The Song Of The River

By Rituranjan Gogoi

‘‘Prince, what do you dream of?’’ Chitralekha asked, gazing at the horizon lit with crimson glaze of the setting sun, the clouds forming a delicate tapestry that merged with the flowing waters in the distance.

‘‘Me, I’m lost, or perhaps it is the feeling of being lost that makes me dreamy, thinking of home, my parents. And, look at me now, I come here with a strange woman chasing my dream. Or, I’m caught in some sense of adventure.’’ Aniruddha smiled, a fleeting twitch of his lips, his voice drifting in the evening wind.

The boat sailed on, gliding like a serpent in the smooth rippling waters, the oars creating a rhythm of song along with the river. Chitralekha stood in silence and mused the prince’s reply. She was an envoy, an envoy sent secretively by her love-struck princess to abduct a prince with her courtly charms. The irony was, it wasn’t abduction at all, for the Prince seemed eager to meet the princess and form an alliance with the enemy kingdom. It almost felt like a fairytale to Chitralekha, with dreams, prophecies, and meddling gods. She tucked a lock of her midnight hair behind her ear and looked at the prince who was still lost in his deep thoughts.

‘‘Home is where the heart is. What does your heart say Prince?’’ Chitralekha picked up her beena and plucked a few strings, the sonorous melody echoing with the river’s gentle murmur.

‘‘I don’t know. I’ve always thought I would be able to tell what I want. Now, all I do is speculate. I’m an heir to the throne of Dwaraka, and I can imagine the ruckus it will cause due to my untold departure. I don’t know what grandfather is going to do, and he’s the person who has always encouraged me to chase my dreams. But, I’m never sure of what it means, his intent behind the words. He cultivates a sort of enigma around his personality.’’ Aniruddha looked to Chitralekha gazing with his sea-green eyes.

‘‘We, some of us try to get on, the legacy of our fathers, history burdening us, responsibilities tying us, when we want to be free.’’ Chitralekha said, her beena forgotten for a moment.

‘‘What do you want from your life Chitra?’’ Aniruddha asked.

‘‘I want to be free, free to love, free to explore my life and the world, to paint, to write poetry, to compose music and sing with joy, free to cry in my sorrow, free from all that binds me to the glitz and glitter of the court and its politics.’’ Chitralekha said with a smile, her face glowing in the light of the pale full moon rising in the east.

‘‘Sing a song to me.’’ Aniruddha said.

‘‘What?’’ Chitralekha was startled at the sudden tone of change in the conversation.

‘‘I request you to sing a song, ah, may be the hindol raga would be more suitable, with spring in the air and all.’’ Aniruddha was smiling.

‘‘Uhmm…okay, let me meditate for a few moments to center myself.’’ Chitralekha smoothed her leather pants, draped the shawl across her shoulders and tied her hair to a bun, two of the locks curling across her face. She sat down cross-legged, took a deep breath closing her kohl- limned eyes, and plucked at her beena attuning to the melody she wanted to sing.

The voice of Chitralekha flowed in a gentle flutter, the mellifluous notes resonating in the air and shattering the stillness with a golden harmonic melody that tingled the senses, evoking memories of an early spring dawn dappled with gulmohar and jarul blossoms, drenched in the nightly rain and glistening in tender sunlight. The raga flowed like the river, undulating, curving, rising, and then settling down, then rising into crescendo, the tender melodic harmony of the beena accentuating the voice of Chitralekha in perfect synchrony. The moon was now full, and somewhere along the trees in the bank, a cuckoo started to sing, transforming the scene in to a sublime moment filled with love, desire, and longing. Chitralekha hummed the last notes of the raga and ended it in a soft note that swayed and lingered with echoing music that melted in to a moonlit night. The expression on her face was ecstatic, serene, filled with a sense of wonder of being one with the music, and her eyes seemed like twin stars smiling in joy.

‘‘That was truly beautiful, unlike anything I’ve ever heard. You enticed the essence of spring in to your composition, and it was a thing of beauty, brimming with passion and delight, and tender sorrow.’’ Aniruddha’s face was joyous with adoration, and his eyes filled with longing as he praised Chitralekha.

‘‘Thank You, Prince. It’s my pleasure. I didn’t think that you would love it so. I don’t perform my music. I practise it for my own endearment, it’s a sort of escape from the dreariness and monotony of life.’’ Chitralekha replied with a blush.

‘‘You’re beautiful Chitra, like a poem, like the raga you sang. You’re an artist at heart.’’

‘‘Oh, stop flattering me prince, it’ll get you nowhere. Actually, don’t let Usha hear you flatter me. She’ll get envious, if her dream prince flirts with her best-friend.’’ Chitralekha’s teasing laughter rang like silver bells.

‘‘It’s the truth.’’ Aniruddha said in a mock-hurt tone.

‘‘I know. I’m amazing, talented, and beautiful like that.’’ Chitralekha’s smile sent a flutter in the prince’s heart.

‘‘Okay, tell me about Usha. I’d like to know about the woman whom I’m supposed to love and marry.’’ Aniruddha asked eagerly.

‘‘Usha, she is beautiful, and she’s my best-friend. She’s calm and composed, and she likes to dance. She also loves to read, mostly poetry and romances. She isn’t afraid to speak the truth, and she sometimes creates an unease in her father’s court with her ideas and opinions. She has two pet parrots, named – Kama and Rati. She loves fish curry and venison. She also gets angry and jealous sometimes depending on her mood, but at heart she’s loving, kind, and compassionate.’’ Chitralekha tried to give a little introduction of the Princess, but she didn’t know if it was enough for the prince.

‘‘Well, I hope to meet her soon, and fall in love, then whisk her away to Dwaraka.’’ Aniruddha said pensively.

‘‘I thought you were already in love with her, and that’s why you came with me so easily. You have her picture with you, the one I gave you prince? You were smitten with her when you looked at her picture, if I recall it correctly.’’ Chitralekha said.

‘‘What is love Chitra? Is it an emotion, a feeling, a desire, longing for someone, what is it? Yes, I’ve looked at her picture countless times, and yes, I’m smitten by her beauty. But, is beauty the only basis of love? How can I be sure of my own heart, a woman I’ve never met, but seen in some hazy godsend dream, how can I believe that she’s the one my soul has been searching for? What if I met her, and was still not able to fall in love with her? What happens then?’’ Anirudhha paced in the boat, and his voiced carried the doubts and apprehension he felt about the entire affair.

‘‘My Prince, I cannot tell you what love is. May be it’s a need, like breathing, maybe it’s like water that nourishes life….I don’t know. But, one thing I can assure you, you’ll fall in love with Usha, and it might not be love at a glance like those romances, but, it will be like a seed that will grow true and strong, and blossom, and you’ll both nourish each other.’’ Chitralekha’s voice was soft and distant, a little sad, and the moon cast its reflection on the watery canvas while the boat glided on.

‘‘Why did she send you Chitra? She could’ve sent someone else?’’ Aniruddha asked.

‘‘She sent me because I’m her best friend and she trusts me with her heart. And, also because, no one is as charming as me to lure away a handsome prince to an enemy kingdom.’’ Chitralekha wiggled her eyebrows in amusement.

‘‘And, are you capable of keeping her trust? Do you want to?’’ Aniruddha’s voice shattered the amusement she felt teasing the prince.

Chitralekha looked away from the Prince’s piercing gaze. Could she indeed hold onto the trust of her best-friend? The heart is a fickle thing, and the mind deceives the body often. Could she indeed hide her heart in the shadows of the ever bright fire-fortress? Can she lie to herself, when she felt differently? The gods played a cruel game. She forced herself to face the prince who was waiting for her answer.

‘‘Yes, I’m, and I have to be. Because, like me she’s alone in the world of men and power. She has to have a pillar to lean on to. And, I don’t have it in me to hurt her. And, I’m her best-friend.’’ Chitralekha’s voice was firm, but she was shivering inside, as she tried to smother the true words she wanted to say.

‘‘I know, but, I wanted to ask. I’ve so many things to say, of this journey, but…..’’ Aniruddha looked away, unable to say anything more.

‘‘Don’t utter them and make it real, my prince. It will be hurtful. Now, at least we have the illusion of comfort, and at dawn we’ll reach the looming walls of the fire-fortress, and everything will be a distant memory, which too will fade away in time.’’ Chitralekha’s voice was trembling as she tried to look at the prince in his eye.

‘‘Memory, yes. It’ll fade, but it’ll still cut us deep, a wound with a phantom pain that’ll afflict us until we are old and die of forgetfulness.’’ Aniruddha was looking at the moon, as if the moon’s lonely light would somehow fill the emptiness in his heart.

‘‘We will live, love, and endure, my prince. We will pour our sorrow in to art, make it immortal, we will seek it in nostalgia, in loneliness sometimes, and move on with the world with hope and strength.’’ Chitralekha and the prince stood facing each other, their shadows apart, and the stars gazing on them with their indifferent cold gaze. The wind blew carrying the fragrance of wild magnolias and caressing them like a lover’s kiss.

It was late midnight, and the moon was sailing high on the heavens above. Everything seemed so silent and peaceful, and yet, there was a sense of restlessness in two hearts, filled with words that would never be spoken aloud, a riot of feelings that would never be expressed, but, the eyes, the eyes deceive the mind and heart too, unveiling the deepest recess of the soul, the lone yearning, the craving, the melancholy, everything becomes visible if one can read its elusive language. There’s no sleep, not in their eyes, as they lay apart inside the shelter of the boat. They were dreamless, the distance too short, yet an ocean between them barring them from touching. They were lost in each other, never to find their way back, and sometimes losing oneself too is heartbreakingly beautiful, and they reveled in their own sorrow, for their’s was a story which will never be told, never sung, never be written, lost in the currents of time.

‘‘My Prince, do you hear the river singing?’’ Chitralekha asked.

‘‘Yes. It’s a song of love and yearning, a song that only some can hear. It’s filled with loss and beauty. Chitra, will it ever end?’’

‘‘Everything ends, my prince. But, for tonight, it’s a song only we can listen to.’’

*(Based on Rupko~.or Jyotiprasad Agarwala’s play Sonit Ko~.wori)

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By Rituranjan Gogoi