The Fugitive and Other Poems: Ama and Vinayaka
Ama and Vinayaka
29
Night on the battlefield: AMA meets her father VINAYAKA.
AMA
Father!
VINAYAKA
Shameless wanton, you call me "Father"! you who did not shrink from a
Mussulman husband!
AMA
Though you have treacherously killed my husband, yet you are my father; and
I hold back a widow's tears, lest they bring God's curse on you. Since we
have met on this battlefield after years of separation, let me bow to your
feet and take my last leave!
VINAYAKA
Where will you go, Ama? The tree on which you built your impious nest is
hewn down. Where will you take shelter?
AMA
I have my son.
VINAYAKA
Leave him! Cast never a fond look back on the result of a sin expiated with
blood! Think where to go.
AMA
Death's open gates are wider than a father's love!
VINAYAKA
Death indeed swallows sins as the sea swallows the mud of rivers. But you
are to die neither to-night nor here. Seek some solitary shrine of holy
Shiva far from shamed kindred and all neighbours; bathe three times a day
in sacred Ganges, and, while reciting God's name, listen to the last bell
of evening worship, that Death may look tenderly upon you, as a father on
his sleeping child whose eyes are still wet with tears. Let him gently
carry you into his own great silence, as the Ganges carries a fallen flower
on its stream, washing every stain away to render it, a fit offering, to
the sea.
AMA
But my son----
VINAYAKA
Again I bid you not to speak of him. Lay yourself once more in a father's
arms, my child, like a babe fresh from the womb of Oblivion, your second
mother.
AMA
To me the world has become a shadow. Your words I hear, but cannot take to
heart. Leave me, father, leave me alone! Do not try to bind me with your
love, for its bands are red with my husband's blood.
VINAYAKA
Alas! no flower ever returns to the parent branch it dropped from. How can
you call him husband who forcibly snatched you from Jivaji to whom you
had been sacredly affianced? I shall never forget that night! In the
wedding hall we sat anxiously expecting the bridegroom, for the auspicious
hour was dwindling away. Then in the distance appeared the glare of
torches, and bridal strains came floating up the air. We shouted for joy:
women blew their conch-shells. A procession of palanquins entered the
courtyard: but while we were asking, "Where is Jivaji?" armed men burst out
of the litters like a storm, and bore you off before we knew what had
happened. Shortly after, Jivaji came to tell us he had been waylaid and
captured by a Mussulman noble of the Vijapur court. That night Jivaji and I
touched the nuptial fire and swore bloody death to this villain. After
waiting long, we have been freed from our solemn pledge to-night; and the
spirit of Jivaji, who lost his life in this battle, lawfully claims you for
wife.
AMA
Father, it may be that I have disgraced the rites of your house, but my
honour is unsullied; I loved him to whom I bore a son. I remember the night
when I received two secret messages, one from you, one from my mother;
yours said: "I send you the knife; kill him!" My mother's: "I send you the
poison; end your life!" Had unholy force dishonoured me, your double
bidding had been obeyed. But my body was yielded only after love had given
me--love all the greater, all the purer, in that it overcame the
hereditary recoil of our blood from the Mussulman.
Enter RAMA, AMA'S mother
AMA
Mother mine, I had not hoped to see you again. Let me take dust from your
feet.
RAMA
Touch me not with impure hands!
AMA
I am as pure as yourself.
RAMA
To whom have you surrendered your honour?
AMA
To my husband.
RAMA
Husband? A Mussulman the husband of a Brahmin woman?
AMA
I do not merit contempt: I am proud to say I never despised my husband
though a Mussulman. If Paradise will reward your devotion to your husband,
then the same Paradise waits for your daughter, who has been as true a
wife.
RAMA
Are you indeed a true wife?
AMA
Yes.
RAMA
Do you know how to die without flinching?
AMA
I do.
RAMA
Then let the funeral fire be lighted for you! See, there lies the body of
your husband.
AMA
Jivaji?
RAMA
Yes, Jivaji. He was your husband by plighted troth. The baffled fire of the
nuptial God has raged into the hungry fire of death, and the interrupted
wedding shall be completed now.
VINAYAKA
Do not listen, my child. Go back to your son, to your own nest darkened
with sorrow. My duty has been performed to its extreme cruel end, and
nothing now remains for you to do.--Wife, your grief is fruitless. Were the
branch dead which was violently snapped from our tree, I should give it to
the fire. But it has sent living roots into a new soil and is bearing
flowers and fruits. Allow her, without regret, to obey the laws of those
among whom she has loved. Come, wife, it is time we cut all worldly ties
and spent our remainder lives in the seclusion of some peaceful pilgrim
shrine.
RAMA
I am ready: but first must tread into dust every sprout of sin and shame
that has sprung from the soil of our life. A daughter's infamy stains her
mother's honour. That black shame shall feed glowing fire to-night, and
raise a true wife's memorial over the ashes of my daughter.
AMA
Mother, if by force you unite me in death with one who was not my husband,
then will you bring a curse upon yourself for desecrating the shrine of the
Eternal Lord of Death.
RAMA
Soldiers, light the fire; surround the woman!
AMA
Father!
VINAYAKA
Do not fear. Alas, my child, that you should ever have to call your father
to save you from your mother's hands!
AMA
Father!
VINAYAKA
Come to me, my darling child! Mere vanity are these man-made laws,
splashing like spray against the rock of heaven's ordinance. Bring your son
to me, and we will live together, my daughter. A father's love, like God's
rain, does not judge but is poured forth from an abounding source.
RAMA
Where would you go? Turn back!--Soldiers, stand firm in your loyalty to
your master Jivaji! do your last sacred duty by him!
AMA
Father!
VINAYAKA
Free her, soldiers! She is my daughter.
SOLDIERS
She is the widow of our master.
VINAYAKA
Her husband, though a Mussulman, was staunch in his own faith.
RAMA
Soldiers, keep this old man under control!
AMA
I defy you, mother!--You, soldiers, I defy!--for through death and love I
win to freedom.
30
A painter was selling pictures at the fair; followed by servants, there
passed the son of a minister who in youth had cheated this painter's father
so that he had died of a broken heart.
The boy lingered before the pictures and chose one for himself. The painter
flung a cloth over it and said he would not sell it.
After this the boy pined heart-sick till his father came and offered a
large price. But the painter kept the picture unsold on his shop-wall and
grimly sat before it, saying to himself, "This is my revenge."
The sole form this painter's worship took was to trace an image of his god
every morning.
And now he felt these pictures grow daily more different from those he used
to paint.
This troubled him, and he sought in vain for an explanation till one day he
started up from work in horror, the eyes of the god he had just drawn were
those of the minister, and so were the lips.
He tore up the picture, crying, "My revenge has returned on my head!"
31
The General came before the silent and angry King and saluting him said:
"The village is punished, the men are stricken to dust, and the women cower
in their unlit homes afraid to weep aloud."
The High Priest stood up and blessed the King and cried: "God's mercy is
ever upon you."
The Clown, when he heard this, burst out laughing and startled the court.
The King's frown darkened.
"The honour of the throne," said the minister, "is upheld by the King's
prowess and the blessing of Almighty God."
Louder laughed the Clown, and the King growled,--"Unseemly mirth!"
"God has showered many blessings upon your head," said the Clown; "the one
he bestowed on me was the gift of laughter."
"This gift will cost you your life," said the King, gripping his sword with
his right hand.
Yet the Clown stood up and laughed till he laughed no more.
A shadow of dread fell upon the Court, for they heard that laughter echoing
in the depth of God's silence.
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