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(The Cloud Messenger) by At the opening of the story, the Yaksha has already spent eight months in banishment and as said earlier is suffering greatly from being separated from his beloved wife, whom he had to leave behind in the city of Alaka. He now sees, on the first of the month of Ashadha, the first month of the rainy season, a big dark cloud hovering near the tips of the moun-tain. The Yaksha begs this cloud to carry a message of his love to his beloved wife in Alaka. Apart from a couple of verses at the beginning, Meghaduta is made up of the address of the Yaksha to the cloud. Even the fact that a mere cloud is chosen to be the messenger of love here is made deliberately to show the depth of love between the Yaksha and his wife. Afterall, as Kalidasa says, what does a cloud, a mixture of vapour, flame, water and wind, have to do with a message? Kalidasa himself provides an answer saying "Kamarta hi prakrutikrupanaaschetanaachetaneshu", in his eagerness, the Yaksha, because he was sick with desire, naturally couldnot distinguish between animate and inanimate objects (# 5). Meghaduta is traditionally divided into two parts: the Purvamegha and the Uttaramegha. The first part of Meghaduta, called the Purvamegha, is mainly the description of the route which the Yaksha asks the cloud to take to reach Alaka. He de-scribes the landscapes, cities, rivers, and mountains, over which the cloud must pass to reach Alaka. Kalidasa makes the scenary come alive by his description of the nature and of the life led in these cities. Trees, flowers, birds, animals play roles equally important as the human beings dwelling there in making these places beauti-ful and immortal. The cloud is im-plored to visit the mountain Amarakuta (Amarakantaka), to soar over the heights of the Vindhya range, to greet the river Nar-mada, to stop at the capital city Vidisha and after tasting the waters of the river Vetravati (Vetava) to rest on the hills of Nichais, and so on.. He is asked to pause and rest on the mountains whenever he is tired and to drink water from the fine rivers whenever he is worn out (# 13). That love is the main theme of Meghaduta is stressed by dwelling on descriptions of the play between the cloud and the rivers, the cloud and the birds like Krouncha, the cloud and the flowers like Lotus, and ofcourse, the cloud and the many lovely girls it would meet on the way. In this section there is a beautiful poem (# 26), re-ally, a lyrical miniature painting. It says: nnudyananam navajalakaneiryuthikajalakani gandasvedapanayanarujaklantakarnotpalanam chayadanatkshanaparichitaha pushpalavimukhanam "After having rested, continue further, sprinkling drops of fresh water on the buds of jasmines in the gardens lining the banks of the river Vananadi, there coming into contact, atleast for a moment, by giving shade, with the faces of the girls who are plucking the jasmine buds, the lotus flowers in whose ears are fading away because they are getting injured when the girls accidently touch them, while they brush the drops of perspiration from their cheeks " Well, if ever any poet wrote a verse, which is really a miniature painting, for me, it is the above poem. |