Act III, Scene 1
(Khulna. A religious mendicant sings while passing by the residence of Dr. K.D. Ghosh.)MENDICANT:
Mother, Mother, Mother Kali!
Knowledge of earth is strange to me.
I know not how to sing of Thee.
My feeble mind is a fruitless tree.
Thine Eyes are fire, Thy Heart is love.
My bosom pines to be thy dove.
K.D.: Ah, what moving and melting music! Mother Kali to my rescue! Who else can cool my racking pain? Worried thoughts about my son Auro are eating into my heart.
(Enter a messenger with a telegram)
MESSENGER: Sir, a wire for you.
K.D.: At last! Maybe it’s from Auro.
(On opening the message he falls to the ground. His soul turns the keen vibration of its pain to an inner music.)
My Auro! Auro! All world-pain in flood
Within my finite breast.
My pride, my country’s pride, O earth’s hope-noon,
The all-transforming Crest!
Alas! To feed my longings high, no more
Shall I see my Auro, my son.
The sombre night envelops my mortal sheath.
To-day my heart is undone.
Now cruel fate has torn my vision’s Rose.
Auro, I shut my eyes
To see your golden face, to be with you
In the blue-white climbing skies.
(K.D.Ghosh had almost intuitive high hopes that his Auro was to brighten the face of the mother country. The ship which was to carry Auro sank on the way. But Auro boarded a second ship. On the assumption that his son must have perished with the lost ship his father died of a broken heart.)
