THE HOME-COMING

Phatik Chakravorti was ringleader among the boys of the village. A new mischief got into his head. There was a heavy log lying on the mud-flat of the river waiting to be shaped into a mast for a boat. He decided that they should all work together to shift the log by main force from its place and roll it away. The owner of the log would be angry and surprised, and they would all enjoy the fun. Every one seconded the proposal, and it was carried unanimously.

But just as the fun was about to begin, Makhan, Phatik’s younger brother, sauntered up, and sat down on the log in front of them all without a word. The boys were puzzled for a moment. He was pushed, rather timidly, by one of the boys and told to get up but he remained quite unconcerned. He appeared like a young philosopher meditating on the futility of games. Phatik was furious. “Makhan,” he cried, “if you don’t get down this minute I’ll thrash you!”

Makhan only moved to a more comfortable position.

Now, if Phatik was to keep his regal dignity before the public, it was clear he ought to carry out his threat. But his courage failed him at the crisis. His fertile brain, however, rapidly seized upon a new manoeuvre which would discomfit his brother and afford his followers an added amusement. He gave the word of command to roll the log and Makhan over together. Makhan heard the order, and made it a point of honour to stick on. But he overlooked the fact, like those who attempt earthly fame in other matters, that there was peril in it.

The boys began to heave at the log with all their might, calling out, “One, two, three, go,” At the word “go” the log went; and with it went Makhan’s philosophy, glory and all.

All the other boys shouted themselves hoarse with delight. But Phatik was a little frightened. He knew what was coming. And, sure enough, Makhan rose from Mother Earth blind as Fate and screaming like the Furies. He rushed at Phatik and scratched his face and beat him and kicked him, and then went crying home. The first act of the drama was over.

Phatik wiped his face, and sat down on the edge of a sunken barge on the river bank, and began to chew a piece of grass. A boat came up to the landing, and a middle-aged man, with grey hair and dark moustache, stepped on shore. He saw the boy sitting there doing nothing, and asked him where the Chakravortis lived. Phatik went on chewing the grass, and said: “Over there,” but it was quite impossible to tell where he pointed. The stranger asked him again. He swung his legs to and fro on the side of the barge, and said; “Go and find out,” and continued to chew the grass as before.

But now a servant came down from the house, and told Phatik his mother wanted him. Phatik refused to move. But the servant was the master on this occasion. He took Phatik up roughly, and carried him, kicking and struggling in impotent rage.

When Phatik came into the house, his mother saw him. She called out angrily: “So you have been hitting Makhan again?”

Phatik answered indignantly: “No, I haven’t; who told you that?”

His mother shouted: “Don’t tell lies! You have.”

Phatik said suddenly: “I tell you, I haven’t. You ask Makhan!” But Makhan thought it best to stick to his previous statement. He said: “Yes, mother. Phatik did hit me.”

Phatik’s patience was already exhausted. He could not hear this injustice. He rushed at Makban, and hammered him with blows: “Take that” he cried, “and that, and that, for telling lies.”

His mother took Makhan’s side in a moment, and pulled Phatik away, beating him with her hands. When Phatik pushed her aside, she shouted out: “What I you little villain! would you hit your own mother?”

It was just at this critical juncture that the grey-haired stranger arrived. He asked what was the matter. Phatik looked sheepish and ashamed.

But when his mother stepped back and looked at the stranger, her anger was changed to surprise. For she recognised her brother, and cried: “Why, Dada! Where have you come from?” As she said these words, she bowed to the ground and touched his feet. Her brother had gone away soon after she had married, and he had started business in Bombay. His sister had lost her husband while he was In Bombay. Bishamber had now come back to Calcutta, and had at once made enquiries about his sister. He had then hastened to see her as soon as he found out where she was.

The next few days were full of rejoicing. The brother asked after the education of the two boys. He was told by his sister that Phatik was a perpetual nuisance. He was lazy, disobedient, and wild. But Makhan was as good as gold, as quiet as a lamb, and very fond of reading, Bishamber kindly offered to take Phatik off his sister’s hands, and educate him with his own children in Calcutta. The widowed mother readily agreed. When his uncle asked Phatik If he would like to go to Calcutta with him, his joy knew no bounds, and he said; “Oh, yes, uncle!” In a way that made it quite clear that he meant it.

It was an immense relief to the mother to get rid of Phatik. She had a prejudice against the boy, and no love was lost between the two brothers. She was in daily fear that he would either drown Makhan some day in the river, or break his head in a fight, or run him into some danger or other. At the same time she was somewhat distressed to see Phatik’s extreme eagerness to get away.

Phatik, as soon as all was settled, kept asking his uncle every minute when they were to start. He was on pins and needles all day long with excitement, and lay awake most of the night. He bequeathed to Makhan, in perpetuity, his fishing-rod, his big kite and his marbles. Indeed, at this time of departure his generosity towards Makhan was unbounded.

When they reached Calcutta, Phatik made the acquaintance of his aunt for the first time. She was by no means pleased with this unnecessary addition to her family. She found her own three boys quite enough to manage without taking any one else. And to bring a village lad of fourteen into their midst was terribly upsetting. Bishamber should really have thought twice before committing such an indiscretion.

In this world of human affairs there is no worse nuisance than a boy at the age of fourteen. He is neither ornamental, nor useful. It is impossible to shower affection on him as on a little boy; and he is always getting in the way. If he talks with a childish lisp he is called a baby, and if he answers in a grown-up way he is called impertinent. In fact any talk at all from him is resented. Then he is at the unattractive, growing age. He grows out of his clothes with indecent haste; his voice grows hoarse and breaks and quavers; his face grows suddenly angular and unsightly. It is easy to excuse the shortcomings of early childhood, but it is hard to tolerate even unavoidable lapses in a boy of fourteen. The lad himself becomes painfully self-conscious. When he talks with elderly people he is either unduly forward, or else so unduly shy that he appears ashamed of his very existence.

Yet it is at this very age when in his heart of hearts a young lad most craves for recognition and love; and he becomes the devoted slave of any one who shows him consideration. But none dare openly love him, for that would be regarded as undue indulgence, and therefore bad for the boy. So, what with scolding and chiding, he becomes very much like a stray dog that has lost his master.

For a boy of fourteen his own home is the only Paradise. To live in a strange house with strange people is little short of torture, while the height of bliss is to receive the kind looks of women, and never to be slighted by them.

It was anguish to Phatik to be the unwelcome guest in his aunt’s house, despised by this elderly woman, and slighted, on every occasion. If she ever asked him to do anything for her, he would be so overjoyed that he would overdo it; and then she would tell him not to be so stupid, but to get on with his lessons.

The cramped atmosphere of neglect in his aunt’s house oppressed Phatik so much that he felt that he could hardly breathe. He wanted to go out into the open country and fill his lungs and breathe freely. But there was no open country to go to. Surrounded on all sides by Calcutta houses and walls, he would dream night after night of his village home, and long to be back there. He remembered the glorious meadow where he used to fly his kite all day long; the broad river-banks where he would wander about the livelong day singing and shouting for joy; the narrow brook where he could go and dive and swim at any time he liked. He thought of his band of boy companions over whom he was despot; and, above all, the memory of that tyrant mother of his, who had such a prejudice against him, occupied him day and night. A kind of physical love like that of animals; a longing to be in the presence of the one who is loved; an inexpressible wistfulness during absence; a silent cry of the inmost heart for the mother, like the lowing of a calf in the twilight;-this love, which was almost an animal instinct, agitated the shy, nervous, lean, uncouth and ugly boy. No one could understand it, but it preyed upon his mind continually.

There was no more backward boy in the whole school than Phatik. He gaped and remained silent when the teacher asked him a question, and like an overladen ass patiently suffered all the blows that came down on his back. When other boys were out at play, he stood wistfully by the window and gazed at the roofs of the distant houses. And if by chance he espied children playing on the open terrace of any roof, his heart would ache with longing.

One day he summoned up all his courage, and asked his uncle: “Uncle, when can I go home?”

His uncle answered; “Wait till the holidays come.” But the holidays would not come till November, and there was a long time still to wait.

One day Phatik lost his lesson-book. Even with the help of books he had found it very difficult indeed to prepare his lesson. Now it was impossible. Day after day the teacher would cane him unmercifully. His condition became so abjectly miserable that even his cousins were ashamed to own him. They began to jeer and insult him more than the other boys. He went to his aunt at last, and told her that he had lost his book.

His aunt pursed her lips in contempt, and said: “You great clumsy, country lout. How can I afford, with all my family, to buy you new books five times a month?”

That night, on his way back from school, Phatik had a bad headache with a fit of shivering. He felt he was going to have an attack of malarial fever. His one great fear was that he would be a nuisance to his aunt.

The next morning Phatik was nowhere to be seen. All searches in the neighbourhood proved futile. The rain had been pouring in torrents all night, and those who went out in search of the boy got drenched through to the skin. At last Bisbamber asked help from the police.

At the end of the day a police van stopped at the door before the house. It was still raining and the streets were all flooded. Two constables brought out Phatik in their arms and placed him before Bishamber. He was wet through from head to foot, muddy all over, his face and eyes flushed red with fever, and his limbs all trembling. Bishamber carried him in his arms, and took him into the inner apartments. When his wife saw him, she exclaimed; “What a heap of trouble this boy has given us. Hadn’t you better send him home?”

Phatik heard her words, and sobbed out loud: “Uncle, I was just going home; but they dragged me back again.”

The fever rose very high, and all that night the boy was delirious. Bishamber brought in a doctor. Phatik opened his eyes flushed with fever, and looked up to the ceiling, and said vacantly: “Uncle, have the holidays come yet? May I go home?”

Bishamber wiped the tears from his own eyes, and took Phatik’s lean and burning hands in his own, and sat by him through the night. The boy began again to mutter. At last his voice became excited: “Mother,” he cried, “don’t beat me like that! Mother! I am telling the truth!”

The next day Phatik became conscious for a short time. He turned his eyes about the room, as if expecting some one to come. At last, with an air of disappointment, his head sank back on the pillow. He turned his face to the wall with a deep sigh.

Bishamber knew his thoughts, and, bending down his head, whispered: “Phatik, I have sent for your mother.” The day went by. The doctor said in a troubled voice that the boy’s condition was very critical.

Phatik began to cry out; “By the mark!—three fathoms. By the mark—four fathoms. By the mark-.” He had heard the sailor on the river-steamer calling out the mark on the plumb-line. Now he was himself plumbing an unfathomable sea.

Later in the day Phatik’s mother burst into the room like a whirlwind, and began to toss from side to side and moan and cry in a loud voice.

Bishamber tried to calm her agitation, but she flung herself on the bed, and cried: “Phatik, my darling, my darling.”

Phatik stopped his restless movements for a moment. His hands ceased beating up and down. He said: “Eh?”

The mother cried again: “Phatik, my darling, my darling.”

Phatik very slowly turned his head and, without seeing anybody, said: “Mother, the holidays have come.”

ONCE THERE WAS A KING

“Once upon a time there was a king.”

When we were children there was no need to know who the king in the fairy story was. It didn’t matter whether he was called Shiladitya or Shaliban, whether he lived at Kashi or Kanauj. The thing that made a seven-year-old boy’s heart go thump, thump with delight was this one sovereign truth; this reality of all realities: “Once there was a king.”

But the readers of this modern age are far more exact and exacting. When they hear such an opening to a story, they are at once critical and suspicious. They apply the searchlight of science to its legendary haze and ask: “Which king?”

The story-tellers have become more precise in their turn. They are no longer content with the old indefinite, “There was a king,” but assume instead a look of profound learning, and begin: “Once there was a king named Ajatasatru,”

The modern reader’s curiosity, however, is not so easily satisfied. He blinks at the author through his scientific spectacles, and asks again: “Which Ajatasatru?”

“Every schoolboy knows,” the author proceeds, “that there were three Ajatasatrus. The first was born in the twentieth century B.C., and died at the tender age of two years and eight months, I deeply regret that it is impossible to find, from any trustworthy source, a detailed account of his reign. The second Ajatasatru is better known to historians. If you refer to the new Encyclopedia of History….”

By this time the modern reader’s suspicions are dissolved. He feels he may safely trust his author. He says to himself: “Now we shall have a story that is both improving and instructive.”

Ah! how we all love to be deluded! We have a secret dread of being thought ignorant. And we end by being ignorant after all, only we have done it in a long and roundabout way.

There is an English proverb; “Ask me no questions, and I will tell you no lies.” The boy of seven who is listening to a fairy story understands that perfectly well; he withholds his questions, while the story is being told. So the pure and beautiful falsehood of it all remains naked and innocent as a babe; transparent as truth itself; limpid as afresh bubbling spring. But the ponderous and learned lie of our moderns has to keep its true character draped and veiled. And if there is discovered anywhere the least little peep-hole of deception, the reader turns away with a prudish disgust, and the author is discredited.

When we were young, we understood all sweet things; and we could detect the sweets of a fairy story by an unerring science of our own. We never cared for such useless things as knowledge. We only cared for truth. And our unsophisticated little hearts knew well where the Crystal Palace of Truth lay and how to reach it. But to-day we are expected to write pages of facts, while the truth is simply this:

“There was a king.”

I remember vividly that evening in Calcutta when the fairy story began. The rain and the storm had been incessant. The whole of the city was flooded. The water was knee-deep in our lane. I had a straining hope, which was almost a certainty, that my tutor would be prevented from coming that evening. I sat on the stool in the far corner of the veranda looking down the lane, with a heart beating faster and faster. Every minute I kept my eye on the rain, and when it began to grow less I prayed with all my might; “Please, God, send some more rain till half-past seven is over.” For I was quite ready to believe that there was no other need for rain except to protect one helpless boy one evening in one corner of Calcutta from the deadly clutches of his tutor.

If not in answer to my prayer, at any rate according to some grosser law of physical nature, the rain did not give up.

But, alas! nor did my teacher.

Exactly to the minute, in the bend of the lane, I saw his approaching umbrella. The great bubble of hope burst in my breast, and my heart collapsed. Truly, if there is a punishment to fit the crime after death, then my tutor will be born again as me, and I shall be born as my tutor.

As soon as I saw his umbrella I ran as hard as I could to my mother’s room. My mother and my grandmother were sitting opposite one another playing cards by the light of a lamp. I ran into the room, and flung myself on the bed beside my mother, and said:

“Mother dear, the tutor has come, and I have such a bad headache; couldn’t I have no lessons today?”

I hope no child of immature age will be allowed to read this story, and I sincerely trust it will not be used in text-books or primers for schools. For what I did was dreadfully bad, and I received no punishment whatever. On the contrary, my wickedness was crowned with success.

My mother said to me: “All right,” and turning to the servant added: “Tell the tutor that he can go back home.”

It was perfectly plain that she didn’t think my illness very serious, as she went on with her game as before, and took no further notice. And I also, burying my head in the pillow, laughed to my heart’s content. We perfectly understood one another, my mother and I.

But every one must know how hard it is for a boy of seven years old to keep up the illusion of illness for a long time. After about a minute I got hold of Grandmother, and said: “Grannie, do tell me a story.”

I had to ask this many times. Grannie and Mother went on playing cards, and took no notice. At last Mother said to me: “Child, don’t bother. Wait till we’ve finished our game.” But I persisted: “Grannie, do tell me a story.” I told Mother she could finish her game to-morrow, but she must let Grannie tell me a story there and then.

At last Mother threw down the cards and said: “You had better do what he wants. I can’t manage him.” Perhaps she had it in her mind that she would have no tiresome tutor on the morrow, while I should be obliged to be back to those stupid lessons.

As soon as ever Mother had given way, I rushed at Grannie. I got hold of her hand, and, dancing with delight, dragged her inside my mosquito curtain on to the bed. I clutched hold of the bolster with both hands in my excitement, and jumped up and down with joy, and when I had got a little quieter, said: “Now, Grannie, let’ s have the story!”

Grannie went on: “And the king had a queen.” That was good to begin with. He had only one.

It is usual for kings in fairy stories to be extravagant in queens. And whenever we hear that there are two queens, our hearts begin to sink. One is sure to be unhappy. But in Grannie’s story that danger was past. He had only one queen.

We next hear that the king had not got any son. At the age of seven I didn’t think there was any need to bother if a man had had no son. He might only have been in the way. Nor are we greatly excited when we hear that the king has gone away into the forest to practise austerities in order to get a son. There was only one thing that would have made me go into the forest, and that was to get away from my tutor!

But the king left behind with his queen a small girl, who grew up into a beautiful princess.

Twelve years pass away, and the king goes on practising austerities, and never thinks all this while of his beautiful daughter. The princess has reached the full bloom of her youth. The age of marriage has passed, but the king does not return. And the queen pines away with grief and cries: “Is my golden daughter destined to die unmarried? Ah me! What a fate is mine.”

Then the queen sent men to the king to entreat him earnestly to come back for a single night and take one meal in the palace. And the king consented.

The queen cooked with her own hand, and with the greatest care, sixty-four dishes, and made a seat for him of sandal-wood, and arranged the food in plates of gold and cups of silver. The princess stood behind with the peacock-tail fan in her hand. The king, after twelve years’ absence, came into the house, and the princess waved the fan, lighting up all the room with her beauty. The king looked in his daughter’s face, and forgot to take his food.

At last he asked his queen: “Pray, who is this girl whose beauty shines as the gold image of the goddess? Whose daughter is she?”

The queen beat her forehead, and cried: “Ah, how evil is my fate! Do you not know your own daughter?”

The king was struck with amazement. He said at last; “My tiny daughter has grown to be a woman.”

“What else?” the queen said with a sigh. “Do you not know that twelve years have passed by?”

“But why did you not give her in marriage?” asked the king.

“You were away,” the queen said. “And how could I find her a suitable husband?”

The king became vehement with excitement. “The first man I see to-morrow,” he said, “when I come out of the palace shall marry her.”

The princess went on waving her fan of peacock feathers, and the king finished his meal.

The next morning, as the king came out of his palace, he saw the son of a Brahman gathering sticks in the forest outside the palace gates. His age was about seven or eight.

The king said: “I will marry my daughter to him.”

Who can interfere with a king’s command? At once the boy was called, and the marriage garlands were exchanged between him and the princess.

At this point I came up close to my wise Grannie and asked her eagerly: “What then?”

In the bottom of my heart there was a devout wish to substitute myself for that fortunate wood-gatherer of seven years old. The night was resonant with the patter of rain. The earthen lamp by my bedside was burning low. My grandmother’s voice droned on as she told the story. And all these things served to create in a corner of my credulous heart the belief that I had been gathering sticks in the dawn of some indefinite time in the kingdom of some unknown king, and in a moment garlands had been exchanged between me and the princess, beautiful as the Goddess of Grace. She had a gold band on her hair and gold earrings in her ears. She bad a necklace and bracelets of gold, and a golden waist-chain round her waist, and a pair of golden anklets tinkled above her feet.

If my grandmother were an author how many explanations she would have to offer for this little story! First of all, every one would ask why the king remained twelve years in the forest? Secondly, why should the king’s daughter remain unmarried all that while? This would be regarded as absurd.

Even if she could have got so far without a quarrel, still there would have been a great hue and cry about the marriage itself. First, it never happened. Secondly, how could there be a marriage between a princess of the Warrior Caste and a boy of the priestly Brahman Caste? Her readers would have imagined at once that the writer was preaching against our social customs in an underhand way. And they would write letters to the papers.

So I pray with all my heart that my grandmother may be born a grandmother again, and not through some cursed fate take birth as her luckless grandson.

So with a throb of joy and delight, I asked Grannie: “What then?”

Grannie went on: Then the princess took her little husband away in great distress, and built a large palace with seven wings, and began to cherish her husband with great care.

I jumped up and down in my bed and clutched at the bolster more tightly than ever and said: “What then?”

Grannie continued: The little boy went to school and learnt many lessons from his teachers, and as he grew up his class-fellows began to ask him: “Who is that beautiful lady who lives with you in the palace with the seven wings?” The Brahman’s son was eager to know who she was. He could only remember how one day he had been gathering sticks, and a great disturbance arose. But all that was so long ago, that he had no clear recollection.

Four or five years passed in this way. His companions always asked him: “Who is that beautiful lady in the palace with the seven wings?” And the Brahman’s son would come back from school and sadly tell the princess: “My school companions always ask me who is that beautiful lady in the palace with the seven wings, and I can give them no reply. Tell me, oh, tell me, who you are!”

The princess said: “Let it pass to-day. I will tell you some other day.” And every day the Brahman’s son would ask; “Who are you?” and the princess would reply: “Let it pass to-day. I will tell you some other day.” In this manner four or five more years passed away.

At last the Brahman’s son became very impatient, and said: “If you do not tell me to-day who you are, O beautiful lady, I will leave this palace with the seven wings.” Then the princess said: “I will certainly tell you to-morrow.”

Next day the Brahman’s son, as soon as he came home from school, said: “Now, tell me who you are.” The princess said: “To-night I will tell you after supper, when you are in bed.”

The Brahman’s son said: “Very well “; and he began to count the hours in expectation of the night. And the princess, on her side, spread white flowers over the golden bed, and lighted a gold lamp with fragrant oil, and adorned her hair, and dressed herself in a beautiful robe of blue, and began to count the hours in expectation of the night.

That evening when her husband, the Brahman’s son, had finished his meal, too excited almost to eat, and had gone to the golden bed in the bed-chamber strewn with flowers, he said to himself: “To-night I shall surely know who this beautiful lady is in the palace with the seven wings.”

The princess took for her the food that was left over by her husband, and slowly entered the bed-chamber. She had to answer that night the question, which was the beautiful lady who lived in the palace with the seven wings. And as she went up to the bed to tell him she found a serpent had crept out of the flowers and had bitten the Brahman’s son. Her boy-husband was lying on the bed of flowers, with face pale in death.

My heart suddenly ceased to throb, and I asked with choking voice: “What then?”

Grannie said; “Then…”

But what is the use of going on any further with the story? It would only lead on to what was more and more impossible. The boy of seven did not know that, if there were some “What then?” after death, no grandmother of a grandmother could tell us all about it.

But the child’s faith never admits defeat, and it would snatch at the mantle of death itself to turn him back. It would be outrageous for him to think that such a story of one teacherless evening could so suddenly come to a stop. Therefore the grandmother had to call back her story from the ever-shut chamber of the great End, but she does it so simply: it is merely by floating the dead body on a banana stem on the river, and having some incantations read by a magician. But in that rainy night and in the dim light of a lamp death loses all its horror in the mind of the boy, and seems nothing more than a deep slumber of a single night. When the story ends the tired eyelids are weighed down with sleep. Thus it is that we send the little body of the child floating on the back of sleep over the still water of time, and then in the morning read a few verses of incantation to restore him to the world of life and light.

THE VICTORY

She was the Princess Ajita. And the court poet of King Narayan had never seen her. On the day he recited a new poem to the king he would raise his voice just to that pitch which could be heard by unseen hearers in the screened balcony high above the hall. He sent up his song towards the star-land out of his reach, where, circled with light, the planet who ruled his destiny shone unknown and out of ken.

He would espy some shadow moving behind the veil. A tinkling sound would come to his car from afar, and would set him dreaming of the ankles whose tiny golden bells sang at each step. Ah, the rosy red tender feet that walked the dust of the earth like God’s mercy on the fallen! The poet had placed them on the altar of his heart, where he wove his songs to the tune of those golden bells. Doubt never arose in his mind as to whose shadow it was that moved behind the screen, and whose anklets they were that sang to the time of his beating heart.

Manjari, the maid of the princess, passed by the poet’s house on her way to the river, and she never missed a day to have a few words with him on the sly. When she found the road deserted, and the shadow of dusk on the land, she would boldly enter his room, and sit at the corner of his carpet. There was a suspicion of an added care in the choice of the colour of her veil, in the setting of the flower in her hair.

People smiled and whispered at this, and they were not to blame. For Shekhar the poet never took the trouble to hide the fact that these meetings were a pure joy to him.

The meaning of her name was the spray of flowers. One must confess that for an ordinary mortal it was sufficient in its sweetness. But Shekhar made his own addition to this name, and called her the Spray of Spring Flowers. And ordinary mortals shook their heads and said, Ah, me!

In the spring songs that the poet sang the praise of the spray of spring flowers was conspicuously reiterated; and the king winked and smiled at him when he heard it, and the poet smiled in answer.

The king would put him the question; “Is it the business of the bee merely to hum in the court of the spring?”

The poet would answer; “No, but also to sip the honey of the spray of spring flowers.”

And they all laughed in the king’s hall. And it was rumoured that the Princess Akita also laughed at her maid’s accepting the poet’s name for her, and Manjari felt glad in her heart.

Thus truth and falsehood mingle in life—and to what God builds man adds his own decoration.

Only those were pure truths which were sung by the poet. The theme was Krishna, the lover god, and Radha, the beloved, the Eternal Man and the Eternal Woman, the sorrow that comes from the beginning of time, and the joy without end. The truth of these songs was tested in his inmost heart by everybody from the beggar to the king himself. The poet’s songs were on the lips of all. At the merest glimmer of the moon and the faintest whisper of the summer breeze his songs would break forth in the land from windows and courtyards, from sailing-boats, from shadows of the wayside trees, in numberless voices.

Thus passed the days happily. The poet recited, the king listened, the hearers applauded, Manjari passed and repassed by the poet’s room on her way to the river—the shadow flitted behind the screened balcony, and the tiny golden bells tinkled from afar.

Just then set forth from his home in the south a poet on his path of conquest. He came to King Narayan, in the kingdom of Amarapur. He stood before the throne, and uttered a verse in praise of the king. He had challenged all the court poets on his way, and his career of victory had been unbroken.

The king received him with honour, and said: “Poet, I offer you welcome.”

Pundarik, the poet, proudly replied: “Sire, I ask for war.”

Shekhar, the court poet of the king did not know how the battle of the muse was to be waged. He had no sleep at night. The mighty figure of the famous Pundarik, his sharp nose curved like a scimitar, and his proud head tilted on one side, haunted the poet’s vision in the dark.

With a trembling heart Shekhar entered the arena in the morning. The theatre was filled with the crowd.

The poet greeted his rival with a smile and a bow. Pundarik returned it with a slight toss of his head, and turned his face towards his circle of adoring followers with a meaning smile. Shekhar cast his glance towards the screened balcony high above, and saluted his lady in his mind, saying! “If I am the winner at the combat to-day, my lady, thy victorious name shall be glorified.”

The trumpet sounded. The great crowd stood up, shouting victory to the king. The king, dressed in an ample robe of white, slowly came into the hall like a floating cloud of autumn, and sat on his throne.

Pundarik stood up, and the vast hall became still. With his head raised high and chest expanded, he began in his thundering voice to recite the praise of King Narayan. His words burst upon the walls of the hall like breakers of the sea, and seemed to rattle against the ribs of the listening crowd. The skill with which he gave varied meanings to the name Narayan, and wove each letter of it through the web of his verses in all mariner of combinations, took away the breath of his amazed hearers.

For some minutes after he took his seat his voice continued to vibrate among the numberless pillars of the king’s court and in thousands of speechless hearts. The learned professors who had come from distant lands raised their right hands, and cried, Bravo!

The king threw a glance on Shekhar’s face, and Shekhar in answer raised for a moment his eyes full of pain towards his master, and then stood up like a stricken deer at bay. His face was pale, his bashfulness was almost that of a woman, his slight youthful figure, delicate in its outline, seemed like a tensely strung vina ready to break out in music at the least touch.

His head was bent, his voice was low, when he began. The first few verses were almost inaudible. Then he slowly raised his head, and his clear sweet voice rose into the sky like a quivering flame of fire. He began with the ancient legend of the kingly line lost in the haze of the past, and brought it down through its long course of heroism and matchless generosity to the present age. He fixed his gaze on the king’s face, and all the vast and unexpressed love of the people for the royal house rose like incense in his song, and enwreathed the throne on all sides. These were his last words when, trembling, he took his seat: “My master, I may be beaten in play of words, but not in my love for thee.”

Tears filled the eyes of the hearers, and the stone walls shook with cries of victory.

Mocking this popular outburst of feeling, with an august shake of his head and a contemptuous sneer, Pundarik stood up, and flung this question to the assembly; “What is there superior to words?” In a moment the hall lapsed into silence again.

Then with a marvellous display of learning, he proved that the Word was in the beginning, that the Word was God. He piled up quotations from scriptures, and built a high altar for the Word to be seated above all that there is in heaven and in earth. He repeated that question in his mighty voice: “What is there superior to words?”

Proudly he looked around him. None dared to accept his challenge, and he slowly took his seat like a lion who had just made a full meal of its victim. The pandits shouted, Bravo! The king remained silent with wonder, and the poet Shekhar felt himself of no account by the side of this stupendous learning. The assembly broke up for that day.

Next day Shekhar began his song. It was of that day when the pipings of love’s flute startled for the first time the hushed air of the Vrinda forest. The shepherd women did not know who was the player or whence came the music. Sometimes it seemed to come from the heart of the south wind, and sometimes from the straying clouds of the hilltops. It came with a message of tryst from the land of the sunrise, and it floated from the verge of sunset with its sigh of sorrow. The stars seemed to be the stops of the instrument that flooded the dreams of the night with melody. The music seemed to burst all at once from all sides, from fields and groves, from the shady lanes and lonely roads, from the melting blue of the sky, from the shimmering green of the grass. They neither knew its meaning nor could they find words to give utterance to the desire of their hearts. Tears filled their eyes, and their life seemed to long for a death that would be its consummation.

Shekhar forgot his audience, forgot the trial of his strength with a rival. He stood alone amid his thoughts that rustled and quivered round him like leaves in a summer breeze, and sang the Song of the Flute. He had in his mind the vision of an image that had taken its shape from a shadow, and the echo of a faint tinkling sound of a distant footstep.

He took his seat. His hearers trembled with the sadness of an indefinable delight, immense and vague, and they forgot to applaud him. As this feeling died away Pundarik stood up before the throne and challenged his rival to define who was this Lover and who was the Beloved. He arrogantly looked around him, he smiled at his followers and then put the question again: “Who is Krishna, the lover, and who is Radha, the beloved?”

Then he began to analyse the roots of those names,—and various interpretations of their meanings. He brought before the bewildered audience all the intricacies of the different schools of metaphysics with consummate skill. Each letter of those names he divided from its fellow, and then pursued them with a relentless logic till they fell to the dust in confusion, to be caught up again and restored to a meaning never before imagined by the subtlest of word-mongers.

The pandits were in ecstasy; they applauded vociferously; and the crowd followed them, deluded into the certainty that they had witnessed, that day, the last shred of the curtains of Truth torn to pieces before their eyes by a prodigy of intellect. The performance of his tremendous feat so delighted them that they forgot to ask themselves if there was any truth behind it after all.

The king’s mind was overwhelmed with wonder. The atmosphere was completely cleared of all illusion of music, and the vision of the world around seemed to be changed from its freshness of tender green to the solidity of a high road levelled and made hard with crushed stones.

To the people assembled their own poet appeared a mere boy in comparison with this giant, who walked with such case, knocking down difficulties at each step in the world of words and thoughts. It became evident to them for the first time that the poems Shekhar wrote were absurdly simple, and it must be a mere accident that they did not write them themselves. They were neither new, nor difficult, nor instructive, nor necessary.

The king tried to goad his poet with keen glances, silently inciting him to make a final effort. But Shekhar took no notice, and remained fixed to his seat.

The king in anger came down from his throne—took off his pearl chain and put it on Pundarik’s head. Everybody in the hall cheered. From the upper balcony came a slight sound of the movements of rustling robes and waist-chains hung with golden bells. Shekhar rose from his seat and left the hall.

It was a dark night of waning moon. The poet Shekhar took down his MSS. from his shelves and heaped them on the floor. Some of them contained his earliest writings, which he had almost forgotten. He turned over the pages, reading passages here and there. They all seemed to him poor and trivial—mere words and childish rhymes!

One by one he tore his books to fragments, and threw them into a vessel containing fire, and said: “To thee, to thee, O my beauty, my fire! Thou hast been burning in my heart all these futile years. If my life were a piece of gold it would come out of its trial brighter, but it is a trodden turf of grass, and nothing remains of it but this handful of ashes.”

The night wore on. Shekhar opened wide his windows. He spread upon his bed the white flowers that he loved, the jasmines, tuberoses and chrysanthemums, and brought into his bedroom all the lamps he had in his house and lighted them. Then mixing with honey the juice of some poisonous root he drank it and lay down on his bed.

Golden anklets tinkled in the passage outside the door, and a subtle perfume came into the room with the breeze.

The poet, with his eyes shut, said; “My lady, have you taken pity upon your servant at last and come to see him?”

The answer came in a sweet voice “My poet, I have come.”

Shekhar opened his eyes—and saw before his bed the figure of a woman.

His sight was dim and blurred. And it seemed to him that the image made of a shadow that he had ever kept throned in the secret shrine of his heart had come into the outer world in his last moment to gaze upon his face.

The woman said; “I am the Princess Ajita.”

The poet with a great effort sat up on his bed.

The princess whispered into his car: “The king has not done you justice. It was you who won at the combat, my poet, and I have come to crown you with the crown of victory.”

She took the garland of flowers from her own neck, and put it on his hair, and the poet fell down upon his bed stricken by death.

THE HUNGRY STONES

My kinsman and myself were returning to Calcutta from our Puja trip when we met the man in a train. From his dress and bearing we took him at first for an up-country Mahomedan, but we were puzzled as we heard him talk. He discoursed upon all subjects so confidently that you might think the Disposer of All Things consulted him at all times in all that He did. Hitherto we had been perfectly happy, as we did not know that secret and unheard-of forces were at work, that the Russians had advanced close to us, that the English had deep and secret policies, that confusion among the native chiefs had come to a head. But our newly-acquired friend said with a sly smile: “There happen more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are reported in your newspapers.” As we had never stirred out of our homes before, the demeanour of the man struck us dumb with wonder. Be the topic ever so trivial, he would quote science, or comment on the Vedas, or repeat quatrains from some Persian poet; and as we had no pretence to a knowledge of science or the Vedas or Persian, our admiration for him went on increasing, and my kinsman, a theosophist, was firmly convinced that our fellow-passenger must have been supernaturally inspired by some strange “magnetism” or “occult power,” by an “astral body” or something of that kind. He listened to the tritest saying that fell from the lips of our extraordinary companion with devotional rapture, and secretly took down notes of his conversation. I fancy that the extraordinary man saw this, and was a little pleased with it.

When the train reached the junction, we assembled in the waiting room for the connection. It was then 10 P.M., and as the train, we heard, was likely to be very late, owing to something wrong in the lines, I spread my bed on the table and was about to lie down for a comfortable doze, when the extraordinary person deliberately set about spinning the following yarn. Of course, I could get no sleep that night.

When, owing to a disagreement about some questions of administrative policy, I threw up my post at Junagarh, and entered the service of the Nizam of Hydria, they appointed me at once, as a strong young man, collector of cotton duties at Barich.

Barich is a lovely place. The Susta “chatters over stony ways and babbles on the pebbles,” tripping, like a skilful dancing girl, in through the woods below the lonely hills. A flight of 150 steps rises from the river, and above that flight, on the river’s brim and at the foot of the hills, there stands a solitary marble palace. Around it there is no habitation of man—the village and the cotton mart of Barich being far off.

About 250 years ago the Emperor Mahmud Shah II. had built this lonely palace for his pleasure and luxury. In his days jets of rose-water spurted from its fountains, and on the cold marble floors of its spray-cooled rooms young Persian damsels would sit, their hair dishevelled before bathing, and, splashing their soft naked feet in the clear water of the reservoirs, would sing, to the tune of the guitar, the ghazals of their vineyards.

The fountains play no longer; the songs have ceased; no longer do snow-white feet step gracefully on the snowy marble. It is but the vast and solitary quarters of cess-collectors like us, men oppressed with solitude and deprived of the society of women. Now, Karim Khan, the old clerk of my office, warned me repeatedly not to take up my abode there. “Pass the day there, if you like,” said he, “but never stay the night.” I passed it off with a light laugh. The servants said that they would work till dark and go away at night. I gave my ready assent. The house had such a bad name that even thieves would not venture near it after dark.

At first the solitude of the deserted palace weighed upon me like a nightmare. I would stay out, and work hard as long as possible, then return home at night jaded and tired, go to bed and fall asleep.

Before a week had passed, the place began to exert a weird fascination upon me. It is difficult to describe or to induce people to believe; but I felt as if the whole house was like a living organism slowly and imperceptibly digesting me by the action of some stupefying gastric juice.

Perhaps the process had begun as soon as I set my foot in the house, but I distinctly remember the day on which I first was conscious of it.

It was the beginning of summer, and the market being dull I had no work to do. A little before sunset I was sitting in an arm-chair near the water’s edge below the steps. The Susta had shrunk and sunk low; a broad patch of sand on the other side glowed with the hues of evening; on this side the pebbles at the bottom of the clear shallow waters were glistening. There was not a breath of wind anywhere, and the still air was laden with an oppressive scent from the spicy shrubs growing on the hills close by.

As the sun sank behind the hill-tops a long dark curtain fell upon the stage of day, and the intervening hills cut short the time in which light and shade mingle at sunset. I thought of going out for a ride, and was about to get up when I heard a footfall on the steps behind. I looked back, but there was no one.

As I sat down again, thinking it to be an illusion, I heard many footfalls, as if a large number of persons were rushing down the steps. A strange thrill of delight, slightly tinged with fear, passed through my frame, and though there was not a figure before my eyes, methought I saw a bevy of joyous maidens coming down the steps to bathe in the Susta in that summer evening. Not a sound was in the valley, in the river, or in the palace, to break the silence, but I distinctly heard the maidens’ gay and mirthful laugh, like the gurgle of a spring gushing forth in a hundred cascades, as they ran past me, in quick playful pursuit of each other, towards the river, without noticing me at all. As they were invisible to me, so I was, as it were, invisible to them. The river was perfectly calm, but I felt that its still, shallow, and clear waters were stirred suddenly by the splash of many an arm jingling with bracelets, that the girls laughed and dashed and spattered water at one another, that the feet of the fair swimmers tossed the tiny waves up in showers of pearl.

I felt a thrill at my heart—I cannot say whether the excitement was due to fear or delight or curiosity. I had a strong desire to see them more clearly, but naught was visible before me; I thought I could catch all that they said if I only strained my ears; but however hard I strained them, I heard nothing but the chirping of the cicadas in the woods. It seemed as if a dark curtain of 250 years was hanging before me, and I would fain lift a corner of it tremblingly and peer through, though the assembly on the other side was completely enveloped in darkness.

The oppressive closeness of the evening was broken by a sudden gust of wind, and the still surface of the Suista rippled and curled like the hair of a nymph, and from the woods wrapt in the evening gloom there came forth a simultaneous murmur, as though they were awakening from a black dream. Call it reality or dream, the momentary glimpse of that invisible mirage reflected from a far-off world, 250 years old, vanished in a flash. The mystic forms that brushed past me with their quick unbodied steps, and loud, voiceless laughter, and threw themselves into the river, did not go back wringing their dripping robes as they went. Like fragrance wafted away by the wind they were dispersed by a single breath of the spring.

Then I was filled with a lively fear that it was the Muse that had taken advantage of my solitude and possessed me—the witch had evidently come to ruin a poor devil like myself making a living by collecting cotton duties. I decided to have a good dinner—it is the empty stomach that all sorts of incurable diseases find an easy prey. I sent for my cook and gave orders for a rich, sumptuous moghlai dinner, redolent of spices and ghi.

Next morning the whole affair appeared a queer fantasy. With a light heart I put on a sola hat like the sahebs, and drove out to my work. I was to have written my quarterly report that day, and expected to return late; but before it was dark I was strangely drawn to my house—by what I could not say—I felt they were all waiting, and that I should delay no longer. Leaving my report unfinished I rose, put on my sola hat, and startling the dark, shady, desolate path with the rattle of my carriage, I reached the vast silent palace standing on the gloomy skirts of the hills.

On the first floor the stairs led to a very spacious hall, its roof stretching wide over ornamental arches resting on three rows of massive pillars, and groaning day and night under the weight of its own intense solitude. The day had just closed, and the lamps had not yet been lighted. As I pushed the door open a great bustle seemed to follow within, as if a throng of people had broken up in confusion, and rushed out through the doors and windows and corridors and verandas and rooms, to make its hurried escape.

As I saw no one I stood bewildered, my hair on end in a kind of ecstatic delight, and a faint scent of attar and unguents almost effected by age lingered in my nostrils. Standing in the darkness of that vast desolate hall between the rows of those ancient pillars, I could hear the gurgle of fountains plashing on the marble floor, a strange tune on the guitar, the jingle of ornaments and the tinkle of anklets, the clang of bells tolling the hours, the distant note of nahabat, the din of the crystal pendants of chandeliers shaken by the breeze, the song of bulbuls from the cages in the corridors, the cackle of storks in the gardens, all creating round me a strange unearthly music.

Then I came under such a spell that this intangible, inaccessible, unearthly vision appeared to be the only reality in the world—and all else a mere dream. That I, that is to say, Srijut So-and-so, the eldest son of So-and-so of blessed memory, should be drawing a monthly salary of Rs. 450 by the discharge of my duties as collector of cotton duties, and driving in my dog-cart to my office every day in a short coat and soia hat, appeared to me to be such an astonishingly ludicrous illusion that I burst into a horse-laugh, as I stood in the gloom of that vast silent hall.

At that moment my servant entered with a lighted kerosene lamp in his hand. I do not know whether he thought me mad, but it came back to me at once that I was in very deed Srijut So-and-so, son of So-and-so of blessed memory, and that, while our poets, great and small, alone could say whether inside of or outside the earth there was a region where unseen fountains perpetually played and fairy guitars, struck by invisible fingers, sent forth an eternal harmony, this at any rate was certain, that I collected duties at the cotton market at Banch, and earned thereby Rs. 450 per mensem as my salary. I laughed in great glee at my curious illusion, as I sat over the newspaper at my camp-table, lighted by the kerosene lamp.

After I had finished my paper and eaten my moghlai dinner, I put out the lamp, and lay down on my bed in a small side-room. Through the open window a radiant star, high above the Avalli hills skirted by the darkness of their woods, was gazing intently from millions and millions of miles away in the sky at Mr. Collector lying on a humble camp-bedstead. I wondered and felt amused at the idea, and do not knew when I fell asleep or how long I slept; but I suddenly awoke with a start, though I heard no sound and saw no intruder—only the steady bright star on the hilltop had set, and the dim light of the new moon was stealthily entering the room through the open window, as if ashamed of its intrusion.

I saw nobody, but felt as if some one was gently pushing me. As I awoke she said not a word, but beckoned me with her five fingers bedecked with rings to follow her cautiously. I got up noiselessly, and, though not a soul save myself was there in the countless apartments of that deserted palace with its slumbering sounds and waiting echoes, I feared at every step lest any one should wake up. Most of the rooms of the palace were always kept closed, and I had never entered them.

I followed breathless and with silent steps my invisible guide—I cannot now say where. What endless dark and narrow passages, what long corridors, what silent and solemn audience-chambers and close secret cells I crossed!

Though I could not see my fair guide, her form was not invisible to my mind’s eye,—an Arab girl, her arms, hard and smooth as marble, visible through her loose sleeves, a thin veil falling on her face from the fringe of her cap, and a curved dagger at her waist! Methought that one of the thousand and one Arabian Nights had been wafted to me from the world of romance, and that at the dead of night I was wending my way through the dark narrow alleys of slumbering Bagdad to a trysting-place fraught with peril.

At last my fair guide stopped abruptly before a deep blue screen, and seemed to point to something below. There was nothing there, but a sudden dread froze the blood in my heart-methought I saw there on the floor at the foot of the screen a terrible negro eunuch dressed in rich brocade, sitting and dozing with outstretched legs, with a naked sword on his lap. My fair guide lightly tripped over his legs and held up a fringe of the screen. I could catch a glimpse of a part of the room spread with a Persian carpet—some one was sitting inside on a bed—I could not see her, but only caught a glimpse of two exquisite feet in gold-embroidered slippers, hanging out from loose saffron-coloured paijamas and placed idly on the orange-coloured velvet carpet. On one side there was a bluish crystal tray on which a few apples, pears, oranges, and bunches of grapes in plenty, two small cups and a gold-tinted decanter were evidently waiting the guest. A fragrant intoxicating vapour, issuing from a strange sort of incense that burned within, almost overpowered my senses.

As with trembling heart I made an attempt to step across the outstretched legs of the eunuch, he woke up suddenly with a start, and the sword fell from his lap with a sharp clang on the marble floor. A terrific scream made me jump, and I saw I was sitting on that camp-bedstead of mine sweating heavily; and the crescent moon looked pale in the morning light like a weary sleepless patient at dawn; and our crazy Meher Ali was crying out, as is his daily custom, “Stand back! Stand back!!” while he went along the lonely road.

Such was the abrupt close of one of my Arabian Nights; but there were yet a thousand nights left.

Then followed a great discord between my days and nights. During the day I would go to my work worn and tired, cursing the bewitching night and her empty dreams, but as night came my daily life with its bonds and shackles of work would appear a petty, false, ludicrous vanity.

After nightfall I was caught and overwhelmed in the snare of a strange intoxication, I would then be transformed into some unknown personage of a bygone age, playing my part in unwritten history; and my short English coat and tight breeches did not suit me in the least. With a red velvet cap on my head, loose paijamas, an embroidered vest, a long flowing silk gown, and coloured handkerchiefs scented with attar, I would complete my elaborate toilet, sit on a high-cushioned chair, and replace my cigarette with a many-coiled narghileh filled with rose-water, as if in eager expectation of a strange meeting with the beloved one.

I have no power to describe the marvellous incidents that unfolded themselves, as the gloom of the night deepened. I felt as if in the curious apartments of that vast edifice the fragments of a beautiful story, which I could follow for some distance, but of which I could never see the end, flew about in a sudden gust of the vernal breeze. And all the same I would wander from room to room in pursuit of them the whole night long.

Amid the eddy of these dream-fragments, amid the smell of henna and the twanging of the guitar, amid the waves of air charged with fragrant spray, I would catch like a flash of lightning the momentary glimpse of a fair damsel. She it was who had saffron-coloured paijamas, white ruddy soft feet in gold-embroidered slippers with curved toes, a close-fitting bodice wrought with gold, a red cap, from which a golden frill fell on her snowy brow and cheeks.

She had maddened me. In pursuit of her I wandered from room to room, from path to path among the bewildering maze of alleys in the enchanted dreamland of the nether world of sleep.

Sometimes in the evening, while arraying myself carefully as a prince of the blood-royal before a large mirror, with a candle burning on either side, I would see a sudden reflection of the Persian beauty by the side of my own. A swift turn of her neck, a quick eager glance of intense passion and pain glowing in her large dark eyes, just a suspicion of speech on her dainty red lips, her figure, fair and slim crowned with youth like a blossoming creeper, quickly uplifted in her graceful tilting gait, a dazzling flash of pain and craving and ecstasy, a smile and a glance and a blaze of jewels and silk, and she melted away. A wild glist of wind, laden with all the fragrance of hills and woods, would put out my light, and I would fling aside my dress and lie down on my bed, my eyes closed and my body thrilling with delight, and there around me in the breeze, amid all the perfume of the woods and hills, floated through the silent gloom many a caress and many a kiss and many a tender touch of hands, and gentle murmurs in my ears, and fragrant breaths on my brow; or a sweetly-perfumed kerchief was wafted again and again on my cheeks. Then slowly a mysterious serpent would twist her stupefying coils about me; and heaving a heavy sigh, I would lapse into insensibility, and then into a profound slumber.

One evening I decided to go out on my horse—I do not know who implored me to stay-but I would listen to no entreaties that day. My English hat and coat were resting on a rack, and I was about to take them down when a sudden whirlwind, crested with the sands of the Susta and the dead leaves of the Avalli hills, caught them up, and whirled them round and round, while a loud peal of merry laughter rose higher and higher, striking all the chords of mirth till it died away in the land of sunset.

I could not go out for my ride, and the next day I gave up my queer English coat and hat for good.

That day again at dead of night I heard the stifled heart-breaking sobs of some one—as if below the bed, below the floor, below the stony foundation of that gigantic palace, from the depths of a dark damp grave, a voice piteously cried and implored me: “Oh, rescue me! Break through these doors of hard illusion, deathlike slumber and fruitless dreams, place by your side on the saddle, press me to your heart, and, riding through hills and woods and across the river, take me to the warm radiance of your sunny rooms above!”

Who am I? Oh, how can I rescue thee? What drowning beauty, what incarnate passion shall I drag to the shore from this wild eddy of dreams? O lovely ethereal apparition! Where didst thou flourish and when? By what cool spring, under the shade of what date-groves, wast thou born—in the lap of what homeless wanderer in the desert? What Bedouin snatched thee from thy mother’s arms, an opening bud plucked from a wild creeper, placed thee on a horse swift as lightning, crossed the burning sands, and took thee to the slave-market of what royal city? And there, what officer of the Badshah, seeing the glory of thy bashful blossoming youth, paid for thee in gold, placed thee in a golden palanquin, and offered thee as a present for the seraglio of his master? And O, the history of that place! The music of the sareng, the jingle of anklets, the occasional flash of daggers and the glowing wine of Shiraz poison, and the piercing flashing glance! What infinite grandeur, what endless servitude!

The slave-girls to thy right and left waved the chamar as diamonds flashed from their bracelets; the Badshah, the king of kings, fell on his knees at thy snowy feet in bejewelled shoes, and outside the terrible Abyssinian eunuch, looking like a messenger of death, but clothed like an angel, stood with a naked sword in his hand! Then, O, thou flower of the desert, swept away by the blood-stained dazzling ocean of grandeur, with its foam of jealousy, its rocks and shoals of intrigue, on what shore of cruel death wast thou cast, or in what other land more splendid and more cruel?

Suddenly at this moment that crazy Meher Ali screamed out: “Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!” I opened my eyes and saw that it was already light. My chaprasi came and handed me my letters, and the cook waited with a salam for my orders.

I said; “No, I can stay here no longer.” That very day I packed up, and moved to my office. Old Karim Khan smiled a little as he saw me. I felt nettled, but said nothing, and fell to my work.

As evening approached I grew absent-minded; I felt as if I had an appointment to keep; and the work of examining the cotton accounts seemed wholly useless; even the Nizamat of the Nizam did not appear to be of much worth. Whatever belonged to the present, whatever was moving and acting and working for bread seemed trivial, meaningless, and contemptible.

I threw my pen down, closed my ledgers, got into my dog-cart, and drove away. I noticed that it stopped of itself at the gate of the marble palace just at the hour of twilight. With quick steps I climbed the stairs, and entered the room.

A heavy silence was reigning within. The dark rooms were looking sullen as if they had taken offence. My heart was full of contrition, but there was no one to whom I could lay it bare, or of whom I could ask forgiveness. I wandered about the dark rooms with a vacant mind. I wished I had a guitar to which I could sing to the unknown: “O fire, the poor moth that made a vain effort to fly away has come back to thee! Forgive it but this once, burn its wings and consume it in thy flame!”

Suddenly two tear-drops fell from overhead on my brow. Dark masses of clouds overcast the top of the Avalli hills that day. The gloomy woods and the sooty waters of the Susta were waiting in terrible suspense and in an ominous calm. Suddenly land, water, and sky shivered, and a wild tempest-blast rushed howling through the distant pathless woods, showing its lightning-teeth like a raving maniac who had broken his chains. The desolate halls of the palace banged their doors, and moaned in the bitterness of anguish.

The servants were all in the office, and there was no one to light the lamps. The night was cloudy and moonless. In the dense gloom within I could distinctly feel that a woman was lying on her face on the carpet below the bed—clasping and tearing her long dishevelled hair with desperate fingers. Blood was tricking down her fair brow, and she was now laughing a hard, harsh, mirthless laugh, now bursting into violent wringing sobs, now rending her bodice and striking at her bare bosom, as the wind roared in through the open window, and the rain poured in torrents and soaked her through and through.

All night there was no cessation of the storm or of the passionate cry. I wandered from room to room in the dark, with unavailing sorrow. Whom could I console when no one was by? Whose was this intense agony of sorrow? Whence arose this inconsolable grief?

And the mad man cried out: “Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!”

I saw that the day had dawned, and Meher Ali was going round and round the palace with his usual cry in that dreadful weather. Suddenly it came to me that perhaps he also had once lived in that house, and that, though he had gone mad, he came there every day, and went round and round, fascinated by the weird spell cast by the marble demon.

Despite the storm and rain I ran to him and asked: “Ho, Meher Ali, what is false?”

The man answered nothing, but pushing me aside went round and round with his frantic cry, like a bird flying fascinated about the jaws of a snake, and made a desperate effort to warn himself by repeating: “Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!”

I ran like a mad man through the pelting rain to my office, and asked Karim Khan: “Tell me the meaning of all this!”

What I gathered from that old man was this: That at one time countless unrequited passions and unsatisfied longings and lurid flames of wild blazing pleasure raged within that palace, and that the curse of all the heart-aches and blasted hopes had made its every stone thirsty and hungry, eager to swallow up like a famished ogress any living man who might chance to approach. Not one of those who lived there for three consecutive nights could escape these cruel jaws, save Meher Ali, who had escaped at the cost of his reason.

I asked: “Is there no means whatever of my release?” The old man said: “There is only one means, and that is very difficult. I will tell you what it is, but first you must hear the history of a young Persian girl who once lived in that pleasure-dome. A stranger or a more bitterly heart-rending tragedy was never enacted on this earth.”

Just at this moment the coolies announced that the train was coming. So soon? We hurriedly packed up our luggage, as the tram steamed in. An English gentleman, apparently just aroused from slumber, was looking out of a first-class carriage endeavouring to read the name of the station. As soon as he caught sight of our fellow-passenger, he cried, “Hallo,” and took him into his own compartment. As we got into a second-class carriage, we had no chance of finding out who the man was nor what was the end of his story.

I said; “The man evidently took us for fools and imposed upon us out of fun. The story is pure fabrication from start to finish.” The discussion that followed ended in a lifelong rupture between my theosophist kinsman and myself.

CHITRA

THE CHARACTERS

  GODS:

     MADANA (Eros).

     VASANTA (Lycoris).

  MORTALS:

     CHITRA, daughter of the King of Manipur.

     ARJUNA, a prince of the house of the Kurus.  He is of the

  Kshatriya or “warrior caste,” and during the action is living as

  a Hermit retired in the forest.

  VILLAGERS from an outlying district of Manipur.

  NOTE.—The dramatic poem “Chitra” has been performed in India

  without scenery—the actors being surrounded by the audience.

  Proposals for its production here having been made to him, he

  went through this translation and provided stage directions, but

  wished these omitted if it were printed as a book.

SCENE I

                               Chitra

     ART thou the god with the five darts, the Lord of Love?

                               Madana

     I am he who was the first born in the heart of the Creator.  I

     bind in bonds of pain and bliss the lives of men and women!

                               Chitra

     I know, I know what that pain is and those bonds.—And who art

     thou, my lord?

                              Vasanta

     I am his friend—Vasanta—the King of the Seasons.  Death and

     decrepitude would wear the world to the bone but that I follow

     them and constantly attack them.  I am Eternal Youth.

                               Chitra

     I bow to thee, Lord Vasanta.

                               Madana

     But what stern vow is thine, fair stranger?  Why dost thou wither

     thy fresh youth with penance and mortification?  Such a sacrifice

     is not fit for the worship of love.  Who art thou and what is thy

     prayer?

                               Chitra

     I am Chitra, the daughter of the kingly house of Manipur.  With

     godlike grace Lord Shiva promised to my royal grandsire an

     unbroken line of male descent.  Nevertheless, the divine word

     proved powerless to change the spark of life in my mother’s womb

     —so invincible was my nature, woman though I be.

                               Madana

     I know, that is why thy father brings thee up as his son.  He has

     taught thee the use of the bow and all the duties of a king.

                               Chitra

     Yes, that is why I am dressed in man’s attire and have left the

     seclusion of a woman’s chamber.  I know no feminine wiles for

     winning hearts.  My hands are strong to bend the bow, but I have

     never learnt Cupid’s archery, the play of eyes.

                               Madana

     That requires no schooling, fair one.  The eye does its work

     untaught, and he knows how well, who is struck in the heart.

                               Chitra

     One day in search of game I roved alone to the forest on the bank

     of the Purna river.  Tying my horse to a tree trunk I entered a

     dense thicket on the track of a deer.  I found a narrow sinuous

     path meandering through the dusk of the entangled boughs, the

     foliage vibrated with the chirping of crickets, when of a sudden

     I came upon a man lying on a bed of dried leaves, across my path.

     I asked him haughtily to move aside, but he heeded not.  Then

     with the sharp end of my bow I pricked him in contempt.

     Instantly he leapt up with straight, tall limbs, like a sudden

     tongue of fire from a heap of ashes.  An amused smile flickered

     round the corners of his mouth, perhaps at the sight of my boyish

     countenance.  Then for the first time in my life I felt myself a

     woman, and knew that a man was before me.

                               Madana

     At the auspicious hour I teach the man and the woman this supreme

     lesson to know themselves.  What happened after that?

                               Chitra

     With fear and wonder I asked him “Who are you?” “I am Arjuna,” he

     said, “of the great Kuru clan.”  I stood petrified like a statue,

     and forgot to do him obeisance.  Was this indeed Arjuna, the one

     great idol of my dreams!  Yes, I had long ago heard how he had

     vowed a twelve-years’ celibacy.  Many a day my young ambition had

     spurred me on to break my lance with him, to challenge him in

     disguise to single combat, and prove my skill in arms against

     him.  Ah, foolish heart, whither fled thy presumption?  Could I

     but exchange my youth with all its aspirations for the clod of

     earth under his feet, I should deem it a most precious grace.  I

     know not in what whirlpool of thought I was lost, when suddenly I

     saw him vanish through the trees.  O foolish woman, neither didst

     thou greet him, nor speak a word, nor beg forgiveness, but

     stoodest like a barbarian boor while he contemptuously walked

     away! . . . Next morning I laid aside my man’s clothing.  I

     donned bracelets, anklets, waist-chain, and a gown of purple red

     silk. The unaccustomed dress clung about my shrinking shame; but

     I hastened on my quest, and found Arjuna in the forest temple of

     Shiva.

                               Madana

     Tell me the story to the end.  I am the heart-born god, and I

     understand the mystery of these impulses.

                               Chitra

     Only vaguely can I remember what things I said, and what answer I

     got.  Do not ask me to tell you all.  Shame fell on me like a

     thunderbolt, yet could not break me to pieces, so utterly hard,

     so like a man am I.  His last words as I walked home pricked my

     ears like red hot needles.  “I have taken the vow of celibacy.  I

     am not fit to be thy husband!”  Oh, the vow of a man!  Surely

     thou knowest, thou god of love, that unnumbered saints and sages

     have surrendered the merits of their life-long penance at the

     feet of a woman.  I broke my bow in two and burnt my arrows in

     the fire. I hated my strong, lithe arm, scored by drawing the

     bowstring.  O Love, god Love, thou hast laid low in the dust the

     vain pride of my manlike strength; and all my man’s training lies

     crushed under thy feet.  Now teach me thy lessons; give me the

     power of the weak and the weapon of the unarmed hand.

                               Madana

     I will be thy friend.  I will bring the world-conquering Arjuna a

     captive before thee, to accept his rebellion’s sentence at thy

     hand.

                               Chitra

     Had I but the time needed, I could win his heart by slow degrees,

     and ask no help of the gods.  I would stand by his side as a

     comrade, drive the fierce horses of his war-chariot, attend him

     in the pleasures of the chase, keep guard at night at the

     entrance of his tent, and help him in all the great duties of a

     Kshatriya, rescuing the weak, and meting out justice where it is

     due.  Surely at last the day would have come for him to look at

     me and wonder, “What boy is this?  Has one of my slaves in a

     former life followed me like my good deeds into this?”  I am not

     the woman who nourishes her despair in lonely silence, feeding it

     with nightly tears and covering it with the daily patient smile,

     a widow from her birth.  The flower of my desire shall never drop

     into the dust before it has ripened to fruit.  But it is the

     labour of a life time to make one’s true self known and honoured.

     Therefore I have come to thy door, thou world-vanquishing Love,

     and thou, Vasanta, youthful Lord of the Seasons, take from

     my young body this primal injustice, an unattractive plainness.

     For a single day make me superbly beautiful, even as beautiful as

     was the sudden blooming of love in my heart.  Give me but one

     brief day of perfect beauty, and I will answer for the days that

     follow.

                               Madana

     Lady, I grant thy prayer.

                              Vasanta

     Not for the short span of a day, but for one whole year the charm

     of spring blossoms shall nestle round thy limbs.

SCENE II

                               Arjuna

     WAS I dreaming or was what I saw by the lake truly there?

     Sitting on the mossy turf, I mused over bygone years in the

     sloping shadows of the evening, when slowly there came out from

     the folding darkness of foliage an apparition of beauty in the

     perfect form of a woman, and stood on a white slab of stone at

     the water’s brink.  It seemed that the heart of the earth must

     heave in joy under her bare white feet.  Methought the vague

     veilings of her body should melt in ecstasy into air as the

     golden mist of dawn melts from off the snowy peak of the eastern

     hill.  She bowed herself above the shining mirror of the lake and

     saw the reflection of her face.  She started up in awe and stood

     still; then smiled, and with a careless sweep of her left arm

     unloosed her hair and let it trail on the earth at her feet.  She

     bared her bosom and looked at her arms, so flawlessly modelled,

     and instinct with an exquisite caress.  Bending her head she

     saw the sweet blossoming of her youth and the tender bloom and

     blush of her skin.  She beamed with a glad surprise.  So, if the

     white lotus bud on opening her eyes in the morning were to arch

     her neck and see her shadow in the water, would she wonder at

     herself the livelong day.  But a moment after the smile passed

     from her face and a shade of sadness crept into her eyes.  She

     bound up her tresses, drew her veil over her arms, and sighing

     slowly, walked away like a beauteous evening fading into the

     night.  To me the supreme fulfilment of desire seemed to have

     been revealed in a flash and then to have vanished. . . . But who

     is it that pushes the door?

              Enter CHITRA, dressed as a woman.

     Ah!  it is she.  Quiet, my heart! . . . Fear me not, lady!  I am

     a Kshatriya.

                               Chitra

     Honoured sir, you are my guest.  I live in this temple.  I know

     not in what way I can show you hospitality.

                               Arjuna

     Fair lady, the very sight of you is indeed the highest

     hospitality.  If you will not take it amiss I would ask you a

     question.

                               Chitra

     You have permission.

                               Arjuna

     What stern vow keeps you immured in this solitary temple,

     depriving all mortals of a vision of so much loveliness?

                               Chitra

     I harbour a secret desire in my heart, for the fulfilment of

     which I offer daily prayers to Lord Shiva.

                               Arjuna

     Alas, what can you desire, you who are the desire of the whole

     world!  From the easternmost hill on whose summit the morning sun

     first prints his fiery foot to the end of the sunset land have I

     travelled.  I have seen whatever is most precious, beautiful and

     great on the earth.  My knowledge shall be yours, only say for

     what or for whom you seek.

                               Chitra

     He whom I seek is known to all.

                               Arjuna

     Indeed!  Who may this favourite of the gods be, whose fame has

     captured your heart?

                               Chitra

     Sprung from the highest of all royal houses, the greatest of all

     heroes is he.

                               Arjuna

     Lady, offer not such wealth of beauty as is yours on the altar of

     false reputation.  Spurious fame spreads from tongue to tongue

     like the fog of the early dawn before the sun rises.  Tell me who

     in the highest of kingly lines is the supreme hero?

                               Chitra

     Hermit, you are jealous of other men’s fame.  Do you not know

     that all over the world the royal house of the Kurus is the most

     famous?

                               Arjuna

     The house of the Kurus!

                               Chitra

     And have you never heard of the greatest name of that far-famed

     house?

                               Arjuna

     From your own lips let me hear it.

                               Chitra

     Arjuna, the conqueror of the world.  I have culled from the

     mouths of the multitude that imperishable name and hidden it with

     care in my maiden heart.  Hermit, why do you look perturbed?  Has

     that name only a deceitful glitter?  Say so, and I will not

     hesitate to break this casket of my heart and throw the false gem

     to the dust.

                               Arjuna

     Be his name and fame, his bravery and prowess false or true, for

     mercy’s sake do not banish him from your heart—for he kneels at

     your feet even now.

                               Chitra

     You, Arjuna!

                               Arjuna

     Yes, I am he, the love-hungered guest at your door.

                               Chitra

     Then it is not true that Arjuna has taken a vow of chastity for

     twelve long years?

                               Arjuna

     But you have dissolved my vow even as the moon dissolves the

     night’s vow of obscurity.

                               Chitra

     Oh, shame upon you!  What have you seen in me that makes you

     false to yourself?  Whom do you seek in these dark eyes, in these

     milk-white arms, if you are ready to pay for her the price of

     your probity?  Not my true self, I know.  Surely this cannot be

     love, this is not man’s highest homage to woman!  Alas, that this

     frail disguise, the body, should make one blind to the light of

     the deathless spirit!  Yes, now indeed, I know, Arjuna, the fame

     of your heroic manhood is false.

                               Arjuna

     Ah, I feel how vain is fame, the pride of prowess!  Everything

     seems to me a dream.  You alone are perfect; you are the wealth

     of the world, the end of all poverty, the goal of all efforts,

     the one woman!  Others there are who can be but slowly known.

     While to see you for a moment is to see perfect completeness

     once and for ever.

                               Chitra

     Alas, it is not I, not I, Arjuna!  It is the deceit of a god.

     Go, go, my hero, go.  Woo not falsehood, offer not your great

     heart to an illusion.  Go.

SCENE III

                               Chitra

     No, impossible.  To face that fervent gaze that almost grasps you

     like clutching hands of the hungry spirit within; to feel his

     heart struggling to break its bounds urging its passionate cry

     through the entire body—and then to send him away like a

     beggar—no, impossible.

                  Enter MADANA and VASANTA.

     Ah, god of love, what fearful flame is this with which thou hast

     enveloped me!  I burn, and I burn whatever I touch.

                               Madana

     I desire to know what happened last night.

                               Chitra

     At evening I lay down on a grassy bed strewn with the petals of

     spring flowers, and recollected the wonderful praise of my beauty

     I had heard from Arjuna;—drinking drop by drop the honey that I

     had stored during the long day.  The history of my past life like

     that of my former existences was forgotten.  I felt like a

     flower, which has but a few fleeting hours to listen to all the

     humming flatteries and whispered murmurs of the woodlands and

     then must lower its eyes from the Sky, bend its head and at a

     breath give itself up to the dust without a cry, thus ending the

     short story of a perfect moment that has neither past nor future.

                              Vasanta

     A limitless life of glory can bloom and spend itself in a

     morning.

                               Madana

     Like an endless meaning in the narrow span of a song.

                               Chitra

     The southern breeze caressed me to sleep.  From the flowering

     Malati bower overhead silent kisses dropped over my body.

     On my hair, my breast, my feet, each flower chose a bed to die

     on.  I slept.  And, suddenly in the depth of my sleep, I felt as

     if some intense eager look, like tapering fingers of flame,

     touched my slumbering body.  I started up and saw the Hermit

     standing before me.  The moon had moved to the west, peering

     through the leaves to espy this wonder of divine art wrought in a

     fragile human frame.  The air was heavy with perfume; the silence

     of the night was vocal with the chirping of crickets; the

     reflections of the trees hung motionless in the lake; and with

     his staff in his hand he stood, tall and straight and still, like

     a forest tree.  It seemed to me that I had, on opening my eyes,

     died to all realities of life and undergone a dream birth into a

     shadow land.  Shame slipped to my feet like loosened clothes.  I

     heard his call—”Beloved, my most beloved!”  And all my forgotten

     lives united as one and responded to it.  I said, “Take me, take

     all I am!”  And I stretched out my arms to him.  The moon set

     behind the trees.  One curtain of darkness covered all.  Heaven

     and earth, time and space, pleasure and pain, death and life

     merged together in an unbearable ecstasy. . . . With the first

     gleam of light, the first twitter of birds, I rose up and sat

     leaning on my left arm.  He lay asleep with a vague smile about

     his lips like the crescent moon in the morning.  The rosy red

     glow of the dawn fell upon his noble forehead.  I sighed and

     stood up.  I drew together the leafy lianas to screen the

     streaming sun from his face.  I looked about me and saw the same

     old earth.  I remembered what I used to be, and ran and ran like

     a deer afraid of her own shadow, through the forest path strewn

     with shephali flowers.  I found a lonely nook, and sitting down

     covered my face with both hands, and tried to weep and cry.  But

     no tears came to my eyes.

                               Madana

     Alas, thou daughter of mortals!  I stole from the divine

     Storehouse the fragrant wine of heaven, filled with it one

     earthly night to the brim, and placed it in thy hand to drink—

     yet still I hear this cry of anguish!

                      Chitra [bitterly]

     Who drank it?  The rarest completion of life’s desire, the first

     union of love was proffered to me, but was wrested from my grasp?

     This borrowed beauty, this falsehood that enwraps me, will slip

     from me taking with it the only monument of that sweet union, as

     the petals fall from an overblown flower; and the woman ashamed

     of her naked poverty will sit weeping day and night.  Lord Love,

     this cursed appearance companions me like a demon robbing me of

     all the prizes of love—all the kisses for which my heart is

     athirst.

                               Madana

     Alas, how vain thy single night had been!  The barque of joy came

     in sight, but the waves would not let it touch the shore.

                               Chitra

     Heaven came so close to my hand that I forgot for a moment that

     it had not reached me.  But when I woke in the morning from my

     dream I found that my body had become my own rival.  It is my

     hateful task to deck her every day, to send her to my beloved and

     see her caressed by him.  O god, take back thy boon!

                               Madana

     But if I take it from you how can you stand before your lover?

     To snatch away the cup from his lips when he has scarcely drained

     his first draught of pleasure, would not that be cruel?  With

     what resentful anger he must regard thee then?

                               Chitra

     That would be better far than this.  I will reveal my true self

     to him, a nobler thing than this disguise.  If he rejects it, if

     he spurns me and breaks my heart, I will bear even that in

     silence.

                              Vasanta

     Listen to my advice.  When with the advent of autumn the

     flowering season is over then comes the triumph of fruitage.  A

     time will come of itself when the heat-cloyed bloom of the body

     will droop and Arjuna will gladly accept the abiding fruitful

     truth in thee.  O child, go back to thy mad festival.

SCENE IV

                               Chitra

     WHY do you watch me like that, my warrior?

                               Arjuna

     I watch how you weave that garland.  Skill and grace, the twin

     brother and sister, are dancing playfully on your finger tips.  I

     am watching and thinking.

                               Chitra

     What are you thinking, sir?

                               Arjuna

     I am thinking that you, with this same lightness of touch and

     sweetness, are weaving my days of exile into an immortal wreath,

     to crown me when I return home.

                               Chitra

     Home!  But this love is not for a home!

                               Arjuna

     Not for a home?

                               Chitra

     No.  Never talk of that.  Take to your home what is abiding and

     strong.  Leave the little wild flower where it was born; leave it

     beautifully to die at the day’s end among all fading blossoms and

     decaying leaves.   Do not take it to your palace hall to fling it

     on the stony floor which knows no pity for things that fade and

     are forgotten.

                               Arjuna

     Is ours that kind of love?

                               Chitra

     Yes, no other!  Why regret it?  That which was meant for idle

     days should never outlive them.  Joy turns into pain when the

     door by which it should depart is shut against it.  Take it and

     keep it as long as it lasts.  Let not the satiety of your evening

     claim more than the desire of your morning could earn. . . . The

     day is done.  Put this garland on.  I am tired.  Take me in your

     arms, my love.  Let all vain bickerings of discontent die away at

     the sweet meeting of our lips.

                               Arjuna

     Hush!  Listen, my beloved, the sound of prayer bells from the

     distant village temple steals upon the evening air across the

     silent trees!

SCENE V

                              Vasanta

     I CANNOT keep pace with thee, my friend!  I am tired.  It is a

     hard task to keep alive the fire thou hast kindled.  Sleep

     overtakes me, the fan drops from my hand, and cold ashes cover

     the glow of the fire.  I start up again from my slumber and with

     all my might rescue the weary flame.  But this can go on no

     longer.

                               Madana

     I know, thou art as fickle as a child.  Ever restless is thy play

     in heaven and on earth.  Things that thou for days buildest up

     with endless detail thou dost shatter in a moment without regret.

     But this work of ours is nearly finished.  Pleasure-winged days

     fly fast, and the year, almost at its end, swoons in rapturous

     bliss.

SCENE VI

                               Arjuna

     I WOKE in the morning and found that my dreams had distilled a

     gem.  I have no casket to inclose it, no king’s crown whereon to

     fix it, no chain from which to hang it, and yet have not the

     heart to throw it away.  My Kshatriya’s right arm, idly occupied

     in holding it, forgets its duties.

                           Enter CHITRA.

                               Chitra

     Tell me your thoughts, sir!

                               Arjuna

     My mind is busy with thoughts of hunting today.  See, how the

     rain pours in torrents and fiercely beats upon the hillside.  The

     dark shadow of the clouds hangs heavily over the forest, and the

     swollen stream, like reckless youth, overleaps all barriers with

     mocking laughter.  On such rainy days we five brothers would go

     to the Chitraka forest to chase wild beasts.  Those were glad

     times. Our hearts danced to the drumbeat of rumbling clouds.  The

     woods resounded with the screams of peacocks.  Timid deer could

     not hear our approaching steps for the patter of rain and the

     noise of waterfalls; the leopards would leave their tracks on the

     wet earth, betraying their lairs.  Our sport over, we dared each

     other to swim across turbulent streams on our way back home.  The

     restless spirit is on me.  I long to go hunting.

                               Chitra

     First run down the quarry you are now following.  Are you quite

     certain that the enchanted deer you pursue must needs be caught?

     No, not yet.  Like a dream the wild creature eludes you when it

     seems most nearly yours.  Look how the wind is chased by the mad

     rain that discharges a thousand arrows after it.  Yet it goes

     free and unconquered.  Our sport is like that, my love!  You give

     chase to the fleet-footed spirit of beauty, aiming at her every

     dart you have in your hands.  Yet this magic deer runs ever free

     and untouched.

                               Arjuna

     My love, have you no home where kind hearts are waiting for your

     return?  A home which you once made sweet with your gentle

     service and whose light went out when you left it for this

     wilderness?

                               Chitra

     Why these questions?  Are the hours of unthinking pleasure over?

     Do you not know that I am no more than what you see before you?

     For me there is no vista beyond.  The dew that hangs on the tip

     of a Kinsuka petal has neither name nor destination.  It offers

     no answer to any question.  She whom you love is like that

     perfect bead of dew.

                               Arjuna

     Has she no tie with the world?  Can she be merely like a fragment

     of heaven dropped on the earth through the carelessness of a

     wanton god?

                               Chitra

     Yes.

                               Arjuna

     Ah, that is why I always seem about to lose you.  My heart is

     unsatisfied, my mind knows no peace.  Come closer to me,

     unattainable one!  Surrender yourself to the bonds of name and

     home and parentage.  Let my heart feel you on all sides and live

     with you in the peaceful security of love.

                               Chitra

     Why this vain effort to catch and keep the tints of the clouds,

     the dance of the waves, the smell of the flowers?

                               Arjuna

     Mistress mine, do not hope to pacify love with airy nothings.

     Give me something to clasp, something that can last longer than

     pleasure, that can endure even through suffering.

                               Chitra

     Hero mine, the year is not yet full, and you are tired already!

     Now I know that it is Heaven’s blessing that has made the

     flower’s term of life short.  Could this body of mine have

     drooped and died with the flowers of last spring it surely would

     have died with honour.  Yet, its days are numbered, my love.

     Spare it not, press it dry of honey, for fear your beggar’s heart

     come back to it again and again with unsated desire, like a

     thirsty bee when summer blossoms lie dead in the dust.

SCENE VII

                               Madana

     TONIGHT is thy last night.

                              Vasanta

     The loveliness of your body will return tomorrow to the

     inexhaustible stores of the spring.  The ruddy tint of thy lips

     freed from the memory of Arjuna’s kisses, will bud anew as a pair

     of fresh asoka leaves, and the soft, white glow of thy skin will

     be born again in a hundred fragrant jasmine flowers.

                               Chitra

     O gods, grant me this my prayer!  Tonight, in its last hour let

     my beauty flash its brightest, like the final flicker of a dying

     flame.

                               Madana

     Thou shalt have thy wish.

SCENE VIII

                             Villagers

     WHO will protect us now?

                               Arjuna

     Why, by what danger are you threatened?

                             Villagers

     The robbers are pouring from the northern hills like a mountain

     flood to devastate our village.

                               Arjuna

     Have you in this kingdom no warden?

                             Villagers

     Princess Chitra was the terror of all evil doers.  While she was

     in this happy land we feared natural deaths, but had no other

     fears.  Now she has gone on a pilgrimage, and none knows where to

     find her.

                               Arjuna

     Is the warden of this country a woman?

                             Villagers

     Yes, she is our father and mother in one.

                                                       [Exeunt.

                           Enter CHITRA.

                               Chitra

     Why are you sitting all alone?

                               Arjuna

     I am trying to imagine what kind of woman Princess Chitra may be.

     I hear so many stories of her from all sorts of men.

                               Chitra

     Ah, but she is not beautiful.  She has no such lovely eyes as

     mine, dark as death.  She can pierce any target she will, but not

     our hero’s heart.

                               Arjuna

     They say that in valour she is a man, and a woman in tenderness.

                               Chitra

     That, indeed, is her greatest misfortune.  When a woman is merely

     a woman; when she winds herself round and round men’s hearts with

     her smiles and sobs and services and caressing endearments; then

     she is happy.  Of what use to her are learning and great

     achievements?  Could you have seen her only yesterday in the

     court of the Lord Shiva’s temple by the forest path, you would

     have passed by without deigning to look at her.  But have you

     grown so weary of woman’s beauty that you seek in her for a man’s

     strength?

     With green leaves wet from the spray of the foaming waterfall, I

     have made our noonday bed in a cavern dark as night.  There the

     cool of the soft green mosses thick on the black and dripping

     stone, kisses your eyes to sleep.  Let me guide you thither.

                               Arjuna

     Not today, beloved.

                               Chitra

     Why not today?

                               Arjuna

     I have heard that a horde of robbers has neared the plains.

     Needs must I go and prepare my weapons to protect the frightened

     villagers.

                               Chitra

     You need have no fear for them.  Before she started on her

     pilgrimage, Princess Chitra had set strong guards at all the

     frontier passes.

                               Arjuna

     Yet permit me for a short while to set about a Kshatriya’s work.

     With new glory will I ennoble this idle arm, and make of it a

     pillow more worthy of your head.

                               Chitra

     What if I refuse to let you go, if I keep you entwined in my

     arms?  Would you rudely snatch yourself free and leave me?  Go

     then!  But you must know that the liana, once broken in two,

     never joins again.  Go, if your thirst is quenched.  But, if not,

     then remember that the goddess of pleasure is fickle, and waits

     for no man.  Sit for a while, my lord!  Tell me what uneasy

     thoughts tease you.  Who occupied your mind today?  Is it Chitra?

                               Arjuna

     Yes, it is Chitra.  I wonder in fulfilment of what vow she has

     gone on her pilgrimage.  Of what could she stand in need?

                               Chitra

     Her needs?  Why, what has she ever had, the unfortunate creature?

     Her very qualities are as prison walls, shutting her woman’s

     heart in a bare cell.  She is obscured, she is unfulfilled.  Her

     womanly love must content itself dressed in rags; beauty is

     denied  her.   She  is like the spirit of  a  cheerless  morning,

     sitting upon the stony mountain peak, all her light blotted out

     by dark clouds.  Do not ask me of her life.  It will never sound

     sweet to man’s ear.

                               Arjuna

     I am eager to learn all about her.  I am like a traveller come to

     a strange city at midnight.  Domes and towers and garden-trees

     look vague and shadowy, and the dull moan of the sea comes

     fitfully through the silence of sleep.  Wistfully he waits for

     the morning to reveal to him all the strange wonders.  Oh, tell

     me her story.

                               Chitra

     What more is there to tell?

                               Arjuna

     I seem to see her, in my mind’s eye, riding on a white horse,

     proudly holding the reins in her left hand, and in her right a

     bow, and like the Goddess of Victory dispensing glad hope all

     round her.  Like a watchful lioness she protects the litter at

     her dugs with a fierce love.  Woman’s arms, though adorned with

     naught but unfettered strength, are beautiful!  My heart is

     restless, fair one, like a serpent reviving from his long

     winter’s sleep.  Come, let us both race on swift horses side by

     side, like twin orbs of light sweeping through space.  Out from

     this slumbrous prison of green gloom, this dank, dense cover of

     perfumed intoxication, choking breath.

                               Chitra

     Arjuna, tell me true, if, now at once, by some magic I could

     shake myself free from this voluptuous softness, this timid bloom

     of beauty shrinking from the rude and healthy touch of the world,

     and fling it from my body like borrowed clothes, would you be

     able to bear it?  If I stand up straight and strong with the

     strength of a daring heart spurning the wiles and arts of twining

     weakness, if I hold my head high like a tall young mountain fir,

     no longer trailing in the dust like a liana, shall I then appeal

     to man’s eye?   No, no, you could not endure it.  It is better

     that I should keep spread about me all the dainty playthings of

     fugitive youth, and wait for you in patience.  When it pleases

     you to return, I will smilingly pour out for you the wine of

     pleasure in the cup of this beauteous body.  When you are tired

     and satiated with this wine, you can go to work or play; and when

     I grow old I will accept humbly and gratefully whatever corner is

     left for me.  Would it please your heroic soul if the playmate of

     the night aspired to be the helpmeet of the day, if the left arm

     learnt to share the burden of the proud right arm?

                               Arjuna

     I never seem to know you aright.  You seem to me like a goddess

     hidden within a golden image.  I cannot touch you, I cannot pay

     you my dues in return for your priceless gifts.  Thus my love is

     incomplete.  Sometimes in the enigmatic depth of your sad look,

     in your playful words mocking at their own meaning, I gain

     glimpses of a being trying to rend asunder the languorous grace

     of her body, to emerge in a chaste fire of pain through a

     vaporous veil of smiles.  Illusion is the first appearance of

     Truth.  She advances towards her lover in disguise.  But a time

     comes when she throws off her ornaments and veils and stands

     clothed in naked dignity.  I grope for that ultimate you, that

     bare simplicity of truth.

     Why these tears, my love?  Why cover your face with your hands?

     Have I pained you, my darling?  Forget what I said.  I will be

     content with the present.  Let each separate moment of beauty

     come to me like a bird of mystery from its unseen nest in the

     dark  bearing  a message of music.  Let me for ever sit  with

     my hope on the brink of its realization, and thus end my days.

SCENE IX

                         CHITRA and ARJUNA

                      Chitra [cloaked]

     My lord, has the cup been drained to the last drop?  Is this,

     indeed, the end? No, when all is done something still remains,

     and that is my last sacrifice at your feet.

     I brought from the garden of heaven flowers of incomparable

     beauty with which to worship you, god of my heart.  If the rites

     are over, if the flowers have faded, let me throw them out of the

     temple [unveiling in her original male attire].  Now, look

     at your worshipper with gracious eyes.

     I am not beautifully perfect as the flowers with which I

     worshipped.  I have many flaws and blemishes.  I am a

     traveller in the great world-path, my garments are dirty,

     and my feet are bleeding with thorns.  Where should I achieve

     flower-beauty, the unsullied loveliness of a moment’s life?  The

     gift that I proudly bring you is the heart of a woman.  Here have

     all pains and joys gathered, the hopes and fears and shames of a

     daughter of the dust; here love springs up struggling toward

     immortal life.  Herein lies an imperfection which yet is noble

     and grand.  If the flower-service is finished, my master, accept

     this as your servant for the days to come!

     I am Chitra, the king’s daughter.  Perhaps you will remember the

     day when a woman came to you in the temple of Shiva, her body

     loaded with ornaments and finery.  That shameless woman came to

     court you as though she were a man.  You rejected her; you did

     well.  My lord, I am that woman.  She was my disguise.  Then by

     the boon of gods I obtained for a year the most radiant form that

     a mortal ever wore, and wearied my hero’s heart with the burden

     of that deceit.  Most surely I am not that woman.

     I am Chitra.  No goddess to be worshipped, nor yet the

     object of common pity to be brushed aside like a moth with

     indifference.  If you deign to keep me by your side in the path

     of danger and daring, if you allow me to share the great duties

     of your life, then you will know my true self.  If your babe,

     whom  I  am nourishing in my womb be born a son, I  shall  myself

     teach him to be a second Arjuna, and send him to you when the

     time comes, and then at last you will truly know me. Today I can

     only offer you Chitra, the daughter of a king.

                               Arjuna

     Beloved, my life is full.

Ideological Nonviolence ….

For many adherents of nonviolence, the rationale for it being the preferred method of political activism rests on more than a pragmatic assessment that it works better than other methods. It is good not only because it ‘works’ but also because it is ‘right’. These activists tend to see the aim of nonviolence as persuasion and conversion of opponents, rather than coercion.
Most Western believers in nonviolence as a creed belong to one of two groups: firstly, members of nonviolent Christian sects or individuals who have come to the conviction that nonviolence is the only method of disputing that is consistent with the teachings of The Bible. and secondly, those who have been influenced by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.

(a) Christian Views of Nonviolence.

(Nonviolence International Note: Read as Faith Based)

Christians generally accept the proposition that ‘God is love’. This leads to the logical corollary that the main enemy is hatred itself. Relying particulary on New Testament texts, such as the sayings of Jesus that “Whoever shall say [to his brother] , Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire” (Matthew 5:22) and “anyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15), Christians have interpreted the terms ‘brother’ and ‘neighbour’ (following the parable of the Good Samaritan) at their widest. And this means loving opponents and even enemies:

Care as much about each other as about yourselves…
Never pay back evil for evil…
If your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink…
Do not let evil conquer you, but use good to defeat evil.

(Romans 12:16-21)

While the exhortations of Jesus to nonviolence are legion, the way of putting this nonviolence into practice has been interpreted in different ways. Throughout history Christians have had to make a decision whether it was their duty to shun an evil world or to act to change it.

Of those that have chosen an active engagement, many of the most notable peace activists have belonged to the Society of Friends -the Quakers. Quakers believe that there is something of God in every person and that in the face of evil, as Christians, they are called upon to act in a way that is most likely to reach ‘that of God’ in the other and so change an evil mind into a right mind. And this is not something that can be achieved by violence.

Catholic monk Thomas Merton is probably the best known of the recent ideological Christian nonviolence theorists. While his nonviolence closely resembles that of Gandhi, the focus of his writings was the evils of war and particularly the Vietnam war and nuclear armaments. Although he lamented the lack of active protest among Catholics, he warned of the dangers inherent in a philosophy that aims to proclaim the truth and to help the adversary realise it. The temptation to self-righteousness and an unwillingness o see the other’s point of view had to be guarded against, as did direct action that was ‘oriented to the of the rightness, the determination and the conviction of the protesters, and not to the injustice of the law’ that was being protested against. And of course if, in breaking a law during protest, the punishment provided is not accepted the Christian nonviolent resister becomes ‘a mere revolutionary’ (Merton, 1980, p. xxxvi).

Varieties of Christian Campaigns

During the Vietnam anti-war movement in the United States, Christians, even priests and nuns, took part in many campaigns of direct action. Probably the best known of these activists were Merton’s friends, the Jesuit priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan. The Berrigans were imprisoned for acts of civil disobedience such as raids on draft board offices and the destruction of draft records, and eventually for trespassing in a weapons factory and damaging nuclear missile nose-cones with hammers. They maintained that their destruction of property was nonviolent as long as the destroyed property belonged to a class that ‘has no right to exist’.

While Merton may have had some doubt as to the inclusion of such actions under the rubric of ideological nonviolence (see definition above), he may have been at least tacitly supportive as long as the Berrigans were willing to accept and endure punishment as part of their witness. In this case however a further dispute arose as to whether ‘going underground’ to continue educating people (the course of action chosen by the priests), rather than immediately accepting the punishment of the State, is still within the bounds of nonviolence.

One of this century’s most celebrated nonviolent activists has been Martin Luther King Jr. The Alabama pastor achieved world prominence following his organisation of the Montgomery bus boycott in the mid-1950s. Inspired by the example of Rosa Parks, Blacks, who were obliged to give up their seats to white passengers, started boycotting the bus system entirely. Under King’s instructions to sustain ‘Christian love’. the Blacks maintained nonviolent discipline in the face of terrorism from white extremists. Within a year the bus system had been desegregated.

King declared that ‘The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love’ (King, 1958, pp. 103-104); and he warned that the ‘tactics of nonviolence without the spirit of nonviolence may become a new kind of violence’ Yet, nonviolent tactics were important. Reflecting on matters in jail following his arrest during the Birmingham desegregation campaign, King responded to religious leaders of Alabama with a tone of despair. They had told him that ‘When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets’. King, showing disillusionment with white moderates, answered in his acclaimed Letter From Birmingham City Jail that ‘history is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily’, hence the need for direct action.

(b)Satyagraha – The Nonviolence of Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha, Gandhi explained, is ‘literally holding onto Truth and it means, therefore, Truth-force. Truth is soul or spirit. It is therefore known as soul force’ (Young India, 23 March 1921). The technique of nonviolent struggle that Gandhi evolved in South Africa to gain rights for Indians was originally described by the English phrase ‘passive resistance’. Gandhi, however felt that the term ‘was too narrowly constructed, that it was supposed to be a weapon of the weak, that it could be characterized by hatred and that it could manifest itself as violence’ (Gandhi, 1966, p. 266). These attributes were not applicable to his method of direct action and so he coined the new word ‘satyagraha’ (sat: truth, agraha:: firmness).

Satyagraha implies working steadily towards a discovery of the truth and converting the opponent into a friend in the process. In other words, it is not used against anybody but is done with somebody. ‘It is based on the idea that the moral appeal to the heart or conscience is … more effective than an appeal based on threat or bodily pain or violence’ (Gandhi, 1961, p. iii). And for Gandhi it had to be a creed, a way of life, to be truly effective.

In satyagraha the following propositions are kept in mind:

1. The aim in group struggle is to act in a way conducive to long-term, universal, maximal reduction of violence.
2. The character of the means used determines the character of the results.
3. A constructive program – positive peacebuilding work should be a part of every campaign.
4. One should engage in positive struggle in favour of human beings and certain values; that is, fight antagonisms, not antagonists.
5. All human beings have long-term interests in common.
6. Violence is invited from opponents if they are humiliated or provoked.
7. A violent attitude on the part of would-be satyagrahis (advocates of satyagraha) is less likely if they have made clear to themselves the essential elements of their case and the purpose of the struggle.
8. The better opponents understand the satvagrahi’s position and conduct, the less likely they are to resort to violence. Secrecy should therefore be avoided.
9. The essential interests which opponents have in common should be clearly formulated and cooperation established on that basis.
10. Personal contact with the opponent should be sought.
11. Opponents should not be judged harder than the self.
12. Opponents should be trusted.
13. The property of opponents should not be destroyed.
14. An unwillingness to compromise on non-essentials decreases the likelihood of converting the opponent.
15. The conversion of an opponent is furthered by personal sincerity.
16. The best way to convince an opponent of your sincerity is to make sacrifices for the cause.
17. A position of weakness in an opponent should not be exploited. Satyagraha is concerned with morality over and above ‘winning’.
(Naess, 1974, pp. 60-84).

How is one to decide which of two opposing cases is nearer the truth? According to Gandhi, the voice of conscience must be obeyed in these circumstances. Of course this may present further problems: what one person sees as truth may just as clearly be untruth for another. For this reason, Gandhi warns, ‘no one has the right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth’ (Harijan, 24 November 1933); therefore, nonviolence is the only appropriate means for arriving at the truth. If the position held by the satyagrahi proves to be further from the truth than that of the opponent it will only be the satvagrahi who suffers; others will not be made to suffer for the satyagrahi’s mistake.

Nonviolence-an understanding

‘Nonviolence’ is an umbrella term for describing a range of methods for dealing with conflict which share the common principle that physical violence, at least against other people, is not used. Gene Sharp, the best known writer on nonviolent action, has compiled the most comprehensive typology of nonviolence; a summary is given in Table 1.

While this typology illustrates the various approaches to nonviolence, the criteria which underpin them are still not clear. These criteria may be identified by examining the two major dimensions of nonviolent action.

The first dimension (the tactical-strategic) indicates the depth of analysis, the ultimate aim and the operational time-frame which activists use. The second dimension (the pragmatic-ideological) indicates the nature of the commitment to nonviolence and the approach to conflict which activists utilise: this includes the importance attached to the relationship between means and ends and the attitude towards the opponent.

Tactical exponents of nonviolent action use short to medium term campaigns in order to achieve a particular goal within an existing social framework; their aim is reform. Strategic exponents of nonviolent action are guided by a structural analysis of social relationships and are mainly concerned about the fundamental transformation of society; particular campaigns are thus conducted within the context of a long-term revolutionary strategy.

Pragmatic exponents use nonviolent action because they believe it to be the most effective method available in the circumstances. They view conflict as a relationship between antagonists with incompatible interests; their goal is to defeat the opponent. Ideological exponents choose nonviolent action for ethical reasons and believe in the unity of means and ends. They view the opponent as a partner in the struggle to satisfy the needs of all. More fundamentally, they may view nonviolence as a way of life.

The commitment of individual activists and the nature of particular campaigns can also be illustrated graphically according to the strength of their standing in relation to each of the criteria identified on the matrix in Figure 1. They may be located in any quadrant on the matrix, near to or far from a particular axis, and at various distances from the origin.

This article will now examine the use of tactical and pragmatic nonviolence and consider the important relationship between means and ends. We will then examine various Christian justifications for nonviolent action as well as Gandhi’s conception of it; these traditions provide much of the theoretical basis for ideological (or creed-based) nonviolent activism. This article will then discuss the structural analysis important to an understanding of the strategic use of nonviolent action. It will conclude with an examination of the dynamics of ideological nonviolence and an analysis of the most fundamental reason for adherence to it, that is, as the basis for a way of life.

It consists of acts of protest and persuasion, noncooperation and nonviolent intervention designed to undermine the sources of power of the opponent in order to bring about change.

Nonviolent protest and persuasion is a class of methods which are ‘mainly symbolic acts of peaceful opposition or of attempted persuasion, extending beyond verbal expressions’. These methods include marches, vigils, pickets, the use of posters, street theatre, painting and protest meetings.

Noncooperation – the most common form of nonviolent action – involves the deliberate withdrawal of cooperation with the person, activity, institution or regime with which the activists have become engaged in conflict. These methods include the provision of sanctuary (social); strikes, boycotts and war tax resistance (economic) and boycotts of legislative bodies and elections (political). Political noncooperation also includes acts of civil disobedience – the ‘deliberate, open and peaceful violation of particular laws, decrees, regulations … and the like which are believed to be illegitimate for some reason’.

Nonviolent intervention is a class of methods involving the disruption or destruction of established behaviour patterns, policies, relationships or institutions which are considered objectionable, or the creation of new behaviour patterns, policies, relationships or institutions which are preferred. The disruption class of methods includes nonviolent occupations or blockades, fasting, seeking imprisonment and overloading facilities (such as courts and prisons). The creation class of methods includes establishing alternative political, economic and social institutions such as non-hierarchical cooperatives, markets, ethical investment groups, alternative schools, energy exchange cooperatives as well as parallel media, communications and transport networks. This last class of methods is what the Gandhian literature refers to as the constructive program.

Types of Nonviolence

Non-resistance	Non-resistants reject all physical violence on principle and concentrate on maintaining their own integrity, e.g. the attitude of the Amish and Mennonite sects of Christians.
Active Reconciliation	A Faith-based rejection of coercion and a belief in active goodwill and reconciliation, for example as practiced by Quakers and other religious activist groups.
Moral Resistance	Moral resisters actively resist evil with peaceful and moral means such as education and persuasion. This has been the basis of much of Western pacifism.
Selective Nonviolence	The refusal to participate in particular wars or kinds of war, e.g. nuclear war.
Passive Resistance	Nonviolent tactics are employed because the means for an effective violent campaign are lacking or are not likely to succeed; e.g. most strikes, boycotts and national non-cooperation movements belong to this category.
Peaceful Resistance	Peaceful resisters believe that nonviolent methods are more effective; e.g. some of Gandhi’s campaigns fall into this category because many of his followers did not fully internalise what he taught.
Nonviolent Direct Action	Practitioners may view nonviolence as a moral principle or practical method. The object is victory rather than conversion. An example is provided by the Greenham Common actions.
Gandhian Nonviolence (Satyagraha)	Satyagraha aims to attain the truth tnrough love and right action; it demands the elimination of violence from the self and from the social, political and economic environment. Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha is a classic example.
Nonviolent Revolution	Revolutionaries believe in the need for basic individual and social change and regard the major problems of existing society as structural, e.g. the campaigns of Jayaprakash Narayan and Vinoba Bhave in India.

The Major Dimensions of Nonviolence …

The Tactical-Strategic Dimension
Criterion	Tactical Nonviolence	Strategic Nonviolence
Analysis of Social Framework	Conservative	Structural
Aim	Reform	Revolution
Operational Timeframe	Short/Medium Term	Long Term
The Pragmatic-Ideological Dimension
Criterion	Pragmatic Nonviolence	Ideological Nonviolence
Nature of Commitment	Most Effective	Ethically Best
Means and Ends	Separate	Indivisible
Approach to Conflice	Incompatible Interests	Shared Interests
Approach to Opponent	Competitive	Cooperative

Some political activists believe that the ends achieved will justify any means. They dismiss the nonviolence of those who place a strong emphasis on the purity of means as merely ‘symbolic’ while defining their own actions as ‘real’. In the words of Pelton, what they attempt to do is to “proclaim that all “means-and-end-moralists” are strangers to the world of action and are passive non-doers” (Pelton, 1974, p. 252). Not only is this not the case, it also ignores some of the important philosophical issues involved in any consideration of the relative importance of means to ends.

Some activists recognise that nonviolence may well prove to be the best means for achieving the ends sought. Others see nonviolence in certain contexts as simply a method of last resort. American social activist Saul Alinsky, has even gone so far as to claim the following:

If Gandhi had had weapons … and the people to use them this means would not have been so unreservedly rejected as the world would like to think … If he had had guns he might well have used them in an armed revolution against the Bntish which would have been in keeping with the traditions of revolutions for freedom through force. Gandhi did not have the guns and if he had had the guns he would not have had the people to use the guns.

(Alinsky, 1972, pp. 39, 38)

Alinsky sums up his dismissal of ideological nonviolence by noting that “Means and ends are so qualitatively interrelated that the true question has never been the proverbial one, “Does the End justify the Means?” but always has been “Does this particular end justify this particular means?”” (Alinsky, 1972, p. 47).

But Alinsky overlooked the fact that the ends Gandhi sought were far more ambitious than merely freeing India from British domination and potentially exchanging white exploiters for indigenous ones. Gandhi’s aim was to bring about a peaceful and just society, a new India and a new Indian.<

Along with Aldous Huxley, who claimed that “Good ends … can only be achieved by the employment of appropriate means”, and that “The end cannot justify the means, for the simple reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced” (Huxley, 1938, p.9), Gandhi maintained that “The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree: and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree” (Gandhi, 1961, p. 10). He added that “They say “Means are after all means.” I would say, “means are after all everything.” As the means so the ends. There is no wall of separation between means and ends” (Young India, 17 July, 1924), and, “if one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself” (Harijan, 11 February, 1939).

Huxley notes that the almost universal desire to believe in short cuts to Utopia makes us less than dispassionate when looking at means “which we know quite certainly to be abominable”. Quoting Thomas a Kempis’ famous line, “All men desire peace. but very few desire those things which make for peace”, he adds that “the thing that makes for peace above all others is the systematic practice in all human relationships of nonviolence” (Huxley, 1938, p. 138). It is the primary means to this important end. Echoing Gandhi, Huxley asserts:

If violence is answered by violence, the result is a physical struggle. Now, a physical struggle inevitably arouses in the minds of those directly and even indirectly concerned in it emotions of hatred, fear, rage and resentment. In the heat of conflict all scruples are thrown to the winds, and all the habits of forbearance and humaneness, slowly and laboriously formed during generations of civilised living, are forgotten. Nothing matters any more except victory. And when at last victory comes to one or other of the parties, this final outcome of physical struggle bears no necessary relation to the rights and wrongs of the case: nor in most cases, does it provide any lasting settlement to the dispute.

(Huxley, 1938. p. 139)

Huxley suggests that the golden rule to be kept in mind when ends, and the means to achieve them, are chosen is to ask whether the result will be merely the attainment of some immediate goal, or to transform the society to which they are applied “into a just, peaceable, morally and intellectually progressive community of non-attached and responsible men and women” (Huxley, 1938, p. 32).

A Perfectness of Human Action ..

Nonviolence aims to end injustice by making the perpetrator of injustice see reason and undo the wrong done by him.

What is nonviolence?

Nonviolence is an ideology that rejects the use of violent action in a conflict over power to attain social and political objectives.

The term nonviolence is complex and has varied meanings, among which it is important to draw distinctions. In general, the term has been interpreted as in the negative – an absence of violence. However, nonviolence, both in theory and practice can and should be viewed as a positive, an active and potent force for attaining certain goals.

Two categories of definition can be named: principled and pragmatic. In their application, these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and some movements have utilized both concurrently to significant effect.

Principled nonviolence is often rooted in traditional or religious beliefs and customs, or in moral principles alone. It is based on a moral stand, an ethical code which disallows the practice of violence, often throughout all actions of life. Principled nonviolent practitioners do not necessarily utilize nonviolent actions and strategies, though they at times have.

For practitioners of principled nonviolence, the aim of any nonviolent endeavour is, as the Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche, Chairman of the Assembly of Tibetan’s People’s Deputies, Tibetan Government in Exile stated,” the establishment of truth and removal of injustice. It does not aim to eliminate or defeat anyone. For a true nonviolent activist, there is no enemy. It aims to end injustice by making the perpetrator of injustice see reason and undo the wrong done by him.”

A significant question which principled nonviolence seeks to answer is: Is there a unity of ends and means; are the means of attaining goals, particularly those based on ideals such as equality, justice or peace, in concert with the ends?

Principled nonviolence includes such diverse beliefs as pacifism, a generally non-active form of resistance to violence; Tibetan Buddhist practitioners who eschew all forms of violence; and the commitment of the Quakers, a religious group, to use their deeply held belief in a nonviolent way of life to effect change, not only within themselves as individuals or in their immediate sphere of influence, but also in the world at large.

Pragmatic nonviolence is best understood as the decision to use nonviolence based upon practical strategic considerations. It does not rely on a fundamental commitment to nonviolence which extends to all situations; it may be limited only to the situation at hand.

Pragmatic nonviolence is based upon the use of proactive, positive nonviolent strategies and actions. It seeks to change the status quo, ranging in individual cases from specific policies which affect a specific group to the overall dynamics of power in a society.

With pragmatic nonviolence, a people or a movement can choose not to use violence even if there is no traditional or religious basis for that choice in their culture.

Implementation of Political Nonviolence

For example, the Crimean Tatars, traditionally a warrior culture, have chosen to use nonviolence because of its practical worth in their struggle for their rights following their return to the Crimea after decades in exile. Likewise, the Native Hawaiians chose to use nonviolence when the Americans took over Hawai’i a century ago. At that time, Queen Liliu’okalani, the Hawaiian ruler, counseled her people not to use violence and suffer certain devastating defeat.

Some peoples employ both principled and pragmatic approaches. The Tibetan struggle for independence, which is deeply influenced by the nonviolent philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism, is also quite pragmatic in its approach. The Tibetans have used international diplomatic and public relations campaigns, and nonviolent resistance within Tibet, in their struggle for independence from the Peoples Republic of China. These nonviolent activities are linked to very pragmatic considerations: Tibetans are few and the Chinese are many, and perhaps more importantly, the Chinese are neighbors with whom the Tibetans must live into the future.

The question is raised of whether nonviolent movements are more effective if there is a traditional cultural base for them in a society.

Some traditionally nonviolent groups, including the Tibetans, have been very successful at remaining so in the face of severe repression. At the same time, others, such as the South African anti-apartheid movement, did not possess such a penetration in their culture of nonviolence as a principle, yet have been successful at attaining their goals.

It is notable that many indigenous cultures also possess traditional methods of conflict prevention and resolution which can be sources of strength when nonviolence is threatened. It would appear that the presence of a nonviolent tradition can support nonviolent action within a society, yet it is not a required prerequisite for success.

At the same time the question arises if a group, when pressed, will abandon nonviolence more readily if it does not possess a principled commitment to it. If nonviolence is seen only as a tactic, will not a people or movement drop that tactic when and if it is no longer expedient to pursue? As a tactic alone does it have the roots to sustain a long campaign?

Nonviolent action can be divided into:

(i) conflictual’ actions used to wage conflict and;
(ii) actions which are non-conflictual’.

– Conflictual actions can be considered to include mass public mobilizations, such as economic and political non-cooperation; civil disobedience, such as strikes, hunger strikes, demonstrations, and vigils; grassroots mobilization such as letter writing campaigns; and campaigns designed to build political awareness among the people. In this sense, nonviolent action can be employed not just for defense, but also for offense.

– Non-conflictual actions can include such activities as negotiations and conciliation, which are carried out once the dynamics of power have shifted, and the group conducting the campaign has been successful in acquiring enough legitimacy with which to negotiate.

Governments are often reacting to a perceived loss of political and economic power, including profits from natural resources or access to foreign aid, when they respond violently to nonviolence. Using violence to maintain power is a traditional response, yet one which can lead to spiraling conflict.

In many cases, using violence, whether covert or overt, against groups does not destroy the movement. It can instead make the group stronger and more committed to its goals. It can also encourage the group to use violence, thus beginning a cycle of violence which, once begun, is difficult to stop.

In general, nonviolent campaigns can be at least as effective as violent ones, but they require sacrifice, patience and discipline, and great courage.

Nonviolence as Worship

Gandhi, Martin Luther King, numerous activists and non-violent scholars like Gene Sharp (author of “The Politics of Non-Violent Action” and “National Security through Civilian-based Defense”) and Barbara Bondurant (“The Conquest of Violence”) have argued and illustrated the superiority of non-violent to violent action.
            The purpose of non-violent action is to withdraw consent from government or other authorities, rather than wrest power from them.  Therefore it fosters dialogue and education and allows maximum participation by everyone in society. Non-violence heightens the moral superiority of the actionists in the eyes of the general public–especially if the authorities respond to their sincere and open protest with violence.  Even members of the ruling classes can be swayed to sympathy by such non-violent actions. Police and soldiers wooed with sound political arguments and non-violent demonstrations are more likely to come over to the side of the activists than ones afraid of being shot and killed by protesters.
        Political violence harms groups and movements.  It destroys public sympathy, reinforces public prejudices against activists, invites police infiltration and harassment, and gives the state an excuse to arrest, imprison and even kill innocent activists and bystanders. Even advocacy of violence can have a detrimental effect on organizing since it divides and demoralizes activists and provides the government and media an excuse to attack the advocates.
        Violent action usually is practiced predominantly by angry young men, often with military training, who often become as ruthless towards other dissidents as they do towards the oppressor.  These days the most vocal advocates of violence are often government provocateurs.  When violent revolutionaries take power, their regimes usually are as ruthless as their revolutions.
         Non-violent non-cooperation by large numbers of people is more disruptive to the state than violence by smaller numbers; violence only permits the state to enhance its power. Overall, non-violent action results in the least loss of life and property, the least destruction of the social fabric and the greatest assurance that post-resistance society will be free and peaceful.
        In the last twenty years relatively non-violent mass movement–“people power”– overthrew the Shah in Iran, Marcos in the Philippines, apartheid in South Africa, Suharto in Indonesia, and brought about freedom for Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  Most of these activists were at least aware of the success of the efforts of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.  Some leaders of these movements studied or were trained in non-violence .  Today, organizations like Non-violence International, International War Resisters League and Peacekeepers International are continuing to spread these ideas and strategies worldwide.

Non-Violent Civilian-Based Defense
               Influenced by the writings and efforts of Gene Sharp and organizations like the Civilian-Based Defense Association, and impressed by the successes of non-violent action in recent revolutions, even the Swedish, German and French governments have studied the concept of non-violent civilian based defense.  This a broadening and updating of Gandhi’s notion of “non-violent armies.”  National militaries would be supplemented and even largely replaced by training all citizens in organizing economic, political and social non-cooperation.  The object would be to destroy an invader’s ability to control the populace and to undermine its troops’ morale.  In 1968, unorganized Czechs managed to do this to their Russian invaders for a number of months, bolstering non-violent actionists’ hopes that an organized and determined populace would deter any invasion.

Non-Violent Conflict Resolution
               In the last twenty years non-violent activists in a variety of movements have begun to focus on non-violent conflict resolution not only between nations but on the interpersonal level between individuals, between warring gangs in the inner cities, between religious, racial, ethnic and lifestyle groups, and even within their own groups.  (As one activist said, “A pacifist is a person who can go to a peace meeting and not get in a fight.”)
               Conflict between individuals, groups and communities is inevitable–but bad will, bad mouthing, sabotage, destruction of property and violence are not.  Gandhi contended that there is some truth in both or all sides of a conflict and that only through non-violence can we appreciate and tolerate differing views of truth–or come to an understanding of a greater truth.  Opponents must be recognized as potential allies, and all sides must search for resolutions that are mutually satisfying, “win-win”ones.  Of course, various forms of protest may be necessary to impress the “opponent” with the seriousness and sincerity of one’s claims or to convince them to enter into negotiations.  But negotiations are the goal.

Non-Violent Sanctions
               Many non-violent actionists have gone to the next step.  They have come to regard all political conflict over laws, regulations and taxes as conflicts to be resolved non-violently, not as issues to be settled by the vote of the majority (usually the defacto will of special interests) and enforced by the threat of police violence, confiscation of property and imprisonment.
               Non-violent activist groups have long used consensus-oriented decision-making in their groups to ensure the maximum of support for policies, strategies and actions.  Many of their members have come to realize that the same principle must be applied to politics–only laws, regulations and taxes supported by the overwhelming majority of people should be imposed.  Only those basic community services supported by overwhelming majorities would be provided, since the collection of taxes for them would no longer be enforced through the threat of police violence.  Non-violent resistance to such laws, rules or taxes would be a respected component of ongoing community debate.
               Police violence, like individual violence, would be reserved only for defense of self or others from physical violence.  Public courts and police would still deal with such universally deplored acts as murder, assault, pollution, theft and fraud.  However, police would be, as Gandhi said, “a body of reformers…composed of believers in non-violence .  They will be servants, not masters.”  To deal with minor offenses, police would use education, verbal persuasion and publicly.  If that was ineffective, they might organize citizen picketing or boycott.  More serious crimes might result in ostracizing or expelling the individual from the community.  (This is one variation on the polycentric law idea I detail at length in Non-Violent Secessionist Strategies.)
               Non-violent sanctions are based on trust that humans who share the consciousness that violence is illegitimate (except in extreme circumstances of self-defense) and are taught from childhood the many subtle and creative ways of attaining their goals without using violence, will rarely resort to it.  To connect two popular sayings, if “violence begets violence” then “the only way to peace, is peace itself!” Otherwise we become willing co-creators of our violence-wracked system.  As Gandhi said, “Every citizen silently, but never the less certainly, sustains the government of the day in ways of which he has no knowledge.  Every citizen, therefore, renders himself responsible for every act of his government.”

Non-Violence and Decentralization
               It is easily arguable why “complete non-violence ” would lead to political and economic decentralization.  Most centralized governments and nation sates were formed from a number of formerly autonomous communities, cities and regions through armed conquest.  Some were formed hundreds of years ago–others only in the last few decades.  Their different ethnic, racial, religious and national groups are held together by nationalist jingoism, government subsidies, and the threat of terrible military vengeance against secessionists.
               Nevertheless, secessionist sentiments, activities and demands to be completely free of centralized control have escalated worldwide.  When I first wrote this piece in 1985 I wrote ”Eastern European and Asian people seek to free themselves from Soviet control.”  They did so in 1989, and non-violently.  In fact, it was non-violent change in Czechoslovakia (which itself later peacefully divided into two nations) that became known as the “Velvet Revolution.”
               However, Yugoslavia’s power-mad leader replied to Croatia and Bosnia’s attempts to secede from Yugoslavia with ethnic hatred and “ethnic cleansing” by the militarily superior Serbs.  Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and other African nations remain rife with racial, religious and tribal violence between communities forced into artificial “nation states,” first by colonists and later by repressive dictators.  Many of Indonesia’s thousands of Islands could decide to go their separate way. India, which contains hundreds of religious, linguistic and ethnic groups, continually suppresses its separatist factions.  Closer to home, should Quebec finally vote to secede, it is likely British Columbia might do so as well, breaking up a nation right at our borders.  And it is clear that demographic, social and economic factors already are dividing America. Only the smallest and most culturally and politically homogenous nations could be held together if they had to rely on non-violent sanctions and non-violent armies or civilian-based defense.
               Once free of the fear of violence from centralized authorities, decentralization would probably proceed quite rapidly as counties seceded from states, cities from counties and even neighborhoods from cities. The concept of “neighborhood power” would become a reality.  Innumerable experiments with non-violent governance would be tried and those which proved most successful would become most popular. Networking and confederations between neighborhoods, communities, cities and regions would be necessary to deal with common problems and resolve conflicts. But without massive military violence, there could be no return to the centralization of the past.
               There is no doubt that we will live in times of mounting economic, political and military crisis, which will further undermine the credibility of established institutions and open more people to radical change.  And we may yet experience a devastating nuclear exchange that will destroy the great nuclear powers.  If pacifists and decentralists are not ready with new visions equal to the crisis and disasters we face, we can be sure that demagogues of all stripes will be.  It is a matter of human responsibility that we re-think our politics and create thorough and credible non-violent alternatives–in full light of their decentralist implications.

The Courage to Choose Non-Violence
               Those of us who believe that humans should conduct our affairs non-violently should not be afraid of the radically decentralist implications of our beliefs.  Rather we should explore them and even emphasize them, as do Gandhians, anarchist pacifists, libertarians, and many Greens, eco-feminists and bioregionalists.  They oppose the structural violence of large nation states.
               Many who say they are committed to non-violence and non-violent conflict resolution merely use non-violent action to strengthen state power–and the state’s excuses for, and ability to use, violence against citizens. This includes activists in the feminist, environmentalist, labor, anti-racism and bigotry, anti-corporate, and social welfare movements.  Perhaps the epitome of this hypocrisy is the gun control movement which calls for heavily armed federal agents to assault, arrest and imprison Americans who refuse to give up the ever-growing list of proscribed weapons. In fact, it is the fear of such a vicious and powerful state that is causing freedom-lovers to arm themselves so heavily.
              Meanwhile too many pro-freedom activists who challenge the growing state power and violence believe the old saw that there are only two political alternatives, the ballot or the bullet. (A statement with which leftist who advocate violence also agree.)  Freedom lovers must take the step their “liberal opponents” have taken: learn the effectiveness of non-violent action and conflict resolution in social, economic, and political protest and resistance.
               Members of groups left and right must learn more about non-violent conflict resolution between individuals, groups and nations, about non-violent civilian-based defense against political repression and foreign invasion, and about non-violent sanctions as the alternative to violent sanctions in enforcing rules and laws.

Literacy Campaign

Institute of Education Communication and Information Technology

Aurovindo Nagar, Bankura – 722101(West Bengal)

Email: chandansenji@gmail.com, ecitcobqa@gmail.com, chandansenji@live.com

About Us

IECIT is a community level Computer Literacy mission which is encouraged by the objectives of National Task Force on IT & SD, Govt. of India and initiated by IECIT Computer Education having its Registered Office at Aurovindo Nagar, Bankura, West Bengal, PIN – 722101. Other than being a Company / Firm / Society it  is a project of IECIT. Thus all the Affiliations and Credentials belong to IECIT and associated with its Registered Office only.

Rules & Regulation of the Institute:

1. That the admission shall only be confirmed on the receipt of Enrollment fees.
2. That the fees once deposited shall neither be refundable nor Transferable under any circumstance.
3. That the Reg./roll no. And Identity Card shall only be issued after the confirmation of Admission.
4. That the student shall have to take written content for the change of study Centre.
5. That the Institute shall not be liable for personal belongings what so ever.
6. That Ragging, taking of Alcohol and Drug and Indiscipline shall be result in expulsion from the Institute.
7. That the decision of the Center Head shall be final and binding in Academic Matters.
8. That the Students Securing less than 80% Attendance shall not be allowed to appear for final Examination.
9. That the institute shall arrange weekly improvement/extra class and weekly test
10. That the institute shall arrange monthly examination as per guideline of Head office.
11.  That the institute informs to every student that if any absence more than three days without information that student’s registration will be cancel. That the Guardians / Parents are expected to report to Institute’s Authorities in matters pertaining to their wards.

A Mission of Computer Education:

Please go through the original content at following URL…

http://web-designer-sen.blogspot.com/2011/03/mission.html

Proposal for opening a new computer center:

Please visit the web address ….

http://web-designer-sen.blogspot.com/2011/03/proposal.html

Terms and condition to be observed by Partners of Progress…

Ø      If Partner of Progresse running free computer education course, you can take admission per day/month for generating a lump-sum income of  Rs. 50,000/- thousand to 1 lack per Month and (6 to 12 Lac Yearly) easily that can be accomplished by involving only 125-250 students per month. The ratio of amount will fluctuate according to strength of students. This amount we will transfer in your account after completion of the course.

Ø      If Partner of Progress wants to run other payable professional courses then Partner of Progress pay only 15% of total fee excluding registration and examination fee to IECIT and remaining 85% for (Study Center) Partner of Progress.

Ø      If Partner of Progress search new study centers in adjoining areas around 10 to 15 Kilometer distance then we will give you Rs. 500/- to 1000/- per center for opening support and 3% to  5% of total amount which is study center receive monthly from us as Grant.

Ø      If numbers of study centers are around 50 in one month than you are eligible for Master Partner of Progress and the percentage of grant is increase as per rules.

Ø      Please fill up complete details in the Partner of Progress Application form and attach all required documents with it alongwith an inspection & approval Charges Rs. 5,600 (Five Thousand Six Hundred only) by DD in favor of Institute of Education Communication and Information Technology  “IECIT”, PAYABLE at Bankura and sent across to IECIT “Center of Community Education”.

 for online deposites get the account number from chandansenji@gmail.com and transfer the amount…