Gaura Kirtan at The End of Kali Yuga - a one act play

GAURA KIRTAN at the END of KALI YUGA
by: R.S. Das

CHARACHTERS:
Kalki Avatar (played by the handsome young Romanian actor Bela Lugosi)
Fredo Bigguns: (played by another young Hollywood phenom, Mickey Rooney)

SETTING: Hobbitoon

(A magnificent warrior dressed in Samurai garb gallups up on a white stallion to the little door on the side of the green hill. Kalki Avatar jumps off His steed, throws back His cape and while utterng Kung -Fu mantras begins to let off steam by brandishing a curved stainless-steel sword swinging it around violently in figure-eight motions reminiscent of Briuce Lee in Enter The Dragon. Composing himself and then

KNOCK, kNOCK

FREDO. (from inside) Who's there?

KALKI. (Grinning menacingly) KALKI!

FREDO. kalki who?

KALJI. Mr. Kalki A. Vatar!

FREDO. (Cracks the door open, and squints nearsightedly over a pair of granny glasses while standing on a stool. A roaring Bengali Kirtan is heard inside: RADHE RADHE RADHE, JAY JAY JAY SHREE RADHE!) Haven't seen you here before. Did you bring kartals?

KALKI. (Smiles menacingly and speakes with a thick Romanian accent) No , bat I've brought my CHOPPEROO, heh, heh. (tries to look past Fredo) Wat kind af singing is that , by the way?

FREDO. (Grabs the sword out of His hand) Gimme that. How do you play this thing? This isn't one of them musical saws, is it?

KALKI: Hey, give that back to me! Its time to play OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

FEEDO. Sorry pal. We don't get into any of those Rock-a-Billy type kirtans here!

KALKI. (Tries to force the door open unsuccessfully) WHAT DO YOU MEAN!? I've been waiting so long...

FREDO: HEY!...Its kartals and khol here! No accordians, no balalaikas, no banjos.!
CAPICHE?

KALKI. (tries to brow beat him with a hypnotizing glare, but at last grabs his sword. throws his cape over his shoulder and stomps away in a huff; mounts his steed and rides off shaking his fist saying:) Okay, my little piss-ant friend, but I'll be back some day!

FREDO; Yeah, yeah... maybe next time! I won't hold my breath!... That's right get outta here before I roll up my sleeves. (looking off to the side mutters) The nerve of these non-traditionalists, always trying to crash the party. (slams the door)

SCENE TWO

SETTING: The office of the president of Mahaaishwarya Marga Mandir

PRESIDENT: Hey, you can't write about Kalki Avatar that way and get away with it.

R. Sorry, I didn't mean to get anyone upset.

PRESIDENT: I'm afraid I'm going to have to ban ya. Who gave you the mandate to try to write about transcendental topics, anyways? I mean where do you get the gall to...

R. (interupts) Han Shan and Japhy Ryder.

P. What? Those two little twerps weren't even devotees. They were lunatics, for God's sake. You know what? I'm on the phone to Jaya and Vijaya. You're banned from Vaikuntha. I kept W.C. Fields and Groucho out of there so I'm sure I can keep you out.

R. Aw razberries.

THE END

Jay Radhe!
Thank you for the humour! It is so welcome!

IbcVisnudas-ji

Thanks a lot for your kind encouragement. When I first saw your post I got worried that you were going to let me know that my writing sucked so bad that Sri Visnu was sending His Sudarsan Chakra after me to shut me up for good.

Radhe Radhe!

Rad

han shan is coincidentally my second favourite poet of all time.

Tri-sandhyam-ji

I'm not surprised that you like old Han shan. It seems, by the indications of recent threads that the Age of Aquarius, or something is happening all of a sudden and the time has come to examine the merits of the Avadhuta marg,. My dear Sri Nityananda Prabhu, showed Himself to be the quintessential Avadhuta by being fond of such activities as riding around Bengal naked on a horse.

Han Shan wasn't a Vaisnava but he definitely lived like an Avadhuta, nevertheless. Sometimes there are lessons to be learned even from unlikely sources. The following is an exchange between Japhy Ryder and Ray Smith:

"...Han Shan came down from the mountain after many years roaming around up there, to see his folks in town, says, 'Till recently I stayed at Cold Mountain, etcetera, yesterday I called on friends and family, more than half had gone to the Yellow Springs, 'now morning, I face my lone shadow, I can't study with both eyes full of tears.' "
"That's like you too , Japhy, studying with eyes full of tears."
"My eyes aren't full of tears!"
"Are'nt they gong to be after a long, long time?"
"They certainly will Ray...and look here, 'In the mountains it's cold. It's always been cold not just this year' see, he's real high, maybe twelve thousand or thirteen thousand feet or more, way up there, and says 'Jagged scarps always snowed in, woods in the dark ravines spitting mist, grass is still sprouting at the end of June, leaves begin to fall in early august, and here am I high as a junkey---' "
"As a junkey!"
"That's my own translation, he actually says here am I as high as a sensualist in the city below, but I made it modern and high translation."
"Great" I wondered why Han shan was Japhy's hero.
"Because," said he, "he was a poet, a mountain man, a Buddhist dedicated to the principle of meditation on the essence of all things, a vegetarian too...And he was a man of solitude who could take off by himself and live purely and true to himself."

excerpt from The Dharma Bums --Jack Kerouac

I first read about Han Shan in a book about Ch'an, he is like my childhood icon. Then I read Dharma Bums ... if only most Beats could write as good as Han Shan!

I really enjoyed the first two parts of the ecstacy matrix book until I got to part three about drugs as bhakti facilitators and sleeping with every person you meet to transmit to them bhakti, and then interpreting them getting upset over your two-timing as teaching them unmotivated love and increasing their exstacy like Krishna does to Radha. Haha bullocks.

We are quoting Kerouac and talking about the ecstacy matrix, check this out, from a book by Pema Chodron:

" The Beat poet Jack Kerouac , feeling primed for a spiritual breakthrough , wrote to a friend before he retreated into the wilderness,

If I don't get a vision on Desolation Peak , then my name ain't William Blake .

But later he wrote that he found it hard to face the naked truth.

I'd thought, in June when I get to the top -- and everybody leaves -- I will come face to face with God or Tathagata ( Buddha ) and find out once and for all what is the meaning of all this existence and suffering -- but instead I'd come face to face with myself , no liquor , no drugs , no chance of faking it , but face to face with ole Hateful . . . Me. "

Its a pleasure to be able to discuss Kerouac, and Han Shan in relation to Vaisnava dharma. My own notions as to why Jack drank himself to death run along the lines of J.D. salinger's theory about how the superlative poet /sensitive person is so dazzled by beauty and is so much in a heart space that (without the stabilizing aspects of sadhana ) such a person often becomes an emotional basket case if he doesn't have booze or drugs to take off the edge. What can be concluded except that the material world is no place for a gentleman or lady. When will I consider myself fortune's fool on having to leave Vraja even for a moment?

I found a Han shan poem that resonates of the Srimad Bhagavatam to me.

Man lives his life in a dust bowl,
Just like vermin in the middle of a pot:
All day going round and round,
Never getting out from the inside
Blessedness is not our lot:
Only nettlesomeness without end.
Time is like a flowing river---
One day, we wake up old men. (TR. Euguene Eoyang)

ayur harati vai pumsam / uddyann astan ca yann asau
tasyarte yat-ksano nita / uttama sloka vartaya
Both by rising and by setting, the sun decreases the duration of life of everyone, except one who utilizes the time by discussing the topics of the all-good Bhagavan. S.B. 2.3.17