BY K CHANDRASEKHARAN, M.A., B.L.

"I am Chitra, the daughter of the Kingly house of Manipur" says the princess in this play as she announces herself, to the Gods. Clearly does this indicate the key to her whole character which is at once frank and dignified, free as well as self-poised. Born as she is a woman, she has none of the untaught arts of look and language of her sex, The simplicity of her speech draws us to her as much as the purity of her soul. We admire her when she spurns the boon of a God which has made her person lovely; for she covets the perfection of the spirit even more than that of the body. She looks all the more radiant in her knowledge of true love; for hers "has no touch of earth". Her hero and Lord, Arjuna, stands almost a contrast before her even as "the low sun that makes the colour".

Rabindranath Tagore has wonderfully divined this short drama containing a profound suggestion capable of detaining us long. For he alone knows to weave with consummate skill, "an endless meaning in the narrow span of a song", The whole purport of this drama strikes us as original both in form and substance. The anguish of Love when it fails in its expectation of a higher purpose awakens in us the sense of the futility of much that passes for that noble quality in this world. All that is given us, we begin to realise, is only the shadow. The psychological factor playing a significant part in this play cannot fail to whet the edge of our enjoyment, when the poet robes it in the ineffable sweetness of his language with the powerful aids of fancy and feeling.

There is not much wealth of detail or warmth of expression to engage us here. It is almost all the narration by either Arjuna to himself or Chitra to the God of Love, of their respective thoughts and hopes of the other. We are not often treated to situations wherein Arjuna and Chitra are wrapt up in ecstasy. Yet our heart's desires receive ample fulfilment from the unlimited scope for conjuring up the felicity of love from their own speeches which impress us with the indescribable charm of delicacy. Critics may find this drama too short to deserve the name. But the true lover of art will scarcely pass without realising that the rare suggestion in Rabindranath answers for the perfect enjoyment which we may derive from a complete play of many acts.

To minds, which often receive real sustenance from the infinite variety and unstinted flow of expressions vivifying and portraying to us the depths of love, jealousy, disappointment, and revenge, which the immortal characters of Shakespeare illustrate, the comparatively little soliloquy or the brief passages wherein Arjuna and Chitra are made to reveal themselves in this play, may not have any great appeal. But this is perhaps where Tagore's genius distinguishes itself by its singular chasteness and individuality. It is truly the product of the Oriental imagination. The tendency of art and activity in the West is expansive while in the East it has shown an immense concentration and singleness of purpose. Her love at first sight when described by Chitra to the God Madan, has no more ado about it than the typically simple language, devoid of the colour and detail, naturally imported by poets in order to evoke our emotions. "Ah, foolish heart! whither fled thy presumption. I know not in what whirlpool of thought I was lost," says the princess indeed conveying to us more than adequately the sudden gush of fresh impulses in her heart which deprived her of the power of speech. Really nothing more is required to keep the reader alive to the springs of love bubbling in her virgin soul. Nay, the imagination can fill in the rest left unsaid by her. The mind enjoys the refreshing device of the poet that has opened up for it a vista of love's longings by one gentle stroke of the pen. Again, nothing can stand comparison with the picture of the first union of Arjuna with Chitra, wrought with such a fine brush. The very scene where they meet for conjugal bliss speaks of the perfect harmony in nature which prepares us, as it does the lovers, to forget everything else in the security of love. The gradual development towards the heightening of emotions, is brought home to us no less vividly by the dramatic meeting of Arjuna and Chitra and their eagerness to linger long in each other's company, than by the description of the moon and the night which are in symphony with their increasing passion. The poet paints the scene thus: "The moon had moved to the West, peering through the leaves to espy the wonder of divine art wrought in a fragile human frame. The air was heavy with perfume. The silence of the night was vocal with the chirping of crickets. The reflection of the trees hung motionless in the lake." Then occurs the gentle, unconscious movement in nature itself for the mingling of body and soul, when the moon has set behind the trees" and "one curtain of darkness covered all". What greater testimony do we need to the wonderful power of the poet to fill us with supreme satisfaction unaided by any lengthy argument or account, than what is contained in that single sentence, "Heaven and earth, time and space, pleasure and pain, death and life merged together in an unbearable ecstasy . . ."

This very short play of one Act containing none of the attractions of variation in scene, action, and characters captivates us by its beauty even as the tiny bead of dew transformed into a laughing orb by the all-pervading sun. There is no more complexity in the plot than there is in the colour scheme of the clear sky. However, the blending of fine shades of thought in a single theme is rendered with such rare intuition and skill that as we begin dissecting it, we experience the same agreeable surprise at the emergence of fresh components, as at the rainbow colours from a ray of pure liglit.

There is in us no feeling of vagueness bordering on dissatisfaction as we finish the book. But a strange discontent lurks within the heart as that of Arjuna when he fails to "feel Chitra on all sides". What sort of a woman is Chitra? She is neither so plain as her manly training might indicate to us, nor too elusive as Arjuna considers her when his first madness of love begins to die away. Anyhow she is not a Goddess hidden in a golden image". The noble ambition in her fed with youthful fantasies, to meet the greatest hero of the five Pandava brothers and to "break a lance with him, to challenge him in disguise to a single combat and prove her skill in arms against him" is the true outcome of her early education. But the woman in her, irresistible at the meeting of "the fervent gaze that almost grasps you like the clutching hands of the hungry spirit within," responds to the cuckoo call of love and the one strong desire that possesses her afterwards is to murmur to him, "take me, take all I am". There is a real conflict at first in her, whether to accept Arjuna when she learns of his broken vow of celibacy. The warning note is sounded to her by her conscience which say's "This is not love, This is not man's highest homage to woman". But alas! like many others she slowly yields to the compromising attitude of allowing herself to be courted. That feeling, ebbing away within her with the first excitement of pleasure, the inner vision gradually strengthens her will until when finally she loathes her very body which has become the seducer of her hero's heart. She then emerges a new being reconciled to her lot and ready to make her last sacrifice at Arjuna's feet. The final revelation of her true self, so sudden and impressive, cannot but leave a lingering taste of the high and the noble in our memory even long after the book is closed. Chitra certainly is greater than man and woman put together, though by the strange irony of fate she happens to be both.

The herb of the play next claims our attention. Is he no better than a thoughtless dissolute man seeking only physical perfection even at the risk of losing the fame of his heroic manhood? Poor Arjuna! He desires much to know more of Chitra In order to "clasp something that can last longer than pleasure, that can endure even through suffering". But herein lies the sadness of his failure to discover the secret of that enduring passion born of unsatiating desire and unsullied thought. He knows little that the eyes of woman, naturally quick in discerning man, get quicker still when they are love-opened. For Chitra painfully notes that the hours of thoughtless pleasure are over and the time has come for her being discarded. The sense of satiety brings with it the desire for change. Arjuna yearns to see Chitra in her manly self riding on the horse and "dispensing glad hope all round her". The same Arjuna, who has spurned her youth when it was devoid of the softness of the woman, kneels before her when by the boon of a God she becomes beautiful. We are thus amused at the contrariness in man and woman when Arjuna is found fickle and Chitra steady, in her feelings. The intensity of pathos overwhelms us when each of them passes through the inner struggle in trying to understand the other. The figurative language and evasive answers of the princess set the mind of Arjuna a-thinking. But all the while her heart is on edge doubting much the strength of Arjuna to retain a steady glow. The battle of wits, so naturally following on a flat refusal from Arjuna for further dalliance, is finely depicted. The keenness of disappointment has none of the soul-killing depression of spirit on Chitra. She earns fresh glory for having suppressed her ego and offering to her Lord the abiding proof of her great devotion to him, a child in the womb, whom, if born a man, she wishes to rear into a second Arjuna.

On the whole the character of Chitra satisfies the tests of an ideal woman. To fully appreciate the purpose of Tagore's introduction in this play of an incident not found in, the Mahabharata, namely Chitra's metamorphosis into a lovelier being by the grace of a God, we should have the imagination to attribute it to the happy device of the poet to illustrate how the fleeting and the artificial are easily attractive, while the real and the permanent have no immediate appeal to us. The idea in making Chitra superior to Arjuna in her aims and activities, may be traced perhaps to the real opinion of the poet that the true woman of India has always a nobler function to perform than submissively following her Lord. She is a saviour to many a frail forlorn being, whose soul would have weltered in abject complacency of material prosperity, but for the helping hand of a devoted wife to lead him on to sublimer altitudes. Such a woman is a priceless possession to her husband and acts as his best friend, perfecting his nature by her constant attendance, born of gentility of service and sweetness of disposition.

The last speech of the princess ends with the words "I offer you Chitra, the daughter of a king". The same dignity as at the beginning, but now made doubly worthy of her by the magnanimity of her heart, that persists in self-abnegation compels us to honour her for all that she stands for–faith, purity, love and sacrifice.