Malavikagnimitram Read Online Free Page A

vicissitudes of the human drama. Kālidāsa is a powerful symbol in the modern imagination of ancient India: his writings and characters encapsulate what has been praised as the paragon of ancient Indian values, cultural norms and ethics. Whether we deem this ancient culture to be ‘Hindu’ or simply ‘Indian’ is a heated point of contention that rages on even today. What I have tried to show in this introduction is that pluralism in its broadest capacity has been a hallmark of South Asian society for millennia. When we let voices of the past speak to us in our contemporary tongue, we imbue the past with the present and project our hopes for the future. As I write, the political scene in India is infused with various appropriations of historical events, characters and memories. At this time it is all the more critical to read the past in the context of its composition, study ancient works with scholarly authority, and translate literature as an act of non-judgemental listening rather than as a product of a predetermined vision of what was, or ought to have been, the past.
    In closing, I quote from Sri Aurobindo who spent hours in the study of Sanskrit texts, especially the works of Kālidāsa, which he painstakingly translated into florid English. In regard to the study and translation of ancient literature, his remarks, made almost a century ago, seem equally relevant to our modern world, in which we may flourish only by embracing rather than condemning the diversity of our peoples, ideas and speech.
Now that nations are turning away from the study of the great classical languages to physical and practical science and resorting even to modern languages, if for literature at all then for contemporary literature, it is imperative that the ennobling influences spiritual, romantic and imaginative of the old tongues should be popularised in modern speech; otherwise the modern world, vain of its fancied superiority and limiting itself more and more to its own type of ideas with no opportunity of saving immersions in the past and recreative destructions of the present, will soon petrify and perish in the mould of a rigid realism and materialism. 24

The Dancer and the King
     

Act I
    He stands with sole supremacy
as his suppliants reap rich rewards
and yet he clothes himself in garments made of hide.
His body is united with his beloved
yet he transcends even renouncers
whose minds dwell beyond the senses.
He sustains the entire universe with his eight forms 1
and yet displays no vanity.
May our Lord dispel the cycle of darkness
and give light to the perfect path. 2 //1//
    END BENEDICTION.
    DIRECTOR
(
looking towards the dressing room
): Come here, sir.
    Enter assistant.
    ASSISTANT : Yes, sir.
    DIRECTOR : Our cultured audience tells me that
Malavikagnimitram,
a play by Kalidasa, should be performed at the spring festival. Let’s begin production. 3
    ASSISTANT : Oh no! How can we disregard the works of widely celebrated poets like Bhasa, Saumilla and Kaviputra, and choose this composition by Kalidasa, a modern poet?
    DIRECTOR : You voice a valid concern, 4 my friend, but consider:
    Not all old poetry is good,
nor new bad.
The wise search to discern one from the other,
while foolish minds are guided
by the opinions of others. //2//
    ASSISTANT : True, sir.
    DIRECTOR : Then be quick, sir.
    For like these expert players 5
in the service of Queen Dharini,
I wish to fulfil the audience’s request,
accepted earlier with a bow. //3//
    Both exit.
    END PROLOGUE
    BAKULAVALIKA : Queen Dharini commands me to ask the dance teacher Master Ganadasa how Malavika is progressing with the chalikam dance 6 that she’s just started learning. I’ll check the music hall.
(
She turns around
.)
    Enter Kaumudika with jewellery in hand.
    BAKULAVALIKA
(
seeing Kaumudika
): Kaumudika, my dear, why so serious? You pass so close without even a glance.
    KAUMUDIKA : Oh, Bakulavalika, my friend, I deserve that comment. 7 I was absorbed in this sparkling