Mistaken… Annie Besant in India

Rukhsana Ahmad

• Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
• ISBN:
  9781910798768
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Explores the incredible story of Annie Besant's relationship with India and the boy who went on to become one of India's greatest teachers and thinkers – Krishnamurti.

1916: India is simmering with discontent against the Raj. Enter English proto-feminist Annie Besant, notorious at home for the match-girls' strike, political, charismatic. In India she finds a new family and a new cause.

Gandhi hails her as the leader of the Congress Party after she courts imprisonment for promoting Indian Home Rule. She admires him – but can rulers ever befriend the ruled?

Can Annie's great love affair with India last? … or is she mistaken in her beliefs, politics and adoptions?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rukhsana Ahmad 's stage plays include: S ong For Sanctuary, The Gate-Keeper's Wife, Black Shalwar, River On Fire (shortlist Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2002), T he Man Who Refused to be God, Last Chance and Partners in Crime.

Radio plays and adaptations include: Song for a Sanctuary (CRE award, runner-up), An Urnful of Ashes, The Errant Gene, Nawal El Saadawi's Woman At Point Zero, Jean Rhy's Wide Sargasso Sea (shortlist CRE and Writers' Guild Award for best adaptation), R.K Narayan's The Guide and Nadeem Aslam's Maps For Lost Lovers.

She also wrote for Westway and helped to create Pyaar Ka Passort for BBC World Service Trust. Her fiction includes a novel; The Hope Chest (Virago) and several short stories have been published internationally. Her translations from Urdu include We Sinful Women, and Altaf Fatima's novel, The One Who Did Not Ask. Currently she is working on Letting Go, a new play for Pursued by a Bear, and an adaptation for the BBC of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.

Mistaken…

Annie Besant in India

Rukhsana Ahmad

CHARACTERS

ANNIE (late 60s)

(Young) SIDRA Her housekeeper (late 20s)

STORYTELLER/(Old Sidra) (40s)

NARAYAN Clerk at the T.S. (45)

KRISHNA His son (20s)

GANDHI (45)

Cast can double these roles:

GOVERNOR OF MADRAS

JUDGE

YOGI

MAN

WOMAN

SOLDIERS

Act 1, Scene 1

Annie seated on the floor, head bowed, hands folded and pressed to her lips.

Enter Storyteller, veiled, she hands Annie a flower. Annie sits up inhales the perfume.

Enter three hooded figures. One of them helps her up. They all hold hands to form a square that includes Annie but leaves Storyteller outside.

Storyteller watches as one of them lays down a square cloth in the middle. Another lights a candle in a bowl and sets it down in the centre. The third strips the petals of the flower and lays them on the flame. The first pours libations. Smoke and incense rise. Annie raises the bowl above her head. They all whisper solemnly.

ALL (chant)

Hallelujah, hallelujah.

MALE VOICE

O thou, great and blessed guardian angel, descend from the moon, bring thy holy influence and presence onto this planet, that I may behold thy glory evermore. I pray thee, descend and hold commune with me, in the name of the Great God Jehovah, to whom the whole choir of Heaven sings: ‘Hallelujah.’ Amen.

2^nd MALE VOICE

Alcyone is here, the Maitreya is here, the New Messiah is coming, Alcyone is here...

ANNIE

He’s here now, amongst us. Not a moment too soon, I say. He’s here now – all Goodness be praised.

ALL (exit chanting)

Hallelujah, hallelujah.

Incantation fades.

Scene 2

India 1916

Lights up to reveal Storyteller. She walks up front and addresses the audience.

STORYTELLER

Towards the end, when Amma grew frail and lay dying before my eyes, I felt that in all my years as a yogi the one thing I’d learnt and understood well was the art of letting go. Dying, death and transformation are at the heart of Lord Buddha’s teaching. ‘Buddha alone truly and fully knows the world. Indeed, it is very difficult to understand this world; although it seems true, it is not, and although, it seems false it is not’.

After years of seeking knowledge, I returned, not a lot wiser, but subdued and humbled. It was the summer of 1916, I think.

A.B. – her name sprang at me wherever I went. Mysterious dreams and questions nagged me. This feeling that she held the key to the future, to some secret path to knowledge took root inside me and grew stronger, until one day I just walked into my dream, and found myself knocking on her door.
(Walks over to Annie’s house.)

The tall building of the Theosophical Society in Madras shimmered in the sun, a white gem set against the emerald banks of the River Adyar. I’d no idea what I’d say to her… (Beat. We hear the knock.)

Younger Sidra enters.

SIDRA

What if she answers herself?

Annie opens door. Takes off her glasses.

SIDRA

Periamma?

ANNIE

Yes? They call me that sometimes.

Sidra joins her palms in greeting.

SIDRA

I … I’ve been sent to you

Annie stares with cautious myopic eyes.

ANNIE

By whom?

SIDRA

A voice, in a dream. (Pause) Maybe it was the Master himself. (Beat. Annie considers her carefully, then invites her.)

ANNIE

Come in. (Indicates a chair) There must be a reason why.

SIDRA

Thank you.

ANNIE

Forgive me, my memory isn’t what it used to be. Have we met before?

SIDRA

Not in real life. (Beat) My aunt always spoke proudly of having served a lady with the heart of an angel, a Mrs. Annie Besant, at the Central Hindu College in Benares, years ago. Annabai?

ANNIE

Yes, I set that up, years ago. Your face seems familiar.

SIDRA

She was my mother’s sister.

ANNIE

Did she send you?

SIDRA

She’s no longer with us.

ANNIE

I’m sorry. Was that recent?

SIDRA

No. (Pause)

ANNIE

Tell me about this voice that sent you to me. Can I be of any practical help?

SIDRA

I need guidance more than help … Beat

ANNIE

From me?

SIDRA

This is the next stage of my quest.

ANNIE

I think more about this world now than the astral one. It’s my duty to make life more bearable for those less fortunate than I.

SIDRA

Should I count myself as one of them? (Beat) We never knew our parents, my sister and me.

ANNIE

That is so hard, to be an orphan from birth.

SIDRA

We were lucky – Maasi raised us like a real mother.

ANNIE

That’s a sweet name to call an aunt: maasi, my mother’s likeness.

SIDRA

Yes, she really was.

ANNIE

I feel I know you though you haven’t told me your name yet.

SIDRA (hesitates)

They call me Sidra. That’s the name my first guru gave me, the one who led me into a search for the Masters in Tibet.

ANNIE

You’re a seeker then! Did you ever see any of them?

SIDRA

I wasn’t deemed worthy, alas.

ANNIE

They don’t reveal themselves easily.

SIDRA

Can I serve you, Annabai.

ANNIE

Certainly. Stay with us for now, Sidra. We’ll learn from each other, I’m sure. Welcome to Adyar, it’s my haven of peace.

Sidra bends to touch her feet, but Annie raises her up gently.

SIDRA

I was longing to hear those words, for permission to stay. Thank you, Annabai.

ANNIE

Let’s hope it brings you what you’re seeking.

Sidra looks around uncertainly.

SIDRA

It will. Everything’s so beautiful here and grand. I hope I can fit in.

In my dream, my aunt sat on a red velvet chair out there on the grass by the river. We could hear you playing your piano inside – I don’t know the tune. Maasi asked me to kneel before her, and put a handful of coral in my palms then said, in a man’s voice, ‘You’re needed in Adyar.’ That’s all, I remember.

Annie looks at her, askance.

ANNIE

A teacher at the Hindu College did you say?

SIDRA

No. I didn’t. (Pause) She was just an ayah, same as at the convent in Hyderabad. (Annie turns away, non-plussed.) I didn’t expect you to remember her. It was a long time ago, Amma. May I call you that? (Annie slips a star-shaped gold locket off her neck and holds it out on her palm.)

ANNIE

The Theosophical Society brought me to Madras soon after that. This is my Star of the East; he shines in the West right now. (She points to a garlanded portrait of Krishna.)

SIDRA

He?

ANNIE

Yes. He’s the New Messiah – my son – Krishnamurti.

SIDRA

A new Messiah? And he’s your son? Were you … did you? (She turns from the portrait confused.)

ANNIE

I’m not his natural mother. I adopted him ...

Table of contents

• Mistaken… Annie Besant in India
• Title
• Copyright
• Foreword
• A Chronology of Annie Besant’s Life
• Mistaken… Annie Besant in India
• Author’s note