Cast of Characters
Acharya Ratnakar — director of the arts centre and a master of music (lead)
Kameshwar — the Acharya's gifted sitar-playing disciple (lead)
Kalavati — the Acharya's granddaughter, sitar and tabla player (lead)
Rasiklal — a music student, selfish and envious (antagonist)
Dr. Arvind — the Acharya's friend, a skilled physician (supporting)
Woman — Kameshwar's mother, in the past (supporting)
Scene 1
[ Acharya Ratnakar's arts centre. Several disciples are practising some raga on the sitar. ]
Acharya: Kalavati!
Kalavati: Yes!
Acharya: Daughter, you play this gat.
[ Kalavati plays the gat. He has her repeat it. The other disciples listen. But the sweetness does not come. ]
Acharya: Kalavati, water and music — the beauty of both lies in their own movement. If there is no movement in water, it does not stay clear and wholesome, like the water stagnant in a tank or pond. The meaning of music too lies in its movement, in the sweetness of its notes. Rasik, son, now you play.
Rasiklal: Yes, as you command. [ He plays, but plays the gat fast — the mizrab too quick, and the touch of his fingers on the strings harsh. ]
Acharya: No, Rasik, son — there's a sharp difference between the three tempos: vilambit, madhya and drut. Vilambit means just this — that every single note must be held, settled, of a steady poise. The cycle of beats must be completed in such a way that, on reaching the sam, not even the slightest jolt is felt. Then sweetness will arise... then its sound will create delight in the listener's ear. Kameshwar, son, how is your practice coming along? Here — now you play and show me.
Kameshwar: Gurudev, the journey of this sadhana is a very hard one.
Acharya: Not only hard, son — beautiful too. One who journeys unknown roads must have spirit, courage and discernment. Only such people can see the unseen beauties. Play, son. Play the alap, jod, jhala — the patterns of both styles.
[ Kameshwar plays the sitar. ]
Acharya: Bravo, son! Bravo! What a thing you have created!
Kalavati: But Grandfather, this Kameshwar won't let us stay on here.
Acharya: Why, daughter? Won't let you stay on?
Kalavati: Grandfather, when Sita's sons Lav and Kush arrived at the ashram of Valmiki, then dull-witted pupils like us, leaving his ashram, went off elsewhere. You yourself told me this episode from Bhavabhuti's play 'Uttara-Rama-Charita.'
Acharya: That was right, daughter. Lav and Kush were both very able, but Valmiki had several disciples too who drew inspiration from them. A man should always do his sadhana keeping before him an aim higher than others'. It's the good fortune of this arts centre that today a music-seeker like Kameshwar does his sadhana here. Who knows — perhaps it is his sadhana that is to bring fame to this arts centre.
Kameshwar: Acharya, I am not even the dust of your feet. I was rejected iron, eaten through with rust. If today some hue of mine has changed, Gurudev, it is the fruit of your grace and love alone. For me there was a philosopher's stone here, Gurudev.
Acharya: [his voice chokes] Son, my blessing is that this journey of your sadhana may carry you to high destinations. May the triumph of success stay in your life. Play, son, play on. Keep practising with full devotion.
[ Kameshwar's sitar-playing slowly fades out. ]
Scene 2
Rasiklal: Kalavati!
Kalavati: Mm!
Rasiklal: What are you thinking about?
Kalavati: Raga Bhairavi — all the notes fall soft; jati sampurna, the vadi madhyam and the samvadi shadja. Time of singing, the first watch of day. The pakad: ma ga re sa, dha ni sa.
Rasiklal: [laughing] Whether it's a contest of flying or of running, you can win even without running — because you're the Acharya's darling granddaughter. Even if you learn just four ragas, it's enough to make the gatherings tipsy.
Kalavati: [with a sigh] Rasik Babu, this is an art of doing; it has no short cuts. The sadhana of music is no exhibition of flowers. Here there are only contests of fragrances — contests of that sweetness which, going by way of the listener's ear into his heart and mind, intoxicates them.
Rasiklal: Fragrance! Sweetness? Ha, ha, ha. [laughs slowly]
Kalavati: What is there to laugh at in this, Babu?
Rasik Babu: Just Babu, not Rasik?
Kalavati: How will there be rasik-ness (relish) without rasa (relish itself), Rasiklal ji? Merely taking a name does not make that quality arise of itself. Qualities arise by labour, by sadhana.
Rasiklal: I was talking of you and your art. You turned it into talk of sweetness and fragrances. This is your grandfather's arts centre. Over the art-heritage of this place you have the first right. Why are you so careless about that right? Your very name is Kala — art.
Kalavati: Rasik Babu, as far as a man's reach can stretch, there is his limit. Mere longing of the mind, the craving and greed of the mind, do not carry one across the bounds of that limit.
Rasiklal: I know I can't compete with Kameshwar, but you can. Why don't you? Yet you've accepted defeat at the very start of the race. That's no wisdom.
Kalavati: In the war of the Mahabharata, Bhishma Pitamah was the first commander of the Kauravas. You know that, don't you?
Rasiklal: Yes, why wouldn't I.
Kalavati: As long as he stayed commander, the Pandavas made no headway in the battle. Even Arjuna, whose charioteer was Shri Krishna, made no headway. Then it was Shri Krishna himself who showed Arjuna the way. And Arjuna seated Shikhandi in front of him on his chariot. [laughing a little] So you want to put me in front to compete with Kameshwar? You're very innocent, Rasik Babu! You know neither Kameshwar nor art.
Rasiklal: But perhaps you don't know that no one knows anything of Kameshwar's family, his line, his caste.
Kalavati: So?
Rasiklal: He could be of some low caste too.
Kalavati: [angrily] Of low caste? In the field of art, what low caste and high caste is there, Rasik Babu? Caste is of the mind. It is a man's mind that is of low caste, and of high caste too. What caste has the human body? What caste has art, Rasik Babu?
Rasiklal: Doesn't a man have a caste, Kalavati? Is there no distinction of caste among us? How can all castes become equal?
Kalavati: But my grandfather acknowledges no distinction of caste. I don't acknowledge it. In this arts centre, was any boy or girl who became the Acharya's disciple ever asked what his caste is — ever? No. In the sadhana of art no caste holds. Here the high caste belongs to the one who has the greater wealth of art.
Rasiklal: Have you ever asked your grandfather, though, who Kameshwar is, where he's from? You take such interest in him — have you no concern to know all these things about him?
Kalavati: No! I have no concern, Rasik Babu. I have no right to dig up and peer into the layers of anyone's life. No one has any right. I know only this much — that he is Kameshwar, a gifted seeker. In him there is humility, modesty, deep devotion. Such a spirit of dedication to one's sadhana is not given to everyone, Rasik ji. It's not in me — is it in you?
Rasiklal: What isn't in me? All this is in me too. Don't I have the keenness, the interest, to learn the sitar?
Kalavati: Rasik Babu! Keenness and devotion, interest and dedication — there's a great difference between them. Why do you make light of these, Babu? This blue sky is endless, Rasiklal ji, but the wings of birds and their power to fly are not all equal.
[ The cries of birds flying in the sky, and the slowly rising sound of the sitar, fade away. ]
Kalavati: What are you thinking, Rasik Babu? You're listening to the sitar, aren't you? Kameshwar is practising. Come, let's run over some sargam too!
Scene 3
Kameshwar: No, Gurudev, no one has ever asked me or told me anything about this! Perhaps you don't remember — you yourself once said that you would tell me about myself later.
Acharya: This wish to know about oneself is a very natural thing, son. It is your right to know it. And you have reached that place on reaching which a man becomes entitled to know about himself.
Kameshwar: Who were my mother and father, Gurudev?
Acharya: [staying silent a while] I have seen only your mother, Kameshwar. Of your father I know nothing. I never even inquired.
Kameshwar: And my mother — where is she?
Acharya: Kameshwar, a guru-brother of mine lives at an ashram in Rishikesh. There too he simply gave the gift of music and the worship of God. I would go to him now and then to meet him. Once I had gone there. When I went, early in the morning, to bathe in the Ganga, then, son, a strange thing happened. A woman came to the bank of the Ganga. With her was an innocent little boy. She seated him on the bank. She looked toward me. There was a temple in front; turning her face that way she made her obeisance, and from the rock on which she stood she leaped into the flowing waters of the Ganga.
[ Flashback ]
[ The sound of the leap into the water, and the boy's cry of "Mother... Mother," weeping. ]
[ Immediately after, the sound of another man leaping into that same current, and the effort to pull the woman, being swept along, out of the flowing water. ]
Woman: Let me go, let me go. Who are you to save me?
Acharya: Daughter, to take one's own life is a very grave sin — and besides, you are a mother. On whose support are you leaving that innocent child? Don't be afraid; tell me your sorrow, daughter! I will help you.
[ Coming onto the bank — from afar the cries of "Mother ji, Mother ji." ]
Acharya: You turned out very cowardly, daughter. Your motherly love too is very weak.
( The boy comes running and clings to his mother. )
Boy: ( three or four years old ) Mother — were you going to drown?
Woman: ( pushing the boy back ) Get away, get back. You called me daughter, didn't you?
Acharya: Yes. And I say it still... you are my daughter.
Woman: What do you do? Do you live here in the ashram?
Acharya: No. I live in the princely state. There I teach music to boys and girls.
Woman: ( thinking, and overcome with feeling ) You teach music? Then, Father, take this child too into that holy world of music. Just grant me this much grace. Whatever it takes, save this child.
Acharya: And you? Will you then leap and die again?
Woman: No, Father, my weakness shows here. I cannot save him, cannot raise him. Give me your word that you will take him with you.
Acharya: Daughter, I say it with the Ganga as my witness, that I will take him with me — but first tell me your story...
[ The strum of a sitar — flashback ends. ]
Kameshwar: ( with great gravity ) And you, Gurudev, brought me with you?
Acharya: Yes.
Kameshwar: And my mother?
Acharya: Your mother is no longer in this world.
Kameshwar: Did she then take her own life after all?
Acharya: Son, your mother was a deeply sorrowful woman. Some ruffian abducted her, brought her to Haridwar, and sold her to some other ruffian. Who that ruffian was — your mother did not tell me.
Kameshwar: Why didn't she tell?
Acharya: She said — there would be no use in it.
Kameshwar: But that day that woman made you a promise too, that she would not take her own life.
Acharya: Yes, she did not take her own life. Son, that proud, self-respecting woman wasted away and died of the cancer of her own shame. I had her kept at the Rishikesh ashram itself. For ten years, each year, when I went to meet that guru-brother of mine, I would meet her too. Each year I saw her weaker than before. Each year I would take a photograph of you and give it to her. Seeing your photo, a glow of motherly love would come over her face.
Kameshwar: Why did you never take me with you?
Acharya: She herself had forbidden it. She was afraid, because that ruffian would often come to her and keep asking her about you.
Kameshwar: ( with a sigh ) Then?
Acharya: Nine years before today, in the hospital of that same ashram, she passed away. ( overcome ) I performed all the last rites with my own hands. She had called me her father. For the last seventeen or eighteen years you have been raised in my ashram. Now your parents are either me, or that God above. Today you have become fit to stand on your own feet in the sadhana of this art. You have freed me from the debt I owed to that adopted daughter of mine. You will always regard your art as your mother, son.
Kameshwar: ( silent )
Acharya: Kameshwar, you have not seen your mother.
Kameshwar: I have seen her, Gurudev — but her face I don't remember. Acharya, there are unlucky people like me too in this world. What a world it is! What tyrannies and cruelties happen here — and no court to which the sorrowful may make their plea.
Acharya: You are very fortunate, Kameshwar. That mother of yours was a very self-respecting woman. Her soul was very pure; fighting and fighting against sorrows and tyrannies, she gave birth to a son like you. It is the penance of that very high-souled woman that has come to you as this art. This art is her trust. Keep it safe, son. Next Sunday there is to be a great music conference; in it you are to give the first performance of this art of yours. Great connoisseurs of art are to come. That Sunday has been set aside for rising artists like you. On that day your sadhana will be tested. Keep my honour, son.
Kameshwar: That day will be for me a day to worship my gods, Gurudev. For the first time I will go onto the stage having taken the blessing of my mother in heaven and of my revered Gurudev.
Acharya: May the Supreme Father be your help, son. May you be victorious and raise high the name of this arts centre.
Scene 4
Kalavati: Rasik Babu, how is your health? It's five days now since you practised.
Rasik Babu: Since the day guru ji decided that only Kameshwar would take part in the music conference — since that very day I've had no heart to practise.
Kalavati: But what has your practice to do with that music conference, Rasik ji? Guru ji has trust in Kameshwar; about you, such trust has not yet arisen in him.
Rasik Babu: I'm not talking about myself. I'm thinking about you. Has guru ji no trust in you either? Should you not have been given a chance in this music conference too?
Kalavati: [laughing] You talk very cleverly, Rasik Babu. To reach the place Kameshwar has reached, many things are needed, Rasik ji. But among those things there is one rare thing — talent, genius — and this thing cannot be bought anywhere at any price. It is, who knows, the fruit of the penance of which birth, Rasik Babu. You wanted to know Kameshwar's caste — what caste does talent have?
Rasiklal: [with a sigh] Will you go to that music conference?
Kalavati: Why wouldn't I go? Do such music conferences happen every day? And you? Won't you go?
Rasiklal: I want to go too, but how? I'm ill, you see.
Kalavati: Oh! [in a tone of irony] It had quite slipped my mind that you're ill too. Perhaps grandfather doesn't know you're ill. All right, I'll tell him too, and telephone and call some doctor.
Rasiklal: There's no need for that, Kala. No need to tell the Acharya either.
Kalavati: All right. I won't tell, but the doctor at least must be informed. Otherwise tomorrow you won't be able to escape going to the music conference by pretending illness.
Rasik: Pretending illness? Am I putting on this fraud?
Kalavati: No, no [laughing] why would you put on a fraud! You're a poor thing — you just fall ill right on cue. Would that I'd taken a little doctor's training instead of learning the sitar! All right, I'll go. If I can, let me give some help in Kameshwar's preparations for tomorrow. For some days now he's been somewhat downcast, who knows why.
Rasiklal: [sarcastically] He must be nervous. To play and sing in a music conference one needs nerve, Kala ji! Where would such nerve come from in poor orphans? Playing the sitar in a room of the arts centre is one thing. For that, one needs self-confidence.
Kalavati: Guru ji ought to have sent you, then, Rasik Babu. You're the one with nerve. But it's the arts centre's misfortune — had you not fallen ill, I'd have recommended to grandfather that you be given the chance to play the sitar. Well, another time, then. [goes off]
Scene 5
[ At the music conference, hearing Kameshwar's sitar-playing, the audience cry "Bravo, bravo." ]
[ At the end of the playing, loud applause breaks out. ]
Kameshwar: ( overcome with joy ) Guru ji!
Acharya: Congratulations, son! ( joyfully ) May your art keep rising thus. Today your mother's soul too will have felt joy and pride. All the connoisseurs of art today have been moved to ecstasy seeing your performance. You have greatly raised the honour of our arts centre today. ( calls out ) Kalavati!
Kalavati: ( with tears of joy ) Grandfather, I'm standing right behind you.
Acharya: Come in front, daughter. How well Kameshwar played the sitar today!
Kameshwar: Gurudev, why do you shame me! When the gardener, seeing the flowers bloom on the plant his own hands set, begins to praise the plant — isn't that an odd thing?
Acharya: Kameshwar, the gardener plants many shrubs, but the same flowers don't bloom on all of them, son. The plant on which blooms the flower of the gardener's desire is a rare one indeed.
Kalavati: Grandfather, Kameshwar played the sitar today with great self-confidence. To take the test of one's art with such confidence before such an assembly is a matter of great nerve. Had it been me, I'd certainly have got nervous. But Kameshwar's exposition of the raga, like the light of dawn, kept unfolding slowly, ever more radiant. He had, as it were, enchanted the whole atmosphere.
Kameshwar: But Gurudev, what is happening to my hand? While playing the sitar, when I was increasing the tempo to drut, I felt a numbness in my fingers. I felt a tension.
Acharya: How long have you been feeling this trouble?
Kameshwar: Quite a while now. At first there was a slight stiffness, but now both the stiffness and the numbness have, as it were, increased. I feel no pain even when a callus grows on the flesh in front of and behind these fingers.
Kalavati: ( astonished ) No pain even when a callus grows? Why does this happen, grandfather?
Acharya: ( silent a while ) No, no, all will be well. We'll go to the doctor this very day, son.
Kalavati: Is this some doctor known to you?
Acharya: All the doctors are known to me, daughter. Dr. Arvind had come to the music conference too. He too has seen Kameshwar's performance. There's nothing to worry about.
Scene 6
[ In Dr. Arvind's clinic ]
Acharya: Doctor Arvind, did you look at his hand? Is there need for any X-ray or such?
Doctor: ( gravely ) Hmm... no, there's no need for an X-ray or such. There's nothing to be alarmed about. It will get better. It may take a little time, perhaps.
Acharya: All right — Kameshwar, you go. Kalavati, you go too. I'll get a prescription from Dr. Arvind and come.
Kalavati: Doctor sahib! This trouble will get better, won't it? What is this trouble? What is its name?
Doctor: All will be well, daughter. It's only the diagnosis of an illness that is hard. Once the diagnosis is made, treating it is not hard. One must not be hasty in making a correct diagnosis.
Kameshwar: He's right, doctor sahib. Come, let's go.
[ Both go off. ]
Acharya: Dr. Arvind, there's nothing to worry about, is there?
Doctor: ( slowly ) There is something to worry about, Ratnakar ji, but the illness is still at its beginning. With continuous treatment it will get better.
Acharya: What kind of illness is it?
Doctor: It is the sign of leprosy, Acharya.
Acharya: ( in sorrow and astonishment ) What did you say, Doctor! Leprosy?
Doctor: Yes. I don't know where this promising boy got this disease. Did anyone in his family have it?
Acharya: Doctor, I have seen only his mother. She was a pure, wholesome woman. It may be that his father had some such disease. The poor woman — what did she want to save this innocent boy from, if not from his father's shadow? He was some ruffian; he had bought this boy's mother from another ruffian.
Doctor: This disease is not, in fact, congenital or hereditary, but through repeated contact with the skin of a sufferer of this disease it can be transmitted from one sufferer to another healthy person.
Acharya: It's an astonishing thing, Doctor, that after so many years this disease should appear in him!
Doctor: This too is a peculiarity of this illness — that its germs appear very slowly. That's why its treatment too demands a long time. But I'm fully confident it will become quite well. Don't worry at all.
Acharya: But I won't admit him to any hospital or such. Doctor, his treatment will be under my care alone. He will stay with me, in my arts centre itself.
Doctor: There's no need to admit him to any hospital either. If he stays with you, that's even better. Your love, your tenderness, are as necessary for him as his regular treatment. This disease is not at all dangerous to the other healthy people who serve the patient. And yet people have formed many wrong notions about this disease.
Acharya: It's a matter of conditioning, isn't it, Doctor.
Doctor: But this weakness of conditioning is very regrettable, Ratnakar ji. Its foundation is this wrong kind of fear, and the antisocial feeling of disgust. Tell me one thing, Acharya — has there been any greater man-of-the-age than Mahatma Gandhi on our soil?
Acharya: There has not, Doctor. A self-sacrificing man of the age like Bapu appears only somewhere across the centuries.
Doctor: You must have read and heard that Mahatma Gandhi kept in his ashram a low-caste patient afflicted with this disease and served him. Every day Bapu would clean his wounds with his own hands, apply medicine, and feed him.
Acharya: What a thing about Gandhi Bapu. He in fact set an example to dispel society's delusion.
Doctor: You've put it exactly right. Bapu, who served such a patient afflicted with this disease with his own hands — why did he not catch the disease? Because he knew the truth of this disease. Don't we doctors treat the sufferers of this disease?
Acharya: You're right, Doctor! I will serve Kameshwar. This boy is someone's trust with me. I will look after him at any cost. But it's for you, Doctor, to make Kameshwar well.
Doctor: Kameshwar's illness is only at its beginning. Keep faith in God, Acharya. Kameshwar will play the sitar again. He will again be able to enchant the gatherings with his art. Music is a thing that suits all patients. To keep up Kameshwar's morale, you too keep feeding him the elixir of music.
Acharya: Music has great glory, Doctor.
[ Sangiten priyate devah sarvajnah parvati-patih ]
By the making of music, even a god like Shankar is pleased. Music is God's most wondrous boon to the human race. Doctor, you treat Kameshwar with your science. I will keep striving to make a favourable atmosphere for him with music. [goes off]
Scene 7
Rasik Babu: Kalavati, we ought to tell Acharya ji that, given Kameshwar's illness, it's no longer right for him to stay in this arts centre.
Kalavati: [astonished and grieved] Is it true that Kameshwar's hand has leprosy? But his hands look quite all right.
Rasiklal: See what state it's in two months more. Have you ever seen any leper?
Kalavati: No, I haven't seen one. [thinking a little] Will Kameshwar's disease not get better, Rasik?
Rasiklal: This is a disease of one's deeds (karma), you innocent. [showing a book] Look here — look at these pictures of the sufferers of this disease. Look what state they're in; are these people going to get better?
Kalavati: [alarmed] No, no, no! Such a thing won't happen to Kameshwar.
Rasiklal: But if it does?
Kalavati: No... such a thing can never happen.
Rasiklal: Even seeing these pictures you say it can't happen? Why have the other boys and girls left the arts centre? Why has this deathly stillness fallen over the arts centre, and why are you getting so emotional? No one knowingly takes his own life, Kalavati.
Kalavati: (the sound of sobbing)
Rasiklal: Even if Kameshwar gets better, the former suppleness of his fingers will not come back. Kameshwar can no longer become your life-partner. He can't even be fit to become one.
Kalavati: What is this you're saying, Rasik?
Rasiklal: I'm saying the right thing. To stay in the centre now would be putting oneself in danger, Kalavati. The Acharya insists that Kameshwar will stay in his ashram. How many days is it now since his treatment began? Has there been any difference?
Scene 8
(The Acharya is playing the sitar.)
Kameshwar: Gurudev!
Acharya: Yes, son!
Kameshwar: Hearing the sitar gives great delight, Gurudev. Once, hearing the sitar play, a tingling would begin even in my fingers. But you grow tired. Play a little while. Where is Kalavati? She wasn't to be found yesterday either.
Acharya: The rest of the people have left the centre, Kameshwar. Perhaps she too has gone off with Rasik. The day before yesterday she was asking me whether she might go to her home for a few days with Rasik.
Kameshwar: You gave her permission, didn't you? You did right. A great stillness has fallen here. (thinking) Where once was the strum of instruments and liveliness, and where now this silence — the poor girl must have felt the suffocation too.
Acharya: I didn't stop her, but I didn't tell her to go either. Perhaps she took my silence itself for my consent. But she ought not to have gone.
Kameshwar: Why ought she not to have gone? She certainly should have gone! Staying in such suffocation, a person falls ill, Gurudev.
(Dr. Arvind comes.)
Doctor: (knocking on the door with his fingers) May I come in?
Acharya: Oh, Doctor sahib. Come in, come in.
Doctor: (coming in) How is Kameshwar?
Kameshwar: Doctor sahib, the trouble hasn't increased, but the numbness in that place is still there.
Doctor: Show me your hand. Move the fingers. (Well done.) Keep up this kind of effort continuously, Kameshwar. Acharya, your treatment is going on too, isn't it? You play the sitar for Kameshwar, don't you?
Kameshwar: Doctor sahib, a thousand thanks to that God. Had I not been ill, why would an Acharya like mine play the sitar like this, only for my sake? Hearing it, a new zeal comes into my being. The hair on my body stands up.
Doctor: (laughing) That day the whole assembly cried "bravo" hearing your sitar. As the guru, so the disciple. All right, I'll go now, Ratnakar ji; I'll come again tomorrow. How are the classes of the arts centre going?
Kameshwar: (with a sigh) The arts centre is closed, Doctor sahib. All the boys and girls have left.
Doctor: All? But why have they left?
Acharya: From fear of Kameshwar's illness, Doctor sahib. Some of it was their conditioned fear, and some a fear deliberately created by spreading rumours. I have no grief at their leaving, Doctor. Make Kameshwar well... the arts centre will start up again.
Doctor: (emphatically) It will certainly start up. It will certainly start up. All right, I'll go. (He goes, but turns back a little way and again knocks at the door.)
Acharya: Who is it? The door's open, come in.
Doctor: There's a letter for you, Ratnakar ji. Some man left it.
Acharya: A letter for me? All right — thank you, Doctor sahib; that man troubled you, when he could have walked a few steps further and delivered it himself.
[ The doctor goes off. The Acharya shuts the door. ]
Kameshwar: Whose letter is it, Gurudev?
Acharya: (tearing the envelope, begins to read the letter) "Revered Grandfather," (pausing) "your Kalavati."
Kameshwar: Oh, it's Kalavati's letter! She's all right, isn't she?
The letter (in Kalavati's voice): Revered Grandfather, I am having this letter written for you through a friend of mine. Rasiklal had created a great fear in my mind about leprosy. He had brought a book in which were several pictures of sufferers of this disease. The pictures were very frightening. My heart trembled. He frightened me — that if I stayed with Kameshwar this disease would befall me too. He did all this by making a deliberate, calculated plan. On reaching his home, he placed before me a proposal of marriage, and said that we would perform the religious rites of the marriage only after taking grandfather's blessing, but that to confirm that we two were willing for this marriage we would go to the court and have it done. I came with him to the house of this same friend. From this very friend I learned that Rasik is already married. That poor girl sits at her parents' home. He never even gave her a home. Grandfather, I am deeply ashamed of my folly. Only if you forgive me will I be able to come before you. How is Kameshwar? Will you not forgive me for this childishness of mine? Awaiting your letter —
Your guilty
Kalavati
Kameshwar: There's no fault of Kalavati's in this, sir. I didn't take Rasik to be such a man either.
Acharya: I understood it all, son. But this is our tradition, Kameshwar — that we trust our disciples.
Kameshwar: Write a letter to Kalavati, Gurudev. With her coming, this suffocation of the arts centre will lift too, and your burden too will grow a little lighter.
Acharya: I'll certainly write, son. I'll write this very day.
Scene 9
[ The sitar plays slowly. ]
Kalavati: Grandfather, do you hear? Do you hear this sitar?
Acharya: Who is playing?
Kalavati: Kameshwar.
Acharya: Kameshwar! O God, a lakh upon lakh thanks to you. O ocean of mercy, you are very merciful. Kalavati, go and telephone Dr. Arvind and give him this news. It's the result of his labour and his care. Doctors like this are angels, daughter.
[ At that moment is heard the sound of a motor coming, stopping, and its door opening. ]
Go, Kalavati, see who's come. ( Kalavati goes. )
Kalavati: It's the Doctor, Grandfather! He's brought a bouquet of very beautiful flowers.
Acharya: ( joyfully ) Dr. Arvind, greetings.
Doctor: Greetings. How is the patient?
Acharya: Softly, Doctor. Go to the door and listen for yourself.
Doctor: ( going close and listening ) The sound of the sitar comes from inside — is it Kameshwar? This is a wonder. Ratnakar ji, very, very many congratulations.
Acharya: It's you who deserve these congratulations, Doctor sahib. It's you who have dispelled this suffocating circle of sorrow, worry and dread. A thousand thanks to you, and to that Lord. My arts centre had become lifeless; you have given it life again, Doctor. With what words shall I thank you.
Kalavati: Grandfather, come inside now.
Doctor: Yes, let's go in and meet Kameshwar.
Acharya: ( knocking at the door with a finger ) Kameshwar!
( The sitar stops. )
Kameshwar: Grandfather, come in, the doors are open.
( The Doctor, Acharya and Kalavati come in. )
Doctor: Kameshwar! Congratulations, my friend. On this auspicious moment of today, here is this bouquet from me.
Kameshwar: Very, very many thanks, Doctor sahib. Bouquets of the love of all of you I have been getting every day. It is the fragrance of those very flowers that has kept up my morale in this struggle. Otherwise you saw it yourself — fearing the dreadfulness of this disease, all the people, breaking off kith and kin and ties, went far away.
Doctor: That fear of those ignorant people was baseless. Acharya ji! Leprosy is today no longer an incurable disease. Science has done much research on it. Its causes have been recognised. In several countries of Europe there's no trace of this disease left. Were it incurable, how would that miracle have happened there? How would that marvel have come about? Our country is still backward. People hide this disease. If its treatment is begun the moment its signs appear, in good time, then it can be cured quickly. Kameshwar's example is before you.
Acharya: Doctor, I was fully sure that Kameshwar would get well — that he would play the sitar again, and that once more the fragrance of music would come into my arts centre.
Doctor: In this very joy, Kameshwar, my friend, strike up some raga — some sweet raga. I have still to take my fees from you, you know. Not in cash — in instalments of listening to your sitar. (laughs)
Kameshwar: I am greatly in your debt, Doctor sahib. Life and death are two poles bound in unalterable laws. No one can turn them aside. But had I died deprived of my art, my soul would have wandered who knows where. The debt I owe to all of you, who did me favour upon favour in restoring my art to me, is a sacred debt of my life. May the Supreme God give me strength enough to repay it.
Kalavati: Then why shouldn't the first instalment of that debt be paid right now?
Kameshwar: Guru ji, ( becoming emotional ) pass your hand over my head and give me your blessing.
Acharya: May the lamp of your art keep shining, son. Kalavati, here — you accompany on the tabla. Yes, play, son, play some raga of your own choice.
Kalavati: Of his own choice, grandfather? And not of ours?
Acharya: Do you mean to test Kameshwar now?
Kalavati: No, grandfather — how have I become fit to test Kameshwar? I'm only speaking of choice.
Kameshwar: Which raga do you like, Kalavati? I'll try to play that one.
Kalavati: Play 'Tilak Kamod,' Kameshwar.
Kameshwar: ( laughing ) As you command! It's a raga of the Khamaj group; in it all the notes fall shuddha. In the ascent the dhaivat is omitted.
[ He plays Tilak Kamod on the sitar. ]