The Flower of God

THE FLOWER OF GOD
(One - Act Play)

HARINDRANATH CHATTOPADHYAYA

Scene I

            (Outside the gates of the temple In Bandarpur. The sun is setting flooding the sky behind the temple with red and gold light. Groups of pilgrims are seen pouring in and of the temple-door, carrying offerings of flowers and cocoanuts and plantains for the God on the altar. Alone, at a little distance near the gate, sits Chokha Mela, a Panchama, muttering prayers to himself. His eyes seem lost in devotion. The temple-bells are ringing and the lights are being lit at the altar. Three Brahmins appear near the gate who, noticing the Panchama, stand for a while, talking about him. Then, from a distance, they talk to him)

1ST BRAHMIN
Lo! yonder at the holy temple-gate
Mutters a scavenger unholy prayers!

2ND BRAHMIN
The golden sunset-glimmer on his face
Cries out for absolution!

3RD BRAHMIN
Like a shadow
He stains the path of worshippers who come
To worship Him who sits on His high altar
Beyond the cry of yonder loathsome thing!

1ST BRAHMIN
He is as lifeless as a tree or stone
Upon the wayside standing in the mud
Or lying speechless in a ditch of dirt.

2ND BRAHMIN
For, nowhere in the Shastras do I  find
The stone or tree or such a piteous creature
Endowed with that Immortal Mystery
We Brahmins, in our knowledge, call the soul.

3RD BRAHMIN
His eyes are like the eyes of a dead man
When he is stretched to burn upon the pyre.
How it must hurt a prayer to find itself
Breathed through the lips of a foul Panchama!

1ST BRAHMIN
Who is the God he worships all alone
Outside the holy temple-gate?

2ND BRAHMIN
The God
Of filth who dwells in dingy bogs and marshes
And wallows in the mire like a grey pig
Lost in the worship of the scavengers.

3RD BRAHMIN
And He is seated on a lampless altar
Constructed by the goblin-artisans
Who lurk in lonely dung-hills.

THE PANCHAMA
Silently
The broad white lotus of my worship spreads
Its thousand-petalled seat for Vithoba.

1ST BRAHMIN
What do you mutter sitting there alone?

2ND BRAHMIN
Fool! who has sanctioned you the sacred right
To paint your shadow on our temple-gate?

3RD BRAHMIN
Away with you!.....Between your birth and ours
Glimmers the sea of joy whose shining waters
Our hands alone may touch, of whose deep wave
Only our lips may drink being the lips
That utter incantations and pronounce
Untiringly the hallowed name of God.

THE PANCHAMA
Forgive me, noble Sires! If I have marred
The glory of the Lord, if I have cast
My shadow on the sinless temple-gate.
I had not known before it was a crime
For a poor Panchama to sit outside
The temple of the Lord, and worship Him
Within the inner temple of his soul.

1ST BRAHMIN
Who is your Lord?

THE PANCHAMA
He is the Lord you seek
Within your temple and the Lord we seek
Within our hearts since we have been denied
Through some forgotten evils in the past
Access unto the altar where His Image
Burns like a dream of gold.

2ND BRAHMIN
How can a beggar
Who sits and gapes in hunger at the gates
Of a King’s palace ever hope to gain
Even a morsel of the royal meal?

THE PANCHAMA
Behold! the sun though burning miles apart
Yet feeds the hunger of the lotus flower
And the chaste moon across the spaces pours
Her love into the moon-bird’s thirsty heart.
Even so, my Lord though severed from my touch
And hidden in the temple from my eyes
Still hears my voice and gives me cry for cry
And loves me in the silence of my soul.

1ST BRAHMIN
Perched in his blind conceit, as in a cage.
He prattles like a parrot.

2ND BRAHMIN
Let us go
Into the temple for the lights are lit.

3RD BRAHMIN
And let him lie like an empty gutter.
                                                                                                (The Brahmim go in)

THE PANCHAMA
Yea! like an empty gutter to receive
The precious leavings from the plate of God

(The crowd by this time has dwindled, most of it having already gone in for worship. Just as Chokha Mela finishes his last sentence, a Messenger from the Lord Vithoba enters.)

THE MESSENGER
I am the secret Messenger of God
Who come to you, His lover, with a message

THE PANCHAMA
Sweet Messenger! you come before my eyes
Like the fulfilment of long years of prayer.

THE MESSENGER
I bring you secret news about my God
Your Lover, who has heard your lonely voice
Echo like troubled fire across His dreams.
Who seeing your restless soul Himself has grown
Unquiet like the billow in the sea.
To clasp His wandering comrade. Should you cease
To love Him, He would crumble like the hut
Of a poor peasant in the rainy season.

THE PANCHAMA
O does He love this scavenger so much?
O does He dream of one who dare not dream
Of gazing on His Image in the temple?

THE MESSENGER
The Image that is worshipped by the crowd
My friend! is but a dead unholy thing
Fashioned in gaudy gold for them who move
Unvisioned in their hollow arrogance.
God weeps in misery upon the altar
To see His worshippers make offerings
Of bodies decked in glittering vanity
And hearts o’er burdened with vain gloriousness.

THE PANCHAMA
When shall I meet Him. Messenger?

THE MESSENGER
To-night
When the fat temple-priests have fallen asleep
The Lord will come in person to invite
His lover to the temple, and the dawn
Will come with gifts of coloured mists and flames
To find your heart brimming with holy quiet
Even as the mountain-height drunk with white peace
In mystic marriage with the midnight-heavens.

THE PANCHAMA
And will my Lord accept my loathsome body?

THE MESSENGER
Yea! for it is God’s radiant House of prayer.

THE PANCHAMA
And will my King come down to meet this beggar?

THE MESSENGER
Yea! for His pride is hiding in your rags.

THE PANCHAMA
And will the Master truly love His servant?

THE MESSENGER
Behold! the servant’s worship for His Master
Has won the Master’s worship for His servant.

THE PANCHAMA
And will the Lord Vithoba hush my weeping?

THE MESSENGER
Yea! for the tears you shed are from His eyes
Who waits in patience for the starry darkness.

(The Messenger disappears. The crowd begins to stream out of the temple. It is evening.)

A MAN
Look at that Panchama whose hands and feet
Are clothed in mire.

A WOMAN
God save us! He was born
Out of the womb of a most dreadful curse!

1ST BRAHMIN
He has not gone as yet!

2ND BRAHMIN
Why does he smile?

3RD BRAHMIN
To cover lip the nakedness of fate!

(The Panchama sits dreaming while the people pass him by in scorn.)

SCENE- 2

(The door of the temple. It is locked. It is mid-night. The three Brahmins, who are temple-priests, enter stealthily one by one and set their ears against the door as if to hear somebody talking within it.)

1ST BRAHMIN
At first I thought I heard these whispers stir
Deep in my dreams, but when I woke I found
They came from out the temple!

2ND PRIEST

There he sits
Like a disease before the holy Image!

3RD BRAHMIN
It is the Panchama who sists outside
This temple-gate and mutters parrot-prayers
When evening crowns the temple-top with silence.

1ST BRAHMIN
Alas! the whiteness of the holy Image
Is stained with the black touch of him whose birth
Was fashioned in some demon’s womb of darkness.

2ND BRAHMIN
But it is passing strange how he could enter
The guarded temple-door that still stands barred
To other than ourselves who hold the key!

3RD BRAHMIN
Alas! the gorgeous raiment on His body
And all the myriad splendour of his jewels
Are dyed in deep pollution. Now our Lord
Is like the moon whose skin of chastest fire

Glows dim in Rahu’s shadowy embrace
Or like the sun who on his swift career
Of gold flame o’er the road of the blue sky
Is caught asudden in the black caress
Of Ketu and stripped bare of brilliance.

1ST BRAHMIN
Unlock the door and drag the villain out.

2ND BRAHMIN
And let us solve this midnight-mystery.

3RD BRAHMIN
(Opens the door.)
Come out, you filthy dog, you low-born creature!

THE PANCHAMA
(Coming out)
I see, your eyes are flaring up like fire
As if they would devour me!

1ST BRAHMIN
Had you been
A creature less unclean and less unholy
We would have offered you as sacrifice
Long years ago at some great festive-altar.

2ND BRAHMIN
How did you find your way into the temple?

3RD BRAHMIN
Give up the truth ... Who led you to the altar?

THE PANCHAMA
Who but my sky-blue Lover, Vithoba?

BRAHMINS
He has gone mad!

1ST BRAHMIN
Before to-morrow’s dawn
You must be gone.

2ND BRAHMIN
And on the other shore
Of sacred Chandrabhaga you shall dwell
Nor ever cross unto this shore again!

3RD BRAHMIN
So get you gone and while the darkness hides
Your body with its nakedness of shame
And vile corruption leave our holy shore
Nor haunt the temple more with your black shadow.

THE PANCHAMA
Forgive me for the sorrow I have spread
Cloudlike across the sunlight of your hearts.
I will be gone before the dawn arrives

With her immaculate splendour for your eyes
And her resplendent crown for the Lord’s temple.
And as for me, I have no need of her
Since even while I stand in this vast midnight
Within me stirs a white eternal dawn
Above the golden temple of the soul
Wherein the Lord is wrapt in dreams of peace.

1ST BRAHMIN
You have polluted God with your foul touch!

2ND BRAHMIN
And stained His virgin splendour with your presence!

3RD BRAHMIN
Yea! you have bruised His heart of chastity!

THE  PANCHAMA
(Smiling as in wisdom)

Is this the wisdom that you have acquired
After long years of drinking at the founts
Of sacred knowledge? Are you not aware
That the thrice holy Ganges still retains
Her ancient purity though she has washed
Day after day, year after year, the bodies
Alike of Brahmins and of Panchamas?
And is the road polluted that has heard
The echoing footsteps both of saints and sinners?
Or would you call the wind corrupt and wicked,
To holy Sadhus and unholy harlots?
Then how could you believe that He who dwells.
In every speck of dust and every star
Beyond our little strife of caste and creed
Could ever be polluted by my presence?

1ST BRAHMIN
Away with you! What! have you come to preach
Of wisdom to the wise?

2ND BRAHMIN
Lo! it is said
That Shalabha, a tiny bird, set out
To teach the swift Bird Garud in the fable
The use of wings!

3RD BRAHMIN
And in another fable
A patch of gold-paint danced in foolish pride
Before a mountain-range of real gold!

1ST BRAHMIN
And in another story it is written
That a glow-worm blinded with its own glimmer
Called Vasaramani a beggar’s lamp!

2ND BRAHMIN
And in another, that an elephant
Bred in a common forest on the earth
Challenged the huge Airavat to a fight!

3RD BRAHMIN
And somewhere it is said that a pale snake
That crawls among the forests, thought to shame
The many-jewelled serpent-hood of Shesha
With its own jewel lit with a dull flame!

BRAHMINS
And you, likewise, who are a Panchama
Ignorant of the Shastras, dare to come
Into our presence with your argument!
Away with you this instant!

THE PANCHAMA
I am going
But Brahmins! bear in mind these words I utter!
You are but buying with your insolence
The angry touch of God who will convert
Your Brahminhood to Pariahdom when next
You incarnate within this selfsame world,
Where now you spurn me like a filthy dog.
For Nature, who is wise, metes out for ever
Her justice in a dark mysterious manner
Beyond our little martal comprehension!

(The Panchama goes out)

1ST BRAHMIN
His mind is in a mist.

2ND BRAHMIN
How like the tail
Of a black brute his tongue wags in its speech!

3RD BRAHMIN
I would the Panchamas were all extinct!
(Before temple-door. The three Brahmins are seen discussing as in the last scene.)

1ST BRAHMIN
And when I reached the other shore I saw
Two people under the cool lemon-tree
Eating their mindday-meal, and one of them
Was Chokha Mela, the dark Panchama

2ND BRAHMIN
Perhaps, the other was a villager.

1ST BRAHMIN
I have a tale to tell you.

3RD BRAHMIN
Tell us......tell us!

1ST BRAHMIN
And Chokha’s wife, a very lovely lovely woman

2ND BRAHMIN
I have seen her and although she is the wife
Of a low creature

3RD BRAHMIN
She is beautiful
And I have wooed her often in my dreams

1ST BRAHMIN
This woman served them to their meal.

2ND BRAHMIN
I would
I were the villager!

3RD BRAHMIN
Her hands and feet
Might tempt the gods to fall from their high office.

1ST BRAHMIN
I stood and watched them for a while and heard
The words that passed between them. You will marvel
When I relate to you the conversation.

2ND BRAHMIN
What did they talk about?

3RD BRAHMIN
It makes me laugh
To heart two ignorant people talk!

1ST BRAHMIN
I heard
The Panchama address a crow that sat
Upon a lemon-branch.

2ND AND 3RD BRAHMINS
What did he say?

1ST BRAHMIN
He said, “Most honoured Sir, from out your beak
The seeds are dropping on my holy Guest
Do you not know that the great Lord is seated
With me in the cool shadow of this tree?
Fly to some other branch, respected Sir!
And pardon me if I have hurt your pride.....”

2ND BRAHMIN
What! have you ever heard a man before
Conversing with a crow?

1ST BRAHMIN
’Twas done on purpose
To fling an insult on our Brahminhood,
For, mark you well what followed ...     When the
woman,
The wife of that despicable scavenger,
Dropped curds by accident on the guests’ garment
Staining its hem, he cried out in despair,
“Alas! what have you done? Behold! my wife!
The curds have soiled the Lord’s pure Pitambar
Of sunset’s yellow robes. Alas! the holy
Like a white cloud that stains the flaming silk
Untainted garment of the Lord is soiled!”

2ND BRAHMIN
Indeed! it was on purpose that he uttered
The name of God in so familiar manner
To wound our Brahmin’s sense of sanctity.

3RD BRAHMIN
And did you teach the Panchama a lesson?

1ST BRAHMIN
Indeed I did. The moment that he uttered
The name of God in idle mockery
I sprang upon him filled with godly rage
And slapped his cheek into a crimson fire.
(A group of worshippers goes into the temple)

2ND BRAHMIN
To save the reputation of our God
And our own honour in the eyes of God,
We must inflict a punishment upon him
Such as would seal his muttering mouth for ever.

3RD BRAHMIN
Perhaps, if we could win as sacrifice
The body of his wife for us to touch
And render holy, he the Panchama
Would reach the fleckless garment-hem of God.
(The group that went in rushes out shrieking)

MEN
Alas! alas! the cheek of God is bleeding!

WOMEN
Alas! His holy eyes are red with weeping!

MEN
A flood of tears has bathed the golden altar

WOMEN
And there’s a shadowy patch upon His garment!

MEN
O who has filled the Lord with tears and sorrow?

WOMEN
Why are you silent. Masters of the temple?
(The Brahmins gape as if struck dumb with lightning)

MEN
You drop your eyes as though you were the culprits!

WOMEN
Vithoba’s curse upon your blood-stained Priesthood!

(Curtain)
–Courtesy “SHAMA’A”
(April 1923)