Nau Bahar

(1952)

Ashok, only son of Seth Motichand blinded in the bloom of youth. Dreading pity, Ashok sought solitude, playing on his flute in the quiet of an unfrequented flower garden. Jamna was only the old gardner's grand-daughter, poor, humble and unlettered. But she was rich in virtue and the gifts of Nature. To her Ashok seemed only a poor blind youth who was interested in her bhajan and for whom she felt deep sympathy. They met day after day. The sympathy grew deeper till they realized that they loved each other with all their beings. Their happiness was short lived. Ashok was run over and taken unconscious to the hospital where he lay for weeks in the grim shadow of death. Poor Jamna waited in vain not knowing what had happened to him. Searching, weary and footsore she came to the very hospital where Ashok lay. But she was looking for a poor blind sculptor. She was not interested in the millionaire's son. Ashok had to lie in the hospital till he was sent home with his eyesight restored, and the first thing he did was to rush to the garden to set his eyes on the girl who had attracted him in his blindness, he did not find her there. She had been taken away by a distant relation who was planning to marry Jamna to her half-wit son. Disappointed, Ashok went from place to place in search of Jamna, his only clue her voice as he had never seen her face. Ashok did not know the destiny had played another trick on him. While he was searching the world of Jamna, she had been adopted by his own father who had found her orphaned in his hospital. So while Ashok wondered the land in search of Jamna, she pined for him under the care of his own father. Destiny had not yet done with him. Summoned home, Ashok found his father seriously ill. The doctors thought there was no chance of his recovery if he could not see the one desire of his life fulfilled: that was to see his son married Kamla, the daguther of his friend Balmukund, to whom Ashok was betrothed by his mother in his early childhood. Ashok could not deny his father this chance of life and felt duty-bound to carry out the wish of his father. Barely was the ceremony completed when Ashok heard Jamna's voice on the air. She was singing the familiar bhajan which had won his heart. He had found her at last, realized with a feeling of agony more bitter than any he had yet suffered. He had found her too late. Ashok still did not know that Jamna was being reared beneath his own roof.