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A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES: Dilip Kumar Roy The characters of the play disclose all the four aims enumerated by Aristotle in the Poetics. He writes:
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"There will be an element of character in the play, if.... what a personage says or does reveals a certain moral purpose; and a good element of character, if the purpose so revealed is good. Such goodness is possible in every type of personage, even in a woman or a slave, though the one is perhaps an inferior, and the other a wholly worthless being."40
It should be clear from the foregoing discussion that all the characters of Mira are good in the Aristotelian sense of the term. They are good in ordinary sense, too. But they lack roundness and individuality.
All the characters are made "appropriate" to their types. Mira is somewhat different. She is an ideal beloved and tender caretaker of GopaL She is more divine than human. Her songs inspire common people to turn to Gopal's Grace. Her individuality lies in her spontaneous renunciation of everything dear to ordinary human beings for the love of Krishna and also in her readiness to bear the severest pain and hardest tests to deserve His Grace. Sanatan expresses his incapacity to bless her. Instead, he prays for her. Sanatan, as an individual has realized Gopal in his own life. He was instrumental in Mira's realization of Krishna, and yet he is a man similar to other men who find it very difficult to have a faithful heart. It is not that he lacked faith altogether. But his faith was not strong enough and quite unshakable. Mira came to Brindaban as his spiritually more mature and steadfast disciple to teach him how to realize absolute submission to Krishna's Will. Needless to say, the character is a historical personage, a real saint-poetess, who has influenced spiritual transformation in the lives of millions of her countrymen. She appears here as adoring eyes of Roy saw her, and history appears transformed into a dramatic pattern. This is the peculiarity of this particular biography as it is also that of Sri Chaitnaya's.
The dialogues of the play express high intelligence and wit of its main characters like Mira, Sanatan, Ajit and four 'pundits. As in Sri Chaitanya, so also here, the speeches are too long to look like dramatic dialogues. But their poetry is remarkable. The language is lucid. The Pundits employ reflective language. Their tone is serious. But the playful behaviour of Gopal is described interestingly and fascinatingly. They take the readers into the world of imagination.
Mira's speeches are tender. Her tone remains polite and persuasive when she answers to the dissident pedants. She uses simple language which is carried alive into the heart by passion' in Wordsworthian phrase. When Sanatan and she talk, their deepest reverence and love for each other is reflected. Mira's intense devotion to Krishna is at the centre of all of her utterances.
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