The King of the Dark Chamber

The King of the Dark Chamber

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Title: The King of the Dark Chamber
Author: Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6521] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 25,
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The King of the Dark Chamber
By Rabindranath Tagore
[Translated from Bengali to English by Kshitish Chandra Sen]
[New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914; Copyright, 1914, by
Drama League of America, by The Macmillan Company]

I
[A street. A few wayfarers, and a CITY GUARD]
FIRST MAN. Ho, Sir!
CITY GUARD. What do you want?
SECOND MAN. Which way should we go? We are strangers here.
Please tell us which street we should take.
CITY GUARD. Where do you want to go?
THIRD MAN. To where those big festivities are going to be held, you
know. Which way do we go?
CITY GUARD. One street is quite as good as another here. Any street
will lead you there. Go straight ahead, and you cannot miss the place.
[Exit.]
FIRST MAN. Just hear what the fool says: "Any street will lead you
there!" Where, then, would be the sense of having so many streets?
SECOND MAN. You needn't be so awfully put out at that, my man. A
country is free to arrange its affairs in its own way. As for roads in our
country--well, they are as good as non-existent; narrow and crooked
lanes, a labyrinth of ruts and tracks. Our King does not believe in open

thoroughfares; he thinks that streets are just so many openings for his
subjects to fly away from his kingdom. It is quite the contrary here;
nobody stands in your way, nobody objects to your going elsewhere if
you like to; and yet the people are far from deserting this kingdom.
With such streets our country would certainly have been depopulated in
no time.
FIRST MAN. My dear Janardan, I have always noticed that this is a
great fault in your character.
JANARDAN. What is?
FIRST MAN. That you are always having a fling at your country. How
can you think that open highways may be good for a country? Look
here, Kaundilya; here is a man who actually believes that open
highways are the salvation of a country.
KAUNDILYA. There is no need, Bhavadatta, of my pointing out afresh
that Janardan is blessed with an intelligence which is remarkably
crooked, which is sure to land him in danger some day. If the King
comes to hear of our worthy friend, he will make it a pretty hard job for
him to find any one to do him his funeral rites when he is dead.
BHAVADATTA. One can't help feeling that life becomes a burden in
this country; one misses the joys of privacy in these streets-- this
jostling and brushing shoulders with strange people day and night
makes one long for a bath. And nobody can tell exactly what kind of
people you are meeting with in these public roads-- ugh!
KAUNDILYA. And it is Janardan who persuaded us to come to this
precious country! We never had any second person like him in our
family. You knew my father, of course; he was a great man, a pious
man if ever there was one. He spent his whole life within a circle of a
radius of 49 cubits drawn with a rigid adherence to the injunctions of
the scriptures, and never for a single day did he cross this circle. After
his death a serious difficulty arose--how cremate him within the limits
of the 49 cubits and yet outside the house?