Page:Plunder (Perlman).djvu/9

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NATHURAM Still making bowls and dreaming of Bhagavad Gita! When will you get married, Krishna?

MOKSA I am married, Nathuram, and you are a beggar. I am married to Earth. Each bowl is made of earth-substance. I take the substance in my hands, give it roundness, my imagination peoples it, and I have a world--a roomful of worlds. How can you say I am not married? Earth is my bride; with her I conceive worlds, ages of men, of animals, of loves, adventures and deaths. Here, look into this bowl, Nathuram: do you see the fierce armies facing each other, and in the center Arjuna, struggling with his soul--should he fight, or shouldn't he? And on this one, Nathuram, is India herself, rising like a sick man, shaking the plague from her body.

NATHURAM Can you cure my brother's sickness by telling him to shake it off? Teach me, Krishna, teach me to feed my brother's family by showing them your bowl and telling them there is food on it. If the soul of India is sick, can the sickness be shaken off on bowls?

MOKSA Nowhere else, Nathuram. I cure India's sickness with bowls. You could cure India with cloth.

NATHURAM You are still a dreamer, Krishna.

MOKSA While I dream, India lives. I see India on every bowl and there is India. Every bowl is a speck in the universe, and each contains the whole universe. When I no longer people my bowls, there will not be a universe. For you, Nathuram, the universe is empty.