I enjoy listening to them.

Madhabdatta:But I don’t know any fakir.

Amal:This is exactly when he comes—I beg you, please go and tell him once that he should visit my room.

Enter Thakurda, disguised as a fakir

Amal:O fakir! Here, listen to me! Come here, come to my bed.

Madhabdatta:What! But it’s . . .

Thakurda(winking meaningfully): I am a fakir.

Madhabdatta:I cannot think of anything that you are not.

Amal:Where did you go this time, fakir?

Thakurda:I went to Stork Island—I’ve just returned from that very place.

Madhabdatta:To Stork Island?

Thakurda:Why should that surprise you? Do you think I’m like the rest of you? It costs me nothing to travel there, after all. I can go wherever I please.

Amal(clapping his hands): What fun it must be for you! When I get well, you’ll make me your disciple. Do you remember your promise, fakir?

Thakurda:I remember only too well. I’ll teach you such mantras for travel that sea, mountain, forests, nothing can ever stop you anywhere.

Madhabdatta:What sort of crazy talk is this, you two!

Thakurda:Baba Amal, I do not fear mountains, hills and oceans—but if the Kobiraj arrives to join this Pishemoshai of yours, my mantra will have to concede defeat.

Amal:No, no, Pishemoshai, don’t tell the Kobiraj anything. I shall lie right here for now, without doing anything at all; but the day I get well, I’ll become the fakir’s disciple and go away. Rivers, mountains and seas can no longer hold me back then.

Madhabdatta:Chhi, for shame, baba, one shouldn’t keep talking of going away like that. Hearing you, I begin to feel strangely melancholy.

Amal:What sort of place is Stork Island? Please tell me, O fakir!

Thakurda:It’s an extraordinary place. The land of birds—no humans live there. They don’t talk, or walk: they sing and fly.

Amal:Ah, how wonderful! Is it on the seashore?

Thakurda:On the seashore, indeed.

Amal:Are all the mountains blue?

Thakurda:It’s in the blue mountains that they build their nests. At dusk, the rays of the setting sun fall upon those mountains, and flocks of green birds fly homewards. The hues of that sky, those birds, those mountains—what a dramatic spectacle!

Amal:Are there waterfalls in those mountains?

Thakurda:Plenty of them! Can we do without waterfalls? They’re like a downpour of melting diamonds. And how the waters dance! Babbling ceaselessly, making the pebbles clink against each other, the waterfall gushes forth and plunges into the ocean. It is beyond the powers of any Kobiraj to arrest its flow for a single hour. If the birds didn’t exclude me as an utterly worthless human being, I’d build my nest at the waterfall’s edge, beside those thousands of bird-nests, and spend my entire day watching the waves in the sea.

Amal:If I were a bird . . .

Thakurda:Then there would be a great problem. I hear you’ve given the Dahiwala your word that when you grow up you will sell dahi—but in the world of birds, your trade in dahi wouldn’t thrive too well. In fact, you’d probably incur some losses.

Madhabdatta:This is too much for me. You’ll drive me crazy too, it seems. I’ll be off.

Amal:Pishemoshai, has my Dahiwala come and gone?

Madhabdatta:He has, indeed! He can’t make a living after all from carrying the baggage of that favourite fakir of yours, to fly around among the bird-nests of Stork Island. He has left a pot of dahi for you, and a message that it’s his bonjhi’s wedding in the village—so he’s off to Kolmipara to place an order for flutes. That’s why he’s very busy.

Amal:But he had said he’d marry his sister’s youngest daughter, his little bonjhi, to me.

Thakurda:Then it’s a serious problem, I can see.

Amal:He’d said she’d be my lovely bride—dressed in a striped red sari, a nolok dangling from her nose. In the morning, she would milk the black cow with her own hands and feed me the foaming milk in a fresh earthen pot, and at dusk, she would shine the prayer lamp in the cowshed and then settle close to me, to tell the story of saat bhai champa.

Thakurda:Wah, wah, a fine wife indeed! Even I feel tempted, fakir though I am. Baba, don’t worry. Let the wedding take place this time. I assure you there will be no lack of bonjhis in his house, if you ever feel the need.

Madhabdatta:Go on then! I can’t take this any more.

Exit

Amal:Pishemoshai has gone, fakir—now please tell me quietly, has a letter from the king arrived at the post office, in my name?

Thakurda:I have heard, indeed, that his letter has been issued. It’s still on the way.

Amal:On the way? Which way? Is it the way through the dense forests, which can be seen far, far away when the sky clears after a shower of rain?

Thakurda:Then you know everything, I can see—that is the way, indeed it is.

Amal:I know everything, fakir!

Thakurda:So I can see—but how did you know?

Amal:That I don’t know. I seem to see before my very eyes . . . I feel I’ve seen it many times, long ago; I can’t remember how long. Shall I tell you about it? I can see the royal postman descending alone from the mountaintop, without pause—lantern in hand, mailbag on his shoulder! For so many days—so many nights—he has been descending, without pause. At the foot of the mountain where the waterfall ends its descent, he takes the route of the winding river and advances without pause . . . At the river’s edge is a field of jowar, and down the narrow path that cuts through it, he keeps advancing . . .