A small play for the drawing rooms of big men.
Characters
Announcer
Worried Woman
Busy Husband
Tired Officer
Mad Ayah
Rickshaw Puller
Some Voices
[An average sized drawing room. A black screen stands to one side at some remove from the wall, and an Announcer (who must be a woman) stands beside it. The Announcer’s clothes are colourful – a flowery dressing gown with a silk turban and a broad, sparkling cummerbund will do. She holds a big rattle, the kind Tibetan lamas have.]
Announcer
[Shaking the rattle.] We have come into this world all alone, carrying nothing.
Some serious Male Voices from behind the Screen
Who, who hasn’t always been alone here?
Who, who has recognized their neighbour’s face?
A Woman’s Voice
Who, who hasn’t heard in their souls the sobbing and whimpering of life’s first moments?
All alone, carrying nothing, we search for forgotten roads.
We keep searching for our lost brother who left home as a child. A stone, a leaf, a word... Behind which is an unknown and unfortunate beginning.
[The Announcer shakes the rattle. The voices stop. A gong sounds.]
Announcer
We ask questions...
Voices from behind the Screen
We turn gods, laws and human beings into believers. And a power bursts forth from the darkness inside us.
Announcer
[Shaking the rattle.] We create with our soul and destroy with our body, so that we can then embellish it with our truth.
Voices from behind the Screen
Come, let’s sell it in some market. Let’s end this pitiless chemistry of death and destruction in the blink of an eye, so that we can avoid these questions that dazzle our eyes! We keep remembering that same forgotten language – a stone... a leaf... a word...
Announcer
[Shakes the rattle.] We ask questions.
[Shakes the rattle.] That cut through the mirror of time and season like glittering diamonds. Questions that lie spread out on deserted streets like hidden nets.
[Shakes the rattle.] We leave death speechless.
[Shakes the rattle loudly.] Death sings lullabies at our bedsides. We can put our lives in danger, but not our pensions.
[A gong sounds. Now the lights start going out. In a minute, it is completely dark. Only the Announcer shines in front of the black screen, lit by a dim footlight.]
Announcer
[In a serious tone.] The marble of life. The beautiful marble of life.
The wounded marble of life.
The bleeding
Marble – [Shakes the rattle.]
From behind the Screen:
First Voice
Does it always keep raining here? The gathered clouds are so frightening!
Second Voice
We’ll get soaked. We’ll die. We can’t put our lives in danger like this.
Third Voice
Stay in bed. You’ve got a cold, you could even get pneumonia.
Woman’s Voice
Pneumonia’s too common, why can’t I get something exotic?
Ayah’s Voice
Baba! Jaan Baba! Torchbearer Baba... How far from home you’ve wandered. How long I’ve been carrying your sweater around, looking for you.
Woman’s Voice
We’ve gone stiff from standing here, how hard it rains. All my seeds will rot.
Another Voice
Our newest invention. Glass seeds. You don’t have to sow them regularly. Sow once, reap a thousand times. They don’t rot. They don’t refuse to grow.
Announcer
[Shaking the rattle.] Lead seeds are stronger than glass seeds.
[The sound of a rickshaw’s bell.]
Rickshaw Puller
The clouds have killed the sun, the sun has died. I lug the weight of others around. My rickshaw has many mirrors. I look at my face in a mirror. I look at my face in all these mirrors. The sun is gone. Now mirrors will rule over the earth. Now mirrors will separate the seeds that grow from the seeds that don’t.
Tired Officer
I am a tired officer. [As if half asleep.] I... am... ve... ry... ti... red... The way... ay... things gather one by one inside a dried up well. The rope of the well... a dead, shrivelled cat... a baby’s underpants... a broken canister... just like that... just like that... weariness has gathered inside me. A despondence and a weariness.
Rickshaw Puller
[Loudly.] Ah, officer! Look where you’re going. [Crashes.] Oh, you’ve broken my mirror.
[The Announcer laughs and shakes the rattle.]
Woman’s Voice
[Languorously.] I’m bored. My heart has become weary. I will churn the whole world, inside and outside me, I’ll churn everything. But quietly, so that no one knows. [After a pause, as if someone said something.] No, my laughter contains neither the sun nor the moon. I don’t have time to think about all this. I have lots to do. [Softly.] I have to churn you too.
[Some unclear voices. The Announcer is also shaking the rattle. But no sound comes from it.]
No, no, embellishment is my job too. [Softly.] My job is just to churn, to churn. The pitiless law that causes creation – that you’ll know. Oh, this boy has wrinkles on his face. His laughter is full of honeybees.
[The Announcer laughs and shakes the rattle.]
[Formally.] In winter, a man’s feelings also freeze. Do you know sweetheart, I didn’t hear a word of whatever you were saying to me all this while. The words were very pretty though, just like little children.
Busy Husband
That’s precisely why I drink. I think I’ll go and drink now. I’ll keep drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking until I turn into a child again... then perhaps you will have to understand what I say.
Woman’s Voice
Look, why don’t you churn your soul, why don’t you churn your body...
Busy Husband
[Afraid.] No, I won’t do all this. Why do you use these deep, strange words? Churn! I don’t know how, but I do know that this thought can be worded beautifully. No, for once I shall separate the body from the ties of the mind. I’ll fight, I’ll get martyred, I’ll speak the language of strangers. [As if drowning.] I’ll strangle the sun, I...
[The Announcer laughs and shakes the rattle.]
The Voice of a Worried Woman
Uff, we’ve grown old waiting for you. So this is what you mean when you promise to come at seven o’clock? What’s this? Why do you look so miserable? Are you sick? Are you afraid? What is it? Did you see something somewhere?
Busy Husband
I have definitely seen something, but right now it seems that I haven’t seen, just heard.
[The Announcer sits down on the stool next to the screen.]
I heard someone come out of these clouds and start talking to me. Heated, unchained words, the kind of things a man who’s always been bottled up might say when he drinks for the first time...
Worried Woman
Then what did you do?
Busy Husband
Me, I did nothing. I drank some more and went to Nirmala’s house. Just like that, for some diversion.
Worried Woman
Whose diversion, yours or Nirmala’s? You drank again, you have no character, you can even sit on a rickshaw pulled by a man... you’re stumbling.
[The rickshaw’s bell rings. The Announcer leaves the rattle resting against the screen and goes and sits in the auditorium.]
Rickshaw Puller! Go fast, sahib isn’t feeling well.
[The Rickshaw Puller rings the bell as if he’s just woken up.]
Busy Husband
There, among the woolly clouds.
Rickshaw Puller
Aha, you also say the same kinds of things. Just now the Tired Officer told him that this isn’t a dried up well, it’s a rickshaw. My rickshaw has mirrors. The Mad Ayah broke one of my mirrors. No, no.
Worried Woman
To whom did you say that this is a well?
Rickshaw Puller
[Ringing the bell.] No one. I had become very tired thinking about something, and I had become numb in the cold, I realize now. An officer came near me, that tired one. Thinking about something, perhaps he lost consciousness too.
Worried Woman
Okay, look ahead...
[The rickshaw’s bell rings.]
Worried Woman
You went to Nirmala’s house, did Nirmala say anything about me, did she ask after me?
Busy Husband
[Dreamily.] What did Nirmala say? Nirmala said nothing. It was Nirmala who went into the clouds... do you hear... Nirmala, I found out today, lives in the woolly clouds.
[The Announcer leaps back from the auditorium and shakes the rattle. Some boys laugh and make noise.]
Tired Officer
I am an officer, but I’m very tired. In my youth I’d cracked a lot of skulls, now I only crack my knuckles – sometimes I crack a joke. Do you know English? Cracking jokes, cracking knuckles?
[The boys laugh.]
Okay, time for a riddle. [Clapping and talking in a superior manner.] Let’s see if you can solve this, you college goers, can you name a bird that dances under the gathering clouds, has eight colours in its feathers, but barks like a dog?
Boy
[As if about to cry.] No!
Tired Officer
[Starts clapping and dancing happily.] You can’t solve it, I knew you wouldn’t be able to solve it. Peacock, peacock, peacock, don’t you know? Peacock...
Boy
[Angrily.] But a peacock doesn’t bark!
Tired Officer
That was the secret, or wouldn’t you have solved it? Wasn’t that the whole point of the joke?
[The Announcer shakes the rattle. This time she doesn’t laugh.]
Worried Woman
I don’t know why I married you!
[The Announcer shakes the rattle. Now she becomes serious. The Worried Woman is laughing – a terrible laughter. The Announcer is shaking the rattle very hard. The Worried Woman’s laughter gradually becomes sweet. Then the Announcer sets the rattle against the screen and comes back to sit in the auditorium. The Worried Woman’s voice and tone immediately change and become poetic and seductive.]
Look at me. Didn’t you ever think that I have come out from the clouds or that I could live in the clouds? You only have such thoughts about Nirmala.
Busy Husband
When do I think? I listen and I look. I look, I only look. I see a lot of things. Afterwards, I try to make sure that no one, especially not you, sees whatever I saw, and that’s why, whatever I have seen – I want to immediately explode it. Because I love you.
Worried Woman
Why? What will happen if I see?
Busy Husband
[Very easily.] No, I only want you to listen. If you see, that will be the end of me. Just like this.
Worried Woman
[Unafraid.] Why, why do you always think of things in this way?
Busy Husband
Because I’m so scared. You were right, see, I heard this.
Mad Ayah
[From afar.] Baba, Jaan... Ba... ba, Torchbearer Baba. How far you wander off to play. Your sweater’s getting eaten up by worms.
Busy Husband
[Startled by the Mad Ayah’s voice.] No, I must certainly destroy. I can suppress my fear – I can divert it – but what I want is to uproot it and throw it away. What a problem! Destroying fear in the world means destroying the world.
Worried Woman
But why do you even give birth to fear? It seems as if all you do is be afraid. Why don’t you tell me anything?
Busy Husband
[Laughs in disgust.] Do you know what will happen if I let go of fear? Then I can’t erase anything, can’t destroy anything. I will have to create in spite of myself. [As if about to cry.] And then whatever will emerge from the churning of our bodies and souls will kill us. It will end us. You will become old, the play of life will stop like a tiny, jewel encrusted wristwatch.
[The rickshaw’s bell rings.]
Worried Woman
But still.
Busy Husband
No, I will have to destroy. I will have to fight against this meaningless, pointless and endless beginning. Against each and every leaf, each and every word, each and every stone.
[A sudden, loud sound as if the rickshaw is about to collapse. The Announcer quickly goes and picks up the rattle. She shakes it too, but it makes no difference. Things become rather chaotic. The Worried Woman, the Busy Husband and the Rickshaw Puller all speak together, and in between the Mad Ayah’s voice calling for Torchbearer Baba can be heard from afar. Only when the Announcer rings the gong is order restored.]
Tired Officer
I’m very, very tired. Every particle of my being is exhausted, and you’ve thrown it down and beaten it up. Let me whistle. Let me see whether I can whistle or not.
Worried Woman
He never used to see and I always see. He never used to see.
Busy Husband
I saw and I told my life partner. I made her believe that without destruction creation can’t take place.
[The Announcer laughs and shakes the rattle.]
Tired Officer
You must have certainly made her understand, and you wanted to destroy this Rickshaw Puller. What word did you use?
Busy Husband
[In a changed tone.] Who? Us, no. What do you take us for? This man never used to see. He didn’t see and he went ahead and crashed. I destroy.
Rickshaw Puller
[Proudly.] No, I was crashed into from behind. I saw it clearly in the rickshaw’s mirror, perhaps that crash is still visible in the mirror.
Tired Officer
I will whistle. I will use up all my energy to blow the whistle.
Worried Woman
No, wait. Don’t blow the whistle. Look at us, I could have given birth to something once.
Busy Husband
All the time, sleeping and singing, I see and create and sustain...
Worried Woman
The thing is, my husband’s always very busy. Sometimes, to give his brain a rest, he starts talking nonsense. Just like the Mad Ayah. [Trying to change the subject.] Have you seen the Mad Ayah? She has written two hundred books, she says. She doesn’t see. She only searches. Believe me, she just searches, who knows what or where. [Softly.] But I fear she’s searching for you.
Tired Officer
I don’t care about that, but you hailed this rickshaw. You made him run in this winter, this frost, this hail and then when he slowed down or was a little careless you kicked him with your high heel. He fell. He may have lost use of one leg... This is both creating and destroying. You destroyed one rickshaw and you created a hundred.
Busy Husband
But I didn’t kick him, you’ll say that perhaps?
Worried Woman
Yes, I kicked him, he didn’t see, why doesn’t he see, why doesn’t he bathe every day? Oh, he’s so dirty. [As if about to faint.]
Busy Husband
Now you see? What the difference is between someone who sees and someone who doesn’t see... [Very softly.] Come, let’s destroy his whistle, let’s destroy this officer, quick. Come, come, let’s strike a deal, and then I’ll give you permission to live in the clouds. [Controlling himself.] I will never take part in what you create.
Tired Officer
[Interrupting.] What are you whispering? Don’t you know that there’s a law to punish people who are cruel to animals, especially animals that pull vehicles? [Blows whistle.]
Worried Woman
[Angrily.] Will you turn this man into an animal? Is this Rickshaw Puller an ox or a horse?
[The Announcer shakes the rattle.]
Busy Husband
[Fiery speech.] I will fight against this. I will revolt. I will make and break peace with countries. I will fight all over the world. Just see the things I do. I will set fire to huge libraries. I will wipe cities and mountains off the map like a drop of ink. This is a man, not an animal. This Rickshaw Puller is a dried up well. My wife lives in the clouds. The Mad Ayah will save us all.
Mad Ayah
[With mad energy.] Aha, found you, Baba, Jaan Baba, Torchbearer Baba. I’ve found you, but you’ve come so far from home. Your sweater.
[The Mad Ayah and the Busy Husband start sobbing as if they’re the ones who have found each other.]
Busy Husband
The Tired Officer is dead. The Rickshaw Puller killed him. The Rickshaw Puller killed the officer with his mirrors. This one who’s standing in front of us is neither tired nor an officer.
Tired Officer
[As if he has suddenly forgotten.] A dense weariness has collected inside me. [As if he’s drowning.] The way things collect in a dried up well... [As if struggling.] A dead, shrivelled cat, shiny tins of varnish... book covers. [Falls.]
Mad Ayah
How nicely the Rickshaw Puller has destroyed. I wish to make statues of him. To form companies that sell his fake autographs.
But Torchbearer Baba, how far you’ve come from home, and now the worms have eaten up your sweater.
A Voice
Our new invention, glass sweaters. Only copper worms can eat them. [Pause.] Our even newer invention – copper worms. They talk when you make them talk and laugh when you make them laugh... copper worms.
[The lights get brighter. The Announcer is strutting and laughing. She hooks the rattle in her cummerbund.]
Announcer
No, it’s not over yet. There’s still two minutes of song and dance left. And who knows what the playwright means by ending on this song? As far as I can tell, nothing in the whole play solves anything. If you ask the playwright, perhaps he’ll say something like: The problem of life and drama is one and the same – that is, to make a moment complete. To combine protest and revolt and to achieve a central significance in them and to create a faint impression of that on the audience so that it can stimulate their intelligence, thought and vision. But these are all meaningless things. All neurotics say things like this. I think the writer of this play is neurotic. If what doesn’t interest us, what doesn’t fit into the mould of our thoughts can’t be called neurosis, what can? There is no meaning in this whole play, he is confusing us for no reason.
[Takes out the rattle and shakes it and laughs a shy laugh. Behind the screen, the Rickshaw Puller, who is wearing ankle bells, is trying to make the audience laugh, like a joker. (He should not be presented as a circus joker.) When everyone else stands, he comes forward and starts his song and dance. The song can be sung to any crude tune and the dance is nothing more than some jumping around.]
Rickshaw Puller’s Song:
My wife doesn’t talk
Doesn’t talk
Doesn’t open the lock
Doesn’t talk
To me
[Melodiously] Oh, the rain is coming.
My wife doesn’t talk, doesn’t talk
Doesn’t talk, doesn’t talk
My wife doesn’t talk...
[The Announcer turns bright red and doubles up with laughter. She suddenly seems to be very kind.]
Bhuvneshwar was born in 1910 in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, and died, in abject poverty and mostly forgotten, in 1958 on a railway platform in Lucknow. A protégé of Premchand’s, who published many of his stories and plays in the journal Hans, Bhuvneshwar also wrote criticism and poetry (in both Hindi and English). He published only one book in his lifetime - a collection of one-act plays, Caravan. Highly regarded among Hindi writers but not well known otherwise, he is credited with bringing modernism and experimentation to Hindi literature. His short stories are now regarded as precursors to the Nai Kahani movement, and his most famous work, the play Taambe ke Keede, predating Beckett’s Waiting for Godot by some months, is regarded by many as the “world’s first absurdist play”. His collected works, Bhuvneshwar Samagra, edited by Doodhnath Singh, were published on his hundredth birth anniversary, finally bringing this important writer back into print.
Rahul Soni is a writer, editor and translator. He has edited an anthology of Hindi poetry in English translation, Home from a Distance (2011), and translated Shrikant Verma’s collection of poetry, Magadh (2013), Geetanjali Shree’s novel The Roof Beneath Their Feet (2013), a selection of Ashok Vajpeyi’s poetry A Name for Every Leaf (2016), and Pankaj Kapur’s novella Dopehri (2019).