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The King of the Dark Chamber

Chapter 15: XIII
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.

XIII

[KING OF KANCHI and SUVARNA]

SUVARNA.
You say, then, that there will be no more necessity of any fight amongst yourselves?

KANCHI.
No, you need not be afraid. I have made all the princes agree that he whom the Queen accepts as her husband will have her, and the others will have to abandon all further struggle.

SUVARNA.
But you must have done with me now, Your Highness—so I beg to be let off now. Unfit as I am for anything, the fear of impending danger has unnerved me and stunned my intellect. You will therefore find it difficult to put me to any use.

KANCHI.
You will have to sit there as my umbrella-holder.

SUVARNA.
Your servant is ready for anything; but of what profit will that be to you?

KANCHI.
My man, I see that your weak intellect cannot go with a high ambition in you. You have no notion yet with what favour the Queen looked upon you. After all, she cannot possibly throw the bridal garland on an umbrella-bearer’s neck in a company of princes, and yet, I know, she will not be able to turn her mind away from you. So on all accounts this garland will fall under the shade of my regal umbrella.

SUVARNA.
Your Highness, you are entertaining dangerous imaginings about me. I pray you, please do not implicate me in the toils of such groundless notions. I beg Your Highness most humbly, pray set me at liberty.

KANCHI.
As soon as my object is attained, I shall not keep you one moment from your liberty. Once the end is attained, it is futile to burden oneself with the means.