Night in Karnataka: A Play by Rhys Hughes

NIGHT IN KARNATAKA

Night in Karnataka. And the chapatti-flat pointy faced chap taking a nap on the lap of the cool breeze, spearlike chin piercing the caps of his hard knees, finally wakes...

    My nap was nipped in the bed…
    I mean bud, he said.

And he yawns in an hour long before dawn. Soon she will return and he will sing:

    Yours were
    the tamarind tipped mammaries
    from which I sipped
             with my lips
      without pause.

Already he can hear her footsteps as she walks along the path next to the river. O! night in balmy Karnataka! Mango fandango and guava palaver. She croons the following:

   I will strip you down and kiss you 
   all over. And tickle you with my 
   sweet tongue on the sides of your 
   ribs.
          Then I’ll pluck one of your 
    ribs and make a woman. A rib-cage 
    ready-made maid.

HE: She can cook for us?
SHE: Yes, but you must pay her well.
HE: With what? I am penniless and feckless, a freckle-cheeked pointy faced chap, brow-beaten and lacking grace, who clearly hasn’t eaten for several days.
SHE: I have brought you a coconut. We will eat it together inside the hut. A rhyme will fill us up until then, will it not?

(She dances alluringly)

  Coconut husk or husky voice.
      We have no choice
  but to enjoy the coconut milk
     of human kindness.

HE: There is no tool to open it.
SHE: Crack it with your chin, O pointy faced chap!      Thwack it once or twice or even thrice and don’t be such a fool.
HE: I know that a man in love is like a glove without a hand. I am that glove and I need a hand with the gift that you bring. To crack a nut as big as that requires more than a simple chin. It would damage my heavenly head and to be well fed I am not inclined to sin. I am feckless but clearly not reckless. That shell would be hell for my infernal chin.

And then she says:

    Wary of shells
     you are. I wear
   tinkling bells on
     my ankles. Can
   you hear them from
     afar? O! pointy
   faced chap you
     should clap your
  hands and tap your
     heels to keep the
  fine timing of this
     rhyme, to keep the
  sublime rhythm
    of this auspicious,
  meretricious, quite
     delicious song.

HE: I will clap and tap as I am bid.

(An hour or two goes by)

From his rib she makes a maid but he is afraid something will go wrong. And it does. The maid has no desire to work like a slave. She plucks one of his other ribs and makes a man before they can stop her. The maid and the new man sing an amorous duet before eloping:

  Robbed of ribs he rubs
  his chest. We must
  confess that we
  would take
  any part
  of his
  body that was required for
                         us to
                       achieve    
                    our desire.
                  A ready made
             maid and her bony
        beau. Off we go to set
      up house together…

(No matter the weather, they flee.)

HE: They are eloping on a horse. There are no horses here. I don’t understand!
SHE: O! pointy faced chap. The coconut halves are hooves and this proves that nothing but nothing is an obstacle to true love.
He: Nothing but nothing? Now then. What is this second nothing of which you speak? Tell me quickly and kiss my cheek.
SHE: Pay attention then! Pay it with any amount of rupees you please. Pay with the coin-like reflections of stars on your knees.

  O!
  That is
  the nothing
  of the void that
  we must avoid for as
  long as we can. We squeak
  when we contemplate
  it, for it’s a void
  that sits on
  the chair
  of our souls. Be bold! Forget
  the ways of the old, we have
  each other. Closer than sister
  and brother, you and I. Never
  before in history has a pointy
  faced chap quite as daft been
  so truly adored….

And they embrace each other and she sinks more deeply into his chest than usual, for he is missing two ribs. Dawn has broken but love has been mended. And there will be other nights when they will sing the simple refrain:

    O! night in Karnataka!
    O! night in Karnataka!