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The King of the Dark Chamber

Chapter 11: IX
By Rabindranath Tagore
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Plays/Films/Dramas

About This Book

The play presents a realm where the sovereign remains unseen and everyday life is filled with festivals, gossip, and ritual while citizens speculate about his absence. A devoted subject forges a deeply personal bond with the hidden ruler through trials of faith and symbolic encounters, shifting the action from public bustle to intimate, shadowed interiors. Using songs, allegory, and staged ceremonies, the drama probes longing, surrender, and the paradoxical authority of a presence that governs without display, asking whether devotion and power rest on outward visibility or on inward knowing.

IX

[The KING OF KANYA KUBJA, father of SUDARSHANA, and his MINISTER]

KING OF KANYA KUBJA.
I heard everything before her arrival.

MINISTER.
The princess is waiting alone outside the city gates on the bank of the river. Shall I send people to welcome her home?

KING OF KANYA KUBJA.
What! She who has faithlessly left her husband—do you propose trumpeting her infamy and shame to every one by getting up a show for her?

MINISTER.
Shall I then make arrangements for her residence at the palace?

KING OF KANYA KUBJA.
You will do nothing of the sort. She has left her place as the Empress of her own accord—here she will have to work as a maid-servant if she wants to stay in my house.

MINISTER.
It will be hard and bitter to her, Your Highness.

KING OF KANYA KUBJA.
If I seek to save her from her sufferings, then I am not worthy to be her father.

MINISTER.
I shall arrange everything as you wish, Your Highness.

KING OF KANYA KUBJA.
Let it be kept a secret that she is my daughter; otherwise we shall all be in an awful trouble.

MINISTER.
Why do you fear such disaster, Your Highness?

KING OF KANYA KUBJA.
When woman swerves from the right path, then she appears fraught with the direst calamity. You do not know with what deadly fear this daughter of mine has inspired me—she is coming to my home laden with peril and danger.