The Land of Cards

The land of Cards

(A Translation of “Taser Desh” of Rabindranath Thakur by Swastik Roy)
1st Scene
(Location: in the palace/ beside the window)
(The Prince and the Merchant)
Prince: I can’t tolerate this anymore, my friend.
Merchant: Why are you so restless, O Prince?
Prince: That can never be said. Can you tell me why those ducks are so restless in spring flying to the Great Himalayas?
Merchant: There abode is there
Prince: If it is their home there, then why do they leave that behind to come here? No, no, it is the joy flying; there is no other reason behind.
Merchant: Do you want to fly?
Prince: Of course I do.
Merchant: I wish I could understand you. I think, being captivated for some reason is much better than keep on flying without any.
Prince: What do you mean by reason?
Merchant: we accept captivity for claimed subsistence
Prince: You’ll never understand, never you will
Merchant: I’m much concerned of that problem of mine. I can never grasp what can’t be grasped. Will you please be perspicuous to tell me, what has become intolerable?
Prince: these monotonous days in the palace
Merchant: You are calling them monotonous? These numerous provisions, uncountable accessories
Prince: Feels like the deity of stone kept inside a temple of gold, the never ending cacophony of conch shells and brass bells all around, the fixed allotment of oblation, but there is not the heart that enjoys. It’s unbearable.
Merchant: Very much acceptable for someone like me. Fortunately there is a fixed allotment. When all the bondages are snapped, we have nowhere to go. We are content with whatever we get, and you crave for what you can’t get for your contentment.
Prince: And what about those same old minstrels with the same monotonous hymns they chant every day, even a tiger’s roar pleases your ears more.
Merchant: I think, I like those chanting the more I listen to them, they never go weary.
Prince: The same minstrels, the same old priest with that age old rituals of benediction every morning, the same doorman standing like a wooden sculpture beside the door it’s all so monotonous. Every time I wish I could go out, the palace guard comes and says,” Do not go there”, “do not go there”. As if everybody has suppressed my heart with their words.
Merchant: But, sometimes when you do go for pleasure hunting, there is no one to bother you except the wild animals.
Prince: Wild Animals? What are they? I’m in doubt that the royal hunter puts the tigers on opium to make them drowsy, as if they are committed to non-violence; I’ve never seen a single one pouncing like a real tiger.
Merchant: You can always express whatever you feel like, but I think it no lack of showing courtesy on their part. All the fun and grandeur is there and there is nothing to scare.
Prince: A few days ago, when I killed a bear with my arrow, it was praised all around as there is nobody better than me in hitting the bull’s eye. Later I came to know that it was a paper bear, a dead bear skin stuffed with hays. I can never tolerate such joke, and I have put the hunter behind the bars.
Merchant: You have been a benefactor for him. The jail is close to the Queen mother’s chamber and he is taken care of quite well. Only a day or two ago, I sent quintals of ghee and around thirty three goats from my shop.
Prince: What do you mean by that?
Merchant: It was only the order of the Queen mother carried out.
Prince: There it is. We are all tangled up in the net of the untrue. In this secure captivity our wings has lost all their strengths; everything is a pretension and I am a mockery of a prince, I wish I could throw this princely attire away; there, they are working in the field, it is only the good work done by their ancestors that they are allowed to do so in this life.
Merchant: And do you know what do they think of you, will you go and ask them ever? O Prince, you are hiding what’s there in your heart and speaking all meaningless. O Patralekha, perhaps it is you who might guess what is there in his heart, won’t you ask him once?

(Enters Patralekha)

(Song)
Patralekha: The secret will never keep a secret/ it always shows in those silent eyes
Prince: no, no, no, it will never keep a secret
Patralekha: The perturbed smile shows it all/ the sound of the flute carries it/ it comes on lips in dreams secluded
Prince: no, no, no, it will never keep a secret
Patralekha: The Ashoka bloomed in sweet pains in its quest for light and there humming the bees/ under this melancholy sun of this new morning/ totters in the thousand petals of thy heart
Prince: no, no, no, it will never keep a secret
Prince: Secrets I do have in my heart, but those are hidden behind the distant sky. I wait here beside the ocean staring the western horizon, there my fate has concealed pleasures unknown and I will go there looking for that
(Song)

With my merchandise I will go, I will go beyond the ocean/ might I lose my fortune but misfortune I surely get
Merchant: What rubbish, merchandise, you are speaking like a businessman
Prince: which land shall I reach beyond the ocean with my ship, decorated and rowed by a thousand sailors/ which star shall I follow in the dark waters when all limits are crossed. I’ll not die any longer in this desert of gold.
Merchant: To lose your merchandise sailing beyond the ocean, that is not the way to do business. Have you felt something deep inside your heart?
Prince: Of course I’ve, I’ve felt it in my dreams I understood it from the hints
In the lap of the blue, the emerald island is surrounded by corals red /and the sea birds have built their nests up on the rocky cliffs /stormy wind always calling from between the coconut trees/rivulets are flowing quiet in between the dense forests/ there, there lies the treasure at the end of our voyage
Prince: nobina, nobina
Merchant: nobina? At last at least something is clear.
Prince: It’ll take time to take form into a shape tangible
(Song)
O new life, O new day/ I can never see thee in between the daily toils of this life/ I can listen to thy words blowing with the breeze of the spring/ in the morning I feel thee in golden clouds
Merchant: It’ll not be easy to reach that treasure of your dream
Prince: with what playfulness thou come to my dreams/ with heavenly flowers tangled up in wavering hairs / what unknown music play your lyre in seclusion?

(Enters the Queen mother)

Merchant: Queen mother, he wants to get hold of the oasis, he tells he wants to reach the land of the fairy tales.
Queen mother: What is he saying? Do you want to be a child again?
Prince: Yes mother. My heart is restless in this surrounding of old folks and good advices.
Q.M: I know my child; it is the need of feeling the need. You have lost all attraction on what you get. You want to want for something you have never got hold of in your life.
Prince: My heart says I long, I long for that I’ll never get/ amidst everything I get a pain rings in my heart / there is nothing, there is nothing I can never find/ I have to sacrifice myself to get hold of that/ the evening star goes down the horizon only to wake up again as the morning star / he too says, I’m going, I’m going
Q.M: My child, I’ll lose you if I try to force you in, you’ll not be able to bear the burden of comfort, you won’t be able to bear the bondage hospitality, myself being scared will only harm you; I’ll put white sandalwood paste on your forehead, I’ll decorate your white crown with white oleanders. Now allow me to go and arrange for the worship of the deity, then I’ll put collyrium of the evening cessation in your eyes, that will remove all the obstacles of vision on the way.
Prince: Look, the sea is swelling and the wind is picking up/where the setting sun reflects in the cloud/ look everywhere and is foam and foam and nothing more / if I never reach the shore still the ocean bed will be there for me / I’ll live no more with frustrated mind in the captivated corner of my room/ i’ll reach the unknown sailing past the boundless ocean being the secluded sailor in my ship forlorn/ I’ll sail with new winds from one island to another and load my ship with pleasures experienced never before/ and when my poor mind will return it’ll be poor no more
(Cut to……)

2nd Scene
(Location: Sea shore in the land of the cards)

(The Prince and the Merchant)

Prince: It’s a journey from one land to another. We lost the ship in deep sea and is carried by the waves to this land. It seems that a new chapter of life has began after so many days.
Merchant: When it is something new you quite lose yourself, o Prince. But I’m scared most of the time to face the unknown. The old seems much more comfortable.
Prince: A frog is always content inside its waterhole. You don’t understand that we escaped the depth of death. The God of death has provided us with the blessing of new life.
Merchant: You are the beholder of the Royal Symbol by your birth right.
Prince: That is nothing but alms of fate. The God of Death has cleaned that up with ocean water and ordered me to win a new kingdom in this new land with the power I found new.
(Song)

The broken ship of ours has sunk beneath the ocean and we reach this land unknown/ it gives glimpses of hope that were never before, never before such happiness and such pains were weaved in such colorful threads/ in my heart I listen to some music unknown/ unknown pleasures will make me laugh and shed tears / in spring, during the celebration of youth, the wavering wind will lose way among the clove flowers of the orchard/ there my beloved will tie her heart to mine with floral wreaths made of flowers unknown.
Merchant: it sounds so good in the song of yours, but I beg to ask you where did you find celebration of youth in this new land, we walked all around the isle which looks like an orchard made by some carpenters. Everybody is walking with geometrical wooden steps I saw, their body is flat, khit khit khut khut sounds they make while walking, as if wearing ankle chains of lines and angles made of tamarind timber. There is no life here and you call it a new land.
Prince: It only means that they are all artificial, nothing natural is there. It is a shell imposed upon them by the learned men of the isle. And for that reason only we are here. It’ll amuse them when we’ll unveil the natural face of theirs.
Merchant: we are tradesman, we bargain for only what we can see, and you believe what you don’t see. That’s it, let’s find out if there is fire beneath the ashes. I think we’ll go breathless by trying to blow it to life again. Look, look, they are coming this way, walking as if ghosts are dancing in dead bodies.
Prince: let’s stand aside and see what is taking place.
(Enter the pack of cards)
(Song)

Pick that up, drop that down/ move ahead step back / left and right / no more we want, no more we want / sitting and standing / leaving and catching / no rule is there, no rule is there / stop stop stop
Merchant: look at them. Red robe, white robe, standing up and going down, then they sit and then lay again and all for no apparent reason, very strange isn’t it, ha ha ha
Mr. 6: what’s up’ what’s up, what makes you laugh?
Mr. 5: you don’t have any shame, for your laughter whom to blame?
Mr. 6: you are violating the rules of the land with that laughter of yours.
Prince: Our laughter has at least some meaning, but what you are doing is utter meaningless.
Mr. 6: Meaning, what do you do with meaning. We want rules, are you people insane not to understand that?
Prince: It is never easy to identify a lunatic, how could you identify us
Mr. 5: By that strange behavior of yours.
Prince: And what do you think of us
Mr. 5: I find out that you have only the style and no manners.
Merchant: and you have only manners and no style, isn’t it
Mr. 5: You don’t know manners are our tradition and the style that you have is modern immature useless foolishness. You have never been taught by some teachers. Nobody has told you that there are potholes and swamps on the streets, there are thorns and pricks, there are so many problems in moving around
Prince: This isle of yours seems to be full of teachers; we will take help from those.
Mr. 6: Now will you please tell who are you?
Prince: foreigners we are.
Mr. 6: enough, no need to speak any more. That means that you have no background, no ancestry, no family, no castes, no tribes and no classes and sub-classes. You have just nothing.
Prince: Nothing, nothing, just nothing we have and whatever remains is here just in front of you. And what about you?
Mr. 6: we are the world famous family of cards. I’m Mr. 6 Sharman.
Mr. 5: I’m Mr. 5 Barman
Prince: and what about them, standing shyly at a distance?
Mr. 6: in that black robe is Mr. 3 Ghosh.
Mr. 5: And in the black robe is Mr. 2 Das.
Prince: How did you come on this isle?
Mr. 6: When Brahma got tired creating this universe and during the evening he yawned and from that first yawn of his we are created.
Mr. 5: That’s why in some stupid foreign tongue we are also called the yawn family.
Merchant: Strange that is.
Mr. 6: in that pious shadowy dusk the Grand Father yawned simultaneously with his four heads
Merchant: Amazing, what happened after that?
Mr. 6: and there came shuffling out, Spades, Diamonds, Hearts and Clubs, all are honorable families.
Prince: Everybody belonged to the nobility?
Mr. 6: Of course, the most honorable one, created from the mouth.
Mr. 5: After taking a nap for four days, the great old poet of the cards community, Mr. Amazingcard got a rhythm in his dreams and counting on the meter of that rhythm are created the thirty seven and half manners of us.
Prince: We want to know at least one of them.
Mr. 5: OK, then turn around
Prince: Why
Mr. 6: It is the law of the land. Mr. 5, chant the sacred stanzas and blow into their ears a few times each
Prince: Why
Mr. 5: It’s the law of the land
(Song of Cards)

Just yawning / nothing doing / time pass time pass / come, come, come / nothing doing, nothing doing
Prince: I can bear with no more, I’m turning my head
Mr. 5: Eh, eh, he broke the rhythm and spoilt everything
Prince: Spoiled everything?
Mr. 5: What else if not spoiling it. If any foreign eye falls on those sacred stanzas, it is corrupted
Prince: Now how do you solve that problem?
Mr. 6: We have to make collyrium by burning bat-eaten mangosteen seed sand wear that in the eye for three consecutive days, only then our forefathers will break their fast in the heaven.
Prince: I understand I made a mess of it, we have to take care while moving around in your island
Mr. 6: Better you don’t move at all, only then you’ll stay clean
Prince: And what happens if I stay clean
Mr. 6: You don’t even understand that. It is all clean if you stay clean.
Prince: It is not possible for us to understand. Let me ask you something, what were you doing on that bank high on the river?
Mr. 6: It was war.
Prince: You call that war?
Mr. 5: of course we do, that is in complete accordance with the rules and regulations of the cards dynasty
(Song)
We are strange and we are painted / we are pure and very much sacred
Merchant: Let it be, but if there isn’t any anger in a war, there is no fun.
Mr. 6: our color is our anger / in our war / no anger is there / look at the Joker / very much sober.
Merchant: Let it be, let it be, but guns and cannons look much better in a battlefield.
Mr. 5: we have no arms and no military uniforms / we have no greed and we complain never / we don’t love neither we do pounce on
Prince: if there is nothing at all, let it be, let it be, but there must be some complains at least, there should be some reason to fight
Mr. 6: As we are taught, we always do follow that / bother not with your friends bother not about your foes / bother not with everything and bother not when nothing goes.
Mr. 5: O foreigner, as per with the sacred books, there must be some origin of yours?
Merchant: Of – course we have. At the very beginning of creation, the moment Grandfather Brohma started to sharpen the sun, a sparkle went into his nose, and he sniffed as a cannon fires cannon balls, and from that sniff that shook the world, we were born.
Mr. 6: now I understand, that’s why you people are so restless.
Prince: We can’t keep quiet; we are always getting tossed around.
Mr. 5: That’s not good at all.
Prince: Who claims that is good. Till today, we have never been able to control the force of that sniff.
Mr. 6: Still I can find something good in that, that uncontrollable force of sniffing will toss you out of this isle the earliest; you won’t be able to stay here for long.
Merchant: It’ll be hard to sustain.
Mr. 5: And how do you fight.
Merchant: It is by measuring the length of four pair of sniffs from the opposing camps.
Mr. 6: by the length of the sniff; strange indeed. Then heads might collide with each other.
Merchant: Of course they do, they collide head on.
Mr. 6: And you too possess stanzas written by great poets?
Merchant: Surely we, Sniff, sniff / don’t be scared / hold by the neck / punch on the face / tell me, isn’t it comfort that you get
Mr. 6: O Mr. 5, they are not at all like us, which caste do you belong to?
Merchant: We are nasal, born out of the nose.
Mr. 5: I’ve never heard such name of any honorable caste.
Merchant: The vapor of the yawn lifted you up beyond the other world, and the thrust from the sniff has thrown us down here, beside this earth.
Mr. 6: That is why you are as strange as you are born due to the lack of control of The Grandfather on his nose
(Song)
Strange and restless we are / we are the messenger of fresh youthfulness / we color our hearty with the red from the Ashoka flowers / all barriers we break, broken free of all the storms as comes the lightning in darkness / mistakes we make for sure, we plunge in the ocean unlimited never caring for the shore secure / in the thunderstorm that is life we ever feel ready and pure.
Mr. 6 & Mr. 5: (Looking at each other) It is never permissible, it is never permissible
Prince: What is not permitted, we do that only.
Mr. 6: Without caring for the laws of the land?
Prince: The moment the barriers of custom is broken, the customs of the way are created by their own.
Mr. 5: Mr. 6: what is it they are saying. They want to move forward. How easily they can say those words.
Prince: otherwise there is no use of moving.
Mr. 6: Move, why should you move, the rules will move.
(Sings) Abide by the rule and never try to look beyond your vision / never turn your head and always walk upon easy treads.
Prince: Look, never look at that forests, look at those streams snaking through those southern mountains / no rules are there nor are regulations, there are no chains
Cards: Do not look there, do not look / do not go there, do not go / always walk upon easy treads
Mr. 5: Stop, stop, enough we have, there comes the king, there comes the queen. The king will hold the court here; now take these branches of gourd, one each everybody.
Prince: branches of gourd, but why?
Mr. 5: The Law of the land.

(Enters King, Queen, Ace, Joker; everybody with proper movement)

Prince: Let me sing to please the King, brothers, please wave the branch of gourd in your hands.
(Sings) Hail’ hail the great family of cards / in the distant shore of slumber they larks / destroying all fun and leisure beyond all measure

Cards: Stop, stop, stop, and those uncivilized people brought the court to an end premature
King: Silence, silence, who are they?
Mr. 6: Outlanders.
King: Outlanders? Then they are beyond the laws of the land. Everybody change position and all blemishes will exculpate. First it is the time for the national anthem of the great isle of the cards.
Cards: Clubs and hearts and spades / in some ancient reason moving their legs / Clubs and hearts and Spades. / Somebody gets up, somebody goes down, and some just shifts a little bit / some sprawls on ground wasting time as if no importance of it. / Nobody smiles a little and none speaks their mind / whoever comes forward others follow close behind / the movements are the same forever and no irregularities there / there is no change what so ever, there is no change what so ever.
King: Listen you outlander
Prince: Yes honorable king
King: Who are you?
Prince: A messenger from the other side of the ocean
Joker: Any gift you brought for the king?
Prince: I’ve brought the rarest thing in this land of yours.
Joker: And what is that?
Prince: Problems.
Mr.6; Listen honorable king, listen to what is he saying. This man wants to move ahead and you won’t believe it he laughs too. He will make all gloom disappear from the air of this island.
Joker: There is no planet where such gloom hangs in the air and the wind is as heavy as this, even the thunder of the god won’t be able to shake it. What they can do doesn’t matter at all
Cards: What they can do doesn’t matter
Joker: And what happens if this outlander really clears the gloom of the air?
King: That’s a grave problem.
Cards: That’s a grave problem.
Joker: Even a slight breeze may be followed by a storm, and when a storm does come blown away are all rules and regulations and then our priest Mr. 9 Goswami might also say that he’ll move ahead.
Mr. 6: Even, God forbade, their smile may also prove contagious in this island of the Cards.
King: Listen to me, you joker of Spades
Joker: Yes, my king
King: You are the editor, isn’t it?
Joker: I’m the editor of the Lamp of The Land, the guardian of the culture of the island of the cards.
King: Culture, now what is that? Doesn’t please the ear at all.
Joker: No, Mr. King, it is neither pleasing nor clear. But what do they say, the new, most modern contribution. Today, this culture is in danger.
King: You have editorial columns in your publication, isn’t it?
Joker: Yes my king, two long columns.
King: You have to drown all other sounds by the roar of those columns. We’ll never tolerate the gloom removed from the air of this island.
Joker: We need some mandatory rules.
King: What did you say? Mandatory rules?
Joker: This is the new language of the land of the twisted ears.
King: Leave it. I’ll take care of that afterwards. Out lander, do you have something to ask for?
Prince: Yes, I do, but I won’t ask you.
King: Then to whom?
Prince: To the Princesses.
King: Yes, you may proceed.
Prince: (Sings) O silent beauty like a statue of white marble / welcome the restlessness in your heart / come alone to the orchard, all alone / let new flowers of pain bloom blushing with the rays of the sun
Queen: What is this anarchy? Why this grave injustice?
Mr. 5: Mr. King, exile, exile for the outlanders.
King: Exile. Queen Lady, what do you think? Why do you keep silent? Can’t you hear me? What do you think of exile?
Queen: No, he can’t be exiled.
Miss Aces: No, he can’t be exiled.
King: Queen Lady, you look different.
Queen: I myself is feeling that there is some change.
Joker: Miss Ace, Miss Spade, never ever forget that I write the editorial columns.
Cards: Culture, culture, save the culture of the land of the cards.
Joker: Implement the mandatory law.
King: What is that?
Joker: The law of twisting ears.
King: I see. Queen Lady, what do you think? Now is the time to implement the mandatory law.
Queen: We’ll also implement the mandatory rule in the female ward of the palace. Let’s see who is exiled and by whom?
Miss Aces: We will implement the anarchy of disobedience
Joker: Catastrophe strikes. Our culture is lost, Our culture is lost, Our culture is lost.
King: The court is adjourned. Come everybody, this place is no safer for us.
(Exit the cards)
Merchant: partner, I can bear with it no more. They are the joke of God. In their company we’ll only spoil ourselves.
Prince: But you can never see what is taking place in their heart. Can’t you see the advent of fresh life in those sculpted figures? I’m not going to leave unless I experience the end of it.
Merchant: But it is the cage of those living dead. The anesthetic of law has paralysed their heart.
Prince: Look there my friend.
Merchant: Hmmm, the enchanted stanzas from beyond the ocean have started to cast a spell. Mr. 9 of Spades is staring in the sky sprawling under a tree. It seems that all the laws of the land exist no more.
Prince: He is listening to the footsteps of miss club from the sky. He may not like our company any more. Come on, let’s go from here.
(Cut to……)
3rd Scene
(Location: Under the Bokul Tree in the Courtyard of Miss Spade)
(Miss Spade is dressing, enter Miss Ace)
Miss Ace: The name that rings in the strings of your lyre / my friend whisper that to my ear / the name that’ll melt with the chirping of the birds, with the spring breeze in forest bowers/ that name smelling like the fragrant Bokul will waver in the lips of your friend/ and in those lonely full moon nights they will sing that name to comfort you.
Miss Spade: O friend, will you please tell what happened to this land of the cards, those outlanders has brought this air of freedom with them from which land unknown. My heart is throbbing since.
Miss Ace: even a day or two ago, it was unimaginable that the cards will lose their methods and start to behave like those human beings. Shame, Shame, what a Shame.
Miss Spade: Can’t you see my dear, it is a gross misbehavior to try to behave like the human do. And everything is started by that Miss Hearts. Haven’t you seen that now days, she has changed a lot a just like those people, she even forgets when and beside whom she has to stand, everybody is talking about her. She has put the land to shame.
(Enters Miss Club)
Miss Club: O Miss Ace, I came to know that you are spreading rumors about us? You are saying that we stand when we should sit and sit when we should stand.
Miss Ace: Only the truth I have spoken and there is no wrong in it, it’s whose color that is making you blush, and collyrium from which foreign land has made those eye=brows such captivating; the books of the land of cards has never recorded something like that in the previous seven generations. What do you think? Nobody notices such changes?
Miss Club: As if I’ll die in shame. And you are spending time whispering with your companions sitting under this Bokul tree, is that prescribed in the sacred books of the land? And there the poor joker has lost his pair and is dying for it.
Miss Spade: Here comes the teacher; better you advise not. The laws and the culture of this land of cards will strangle to death in the knots of that colored ribbon you use in your hair; how can you be such naïve being a lady of the great family of cards.
Miss Club: So what, I’m not scared of anybody, and I can’t play hide and seek any more as you do. That day, that Miss 10 of yours, teased me by calling me a woman,. I told her in plain and simple that it is better to be an woman than living like a dead lady of the cards.
Miss Spade: never you be so proud, never ever. You know there are words about isolating you and push you out of our caste.
Miss Club: The caste of the cards, I myself have done away with that, how can they scare me more?
Miss Spade: Good God, I’ve never heard such anarchistic words. Disregarding everything she is going to be a woman. Miss Ace, let’s go; someone might see us with her and create problem for us too
(Cut to……)
4th Scene
(Location: Sea Beach and forest of the land of the cards)
(Enters the ace of hearts)
Miss Heart: When I came to pluck this flowers I knew not my heart / but this is not only plucking flowers / this is not about that at all / I never know what comes to my heart and tears fill my eyes.
(Enters the King of Diamonds)
Mr. Diamond: Here you are, miss Heart, my day is nearly spent out looking for you.
Miss Heart: Why? What for? What do you want?
Diamond: You have been summoned to the GorabuMondol of the court.
Miss Heart: Tell them, I’m lost.
Diamond: Lost?
Miss Heart: Yes, lost, for whom you are searching for is lost for ever and you’ll never find her again.
Diamond: What is this? How dare you? You have come to this forest? Don’t you knoe it is against the law of the land?
Miss Heart: I agree that it is against the law of the land. But you tell me by which law those rain clouds are hovering above in yhe sky of this dry land of the cards? Why is the smell of rain there in the air? I wake up early this morning only to see dark clouds taking over the blue of the sky. Till this morning, the peacocks of this land danced with measured steps, danced with care, but today why is it dancing like a bird possessed, spreading it’s wing as much as it can?
Diamond: but to whom her own courtyard is like foreign land has come to the forest to pluck flowers. How can this strange idea come to your mind?
Miss Heart: Suddenly I felt like it; as if in some life previous I used to do like this and the easterly wind carried todat the fragrance of that lost garden to the senses of my soul and bees come humming in my heart from the Madhobi bower of that life lost long ago.
(Song)
Bees come humming to my garden / and I could never know the man whose words they carry / flowers bloom in the forest in the lights of some sky I’ve never seen / and the wind brings in the news of those awaken flowers thrugh out the day / how can I stay indoors and spend time counting seconds while my heart is restless / by the spell of which magic, he made me forget all my duties and my day is spent weaving threads with the melody of his music.
Diamond: I’m looking for all the ladies for the GorabuMondol of the court, they too are
Miss Heart: Yes, thet too are here, scattered everywhere beside the river, beneath the trees
Diamond: what are they doing here?
Miss Heart: Just like me they are undergoing a change, look how am I looking? Do you like it?
Diamond: It seems as if the veil has been removed, the moon has come out from behind the clouds, completely new look
Miss Heart: Mr. 6 & Mr. 5 came to threaten us, go and see what has happened to them.
Diamond: Why? What is wrong with them?
Miss Heart: They are roaming as if lost all their senses, sighing and sometimes singing too.
Diamond: Singing? Mr. 5 & Mr. 6 is singing?
Miss Heart: They are not very melodious, but still they are singing. Then I was braiding my hair and suddenly I couldn’t control myself, and I came out here rushing.
Diamond: You are amusing me. Braiding your hair? Where from you learn it?
Miss Heart: From nowhere. Look there, a shower of rain gives a new life to those springs dried up long ago, and started flowing and knotting with each other. Who taught them this? Come along, I’ll make you listen to what Mr. 6 & Mr. 5 is singing.
(Enters the Queens)
Queens: (Singing and dancing) some melody unknown is whispered to me / and all my thoughts are swept away by that flood of music / as if some lost tune is wondering behind the shadows of life forgotten / pining for the lost lyre that played that / all my thoughts drifted towards the stars in those sleepless nights of spring.
(Exit)
(Mr. Diamond & Miss Heart reenters)
Diamond: Whom am I going to blame for this? I myself feel like singing.
Miss Heart: Careful, the editor should never know. Otherwise, he will put you on the columns. He is also here, to gather information about this forest.
Diamond: Look, Miss Heart, I know not why, I’m not scared any more. Ask me to do something. For you I want to do something brave.
Miss Heart: Do whatever you fill like; only do not sing anymore; better you bring those red hibiscuses for me, I’ll paint my feet with the extract from them.
Diamond: Look, O beautiful, the moment I woke up this morning I felt that this card life of ours is nothing but a bad dream and suddenly that is broken. I smell a new life in the air. It is those words in our lips, it is that music that is ringing in our ears. Listen, listen to that song I composed long ago, someone is bringing that back from behind the sky.
(Song) let the color from the flowers of my heart’s bower / may paint those feet of yours / let my music play like the earrings in your ear / as if I garlanded you with corals, red from the passion of my heart
Miss Heart: Stanzas composed for me in some distant past? How could you?
Diamond: The way you braided your hair
Miss Heart: Do you still remember that I danced with the music you played, like some memory forgotten
Diamond: Now they are reappearing again, they come back. I’m only thinking that how could I forget all these for so long a time
(Song) the wind restless sailed in the boat of my music / and it put rhythm, it put rhythm to those dancing legs of yours / if the oar is lost / if waves fume up with foams and death waits for me in those sleepless nights / I scare not, must shall I win thee.
Diamond: Miss Heart, my heart is restless, restless to fight with the god of death. I can visualize in my mind / you put the pious mark of victory on my forehead, I went to rescue the lady captivated beating my drums in front of the closed castle gate / and still in my ears I listen to the song you sang during our separation
(Sings) I’ll spend long sleepless nights for thee / bring that winning wreath for me / when your feet will touch the land of death / my heart will be restless in that bosom of mine / if everything is lost, I’ll be your partner in peril.
Miss Heart: Come, come O valiant, let us break free with little care for death. I can see we have to walk through angry obstacles of those black stones ahead of us. If they crash on our head, let it be. We’ll make our way blasting through the heart of that mountain. What is the reason for still being here, shame, shame on us. What are we doing? Such meaningless days we spend and such lifeless nights and every moment it is the same repetition of failure.
Diamond: Do you have the courage? O beautiful?
Miss Heart: I do, I do.
Diamond: will you not scare of the unknown?
Miss Heart: No, no, never I’ll.
Diamond: Your feet will bleed; the road inaccessible will never seem to end.
Miss Heart: In times long forgotten, we tread through that terrain inaccessible. In dark nights I held the torch for you, in daylight I carried the flag of yours, always staying in front of you. Now, stand up again, we have to break through this boundary of laziness, this is the limit of lifelessness, we have to sweep aside all these garbage of time.
Diamond: Tear that veil away, tear it in pieces / be free, be pure, be complete
(Exit)
(Enter Mr.6 & Mr. 5)
Mr.6: Hey, Mr. 5, can you tell me actually what happened to us?
Mr. 5: I feel ashamed the moment I look at myself. Fool, fool, a fool I’m, what was I doing all the time?
Mr. 6: After so many years, why the heart is asking questions? What is the meaning of all these?
Mr. 5: there comes Mr. 10 Pandit, let’s ask him
(Enters Mr. 10 pandit)
Mr. 6: For so many days we are spending time with the methods of rise and fall, sitting and standing, what do they mean
Mr. 10: Keep quiet.
Mr. 5 & 6: We won’t keep quiet.
Mr. 10: Aren’t you scared?
Mr. 5 & 6: No fear any more, you have to tell the meaning of everything.
Mr. 10: There is no meaning, only law.
Mr. 6: What if we don’t follow the law?
Mr. 10: You’ll go to hell.
Mr. 6: we’ll go to hell.
Mr. 10: What will you do there?
Mr. 5: We’ll fight with humility if that is there.
Mr. 10: They sound like words of a rogue in our land of peace.
Mr. 5: We’ve decided to destroy all piece that is there.
(Enters Miss Heart)
Miss Heart: The peace we have here is like an old tree, hollowed and killed from inside. There is life no more and we have to cut that down.
Mr. 10: Shame, shame, shame on you. Such words from your lips. You are a woman, you will maintain peace, we are man, we will maintain culture.
Miss Heart: You have made a fool of us for a long time pandit, but no more, our blood has frozen in the winter of your peace, deceive us no more.
Mr. 10: damn it! Where from you learn those words?
Miss Heart: I’m calling them from deep inside my heart, it’s the voice singing that I hear from the sky.
Mr. 10: Damn again! Music from the sky? It is time for the land of cards to perish. I must leave.
(Exit)
Mr. 6: O beautiful, you show us the way.
Mr. 5: You have learnt the secret of the chaos, share that with us.
Miss Heart: Even the god is blaming us for the insults that foolishness brings. Come, let’s go.
Mr. 6: Even if you move a little, they find fault with you and call you corrupted.
Miss Heart: Let them find faults, but there is nothing pure in living that way we did.
(Exit)
(Miss Spade and Miss Ace are plucking flowers)
Miss Ace: Miss 10 is coming, now nobody can save us.
Miss 10: Where are you hiding from me? Who is there I can’t recognize? My god, it is pur Miss Ace, and who is she? She is the Miss Spade of us. What have you done with yourselves? I’ll prefer to die than being such naïve. You wanted to look like human? Aren’t you ashamed?
Miss Ace: We didn’t put on a new skin, only the old one is lost.
Miss 10: The unbreakable thread of the land of the cards with a thousand knots for a thousand years has dropped down? Hoe is that possible?
Miss Spade: It was a gentle breeze that blown it away.
Miss 10: Impossible, what are you saying? Is it possible for any breeze I this land of cards to those knots? Do not accuse the god of our wind. Do you think of it as a foreign land that a gentle breeze will blow away dead leaves from the trees?
Miss spade: O sister, look at you and see what changes the god of our wind has made.
Miss 10: look, such words coming from your lips can never please. He is our old god of the wind. But in the books, but in the books it has been written that he has a very valiant son and he is very good at jumping around. Perhaps he has put a spell on you.
Miss Ace: Why are you scolding us only? Can’t you see he is jumping around the land of the cards and igniting the burning fire of desire in the heart of all card ladies?
Miss Spade: The men from the other side of the sea are telling that it is he who is their forefather.
Miss 10: May be, they might belong to a family that jumps around.
Miss Ace: O sister, tell me the truth. Don’t you feel restless deep inside your heart? No, no, Do not keep quiet.
Miss 10: I fear you might tell somebody.
Miss Ace: Here I touch you to promise I’ll never disclose.
Miss 10: Very early this morning, in my dreams I saw that I’ve become a human and moving just like them, when the dream suddenly broke, I was so ashamed, but
Miss Ace: But what?
Miss 10: no, nothing, leave that
Miss Spade: I see, I see, the caged bird of light has broken free in her dreams.
Miss 10: Quiet, quiet, if 9 pandit comes to know he will order penance. That’s sin. But it was so much amusing in the dreams.
Miss Ace: Whatever you say, the breeze from the other side of the ocean is blowing hard in this land of the cards. We can’t hold on anything, everything is being blown away.
Miss 10: Let it be, some of them are blown away and some will be left, the veil is removed from over my face but that air couldn’t straighten the chained anklets.
Miss Spade: That’s true, my heart is oscillating between the two shores of the ocean, miss club is so very fascinated to look like a human that she has put on a human mask, and that too is made in the factory inside the palace of the cards. How amazing it looks
Miss 10: We don’t know how we are looking. Yesterday, from behind a tree I the Merchant saying that we are making a mockery of humane.
Miss Ace: Shame, what a shame, and what did the prince say?
Miss 10: The Prince was angry at him and said that we at least have choice now with those make ups and he asked not to laugh at us. He also said that if the Merchant really wants to love then he should go and laugh at those men who pretends and dresses as cards among those humane.
Miss Spade: My God, is that possible, imitating the cards being human? So what do they do?
Miss 10: The prince was saying that they rub color sticks on their lips and paint eyebrows with black and a lot more like us, the painted cards and what’s most funny is that they put on high heel leather at their feet.
Miss Ace: Why?
Miss 10: To get promoted in the society, not to touch the ground, just like the cards, the style is to paint, to decorate.
Miss Spade: Everything is the funny mischief of the god of the wind, the cards want to be like human by shading their colors off while those people want to paint themselves like cards; but O dear, I’ve decided to learn the secret of human beings from the prince.
Miss Ace: Me too.
Miss 10: I also want, but I’m scared, I’ve heard that they suffer so many pains, the cards suffer nothing like that.
Miss Spade: You are talking about pain, it is already dancing in my heart
Miss Ace: As if I’ve been addicted to that pain, why my eyes always feel with tears I never know
(Sings) Why the mind is so restless / why the eyes always feel with tears / as if suddenly I remember something / nothing can I remember but still I do / as if someone has troubled my heart / as if someone has ignored and that brings pain to my soul / as if suddenly I remember something / nothing can I remember but still I do
Miss Spade: Escape quickly, the editor is coming. Today the court will hold under the old Neem. We must leave.
(Exit)
(Enter the king etc.)
King: This place seems to have changed. What is that smell?
Mr.5: Of Kodamba.
King: Kodamba? Strange. Give it a new name proper to our language, say,Dotted. Today we can hardly work. Today you listen words in the sky, it is music in the air. It troubles a lot to keep control on my heart. It was impossible to keep the Queen lady indoor this morning. She is dancing around as if in some magic spell. The members of the court, today I can’t even recognize you, you are not dressed proper for the court, you look like uncivilized.
Cards: No fault of ours. The robes became loose and dropped down and are scattered on the streets and in the lanes of the isle.
King: Editor, it seems you have lost your composure too.
Joker: I was in the forest since morning and got the infection from there. The pen rhymed with words when I tried to write the columns. Perhaps this is what the modern doctors call influenza.
King: Give me some example.
Joker: Where the wind doesn’t follow any law mandatory / where Mr. 10 is the theoretician / there how can you save the culture / it will face doom in future.
King: Stop. No more I need. Include it in the text book of class four. The children of the cards dynasty will memorize.
Mr. 6: We are not children of class four any more. Suddenly today we are feeling that we have grown up. That rhythm is not touching our heart.
Mr. 5: O outlanders, could you give us a taste of that music from the other side of the ocean.
Prince: yrs, I can. Then listen to me
(Sings) The thunderous May spread the words of lightning across the clouds / creating rhythm fearless in the branches of the trees / the birds fly under a spell of emptiness with wings free to travel destinations unknown / my heart is churned by the rhythm of blacks and whites, of rights and wrong, of numerous strights and turns/ that rhythm danced in the pious fire / that rhythm danced in the eye brows of soldiers valiant/ it danced with the chariot wheel in the path inaccessible.
King: Do you understand anything?
Cards: just nothing.
King: then?
Cards: The heart is amazed.
King: That’s not good. Now listen to a stanza from the old book of us.
(Sings) He who is quiet / the god of death pushes aside / tastes and leaves behind / saying there is no need of mine
Listen to me, you outlander
Prince: Order O king
King: Why are you wondering restless around the isle of the Cards, you are taking a dip in the ocean, climbing up the mountains, you are making way in the forest to make way with the axe in your hand. Why you are doing all these?
Prince: And O king, you are always sitting down and standing up, turning on your side or showing back or lay on the ground. Why all these?
King: Those are our rul.
Prince: And those we wish.
King: Damn! Wish! Wish in this land of cards. My friends, what do you think?
Mr. 6 & 5: We have taken the consecration of wish from him
King: What is that?
Mr. 6 & 5: (Sings)
He who is breaking, is creating / he is giving and taking / he is trying to break the lock / it is he who can escape from all bondages / and will himself return to accept the chain.
King: Go away, go away from here. Miss Heart, can’t you hear me? Miss Club, look how she behaves. Suddenly what happens to her?
Miss Heart: I wish
Miss Aces: Wish
King: What’s wrong with you, Queen lady, where are you going?
Queen: I can’t sit here no more.
King: Queen Lady, I’m in doubt your mind is restless.
Queen: There is no doubt it is restless.
King: You know restless is the most offensive crime one commits in this land of the cards?
Queen: I know, and I also know that this is the crime you want to commit to enjoy
King: what a punishable offence, you want to enjoy? Have you forgot the language of the land of the cards
Queen: In the tongue of the land, you call a chain an ornament, now this is time to lose that tongue.
Diamond: yes, Queen Lady, the jail is the in-law’s home
King: Quiet
Miss Heart: They call a dumb a saint
King: Quiet
Mr. 5: to them dying is living.
King: Quiet
Queen: And to them heaven is a crime. Say everybody, hail to wish, hail to you
King: Queen Lady, for you it is exile to the forest
Queen: That’ll save me
King: Exile. Stop, are you going? Where are you going?
Queen: in exile
King: Leaving me behind?
Queen: Why should I leave you behind?
King: them?
Queen: I’ll take you with me
King: Where?
Queen: to exile
King: what about them? My subjects?
Cards: will go to exile
King: Mr. 10 Pandit, what do you think?
Mr. 10: the exile is better
King: And your books?
Mr. 10: I’ll immerse them in the river
King: and the law mandatory?
Mr. 10: will no more stay in effect
Cards: No more be in effect, no more be in effect
King: Where are those outlander human beings?
Prince: Here, here we are
Queen: will we be able to be like you?
Prince: Of course, surely you’ll.
King: O outlander, what about me? Will I?
Prince: I’m in doubt. But the Queen is with you. Hail the queen
(Everybody sing)
Break all barriers, Break all barriers, Break all barriers / set free the soul captivated / let frivolous and joyous mind sweep through the rivers dead / Sing the songs celebrating destruction / whatever old and whatever weary let them flow away/ let them flow away, let them flow away / we have heard the call of nothing to fear, nothing to fear, nothing to fear / as it is the call of something new / we are not scared of the unknown anymore and we rush towards that closed door of the unknown.

The End