....by Farzana Moon

One scarlet evening, the sun burning low in the west, was heralding king Chansar toward the banks of Indus river. He was accustomed to these lonely rides, courting solitude and contemplation, and not ever permitting his guards and viziers to follow him. Alighting from his horse as was his wont, he strolled toward his favorite spot where water was not that deep and shone crystal-clear. There he stood inert and brooding, lulled to serenity by the gentle lapping of the waves. So engrossed was he in his mute contemplations, that he didn't even notice a young girl who had stolen behind him, ethereal and light-footed. Both were sketched on the canvas of this evening shore like the two spirits abandoned from the heavens to discover their own fates. Fate was knocking on the very shoulders of king Chansar as the girl tapped softly on his shoulder. King Chansar was jolted out of his reveries, whirling around and almost stumbling against the Miracle of Beauty who was not disturbed in the least. After regaining his balance, he stood there rapt and gazing.

The soft, white face of the girl lifted up to him without fear and with utter purity and innocence of Trust, was a marvel he had not ever encountered before. Her beauty was some illusion in dreams, he was thinking. Such Perfection was not permitted to walk on the face of this earth, his very thoughts were kneeling in awe and reverence.

"A fairy from the garden of my enchanted dreams," King Chansar murmured to himself. "Sweet angel, say something, or I will die in the middle of my dreams," he breathed tenderly, rather pleadingly.

"I am Leela, and no one has ever called me angel before," a delicious peal of laughter escaped Leela's poppy-red lips.

"A goddess then, upon whom angels and fairies attend," King Chansar could barely catch his own words. Standing there rapt, motionless.

"I am a stranger to you as you are to me," Leela made a bold attempt at conversation. Her heart, for some nameless reason, leaping and shuddering. "I live with my parents in that small cottage over there," she pointed out her humble abode wistfully, not daring to meet the ardor in the eyes of this stranger. "Such beautiful words, you just spoke, I can't even think straight. But I come here often, to see the moon and the stars in the water, they seem so close in here than up there. When the waves are high, they float and shudder, and that's when..." she ceased to speak, feeling the warmth of king's gaze leaping like fire in her trembling soul.

"My child, my child-bride, you will be the king's queen," King Chansar began to laugh suddenly. Happily and deliriously.

The wedding of Leela with King Chansar was solemnized in a lavish state of festivity and celebration. The whole city of Sind was decked with friezes in silk and brocade, the palace itself spangled with colorful hangings from garden walls to rooftops. The dancers in the bazaar could be seen whirling on their toes and singing paeans in honor of this royal wedding. The musicians and troubadours too, from street to street, were pouring the libations of romantic wedlock, in song and music, for all to dream and rejoice.

King Chansar's love for Leela was such that he would have dared fetch the moon and the stars from the very heavens, if she had but commanded. But as it was, she was content to catch the reflections of these heavenly treasures in the mirror-pools of the palace, clapping with delight, and filling the air with her love and laughter. She herself had become the most precious of treasures for king Chansar, who was wont to embellish this treasure of his with all the jewels and silks his treasuries could flaunt and bestow. Leela, in return, was drunk by the king's love for her, and dazzled by the jewels. The Jewel of Love from the king was hers to cherish and possess, but possessed was she by the glitter of precious jewels, which she could not fail to covet, even if she had to sell her soul to own such glittering gems. True, that she loved the king, heart and soul, and this love was bliss itself, pure and changeless. While her love for jewels was like the fire of temptation, burning and consuming her with the tongues of greed and desire, which she could neither quench, nor abandon. King Chansar was not to know that until betrayed by the tragedy of his own love sublime and love supreme.

Sind had become a paradise for both Leela and king Chansar, where blooms of love could neither fade, nor wilt. Each day was perfumed with celebration, and each night the consummation of love with unsurfeit. Such days and nights, drunk with the wine of youth and surrender would have continued their loving cycle, had not another sprig of love bloomed in the neighboring city of Sind, named Kutch.

Rai Khengar was another wealthy king, reigning over his small kingdom, including Kutch. He had no male heirs, but was blessed with a beautiful daughter, his one and only child, princess Kunro. Princess Kunro was beautiful, wafting the scent of inevitability, for she was both intelligent and capricious. From cradle to the garden of her youth, nothing was ever denied to her, and now that she was nubile and adorable, her wishes were obeyed as commands. She had a beau of suitors who were longing to make her the queen of their hearts, but she was not impressed by any of those young cavaliers suing for her hand. Instead, she was captivated by the reflection of her own dreams, where her whimsical heart had ripped open a continent of desires, stretching beyond the limits of sense or propriety. The songs of the troubadours from Sind had reached her, singing the praises of king Chansar as the most handsome of earthly gods. The arrow of cupid had wounded her heart, and she was in love! Madly and insanely in love with king Chansar? Wrapping herself in the bridal sheets of longings, she had voiced her decision to marry king Chansar. By now, her wishes were not only commands, but edicts writ by the pen of destiny, to be proclaimed with prompt obedience. A swift courier was sent by her own parents, requesting king Chansar to marry their beloved princess, offering the dowry of jewels and kingdoms.

Alas, the courier had returned with sad news that king Chansar was married, and had no wish to marry another maiden, no matter how wealthy and beautiful. Princess Kunro was devastated with grief and despair. The pain of rejection had pierced her heart like a naked sword, and she was plunged deep into the fever of shame and delirium. Had she suffered denial before, or had even tasted a whiff of pain, her heart-rending sorrow would not have been such hopeless, helpless calamity. She was inconsolable, weeping and lamenting all the waking, sleeping hours of her dream-awakenings. Imploring her parents to take her to Sind. To be near king Chansar, to be his maid or bride, she did not care, were princess Kunro's mutterings, both painful and inviolate.

King Rai Khengar could not endure the sufferings of his one and only child, so dear and beloved, his own heart courting a million deaths in search for cure and sanity. From such despair and hopelessness was emerged forth a bizarre plan his wildest imagination could ever conjure and execute. His beloved princess and queen were to journey to Sind in disguise of servants, seeking employment. This was in rapport with princess Kunro's wishes, as she wanted to be near the king; hoping, that he would not be able to resist her beauty and would fall in love. So, the mother and daughter, concealing their gold and jewels in rough sacks, for travel expense and provision, were on the road to Sind.

The glitter of gold and the sparkle of jewels out of their hidden treasures, were working wonders for them. A handful of rubies for them were just a few pebbles, but they had won the admiration of the gardener's wife, Mirkhee. Mirkhee was quick to secure employment for them as ladies-in-waiting for Leela. And to her delightful surprise, she was chosen as a confidante to both the queen and the princess, disguised as servants. Soon, she was concocting her own plans to take revenge on her mistress Leela, whom she envied and despised. Taking the chief minister, Jhakro, into confidence, she implored him to arrange a meeting between princess Kunro and king Chansar. Jhakro was presented with a garland woven with rubies by the very hands of princess Kunro, and his sense of intrigue, if not innate greed, had moved him to prompt action.

One violet evening with the sun fading in the west, Jhakro found the opportunity of testing his own wild scheme to gain king Chansar's favor. Since king Chansar was drunk with joy and exhilaration after his hunting expedition, Jhakro found it expedient to broach the subject. Urging his horse to keep pace with the King's Arabian steed, he murmured audaciously. "Your Lordship, would you, by any chance, be interested in meeting a young lady of surpassing beauty?" Jhakro bit his lip after this bold inquiry, his heart dithering.

"Is she more beautiful than my Leela?" King Chansar laughed.

"Yes, my Liege," Jhakro began quickly. "She could be the queen of the fairies, if I am to judge youth and beauty in all its perfection."

"Then you would sure err in your judgment, his judgment, my besotted vizier," king Chansar laughed again, inhaling the scent of the cool air and the sea. "Leela is the most beautiful woman on the face of this earth. She is my Joy, my Soul, my Dream. The holiest of my treasures, which I could ever covet or possess. I am prisoner to her beauty, loving my golden cage of love, and have no wish to be ever released from this sacred bondage."

Jhakro could find no way to persuade the king, so he chose to be the messenger of sad news to princess Kunro, personally. Princess Kunro was utterly and hopelessly in love, more so than ever, now that she had seen king Chansar, that she broke into sobs and ran into the chamber of her kind mistress, Leela. Forgetting, that she was a servant in this household, she abandoned herself on the bed, bathing the velvet coverlet with hot tears. This was how Leela found her lowly lady-in-waiting, sobbing and weeping with a wild abandon. Endowed with kindness and compassion, she condoned this strange behavior of her servant, and lowered a string of gentle inquiries in hope of consoling her.

Princess Kunro was so blinded by her love and crushed by her mute sufferings, that she divulged all, even her own hopeless love for king Chansar. Leela was incredulous, if not shocked, but her next inquiry betrayed neither her shock, nor her disbelief.

"Could you prove, Kunro, that you are a princess as you claim to be?" Leela's eyes were now burning with the fire of curiosity.

"Yes, mistress Leela," princess Kunro snatched one necklace out of her pocket, quite savagely. This was her dearest of possessions and she always kept it with her, lest it be stolen.

Princess Kunro laid this necklace on the velvety coverlet in maroon, tenderly and wistfully, in wild contrast to her former violence in speech and action. A rush of dazzling colors from rubies, sapphires and diamonds wrought in exquisite gold were a beautiful blaze before Leela's eyes. Now, it was her turn to be blinded--with greed and covetousness. He heart was constricting and expanding, slashed with longings mad and indescribable.

"How much would you sell this necklace for, Kunro?" Leela asked in a daze.

"I couldn't, no, I couldn't..." princess Kunro muttered in utter misery. "This is a gift from my father...a priceless art in gold and jewels, not for its beauty alone, but for its wealth of sentiments embalmed in my sixteenth birthday," she looked up, her eyes bright and red-rimmed.

"I would pay any price for it! Just you name it?" one groan of a plea escaped Leela's lips. She had to possess this treasure, for she was possessed by it.

"Any?" princess Kunro murmured, as if in a dream. She could not miss noticing the fire of greed in Leela's eyes, her own heart licking the flames of longings to conflagration. "Any price?" she murmured feebly.

"Yes, even half a treasury, gleaming with precious jewels," Leela could not take her eyes off this tempting marvel.

"Are you sure, mistress? You will not go back on your word?" princess Kunro breathed low. One revelation of a hope dawning upon her like the clap of thunder and lightning.

"What would you have?" Leela murmured heedlessly.

"One night with your husband in exchange for this beautiful necklace," princess Kunro's very eyes were a star-dance of victory and challenge.

"What?" Leela was jolted to awareness, her eyes flashing daggers. One look at Kunro, and she choked on the full import of this impudent servant-princess.

The daggers in Leela's eyes were replaced by the pincers of greed. She floated toward the bed as if sleep-walking, gazing into the very eyes of blazing jewels, rapt, stricken, bewitched. She was giddy and delirious. Her head was spinning, and her thoughts churning absurdities. What is one night? Chansar loves me, he doesn't have to know...Leela's thoughts were screaming. A downpour of merry lies were crawling into her head like an army of ants. She was fondling the fire in jewels with trembling fingers, and scooping all inside the palms of her hands.

"Yes, Kunro, you have my promise. One night only," Leela was feeling that fire of gems around her white throat, her back toward the swooning princess.

One fateful night, wrapped in dreams upon dreams, dreamed by princess Kunro beyond hopes and dreams, was hers to live and die for. It had actually arrived, without fear or fanfare. The night was star-studded. King Chansar had returned from his famous hunt, more happy than he had ever been before, for he had shot down fifty antelopes in the span of two brief hours. The hour of feasting and celebration, and he had consumed several flagons of wine, as was his wont on such occasions. This was the signal for Leela to pay the ransom of her priceless possession. Princess Kunro was to wait for king Chansar in Leela's bed, and was not to breathe a word during the entire night, even if the king pleaded with her. Before dawn, she was to slip out of the bed, and Leela would take her rightful place. This way, her ransom would be paid, and no harm would come to anyone, Leela had buried her guilt and shame under the mound of her reasonings insane and earth-rocking.

In the drunken orgy of his own love and desire, king Chansar had staggered into his familiar chamber of rose and damask, without even noticing that all the candles were blown out. Half drunk and fully virile, he had stumbled into the bed like a famished lion, but his hunger was for the flesh, not for blood. When intoxicated, his passion knew no surfeit, and all night long, neither he, nor his primal maleness could summon sleep. At the first streak of dawn, locked in a delicious embrace with princess Kunro, he could hear his own string of endearments without even a sigh or a chuckle from his beloved. Before the delicious fatigue could lull him to sleep, his lips were seeking the nectar of bliss once again. Suddenly, the soft, white face before him was etched like a dream! A dream! which he would have never wished to dream as long as Leela was alive.

"Where is Leela? Who are you?" One anguished sob was dying on king Chansar's lips, where kiss and desire had fled.

Princess Kunro had no choice, but to confess her love and victory in gaining king's love for one night, in exchange for a necklace. King Chansar was stunned, rather than incensed. After the initial shock, his soul was racked with grief, despair, disbelief. Like a man whipped by the storms of betrayal and anguish, he found himself foundering into the oceans of rage and implacability. For days and weeks, he had confined himself in his chamber in a fit of delirium and mourning. Permitting no intrusion, and pacing in his room like a caged lion. Only his royal butler was allowed to serve drinks and meals, the latter untasted and neglected most of the time. Finally, he had reached a terrible decision, banishing Leela from his palace and kingdom, and marrying princess Kunro.

"What is this ache, this suffering? This pain, this longing, for nearness? Where is Leela?" king Chansar's heart was bruised.

Princess Kunro! The unwedded bride of one night was forgotten. The wedded bride of rage and madness was fated to remain unloved, her bridal gown pierced with mockery and revulsion. Tragedy and sorrow had made a permanent abode in the palace of king Chansar. Leela, the queen of greed and betrayal was neither forgotten, nor forgiven. And the heart of the King had become a flowerbed of wounds, where roses were bled white by the thorns of their own memories unforgettable. The gulfs of pain and separation, sundered apart by many years of loneliness, had made king Chansar the victim of his own pride and sorrow. Sorrowfully, he lived and suffered in his own world of anguish and bitterness. The shadow of tragedy had not left him, and fate was once more his close companion, though he himself did not know it.

One dark sapphire evening, king Chansar and queen Kunro were feasting at the wedding of a neighboring Amir, though the king himself was silent and abstemious. A grand, wedding feast was at its culmination in the palace garden of the Amir, garnished with colorful lamps and laden with Persian carpets. The cool night air was perfumed with music and fresh garlands of roses and jasmine. The dancers pirouetting on their feet were evoking the most dulcet of melodies in lovelorns and wedding songs. One lithe dancer veiled from head to toe in gossamer chiffons was sailing toward the table where king Chansar and queen Kunro sat listening to the other guests, if not participating in conversation. King Chansar didn't even notice the dancer until she began to sing. The panels upon panels of colorful chiffons were concealing her beauty, but not the sweetness of her voice.

"Sweet pebbles of greed and wealth
Torment me not in my grief
Accursed be the fire of rubies
Making my heart a cruel thief
Sapphires dark as the night
Emeralds, the flames of jealousy
Diamonds honed to slay
Have slain my soul
Only peace in death
Longing for an embrace
In exchange for love
Smitten by a necklace"

This song of the dancer seemed to lull all to awe and silence. She is no dancer, but a nightingale, king Chansar was thinking, spilling her heartrending sorrow in one sweet lament. Queen Kunro was growing pale, trying to search the face behind those layers of chiffons. But king Chansar was oblivious to all, only moved by the flood of pain in this girl's voice. His own bruised heart was resurrecting one altar of a memory where Leela was buried alive. But that memory had no link to this girl. The dancer was singing another song, but his mind was racing after the last one, his thoughts anguished, seething. He was trying to find a link between this Song and Beloved, but both were eluding him. Before this dancer could pirouette her way to another table, he stalled her capriciously.

"What angel speaks through your lips, o sweet maiden!" king Chansar exclaimed with a quick gesture of his arm. "Stay, sing that song of the necklace once again. I loved once, a Beautiful Innocent, and was betrayed," he continued as if reciting a memory inside the river of his own oblivion. "In memory of that betrayal, sing of joy and love," he murmured softly and tenderly.

"Love is always tainted with pain and betrayal, o king, if one loves not truly," the dancer murmured sweetly. "Beauty and wealth are like the poisoned arrows to pierce the heart of Innocence. This spirit of gypsy inside me forbids to sing that song again. I am destined to whirl and wander, to sing and dance in lands far and alien, never repeating what I sing once." she whirled in an act of flitting to the next table.

"Lift your veil, o wise pixie, the king commands," king Chansar stalled her, his heart thundering for some nameless reason.

"At your command, o king," the dancer lifted her veil. No other than Leela, the portrait of sorrow, was gazing at king Chansar.

Both were drifting toward each other like the ones driven by fates into the arms of death and doom. Only the thunder in their hearts was sounding the trumpet of love united and love accursed. Entwined in one violent embrace, their bodies were falling together in one colorful heap. Queen Kunro had fainted, unable to endure this celebration of Death in Love.

The lovers are buried side by side in the palace garden at Sind, where the Song of the Necklace still echoes from the very hearts of the tourists who visit and wonder. The brides and maidens love this song above any, for feasting and celebration in weddings.