The Game of Love

Scene 1
Chorus: On the earth and water magic nets of love we weave with guile
1st: Composing dreams we fill the lazy eyes
2nd: Silently we enter the heart and place the magic throne of love
3rd: Upon the southern breeze enchanted wave we create of love
1st: In every soul we create broken songs n unfinished rhymes like the bee hummed
Orchard
Chorus: We weave the net of magic
2nd: the heart of man and girls we join with magic threads
3rd: Many mistakes they make, so many smiles n tears
1st: We cast the shadow of love upon both with love and foreplay
2nd: The lonely meets his soul mate in his dreams
Chorus:: We weave the net of love
1st: Let’s go, let’s go to the magic of dreams and playfulness
2nd n 3rd : let’s compose new rhymes of love in young hearts,
And spend the night of spring in merriment
Chorus: we weave the net of love
Scene 2
Shanta: o directionless traveler where are you going in this garden of happiness, where
Are you going; for whom you pine for with those joyous dreamy eyes, whom do you pine for! And where lies your unmindful eye, where have u lost your world
Rowing the magic boat of life you travel to the land of magic
Amar: As if for the first time Spring has entered life/my heart is throbbing with new wishes/ it is all so lively in this new life/My heart wants to escape this land of joy and merry/ to whom he wants to devout his heart/I’ll look for thee all direction
(Enter the girls of love)
Chorus: It is so near yet you can’t see her/ for whom you travelled miles
(To Shanta)
Amar: As breezes blowing from south brings the fragrance of flowers blossomed at some distance/ like that I’ll travel to thee/I know not where I’ll get her/the universal music rings in thy voice/morning comes to light in those eyes/I’ll look for thou everywhere/in thou heart love is eternity.
Daughters of Love: thou pine for thy soul mate/ she is not from this world/she is the fancy of your heart/on those pious moments you will find her, who is your soul mate.
(Looking Backstage)
Shanta: My heart longs for thee/ it’s you, it’s you o my heart/I’ve nothing and none accompanying me except you in this world/If you pine for content/go, go in search of that/I’ve given you my heart and I want nothing more/away from You I’ll cease to exist/I’ll stay beside you for long days months and years and for longer nights/If you love someone else/If you never return/then you should get for what you have longed/let all the sorrow be mine.
Chorus: You can’t see yet she is so near you/for whom you have travelled miles
1st: You are dying for your soul mate/
2nd: she is not from this world/she is the fancy of your heart
3rd: on those pious moments you will find her, who will be your soul mate
1st: Who loved you with heart you never recognized her
2nd: How many doors you will go begging
3rd: you’ll never get what you are looking for/moreover you will also lose the heart you already won
Scene 3
(Garden)
(Maids of Promoda)
1st: O dear, where has he gone/Call him, call him in please
Chorus: Under the bough we will encircle him all
1st: Today, in this wonderful evening, he’ll be happy wondering amidst the flowers of this orchard and we’ll watch thee…
2nd: The stars are in the sky/the southern breeze is blowing and a bird sang out loud in its slumber
1st: Come o happy face/ come with spring
Chorus: Blossom beauty under the tree
(Enters Promoda)
Promoda: O friends, please put this fancied bakul wreath around my neck/ take care to pluck the unblossmed jasmines and put them in my coiffure/behold the disturbing tresses coming over my cheeks
1st: You look so beautiful today as if rendered powerless by joy
2nd: Your lips can’t hold thy smile back as if beauty is oozing out and dropping down to earth
1st: O friends, come, come and see/ this young lady can’t bear her beauty any longer
3rd: O friends/the hour of love and merriment is over/How can I like it anymore/that anxious thirst, the thirst of love/in my heart I bear no more/when will that day come in my life/eyes’ be in drooping concord/ the sweet burns of that graceful fire/everyday will haunt with new passions/soft drops of tears will brim over my eyelids/all the bright wavering smiles will drown in thee/forlorn breaths will swell upon thy heart/hope and despair will torn thy soul/the light from thy heart will blush thy cheeks/with the colors of the morning sun
Promoda: O dear, I’ll never listen to that lie called love/ the agonies of pleasure, the tortures of love/the language of love I understand not/the flowery knots, the fancied tears/ the execution of life to commit heart/take me, take me my lord/I long for thy recluse/spending sleepless nights for moments of touch and glance/sail the ocean of tears just to bring smile to some other lips/ and destroy all the pleasures of life just by longing for thee
Daughters of Love: the traps of love are scattered under the sky/who knows when one may die/gone are all the prides/tears flow down thy eyes
(Enters Kumar)
Kumar: Behold thee/ do not go, do not go away please/wait for a moment for my heart’s content/midst the flowers and the orchards/why art thou blowing like the wavering breeze/I longed to touch you but never could/as if you are made of dream/come, allow me a stare at my content/and hold thou in me/I’ll cover you with mu soul/I’ll tangle you in flowers/in light and darkness you will always be on the soft bed of love/
Promoda: I never turn to look back who ever calls from behind/flowers bloom and wither/It’s me only always flowing/leaving behind the joys of touch/never you will get that/ with the flowery robes/vines breathing love/ forest after forests are craving for me/I give an ear to thee and pass by/I never turn to look back
(Enters Ashoke )
Ashoke: I’ve come, I’ve come to give my heart to thee for whom I have pined for/to lay my floral heart on her feet/else the rugged earth may pinch/keep’ keep your feet on my heart lady,/ you may crush it down and fill the pain/I’m lost, I’m lost in boundless
Promoda: O friends, ask him, ask him why he pretends so much/why to pretend this smiles, these tears/who can say where the poison or ambrosia is/I know where love will take me with and scared I am
Maids: They don’t know how to cry but to make someone cry/what for all these sweet nothings/ it’s only for playing with love/It’s only about careless life/let’s return my dear / let’s go back
Daughters of Love: the traps of love are scattered under the sky/who knows when one may die/gone are all the prides/tears flow down thy eyes/ on these happy fields you know only to grab/you don’t know how to give yourself away/Leaving behind the shadows of happiness/you will carry with you the pains of pleasure/when thee lyre will play/ your pride will go away/and life will return back in tangles
Scene 4
(Amar,kumar and Ashoke)
Amar: for nothing why are we roaming around/all our desires stayed back in our heart/ if you don’t ask for it the world will give you nothing/ they tend to keep their heart a secret/there are so many souls, but none to love
Ashoke: Why can’t I lay bare my heart in front of her/Can’t show her their pains that lays there/How can she part with a smile without looking back for once/Agonizing such love, so much desire/my love or me pain neither is cared/ everything kept a secret in my heart/If a flower would have been my love/ I would have plucked it out of my body/ and rest it at her footsteps,/She might not pick that up/it may wither longing for love/at least all her doubts would clear
Kumar: Friends, my heart has already brimmed with tears/ what I shall do with others/if one knows not his own heart how he can feel the heart of others
Amar: I roam with a mind that never knows/desires are crying out loud in my heart/If you want to lose your heart, loose it/Why do you need another in return/think of everything as dream/none with you , you are nowhere/who travelling on her own/why you go to accompany her/why are you always after her/open your eyes and get a new look at everything/and be content in your heart
Kumar: Why don’ you know yourself first and let her stay as she is
Ashoke: I know where I am and I have lost my heart beyond no return/ the more I look at her, the more it burns/ silently I carry those wounds of love and yet I can’t die also/I am struck with burning love/the more she burns with her smile the more I pine for thee/that fountain of love I want to drink to content/the more it bleeds in my heart
Amar: if there is no happiness in love then why this pretension of love
Ashoke: Sounds like get a heart for a heart
Amar & Kumar: Why, why to long for something that will never come true
Ashoke: The candle of desire is burning in my heart/ I’m carrying oasis in my eyes/I wander around the desert/
Amar & Kumar: Why, why this thirst that will never quench
Amar: when two hearts come together/ nothing more we pine for/here is the slow breeze, the floral robes/ here is orchard dancing with the cuckoo singing
Ashoke: The world is reduced to sweet nothings/how much tormenting this blind love is/
Engulfing youth and life in its grasp/
Amar & Kumar: then why, why all these meaningless nothing
Maidens of Love: Look, look who is coming, it whose smile in the moon light/open the doors of your heart/pick that up in your life/her fragrance is mixed with that of the flowers
(Enter Promoda with her maids)
Promoda: I’m happy, happy to be my own
P & maids: don’t long for anything, don’t go away/only stare and stay close to each other
Promoda: O dear, express love only through your eyes/ and silently lose your heart/sing from behind the lines you composed with those enchanted words and leave behind the wreath you weave with flowers secretly plucked/
P & maids: do not pine for the heart/ only stare and stay close to each other
Promoda: Happy life, happy nights and the happy southern breeze/this stream of happiness flow by its own/none longs for anything/I’m lost within myself/ scented with my own fragrance/ as if I’ve lost my heart to myself
Ashoke: the pains of love also pleases/ there is no pleasure in being forlorn
P & maids: No, no my dear, we’ll not listen to your lies
Kumar: lose; lose my dear your heart in the heart of your beloved
P & maids: No, no my dear, we’ll not listen to your lies
Ashoke: The dewdrop of pleasures dries soon/ pain is better than pleasure/please bring love to those beautiful eyes
P & maids: No, no my dear, we’ll not listen to your lies
Kumar: The bloomed flowers bloom themselves and wither in the sunshine/ it pleases thee/who will like a life of eternal bud in the eternal nights of dew
P & maids: No, no my dear, we’ll not listen to your lies
Amar: hail thee, whose smile my heart and my life always carry/beyond the secrets of my heart/what pretention makes you throw light on that/someone made me look at life in new robes and color/unknown tunes played in the lyre of my heart/there is no honey that can quench my thirst/even if the moon looks back and smile/even if any bird sings/forlorn breeze blows through the orchard
Promoda: Why is he standing far/why doesn’t he comes closer go go my friends and ask him/what pleasure those shivering lips and eager eyes are pining for
Maids: Shame, shame, what happened to you o dear
1st: Who broke the resistance of your shyness/it took a long for you to come out of your shyness
3rd: How shall I go, what will I ask
1st: if he minds something I’ll die in shame
Promoda: go, go my friends and ask him/what pleasure those shivering lips and eager eyes are pining for
Maidens of love: love has entangled both of thee/look look my friend look at the/two flowers broken from the branches/flows away in the stream of love
(To Amar)
Maids: hail, let’s see/up your eyes/why is there the spell of slumber
Amar: perhaps the wine of passion made them so/that casted the spell of slumber
Maids: Shame – shame – shame
Amar: Dear, there is no harm in that/this is how some people gets wise/some forgetful / few are conscious and few are lost/few eyes sparkle the smile of the beholder some carries the music of pain/its only slumber in my eyes
Maids: Why are you standing like a tree amidst this flowery orchard
Amar: my legs refuses to travel anymore with my weary heart/
Maids: Shame – shame – shame
Amar: Dear, there is no harm in that/ some stays like that some goes away/one may forfeit travel for laziness and still one may be the master of his own will and still some are chained for life/ some eyes may look drunk
Maids: we can’t understand what he is saying/ let’s go, let’s go/for what does he speaks and the way he stares/let’s go, let’s go/ it will kill me for being such impudent/ if he doesn’t want to lose himself who can get hold of thee/ only he knows where his mind and heart is/let’s go, let’s go
Maidens of love: love has entangled both of thee/look look my friends look at them/two flowers broken from the branches/flows away in the stream of love the moonlit night, the honey breeze is neither slept nor is awaken/eyes meeting with other may spell mayhem/ and there sings the cuckoo/ look, look my friends look at them
Scene 5
Amar: with my heart startled and my ears alert/with my thirsty eyes for whom I do wait for nights and days/ I roam restless always eager for a glance of her/ the birds chirping in the bower startles me/ “who’s there” I call for thee/that’s why I long for the dream/ if she comes beyond my sleep/I’ll tangle her in my dreams/ whom I love so much/ I fancy for thee/I can never feel away from her/as if this desire with boundless passion will call thee to me
(Enters Promoda, Maids of Promoda, Ashoke and Kumar)
Kumar: I’ll accept anything you offer from your heart
Maids: Behold him begging for pleasure/ in your mind you pine for the heart and the soul
Kumar: if only flowers you offer I’ll take pride in that
Maids: And what if thorns you get
Kumar: I’ll take that too
Maids: Behold him begging for pleasure/ in your mind you pine for the heart and the soul
Kumar: If you look at me only once, O Dear, with those beautiful eyes/ I will lose myself for life drinking the wine of those eyes
Maids: And if you get a hard glance only
Kumar: I’ll carry that too, pricked in my heart
Maids: Behold him begging for pleasure/ in your mind you pine for the heart and the soul
Promoda: I’m eager to tell my heart/yet no one asked for it/he never came for whom I’ve kept my heart and soul/Does he pine for me/does he sing songs of loneliness/ the music from whose lyre has made me leave my home
Maidens of Love: For a moment of shyness/the heart never came to the lips/ and the pain will stay there for life
(To Promoda)
Ashoke: O dear, let me search for that heart you lost
Maids: Pining for which so many wretched hearts are wondering about
Ashoke: Which fragrant honey, which ambrosia of beauty is kept hidden in thee
Maids: In some magic morning/ with the lovely sunlight you’ll lay it bare to whom
Ashoke: What if he doesn’t come in this life / if he loses the way to this orchard
Maids: when the spring is over/ one who comes may return heart-broken
Promoda: this is not any game, this is not any game/ it’s my heart that’s burning my friends/ this is a life full of desires/ secret pains are there in my heart/ it is to devout my life and death for thee/somebody is calling my heart and making me restless/ my heart longs to go but it never can/my lips want to speak but it never can/ o dear, where should I keep this garlands of love/ I prepared this garland with care but could never give it to thee
1st: I know who is he/ my friend has lost her heart to thee
2nd & 3rd: O who is he? Who is he?
1st: there under the trees he is sitting God knows waiting for whom
2nd: O dear what will happen/ will he ever come and speak
3rd: Does he know what love is/does he care for bondages/with what magic he made our friend lose her heart
2nd: he stares with those forgetful eyes/as if a traveler has lost his way
3rd: as if his senses are entangled in some music unheard/ it has drowned in the moonlight never seen before
Amar: That pretty face stays in my heart/how can I forget you in my dreams and daylight/ whether you know or not/ for you are there always in my heart/ I can listen to the lyre playing on / I can’t express but to stare with sordid eyes
Maids: How will you catch him who surrenders
1st: How will you make him cry who himself is crying
Chorus: When you come closer none stays with you/no one speaks with you when you do
1st: if he gets it he loses it sooner
2nd: He smiles and goes away when pursued with eyes full of tears
(Coming closer to Promoda)
Amar: dear, whom I had loved with all my heart/ will she refuse me to return empty hand/I’m an outsider in this world of earth and water/ I never know what happens here/for whom my heart pines for, will I ever meet her/ I never know/ that’s why I approach the unknown doorsteps of your heart with fear/ I love everything about you/ that unparalleled beauty/that playfulness/ the way you sing and smile/ with everything you have overwhelmed my life/where is your limit in this world
Maids: who are you O man, expressing your desire to our friend
2nd: who cares whether you love her or you don’t
1st: the beautiful moon, the lovely orchards/everybody is smiling/ smiling is the spring in every young heart/ but why do you sigh/ why are you not smiling
Chorus: have you come to destroy our peacefulness/ this fair of hearts among the friends
2nd: take away your sorrow and your shadow form upon our merry hearts
1st: Clear open the joyful ways of life
3rd: Love her from a distance placing her in your heart
Amar: Then you should stay happy/ stay merry/ I’d leave, I’d leave
Promoda: O friends call him, call him please, there is nothing in your sweet playfulness
Maids: O dear, don’t be so restless/nobody returns if wishes are granted/ they return only for desire
Amar: I was alone in my own world/ where is this place I’ve reached/ I never know the ways of this world/ I’ll return if only I could trace my way back to that house of content
Promoda: O friends, call him back, there is no use of such playfulness/ such ignorance
Maids: O dear, don’t be so restless/nobody returns if wishes are granted/ they return only for desire
Maidens of Love: For a moment of shyness/the heart never came to the lips/ and the pain will stay there for life/eyes always eager to meet with the other/ even a blink causes pain in heart/the moment they are open, the dream is over/ such are the guiles of love
Scene 6
Shanta, Enters Amar
Amar: where have I lost that house of comfort/ the sun, the moon and the stars/ the bereaved evening breeze/ where is the content of my soul/ to whom this beggar will go
(To Shanta) I’ve returned and now I know you/ I’ve placed my heart on your feet/give me that comfort of my heart/ give me love, give me content, infuse new life in me
Maidens of Love: Once you’re close to the heart but went away afar/from that distance now you come near her/you travelled around the world/While she was waiting for you/ there was no light of love/ you didn’t know her properly/now the fire of separation has ignited the fire of love
Shanta: be careful dear, do not mistake your love again/ Do not love me because I love you/ do what makes you happy/ never smile to make me happy/ I’m quite content with my loneliness/ there is no use of a moment of life in the darkness that is eternity/ I’ll flow on beyond all the hopes/let it come what may/do not join your fate with that of mine
Amar: A mistake I commit and I’ll correct that now/ now as if my slumber has broken, now I know it all/it is time for no more mistakes/no more mistakes/ I’ve pined for what was never there/ I’ve learnt a dream is nothing but a dream/ the thorn of desire has pricked my heart/ O dear I’ll take repose in your heart full of love/ limitless ocean is this life on earth and no land is in sight
(enters maids of Promoda)
Maids: The bee flies away again and again/ again and again they return to it/that is the life of a flower
1st: the buds want to bloom, but they can’t/ they perish for their shyness/forget all your honors and insults/lose your heart and soul and stay beside all the time
2nd: O, you lose all your hope but something is still left in your desire for love
Chorus: return, please do return O man/the forest air is heavy with fragrance/the forlorn night floats on the dewdrops on the flowers bloomed
Amar: There, someone calls me back/ who ever cares for a retreated soul
Maidens of Love: whom you bid adieu in tears/ how will you make him return/ you still remember him, under this bokul bower, in the sweet breeze under this flower orchard/ now with what magic you will make thee return
Amar: the words from the heart stays there/ who ever suffers pain thinking of me/ I know only the simple words of love from a simple heart/you have so many minds and hearts to play with /don’t leave me to trouble with my heart
Maidens of Love: Then also the sweet night melted in your heart with flowers blooming in every direction/ if a few words of love were muttered/ if you have wreathed thee with love/ now with what magic you will make thee return
(To Amar)
Shanta: whom you have drowned in tears without your knowledge/who is waiting staring blank at the deserted streets/ who has lost all happiness in life/ whose heart is burning to ashes/ in whose eyes you fail to recognize the language of love and never tried too/whose anxious desires of life you crushed under your steps
Amar: I’ve understood none except you/ I got in the light, in the shadows of doubts/ I travelled the world but no one loved me from heart/ I know not if somebody is still waiting/I’m still scared and I’ve learnt only you/ the language from your lips I understand/ you are the shore of my boundless ocean of life
Maids: We spent the night roaming about the orchard/ the forlorn hearts drooped and drowse/the timid moon went beyond the horizon/her heart is in tears
(Enters Promoda)
Promoda: Let’s return friends, let’s go back home/ let my dark eyes be filled with tears/let my forlorn heart shatter to pieces/ let it be beyond all hope/ for whom my heart is craving let him stay away from me
Maids of love: The honey night and the full moon returns back and again/ but who is gone will never return to you/ the time was in favor/ only a moment of mistake makes your heart burn for ever/with what magic you will make thee return
Scene 7
(Amar, Shanta and other gentlemen and ladies)
The Ladies: come o spring, come on this earth/ bring with you the chirping of the birds/ the songs of love/ bring with you the breeze that carries fragrance/ O bring in waves of new youth new life and new happy desires on this earth
The Men: come, come in the Maloti bower full of shivers and murmurs of new leaves/ come with the footsteps of the new sun in soft mornings/ beside the wavering river come in those nights of moonlight/ come in my home in drowsed slumber and happiness
THE LADIES come in the heart of the suffering youth/ come in the eyes content drinking the wine of love /come in the midst of all the sweet shyness/come to hold our hand into yours/ weave new bondage of love with the flowers newly bloomed
(To Shanta)
Amar: The spring has arrived to bring us together/to spread the news of this love in the sweet southern breeze/ the magic pen is drawing new patterns/ and is painting our love story in many colors/ the old rugged earth has turned green/ as if the power of youth is breaking free the barrier of time/ old loneliness is dying/it is time for new love
The Ladies: Our eyes are happy to look at this couple of love/our heart is content
The Men: The orchard is flooded with moonlight/ the fragrant flowers are making everybody restless
The Ladies: Amidst that the pair of love that soothes the soul, pleases the mind/bring the garlands and tie the knot of love
The Men: The flowers will touch the hearts/ the bondage of love will never wither
The Ladies: we will look on forever the couple of love/ that soothes the soul, pleases the mind
(Enters Promoda with her Maids)
Amar: It is dream or it is magic/ it is Promoda or it is her shadow
(To Promoda)
Shanta: Why is there no light in your face with those drooping eyes/ as if you are latent in your own heart?
The Men: It is everybody is looking at/ it is for you the cuckoo is singing and the poor breeze is begging around the garden throughout the day
Amar: It is dream or it is magic/ it is Promoda or it is her shadow
Shanta: as if a cloudlet from the autumn sky has floated in the court of the moon only to perish with a timid smile/ only to droop down weeping
The Men: The full moon is shining in the blue sky/flowers in plenty has bloomed in the orchards/ everybody is holding their thirst back/when will smile come up to those lips
Amar: It is dream or it is magic/ it is Promoda or it is her shadow
Maids: O in this spring there are so many flowers/ such lovely music, so many birds are singing/ it is whose carelessness that my friends soft is bleeding/ why you came near/why you smiled for no reason/why did you came and come no more/ who are living happily let them be/let them spend a happy spring/ these happy faces should never see the tears of that poor lady/ they pretend they can’t see/ they pretend they don’t understand/ they even don’t look back at her
Shanta: I’ve understood everything/ whoever understands or not/which forlorn heart is pining for whom/ forlorn in the loneliness created by itself/ all desires are shading tears in that heart / why should I stand in between and cast my shadow on thee/why should I perish under mistakes
(To Promoda)
Amar: I’ve never felt that but now I can feel/ your love will make him return to you/ our heart is tangled in each other/ there is no more darkness and the eyes are hidden behind tears
Shanta & Ladies: O moon, now you can smile/the lost hearts have again met
Promoda: Why the breeze of spring is still carrying the fragrance of the crushed flowers/ the day is over, now there is no use of such playfulness/ if there is no night left, why the timid lamp is still burning
Maids: When there are no more tears to shade, you come to wipe them/leaving behind the eyes full of tears and laughter
Promoda: Take this, take this garland of love and wear it/ now you play this game of love/let happy be every moment of your life
Amar: Who will take this garland of love soaked with tears amidst this broken hearts/there is no light in the heart, all hopes are gone/ who will carry this eternal pain/ the night of love is lost/ lost are all the smiles and music/ now w ho carries this broken heart/ who will bear this eternal silence of hopelessness
Shanta: If nobody wants, I’ll take thee/ I’ll suffer all the sorrows of yours/ leaving my heart and soul behind, I’ll suffer your heart/ in the daylight of truth I’ll plunge in your eyes/ I’ll tell you the words from that deep boundless happiness
Maidens: The conjugation of pain will never forlorn/there is no more fear, there are no more doubts/the smile that is there in the tears/that stays that stays for ever
Promoda: Why did you come, love and never seek that back/ why didn’t you part after a glance only
Maids: This earth is so cruel it never calls back/ none she tries to hold back in thee/ he who wants to stay, must stay there/ and goes who wants to go
Promoda: Alas, if the desires of life are not fulfilled in this earth/ return in timid face, return slow/none is going to hold you back/ you will take your pains your tears with you/nobody is going to shade tears for you
Maidens of Love: They want love to be happy, but they get that never
1st: Only happiness disappears
2nd: Such are the guiles of love
3rd: they forget whom they want and whom they not
Chorus: That’s why nights are spent in tears/that’s why hearts are burnt/ that’s why all these prides and prejudices
1st: that is why so many tears of loss
2nd: when you forget all pains and happiness in love/ it is only then you are happy
Chorus: Let’s leave friends, the night is over, the dreams has broken then what for all these meaningless nothing
1st1st: the moon went behind the horizon taking the magic of slumber with her
Chorus: Let’s go friends
1st: The story of music of love comes to an end/ now is some smiling and some are shading tears forlorn.


The End

(A DanceDramma of Tagore translated by Swastik Roy )