From Ocean to Ocean for a Home

 Contact author at guyind@rcn.com

Check out Bissundyal's other links:

http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/759030
http://simple-views-big-issues.blogspot.com/


This is the touching story of Indians leaving India to work on sugar plantations in the Caribbean. With the story centering on Karna, Rangrati, and Padmageet, the writer summarizes India with all her passions, beauty, strengths, and glories. The histories of the great subcontinent with all its Vedas, Shastras, and Puranas can be heard in this piece. And music and well as tears come like monsoonal rains in Mumbai.
This is a journey not only for the Caribbean but also for India and all those who care for her past.

SAMUDRAM-SAMUDRAAD-GRIHAAYA

FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN FOR A HOME

A ONE-ACT PLAY

by

Churaumanie Bissundyal

 

 

CHARACTERS

KARNA PANDE

RANGARATI

PADMAGEET

DHEERSUTTA

HAMID

SOHAN

KALLU

RAAMOO

RUTH CARLTON
HERBERT CARLTON


SAMUEL COLLINS

FIRST OVERSEER

SECOND OVERSEER

HOLI REVELLERS

JAHAAJIN

BALVIR PANDE

SONIA LOPEZ

Midnight. June 2004. At a squalid, noisy street corner in New York. The neighbourhood is a drug-infested area with bums, robbers and hookers roaming all night. Balvir Pande, a bearded, slovenly dressed man, in his mid thirties, is sitting under a street light, writing. An Indian woman, Sonia Lopez, with a trace of European blood and in her late twenties comes up to Balvir Pande and puts a gun to his head. She is coarsely dressed in skin-tight jeans and a leather jacket.

SONIA LOPEZ: Hold it! Don’t move! An—And don’t scream! (Looking around). You can only talk loud enough for me to hear.

BALVIR PANDE: (Composed) What do you want?

SONIA LOPEZ: What do you think a robber wants?

BALVIR PANDE: (Peruses her, then motions to her with his chin) A robber like you only wants one thing.

SONIA LOPEZ: Huh. You think I am one of them.

BALVIR PANDE: What else you want me to think?

SONIA LOPEZ: Come on! I am not here to do a soap opera. Give me all your money.

BALVIR PANDE: (Smiles) Money! (Chuckles). Did you take a close look at me?

SONIA LOPEZ: (Her eyes growing fierce) Yes! I did. You seem to be rich.

BALVIR PANDE: Really. How do you know?

SONIA LOPEZ: (Pauses and surveys him) Only two kinds of people come here in the middle of the night. A mad man with lots of money, and a thirsty man who looks for a woman to give away his money.

BALVIR PANDE: (Quietly and somewhat indifferently). I might be thirsty for many things, but a beautiful woman in the middle of the night putting a gun on a man’s head will either make him more thirsty or will make him never ever get thirsty again.

SONIA LOPEZ: (peering into his face) You think I come here to rub my legs on you?

BALVIR PANDE (Trying to be unperturbed) No, I didn’t say so.

SONIA LOPEZ: Come on! Somebody might pass and see me. What do you have to give me?

BALVIR PANDE: What I have to give you, you might not want.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Eyebrows knitted) What?

BALVIR PANDE: A poem I am writing.

SONIA LOPEZ: You think I will waste a taxi fare to come here for a poem?

BALVIR PANDE: It’s a nice poem. I think you going to like it.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Nose turned up) You writing poem in these hard times?

BALVIR PANDE: What’s wrong with that? It’s a poem about a woman I will meet one day.

SONIA LOPEZ: I think you are really mad!

BALVIR PANDE: Well, I am glad you said so. It makes me feel safer.

SONIA LOPEZ: You don’t feel frightened that this gun going to go off on your head?

BALVIR PANDE: Why should I? I never had an experience like this before.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Peering into his face) I think you’re terrorist. I will call the police.

BALVIR PANDE: (Raises his head and looks into her face) You! You going to call the police. Huh!

SONIA LOPEZ: Awright, read what you write.

BALVIR PANDE: You want me to read my poem?

SONIA LOPEZ: (Makes a squirming face) Yeaaah!

BALVIR PANDE: (Hesitates, chuckles mirthlessly, and after a few moments, starts reading) You are my solitude in loneliness,

the voice of my pen that writes with fury.

The sound of my tears you are

that urges my words to music,

to make me think

of my ocean voyages in search of a home---

SONIA LOPEZ: (Interrupts) That’s what you write there is for a woman who bakes cakes in flower gardens and waits for her man in silken nightgowns and bouquets to bring her ice cream and chocolates on moonlight nights. (Pauses) Are you broken-hearted?

BALVIR PANDE: (With a mocking edge in his voice) Well, how to put it. (Pauses). I’m more financially broken than broken-hearted. I want to sell this poem for a few quarters to buy food. (Pauses). Before you kill me, I want you to buy this one from me. That will do two good things: it will make you think more of men than guns, and will provide money for a man like me to buy food. I haven’t eaten a thing all day.

SONIA LOPEZ: I haven’t come here to feed you. I come to rob you. (Pauses and appraises him scrupulously) What kind of man are you? (Pushes herself forward and peers at him) I think you’re a terrorist. Where you from?

BALVIR PANDE: Guyana.

SONIA LOPEZ: Is that a place in Iraq?

BALVIR PANDE: Iraq? No. Guyana is in South America. I am a South American Indian.

SONIA LOPEZ: What tribe do you belong to?

BALVIR PANDE: (With an impatient, twisted face) I am not from a tribe like these Native American Indians you know. My roots are from India. I was cut away from there for more than one hundred and sixty years.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Bewildered) And how did you get there?

BALVIR PANDE: I thought you come here to rob and kill me and not to do a research.

SONIA LOPEZ: Well, if I can prove that you are a terrorist, I might not have to rob anymore. I might get a reward that will make me rich for life.

BALVIR PANDE: Oh.

SONIA LOPEZ: Tell me how you reach there.

BALVIR PANDE: It’s a long story. You might get bored and go away. You might not want to rob and kill me anymore.

SONIA LOPEZ: You . . . want me to really kill you?

BALVIR PANDE: Well, that’s what you’re here for.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Throws up evasive hands) I think you are a dangerous terrorist. Tell me your story.

BALVIR PANDE: (Looks at her with subdued resentment and then shrugs his shoulders) Well, you already know that I am from a country called Guyana.

SONIA LOPEZ: Yes, I already know that. Tell me the rest.

BALVIR PANDE: Well, Guyana, a British colony, was previously called British Guiana. After African slavery was abolished, the British began bringing immigrants from India to work on the sugar plantations. My great-great grandfather, Karna Pande, came sometime in 1858. He came due to the Indian Mutiny in 1857, fleeing from the British, who were hunting him down since he was a sepoy that mutinied. If he didn’t escape, they would have killed him.

His story became a sort of love story, since he had a woman, Rangrati, whom he had left behind. It was on the bank of the Ganges they last met, on a beautiful morning. (The present scene of Balvir Pande and Sonia Lopez dissolves into a scene of Karna Pande and Rangrati on the bank of the Ganges. Karna Pande (in his early twenties) is dressed in a white dhoti and kurta; Rangrati (in her late teens) is dressed in a pink sari).

RANGRATI: (Dropping her hand lightly on Karna Pande’s shoulder) Why are you silent?

KARNA PANDE: Thinking.

RANGRATI: Thinking about what?

KARNA PANDE: Many things . . . About this river and the story of King Bhagirath, about Rajputs who don’t care.

RANGRATI: (Endearingly) I don’t understand you sometimes, Karna.

KARNA PANDE: Quietly). Sometimes I, too, don’t understand myself.

RANGRATI: Why there is no more laughter in your eyes?

KARNA PANDE: (Chuckles mirthlessly) Because India has become a place of no laughter.

RANGRATI: Do you hate the British?

KARNA PANDE: No. Why? They have to do what they must do. We mutinied and now they are hunting us down.

RANGRATI: Are you afraid of them?

KARNA PANDE: No.

RANGRATI: (Tears in her eyes) Everyone is saying that they will kill you.

KARNA PANDE: Well, what can I do?

RANGRATI: All over India there are thousands of widows. (Pauses) Would I, too, become a widow, Karna?

KARNA PANDE: (Turns round and stares at her) I never want you to become a widow. Don’t ever say such a thing again. If you feel that I am going to die, then look for another man.

RANGRATI: (Incensed) How could you say such a thing when I am in love with you?

KARNA PANDE: In these times, love runs away like a frightened child.

RANGRATI: My love for you will never run away.

KARNA PANDE: (Sadly). It is always good to love, but what more can we do?

RANGRATI: (Stridently). If they kill you, I want to die with you!

KARNA PANDE: (Quietly). You are too beautiful to die.

RANGRATI: (Earnestly). Does this mean that you will run away?

KARNA PANDE: I don’t know.

RANGRATI: You can’t run away and leave me, Karna.

KARNA PANDE: (Endearingly) I will not run away.

RANGRATI: (Peering into his eyes). Your eyes are saying something different.

KARNA PANDE: They are saying what is in my heart.

RANGRATI: What is in your heart?

KARNA PANDE: You know it. I don’t want you to become a widow.

RANGRATI: I want to die with you, Karna.

KARNA PANDE: Huh. A woman like you? You are a green fruit that is yet to be ripened.

RANGRATI: Why are you talking this way?

KARNA PANDE: Because my heart is talking.

RANGRATI: That is not the voice of your heart.

KARNA PANDE: Why do you think so?

RANGRATI: Because your heart is saying something else.

KARNA PANDE: (Putting a hand on her shoulder) Perhaps you are right. My heart will never leave you.

(The scene dissolves into the scene of Balvir Pande and Sonia Lopez).

SONIA LOPEZ: (Angry) But isn’t your Karna Pande a coward and a liar? How could he lie to a woman who loves him so dearly? Even knowing that the British would kill him, he shouldn’t think of abandoning his woman.

BALVIR PANDE: His story has many sides, and sometimes we can’t see the thin line between a hero and a coward.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Glaring) You are talking as if it is you who holding the gun to my head.

BALVIR PANDE: (Looks up at the gun) Oh, the gun. Sometimes the hand of the gun turns into a feeling of the heart.

SONIA LOPEZ: Come on, don’t try to tangle me up with words. Tell me what happened to them after their last meeting?

BALVIR PANDE: Oh, them. I will tell you. (Pauses and looks at the gun again) Won’t it be better if you take the gun away from my head?

SONIA LOPEZ: I can’t. That is a way how the story must be told.

BALVIR PANDE: Okay. (Pauses). After their last meeting, Rangrati would go by the Ganges and wait all day for Karna, in the hope that he would turn up, but weeks passed and he didn’t. Yet she waited.

One day, Karna’s mother, Dheersuta, looking for Karna, found her sitting on a rock. Both of them were happy to see each other, thinking that the other might have some news about Karna, but the story unfolds with a strange pain. (The scene dissolves into a scene of Rangrati sitting on a rock on the bank of the Ganges and Dheersutta entering).

DHEERSUTA: (Speaking to Rangrati) Beti, I’ve been looking for Karna for days.

RANGRATI: (Stands up) I, too, have been looking for him, Maajee.

DHEERSUTTA: (Eyebrows knitted) Strange things are happening. Can’t understand (Pauses and peruses Rangrati’s face) Is it true that Karna has gone back to the Native Infantry to work for the British?

RANGRATI: Why would he? The British would kill him.

DHEERSUTA: (Shakes her head in disagreement) Don’t let your thoughts fly on dark wings, beti. The British will never hurt my Karna.

RANGRATI: (Smiles cynically) Do you think they won’t?

DHERSUTA: (Somewhat bewildered) Why would they kill him?

RANGRATI: (Breathes heavily) He didn’t tell you the truth, Maajee.

DHEERSUTTA: What truth?

RANGRATI: (Hesitantly) He was a ringleader in the Sepoy Revolt.

DHEERSUTA: (Slaps her chest and issues a stifled alarm) You make my heart spring like a tiger, beti. I don’t believe it. My Karna was never a ringleader fighting the British.

RANGRATI: (Sternly) He was, and the British will kill him.

DHEERSUTTA: (Stamps her feet in refutation) The British will not kill my Karna. (Pauses) My Karna will come back, beti. (Introspectively) He will come back and bring that happy day I have waited for all my life . . . when he will marry you and take you home as his wife.

(Enters Sohan, a short teenager wearing a dhoti and kurta)

SOHAN: (Running frenziedly) Maajee! Maajee! News for you! News for you!

DHERRSUTA: (Swivels around slowly, trying to compose herself) Where were you all week, Sohan? You appear and disappear like a ghost.

SOHAN: (Panting for breath) I was with Karna. He gone in a big-big ship far-far from Calcutta beyond. He gone to cross the kaalaa-paanee, black water, Maajee. (Smiles and modulates his voice) He say to tell you and bahen Rangrati that he coming back. He coming back with bag-bag gold like a Maharaja-dhanwaan.

DHEERSUTA: (Holds her head and looks up to the heavens) Hai Raam! This is the darkest moment of my life. (Turns to Sohan angrily). Why did you make Karna go? You are a darpok-namakharam!

SOHAN: (Stabs his chest with a finger) Oh, no, Maajee, I didn’t make you dulaaray Karna gone. Point you finger on the British. They make you dulaaray Karna gone.

DHEERSUTTA: (Turns to Rangrati) Beti, Ganga-Maiya weeps like a storm. Karna gone!

RANGRATI: (Head dropped) I know he’s gone, Maajee. But I couldn’t bring myself to accept it. (Pauses). Dark things are happening. Though Saaheb Canning says he wants peace, he is shooting down the rebels like mad. Maharaanee Victoria is giving titles to Raajputs’ land and is taking away their power with the other hand. (Censoriously) Stupid Raajputs!

DHEERSUTA: (Stridently defensive) But Karna is not like the Raajputs, beti, and the British respect him for what he is.

RANGRATI: (Shakes her head) The British do not respect him, Maajee. They call him a mutineer.

DHEERSUTA: (Resolute) Mutineer? No! The British treat him as a brahmin.

RANGRATI: (Shakes her head) Do you think the British care about brahmins, Maajee? Oh, no! They call us heathen-niggers. And Karna, in their eyes, was no better than a heathen-nigger. They only showed a little respect to him because he was a small cavalryman. And some of us get carried away with that.

DHEERSUTA: Don’t say such things, beti. The British are good-good devatas. They never do bad. (Swings around and loses her train of thoughts) But why Karna go away? He kills his dharam, when he crosses the kaalaa-paanee.

RANGRATI: It is better that he leaves to kill his culture elsewhere

DHEERSUTTA: (Spins around on the balls of her feet, incensed) What do you mean?

RANGRATI: Maajee, he was killing his culture right here. He was biting cartridges made out of pig and cow fat.

DHERSUTTA: No!

SOHAN: (Moves up to Dheersutta and grins sheepishly) Hai-ray, Maajee, bahen Rangrati talk sense. British bad-bad. (Demonstrates) Make we bite cartridge with bull-fat, cow-fat, horse-fat . . . all kind of fat. Make we dance wine-up nagaaraa ah bad-house, Laal Beebee Baazaar. (Sticks a finger in the air) But Saaheb in ship ah Calcutta good-good. Saaheb ah ship nice-nice and smoke cigar like when a whole city ah catch-a-fire.

DHEERSUTA: (Pounces upon him angrily) Hut tayree! You darpok-namakharaam. Kaalaa-paanee kill the flag of Hanumaan. Kaalaa-paanee kill Veda and Puraan. Kaalaa paanee kill Poojaa-Satyanaraayan.

SOHAN: (Scampers away to keep a distance). Saaheb say ship going to Eldorado, land of gold. Gold plenty-plenty everywhere. Gold in you bathroom, gold in you bed. Gold in you coffin even when you time come to dead.

DHEERSUTA: (Picks up a stick and rushes at Sohan) I going to take this laathee and break you khopree, Sohan. Karna doesn’t want silver, doesn’t want gold. Karna want dharam, the beauty of his soul.

SOHAN: (Eyes dilating between fear and anger) When Karna see paisa and gold, you think he want dharam and beauty of soul? I take oath and swear (Kisses his palm and looks up to the heavens). Saaheb didn’t push Karna in ship to go to strange land. Karna jump with he own foot and run and gone. He put on he pugree, dhotee and kurta and jump on the ship as if he ah Shree Bhagwaan.

DHEERSUTA: (Stridently) Tayree gulaam! You blame Karna! (She pounces upon him again with her stick. He checks back in terror, stumbles on the ground and then regains himself to his feet).

RANGRATI: (Intervening with a placating hand on Dheersuta’s shoulder) Maajee, Sohan speaks the truth. Karna escaped on his own. The British would never forget the revolt of the Indians. They’re hunting them down like deer.

DHEERSUTA: (Begins to weep, and then drops her head) Ganga-Maiya cry bad-bad, beti. Dhartee-Maa cry, too. Karna crosses the kaalaa-paanee. (She turns to the river, drops on her knees, throws her hands up in the air, then beats her chest with a hand and begins to lament) Son, from your motherland you are severed and tethered in the dungeons of passion, where your duty becomes hazed in the dim shadows of ignorance. Greed will govern, so that the sacred thread is torn and thrown in the furnace of oblivion where vows are put to be burnt. You shall cross the ocean, my son, in embers of the Great War, where fate butchered relations and man drowned in fears! Now all are gone--the cry is all over, for the dark ocean’s water is bitter, so bitter, my son, that the rituals and colours are dumped to the creatures of the dark water. The flag of Hanumaan draped in the kum-kum of Sindh will cease to flutter in the wind: no bamboo to titter high in the legend of Seeta’s sindoor. (She walks away and exits).

SOHAN: (Constricts his body and dilates his eyes) Hai-ray, bahen, look me story: when you do good, you hold am wood. I get bad name for nothing-nothing at all. British poke fire ah Karna behind, Karna doesn’t have to bawl?

RANGRATI: (Immersed in her own thoughts) I heard that three hundred sepoys of the Bengal Native Infantry were blown up to pieces by Major Carlton himself.

SOHAN: (Jumps up excitedly and chops the air with his right hand) Saaheb Carlton mad-mad, bahen. He say sepoy kill he son, Tommy . . . and he say he going to kill sepoy back. Lucky Karna meet ah man at Dinapore.

RANGRATI: (Turns back and looks at him querulously) Dinapore! How did you two reach there?

SOHAN: (Chuckles proudly) We cross the Gograh River, dress up with ornhi and saaree, and dance (demonstrates) like paturiya ah Laal Beebee Baazaar.

RANGRATI: (Puzzled) You wore women’s clothes and went to Calcutta?

SOHAN: We had to do that, bahen, when the big moustache man come and tell we that he going to take we to the land ah Eldorado.

RANGRATI: (Querulously) Eldorado?

SOHAN: You don’t know Eldorado? Down there you get pumpkin big like bungalow, and you sift sugar make out of gold.

RANGRATI: (Ignoring him) The Indian people will say Karna has broken his caste, Sohan, by crossing the kaalee-paanee.

SOHAN: (Eyes dilating and narrowing in swift alternation) Cross kaalee-paanee, bahen. Kaalee-paanee good-good. Moustache man show me gold thaaree, gold lota he get on the other side of kaalee-paanee. Over the other side is Eldorado, the City of Gold. In Eldorado you drink dahee in gold lota; in gold thaaree you eat methai, baaraa, gulgula, kheer. Whole day in Eldorado you have nothing to do but sit down and smile. You don’t have to work at all.

RANGRATI: (Ignores him again) Sohan, they say anyone who crosses the kaalaa-paanee becomes impure. He breaks the sacred thread and falls prey to the lower qualities of the mind. He forgets the srutis and smritis, and curses the flag of Hanumaan.

SOHAN: (Penitently) Curse Hanumaan, bahenjee? I so sorry. I mean real business now. I going to pray to Hanumaan. . . . Pray to bring back Karna with the big ship and Saaheb with them cigars. (Jumping up and flinging his arms in the air) Jai Hanumaan! Jai Hanumaan! (Scene dissolves into the scene of Balvir Pande and Sonia Lopez).

BALVIR PANDE: So, this was how Karna escaped from India, in a squalid ship with little space, little or no medicine and bad food. But Karna did not complain. In the ship, he made many friends. A beautiful woman, Padmageet, came to like him. Raamoo, a man he met once or twice in a neighbouring village, came to like him also. But he was particularly fond of Hamid, a middle-aged man who was never afraid to speak his mind. (Pauses) One day as Karna was looking out to the sea, Hamid stormed into him and began complaining about the ship. (The scene dissolves into the scene of the ship, with Karna Pande looking out to the sea).

HAMID: (Entering) God dammit, jahajee, you sorrowing again? This is no place for an Indian to be even sad. (He spits) Everywhere you look there is filth.

(Karna feigns impassiveness).

HAMID: (Pressing himself forward to gain Karna’s attention) You heard what happened last night? Two more died. They were checking the sky for Indian stars, and, when the storm came, they fell overboard. (Pauses and flings his arms up contemptuously) Jahaajee, before the voyage started, these two fools wanted to go back home. (Laughs raucously).

KARNA PANDE: (Introspectively) They’re not fools, Hamid. Sixty days have already passed, and we don’t have a clue where we’re going. And everyday we have a sick or a dead.

HAMID: Better we dead than frolic in human filth. (Pauses) They say dead men don't talk. Huh! Last night I saw a dead man telling a jahaajee that it is better to be dead than go relieving his bowels like a sick, crazy dog.

KARNA PANDE: They can’t help it.

(Enters Padmageet).

HAMID: (Too engrossed to notice Padmageet) Oh, goddamit, jahaajee, there is so much filth here that even Allah is afraid to come here.

KARNA PANDE: It’s not the filth that frightens me, Hamid. It’s the disease that causes the filth. (Pauses) All of us are going to die.

HAMID: (Resentfully). Let me die, jahaajee! I want to die rather than to sail on this foul, rotten ship. (Making his exit) See you, jahaajee. (Turns around and notices Padmageet) Huh, Padma! (Pauses and stares at her with knitted brows). I like to look at you when the moon is on your face (Waving a finger) Hmm, and something is on your mind, sweeter than the moon.

(Padmageet drops her head and smiles).

(Exits Hamid)

PADMAGEET: (Walks up to Karna and stands beside him) When Hamid talks about the ship this way, he brings back an old fear to me.

KARNA PANDE: (Shrugs) What else can he talk about when children are shrieking, women are wailing, and men are shouting to die?

PADMAGEET: Sometimes I wonder if there is a way out of this.

KARNA PANDE: There is always a way.

PADMAGEET: Why you always try to be brave?

KARNA PANDE: (Turns and faces her) This voyage is only for the brave.

PADMAGEET: (Smiles cynically) It’s a good thing to be brave and die, I guess?

KARNA PANDE: The brave never dies. Bhishma didn’t die. Arjuna didn’t. Abhimanyu didn’t.

PADMAGEET: (A bit incensed) Why do you live in the past? The past is not real; it is only full of distant stars.

KARNA PANDE: The past gives us strength for the present and future.

PADMAGEET: Is that your way of telling yourself how you must survive?

KARNA PANDE: (Clicks his finger, touches her lips and smiles) Maybe. I have to think of the past to learn all over again how to smile.

PADMAGEET: The past never makes me smile. My past . . . (Trails off into silence with knitted eyebrows).

KARNA PANDE: These times, in different ways, we have to find laughter.

PADMAGEET: Are you just trying to make me happy, Karna? Tell me. Just trying to?

KARNA PANDE: Well . . . (Breathes heavily) How must I put it over? (Pauses and drops a hand on her shoulder) Only a man with a heart of stone can bear to see a kumud flower wilt in a pond of drying mud.

PADMAGEET: (Staring at him with intent eyes) Is that all?

KARNA PANDE: Well, what can I say? That is the only way for us to make each other happy.

PADMAGEET: I am always happy to be near you, Karna. But, sometimes, you are close to me, yet so far.

KARNA PANDE: My spirit is like every other spirit: it wanders close; it wanders far.

PADMAGEET: Does it wander where your heart doesn’t want it to go?

KARNA PANDE: Sometimes my spirit wanders without the voice of my heart.

PADMAGEET: You are fooling yourself, Karna. Stupid man! The past haunts you as how mine haunts me.

KARNA PANDE: Perhaps you are right. Sometimes I feel things hang around my neck like a millstone.

PADMAGEET: So, why don’t you get them off your neck?

KARNA PANDE: (Chuckles) Get them off! It’s so easy to say it.

PADMAGEET: Don’t you think we can get rid of our past? We are no longer in India.

KARNA PANDE: We can leave India, but India will never leave us.

PADMAGEET: What a way to say it! (She takes out a packet wrapped in her sari and hands him).

KARNA PANDE: What is this?

PADMAGEET: (Smiling). Your India that will never leave you.

KARNA PANDE: (He opens the packet and exclaims). Mithai!

PADMAGEET: You always told me you like it. This morning I stole into the pantry and made it.

KARNA PANDE: You didn’t have to take such a risk, Padma. If they had caught you---

            (Padmaget interrupts him, putting a hand to his mouth).

PADMAGEET: Last night I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking of you.

KARNA PANDE: Sometimes I think of you, too, but the moon cannot rise from the west. It only has one way.

PADMAGEET: I know. I will forever have to live in funeral pyres.

KARNA PANDE: One day something will walk into your life, like a shower of rain that comes to please a wilting garden. (Pauses) So, please don’t talk like that.

(The scene dissolves into the scene of Balvir Pande and Sonia Lopez).

SONIA LOPEZ: (Angry, her hand shivering with the gun). Isn’t your Karna a heartless brute? Why was he allowing himself to get into Padma’s heart when he had already claimed love to Rangrati?

BALVIR PANDE: (Breathes hard) I don’t know. There is way between a man and woman (looking askance at Sonia Lopez) where things in the distance comes close and makes a storm.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Glares at Balvir Pande) That’s not the point. Your Karna is a bloodywell cheat!

BALVIR PANDE: (Purses his lips and shrugs) I don’t think he is a cheat. He is just torn between two women.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Her hand trembles with the gun). Is this the way God has created you men? . . . Now tell me where is Karna’s love for Rangrati? Has it evaporated in the wind?

BALVIR PANDE: (Feigning calmness). No, it is still there.

SONIA LOPEZ: (With dilated eyes) Where?

BALVIR PANDE: (Yielding). Oh, where. (Pauses). Awright. I think no other woman can replace Rangrati in Karna’s heart. There seems to be a sort of relation between them, only they themselves would understand. They talk to each other in ways only gods and goddesses understand, in a language of the heavens. (The scene dissolves into two sets: Rangarati sitting on a rock on the bank of the Ganges, and Karna Pande on the ship, looking out to the sea, the two of them in a celestial communication).

KARNA PANDE: Love! Often I stand here in the cheerless cries of the sea, waiting in the patience of stars for you to come, for you to creep out with the moon from the edge of the ocean’s bowl to soothe these angry waters with the silver spread of your smiles.

RANGRATI: On the bank of this river, in deepened solitude, a thousand years I seek you, my love! Ever-seeking you in the timeless sojourn of the sun to rouse my lips with the crimson splash of the morn. Rouse me deeper than ever with the soft whispers of the wind to sate every flutter of my passion, until you fill me enraptured in the heavens of your arms.

KARNA PANDE: How could you seek me, my love, so far away in the sadness of this ocean--ocean rolling, raging wild! How could you seek me when I could only carve you from my solitude and make love with you in guesses and dreams, knowing truly that you are not here and never shall be!

RANGRATI: Then who would come in my long waiting through these dark, green thorns to salve my blistered feet and show me the way to tread on the petals of patience, so that I may never stumble again?

KARNA PANDE: I shall come, if you so care, like a soft path of flowers and tend your feet with scented blossoms and salve them with my anguish, sadness and despair.

RANGRATI: If you come, my love, I shall gather sunbeams from the wind and make a garland for only you to wear, an inscription of my love hued with the touch of verdant trees and studded with jewels of dewdrops to make you shine in brilliance of green, killing all your sadness and despair.

KARNA PANDE: I will come, then, and let you take me by the tempest of your eyes. Let you take me by the thunders of your emotions, by your eyelids of dark clouds, by your lips of crimson blooms, voice that opens the buds at morn, gait that fills the heavens with fire.

RANGRATI: Love, when you come, I will not touch your hand until you drench me with the soft showers of your eyes. Then, I will let you drain my lips of every drop of passion so long gathered in my long wait from the patient flow of this river’s tide. (The scenes dissolves into the scene of Sonia Lopez and Balvir Pande).

SONIA LOPEZ: Are you sure you aren’t making up a story about this nonsense about celestial love?

BALVIR PANDE: Well, why would I do something like that to a woman who has nothing else to do than to kill a man?

SONIA LOPEZ: (Explodes) I am going to blow your head off!

BALVIR PANDE: There are better things to blow off.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Breathes out a gush of air) Do you think I am a joke?

BALVIR PANDE: I never said so.

SONIA LOPEZ (Removes the gun from his head) Are you hungry?

BALVIR PANDE: (Betrays surprise) What are you doing?

SONIA LOPEZ: I have a few slices of bread in my bag. Do you want them?

BALVIR PANDE: Are you here to kill me or feed me?

SONIA LOPEZ: (Takes out the bread from her bag and hands him) Now tell me something. What will Karna do with Padma?

BALVIR PANDE: (Eating) What he will do? Don’t you know? (Pauses) What do you think I will do if you come to me like Padma?

SONIA LOPEZ: Come on tell me, before I put the gun back to your stupid head!

BALVIR PANDE: Awright, I will tell you the story. (Pauses) The story takes a different turn when another man comes into Padma’s life. When the ship reached British Guiana and moored in into the capital’s port, a planter, Herbert Carlton, came to inspect the Indians that were to be indentured on his plantation. The moment he set eyes on Padma, he was never himself again. He was not only a lascivious man; he was also brutal. This is how he behaved when he came on board and saw a jahajin, a young Indian woman. (The scene dissolves into the ship ccene. Herbert Carlton grabs the jahaajin to sexually molest her, the other jahaajis and jahaajins looking on, including Karna).

JAHAAJIN: (Struggling to free herself from Herbert Carlton’s grasp) Leave me alone! Oh, leave me alone!

(The ship scene freezes)

JAHAAJIN’S INNER VOICE: This is a brutal game of passion, a massacre of emotions, where love is no more, where truth is tortured, where human tears are bought and sold like beans and potatoes for a handful of coins.

(The ship scene becomes activated)

JAHAAJIN: (Still resisting and weeping, shouting to Padmageet) Padma, help me! They’re taking me away! I will not see you again!

(Padma  drops on her knees and begins to weep)

(The ship scene freezes again)

PADMAGEET’S INNER VOICE: Pearls of love, strung into a divine garland, is now torn asunder, eyes full of tears yelling the agony of the heart. The masters, dumb, deaf, blind to the voice of anguished yearns, callous to the pains of a child's cry, foul the soft breath of the wind and pollute the flow of this river's tide. In this wound of the past, the journey now ends with the masters’ passions erupting into greedy patterns. Here tyranny is no stranger where the soul will be measured in the fruits of toil, blood cashed into mansions, sweat sipped in sobbing wine.

(The ship scene becomes activated again. Two overseers enter to help Herbert Carlton take the jahaajin away)

(Exit Herbert Carlton, two overseers and jahaajin)

HAMID: This is bigger filth I see here than on the voyage. Allah will never come here.

PADMAGEET: Don’t speak too loud.

HAMID: (Ferociously) Why shouldn’t I? Don’t I have a mouth? (Pauses) Look how they treat the jahaajin like a slave girl!

PADMAGEET: You are living in a past world, Hamid, a world different from the world we now find ourselves in. I thought you knew they had brought us here to work like slaves. Soon, they will put us on sale like slaves.

HAMID: (Angry) On sale like slaves! What do they take me for . . . a vegetable in the market: pumpkin, caroilla, baigan, and tomatoes to be put on sale? That could never happen to me. I’ll go and talk to my Allah right now!

(Hamid exits angrily)

PADMAGEET: (Speaking to Karna Pande) That was horrible what they did to the jahaajin. Where are they taking her?

KARNA PANDE: Where else than where all of us are going to.

PADMAGEET: (Reflectively) I heard about this before I came to the ship.

KARNA PANDE: Oh, so you knew.

PADMAGEET: Yes, I knew.

KARNA PANDE: You are a strange woman.

PADMAGEET: I had no other choice---

(Herbert Carlton re-enters with one of his overseers and interrupts)

HERBERT CARLTON: (Speaking to the overseer, feasting his eyes on Padmageet) Oh, dickens Ronnie, this is a beautiful woman. I have to get this one at all cost.

OVERSEER: (Writing in a book) Shall I make a note of this one, sir?

HERBERT CARLTON: Oh, please, Ronnie! Oh, please! This woman sends my whole body in a blaze of desire.

(The overseer makes a note in his book. Herbert Carlton goes up to Padmageet and tries to grab her. She withdraws).

HERBERT CARLTON: I really like the way she’s behaving, Ronnie. She would really give me a jolly time.

OVERSEER: Sir, you have to be careful. The Immigration Agent General is here.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Indignantly). Oh, don’t worry with Mr. Crossby. I like to see him with his pants off masturbating.

OVERSEER: (Pointing to Karna Pande) Do you like this one, sir. He seems to be healthy and fit for the fields.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Casts a quick glance at Karna Pande) Oh, book him down, Ronnie. He looks like a good one.

OVERSEER: (Peruses his book) So this is six of them we have here. Shall I conclude the contracts today and take them up tomorrow to the plantation?

HERBERT CARLTON: (Staring lasciviously at Padmageet) Do anything that pleases you. (Deviates) Now the Almighty Father brings peace and calm to the volcano of my loins. He sends this beautiful woman for me. For me alone!

OVERSEER: (Whispering censoriously) Sir, I told you that you have to be careful. Mr. Crossby is here.

HERBERT CARLTON: (In an outburst of rage) What does Mr. Crossby have to do with my private sexual feelings? If he is the protector of the coolies, he has no right to interfere with my taste for exciting things. (The scene dissolves into the scene of Sonia Lopez and Balvir Pande).

SONIA LOPEZ: The Devil should cut off that thing between you men’s legs. Why do you use it to make women unhappy?

BALVIR PANDE: (Staring at her with dilated eyes). Make women unhappy? I . . . I . . . I thought it was . . . (Trails of into silence with dilated eyes).

SONIA LOPEZ: (Explodes) Does writing poetry give you a blind spot to other things?

BALVIR PANDE: What do you mean?

SONIA LOPEZ: Are you blind or deaf to what Herbert Carlton was saying?

BALVIR PANDE: No. He was normal.

SONIA LOPEZ: Normal? What is your problem, guy?

BALVIR PANDE: Come on. The guy was a slave master? And how else do you want a slave master to behave?

SONIA LOPEZ: Isn’t slave master only for African slaves?

BALVIR PANDE: That’s not fair to say.

SONIA LOPEZ: Do you mean he took Padma and the others to the same place where the slaves are living?

BALVIR PANDE: Maybe not the same place, but it was a place no better than where the slaves lived.

SONIA LOPEZ: Really.

BALVIR PANDE: In a nutshell, the planters had kept and cared for their mules better than these Indian people. After they signed their contracts, they had to work in the fields five to ten years, planting, cutting and fetching cane, weeding and digging trenches, or working in the factories, from dawn to dusk. They were paid small wages and were rationed with small amounts of food. They lived in adjoined huts called logies and had little privacy. Their homesteads, called boundyards, were squalid, so that they were plagued with all kinds of diseases. Bound in one plantation, some of them were restricted to go to other plantations. If anyone rebelled or committed even a minor offence, or pretended to be sick, he or she would be tied on to a post called the Laal Khambha and be whipped there by the planter.

SONIA LOPEZ: Is this the reason why you write poetry (looking around) in a place like this?

BALVIR PANDE: Maybe.

SONIA LOPEZ: If I were you, I would have turned to alcohol, cocaine or marijuana.

BALVIR PANDE: Sometimes I feel like taking a little.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Eyes dilated) Taking a little! (Pauses) Tell me truth. Are you using this poetry thing to push drugs?

BALVIR PANDE: Are you selling me an idea?

SONIA LOPEZ: (Raises her hand to put the gun back to his head, then drops it back) Look, continue your story before I kill you!

BALVIR PANDE: I forget where I stopped.

SONIA LOPEZ: You were talking about the plantation.

BALVIR PANDE: (Staring transfixed into her eyes) I don’t know how to start again.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Raucously). What happened to Karna, Padmageet and Hamid?

BALVIR PANDE: (Coming back to himself) Oh, Karna, Padma and Hamid. Well, Herbert Carlton got them bound on his plantation for five years.

SONIA LOPEZ: That’s all. How did they make out?

BALVIR PANDE: Well, Hamid began rebelling, but Karna Pande took it easy. After work each day, he used to sit by himself under a tree, or any other quiet place, and would sing chowpaaees. One day he was singing . . . (The scene dissolves into a scene of Karna Pande sitting under a tree near the Laal Khambha in the boundyard, singing).

KARNE PANDE: (Reading the Raamcharitmaanas). Hay khag mrig hay madhukar shraynee/ Tum dekhee Seetaa mriganainee/ Kanchan shuk kapot mrig meenaa/ Madhup nikar kokilaa praveenaa/ Kundakalee daarim daamini/ Sharad kamal shashi ahi bhaamini/ Varun paash manoj dhanu hansa/ Gaj kay hari nij sunat prashansaa/ Shreephal kanak kadlu harshahee/ Neku na shanku sakuch man-maahee/ Sunu Jaankee tohee binu aajoo/ Harshay sakal paay janu raajoo/ Kimi sahijaat anakh tohee paahee/ Priyaa vaygee pragatsi kas naahi---

(Kallu and Raamoo, two indentured immigrants, enter and interrupt, Kallu right arm wrapping Raamoo’s neck and dragging him along).

RAAMOO: (Eyes dilating and struggling to free himself from Kallu’s hold) A-a-agh! A-a-agh! A-a-agh! You choke am me, you chugalkhor! When you loose am me neck, I going to pull out you laar!

KALLU: (Growling fiercely, seeking Karna’s attention) I going to kill him. This korehee lazymaan. 

KARNA PANDE: (Stands up and raises his hands to appease) Why the two of you always fight like two fowl cocks fighting over fowl hens?

(Kallu releases Raamoo)

RAMOO: (Speaking to Karna Pande and flexing his muscles at Kallu) Bhaiya Karna, this thief-man, mahachor, beating me---

(Kallu attacks him again, but Karna Pande intervenes and takes Kallu away).

KALLU: (To Raamoo) I going to maar-saaray you. You, kutta, call me chor?

KARNA: (Wipes his face in irritation) What sort of game is this? I always tell the two of you: If we can’t live together, we shall all die.

RAAMOO: (pointing to Kallu). This kutta beating me because I talk Maasa Saahib bad. Maasa Saahib make me cut cane; he fool me, bring me here, tell me that he going to make me pray whole day to Bhagwaan, and that I going get plenty-plenty rice to eat with bhoonjaal, chokah and daal.

KALLU: (To Raamoo). You want eat rice and bhoonjaal and pray to Bhagwaan? (Laughs cynically) You korehee lazymaan!You must cut cane and work like a jackass. You don’t come here to pray to Bhagwaan. You come here to work foh Maasa ah backdaam.

KARNA: (Speaks mollifyingly to Kallu) Bhaiya, stop that talk. Not good to say things like that. (Points to the logies) Look! Look where we’re living, and look where the Maasas are. Look over there are Maasa’s mule stables. Over here are our logies. Tell me which is better?

RAMOO: (Clasping his hands in supplication) Bhaiya Karna, you talk am true-true talk. Anywhere you turn, you get am stink-stink kaka-sideline trench . . . outside, inside, frontside, backside. Bhagwaan frighten frighten to come here.

KALLU: (Pounces upon Ramoo again) You want me hold you and patkay you rass, you namakharaam? You say Maasa Saaheb bad man? Maasa Saaheb give you paisa, roti, dhoti, choka, and you say Maasa Saaheb bad man?

KARNA PANDE: (To Kallu) Kallu, your kind of talk would even make the carrion crows smile. (Points to the logies) Look over there. When the rain comes down, the roofs of our logies go leaking, the mud-walls go crumbling, the child goes shrieking, the mother goes weeping. On the ranges of kakasidelines, men and women are put to relieve themselves together: no privacy, no shame. We are treated like wild animals. If we complain, Maasa Saaheb would tie us to the Laal Khambha and beat us.

KALLU: (Shouting angrily) Then pack up your gotri and go back to India.

KARNA PANDE: (Dolefully) Maasa Saaheb is there, too. It is even worse.

KALLU: (Points menacingly to Karna Pande) In India, you namakharaam kill British. You call am Chapatee Revolution. Now British turn back and kill you, you say British bad-man?

RAMOO: Bhaiya Karna, (Pointing to Kallu) This daaku don’t have none dharam. In Cawnpore he was a big thiefman. He get away from jail and now he playing boss on this plantation.

KALLU: (Twists his lips in a mixture of resentment and contempt) Missee Carlton already come from India, Cawnpore. That Memsaahib come for all of you who been in the Chapatee Revolution.

(Kallu exits indignantly)

RAAMOO: (Dropping a tender hand on Karna Pande’s shoulder) What he mean, Bhaiya Karna by that kind ah talk?

KARNA PANDE: (In worried reflection) Ramoo, Kallu says Major Carlton’s niece has come here from Cawnpore. Too bad if she recognizes me. I belong to the Native Cavalry that killed her cousin.

RAMOO: (Looking up to the heavens) Bhagwaan, this is ah jhanjhat pan jhanjhat.

KARNA PANDE: Major Carlton was looking for me everywhere. He was steaming for revenge. He said Karna Pande was no different from Mangal Pande. He will kill me with his own hands if he finds me.

RAAMOO: (Shaking his head disconsolately and making his exit) Bhagwaan, this is jhanjhat on jhanjhat.

(Enters Padmageet)

PADMAGEET: (To Karna Pande) Why do always seem to be lost in a dream?

KARNA PANDE: What else there is but to dream?

PADMAGEET: (Sits beside him) Yes, only dream is here.

KARNA PANDE: Don’t know. (Pauses and rifles his fingers through his hair) Sometimes I think there is a thin line between pain and dream.

PADMAGEET: At least I can dream here. I couldn’t do it in India.

KARNA PANDE: Yes, we have time to dream here--dreaming of India of those we left behind.

PADMAGEET: Dreams have a way of talking of love and despair at the same time.

KARNA PANDE: (Looking up to her). Why don’t you tell me what is in your heart?

PADMAGEET: Will you be able to handle it if I tell you?

KARNA PANDE: (Drops his head) Well, I don’t know.

PADMAGEET: This has always been the way of my destiny.

KARNA PANDE: (Fondles her hair) Don’t say that. You are too beautiful to be overpowered by destiny.

PADMAGEET: (Chuckles painfully) Beauty! Hah! Our lips can say the word “beauty” a million times, but what is the purpose. Beauty, like everything, is a dream.

KARNA PANDE: I sometimes look at the stars and think that you are there.

PADMAGEET: (Chuckles again) Really.

KARNA PANDE: When I hear the voices of the night, I . . . (trails off into silence)

PADMAGEET: What?

KARNA PANDE: Nothing.

PADMAGEET: You know what: I think you’re a man who wants something and don’t really want it.

KARNA PANDE: You may be right.

PADMAGEET: But, again, that is only a way.

KARNA PANDE: One day I will make up my mind, Padma.

PADMAGEET: You don’t have to anymore.

KARNA PANDE: Do you hate me because---

PADMAGEET: (Interrupts and puts a hand to his mouth) No, I love you, Karna, but I am no longer your lotus of pink petals.

KARNA PANDE: (Eyebrows knitted) I don’t understand.

PADMAGEET: The petals of the lotus are all torn: that’s the only way how I can say it.

KARNA PANDE: What is it, Padma? Please tell me.

PADMAGEET: (Chuckles and makes a brave face) He came to my logie room last night.

KARNA PANDE: Who?

PADMAGEET: Maasa Herbert Carlton. He took me to the stable and locked the door. I screamed; no one heard. Then he did to me what was in his loins the first day he saw me.

KARNA PANDE: (Drops his head to his knees) Oh---

PADMAGEET: When he was doing it to me, it was like my standing before my husband’s funeral pyre.

KARNA PANDE: (Looks up to her) Why should your husband die, Padma! Why did the British kill husbands to make widows!

PADMAGEET: (Preoccupied with her own thoughts) When I saw my husband hanged on a tree, shot dead, I knew that Maasa Carltons and funeral pyres will be my way forever.

KARNA PANDE:  The Sepoy Mutiny was a way to say that Indians are brave and Indians are weak.

PADMAGEET: (Ignores him) After they killed him, the panchayat wanted me to observe the satee--to burn myself on the funeral pyre of my dead husband. But I was a coward who ran away.

KARNA PANDE: You are no coward, Padma. You did the right thing. Satee is worse that the massacre by the British. (Pauses) That was why I didn’t want to marry Rangrati. I didn’t run away from her. I ran away to save her.

PADMAGEET: (Shaking her head) I should have observed the satee, Karna. When Maasa Carlton raped me, I was burnt in a million funeral pyres

KARNA PANDE: Don’t say such things, Padma. The satee is cruel. You should have been given another chance. (Pauses) There are many things wrong in India. Our own people sometimes become our murderers.

(Hamid enters, excited and in a hurry)

HAMID: The dhobi, Mootoo, is found dead floating in the Demerara River. Saaheb Herbert beat him in the sick-house and he run away and try to cross the river, thinking he was going back to India. Poor jackass could not swim. He was drowned.  (Turning around to leave) I going to talk to my Allah. Maasa Allah will have to come sure right this time.

(Hamid exits, bustling out).

PADMAGEET: (Shaking her head) Here he is again. (Pauses) Why is he beating the sick?

KARNA PANDE: (Looks at her with fiery eyes) Why did he do what he did to you?

PADMAGEET: (Reflectively) Sometimes---

KARNA PANDE: (Interrupts) I know. Don’t say it. (Pauses) He is getting worse since his sister has arrived from Cawnpore.

PADMAGEET: Is it true that she has come to marry Saaheb Collins?

KARNA PANDE: I am glad if that is so. That might cool down the family a little. I left her uncle, Major Carlton in India, out of his mind. He wiped out his whole Native Infantry after the British had retrieved Cawnpore.

PADMAGEET: (Drops her head on Karna’s shoulder) I’m scared, Karna. I begin to get a feeling of a huge funeral pyre.

KARNA PANDE: (Rifling her fingers through her hair) Don’t worry. India had passed through worse than what we’re in now, and she had survived it. She is famous for transforming pain into beauty. We have to learn from her.

PADMAGEET: There is so much fear all over, like dark, heavy clouds swallowing a bright sky at noon.

KARNA PANDE: We have to learn from those who died, Padma. Mangal Pande wasn’t scared. Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhaansi, wasn’t. Remember? She had dressed like a male soldier and fought the British so valiantly that some of them ran to whorehouses to reload their guns. (Drops his lips on her head) You are our Lakshmi Bai, Padma.

PADMAGEET: We are so far away from the brave.

KARNA PANDE: No. We are closest to them ever than we were. They live within us, like fire in wood. We have only to look and see.

PADMAGEET: You become so irresistible sometimes. (Pauses and looks at his face). Now that you know what he did to me, would you scorn me?

KARNA PANDE: No. Never. Your pains are mine. I will be by your side until the last drop of my blood flows in my veins. (Looks into her eyes) Sometimes, I think of you and put many possibilities together. I know that I can never go back to India. And. . . And I would think of you in a way that you flow into me and I flow into you, like an ocean into a river, like a river into an ocean, as strong and beautiful as India.

PADMAGEET: Oh, Karna, I love you! (The scene dissolves into the scene of the Sonia Lopez and Balvir Pande).

SONIA LOPEZ: (Incensed) How can a beast like him deceive such a beautiful woman like Padma. She should never fall in love with that crook.

BALVIR PANDE: Well, women have a way of falling in love with beasts and crooks.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Slaps him) Was that intended for me?

BALVIR PANDE: (Impassive) No. Did I say that?

SONIA LOPEZ: Why are you here so late in the night? You can’t be a terrorist?

BALVIR PANDE: (Abstractedly) Why I am here? (Pauses) Oh, I now remember . . . Just before I came here, I found my wife’s sister doing strange things to her in my brand new bed.

SONIA LOPEZ: Isn’t that romantic?

BALVIR PANDE: I think so. (Pauses) And why are you here?

SONIA LOPEZ: Do you really want to know?

BALVIR PANDE: Yes, that’s why I asked.

SONIA LOPEZ: I have come here to kill every man on earth.

BALVIR PANDE: That’s nice. (Pauses) Are you a lesbian who is jealous of a man’s ways?

SONIA LOPEZ: No, I am not a lesbian.

BALVIR PANDE: Then why do you want to kill every man on earth?

SONIA LOPEZ: Because I found my boyfriend doing strange things to my dog, and my son in return doing strange things to him.

BALVIR PANDE: That is very fair.

SSONIA LOPEZ: (Slaps him again) Come on, tell me your story. I don’t want to get too sweety-sweety with you.

BALVIR PANDE: Awright, I will continue my story, if that what you want . . . Well, we’ve seen so far much of one side of the story. Let us now look at the British side. In the Plantations, there were two worlds. The Indians, on one hand, lived in poverty and squalor, and the Maasa, on the other, lived in large bungalows. The Carltons were the owners of Plantation Felicity. A few months ago, as you already know, Ruth Carlton, daughter of David Carlton, had left India and had arrived in British Guiana. She had come to get married to her father’s manager, Samuel Collins, and to oversee her brother, Herbert Carlton. (Pauses) One day in the sitting-room of the Plantation’s bungalow, Ruth Carlton and Samuels Collins, after talking much about their wedding, ended up in a little quarrel. (The scene dissolves into a scene of Ruth Carlton and Samuel Collins in the dining room of their bungalow. Samuel Collins is sitting in a chair, playing a piano, Ruth Carlton behind him, her head on his shoulder, her arms wrapped around him. The dining room is opulently decorated with mahogany furniture, French and Italian paintings hanging on the walls. The windows and arches are decorated with silver and gold trimmed curtains. A bar with crystal glasses and liquors of various kinds is at the western end. Samuel Collins, of medium height and long hair to his shoulders, is dressed in a long-coat and pantaloons, his boots well polished. He has a straight nose and blue eyes, his features neat and well built. Ruth Carlton is strikingly beautiful, shorter than Samuel Collins, her long wheat-coloured dress dropping on the floor and emphasizing the neatly carved outlines of her well-cultured body. Her hair is long to her waist and eyes are blue.).

RUTH CARLTON: Oh, Sam, you always charm me with Beethoven.

SAMUEL COLLINS (Swivels his head and kisses her lips) Beethoven brings a man’s passion closest to his woman’s beauty.

RUTH CARLTON: Remember when I first saw you sitting by the pond in Cawnpore?

SAMAUEL COLLINS: Oh, you liked how I played the violin?

RUTH CARLTON: After you left, I heard it every moment in my life.

SAMUEL COLLINS: That’s wonderful. You were also on my mind. You were glued to my thoughts like stars to the heavens.

RUTH CARLTON: Oh, Sam, I love you. I am dreaming of that day when we would get married and go back to London.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Stops playing his piano, turns round and kisses her hard on her lips) Isn’t London too cold for a man like me who likes to make love to his woman in a lavish of hot sunshine?

RUTH CARLTON: It might cool off a man like you who has an overabundance of steam.

SAMUEL COLLINS: I love the pleasure of steam.

RUTH CARLTON: You can suspend your steam for a while during our honeymoon in London.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (With a twisted face) Are you telling me to suspend my steam on my honeymoon night?

RUTH CARLTON: I want my honeymoon night to be butterflies and not scorpions.

SAMUEL COLLINS: You are a very London woman, I suppose.

RUTH CARLTON: Yes, I am. After our honeymoon, I want us to go back to London and settle down like any conservative British to a simple, luxurious life. With your savings and my share in the estate, you can put them together and buy a seat in Parliament, raising yourself to high esteem. (Kisses his neck) Oh, Sam, won’t it be lovely to go back to London and spend Christmas with the Dawson family again?

SAMUEL COLLINS: What would happen to your father’s estate if we go to London?

RUTH CARLTON: Well, isn’t Herbert here? I think he is quite capable. Much more, Papa doesn’t care about these holdings any longer. He is thinking of selling out and retire, then join Uncle Wilson in Cawnpore.

SAMUEL COLLINS: Why would he want to do such a thing? Sugar is fetching handsome prices these days.

RUTH CARLTON: Oh, Sam, Uncle Wilson needs him. Since the Indian heathens killed poor Tommy in Cawnpore, he’s got a nervous breakdown and is behaving strange.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Bitterly) Major Carlton was not treating his Indian sepoys as humans.

RUTH CARLTON: (In an outburst) Those Indians are not humans, Sam! They are worse than savages!

SAMUEL COLLINS: Don’t put it that way, Ruth, dear. It sounds unfair.

RUTH CARLTON: (Hysterical) I hate those Indian heathens! (Breaking down into tears) Oh, Sam, you should have seen how they killed poor Tommy. His head was fastened in a bowl of soup; his legs were found in the rose gardens. They were murderers! They exploded like ruthless savages, killing every British, irrespective of man, woman or child. They even killed the helpless and wounded. (Pauses) On July 15^th, my friend, Anne Dexter, among other women were raped and murdered at Bibi-Ghar. The Indian heathens entered the Bibi-Ghar with hatchets and knives and slashed the women and children to pieces; then they threw their mangled bodies in a well.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Rises from his chair and walks to the bar) When I hear such talk, I think of nothing else but to drink rum and get drunk. (He pours rum in a glass and drinks) The British have a fine sense of humour. Two hundred and forty-nine years ago, they were on their knees, begging the Moghuls at Agra to give them permission to build a trading post beside the sea. A century later they brought their blue-eyed women and let them seduce the King of Oudh. Now they are the rulers, putting on Indian gowns and dancing with whores in Loll Beebee Baazaars. And syphilis and cheap liquor are easy to get since they now rule seventeen hundred miles from Burma to Afghanistan, and seven hundred miles from the Himalayas to Nerbudda.

RUTH CARLTON: (Snatches the glass from his hand and hurls it to the floor) My dear! We have brought civilization to the Indian heathens! Didn’t we teach them administration and order? Didn’t we teach them to live as good-mannered, decorous people?

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Picks up the shards of glass) Teach them to live as good-mannered, decorous people! (Laughs cynically) The British destroyed the people’s native laws and customs and you call that civilization!

RUTH CARLTON: Is it wrong that we teach non-believers to live in the folds of Christianity? People with dirty habits, and who worship a thousand and one gods?

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Throws the shards in trash basket and lights a cigar) The gravest mistake the British have made is that they don’t understand the sentiments of the people they have conquered.

RUTH CARLTON: (Admonishingly). So, that was right what the Indian sepoys did . . . to massacre the British without a reason?

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Blowing out smoke from his nostrils) The British gave them reason to do that. They had oppressed them. They took away their lands. They coerced them into dangerous ways. And, then, they introduced the darn Enfield Rifle.

RUTH CARLTON: You have it wrong, dear. We were trying to help them.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (With bitter sarcasm) You are so beautiful, Ruth, that the passion in my pants can’t resist you, but your judgement is coloured like any irresistible English Lady!

RUTH CARLTON: (Ignoring his sarcasm and yelling) Don’t you see the Indians needed to be cultured!

SAMUEL COLLINS: (With twisted lips). For Governor General Dalhousie to learn to wear his pants properly is good culture, I guess. (Weighing his hands). In the Deccan alone, he has confiscated some 20,000 estates. That monster! Then, we blame the Indians for the mutiny. Point your finger in your own face, and then let’s go to bed to let my passion speak about other things than Indian mutiny!

RUTH CARLTON: (Flings her hands in the air rudely to negate him) Those Indian heathens had no right to rebel in India!

SAMUEL COLLINS: If the Indians had no right to rebel in India, then the Americans had no right to rebel against the English king. There were worst massacres in the American War of Independence than in the Indian Mutiny. (Pauses and looks sternly at her) The price of independence is great, Ruth. Nations will shed their blood for it. That is why the British must pack up and leave India. India does not want them.

RUTH CARLTON: (Walking back to him and simmering down) You are angry, my dear.

SAMUEL COLLINS: There is nothing in the British Empire but anger. In every corner I look, there is this boast of British diplomacy, fat-looking, big-bellied diplomats eating rice and potatoes and talking nothing else but about British superiority and power, which makes me angry. I was angry in India as I am angry here. (Pauses) These balloons of diplomats are shipping the Indians from India to work on plantations like slaves. Our mule stables are better than the ranges in which we put them to live.

RUTH CARLTON: (Pacifyingly) Then let’s get out of here, my dear. We’ll go back to London and live like decent English citizens.

SAMUEL COLLINS: I begin to dislike England, Ruth. My ancestors did the right thing to migrate to America. In America, I have learnt to look at things from every side of the world. In England you are conditioned only see a situation from one side. The English have been myopic with their euphoria and sense of superiority of being masters of the British Empire. The Americans have learnt the hard way. They have come to accept that power is more personality than history, more present than past.

RUTH CARLTON: Let’s go to America, then

SAMUEL COLLINS: If a woman like you go to America, it is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Your dominant London ways will transform a dove into and owl.

RUTH CARLTON: (Embracing Samuel Collins and kissing him) Darling, I am tired of thinking. There was so much violence in my life. I want to forget about it. Now I want to turn to love. I want us to be married and go far away from all these things, never to see or hear of them again. It’s too much for me.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Tenderly) You are a beautiful woman, Ruth. Truly, I have never met a woman as beautiful as you are. You can make the best wife in the world, and you can blow up any man in bed. But you have a problem of the spirit. You are suffering from an epidemic of English prejudice. (Sits down back at his piano and strikes the keys) And, with this prejudice, your world will be devoid of music and love.

(Ruth Carlton rushes out in exit and Herbert Carlton enters, drunk)

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Speaking to Herbert Carlton) So, Mootoo is dead. You whipped him and made him run away. He’s found dead in the river.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Raucously). That coolie-bastard pretends to be sick everyday. Believe this . . . he has answered the muster roll only five times in one month.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Menacingly). You’ll be crossing sword with Mr. Crossby, Mr. Herbert Carlton.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Throwing his hands up dismissively) That fanatic is an easy nut to crack. He talks a whole lot of rubbish about the coolies being humans with their own fears and loves and spiritual persuasions. The Governor knows how to handle him.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Pugnaciously) The law does not permit you to whip the Indians, Mr. Herbert Carlton.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Swivels around, eyes glaring with rage) Hey, what’s the matter with you. This is my father’s estate. You are only hired to work here.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (With raised voice) The Indians are hired, too.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Shouting back evenly) You seem to have a problem! Last night did Ruth give you a hard time or what?

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Walks up to Herbert Carlton) Indeed last night I had a terrible time. So, since morning, I am trying to do something to get what I didn’t get last night. (He punches Herbert Carlton in his face. Herbert Carlton buckles down to the ground and faints. Samuel Collins glares at Herbert Carlton’s prostrated figure for a while).

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Speaking to the unconscious body and making his exit). Don’t cross my path again, you bastard, or else I masturbate in your face!

(Kallu enters. Seeing Herbert Carlton lying on the floor unconscious, he hurries for a bucket of water, returns and splashes it on him. Herbert Carlton makes a stir and regains consciousness).

KALLU: What wrong, Maasa Saaheb? What wrong?

(Herbert Carlton rises slowly to his feet)

HERBERT CARLTON: That bastard, Collins, cuffed me down. (Massages his jaw). Get me a glass of rum!

(Kallu hurries to the bar and pours him a glass of rum, then steals a glance at Herbert Carlton and pours himself a glass of rum and drinks. He returns and serves Herbert Carlton his rum).

HERBERT CARLTON: (Drinks the rum in one gulp) Bring me a cigar.

(Kallu hurries back to the bar, pulls a drawer and takes out two cigars. He steals another glance at Herbert Carlton and puts a cigar in his pocket, lights the other one and gives it to his master).

HERBERT CARLTON: (Draws on the cigar and then blows out the smoke with relief) How about the coolie-girl?

KALLU: (Grinning). Padma, you mean, Saaheb?

HERBERT CARLTON: (Draws on his cigar again and blows out the smoke) Mmh. Did she tell anyone what happened in the stable last night?

KALLU: (Excited) She don’t going to talk, Saaheb. She like you bad-bad. (Pauses and looks at Herbert Carlton) But you have to watch Karna.

HERBERT CARLTON: Karna?

KALLU: Yes, Karna. He is a smart man, Saaheb. He don’t like British. He kill British in Cawnpore.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Forehead furrowed) Awright, I know him, but still point him out to me tomorrow.

KALLU: Tomorrow? (Laughs malevolently) Tomorrow they celebrating Phagwah. (Shows the motion) Sing am chowtaal, ulaaraa, baiswaaraa and dance like when bad cow breaking down bush.

HERBERT CARLTON: Phagwah? What is that?

KALLU: They throw am powder, abeer and gulaal on one another. Then they kiss up and hug up and eat baara, gulgalla, payra, pholourie and kheer.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Smiling fiendishly) Okay, tomorrow I’ll be there to share in their baara, gulgulla, payraa, pholourie and kheer.(The scene dissolves into a scene of a  boundyard of  indentured labourers celebrating Phagwah, throwing colours upon each other, singing and dancing).

REVELLERS: (Singing and dancing) Jaha rine bhayee andhiyaaree ghata lagee kaaree/ Maas asaar neend nahee aawai, saawan so hai saaree/ Kaam kalol dahat ur antar/ Doojay rine bhayee andhiyaaree, ghataa lagee kaaree/ Bhaado bhawan soon binu

preetam, kaar kushal kai paaree/ Kaartik aghan prath nihaarata/ Sakhi gawan karai nar naaree, ghata lagee kaaree/

(Herbert Carlton and Kallu enter)

HERBERT CARLTON: (Speaking to Kallu) Which one of them is Karna?

KALLU: (Peering into the crowd) He not here , Maasa Saaheb.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Shouting for the revellers to hear) These coolies are singing and dancing as if they’re practising witchcraft!

KALLU: What is witchcraft, Maasa Saaheb? Something to eat like baara and pholourie? 

HERBERT CARLTON: (Admonishing Kallu) Shut up, you fool! Give me the whip! (Kallu gives him the whip, and he rushes to the revellers and begins shouting at them) Hey, what sort of evil worship are you carrying on here? Who gave you permission to practise witchcraft on my plantation? Stop it! You coolie-heathens! (Then he pounces upon the revellers and begins whipping them. Kallu jumps up in jubilation at the sight of the revellers running here and there).

KALLU: (Pointing to Raamoo) Beat that one, Saaheb! Beat that one!

(Kallu jumps up in greater jubilation when Herbert Carlton whips Raamoo.

 The scene dissolves into the two sets: Karna Pande standing on the bank of the Demerara River and Rangrati sitting on the bank of the Ganges, communicating celestially).

KARNA PANDE: Here Phagwah comes, robed in rivers and flowers, driving darkness away forever, as the full moon rises and washes the earth with splendour. And so despair shall be killed like the evil ruler, ruler of false smiles bringing tears to the poor.

RANGARATI: So take the music of the river and the joys of the wind and sing the song of Kashyap, the tyrant, gone forever, for here in this season of tears and laughter, Phagwah will bring you to me closer, like the first jewel of dawn bringing the sun closer to the sky.

KARNA PANDE: I shall cash my love into birds and stars and share the coins of my deeper feelings to barracked mud-huts where men and rats live at war. I shall become a crazy sharer, giving away my treasures of moonbeams, flowers, stars, clothing bare-backed peasants with warm river songs, cheering sullen sheep girls with bouquets of the sky.

RANGRATI: Then, gather dew drops in the morn, string them into a necklace of pearls, stud it with Phagwah’s festive smiles and garland the bride that haunts the will of your eyes. (The scene dissolves into a scene of Ruth Carlton and Samuel Collins in the dining hall, a table prepared for dinner).

RUTH CARLTON: (Throws an arm around Samuel Collins, who sits in a chair at the dinner table) My darling, we’ve been warring with each other over the past two weeks. To bring all this madness to an end, I have prepared your favourite meal of roasted duck, bunbury cakes, toffee tarts, and hot cross buns. (Kisses him) Don’t you have something nice to say about this?

SAMUEL COLLINS: Well, I am hungry. And you’re a woman who can tame the angry stomach of any man. (He walks across the bar and pours himself a shot of rum) These hot times need nothing else but hot rum (drinks) and a good woman like you who sometimes makes me think a woman is synonymous with a bumping bed. (Sits down again) I now know why Western Europe had fought so hard for this place: it cures French, English and Dutch sexual impotence.

RUTH CARLTON (Drops herself in his lap and puts a finger to his cheek) Why does a handsome man like you talk in such a way?

SAMUEL COLLINS: Because this is the only way to express the pleasure you want, and without that pleasure, I can never be a man for you.

RUTH CARLTON: Why can’t you forget about the Indians and be like us again?

SAMUEL COLLINS (Drops his glass and glares at her) Do you want me to condone what your brother is doing to the Indians?

RUTH CARLTON: (Bites the nape of his neck) Come on, honey, soon he’ll be your brother-in-law, and don’t you want your brother-in-law to have a little fun?

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Eyebrows arched) A little fun? Whipping the Indians a little fun?

RUTH COLLINS: Darling, there is nothing wrong in that? He is the owner of these Indians. And, to whip them for a little personal pleasure, will not break down the sky from the heavens. Poor Herbert never had his childhood playing days. I think now he’s making up for it.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Detaching himself from Ruth and rising from his chair) Sometimes I wonder at the thing they call “British civilization.”

RUTH CARLTON: (Rises, walks up to him and wraps her arms around his waist) Darling, you are breaking yourself down with something that doesn’t worth it. (Pauses and looks at him deeply in his eyes) These Indians that you’re staking your life for, if not savages, are lesser humans. Why do you continue to follow this primitive dream? It will pay you no dividends in the end. You will soon get married to me and will fall in stream within a reputable aristocracy. The British society will respect you. You will become a man of the day.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Disengages himself from her contemptuously and walks away) Reputable aristocracy, British Society and man of the day! That’s what all you’re thinking about. If I have to become a man of the day and have to sit down and watch your brother treating those Indians like animals, then I prefer to go back to America and live with whores and in squalor than to live in a mansion like this, employed to watch scenes of human degradation. The feelings of human beings are so violated here that it will make even the baboons cry.

RUTH CARLTON: (Walks up to him and throws her arms around his waist again) Why do you hate the British?

SAMUEL COLLINS: I hate no one, but I will fight any human being that steals the rights and liberties of another human being.

RUTH CARLTON: But there are lesser human beings!

SAMUEL COLLINS: There is nothing like “lesser human beings.” It is human beings that make other human beings lesser.

RUTH CARLTON: (Deviating) Herbert told me that that butcher, Karna Pande, is on our plantation.

SAMUEL COLLINS: We have no butchers on these plantations. Here, we have only the butchered.

RUTH CARLTON: It was Karna Pande who was the ringleader of the mob that killed poor Tommy.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Disengages himself from and pours himself another drink of rum) You are waging a war over Tommy, a war that was burnt out and is now dead. Of course, it gives me pain that Tommy was killed. (Drinks) It gives me pain that so many were killed. In the explosion of emotions, the sepoys killed every British they encountered. The British, in their turn, murdered thousands of sepoys as well. (Pauses) Violence! The stream of violence since the dawn of civilization has not yet stopped. It flows cruelly like a mad river (Moves up closer to Ruth Carlton) Ruth, you and I can stop this stream of wild violence. We can beat it out of our hearts with (walks up to the piano and strikes the keys) the hammer of music and love. We must get rid of this wild will to murder. We can, Ruth, because we love each other. We have transformed these poor Indians into the symbols of violence, because we can see nothing else but violence. These colonies were built on violence, Ruth. First, the Spaniards came and decimated the aborigines. To own this City of Gold, Europeans killed Europeans. The Dutch, French and English murdered and looted each other for these trees, mountains and rivers. Then they brought the slaves from Africa: millions were killed on ocean voyages, millions were enslaved, millions died. This urge to murder is nowhere else than within our own people, within our ownselves . . . within you and me, Ruth. Unless we can think of ourselves (striking the keys of the piano) as human beings of love, we can never truly love each other. We can never truly love each other, Ruth, if we hate others and want to be violent to them. If history has erred in violence, my love, the two us must correct that error, must stop this stream of wild passion with our love. (Playing the piano) With love, real music and beauty will come into our lives. (Stops playing and looks at Ruth Carlton) These plantations are echoing with the violence of the past; they lack music, beauty and love.

RUTH CARLTON: (Throwing her arms around Samuels Collins) How can I get over Karna Pande killing poor Tommy! For months I had dreadful nightmares, dreaming of Karna Pande killing. Sometimes, I dream he’s killing me, too. Darling, tell me, how can I get it over?

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Playing the piano) You can, my dear Ruth. All dreadful wars are forgotten, nations putting together the pieces of their lives and start to live quietly again. In the American War of Independence I have lost my entire line of family, so my father told me. They have lost everything they owned. They witnessed gruesome massacres, traumatic scenes of pillage, rape and murder. Yet my family got it over and we are still living. To live again we had to forget the violence. It is hard to live with the heart full of hate. We must, my love, destroy this seed of hate for if we do not, we’ll be planting it in the soil of future generations. Our future will be filled with only war and murder.

RUTH CARLTON: (Sobbing) I cannot forget poor Tommy!

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Rising and kissing her) Then my darling, I have to leave you alone, and let your mind weigh the events that haunt you so much, so that your spirit may seek the truth. (Rises, walks away, then turns back and looks at her). What else can we do, Ruth, in these times when our reason is violated by our hate?

(Exits Samuel Collins)

(Enters Herbert Carlton. He goes to the bar and pours himself a glass of rum).

RUTH CARLTON: Herbert, you have to act prudently. Don’t make things look scarlet obvious.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Drinks) My dear Ruth, I can handle my business in the most competent manner.

RUTH CARLTON: You have to take precautions, Herbert, and deal with that Karna Pande judiciously.

HERBERT CARLTON: My dear sister, I know how to manage my affairs discreetly.

RUTH CARLTON: (Rests a hand on Herbert Carlton’s shoulder) These Indian heathens are murderous butchers. (Breaks down into tears) Oh, poor Tommy, he always loved his soup and the daffodils and the oleanders of the rose gardens!

HERBERT CARLTON: Ruth, you must not learn to work your feelings to psychological perils. Remember the British empire is everywhere; the sun never sets on its horizons. There is no difference between Demerara and Cawnpore.

RUTH CARLTON: (Sobbing vehemently) Oh, Herbert, that morning before poor Tommy was killed, he won’t leave without eating his meal. He really loved his soup. He really . . . (She becomes hysterical, making her exit).

(Kallu enters with a saucepan in his hand).

HERBERT CARLTON: (To Kallu) What’s that you have there?

KALLU: (Grinning sheepishly) Nice-nice bhojan, Maasa Saaheb.

(Herbert Carlton takes the saucepan from him and removes the lid. When he sees the contents, he jumps back in apprehension).

HERBERT CARLTON: This is crocodile and sticks.

KALLU: (Smiles complaisantly) No, Maasa Saaheb, this is fish. Hassar curry and sijan.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Picks up one of the hassars) Are you sure? This thing looks like a baby alligator.

KALLU: It not baby haliigitta, Maasa. It bhoonjal fish. Eat am. It don’t going to bite you. It dead.

(Herbert begins to eat).

KALLU: Want ah drink, Maasa?

HERBERT CARLTON: (Crunching a hassar). Mmh.

(Kallu strides eagerly to the bar, picks up a bottle of rum, uncorks it, puts it to his lips and begins drinking, looking at Herbert Carlton gingerly. Then he pours a drink for Herbert Carlton and puts it aside. Still watching him, he steals a number of glasses, forks, spoons and cigars and puts them in his pockets. Finally, he takes the drink to his master).

HERBERT CARLTON: (Drinking) I love that coolie-girl, Kallu. She is seductively charming. She makes me behave like a beast.

KALLU: (Steals a piece of ornament from the table) What is beast, Maasa Saaheb? Fowl-cock what does crow night-time?

HERBERT CARLTON: (Ignoring Kallu’s frivolity) That coolie-girl makes my blood stream run into fire. I couldn’t even find my pants.

KALLU: (Stealing another piece of ornament) Where you pants been Maasa Saaheb? It been to dance nagaara?

HERBERT CARLTON: (Ignoring him again) I want to meet that girl again, Kallu. Nobody should know about this.

KALLU: She does sit down late-late night under ah tree near the Laal Khambha.

HERBERT CARLTON: Awright, tonight we go to her. You have to keep watch. (The scene dissolves into the scene of the boundyard, where  Hamid and Karna Pande are sitting under a tree near the Laal Khambha. It is a dark night, the sky is bespangled with stars, night birds are crying against the commingled voices of men and women in the logies, interspersed with the whimpering of a child, mooing of a cow, and barking and baying of dogs).

HAMID: (To Karma Pande) I talk to Allah. He warn Maasa Saaheb Allah that I, Hamid, the descendent of Ishmael, should not cut cane and drink water like mule.

KARNA PANDE: (Inclines against the tree) Maasa Saaheb is not interested in your Allah, Hamid.

HAMID: (Belligerently) I, Hamid, is not born to work from morning when parrot come, till afternoon when parrot go. I, Hamid, is born to sit down and pray all day and eat siranee and mithai and channa till parrot come, till parrot go.

KARNA PANDE: (Quietly) We can do nothing, Hamid. We cannot fight Maasa with our bare hands. The African slaves had tried; despite their guns, they had failed. After their rebellions, hundreds of them were killed. I don’t want my people to be killed. We have to fight Maasa Saaheb in a different way.

HAMID: (In an outburst of anger) Your way to fight Maasa Saaheb is a jhankilaar way. I will die by the time you ready to fight.

KARNA PANDE: (Mollifyingly) Hamid, Allah will not help you if you don’t use your brains. We signed papers that we have to work for Maasa. If we don’t, he will beat us more.

HAMID: Five years cutting cane in that hot-hot sun and eating salt-fish and rice only, and having no private place to defecate is next to death. My Allah have to negotiate with Maasa Saaheb Allah. See you. I gone.

(Hamid exits)

(Enters Padmageet)

PADMAGEET: (To Karna) Why do you come here near the Laal Khambha every night?

KARNA PANDE: You know why.

.

PADMAGEET: Is that your heart speaking?

KARNA PANDE: What else will speak in the presence of a beautiful woman?

PADMAGET: (Sits beside him) I know what is in your heart. Everyday I see it clearer and clearer in your eyes. (Shakes her head) But the wind is saying something different, saying that this is no time for a woman’s feelings.

KARNA PANDE: (Trying to be stolid and evasive) You are right. Hamid was here just now. He was getting out of his mind.

PADMAGEET: All of us are getting out of our minds. Some of us run away to cross the river, thinking that India is on the other side. Then, when Maasa Saaheb catches us, we have no choice than yearning to die.

KARNA PANDE: (Evasive again) Something always bothers me. We Indians are sometimes too sentimental. And I think that is our weakness.

PADMAGEET: (Takes out mithais from a package and hands him) I bring your favourite.

KARNA PANDE: See? You are sentimental. That’s why you bring me mithais everyday.

PADMAGEEET: It’s a way to cover my shame.

KARNA PANDE: (Eating the mithais) Sometimes when I look at you, Padma, I have an impulse to murder him. I don’t know if it is jealousy or if it is a will of a man to fight for what he believes in.

PADMAGEET: We are indeed a helpless people.

KARNA PANDE: Don’t say that, Padma. You make me feel bad. Sometimes I feel so bad that I want to kill the moon and stars, because everything saw what he did to you and did nothing.

PADMAGEET: (Quietly) I know. This is a decision between courage and justice.

KARNA PANDE: (A bit incensed) Don’t talk to me in riddles, Padma. Please. You are one woman of whom I have a special dream. If I die, I want to die for you.

PADMAGEET: (Begins to weep) He ruined my dreams.

KARNA PANDE: I know, and I want to kill him. But if I take the men and go and fight him, he will shoot us all down. There won’t be another day to fight, another man to fight.

PADMAGEET: I am scared for you, Karna. I don’t want you to be killed like my husband.

KARNA PANDE: I, too, am scared, Padma. I am scared to do what I did in India. The bloodshed in India makes my mind sick. (Pauses reflectively) I killed in my violent emotions. Sometimes I killed the innocent that deserved no such death. We were all killing for freedom. But in the end what it brought? Mass executions of the sepoys. They were shot down like birds on a tree, their bodies were all over, hanged by their necks, dangling in the wind as if India were decorated with banners of corpses. Blood was on the land more than water in the river. Mothers wept for their murdered sons, widows for their husbands. Tears, blood and grief were in every home. (Softly) Padma, you may call me a coward and I will take it, but I would not want to see again the bodies of Indian men and women falling like slaughtered sheep on the ground. (Pauses) I’m tired of blood and violence, Padma.

PADMAGEET: I know. I have to endure it all.

KARNA PANDE: (Drops a tender hand on her) Padma, don’t say such things to make me feel worse than I am. You are on my mind every moment of my life. There is so much grief in my heart for you. I have been spending sleepless nights thinking of you. Sometimes I rise up to kill him, then slump again in another thought. Killing is no hard job for me. It is easy as eating a handful of rice. I killed many in my days, and had no feeling of guilt. It was to kill or be killed. But if I kill Maasa Carlton, they will not only kill me, but will kill every brave Indian on this plantation and other plantations, thinking all of them are Karnas. (Pauses) Padma, I left my lover behind in India and had solemnly promised to marry her. (Taking her hands and kissing them) Thus, to take another woman is wrong, but if making you my wife will prevent Maasa Saaheb from raping you another time, I will marry you!

PADMAGEET: (Stridently) Karna, I love you. But I can’t be so selfish. I can’t deprive you of your only hope of happiness.

KARNA PANDE: You have to marry me if it comes to that, the only way of saving you from Maasa Carlton.

PADMAGEET: Doing this to you is worse than being raped.

KARNA PANDE: We, the men, must protect our women.

PADMAGEET: Not like that. That is too much to ask of you.

KARNA PANDE: Think of it Padma. It would put an end to this great crisis we’re in. (Rises disconsolately with bowed head) I can’t promise to do better than this, Padma.

(Karna Pande makes his exit)

PADMAGEET: (Bursts into tears). No! I can’t do it! (She kneels down and begins expressing her hurt feelings) This, my body, that once makes the flowers smile, is now baited with sweet sugar to have my dignity defiled. Maasa’s lecherous hands stink with shame as they touch my skin. Maasa’s greedy eyes smell of the urine of the mule . . . beastly loins that bring scared memories of the crude passions of the tiger. Oh, let me die! I do not care . . . I am torn from the land of grandeur and sown in this soil of dishonour, left to bloom in stifled splendour amidst leaping thorns of terror. The tears of the sugarcanes drip in silent anguish and prompt memories of India so far away. The evil of the Maasa kills my dreams like a dagger in my heart, and sends the gleaming stars to wail. Oh, let me die! I do not care . . . I am torn from the land of grandeur and sown in this soil of dishonour, left to bloom into stifled splendour amidst leaping thorns of terror.

(Enter Herbert Carlton and Kallu. When Herbert Carlton sees Padmageet in her meditation, he walks up to her stealthily and grabs her from the back on her unawares. She jumps up in panicked terror and runs about screaming. Herbert Carlton pursues her lasciviously, and when he catches her, he struggles to strip her off her clothes. She fights back, biting him, scratching him with her fingernails and kicking him in his face. This makes him more violent, and, in his struggle to pin her down, he strangles her to death. Seeing her prostrate, lifeless body, he rises dispassionately, takes a long drink from his rum, mutter some curses and strides away in exhaustion. Kallu flees in terror).

(The scene advances to the following morning, the corpse of Padmageet still lying there. It is now raining hard, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Karna Pande enters and finds Padmageet’s corpse. After examining the body and is sure that it has no life, he explodes into a vehement expression of his feelings).

KARNA PANDE: Why droop my head and let my churkie die? For I am an ambassador of the ancients brought to be measured in the savage history of this land. Then, oh, rain impassioned! Oh, thunder, incensed! Oh, weeping trees! Show me the serpent of oppression crawling through the history of green sugarcane leaves, killing innocent joys, brilliant dreams with its venom of tyranny! Oh, birds, saddened, wings flapping wild! Companions of my thoughts when all hopes are gone! Here, this corpse of innocence screams at these jeering, corrupt mansions where slithering serpents scheme plots to poison the creation of love. This moment of blood, rain and storm, shall march through the passage of time. This corpse shall walk again to life and scare the conscience of this land. Now my blood steams with persistence to face tyranny with my bare hands and hold him in the justice of the sun, hold him there for amends of this slain honour. I shall walk through the labyrinth of my anger, and accede the throne of my unconquered mind. Never shall I scorch my will with the embers of fear, for I choose to shout in he heavens for the power of Kaali’s sword!

(Enter Herbert Carlton, Kallu and two white overseers. Herbert Carlton notices Karna Pande over Padmageet’s corpse).

HERBERT CARLTON: (To Karna Pande) Hey! Not reporting to the muster roll? (Moves up closer to Karna Pande and pretends as if he sees Padmageet’s corpse for the first time).

HERBERT CARLTON: (Expressing feigned horror) Gosh! What’s this! Horrifying! (Points his finger at Karna Pande) You murdered her.

KARNE PANDE: (Angry) Murdered her?

HERBERT CARLTON: You murdered her as you did to Tommy in Cawnpore.

KARNA PANDE: (Retorts). I did not murder her. It was you who did it

(Herbert Carlton hits him with his gun butt. He rises and punches Herbert Carlton in his face. The blow sends him reeling to the ground. Then, Karna Pande jumps on him and begins to punch him in his face blindly, giving vent to a mad anger).

KARNE PANDE: (Punching Herbert Carlton in his face) This is your last day, you lecherous dog! I will kill you. (He takes out his knife and stabs Herbert Carlton in his face. An overseer, seeing that he intends to kill Herbert Carlton, shoots him on his arm and then shoots him again on his left leg. Herbert Carlton squeezes himself out of Karna Pande’s slumped body. When he is totally free, he begins to pound Karna Pande’s face with his heavy boots. Thinking that he is dead, he exits with the three other men).

(Samuel Collins enters. When he sees Karna Pande motionless in a pool of blood and Padmageet lying dead, he checks back first and then goes up them. He checks Padmageet first, then goes to Karna Pande. Sure that he is still alive, he begins to shout for help.)

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Shouting) I need help! I need help! Is there anyone around! Is there any one around!

(Hamid and Raamoo enter).

HAMID: (Appalled at seeing the two bodies) Who kill them, Maasa?

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Aggrieved). I don’t know. Karna is still alive. Help me with him. We have to take him to the sick-house.

(The three men lift up Karna Pande and fetch him out, making their exit)

(The scene dissolves into the scene of Samuel Collins and Ruth Carlton in the dining hall of their bungalow)

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Vehemently). Your brother murdered the Indian woman. He pounded Karna Pande in his face and made him blind. Now he is saying that Karna Pande commits the murder.

RUTH CARLTON: My dear, you should not say that. Poor Herbert would not commit such an atrocious act. These Indian heathens are savages. Nothing can convince me that they are humans.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Resolute and enraged). Herbert will bribe the Medical Officer and the Inspector General. And the Governor will not listen to Mr. Crossby.

RUTH CARLTON: Why do you hate Herbert so much? He’s such a poor fellow. He nearly died of consumption last year. Do you want him to die of humiliation this time?

SAMUEL COLLINS: My dear Ruth, Your baby-faced brother murdered the Indian woman and he caused an innocent Karna Pande to be arrested and charged with murder!

RUTH CARLTON: (Hysterically) Karna Pande murdered poor Tommy.

SAMUEL COLLINS: (Becoming more enraged). He should have cleansed this earth of all the Carltons. They have put a bad name on every man that wears a white skin.

RUTH CARLTON: (Exploding) You dare not say that!

SAMUEL COLLINS: The evil nature of the Carltons has built an evil system on this earth!

(Enters Herbert Carlton).

HERBERT CARLTON: (To Samuel Collins). How dare you shout at my sister?

SAMUEL COLLINS: I am shouting at the evil of the Carltons. They ought to be wiped out from the face of this earth!

HERBERT CARLTON: You’re getting beyond your privilege. I will clip your wings. (Takes out his revolver. Samuel Collins springs upon him; the revolver falls to the ground. They fall into a big fight. Samuel Collins, getting on top of Herbert Carlton, begins to pound his face with his fist. Finally, he gets the revolver and recovers himself to his feet).

SAMUEL COLLINS: (To Herbert Carlton). You dare not make a move, or I will blow your head off.

HERBERT CARLTON: (Advancing to Samuel Collins) Your gun is futile like your manhood between your legs.

SAMUEL COLLINS (Shoots Herbert Carlton on his legs and turns to Ruth Carlton, making his exit) My beloved Ruth, this is my last day on this plantation. (Tears welling up in his eyes) I tried in vain to initiate you into music and love. (Pauses). Some of us, through the cruel vicissitudes of life, have been lost in the wild jungles of dark reason. (Tenderly) It is not your fault, Ruth. Do not feel guilty. It is the poison that flows from the river of history. It tears my heart to see you, the most beautiful woman of this continent, drowning in the poisonous tide of this river. I have never experienced failure like this before. I feel guilty for not saving the woman I love from the turbulent waves of prejudice and hate.

(The scene dissolves into a scene of Kallu, drunk, singing and drinking)

KALLU: (Singing) Sharwan laal kaa naam lay, kaa ko rahay pukaar/ Shrawan shrawan taat para, soyo paaw pukaar/

(Enters Raamoo)

RAAMOO: You namakharaam chugalkhor! You sing am song? You join in killing Padma, shoot am Karna down, now you want am Karna go to jail?

KALLU: (Stabbing his chest with a finger and dilating his eyes) I kill Padma? I shoot Karna down? I  want to send Karna to jail?

RAAMOO: You and Maasa Carlton kill am Padma. You and Maasa Carlton shoot am Karna. You and Maasa Carlton want am Karna to go to jail.

KALLU: When eye see, mouth must talk. When eye don’t see, how mouth must talk?

RAAMOO: Everybody say you and Maasa Carlton do the work, you thief-maan, mahachor!

KALLU: (Takes a drink) That is what they say. Coolie-man mouth running too much! They see and know everything.

(Enters Hamid. He pounces upon Kallu and begins to choke him).

HAMID: You go talk who kill Padma? You go talk?

KALLU: (Mouth watering and eyes bulging) Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow . . . loose me! I going to talk!

HAMID: You go talk?

KALLU: Yes, I going to talk! Loose me!

HAMID: If I take you to Saaheb Crossby, you go talk?

KALLU: Yes, I going to talk.

HAMID: (Speaking to Raamoo and smiling in self-satisfaction) You see the power of Allah? Allah can make even a donkey talk.

KALLU: (To Hamid). Allah can make tree talk, too, Bhaiya Hamid?

(Hamid and Raamoo drag out Kallu, making their exit).

(The scene dissolves into the scene of Sonia Lopez and Balvir Pande).

BALVIR PANDE: So this is my story.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Eyes narrowed at him) Is that the way how you end a story? It seems to me that you don’t know how to find a climax. Perhaps that is the reason why your wife chose to sleep with her sister.

BALVIR PANDE: (Shrugs and drops his head) Perhaps, yes. Perhaps I am a man who can’t reach a boiling point.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Puts a fist to his face) Who told you that you can’t?

BALVIR PANDE: Well, if I could, I wouldn’t have been wasting my time telling a story so late in the night to a beautiful woman without thinking of other things.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Peering into his yes) Your lips say one thing, but your eyes say something different.

BALVIR PANDE: Maybe that is a way of saying what I have to say.

SONIA LOPEZ: You have said many things already.

BALVIR PANDE: Yes.

SONIA LOPEZ: Still I want you to find an end to your story. Perhaps that will make sense more than anything else.

BALVIR PANDE: Awright, I will try to find an end. (Pauses and peruses Sonia Lopez’s eyes) You have beautiful eyes.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Raises her gun to hit his head, then drops it) You are not here to look at my eyes. You are still my prisoner.

BALVIR PANDE: (Quietly) Yes, I am your prisoner. You have imprisoned everything within me, and I how I love it.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Raises her gun again) Come on, bring a climax to the story.

BALVIR PANDE: You are my climax.

SONIA LOPEZ: (Jabs his head with her gun) Come on, end the damn story!

BALVIR PANDE: Okay. (Pauses) The plantation Indians buried Padmageet, with prayers, rituals and songs, at a cemetery given to them. Karna Pande was still in the sick-house, guarded by colonial police. Herbert Carlton was taken to the city public hospital and was told that he would be a cripple for life. Samuel Collins joined a ship for the United States, with a deliberation to never return.

Days later, when Karna Pande felt a little better and was discharged from the sick house, the Immigration Agent General fought his case and proved that he was innocent. Now, knowing that he was in trouble, Herbert Carlton joined a ship and sailed for London. Ruth Carlton did the same too.

Karna Pande, badly wounded, his arm and leg torn by gunshots, and permanently blind, was a man still filled with faith and strength. He would go by Padmageet’s grave, sing songs and throw flowers. Sometimes his mind ran on Rangrati and his mother. This was the time when his deeper self would speak. One day this happened when he sat alone on the bank of the river, thinking of India. (The scene dissolves into three sets: Karna Pande on the bank of the Demerara River, Rangrati on the bank of the Ganges, and Dheersutta at her altar).

KARNA: Oh, India! You will look at me no more. My sacred thread is broken, my churkee is slain, whilst leather boots spurn me in the verbiage of tyranny. Like the paturiya I am gone, disembowelled of rank and honour, losing my claim for home: a shudder in placelessness, for I’ve trespassed the loftier plains of the Sages’ conscience.

RANGRATI: Flow, my river flow, for I can feel my love in the passion of the waves kissing the lips of the foam and caressing the loins of the shores. Then, I become deaf to the pilgrims’ call, for I cannot barter the climax of my silence for the pleasures of the chanted word.

DHERERSUTA: You have forgotten what you have become, my son: a power beyond all satire, for your strength does not teach you to die. Long before Yajnavalkya, you were a spirit that walks on the blade of the sword, sleeps in the deep of the water, delights in the flames of the fire. You then knew that you could never die. Yes, my son, you then that you could never die!

(The sets with Rangrati and Dheersutta fade and the one with Karna Pande remains, with Hamid, Kallu and Raamo entering).

KALLU: (In bandages, speaking to Karna Pande). Bhaiya Karna, them pull out me trousers, tie me up and beat me like wild jackass. Joint-joint ah me skin get pain.

But, Bhaiya Karna, I sorry. I proper wrong. I tell lie. You didn’t kill Bahen Padma. Maasa Carlton kill she. I tell Saaheb Crossby everything.

KARNA PANDE: I am glad it is all over.

RAAMOO: Bhaiya Karna, Kallu stop thief. Turn good-good now, since we cut he rass. He stop work ah Maasa house. He ah cut cane now ah backdam.

HAMID: If Allah can make Kallu change, he can also make all Maasa Saahebs change. (Pauses) After five years, we all can now go back to India. Allah say that I, Hamid, the descendant of Ishmael, will cut no more cane and live no more like Maasa mule. (Noticing Karna pensive) Eh? You don’t want to go back to India? What’s the matter?

KARNA PANDE: I can’t go back. Everything has changed. (Pauses reflectively) I am now a broken man. I’ve lost my leg. I’m blind. Mother will be terrified to see me this way. Rangrati will be horrified. Then Padma lives on my conscience. I saw her . . . (Trails off into silence).

HAMID: Bu . . . But Allah does not like that kind of talk. You must go back to India!

KARNA PANDE: (A strange smile flashes on his face) Go back to India! Hmm.

HAMID: Why? I can’t understand you. I will have to talk to my Allah.

KARNA PANDE: There seems to be things that God himself doesn’t understand, or he is playing a game with me not to make me understand. Strangely, he has made these cane fields and logies my India. Each night a harsh voice is shouting out to me to stay here to tell a story to a future generation. Then monsters of funeral pyres, British guns and dead faces would haunt me. The voice would tell me if I go back to India, they would kill me.

HAMID: By the name of Allah, I don’t understand your language.

KARNA PANDE: Now, it is this voice and me alone, Hamid. And it is singing a song to me “SAMUDRAM SAMUDRAAT GRIHAAYA” (From Ocean to Ocean for a Home). In this song I hear the voice of Rangrati telling me of the love and beauty of India. In this song, I hear my mother’s voice chanting srutis and smritis. Then Padmageet’s sweet chorus would come, like a nightingale, and chant a strain of future struggles, journeys, pains and victories. (The scene dissolves into the scene of Sonia Lopez and Balvir Pande).

SONIA LOPEZ: (Eyes dilated in a pretext of aggression) Is that the end of your story?

BALVIR PANDE: Yes.

SONIA LOPEZ: Such an end will even make a rooster get a bad impression of what a climax is.

BALVIR PANDE: (Quietly) There is nothing more I can do?

SONIA LOPEZ: You don’t know how to reach a climax.

BALVIR PANDE: Perhaps I don’t.

SONIA LOPEZ: Oh, now I understand. (Pauses). Awright, tell me what connection you have to this story.

BALVIR PANDE: My connection?

SONIA LOPEZ: Yes, if you know.

BALVIR PANDE: Awright, I will try to make up something. (Pauses) Karna Pande, though he was blind, was given a job as an interpreter for the Indians, interpreting their native dialects, mainly Bhojpuri, into English. Determined not to go back to India, he married one of the Indian women on the plantation. He got four sons. The last one was my great grandfather. From there my generation had started in British Guiana. (Pauses) The population of the Indians in British Guiana increased rapidly, outnumbering the other races. In the beginning of the twentieth century, local politicians began clamouring for political reforms. Several political parties were formed, adult suffrage was won, British Guiana got its Independence and was renamed Guyana. Social situations made thousands of Indians seeking other lands. To North America, thousands came to seek liberty, and, over the decades, have worked hard, rebuilt their families and started a new generation. I, too, came here in the flow of migration for a new life. Remember? Karna Pande called this SAMUDRAM SAMUDRAAT GRIHAAYA (From Ocean to Ocean for a Home). Then one day I met a woman in a library. The same day I married her, I knew that she was not meant for me. (Pauses and looks at Sonia Lopez in her eyes) Now you came here to kill me. And I am beginning to---

SONIA LOPEZ: (Interrupts him) Beginning to what?

BALVIR PANDE: Beginning to feel that Padma and Rangrati are playing a little game.

SONIA LOPEZ: What game?

BALVIR PANDE: Don’t know.

SONIA LOPEZ: Do you think I should kill you?

BALVIR PANDE: You have already killed me, in a sweet way.

SONIA LOPEZ: Oh. Did you mean that you are dead inside?

BALVIR PANDE: No, I am alive. That’s why I tremble when you speak to me.

SONIA LOPEZ: You are a man that I really want to kill.

BALVIR PANDE: I know.

SONIA LOPEZ: What the hell do you know?

BALVIR PANDE: I know why you are here and why I am here.

SONIA LOPEZ: Why?

BALVIR PANDE: Perhaps this is another game of some power, reminding me of a strange voice that always speaks.

SONIA LOPEZ: Maybe this is the voice that makes you write poems?

BALVIR PANDE: Don’t know. (Pauses) But the poem I wrote is about you and for you.

SONIA LOPEZ: Why you didn’t tell me that from the beginning.

BALVIR PANDE: You wouldn’t have believed me. (Pauses) You didn’t even allow me to finish reading the poem.

SONIA LOPEZ: You can finish it now, if you want.

BALVIR PANDE: Awright. (He starts reading)

The orchestra of the birds you are

within the forested frilling of the leaves;

the metres and iambic of my poetry you are,

the fire of the language of my soul.

I adore you in the court of the stars,

where the moon blooms like a kumud flower,

your face is veiled with sprinkles of brilliance,

with dust of gems from the sky.

(Pauses and stares at her) This poem is about my life and the woman I seek from the day I know what was a woman. The story I told you is about me, deep inside what is happening to me in my search. The Karna Pande is in me, seeking his Rangrati and Padma for the beauty, love and peace that I really want the world to be. Tonight Padma and Rangrati came as one woman, a strange woman, who put a gun to my head to awaken the bigger guns of life, which has only one message, that every man must have an angel like you to tell him that this world is futile with its violence and greed, for all nations (powerless or powerful) are rudderless boats moving from one island to the other, searching for a shore.

SONIA LOPEZ: Wow! What a great climax! And now here is the resolution of the story. (She throws away her gun and  embraces him).

THE END.

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