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168
A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES : Dilip Kumar Roy
KESHAV
You need not, I say.
For nothing that you mean has any meaning. MURARI (ironically)
But you behave like a judge who has gone deaf
And bangs the witness taking him for the robber! KESHAV (furiously)
You dare
MURARI
But sir, in daring who can beat you ? For if I have affronted a sombre human, You insulted the hoariest God in Heaven, Although the wicked sceptic may indeed Ask if the Gods live not too far to notice Your grievous accent you now flaunt so boldly !"23
Songs are a peculiar feature of this play as of Greek tragedy and Shakespearean comedy. They certainly add to its beauty. All of them are sung in praise of Krishna. In one of the two songs sung by Sri Chaitanya in Act II, he wonders why people do not hear the call of Krishna. The best of the three songs included in Act III is the one which Sri Chaitanya sings when the blood from his forehead streams down his face because of the assault of Madhai. He, then, sings in ecstasy:
Your ways are strange, my Lord, You come To play in ever new guises.24
He appears to be a god-intoxicated singer who moves masses to devote themselves to the feet of Krishna.
The setting of this fictionalized biography is 1510 A. D. In Act I, the place is Sri Chaitanya's house at Navadwip. Act II takes place next morning at a bathing ghat in the river Ganga of Navadwip. Act III takes place in 1511 A D. in the vision of Vishnupriya who is praying before the image of Lord Vishnu in which she sees Sri Chaitanya at the bathing ghat spreading his message of love, tolerance and forgiveness. Roy succeeds in reproducing the devotional atmosphere of the medieval India by showing crowds of people ready to follow the example of Sri Chaitanya. Their reverence to Sri Chaitanya, eagerness to argue with Keshav to prove the greatness of Sri Chaitanya's knowledge and to react to the violence of Jagai and Madhai in the same terms, create the picture of the immense
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