Read it without the lamp
The lamp is handed over
Ūrmilā was a painter. She was Lakṣmaṇa’s wife and Sītā’s sister. When Rāma went to the forest for fourteen years and Lakṣmaṇa went with him, she stayed behind in the palace at Ayodhyā. The Rāmāyaṇa names her at her wedding and then hardly again. Maithilīśaraṇ Gupt gave her a whole book, Sāket, and in it she speaks.
This is her cloth. Take the lamp.
Twelve sargas, one night. You can stop anywhere; the lamp will be where you left it.
Sarga 1 of 12 · Ring: the ground the circle stands on, love before anything happened
The night before
Ayodhyā the night before Rāma is to be crowned. In her room Ūrmilā has painted the whole coronation, and Lakṣmaṇa looks for himself in it.
A place in the picture
Sarga 1. The night before the coronation. Ūrmilā has painted the whole ceremony. Lakṣmaṇa looks for himself in it.
“निरुपमे, पर चित्र मेरा है कहाँ?”
“प्रिय, तुम्हारा कौन-सा पद है यहाँ?”
“भावती, मैं भार लूँ किस काम का?
एक सैनिक मात्र लक्ष्मण राम का।”
“किन्तु सीता की बहन है ऊर्मिला,
वाह, उलटा योग यह अच्छा मिला!”
p. 15
साथ ही सात्विक-सुमन खिलने लगे,
लेखिका के हाथ कुछ हिलने लगे!
…
चिबुक-रचना में उमंग नहीं रुकी,
रंग फैला लेखनी आगे झुकी।
एक पीत तरंग-रेखा-सी बही,
और वह अभिषेक-घट पर जा रही!
pp. 15 to 16
In our English “But where am I in the picture?” “What place have you here, my love?” “What would I take on? Lakṣmaṇa is only Rāma’s soldier.” “But Ūrmilā is Sītā’s sister.” … Her hand began to tremble. Painting his chin, she could not hold back; the colour spread, a yellow line like a wave ran out, and it ran onto the coronation vessel.
The whole court is in her picture: the pillars, the drums, the king and queen, the sage pouring the water. He looks for himself and answers his own question before she can: nobody. A soldier.
That is the oldest sentence of the man this page is for. It is not “I did wrong”, which can be argued with. It is “there is no place for me in this picture”, and it sits under everything. At a wedding, at a festival, when the family stands together, he is at the edge, or he has already left.
She does not argue with him. She picks up the brush. Her hand, painting him, trembles so much that the colour runs, and Gupt lets it run straight onto the vessel of the coronation itself. The one who said he had no place in the picture went to its centre without meaning to.
Whether you are the one at the edge or the one holding the brush: the picture was never finished without him, and the colour has already run.
Sarga 1 of 12 · Ring: the ground the circle stands on, love before anything happened
The night before
Where minds are joined
when morning calls him away:
इसके आगे ? विदा विशेष ;
हुए दम्पती फिर अनिमेष ।
किन्तु जहाँ है मनोनियोग ,
वहाँ कहाँ का विरह वियोग ?
p. 17
In our English After that? A parting, a long one; the two gazed without blinking. But where minds are joined, what separation is there, what parting?
Gupt puts the answer to the whole book on its first night, before anything has gone wrong. Hold on to it. Everything that follows will look like separation.
Sarga 2 of 12 · Ring: the centre, where it comes from
One sentence
That same night, in another part of the palace, a servant, Mantharā, says one sentence to Queen Kaikeyī: her son Bharata has been sent away to his uncle’s, and not even called back for the coronation. Kaikeyī drives her out. But the sentence stays, and it echoes until it is all she can hear. A mother who never wanted a throne now believes her son has been doubted, and she breaks everything in her room.
गई दासी, पर उसकी बात ,
दे गई मानो कुछ आघात—
‘भरत-से सुत पर भी सन्देह ,
बुलाया तक न उन्हें जो गेह !’
p. 21
गूँजते थे रानी के कान ,
तीर-सी लगती थी वह तान—
p. 22
तोड़कर फेंके सब शृङ्गार ,
अश्रुमय-से थे मुक्ता-हार ।
…
चूर कर डाले सुन्दर चित्र ,
हो गये वे भी आज अमित्र !
p. 25
In our English The servant went, but her words struck like a blow: “A son like Bharata, and even he is doubted; they did not so much as call him home!” They rang in the queen’s ears like an arrow. … She threw down all her ornaments; the pearl strings were like tears. … She smashed the beautiful paintings; today even they had become enemies.
This is the centre of the circle, where all of it comes from. Not a villain. A sentence. Someone says, or is told, that they have been doubted, and the doubt goes in and will not come out. Kaikeyī was not greedy that night. She was wounded, and a wounded heart strikes the nearest thing. On this site the circle reads: abused, one abuses. Gupt saw it in 1931: suspected, she suspects everyone.
For a man who began on opium, this is usually where it began too: not with the drug, but with a sentence that went in and stayed. A doubt about him, a slight, a loss nobody saw. The drug came later, to quiet the echo.
Notice what she breaks first. Her paintings. The thing that was beautiful becomes the enemy. Keep it in mind, because the woman who paints is about to lose everything, and she will not break one picture.
Sarga 3 of 12 · Ring: the mind
At whom is the anger?
Morning. Instead of a coronation, two boons: Bharata to be king, Rāma to the forest for fourteen years. The old king, bound by his own word, cannot speak. Kaikeyī says only: “I myself am the thorn.” Lakṣmaṇa blazes up; he would fight his own family, his father, the whole world, for Rāma. Rāma stops him.
“सुनो, हे राम ! कण्टक आप हूँ मैं ,
कहूँ क्या और, बस चुपचाप हूँ मैं ।”
…
कहा, “विश्वास ने मुझको ठगाया !”
p. 37
कहा प्रभु ने कि “हाँ, बस चुप रहो तुम ,
अरुन्तुद वाक्य कहते हो अहो ! तुम !
जताते कोप किसपर हो, कहो तुम ?
सुनो, जो मैं कहूँ, चंचल न हो तुम ।
p. 41
मनःशासक बनो तुम, हठ न ठानो ,
अखिल संसार अपना राज्य जानो ।
p. 42
In our English [Kaikeyī:] “Listen, Rāma: I myself am the thorn. What more can I say? I am silent.” … [Daśaratha:] “Trust has cheated me!” … Rāma said: “Yes. Be quiet now. You are saying words that wound to the quick. At whom are you showing this anger? Tell me. Listen to what I say, and do not be shaken. … Become the ruler of your own mind; do not cling to your stubbornness. Know the whole world to be your kingdom.”
The circle has reached the mind. Everybody in this room is in pain, and the pain has turned into anger, and the anger is looking for someone. Lakṣmaṇa has found her: the stepmother. He would break the family to defend it.
Rāma does not tell him he is wrong to feel it. He asks him a question. At whom are you showing this anger? It is the question every house of dependence should ask itself at the moment it is ready to fight: at the man, at his mother, at the friend who first gave him the drug, at the village. Then Rāma gives him the one kingdom nobody can take away. Become the ruler of your own mind. And the reward for it is not a smaller life. It is the whole world.
For the man himself, the anger is often against himself, and it is no less anger. The question is the same.
Sarga 4 of 12 · Ring: the family
No one is the villain
Rāma goes to his mothers. Kauśalyā would beg on her knees for him to stay; Sumitrā, Lakṣmaṇa’s mother, would rather fight than beg. Rāma answers them both. Sītā will go with him, whatever the forest holds. Lakṣmaṇa will go. Ūrmilā is not asked.
No one is the villain
किसने क्या अन्याय किया ,
कि जो क्षोभ यों जाय किया ?
माँ ने पुत्र-वृद्धि चाही ,
नृप ने सत्य-सिद्धि चाही ।
मँझली माँ पर कोप करूँ ?
पुत्र-धर्म का लोप करूँ ?
p. 57
यदि अपना आत्मिक बल है ,
जंगल में भी मंगल है ।
Sītā, p. 67
In our English Who did what wrong, that there should be such grief? A mother wanted her son to rise; a king wanted his word to stand. Shall I be angry with my middle mother, and abandon what a son owes? … [Sītā:] If there is strength in the spirit, there is joy even in the forest.
Rāma will not let anyone be the villain. Not even the woman whose two boons have just sent him into the forest. A mother wanted her son to rise; a king wanted his word to stand. That is all. Each wanted something good, and together they made this.
In every house that has someone in dependence, the family has a villain ready: the friend, the wife’s people, the husband’s mother, the village, the government, the man himself. Rāma’s way does not excuse anything. It simply refuses to make an enemy, and so the family stays a family.
Sarga 4 of 12 · Ring: the family
No one is the villain
What was not said
Sarga 4. Rāma is going to the forest. Sītā will go with him. Lakṣmaṇa will go. Nobody asks Ūrmilā.
लक्ष्मण ने सोचा कि—“अहो,
कैसे कहूँ चलो कि रहो!
…
नहीं, नहीं, यह बात न हो,
रहो, रहो, हे प्रिये! रहो।
यह भी मेरे लिए सहो,
और अधिक क्या कहूँ, कहो?”
लक्ष्मण हुए वियोगजयी,
और ऊर्मिला प्रेममयी?
वह भी सब कुछ जान गई,
विवश भाव से मान गई।
p. 59
कहा ऊर्मिला ने—“हे मन!
तू प्रिय-पथ का विघ्न न बन।
आज स्वार्थ है त्याग-भरा!
हो अनुराग विराग भरा!”
p. 62
इधर ऊर्मिला मुग्ध तिरीं—
कहकर “हाय!” धड़ाम गिरी!
…
लक्ष्मण ने दृग मूँद लिए,
सबने दो दो बूँद दिए।
p. 68
In our English Lakṣmaṇa thought: “How do I say, come, or stay? … No, no, stay, my love, stay. Bear this too, for me. What more can I say?” … She understood everything, and gave in, helpless. Ūrmilā said: “O my mind, do not become an obstacle on his path. Today what I want is full of giving up.” … Then she swooned, cried “hāy!” and fell. Lakṣmaṇa shut his eyes. Everyone gave two drops each.
In a house where someone is dependent, the most important sentence is never spoken. He does not say: I am going into something, and I do not know when I will come back. She does not say: I know. Each carries the unsaid thing for years, alone, each believing the other does not know.
Gupt shows both sides of that silence. His was not coldness: he looked for a word that would not wound her and found none, so he said it only inside himself. Hers was not weakness. Look at whom she speaks to. Not to him. To her own mind: do not stand in his way.
Everything she becomes in the next fourteen years begins here, with a woman speaking to her own mind. And then she falls, in front of all of them, and nobody is ashamed of her. Everyone in the room gives two drops.
Sarga 5 of 12 · Ring: the village, and then the world
The road
The chariot leaves Ayodhyā. The people lie down in the road in front of it: go if you can, over us. Rāma talks them up. At the edge of the kingdom he bows to his birthplace. At the Gaṅgā, Guha, the chief of the boatmen, comes to meet him with gifts, and forgets, for a day, that he is lower than anyone. At Prayāg, where the rivers meet, Rāma says what a meeting is.
बोल उठे जन—‘भद्र, न ऐसा तुम कहो ,
देते हैं हम तुम्हें बिदा ही कब अहो !
राजा हमने राम, तुम्हीं को है चुना ,
करो न तुम यों हाय ! लोकमत अनसुना ।
जाओ, यदि जा सको रौंद हमको यहाँ !“
यों कह पथ में लेट गये बहु जन वहाँ ।
…
प्रजा नहीं, तुम प्रकृति हमारी बन गये ,
दोनों के सुख-दुःख एक में सन गये ।
p. 74
पाकर यह आनन्द-सम्मिलन-लीनता ,
भूल रही है आज मुझे निज हीनता ।
मैं अभाव में भाव लेखता हूँ तुम्हें ,
निज गृह में गृह नहीं, देखता हूँ तुम्हें ।
Guha, p. 80
सुनो, मिलन ही महातीर्थ संसार में ,
पृथ्वी परिणत यहीं एक परिवार में ।
p. 88
In our English The people cried out: “Do not say that! When did we ever give you leave to go? We chose you as our king; do not turn a deaf ear to the people. Go, if you can, over us!” And many lay down in the road. … [Rāma:] “You are not my subjects any more; you have become my own nature. Our joys and sorrows have run into one.” … [Guha:] “Lost in this joy of meeting, I am forgetting today how low I am. Where there is nothing, I see you as the feeling; in my own house I see not a house, but you.” … [Rāma:] “Listen: meeting is the great pilgrimage of the world. Here the whole earth turns into one family.”
The circle opens onto the village. A whole people lies down in the road, because when one of them goes, it is as though all of them go. Rāma’s answer is the one this site gives every village: you are not my subjects, you are my own nature. A village is not the man’s audience or his judge. It is his own nature, and its joy and grief have already run into his.
Then the man who feels lowest of all, the boatman, forgets how low he is, for one day, because someone came to his house as a guest. That is how the feeling of being less goes: not argued away, but forgotten in a meeting.
And at the confluence, the world. Meeting is the great pilgrimage. Here the whole earth becomes one family. Nobody has to travel to a holy place. The holy place is wherever two people meet.
Sarga 6 of 12 · Ring: the family, and the village’s grief
One face to hate
Ayodhyā without them. Ūrmilā has lain unconscious since they left; when she wakes, all she has left is the hope that will not die, and the sentence she never said to him. The charioteer comes back with an empty chariot. The old king, who has called Rāma’s name for six days, dies of the separation. The whole city goes into mourning, and its grief looks for one place to rest.
“सब गया, हाय ! आशा न गई ।
आशे, निष्फल भी बनी रहो ,
तुम हो हीरे की कनी अहो !
Ūrmilā, p. 97
तो क्यों इतना भी कह न सकी—
“हे नाथ, साथ दो भ्राता का ,
बल रहे मुझे उस त्राता का ।
…
है प्रेम स्वयं कर्त्तव्य बड़ा ,
जो सींच रहा है तुम्हें खड़ा ।
p. 97
इस शोक के सम्बन्ध से—
सब देखते थे अन्ध-से—
बस एक मूर्ति घृणामयी ,
वह थी कठोरा केकयी !
p. 110
In our English [Ūrmilā:] “Everything is gone; hope has not gone. Hope, stay, even if you come to nothing: you are a splinter of diamond! … Why could I not say even this much: ‘My lord, go with your brother; let the strength of that protector be with me. … Love is itself the great duty; it is what keeps you standing.’” … In this grief everyone looked as if blind: there was only one figure made of hatred, and that was hard Kaikeyī.
Two things happen in this sarga, side by side, and both are the circle.
Ūrmilā, who has lost the most, keeps one thing: hope, which she calls a splinter of diamond. Even if it comes to nothing, let it stay. And she knows now what she should have said: go with your brother. Love itself is the great duty. It is what keeps you standing. She is not angry that he went. She is sorry she did not send him.
And the city, in its grief, does what every village does. It looks for one face to put all of it on. There was only one figure made of hatred. One woman becomes the whole reason. Any man with a habit in a village knows this face. He has worn it. When something goes wrong in the lane, it is his.
Sarga 7 of 12 · Ring: the family; the one who is blamed
Whom will you strike?
Bharata comes home from his uncle’s to an empty city and a dead father, and learns that it was done for him. He refuses the throne. His younger brother Śatrughna, wild with grief, raises his hand against their mother; Bharata stops him. Then Bharata goes to Kauśalyā, Rāma’s mother, calling himself the culprit, the thief of the kingdom. She takes him in her arms. The family’s guru, Vasiṣṭha, tells him to stand up.
वीर ने मारी हृदय पर मुष्टि ।
उठ भरत ने धर लिया झट हाथ ,
और वे बोले व्यथा के साथ—
“हाय ! मारोगे किसे हे तात ,
p. 125
“तुम कहाँ हो अम्ब, दीना अम्ब ,
…
भरत—अपराधी भरत—है प्राप्त ,
दो उसे आदेश अपना आप्त ।
p. 125
“झूठ यह सब झूठ, तू निष्पाप ;
साक्षिणी तेरी यहाँ मैं आप ।
…
देख लो हे नाथ लो परितोष ;
जननियों के जात हैं निर्दोष ।”
Kauśalyā, p. 126
अब उठो हे वत्स, धीरज धार ,
बैठते हैं वीर क्या थक-हार ?
…
सतत कर्मक्षेत्र है नरलोक ।
Vasiṣṭha, p. 130
In our English The young hero struck his own breast. Bharata rose and quickly caught his hand, and said in anguish: “Ah! Whom will you strike, brother?” … “Where are you, Mother, poor Mother? Bharata, the guilty one, Bharata has come; give him your command.” … [Kauśalyā:] “It is false, all of it false; you are without sin. I myself am your witness here. … Look, my lord, and be content: the sons of mothers are blameless.” … [Vasiṣṭha:] “Now rise, my son, and take heart. Do the brave sit down, tired and beaten? … The world of men is a field of work, always.”
This is the sarga for the one who is blamed, and for the one who blames himself.
Śatrughna’s grief turns into a blow, and Bharata catches his hand. Whom will you strike? In a house where someone is dependent, sooner or later a hand is raised: at the man, at his mother, at himself. The question stops it in the air.
Bharata walks into the room of the woman his mother has wronged, calling himself the guilty one. Many men walk into their family’s presence like that, years of guilt in one sentence. Kauśalyā does not argue with him and does not lecture. She says: it is false. I myself am your witness. And then the line for every mother in Rajasthan who has watched a village decide her son is the cause: the sons of mothers are blameless.
Then the guru does not tell him to forget. He tells him to stand. Do the brave sit down, tired and beaten? The world of men is a field of work. That is this site’s whole training, in one sentence.
Sarga 8 of 12 · Ring: the village, the world, and the one everybody hated, turned
Chitrakūṭ
Chitrakūṭ, a hill in the forest. Sītā waters her saplings and sings; she has never been so free. Rāma tells her why he has come to the forest at all. Then Bharata arrives with the whole of Ayodhyā to bring Rāma home, and Kaikeyī, in front of everyone, owns what she did. And in a hut, for one moment, Lakṣmaṇa and Ūrmilā meet.
On her own feet
औरों के हाथों यहाँ नहीं पलती हूँ ,
अपने पैरों पर खड़ी आप चलती हूँ ।
श्रमवारि विन्दु फल स्वास्थ्य शुचि फलती हूँ ,
अपने अंचल से व्यजन आप झलती हूँ ।
तनु-लता-सफलता-स्वाद आज हो आया ,
मेरी कुटिया में राज-भवन मन भाया ।
p. 138
ओ भोली कोल-किरात-भिल्ल-बालाओ ,
मैं आप तुम्हारे यहाँ आ गई, आओ ।
मुझको कुछ करने योग्य काम बतलाओ ,
p. 140
In our English Here I am not raised by other people’s hands; I stand on my own feet and walk. Drops of sweat ripen into health; I fan myself with my own sari’s end. Today I have tasted what this body is for: in my hut I have found the palace my heart wanted. … O simple daughters of the Kol, the Kirāt and the Bhīl, I have come to you myself; come, tell me some work worth doing.
The palace raised her by other people’s hands. The forest, which everyone pitied her for, is where she stands on her own feet. Today I have tasted what this body is for. That is what the practice on this site is for: not to make a man’s body behave, but to let him taste what it is for.
And her first wish in the forest is not to be served. She goes to the forest women, the Bhīl and Kol girls, and asks them for work. Standing on your own feet turns, almost at once, toward other people.
Sarga 8 of 12 · Ring: the village, the world, and the one everybody hated, turned
Chitrakūṭ
For the helpless
मैं आया उनके हेतु कि जो तापित हैं ,
जो विवश, विकल, बल-हीन, दीन, शापित हैं ।
p. 145
सन्देश यहाँ मैं नहीं स्वर्ग का लाया ,
इस भूतल को ही स्वर्ग बनाने आया ।
p. 146
In our English I came for those who are scorched, who are helpless, restless, without strength, poor, cursed. … I have not brought a message from heaven; I came to make this very earth heaven.
Vivaś: helpless, without control. Ūrmilā will use the same word of herself. Rāma names every word that has been said about the man this site is for: scorched, helpless, restless, without strength, poor, cursed. And he says he came for them. Not to heaven; to this earth, and to make it heaven here.
Sarga 8 of 12 · Ring: the village, the world, and the one everybody hated, turned
Chitrakūṭ
The one everybody hated
“हाँ, जनकर भी मैंने न भरत को जाना ,
सब सुन लें, तुमने स्वयं अभी यह माना ।
यह सच है तो फिर लौट चलो घर भैया ,
अपराधिन मैं हूँ तात, तुम्हारी मैया ।
p. 154
“क्या कर सकती थी, मरी मन्थरा दासी ,
मेरा ही मन रह सका न निज विश्वासी ।
p. 155
“सौ बार धन्य वह एक लाल की माई ,
जिस जननी ने है जना भरत-सा भाई ।”
पागल-सी प्रभु के साथ सभा चिल्लाई—
“सौ बार धन्य वह एक लाल की माई ।”
p. 156
“छल किया भाग्य ने मुझे अयश देने का ,
बल दिया उसीने भूल मान लेने का ।
p. 157
In our English “Yes: I bore Bharata and did not know him. Let everyone hear it; you yourself said so just now. If that is true, then come home, my son. I am the guilty one, my child: your mother.” … “What could poor Mantharā, a servant, have done? It was my own mind that could not keep its trust.” … “A hundred times blessed is the mother of that one son, the mother who bore a brother like Bharata!” Like one gone mad, the whole assembly cried out with Rāma: “A hundred times blessed is the mother of that one son!” … “Fate tricked me into disgrace, and the same fate gave me the strength to own my mistake.”
Here the circle turns, and it turns at the person everybody hated.
Kaikeyī stands up in front of the whole of Ayodhyā. She does not blame the servant: what could Mantharā have done? It was my own mind. She does not ask to be forgiven. She calls herself the guilty one and asks Rāma to come home. And Rāma, and then the whole assembly, cry out the opposite of what the city said: a hundred times blessed is the mother who bore Bharata. The one figure made of hatred is blessed, out loud, by everybody.
Then her own sentence for it: the same fate that disgraced me gave me the strength to own my mistake. Owning it is not the punishment. It is a strength she was given.
Sarga 8 of 12 · Ring: the village, the world, and the one everybody hated, turned
Chitrakūṭ
One moment in the hut
Sarga 8. Chitrakūṭ. The whole family has come to the forest to bring Rāma back. Sītā sends Lakṣmaṇa into the hut to fetch a basket. Ūrmilā is waiting there.
जाकर परन्तु जो वहाँ उन्होंने देखा,
तो दीख पड़ी कोणस्थ ऊर्मिला-रेखा।
यह काया है या शेष उसीकी छाया,
क्षण भर उनकी कुछ नहीं समझ में आया!
“मेरे उपवन के हरिण, आज वनचारी,
मैं बाँध न लूँगी तुम्हें, तजो भय भारी।”
गिर पड़े दौड़ सौमित्रि प्रिया-पद-तल में,
वह भींग उठी प्रिय-चरण धरे दृग-जल में।
“वन में तनिक तपस्या करके
बनने दो मुझको निज योग्य,
भाभी की भगिनी, तुम मेरे
अर्थ नहीं केवल उपभोग्य।”
“हा स्वामी! कहना था क्या क्या
कह न सकी, कर्मों का दोष!
पर जिसमें सन्तोष तुम्हें हो
मुझे उसी में है सन्तोष।”
एक घड़ी भी बीत न पाई,
बाहर से कुछ वाणी आई।
p. 166
In our English In the corner he saw a line that was Ūrmilā. Was it her body, or only its shadow? “Deer of my garden, a forest wanderer now: I will not tie you up. Let go of that great fear.” He ran and fell at her feet, and she held them and wet them with her tears. “Let me do a little tapasyā in the forest and become worthy of you. You are not only for my pleasure.” “My lord! How much I had to say, and I could not say it. But where you are content, I am content.” Not one ghaḍī had passed when voices called from outside.
Look at what each of them is afraid of. He is afraid of being tied. She knows it before he speaks, and her first words take the fear away: I will not tie you up. A house that waits for a man in dependence has seen this fear in his eyes, that the house is a rope.
The moment he is not afraid, he asks for the one thing worth asking. Not “forgive me”. Let me become worthy of you. Even she cannot say what she came to say. And still, from that moment that did not last one ghaḍī, she lives for years.
Many meetings in such a house are like this one: one moment in which everything could be said, and very little is, and it is enough.
Sarga 9 of 12 · Ring: from the centre out to the village
The palace, the years
Back in Ayodhyā, for fourteen years. This is Gupt’s own sarga for Ūrmilā, the one he said he never finished.
The cage, and the open door
Sarga 9. The palace, the years. Ūrmilā speaks to her friend.
विरह संग अभिसार भी,
भार जहाँ आभार भी।
मैं पिंजड़े में पड़ी हूँ किंतु खुला है द्वार भी,
काल कठिन क्यों न हो किंतु है मेरे लिए उदार भी!
p. 177
सखि, न हटा मकड़ी को, आई है वह सहानुभूति-वशा,
जालगता मैं भी तो, हम दोनों की यहाँ समान-दशा।
p. 198
उठ अवार न पार जाकर भी गई,
ऊर्मि हूँ मैं इस भवार्णव की नई,
…
पर विलीन नहीं, रहूँ गतिहीन मैं,
दैन्य से न दबूँ कभी, वह दीन मैं।
अति अवश हूँ, किन्तु आत्म-अधीन मैं,
सखि, मिलन के पूर्व ही प्रिय-लीन मैं।
p. 209
In our English Separation, and with it a going to meet. A weight, and with it gratitude. I lie in a cage, but the door is open too. However hard the time, it is generous to me as well. … Friend, do not brush the spider away. She came out of sympathy. I am caught in a web too; here we are the same. … I rose from the near shore and never reached the far one: I am a new wave of this ocean of becoming. … Not dissolved, though I cannot move. Never pressed down by misery, however poor. Utterly without control, yet my own master. Friend, before we meet I am already one with him.
अवश. Without control. That is the word for the man this site is for. Others decide when he sleeps and what he spends, and his body decides for him every morning. Ūrmilā says it of herself: utterly अवश. And in the same line: yet आत्म-अधीन, my own master.
She does not leave the palace to become free. The cage is where she finds the door open. That is dependence, the way Gupt saw it in 1931 without ever writing about a drug: a cage whose door is open. Nobody can push him out of it. The door is not somewhere ahead, past a far-off day of release. It is open now, in the same sentence as the cage.
She gives her own name to it: ऊर्मि, a wave. A wave does not escape the ocean. It rises out of it and moves. “Not dissolved,” she says. Inside the walls, she is the one thing that moves.
And the spider. Do not sweep it away; it came out of fellow feeling; I am in a web too. Whoever has been caught becomes kin to everything caught. That is not the wound. It is where every ring that follows begins.
Sarga 9 of 12 · Ring: from the centre out to the village
The palace, the years
Fourteen turns of the earth
Sarga 9 goes through the seasons, one after another: the heat, the rains, autumn, the cold, the frost, the spring.
चौदह चक्कर खायगी जब यह भूमि अभंग,
घूमेंगे इस ओर तब प्रियतम प्रभु के संग।
p. 196
नाइन, रहने दे तू, तेल नहीं चाहिए मुझे तेरा,
तनु चाहे रूखा हो, मन तो सुस्नेह-पूर्ण है मेरा।
p. 195
वेदने, तू भी भली बनी!
पाई मैंने आज तुझीमें अपनी चाह घनी।
नई किरण छोड़ी है तूने, तू वह हीर-कनी,
p. 176
जहाँ विरह ने गार दिया है किया वहाँ उपकार भी,
सुधबुध हर ली किंतु दिया है कालज्ञान विचार भी।
…
जाना मैंने इस उर में थी ज्वाला भी जलधार भी,
प्रिय ही नहीं यहाँ मैं भी थी, और एक संसार भी!
p. 177
प्रिय ने सहज गुणों से, दीक्षा दी थी मुझे प्रणय, जो तेरी,
आज प्रतीक्षा द्वारा, लेते हैं वे यहाँ परीक्षा मेरी!
p. 174
री, आवेगा फिर भी वसन्त,
जैसे मेरे प्रिय प्रेमवन्त।
दुःखों का भी है एक अन्त,
p. 205
In our English When this unbroken earth has turned fourteen times, my love will come round this way with his lord. … Barber-woman, leave it, I do not want your oil: my body may be dry, my mind is full of oil, full of love. … Pain, you too turned out good! In you I found how much I want. You gave me a new ray; you are a splinter of diamond. … Where separation ground me down, it did me good as well. It took my senses, and gave me understanding of time. … I came to know that in this heart there was fire and there was flowing water; not only my beloved was here, I was here too, and a whole world! … With his own nature he gave me my initiation into love; now, by waiting, he takes my examination. … Spring will come again, as my love will. Sorrows too have an end.
Everyone around her counts these years as lost. Fourteen years taken out of a young woman’s life. That is how a village counts the years a man spends on opium, or doḍā, or anything: years gone, to be made up.
Gupt counts the other way. He takes her through every season, the heat and the rains, autumn, the cold, the frost, the spring, and in each one she finds something. Her body grows dry; her mind does not. Pain, which she expected to be only pain, becomes “a splinter of diamond”. And then the line this whole cloth is painted around:
प्रिय ही नहीं यहाँ मैं भी थी, और एक संसार भी. Not only my beloved was here. I was here too, and a whole world.
That is what the years of dependence look like from the inside, when they are looked at long enough. Not a gap in a life. The years in which he found that he too was there. Nothing was lost.
And see what she calls the waiting. He gave her the दीक्षा, the initiation, and the waiting is the परीक्षा, the examination. The years are not the wound. They are the qualification.
Sarga 9 of 12 · Ring: from the centre out to the village
The palace, the years
The rings open
Sarga 9 and sarga 10. Still inside the palace, still waiting.
बनाती रसोई, सभीको खिलाती,
इसी काम में आज मैं तृप्ति पाती।
रहा किन्तु मेरे लिए एक रोना,
खिलाऊँ किसे मैं अलौना-सलौना?
p. 170
प्रोषितपतिकाएँ हों
जितनी भी सखि, उन्हें निमन्त्रण दे आ,
समदुःखिनी मिलें तो
दुःख बँटे, जा, प्रणयपुरस्सर ले आ।
सुख दे सकते हैं तो दुःखी जन ही मुझे, उन्हें यदि भेटूँ,
कोई नहीं यहाँ क्या जिसका कोई अभाव मैं भी मेटूँ?
p. 173
मैं निज ललितकलाएँ भूल न जाऊँ वियोग-वेदन में,
सखि, पुरबाला-शाला खुलवा दे क्यों न उपवन में?
p. 174
हम राज्य लिए मरते हैं?
सच्चा राज्य परन्तु हमारे कर्षक ही करते हैं।
p. 195
तरसूँ मुझ-सी मैं ही, सरसे-हरसे-हँसे प्रकृति प्यारी,
सबको सुख होगा तो मेरी भी आयगी वारी।
p. 186
आज भीगते ही घर पहुँचे, जन जन के जन, बरसो।
p. 186
In our English I cook and feed everyone, and in that work I find my fill today. One grief stays with me: whom do I feed, salted or not? … Friend, go and invite every woman whose husband is far away. If women who grieve alike meet, the grief is shared; go, bring them with love. Only those who suffer can give me happiness, if I can meet them. Is there no one here whose lack I too can mend? … So that I do not forget my own arts in this pain, why not open a school for the city’s girls in my garden? … We die for kingdoms? The true kingdom is the farmers’ work. … Let me alone long for him; let dear nature be green and glad and laughing. When everyone is happy, my turn will come too. … Rain, so that today every people’s own reach home, even if soaked.
Here the cage opens. Not through the door: through rings.
The first ring is the kitchen. She cooks and feeds everyone, and Gupt does not pretend the grief has gone: whom does she feed? She feeds them anyway. The next ring is every woman in the city who is waiting for someone far away. Invite them all; if those who grieve alike meet, the grief is shared. Then the line that turns the whole poem: is there no one here whose lack I too can mend? Then a school for the city’s girls, in her own garden. Then the farmers, who are the true kingdom. Then the rain, for everyone’s own to reach home. And last, her tears, given to the river, so that they become the sea, and then clouds, and then rain on the world.
Ring after ring. That is the circle on The Idea page, turned. Abuse widens ring after ring until there is nothing but abuse; the same widening, turned, is love. She never stops being the one who waits. She stops waiting alone.
Whoever has been in the web knows every other web. Whoever has waited knows every other house that waits. Neither has to be healed first. Ūrmilā began in the middle of her hardest year.
Sarga 9 of 12 · Ring: from the centre out to the village
The palace, the years
The night that counted thorns
Sarga 9. A night when she imagines the fourteen years are over and he is standing at the door.
सखि, विचार कभी उठता यही—
अवधि पूर्ण हुई, प्रिय आ गये।
तदपि मैं मिलते सकुचा रही,
वह वही, पर आज नये नये!
p. 213
प्रिय, फिरो, फिरो हा! फिरो, फिरो!
न इस मोह की धूम से घिरो।
…
घर फिरे तुम्हीं मोह से कहीं,
तब हुए तपोभ्रष्ट क्या नहीं?
p. 215
And the Lakṣmaṇa she imagines answers her:
विदित क्या तुम्हें, देवि, क्या हुआ,
रुधिर स्वेद के रूप में चुआ।
विपिन में कभी सो सका न मैं,
अधिक क्या कहूँ, रो सका न मैं।
वचन ये पुरस्कार में मिले,
अहह ऊर्मिले! हाय ऊर्मिले!
गिन सको, गिनो शूल, जो चुभे,
सहज है समालोचना शुभे।
कठिन साधना किन्तु तत्व की,
प्रथम चाहिए सिद्धि सत्व की।
…
प्रियतमे, तपोभ्रष्ट मैं? भला!
मत छुओ मुझे, लौट मैं चला।
p. 217
उन्मादिनी कभी थी,
विवेकिनी ऊर्मिला हुई सखि अब है,
p. 218
In our English Friend, sometimes the thought comes: the time is over, my love has come. Yet I shrink from meeting him: he is the same, and today he is new. … Go back, my love, go back! Do not be wrapped in the smoke of this attachment. … If you came home out of attachment, have you not fallen from your tapas? … [He:] Do you know, my queen, what happened? Blood came out of me as sweat. In the forest I could never sleep. What more can I say: I could not even weep. These are the words I am given as reward? Ah Ūrmilā! Count the thorns that pierced me, if you can. Criticism is easy, my dear; the work of truth is hard; first one has to win oneself. … Fallen from tapas, I? Very well. Do not touch me. I am going back. … [She:] I was mad once. Now, friend, Ūrmilā has come to her senses.
Every house that has waited has had this night. He comes home, or seems to, and the first thing out of the mouth is not welcome. It is suspicion. Has he really finished? Has he come back too soon, out of weakness? Did he fall?
And in Gupt the man answers. He does not plead. He tells her what she did not see: blood that came out as sweat, nights without sleep, a grief so held that he could not even weep. Then the sentence every house should keep by the door: सहज है समालोचना. Criticism is easy. The real work is hard.
Then Ūrmilā wakes, and Gupt gives the madness to the one who judged, not to the one who was judged. “I was mad once; now I have come to my senses.”
For the man: the voice that tells you you have fallen, whether it comes from the house or from inside your own head at two in the morning, is the mad voice. It counts thorns. For the house: the one who came back may be carrying what you never saw.
Sarga 10 of 12 · Ring: the world
To the river at night
A night by the Sarayū. Ūrmilā tells the river who she was: a girl in Mithilā, so restless she was named for a wave; a girl who made her doll come alive. She tells it her wedding. Then she gives the river her tears.
कुछ चंचल मैं सदा रही ,
फिरती थी तुझ-सी वही-बही ।
इस कारण ऊर्मिला हुई ,
गति में मैं अति दुर्मिला हुई ।
…
‘मुझसे समभाग छाँट ले ,
पुतली, जी उठ,—जीव बाँट ले ।
p. 225
तब ले दृग-बिन्दु क्षुद्र ये ,
बढ़ हो जायँ स्वयं समुद्र ये ,
घन पान करें कभी इन्हें ,
रुचता है परमार्थ ही जिन्हें ।
यह भी इस भाँति धन्य हों ,
जगती के उपकार-जन्य हों ।
p. 249
In our English I was always a little restless; I wandered about flowing, just like you. That is why I became Ūrmilā: in my going, very hard to catch. … “Take an equal share of me; little doll, come alive, share my life.” … Take these small drops of my eyes; let them grow and become the sea; let the clouds drink them some day, the clouds that love only to give; let them too be blessed, born to do the world good.
She was named for her restlessness. A wave, hard to catch. And as a girl she would tell her doll: take an equal share of my life, come alive. That is who sits by the river now, after years in a cage: the same girl, the same wave, the same wish to give her own life away so that something else can live.
And so she gives the river the only thing she has, her tears, and asks it to carry them to the sea, so that the sea can give them to the clouds, so that the clouds can rain them on the world. The circle’s last ring is the world, and she reaches it from a palace window, by a river, at night, with nothing in her hands.
Sarga 11 of 12 · Ring: the village
Nandigrām
Bharata does not live in the palace. In a village outside the city, Nandigrām, he keeps Rāma’s sandals on a throne and lives like a forest hermit for fourteen years, a vow kept at home. His wife Māṇḍavī brings him food every day. And under that vow the villages flourish. Then a traveller brings news from the south.
खेतों के निकेत बनते हैं
और निकेतों के फिर खेत ,
वे प्रासाद रहें न रहें, पर ,
अमर तुम्हारा यह साकेत ।
Māṇḍavī, p. 257
जीवन में सुख-दुख निरन्तर
आते जाते रहते हैं ,
सुख तो सभी भोग लेते हैं ,
दुःख धीर ही सहते हैं ।
p. 258
भूरि-भाग्य ने एक भूल की ,
सबने उसे सँभाला है ,
हमें जलाती पर प्रकाश भी
फैलाती यह ज्वाला है ।
p. 259
एक शाल में बहु विभिन्न दल
और विविध वर्धित फल-फूल ,
यथा-विचित्र विश्व-विटपी में
अगणित विटप, एक ही मूल !
p. 263
अन्न-वृद्धि से तृप्त तथा बहु
कला-सिद्धि से सहज प्रसन्न ,
अपना ग्राम ग्राम है मानो
एक स्वतन्त्र वेश सम्पन्न ।
p. 265
In our English [Māṇḍavī:] Fields become houses, and houses become fields again; those palaces may stand or not, but this Sāket of yours will not die. … Joy and sorrow keep coming and going in life; everyone can enjoy joy, only the steady bear sorrow. … Great fortune made one mistake, and everyone has taken care of it; this flame burns us, but it spreads light too. … [Śatrughna, on the land:] On one tree, many kinds of leaf, and many fruits and flowers grown on it: as in the many-coloured tree of the world, countless branches, one root! … Content with growing grain, glad with many skills mastered, every one of our villages is, it seems, a country of its own, complete.
This is the village ring, and it is a household that turns it. One man keeps a vow in a hut at the edge of a city, and his wife carries his food, and around them the villages grow grain, weave cloth, make medicines, breed cattle, until every village is a country of its own, complete.
And Māṇḍavī says the sentence this site would say to any village about the house that has had dependence in it: great fortune made one mistake, and everyone has taken care of it. This flame burns us, but it spreads light too. Not hidden, not denied. Taken care of, by everyone, and turned into light.
Sarga 12 of 12 · Ring: the world, and then love
The return
The news from Laṅkā reaches Ayodhyā: Sītā taken, Lakṣmaṇa struck down. Ayodhyā’s army makes ready. Then the fourteen years are over, and they come home.
The heartbeat
Sarga 12. Word comes to Ayodhyā that Lakṣmaṇa has been struck down in Laṅkā. As if in a vision, the whole city sees him lying in Rāma’s lap. No one can speak.
जड़ीभूत-से हुए देख साकेत-निवासी,
बोल सके कुछ भी न,—हुए यद्यपि अभिलाषी।
तदपि ऊर्मिला ने प्रयास कर हाथ उठाया,—
देखा अपना हृदय, मन्द-सा स्पन्दन पाया!
p. 318
किन्तु जहाँ है मनोनियोग,
वहाँ कहाँ का विरह वियोग?
sarga 1, p. 17
In our English Seeing it, the people of Sāket stood like stone. They wanted to speak and could not. But Ūrmilā, with an effort, raised her hand. She felt her own heart, and found a faint beat. … Where minds are joined, what separation is there, what parting?
A sea lies between them. He is lying struck down in Laṅkā; she is standing in Ayodhyā. Nobody can say whether he lives. She lifts her hand to her own heart and finds a faint beat, and that is how she knows.
Gupt had said it on the first night, before anything happened: where minds are joined, what separation is there? The house that waits for a man is not standing apart from him, watching. Wherever he is, a hand on a heart in that house knows whether he lives. There is but one.
Sarga 12 of 12 · Ring: the world, and then love
The return
Before the army
Sarga 12, whole. The army of Ayodhyā stands ready to march on Laṅkā. Its captain has just told it to go and loot the golden city.
“नहीं, नहीं”—सुन चौंक पड़े शत्रुघ्न और सब!
ऊषा-सी आ गई ऊर्मिला उसी ठौर तब!
वीणांगुलि-सम सती उतरती-सी चढ़ धाई,
तालपूर्ति-सी संग सखी भी खिंचती आई!
आ शत्रुघ्न-समीप रुकी लक्ष्मण की रानी,
प्रकट हुई ज्यों कार्तिकेय के निकट भवानी।
जटा-जाल-से बाल विलम्बित छूट पड़े थे,
आनन पर सौ अरुण, घटा में फूट पड़े थे।
माथे का सिन्दूर सजग, अंगार-सदृश था,
प्रथमातप-सा पुण्य गात्र, यद्यपि वह कृश था।
बायाँ कर शत्रुघ्न-पृष्ठ पर कण्ठ-निकट था,
दायें कर में स्थूल किरण-सा शूल विकट था।
p. 315
गरज उठी वह—‘नहीं, नहीं, पापी का सोना,
यहाँ न लाना, भले सिन्धु में वहीं डुबोना।
धीरो, धन को आज ध्यान में भी मत लाओ,
जाते हो तो मान-हेतु ही तुम सब जाओ।
सावधान! वह अधम-धान्य-सा धन मत छूना,
तुम्हें तुम्हारी मातृभूमि ही देगी दूना।
किस धन से हैं रिक्त कहो, सुनिकेत हमारे?
उपवन फल-सम्पन्न अन्नमय खेत हमारे।
जय पयस्य-परिपूर्ण सुघोषित घोष हमारे;
अगणित आकर सदा स्वर्ण-मणि-कोष हमारे।
देव दुर्लभा भूमि हमारी प्रमुख पुनीता,
उसी भूमि की सुता पुण्य की प्रतिमा सीता।
मातृभूमि का मान ध्यान में रहे तुम्हारे,
लक्ष लक्ष भी एक लक्ष रक्खो तुम सारे।
हैं निज पार्थिव-सिद्धि-रूपिणी सीता रानी,
और दिव्य-फल-रूप राम राजा बल-दानी।
करे न कौणप-गन्ध कलंकित मलय पवन को,
लगे न कोई कुटिल कीट अपने उपवन को।
विन्ध्य-हिमालय-भाल, भला! झुक जाय न धीरो,
चन्द्र-सूर्य-कुल-कीर्ति-कला रुक जाय न वीरो,
चढ़कर उतर न जाय, सुनो कुल-मौक्तिक मानी,
गंगा-यमुना-सिन्धु और सरयू का पानी,—
बढ़कर इसी प्रसिद्ध पुरातन पुण्यस्थल से,
किये दिग्विजय वार वार तुमने निज बल से।
यदि, परन्तु कुल-कान तुम्हारी हो संकट में,
तो अपने ये प्राण व्यर्थ ही हैं इस घट में।
किसका कुल है आर्य बना अपने कार्यों से?
पढ़ा न किसने पाठ अवनितल में आर्यों से?
पावें तुमसे आज शत्रु भी ऐसी शिक्षा,
जिसका अथ हो दण्ड और इति दया-तितिक्षा।
p. 316
देखो, निकली पूर्व दिशा से अपनी ऊषा,
यही हमारी प्रकृति पताका भव की भूषा।
ठहरो, यह मैं चलूँ कीर्ति-सी आगे आगे,
भोगें अपने विषम कर्म-फल अधम अभागे!”
भाल-भाग्य पर तने हुए थे तेवर उसके,
“भाभी! भाभी” रुद्ध कण्ठ थे देवर उसके।
सम्मुख सैन्य-समूह सिन्धु-सा गरज रहा था,
बरज विनय से उसे शत्रु पर तरज रहा था।
“क्या हम सब मर गये हाय! जो तुम जाती हो,
या हमको तुम आज दीन-दुर्बल पाती हो?—
मारेंगे हम देवि, नहीं तो मर जावेंगे,
अपनी लक्ष्मी लिये बिना क्या घर आवेंगे?
होगा होगा वही, उचित है जो कुछ होना,
इस मिट्टी पर सदा निछावर है वह सोना।
तुम इस पुर की ज्योति, अहो! यों धैर्य न खोओ,
प्रभु के स्वागत-हेतु, गीत रच, थाल सँजोओ।”
“वीरो, पर, यह योग भला क्यों खोऊँगी मैं,
अपने हाथों घाव तुम्हारे धोऊँगी मैं।
पानी दूँगी तुम्हें, न पल भर सोऊँगी मैं,
गा अपनों की विजय, परों पर रोऊँगी मैं।”
p. 317
In our English “No, no!” Shatrughna and everyone started. Ūrmilā came to that place like the dawn, rising like a finger on the vīṇā, her friend drawn after her like the beat. She stopped beside Shatrughna, as Bhavānī appears beside Kārttikeya. Her hair had come loose like matted locks; a hundred reds broke out on her face as through a cloud; the sindūr on her brow was wide awake, like an ember. Her body was thin, and holy as the first sunlight. Her left hand rested on Shatrughna’s back near his neck; in her right was a trident, heavy as a ray of light. She thundered: “No, no! Do not bring the sinner’s gold here. Let it drown in the sea. Brave ones, do not even think of wealth today. If you go, go for honour alone. Beware! Do not touch that wealth, which is like grain gone bad; your own land will give you twice as much. What wealth do our homes lack? Our gardens are full of fruit, our fields of grain, our herds of milk, our mines of gold and gems. … What family became noble except by its deeds? … Let even the enemy receive from you today a teaching that begins in punishment and ends in compassion and forbearance. Look, our own dawn has come out of the east. Wait: let me go ahead of you like your good name. Let the wretched reap what they have sown.” … “Bhābhī! Bhābhī!” cried her brothers-in-law, choking. “Are we all dead, that you should go? … You are the light of this city: do not lose heart. Make songs for the Lord’s welcome, and set out the lamps.” “Brave ones, why would I miss this? I will wash your wounds with my own hands. I will give you water. I will not sleep for a moment. I will sing our own side’s victory, and I will weep for the others.”
The army is ready. Its captain has just told it: go and loot the golden city. And the one everybody had forgotten walks out in front of it, her hair loose, a trident in her hand, and says: नहीं, नहीं.
Look at what she stands in front of the army for. Not to stop it going. To stop the looting. Do not even think of the gold. Go for honour, or do not go. And then the sentence that turns the last ring: let even the enemy receive a teaching from you today, one that begins in punishment and ends in compassion and forbearance. जिसका अथ हो दण्ड और इति दया-तितिक्षा.
They beg her to stay home and make songs for the return. She says she will not miss this. She will wash their wounds with her own hands. She will give water. She will sing her own side’s victory, and weep for the others. परों पर रोऊँगी.
That is the last ring of the circle: another man, the world, even the one on the other side. Every war that is fought in this field, the war on drugs, the war on the addict, the war of a house against one of its own, goes out for the gold: to win, to punish, to be proved right. Ūrmilā stands in front of every such army and says no. Whatever it begins with, let it end in compassion. And when it is over, she will be there with water, for both sides.
Sarga 12 of 12 · Ring: the world, and then love
The return
As I am
Sarga 12. The fourteen years are over. Lakṣmaṇa is home. Her friend wants to dress her as she was on her wedding day.
“हाय! सखी, शृङ्गार? मुझे अब भी सोहेंगे?
क्या वस्त्रालंकार मात्र से वे मोहेंगे?
p. 330
मैंने जो वह ‘दग्ध-वर्त्तिका’ चित्र लिखा है,
तू क्या उसमें आज उठाने चली शिखा है?
नहीं, नहीं, प्राणेश मुझी से छले न जावें,
जैसी हूँ मैं, नाथ मुझे वैसा ही पावें।
p. 331
And Lakṣmaṇa, when they meet:
मिला उसी दिन किन्तु तुम्हें मैं खोया खोया,
जिस दिन आर्या विना आर्य का मन था रोया।
पूर्ण रूप से सुनो, तुम्हें मैंने कब पाया,
जब आर्या का हनूमान ने विरह सुनाया!
अब तक मानो जिसे वेषभूषा में टाला,
अपने को ही आज मुझे तुमने दे डाला।
आँखों में ही रही अभी तक तुम थीं मानो,
अन्तस्तल में आज अचल निज आसन जानो।
p. 332
…
धन्य अनावृत-प्रकृत-रूप यह मेरे आगे।
…
“वह वर्षा की बाढ़, गई, उसको जाने दो,
शुचि-गंभीरता प्रिये, शरद की यह आने दो।”
p. 333
In our English “Adornment, friend? Would it still suit me? Will clothes and jewels win him? I painted myself as a burnt-out wick: will you light a flame in that picture today? No, no. Let my lord not be deceived by me. As I am, so let him find me.” … [He:] “I did find you that day, and then lost you, the day my brother wept without his queen. Listen: when did I find you wholly? When Hanumān told us of Sītā’s separation. Until now you put me off with clothes and ornaments; today you have given me your very self. Until now you were only in my eyes; today, know it, you are seated in my depths and will not move. … Blessed is this unclothed, natural form before me. … The flood of the rains has gone; let it go. Let the clear depth of autumn come, my love.”
Here everything the world says about coming back is turned over.
Her friend wants to dress her as she was, the bride of fourteen years ago. She refuses. That youth is not there to be found. And she does not want to deceive him with it. जैसी हूँ मैं, नाथ मुझे वैसा ही पावें. As I am, let him find me. Not as I was. There is nothing to restore, because nothing was lost. There is no earlier self to go back to. There is this one, and this one is the one he wants.
And then he says what undoes every story of recovery. He did not find her when he married her. He found her, wholly, when he understood what separation is. Until then she was in his eyes; now she is in his depths. The years apart were where they found each other.
The flood of the rains has gone; let it go. Let the clear depth of autumn come.
For the man who comes back, and for the house that receives him: do not dress the return up. Do not try to be who you were. Be found as you are.
Dawn
The lamp is no longer needed. The whole cloth is lit for the first time. In its first panel, the coronation picture is finished: the two of them, unadorned, and the yellow line still running onto the vessel.
कमल, तुम्हारा दिन है और कुमुद, यामिनी तुम्हारी है,
कोई हताश क्यों हो, आती सबकी समान वारी है।
Gupt’s preface to Sāket, p. 3
In our English Lotus, the day is yours; water lily, the night is yours. Why should anyone lose hope? Everyone’s turn comes alike.
Look at the picture now. On the first night he had no place in it. The colour that ran from her trembling hand onto the coronation vessel is still there. It was the first thing she ever painted of him.
Before you sleep, look once at where you have put yourself in the picture of your own house. If you find yourself at the edge, you need not move. Only notice who is holding the brush.