Srinjay Chakravarti: The Court Jester

Srinjay Chakravarti

Srinjay Chakravarti is a 37-year-old journalist, economist, writer and translator based in Salt Lake City, Calcutta, India. He works as an economist-editor with an international online financial news service. He was educated at St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta and at universities in Calcutta and New Delhi. His poetry, short stories and translations have appeared in around 100 publications in nearly 30 countries. His first book of poems Occam’s Razor (Writers Workshop, Calcutta: 1994) received the Salt Literary Award from John Kinsella in 1995. He has won one of the top prizes in the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Poetry Competition 2007-08 (http://www.dorothyprizes.org). A video reading of his poetry is online at The Continental Review (www.thecontinentalreview.com).

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, is widely considered the greatest Bengali poet of all time. He is certainly one of the finest writers of the world in the past century. Apart from poetry, he wrote novels, essays, short stories, plays, dance dramas, belles-lettres, travelogues, humorous sketches, political commentary, creative non-fiction, literary criticism — almost everything literary. He was also an accomplished singer, musician, composer and painter. This story is taken from his collection of microfiction Lipika (‘Scribings’) (1922).

The Court Jester
By Rabindranath Tagore
Translated from Bengali by Srinjay Chakravarti

I
The Maharajah of Kanchi set out to conquer the kingdom of Karnat. He was victorious. His elephants were loaded with sandalwood, ivory, gold and jewels. While returning home he worshipped the Goddess Baleshwari, flooding the temple precincts with the blood of sacrificed bulls and buffaloes.
The King returned from his puja, dressed in red robes, with a garland of crimson hibiscus flowers around his neck, and a smear of vermilion sandal paste on his forehead. Accompanying him were his vizier and his jester. At one spot he noticed a group of boys playing in a mango grove.
The King said to his two companions, ‘Let’s see what games these children are playing.’

II
The boys had arrayed rows of toys and were enacting a battle.
The King asked them, ‘Who is fighting whom?’
They replied, ‘Karnat versus Kanchi.’
The King asked, ‘Who won and who lost?’
The boys swelled out their chests and said, ‘Karnat wins, Kanchi loses.’
The minister’s face turned grave, the King’s eyes grew bloodshot with rage, while the jester roared with laughter.

III
When the King returned with his soldiers, those boys were still at their war games.
The King ordered, ‘Seize all these boys, tie them to those trees, and whip them!’
Their parents came running from the village. They wept.
‘They are only children, Your Majesty, they were only playing games, please forgive them.’
The King summoned his general. ‘Teach this village such a lesson that they will never forget the King of Kanchi.’ So saying, he went off to his bivouac.

IV
In the evening the army commander arrived before his King. He bowed and told him, ‘Your Highness, you’ll hear no sound from the village now, except from the dogs and the jackals.’
The vizier proclaimed, ‘The Maharajah’s honour has been safeguarded.’
The royal priest declared, ‘The Goddess is with our King.’
The jester murmured, ‘Your Majesty, please relieve me of my duties.’
The Maharajah asked, ‘Why?’
The jester replied, ‘I can’t kill anybody, I can’t whip anybody. By the grace of God, I can only laugh. If I remain in your service, I shall forget how to do even that.’