Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/295

 280 -. THE CALOUTTA REVIEW [ave.

THE DOOR OF AUSPICIOUS SIGHT!

Stone with blood mingled in its grain, stone with moon- light poured into it : of such stuff is made the Darsan Dar- waza, thé Door of Auspicious Sight in the Imperial Audience Hall. The pink flush of sunrise, with a digit of the moon caught up in its embrace; just a sportive mood of a moment which is of the morning twilight, made to take shape in the form of stone ; a mystery poem attuned to the two rhythms of the coloured and the colourless; a couplet, with its two verses written in letters of stone with the greatest care: only this much meets the eye, day after day, from morning until night.

This was the Door of Auspicious Sight. On the other side of it were the king’s own chambers, surrounded by lattice screens cut in marble delicate like the white petals of the jasmine: one could not see what happened there, and no message of it came to the people outside, and day to day they saw merely the Door of Auspicious Sight.

But no more was the space within the Door of Auspicious Sight filled up with the figure of Shah Jahan, dressed in his - kingly robe of Dacca muslin—woven in morning dew—and looking like a veritable image carved in marble. The mass of people gazed at this latticed and closed balcony, like birds silent with apprehension when at dawn the light of the day ‘does not show itself in the eastern sky; the artist stood expectant with his brush, waiting for Shah Jahan to show himself. .

At last the door opened, but if was not Emperor Shah Jahan who gave to his people the auspicious sight of himself. In his place came out and stood a figure, pale like hard stone tempered in blood. With one hand it seemed he was pressing

} Translated from Bengali by Professor Sunitikumar Chatterji, MLA, D.Lit,