand trembling, lost in thought? The golden wings of opportunity do not always come into our hands. Reject not the happiness that has, of its own accord, come unto you.

Let us separate. Thou hast given cyclonic wings to my passion, and its speed will blast the lives of thy master and myself. Let us separate. (Listening) I hear the voice of my lord, of Sattvik temperament and of lustrous form, repeating the sacred names of the Lord Divine, as he returns after his bath. Haste, haste thee away. If his suspicions are roused, thou wilt be reduced to ashes.

Taraka

Well, in the western horizon shall we meet. The saint must, after his Dhyana, be repairing to the sacred western waters. (Taraka suddenly disappears, as if in fear, and Akasa recedes further and further wards).

Fear encompasses my heart, as frost does the lotus-bud. Why dost that dark form dance again before my eyes? To the brink of Adharma has Taraka dragged me, who am blinded by passion. How shall I get ? 1 feel giddy: I’m swooning, swooning......

Scene II
(Enter Akasa shrouded in Tiraskarini, receding)

Akasa

What a fiery lustre! Yonder is that saint. Besmeared with ashes, his body seems blazing; his grey beard of rays is grown longer. In his hand is the lotus, plucked for his puja. Shrouded in Tiraskarini am I, yet I am hesitant, am afraid…How to get away from this place? I must reach somewhere far away and there spend my anxious hours, contemplating the delightful form of Sandhya, the glorious music of which still echoes through the veins of my heart.
(Enter Divasa)

Divasa

I never thought that the Unborn would be so kind towards me. The father of the Universe has offered unto me, rejecting the suit of Akasa, his daughter to be my consort in the discharge of my Dharma,–his Daughter Sandhya, the visible form of idealised beauty, born of his mind! Since the benign Sandhya’s arrival, the hermitage is rich in flowers, and my penance flourishes. I know that her heart is purer and fairer than flowers; yet am I afraid. Pure water becomes more easily contaminated; the tenderest flower drops more easily. Is she not Taraka, the confidante of Akasa? Why should she have come here? The moment she saw me, stepping up the horizon after my bath, she disappeared hurriedly. (His face begins to throb.) No, I shan’t suspect my noble Sandhya. Suspicion is love’s suicide. Once inside the heart, it pains and wounds, whenever it stirs. Pure is the daughter of Brahma; she is bliss ecstatic; she is the light of release....What is this? The flower-basket with the flowers collected lies stride the door! Where is Sandhya? (His face becomes sterner.) She is in the hermitage, and yet she does not face me. She is lost in thought. Why this temerity, this fear? (Looks on all sides with fiery eyes. In sheer fear the air stands still and the flowers shrivel up). What, lust poisons divine loveliness? Alas, this golden fish has been caught in Akasa’s fishing rod of love-pleadings. Now she can only struggle and die there, nothing more. (Heaves a sigh. Proceeds to the western horizon slowly lost in thought the Sun-lotus drops from his hand.)

Scene III

(The western horizon.The lover Akasa,  his face flushed, awaits at the rendezvous)

Akasa

Hope is the elixir of life. It has warmed up my cold and benumbed veins; my disappointed desires have become strong and mobile. But how this may end, I know not. As the lightning flash of sensuous enjoyment rends through the cloud of fickle mind, the whirlwind of passion drives me on to some height, I am afraid. Happen what may. That darkness follows is no reason for giving up the light in front. If there be no union with my beloved Sandhya, my greatness is a meaningless void.

Why does Taraka not turn up? When the saint repairs for his evening bath, she would be brought here–that was her promise. Anxiety is, indeed, intensely sweet pain. Could Taraka be playing false with me? Moments come awakening hope, but fly away deceiving.......

No. Yonder she comes leading my queen and pointing her shivering fair finger at me. (His ashy face becomes flushed.) Ha! My heart rushes at her; quick is the march of passion.

(Enter Sandhya, followed by Taraka)

Taraka

My lord, my friend is afraid of Adharma. The natural flush of her body is reddened by the toil of the journey. (To Sandhya) Exceedingly considerate is my lord. Rest here. I shall await you in the cloud-bower. (Smilingly disappears)  

Taraka, I am alone. Ha, what have you gone away?  I am also coming

Akasa

(Catches hold of the ends of her Uttariya) Noble lady, wait. Very tired art thou. Rest for a while. I shall accompany thee as far as the hermitage. (Embraces her).

Desist, desist!
Akasa

This face of thine, with its crescent mark fading and disappearing, let me raise up once. This beautiful body, similar unto the champaka flower, let me just feel. My beloved shivers, swoons, and, like the lotus drooping on to the blue waters, she leans and lies on my breast, her golden garment falling off of its own accord.

Release me, release. The senses have learnt only to covet, but not to be satisfied. Like frost in the rays of the Sun, I melt away in this bliss ecstatic. Release me, release.

Akasa

Unquenchable is this thirst of passion roused in my mind.  I must sip and drink this divine elixir of loveliness: pour unto me this balm for a while. (Listening) What is this dreadful sound? Is it the ocean’s roar? There! (Taraka falls prostrate in terror.)

Ha, my friend, we are undone. It isn’t the roar of the ocean; it’s the sound of the noble soul’s curse. These are the meshes which vicious natural tendency has spread, to see life writhing in agony, using the bait of unmoral pleasures to attract, catch and wound it.

Akasa

The price that enjoyment demands of life is beyond its capacity to pay. Don’t, don’t despair, my love.

Ha, my lord’s face is become pale!

Akasa

Alas, my beloved’s body, lovely like the champaka flower, becomes transformed into stone-darkness. Those timid lips move to utter something, but no sound escapes. Like beautiful truth in untutored minds, like feeble light in expanding smoke, how long is she to lie in this curse?….What is this? Eyes begin to appear throughout my body! Or, this is no curse for me: it is a blessing. Even a thousand eyes are not enough for me to bemoan and cry over the eternal calamity that has befallen my beloved at my instance.

Sandhya, the noble light of my soul, has become now stone-dark and here stand I mute with a thousand lotus eyes, filled with tears. In this helpless condition, what else can I do but weep? Wretched is my life, it has become void. If that angry stern saint were not a volcano, how could that rushing lava of a curse flowing from his mouth convert that delightful form into dark stone? These are not eyes, on my body, but so many glowing sparks emitted from that wretched curse. That terrific anger of the saint–may it for ever and ever blaze forth unquenched in my heart! This delightful form divine, the beneficence of all the three worlds, to lie indistinguishable from dead stone–this thought like poison courses through my veins; I am benumbed, I swoon. Ha, my beloved Sandhya.......

(Falls into a swoon)

Curtain