Lakmé

Setting: Imperial India

Gérald, his fiancée and friends are exploring their surroundings and stumble into the sacred temple where Nilakantha is priest. Sensing their intrusion, all the foreigners leave but Gérald who stays behind to sketch the jewels hanging at the temple’s entrance. Lakmé appears and it’s love at first sight. Knowing her father’s hatred of the British, she persuades Gerald to leave. Nilakantha returns and knowing the temple has been profaned by outsiders, swears his revenge. He sets a trap for Lakmé’s lover in the public market by having her sing the beautiful Bell Song. When Lakmé sees Gerald in the crowd of listeners, she faints and gives his identity away allowing Nilakantha to stab Gerald. The wound, though terrible, is not fatal. Hadji helps Lakmé spirit Gérald away to a safe spot in the forest where she nurses him. Frédéric, Gerald’s friend and fellow officer, follows them. He waits until Gérald is unattended and convinces to him to leave with his regiment that very night. Frédéric slips away as Lakmé returns with water from a sacred spring which will grant those who drink it, eternal love. She sees the change of Gérald heart when she offers him the cup. In despair, she eats a flower of the poisonous datura tree. Nilakantha finds the lovers and Gérald full of remors, begs to be killed. Lakmé tells her father that if the gods must have revenge, than she must be the only victim and dies in his arms.

The relationship between the British and Hindus in India has a long and troubling history. The story of Lakme takes place during a time when the Hindi people were greatly oppressed by the British East India Company. While they officially discouraged discrimination against the Hindi people, the British East India Company, secretly financed British missionaries and encouraged the conversion of Sepoys(Hindi soldiers), often by force. The tremendous amount of violence and coercion inflicted upon the Hindi people was a contributing factor in their struggle for independence from British rule.