like the sky my beloved is everywhere but next to me
Poems of Kalidasa (2 / 2) — Meghaduta
A yaksha, requests a cloud to carry a message of love and longing to his lover who is far away. The yaksha hero of this poem serves the god of wealth, Kubera, and having failed in some responsibility, has been cursed to live for a year in Ramagiri in Vindhya mountains of Central India. The year proves too long to endure, for his lover who remains unnamed is a woman or yakshi who lives in Alaka, a city in the distant Himalayas. The yaksha is obsessed, he reminisces his past moments with his lover, and fantasizes that she too is lovesick for him. However, the Meghaduta is much more than a fanciful love-poem. The yaksha tries to motivate the cloud by describing the wonderful sights en route to Alaka, and the poem, thus, also works as a travelogue of an itinerary from the Vindhyas to the Himalayas.
