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A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES : Dilip Kumar Roy loved the devotees of Krishna with greater intensity and fervour than he loved others. This is evident in Mira. His treatment of Sri Chaitanya exhibits even greater fervour perhaps because Sri Chaitanya is considered to be the greatest of all Vaishnav mystics in his intensity of the love of Krishna. Sri Chaitanya is also regarded in Bengal as the Incarnation of Krishna and the most complete example of Radha's ideally perfect love of Krishna. Moreover, one may feel, a special reason of Roy's special regard of Sri Chaitanya, may be that both of them hailed from Bengal and also may be that one of Roy's "ancestors was the famous saint Advaita Goswami, a staunch follower of the Messiah Sri Chaitanya."3 (A) Sri Chaitanya :
Sri Chaitanya was one of the most powerful propounders of the bhakti movement which swept the country during the dark period of Muslim rule in India. He called all men to love Krishna, forgetting all cast and credal differences among men which are baseless and irrational. The whole of Bengal responded to the call, other eastern parts of the country, like Orissa, too, responded, and the echoes of the call and the response reverberated through out the length and breadth of the Indian sub-continent. Sri Chaitanya popularised the path of love, leading towards the Divine and taught indifference to bigotry and fanaticism. His movement softened the hearts of the people and made them more sensitive and poetic and less pedantic and dogmatic. Sri Chaitanya is undoubtedly one of the greatest spiritual luminaries produced by India.
Roy is writing a play about Sri Chaitanya. Obviously, it is impossible to embody that long and eventful life within a limited presentation. 'A two hours' traffic on the stage' cannot do justice to it. According to Aristotle's advice even an epic should not attempt at presenting the whole biography of a man, but should confine itself to the presentation of a limited action with complete thematic unity like Achilles's wrath in the Iliad. His prescription for drama is that it should represent one single incident and action, much more limited than that of an epic. In saying this, Aristotle only asks us not to do what cannot be done successfully, not to bite more than what satisfactorily be chewed.*
Dilip Roy knew all this. That is why, he, too, has presented in this play, only the events of pivotal importance in the life of Chaitanya. His purpose is, as always, to paint a spatial picture rather than a temporal action. You can call him successful, if a living and loving portrait of Sri Chaitanya emerges from his plays, and none would deny that it does.
In Act I called 'Aspiration' we see how Sri Chitanya approaches his mother-- Sachi—to seek her permission to renounce the world and become a monk. It is not that he has rationally decided to become a sannyasi. In fact, he is inwardly driven to do it. He lives and moves and has his being in Krishna. He is a Krishna
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