THE TIME HAS COME TO VISIT YOU

Concept by Ravindra Ranasinha

Upagupta, the disciple of Buddha, lay sleep in

the dust by the city wall of Mathura.
Lamps were all out, doors were all shut, and
stars were all hidden by the murky sky of August.
Whose feet were those tinkling with anklets,
touching his breast of a sudden?
He woke up startled, and a light from a woman’s
lamp fell on his forgiving eyes.
It was dancing girl, starred with jewels,
Wearing a pale blue mantle, drunk with the wine
of her youth.
She lowered her lamp and saw young face
austerely beautiful.
“Forgive me, young ascetic,” said the woman,
“Graciously come to my house. The dusty earth
is not fit bed for you.”
The young ascetic answered, “Woman,
go on your way;
When the time is ripe I will come to you.”
Suddenly the black night showed its teeth
 in a flash of lightening.
The storm growled from the corner of the sky, and
The woman trembled in fear of some unknown danger.

A year has not yet passed.

It was evening of a day in April,
in spring season.
The branches of the way side trees were full of blossom.
Gay notes of a flute came floating in the
warm spring air from a far.
The citizens had gone to the woods for the
festival of flowers.
From the mid sky gazed the full moon on the
shadows of the silent town.
The young ascetic was walking along the lonely street,
While overhead the love-sick koels uttered from the
mango branches their sleepless plaint.
Upagupta passed through the city gates, and
stood at the base of the rampart.
Was that a woman lying at his feet in the
shadow of the mango grove?
Struck with black pestilence, her body
spotted with sores of small-pox,
She had been hurriedly removed from the town
 To avoid her poisonous contagion.
The ascetic sat by her side, took her head
on his knees,
And moistened her lips with water, and
smeared her body with sandal balm.
“Who are you, merciful one?” asked the woman.
“The time, at last, has come to visit you, and
I am here,” replied the young ascetic.

Ravindranath Tagore

Greatest writer in modern Indian literature, Bengali poet, novelist, educator, and an early advocate of
Independence for India. Tagaore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Two years later he was
awarded the knighthood, but he surrendered it in 1919 as a protest against the Massacre of Amritsar,
where British troops killed some 400 Indian demonstrators. Tagore's influence over Gandhi and the
founders of modern India was enormous, but his reputation in the West as a mystic has perhaps mislead
his Western readers to ignore his role as a reformer and critic of colonialism.

"When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I
may never lose touch of the one in the play of the many." (from Gitanjali)

Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta into a wealthy and prominent family. His father was
Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, a religious reformer and scholar. His mother, Sarada Devi, died when
Tagore was very young - he realized that she will never come back was when her body was carried
through a gate to a place where it was burned. Tagore's grandfather had established a huge financial
empire for himself. He helped a number of public projects, such as Calcutta Medical College.