Scene 4
Enter Haratani Tekka, female Ace of Hearts
Haratani:(Song)
I came to the bower
To pluck a flower,
To my own feelings I was utterly blind.
But this is no simple flower-plucking,
There’s more to it, I now realize!
I can’t describe my state of mind,
But tears are streaming from my eyes.
Enter Ruiton Saheb, King of Diamonds
Ruiton:What’s this, Haratani, what are you doing here? I’ve been searching for you all day, and it’s grown so late.
Haratani:Why, what’s the matter? What do you want?
Ruiton:You have been summoned to our royal assembly, the Garabumandal.
Haratani:Tell them I’m lost.
Ruiton:Lost?
Haratani:Yes, lost. You will never find the one you seek—never.
Ruiton:How extraordinary! What audacity! For you to visit this forest! Don’t you know it’s against the law?
Haratani:It’s against the law indeed, but whose law has summoned up such heavy clouds in the sky above our rainless Land of Cards? When I woke up, I suddenly found the whole sky covered with deep blue clouds. The peacocks in your land always walked with measured steps and danced with caution, but why today did they dance with such abandon, fanning out their tail-feathers?
Ruiton:But for someone who regards even the courtyard beyond her room as an alien land, to go out plucking flowers—where did you get such a bizarre idea?
Haratani:Suddenly I felt I was a malini, a female gardener; that I used to pluck flowers in some previous birth. Today, the fragrance of the flower grove from that former birth wafted to me on the easterly breeze. A bee from that grove of madhavi blossoms has entered my heart.
(Song)
Into my heart came the humming bee!
Whose tidings has it brought to me?
Touched by a sun from the distant skies,
The madhavi blossom has opened its eyes!
Her awakening’s the theme of my visitor’s song.
He’s abuzz with these rumours, all day long.
When a restless agony stirs my mind,
How can I stay indoors, confined?
Or pass my days, just marking time?
At the touch of an unseen magic wand,
I abandon all the work at hand,
And spin webs instead, of song and rhyme.
Ruiton:Achchha, I am searching for the Bibi Sundaris to call them to the Garabumandal, but are they also . . .
Haratani:Yes, they are also here, by the river’s edge, beneath the trees.
Ruiton:What are they doing?
Haratani:Changing their attire, just like me. How do I look? Do you like what you see?
Ruiton:It’s as if a veil has been removed, as if the clouds have parted to reveal the moon. You seem like a totally new person.
Haratani:Your Six and Five had come here to threaten us. Go and see what has happened to them.
Ruiton:Why? What has happened?
Haratani:They are wandering like lunatics, sighing, even humming songs to themselves.
Ruiton:Songs! Six and Five humming songs!
Haratani:Tunelessly, if not in tune. I was braiding my hair then. I couldn’t remain there; I had to leave.
Ruiton:You amaze me. Braiding your hair! Who taught you that art?
Haratani:No one. Look there—now the rain has brought the dried-up waterfalls back to life. Streams of water have started flowing into each other in braided patterns. Who taught them that art? Come with me: let me take you where you can hear the song of Six and Five.
Exit
Enter Bibis, all the Queens
Bibis:(Song and dance)
Who attunes my ear
To the new melody I hear?
My cares float away on a tide of song.
Haunted by the shadow of a previous birth,
The weeping melody wanders the earth,
Mourning for its veena, lost so long.
On this spring night designed for love,
Towards some unknown star, above,
My thoughts float away on a tide of song.
Exit
Re-enter Ruiton and Haratani
Ruiton:How can I blame anyone else? I feel like singing too.
Haratani:Watch out, let the editor not hear you, or he’ll fix you in his column. I saw him roaming in search of news about this forest.
Ruiton:Look, Haratani, my fears have vanished—I wonder why! Order me to do something—I want to perform some daring feat at your bidding.
Haratani:Please don’t sing, whatever else you do. The hibiscus is blooming in the forest—pluck some blossoms for me. I’ll redden the soles of my feet with the juice of those flowers.
Ruiton:You know, my beautiful one, as soon as I woke up this morning, I realized that our existence as cards is a dream. The dream was suddenly disrupted. Now, for all of us, a new birth is in the air. That is what brings these words to our tongues, this music to our ears. Listen to that! Listen, someone is drawing down from the sky the song I had composed in some remote bygone era.
(Song)
Let the flowers that blossom in my heart
Tinge the soles of your feet with a scarlet hue.
Let my songs, like jewels, adorn your ears;
With gems blood-red, let me garland you.
Haratani:Did you actually compose this song someday, and for me? How did you do that?
Ruiton:Just as you braided your hair.
Haratani:Achchha, do you remember that I had danced to your song, in some bygone era?
Ruiton:I remember it now; it’s coming back to me. I wonder how I had forgotten for so long.
(Song)
A wild breeze sets my song-boat rocking,
Rocking to the rhythm of your playful dance.
If the rope should fray,
If the rudder falls away,
If the waves rise high,
If death seems nigh,
Sure of victory, I’ll boldly advance.
Ruiton:See, Haratani, how desperately my heart longs to challenge Yama Raja, the god of death. I clearly recall the scene when you anointed my forehead with a victory mark, and I set out to rescue an imprisoned woman. I sounded my bugle at the locked gateway of the fortress. The farewell song you sang then floats back to my ears.
(Song)
Bring me a victory garland.
Through the long night, I shall remain awake.
When you tread the shores of death,
My heart will tremble within my bosom,
If all is lost, I’ll share your fate.
Haratani:Come, come, my hero, let’s pledge our lives and set out together. Ahead, I see a menacing black rock; we must smash it to bits. If it crashes down upon our heads, let it. We must carve out our path by splitting asunder the boulder’s heart. Why have we come here, after all? Chhi, for shame, why are we here at all? What meaningless days, what lifeless nights! From moment to moment, what a vicious circle of futility!
Ruiton:Do you have the courage, my beauty?
Haratani:I do, I do!
Ruiton:Won’t you be terrified of the unknown?
Haratani:No, I won’t.
Ruiton:Your feet will be sore and wounded; the path will seem endless.
Haratani:In some far-off age, we had set forth on that impossible journey. At night I bore a torch to light your path; by day I walked in front, bearing your victory flag. Now arise once more; we must break down this fence of idleness, this boundary line of inertia; we must discard all this meaningless clutter.
Ruiton:Tear away the veil, tear it to shreds. Become free, pure and whole!
Exit
Enter Six and Five
Six:O Five, look what’s happened to us!
Five:I feel terribly ashamed to look at myself. Fool, fool! What were you doing all these days?
Six:Why, at last does the question arise in my heart: what does all this mean?
Five:There comes Pundit Ten. Let’s ask him.
Enter Ten
Six:What is the meaning of all these rituals of rising-and-falling, reclining-and-sitting-up that we have been following for so long?
Ten:Quiet!
Six and Five:We shall not be quiet!
Ten:Are you not afraid?
Six and Five(together): Not afraid. You have to explain the meaning of all this.
Ten:There are no meanings, only rules.
Six:And what if we don’t obey the rules?
Ten:You will go to hell.
Six:To hell I will go, then!
Ten:What for?
Five:To fight dishonour, if it exists there.
Ten:What obdurate talk, in this peace-loving land!
Five:We have resolved to break the peace.
Enter Haratani
Ten:Do you hear that, Haratani? They want to break the peace of our land, here at the shore of our bottomless Pacific Ocean.
Haratani:This peace of ours is like an ancient tree, eaten away by worms from within. It is lifeless, and needs to be cut down.
Ten:Chhi, chhi, chhi, for shame! How could such words pass your lips! As a woman, you must protect our peace; as men, we must protect our culture.
Haratani:You have fooled us for a very long time, pundit. No more. Your cold peace-sap has frozen our blood. Delude us no more.
Ten:What a disaster! Who has told you all these things?
Haratani:The very One my heart secretly calls. It is His music I hear in the skies.
Ten:What a disaster! Music in the sky! That’s the end of Card Isle. I shall linger here no more.
Exit
Six:O beautiful one, it is you who must show us the way.
Five:You have received the mantra of restlessness. Please initiate us into that mantra.
Haratani:We are spurned by Destiny, condemned to disgraceful ignorance. Come! Let’s get out of here.
Six:But at the slightest move, they blame us of being ‘impure’.
Haratani:We might be the ones to blame, but we are not impure enough to remain moribund.
Exit
Enter Iskabani and Tekkani, plucking flowers
Tekkani:On no, here comes Dahalani, Madam Ten. There’s no saving us now.
Enter Dahalani
Dahalani:Why are you trying to hide? Who is it? I can’t recognize you! It’s our own Tekkani. And who’s this? She’s our Iskabani. Good grief! What have you done to your appearance? You’ve donned human attire, I suppose? Have you no shame?
Tekkani:We didn’t don any attire, but our attire has suddenly fallen away.
Dahalani:The ties of Card Isle are very secure. A thousand knots tied over a thousand years—and they fell away? How did such an extraordinary thing happen?
Iskabani:A certain breeze was blowing.
Dahalani:Goodness, how can you say that! Can the breeze of Card Isle sever the ties that bind? To cast such a grave aspersion upon our Pavandev, god of the winds! Is this a land of heretics, I ask you, that the faintest breeze can blow the dry leaves off the trees?
Iskabani:Why not see with your own eyes, didi, what changes our Pavandev has wrought?
Dahalani:Look, such big talk doesn’t suit small fry like you. Pavandev is our sacred deity. But the scriptures say he has a son, a great hero, who travels in giant leaps. Perhaps it is his spirit that has possessed you.
Tekkani:Why do you target us alone with your jibes? Haven’t you noticed yet? Pavandev’s son has been leaping all over the Land of Cards. He is at large, setting the hearts of female cards on fire.
Iskabani:The humans from overseas claim him for their ancestor.
Dahalani:That’s possible. Indeed, they have descended from the high-jumping simian tribe.
Tekkani:Achchha, tell me frankly, didi—is your heart secretly restless too? No, you can’t keep quiet.
Dahalani:You won’t tell anyone else, will you?
Tekkani:I swear I won’t tell a soul.
Dahalani:Last night, in the wee hours, I dreamt that I had suddenly become human, moving freely just like them. When I awakened, I could have died of shame. But . . .
Tekkani:But . . . what?
Dahalani:Let it be.
Iskabai:I see, I see! Daytime’s fettered bird found freedom in a dream.
Dahalani:Quiet, quiet, quiet! If Pundit Nine hears of it, he’ll impose a penance even for my dream. It’s sinful, after all. But what joy in dreaming!
Tekkani:Exactly bhai, a strong breeze from overseas is blowing here in the Land of Cards. I can’t seem to hold on to anything; it’s blowing everything away.
Dahalani:But still, even now, while some things have taken flight, others still remain grounded. The veil may have slipped off our heads, but the wind couldn’t straighten out our twisted anklets.
Iskabani:You’re right. Our hearts are vacillating between one seashore and the other. See how desperate Chiretani is to become human, but because she can’t, she has donned a human mask, produced in the workshops of Card Land itself. How peculiar she looks.
Dahalani:We ourselves cannot gauge how we appear now. Yesterday, from behind a tree, I heard the merchant say: ‘They are making clowns of themselves, trying to be human.’
Tekkani:How embarrassing! What did the prince say?
Dahalani:He lost his temper and said: ‘That’s a good thing, for through their attire, we can see taste emerge.’ He declared: ‘Don’t ridicule this. If you want to laugh, seek out the humans who go about attired as clownish cards.’
Iskabani:Goodness, does that happen too? For humans to imitate cards! Achchha, how do such people behave?
Dahalani:The prince said they rub their lips with coloured sticks, trace their eyebrows with lampblack and do all sorts of other things, just like our painted cards. Funniest of all, they attach hoofed leather beneath the soles of their feet.
Tekkani:Why?
Dahalani:It raises their status, so their feet don’t touch the earth. All in true card-style. Painted, decorated style.
Iskabani:It’s a perverse game Pavandev is playing, I see! Female cards want to shed their paint to become human, while humans want to paint themselves like female cards! But I have resolved, bhai, to ask the prince for initiation into the human mantra.
Tekkani:Me too.
Dahalani:I want it too, but I also feel afraid. I have heard that humans suffer great misery, while cards are free of care.
Iskabani:Do you speak of suffering, bhai? Suffering has already begun its dance within my heart.
Tekkani:But I don’t want to give up the intoxication of that suffering. Every so often, my eyes swim with tears. I can’t fathom why.
(Song)
Why are my eyes awash with tears?
Why does my heart thus fume and fret?
As if a sudden memory awakes,
Long lost, but not forgotten yet;
As if some words once spoken gave offence,
And someone, slighted, departed hence.
Does the heart now rue its old mistakes?
As if a sudden memory awakes,
Long lost, but not forgotten yet.
Iskabani:Run, run, the editor is coming. If these rumours reach the newspaper, we cannot show our faces in public.
Dahalani:There they come, the whole group together. Today’s assembly will take place beneath the old neem tree. We’ll linger here no more.
Exit
Enter Raja Saheb and company
King:This place seems strange. What is that smell? Five: It’s the smell of the kadamba blossom. King: Kadamba! What a strange name. What’s that bird we hear?
Five:It’s called the ghughu, we’re told.
King:Ghughu! Give it a civilized name in the Card language—call it Binti, after the card game . . . It has become hard to proceed with our work today, what with words echoing in the sky and melodies playing in the breeze. I have kept my calm with great difficulty. It proved hard to keep Rani Bibi indoors—she’s dancing about like one possessed
. Courtiers, you look unrecognizable today, without your courtly attire, like utter barbarians.
All:It’s not our fault. Our attire came loose and fell off on its own. Our garments are strewn about the streets.
King:Editor, you too seem to have lost your gravity.
Knave:Since morning I have been in the woods, collecting the names of fugitives. The breeze here has affected me. Trying to fill my editorial column, I found verses pouring from my pen. I’m told this type of discharge is what modern doctors call influenza.
King:What’s it like? Let’s see an example.
Knave:If the very air refuses to adhere
To the strictest law of obedience here,
Tell me, then
Can lawmaker Ten
Keep our precious culture pure?
This land of ours is doomed, for sure.