Devamitra
Chakraborty
Dr. Devamitra
Chakraborty is an Assistant Professor of English at Dr. Bhupendra Nath Dutta Smriti
Mahavidyalaya, Hatgobindapur, Purba Bardhaman. West Bengal. Indian English
Drama. Her Ph.D dissertation was on the topic “Girish Karnad’s Passage to India: A Study of His Plays”
Abstract
Downing Cless argues that “natural
environments become dramatic forces, taking action with agency or reacting as
enforced victims, not unlike characters” in plays which can “powerfully bring
on stage the other-than-human world and its endangerment” (1). Moreover, Critics like Christine Gerhardt and
Christa Grewe-Volpp speak about the possibility of intersection of ecocriticism
and ecofeminism and create new avenues for reading texts to understand the
symbiotic relationship between human and the nonhuman spheres. This paper tries
to analyse the representation of the nonhuman world in Karnad’s two plays — Nāga-Mandala (1988) and The Fire and the Rain(1994) — to
understand the ecological ideas and vision of the playwright from an eclectic
perspective.
The two plays together bring on the stage the biotic sphere of the
natural environment, the fauna and the flora. Besides presenting a gallery of
animals that comprise both the physical world and the psychological world of
its heroine, Nāga-Mandala has, a
nonhuman animal, as a major character who morphs into human shape to become a
protagonist. The Fire and The Rain,
has the abiotic elements in the very title of the play. The play is set on a
barren land which is parching in famine and the people are desperate to get
rains. But as a contrast to this wasteland there is a reference to a forest
which becomes an off stage character in the play. The texts read together give
us the playwright’s vision of the relationship between the human world and the
non-human world which is shaped by Indian cultural and philosophical
traditions. But the plays are also interrogative in nature which interrogates
the discourse of development propagated by capitalist discourse that has victimized
both the fauna and flora. The texts give us the picture of rural India which
lives in close proximity to nature and they share a symbiotic relationship with
it. The plays also highlight that in the human world it is the woman who shares
greater proximity to nature in comparison to man.
Keywords: Ecocriticism,
ecofeminism, development, environment, dominant discourses, Other, woman,
Downing Cless in his introduction to his book Ecology and Environment in European Drama argues that “natural
environments become dramatic forces, taking action with agency or reacting as
enforced victims, not unlike characters”(1). He again argues that “Although theatre is
largely human-centered” the drama can “powerfully bring on stage the
other-than-human world and its endangerment”(1). Karnad’s Nāga-Mandala
(1988) and The Fire and the Rain (1994)
together bring on the stage the biotic sphere of the natural environment, the
fauna and the flora respectively. Besides presenting a gallery of animals that
comprise both the physical world and the psychological world of its heroine, Nāga-Mandala has a nonhuman animal, as a
major character who morphs into human shape to become a protagonist. The Fire and the Rain, has the abiotic
elements in the very title of the play. The play is set on a barren land which
is parching in famine. Only rain can help life survive and a fire ceremony,
Yajna, is arranged in this regard. But as a contrast to this wasteland, there
is a reference to a forest which becomes an off stage character in the play.
This paper tries to analyze the representation of the nonhuman world to
understand the ecological ideas and vision of the playwright.
Ecocriticism is generally defined as the study of the relationship
between literature and the physical environment that draws its precepts from
the social movements that originated in the 1990s. The movement tries to
relocate the relationship of the human element with the environment—natural
environment (comprising the biotic and the abiotic spheres) and the man made
environment— in order to promulgate the possibility of sustainable
development. However, for Lawrence Buell
any definition for the term is imprecise as the theoretical framework has many
“conflicting usages that belies the implication of a coherent category implied
by its customary deployment in the singular” and the movement has “generated
initiatives or camps that draw on increasingly discrepant archives and critical
models”. (87) Buell opines that ecocriticism can be characterized “as a
two-stage affair since its inception as a self-conscious movement in the early
1990s” (88). The first wave of ecocriticism has dealt with “nonhuman nature in
two different although related ways” ( Buell 89). The first way has been
propounded by “British Romanticism with a genre focus especially on poetry in
that tradition (including its twentieth-century Anglo-American filiations), and
U.S. nature writing (ditto), with a genre focus especially on the Thoreauvian
imprint” (Buell 89). And the second approach is based on the principles of deep
ecology, which comprises the view that “human being and human consciousness are
thought to be grounded in intimate interdependence with the nonhuman living
world” (Buell 90). The second wave, on the other hand “has sought to press far
beyond the first wave’s characteristic limitations of genre, geography, and
historical epoch”(Buell 92). It engages “the whole sweep of Western literary
history from antiquity to the present” and “it had also taken root in eastern
and southern Asia as well as Anglo-Europe and the Anglophone diaspora” (Buell
92). Buell also observes that “in India, the first generation of eco-critics
has taken a special interest in the literatures and philosophical traditions of
the subcontinent” (92). Thus, according to Buell, the perspective of
ecocriticism in India is rooted in the culture of people. Christine Gerhardt
and Christa Grewe-Volpp, however, go ahead to categorise the literary movement
into three phases—the first phase which “focused on re-evaluating the genre of
nature writing … guided by the ideals of wilderness, conservation and
individual activism”; the second phase that “considered the politics, genres
and environments in terms of race, gender, class and issues of environmental
justice” and the third is “characterized by global and planetary perspectives,
often focusing on questions of climate change and anthropocene” (413). The duo also
goes ahead to assert that there is always a scope of discussion on issues that
are beyond ecocriticism but having link to the latter for “an environmentally
significant category of analysis” (417). This opens up “analytical potential of
such intersections” and one such major issue in which ecocriticism shares “a
long-standing interest” is ecofeminism (Gerhardt 417).
Ecofeminism has emerged as the new
wave or the third wave feminist movement which links feminism with deep
ecology. Deep ecologists have insisted on the need to examine the “the
symbolic, psychological, and cultural patterns by which humans have distanced
themselves from nature, denied their reality as a part of nature, and claimed
to rule over it from outside” for a better appreciation of human life (qtd in
Reuther et al. 33). The human world which is ailing in different aspects owes
much to its separation and domination of the environment on socio-economic,
cultural, psychological and philosophical plane. There is a need to develop a
close communion between the humans and other species in this biosphere for a
sustainable development of human world order. The ecofeminists go further to
stress that a woman shares an inherent bonding with nature unlike their
counterpart. And the women share a common platform with nature in the context
of violence, repression and subjugation meted out to both. Famous Indian ecofeminist, Vandana Shiva
opines that the theory of progress which originated in the Age of Enlightenment
is an assertion of two facets which go hand in hand—modern scientific knowledge
and economic development—without looking at life. Speaking in the context of
Green Revolution she opines that implementers of such development “have reduced
the biodiversity of the planet to the four commodities that can be patented,
genetically engineered” (“Lie of Growth” 15). Speaking on the politics of food,
Shiva points out that the issue of food producing is gendered at various
levels. She argues that “Food security must remain in women's hands everywhere”
and it should not be left “in the hands of a few transnational corporations
[Western patriarchy] with their profit motives food security…. We will resist
those who force us to produce and consume in ways that destroy nature and
ourselves (“Women and Gender” 31).
Ecofeminism thus is a
socio-economic and political movement which draws parallel between women and
the environment as both are relegated to the position of the Other. They are
commoditized and this process of appropriating both women and the environment
for “progress” inculcate violence and repression on both.
Thus, the possibility of intersection of ecocriticism and ecofeminism
creates new avenues for reading a text to understand the symbiotic relationship
between human and the nonhuman spheres. This paper tries to have such an
approach to Karnad’s two plays— Nāga-Mandala
and The Fire and the Rain— and study
the symbiotic relationship of flora and fauna with the anthropocentric world
specially the women. Girish Karnad is one of the main exponents who have
successfully shaped the canon of post-independence Indian Theatre. He has been
critically acclaimed for his experimentation with Indian myths, Indian history
and folktales. One of the cardinal aspects of his modernity is the manner in
which Karnad has challenged the dominant discourses like the Brahminical
discourse and the patriarchal discourse. Karnad has received much critical
acclaim from the perspective of feminism and postcolonialism. However, little
critical focus has been received from the perspective of ecology. This includes
Falguni P Desai’s reading of the mythical/ecocritical layers of Nāga-Mandala. She asserts the importance
of Hindu myths and religious practices which attaches sacredness to natural
objects and thereby promotes biodiversity. And Lillykutty Abraham’s novel
article reads Nāga-Mandala from the
perspective of Neo-Tinai and tries to
identify how tinai is foregrounded as
the play progresses depicting the union of the humans and the nonhumans at
different levels. K Muthuram has an article that makes an eco-critical reading
of The Fire and the Rain. However, a
comprehensive vision of the playwright on the natural environment which can be
achieved by reading the two plays together remains unexplored. As already
stated in the introduction this article tries to understand the representation
of the other-than-human world considering its natural entities, occurrences and
settings of significance. The fauna as represented in Nāga-Mandala and the flora as represented in The Fire and the Rain assume the significance of a character in
these two plays which are discussed in the following two sections.
I
Nāga-Mandala
brings on the urban stage the flavour of the rural Kannada folk theatre. The
play gets its title from the traditional folk performance Nagamandala. This theatre form is a ritualistic performance that is
rooted deep in the Kannada culture just like Yakshagana.1 Nagamandala is a “festive occasion when
the Naga Dance (Naga Nryta) forms a
part of the worship (Ranganath 35). This
dance drama is the remnant of the totem worship of ancient days.2 But Karnad’s play makes obvious departures
from the ritualistic performance to present a modern drama based on a
triangular love affair between Rani, the female protagonist, her human husband,
Appannna and her non-human lover, a King Cobra, here referred to as Naga.
However, the locale of the play is rural India where the people share space
with plenty of animals and plants unlike in the urban spheres. Karnad in his
Introduction to Three Plays writes
that the oral tales are:
Narrated by
women—normally the older women in the family—…[and] often serve as a parallel
system of communication among women in the family. They thus present a
distinctly women’s understanding of the reality around her…” (“Intro” 314)
Thus, the playwright makes it clear at the very beginning that this is a
female’s world and this world lies beyond the structures of written stories.
A.K. Ramanujan, to whom Karnad dedicates his Nāga-Mandala, calls the folklore “childhood voices” (“Telling
Tales” 448) that has, as he says, pervaded “my childhood, my family, my
community. It is the symbolic language of the non-literate parts of me and my
culture” (“Who Needs Folklore” 532). And
the anti-realistic performance tradition of Nagamandala
offers the perfect ambience for the make belief world of King Cobras who
possesses divine powers. The snake can change into human forms and perform
supernatural activities in this magical world. Thus, Rani’s lover is a king
cobra which falls in love with her under the intoxication of a magical root,
assumes the shape of a human (her husband) and makes love to her. The play
takes ample advantage of the fluidity of folk tales in mixing the real with the
unreal, the magical and the elements of fantasy and present the world of the
female in contrast to the structured rational world of the male.
Rani, is given into marriage to Appanna as a child. When she reaches the
age of menarche, she arrives at her husband’s house to lead a conjugal life.
But quite ironically, instead of making her the mistress of the house Appanna
locks her up in the house and maltreats her. Rani accepts this role of
Appanna’s cook and maid without being made his sexual partner. Thus, from the
very beginning Rani is relegated to the position of the Other. From a carefree
life at her father’s house, she experiences a sea change upon coming to her
husband’s place where she lies in captivity and humiliation. Being locked up,
Rani feels dejected and low. Rani’s only means to escape from this bondage is
in her dreams where eagles, stags, golden antlers befriend her and come to her
rescue. Quite significantly, we see that Rani easily associates herself with
animals. The animals that are mentioned are just out of the grandmother’s
tales, which generally weave magical world of the unreal and the romantic.
Besides imaginative animals, Rani finds comfort in an elderly village
woman, Kurudavva. The latter is supposed to be the friend to her deceased
mother-in-law. The old woman sympathizes with her and compares her to a caged
bird and Appanna to a wild beast and reptile. The analogy between the tortured
animal and the tortured woman is explicit in Kurudavva’s comparison. As already
mentioned, the play is replete with feminine sensibilities and the manner they
respond to the natural world to convey those. There are multiple occasions when
references to various animals are made to communicate the feelings. The
references to animals can be categorized broadly into two— the domestic and
harmless animals and the wild and the harmful ones. The parallel between the
domestic animals and the women expound the concept of utility principle in
both. Both are to be possessed by the owners. The wild animals Rani dreams
about symbolize the desire for freedom, they also stand for vitality to
transcend the boundaries of domestication and lead her to the realm of utopia.
Appanna’s comparison to wild beast also connotes the hierarchy of the human
over the animal the sub-human. The proposition suggests that if Appanna had
been a good person he wouldn’t have acted as an animal. Thus, though the play
represents the parallelism between women and animals on the context of
domination, subjugation, and perpetration of violence in taming or
domesticating them the broad categorization of the animals fall vulnerable in
“colluding in the fiction that the species boundary is a fixed one” (Huggan
152). Huggan here uses the term “species
boundary” not in Darwinian sense but refers “to the discursive construction of
a strict line between humans and animals” (156).
Kurudavva hands Rani a magical root which the latter is to feed to her
husband in order to win over his love. But unfortunately, she throws the
magical potion made out of the roots on the Naga. And the latter falls in love
with her. The love episode of Naga and Rani as already mentioned has both
verbal and nonverbal elements emulating the world of snakes. But they are
primarily based on the precepts of totem worship and other common beliefs and
superstitions regarding King Cobra and are not based on any scientific reality.
The King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) has been listed as Vulnerable on
the IUCN Red List since 2010. The play composed in 1988 could not anticipate
the change in the global habitat making this creature vulnerable which
otherwise has been considered sacred since ages. The play adheres to the
concept of snake cult prevalent in India. The snake cult has multiple origins
like totemistic, mythical, fertility cult due to the similarity of the shape of
a hooded snake and a sperm and so on. The worshipping of snakes has also
originated out of fear and reverence. The coiled snake or Kundalini has often been associated with the concept of oneness of
all ‘Jeeva’ (life) in this cosmos or
the posture of Nagabandha is viewed
as the symbol of power transmission where the male and the female stand for two
opposites in Indian philosophical discourses. Thus, snake worship forms an
integral part of Indian culture as many gods and goddesses are also associated
with snakes. Lord Shiva also known as Pashupati
or the lord of the animals is one of the trinity in the Hindu pantheon and his
image is always associated with the snake Vasuki
round his neck. Even Goddesses Durga holds a snake in one of her ten arms. The Padma Puran is dedicated to Padmabati,
or Manasha who is the Goddess of snakes and Nag
Panchami is one of the auspicious festivals observed by the Hindus when the
cobra also called Naga is worshipped. But the prevalence of this snake worship
has failed to protect the species which has become a victim of the march of
development that has robbed it of its habitat. Thus reading/performing the play
in the present times propagates the need for a sustainable development to
preserve the cultural fabric of the country and subsequently preserve
biodiversity as opposed to western concept of development. This western concept
of development has also been constantly challenged by postcolonial ecocritics
like Graham Huggan, Pablo Mukherjee and others.
Karnad depends on Indian popular socio-cultural traditions while
representing this non-human animal. Naga
assumes the shape of Appanna and visits her at nights when the latter is away
making love to his mistress and cheating upon Rani. However, Naga’s true form
can be obtained in the reflection in the mirror which Rani sees and gets
scared. When Naga makes love to Rani, he mimes like a cobra and Rani uses the
analogy of a bird and a cobra to expound their consummation of love. This
dramatic irony portends an image of the hunter and the hunted. Naga here
assumes hierarchical position to Rani because Naga is here not a representative
of the animal world but the dominant self in the patriarchal structure of the
society. This apparent suggestion of the superiority is illusive that gets
dismissed at the end which is discussed later.
The nocturnal visits of Naga are
not smooth and are interrupted by two animals brought by Appanna, first a
watchdog and then a mongoose. Both the animals are kept tied and made to fight
each other on the desire of the master. Naga fights the representatives of
Appanna and wins Rani as in the norm of the wild. The world of the animals is
driven by instinct and the world of man is driven by reason. And man has
designated a superior position for himself on the basis of this capability of
reasoning. A perfect example of such classification is “The Chain of Being” of
the Elizabethan period. In “The Chain of Being” man is positioned above the
animals, the animals on the other hand get superior position to plants. Thus, everything that is not governed by
reason is rendered powerless and treated as inferior. The world of Rani is
driven by instinct too. Thus, even when she sees the reflection of a snake she
surrenders to her instinct. This similarity between the animal world and the
world of the women draws them together whereas man fails to correspond to the
natural world like the women.
Rani’s pregnancy is in the order of the natural world but she faces the
wrath of patriarchy for following her basic instincts. Appanna beats her up and
compels her to face ordeal for her adultery. It is quite significant that Naga
who has been towering above other animals all the while surrenders to the
anthropocentric patriarchal structure at this point. The cobra does not perform
any magic to save Rani. On the contrary, Naga tells Rani to perform the snake
ordeal that is to hold the snake and speak the truth. The narrative becomes
complicated as truth is not constant here since Rani is unaware of her
adultery. Significantly, Rani is to be judged according to the patriarchal
structure of the anthropes which does not spare her though Appanna is not
interrogated for his adultery. A similar acceptance of the superiority of the
anthropocentric world order is seen in the ending of the play.
The snake ordeal actually makes both Rani and Naga realize their
subjective positions in the patriarchal structures—both are inferior to the
self/Man. Naga accepts his position:
NAGA:….I thought I could become a
human….No!...[she is] for one who is forever
a man. I shed my skin every season. How could I even hope… to retain the
human form? (“Naga” 296)
Naga accepts his limitations. Although ecdysis is not a unique feature
of the snakes only, even humans shed skin, but it is a major morphological
change among the reptiles. An opaque snake is quite vulnerable and Naga refers
to this period of physical weakness which is of no match to the physical
strength of man. This weakness finds its echo in the physical limitations of
women during pregnancy or menstruation. However, the play offers double
endings. Rani emerges out victorious from the snake ordeal and attains godhood
in the eyes of the villagers. Appanna is forced to accept her. But she realizes
the distinction between her husband and the biological father of her son but
she never divulges it to Appanna. In one ending, the play turns out to be a
tragedy. Naga realizes its inferiority to the humans and commits suicide
realizing that he would never be able to achieve Rani. This ending snaps the
possible bridge between the feminine world and nature though the fruit of their
union, Rani’s son, continues to thrive. However, in the second ending there is
subversion. Rani gives Naga shelter in her long tresses having the full
knowledge that the snake is the biological father of her son. This continuation
of the relationship is a deliberate defiance of the anthropocentric patriarchal
structures on the part of both the woman and the animal and a challenge thrown
to Appanna. While the first ending makes Nāga-Mandala
a tragedy the second ending makes the play a comedy. It shows that the life may
remain happy with the peaceful co-existence with other species and only a woman
can be in unison with the animal world. A similar philosophy is expounded in The Fire and the Rain which is discussed
in the next section.
II
If folktales give the playwright
the advantage to weave magic and fantasy, the myths posit a completely
different canvas. The myths are highly structured in contrast to the fluid
structure of oral tales. Karnad’s The Fire and the Rain reinterprets human
relationships—man’s relationship with fellow man, man’s relationship with
elemental nature and man’s relationship with the supernatural—within the
structured myths.3 The main plot presents the love triangle of
Paravasu, Vishakha, his wife and Yavakri. Karnad makes an innovation to present
Yavakri as a former lover of Vishakha, the unnamed daughter in law of Raibhya
in the source text. The subplot presents another love story of Arvasu and
Nittilai, the hunter girl. The story of Nittilai is a genuine interpolation of
the dramatist that presents a counter narrative of subaltern history that has
run parallel to the dominant oral history assumed in the Indian culture.
Karnad reworks the Hindu myths into a modern tragedy even when Indian
dramatic theory is devoid of this western dramatic genre. The play opens on a
barren draught stricken land with hunger stricken, thirsty people and animals.
There is no water and the people from the villages are abandoning their homes
in search of food and water elsewhere. Thus from the very opening of the play,
we find the elemental nature is antagonistic and is threatening human life and
humanity at length. But the attitude to this calamity is quite opposite in the
two binary cultures. The king arranges for a Yajna ceremony to propitiate Indra and bring rains and appoints
Paravasu as the chief priest. Paravasu is thus away from his home for seven
years when Yavakri returns from the forest. Yavakri too completes his penance
and attains power of universal knowledge just like Paravasu. But his knowledge
does not change his inner self which is driven by hatred and revenge upon
Raibhya. He takes advantage of Vishakha’s loneliness and dejected mood.
The barren land corresponds to the barren self of Vishakha who has been
earnestly waiting for compassion and human love. Yavakri stops her on her way
home near the bank of a dry river from where the latter collects some water
after scooping the ground. Vishakha is at first hesitant to talk but later
surrenders to the intimacy of Yavakri. Vishakha’s hesitation arises not only
from the fact that she is a married woman but also out of awe as she knows that
Yavakri has returned from the forest after attaining the power of Knowledge.
Vishakha’s cultural upbringing prompts her to admire Yavakri for his
perseverance and power. But Yavakri breaks her romantic fascination regarding
penance in the forest:
YAVAKRI: … life
in the jungle is sheer hell. Flies, giant ants, beetles, pests, leeches
attacking at the suspicion of moisture, vipers lurking in the bowls of dust.
The relentless heat . not demons but mosquitoes to torture you— ( “Fire and Rain” 119)
Yavakri’s account gives a realistic picture of the hardships of the
forest life which gives no comfort to the listener. He even continues in the
same mode in his description of the encounter with the supernatural.
YAVAKRI: …. And
when the god disappeared, nothing was left behind to prove he had ever been
there. I looked around. The same old black scorpion. The same horned chameleon.
The shower of the bird shit around me. So was it a hallucination…(“Fire and
Rain” 120)
Thus, the forest is a maleficent one to Yavakri whereas the same forest
appears to be benevolent to Nittilai, which has been discussed later in this
section. Thus, while depicting the flora, Karnad incorporates the binary of the
two social discourses which run parallel to each other even in the present day.
Vishakha is presented as a powerful woman with agency who dares to violate the
codes of the society to make love out of the wedlock. But while Vishakha is
earnest in her desire to make love, Yavakri’s proposition is only a means to
take revenge upon Paravasu and Raibhya.
Thus, she is no longer an individual but a possession of her husband.
She gets a similar treatment from Yavakri and Paravasu. Both have used her body
to achieve their goals. Paravasu has utilized her body “like her experimenter,
an explorer. As an instrument in a search” of immortality (“Fire and Rain” 123).
When a greater scope arrives with the invitation of the fire sacrifice he
desolates her immediately. And both try to take possession of her body paying
least heed to her mind.
Both Yavakri and Paravasu hold
woman and nature in similar attitude. Both perceive the Nature as antagonistic
and wild and it needs to be controlled. Paravasu says to Vishakha:
PARAVASU: ….I
went because the fire sacrifice is a formal rite. Structured. It involves no
emotional acrobatics from the participants. The process itself will bring Indra
to me. And if anything goes wrong….It has to be set right by a man. By me.
That’s why when the moment comes I shall confront Indra in silence. As an
equal.” (“Fire and Rain” 141)
Paravasu wants to parallel the god of rains, Indra. Significantly the
gods of elemental nature are all male whereas the earth is described as
“dharitri” (or one that holds) as the female. Paravasu’s desire to parallel
Indra in power can be linked to his desire to control the elemental forces and
thereby be immortal. Yavakri too completes penance and possesses magical water
(another elemental force) which he preserves to take revenge upon Paravasu and
Raibhya.
The contrast to this attitude is
found in Nittilai the hunter girl who belongs to group of the socially
secluded. Like any tribal girl, Nittilai is well conversant to the ways of the
wild animals of the forest as she can perceive all the animals from their
footprints or smell or sound. Not only
are the ‘two worlds, running parallel to each other, totally different in “the
religious beliefs and practices” but also in their attitude to the elemental
nature (Chatterjee 169). The world of
the tribes is marked by invoking ‘deity’, getting ‘possessed’ with spirits and
‘spirit answers’ and simple philosophy of life that is based on basic instincts
(“Fire and Rain” 116). So, when Arvasu is to ask Nittilai’s hand in marriage he
has to announce before all that
ARVASU: ‘I want
to take her as my wife. I am potent. I can satisfy all her needs…’ (“Fire and
Rain” 110)
This is contrary to the way of the
dominant discourse where match making is more of an economic affair than a
biological one. Nittilai is conceived as the daughter of the forest. The
presentation of the forest and its intimacy with Nittilai is a faithful account
of the reality as the hunters share real knowledge of the forest. The Forest
legislations like the Forest Act of 1865 and 1878, Forest Policy resolution
1894 and Indian Forest Act 1927 that were formulated in the British regime have
ignored the tribals and their interest. The resolutions have only focused on
the economic benefits of the colonial masters. It facilitated the destruction
of the forests for the construction of roads and other projects of development
profiting the colonial masters. The National Forest Policy drafted on 1987,
reviewed the British policies and recognised the role of the tribals and the
rural population who are dependent on the forest for their daily activities and
in return play a positive role in “maintaining forests and environment in
unambiguous terms and not merely in its implications” (Kulkarni 2145). Thus,
community and the forest share a symbiotic relationship.
The forest becomes an offstage character which supports Nittilai in all
spheres. Even in this hostile time, Nittilai is never out of food or water.
When Arvasu is betrayed by his elder brother and thrown out half dead, he is
rescued by an actors’ troupe. But he gets new life from Nittilai. Actually, it
is for Nittilai that the troupe gives indulgence to Arvasu as the latter
becomes dependent on her for food and other aids during the famine. Nittilai
even extends her compassionate healing touch to the actor manager’s family and
provides food to the children of the actor manager. And this is only because
for Nittilai the forest is a benevolent one and not maleficent as it is
perceived by Yavakri. Nittilai runs away from her family in order to save
Arvasu. And her brother and husband arrive to hunt her down because she has
violated the norms of their society. Even in this crisis, she depends upon the
forest to hide where she will “be safe enough” as “the jungle’s like a home to”
her. Arvasu decides to perform in a play the role of Vritra in order to hide
from the hunters (“Fire and Rain” 162). However, Nittilai is hunted down by her
brother and husband when she steps out of the jungle to help Arvasu. Arvasu,
while performing the role of Vitra identifies Paravasu’s betrayal with that of
Vritra and goes beyond the control.4 The situation degenerates into
chaos. Nittilai comes forward and pulls out the mask of Vritra to help him
regain his balance. But in this process, she gets identified and killed.
Nittilai thus stands unique not
only to Yavakri and Paravasu whose sole aim is to obtain elemental powers to
fulfill personal selfish desires but also stands apart from her own community
which too pivots around cold lifeless structures of society. Both the social
structures are in contrast to humanity and love. She is here twice the Other.
The subaltern society too fails to comprehend the liberalism of Nittilai.
Nittilai seems to have subsumed the true essence of the natural world where
primary task is to sustain life. She becomes the sacrificial lamb upon which
the violence is committed with the thought to propitiate the gods and serve
humanity. Thus, even though the text upholds the philosophy of union between
human and nature for sustainability of life, the appropriation of the sacrifice
of Nittilai breaks that hope and makes the text vulnerable from an ecofeminist
perspective.
In conclusion, it may be said that the playwright’s vision of the
relationship between the human world and the natural world is shaped by Indian
cultural and philosophical traditions. However, the texts are also
interrogative in natures which expose the discourse of development propagated by
capitalist forces that has victimised the fauna and flora. The performance of
these two texts gives us the picture that rural/tribal India lives in close
proximity to nature. The plays also highlight that in the human world it is the
woman who shares greater bonding to nature in comparison to man. But the
feminine world that is driven by basic instinct as in the natural world is
often subjugated by men as they oppose the structures of patriarchy that is
evident in Nāga-Mandala and the structures of both Brahmanism and patriarchy that
is evident in The Fire and the Rain. Both
the plays actually highlight how the psychological and physical states of
anthropes are dependent on the environment. This vision continues in his last
two plays where the natural environment is replaced by man-made environment.
Both Broken Images and The Wedding Album explore the influence
of technology on human lives.
Notes
- Karnad
experiments with Yakshagana in Hayavadana.
- In Naga
dance, the performer paints himself like the cobra and comes out in a well
matching costume. H. K. Ranganath points out that the emphasis of this
performance is not on the mere entertainment as the spectator and the
performer all take part in the performance.
- The Fire
and the Rain actually intertwines two myths— the myth of Yavakri, and the
myth of Indra and Vritra. But the myth of Yavakri is mainly focused upon
in this paper. Yavakri, son of Rishi Bharadwaja, violates the Brahminical
tradition of gaining wisdom and resolves to obtain knowledge directly from
the gods in order to surpass Rishi Raibhya and his sons, Paravasu and
Aravasu. He goes to the forest and performs penance to please Indra. After
obtaining the power of knowledge, Yavakri molests the daughter-in-law of
Raibhya out of revenge. Raibhya, in anger, invokes the Kritya spirit that
devours Yavakri. Bharadwaja, upon learning of his son’s death, curses
Raibhya that he would die in the hands of his own son. The curse gets
fulfilled when Paravasu kills his father out of mistake. Paravasu instead
of performing father’s last rites, necessary for penitence after
patricide, orders Aravasu to do the duties and himself goes back to the
sacrifice, which he is conducting for the king. But later Paravasu betrays
his younger brother and gets him thrown out of the sacrificial ground by
the king’s men on the allegation that the latter has committed patricide.
Being cast out, Arvasu goes to the forest, prays to the gods, earns boons
and restores Yavakri, Bharadwaja and Raibhya back to life. Paravasu is
made to forget his evil act and order is restored at the end.
- The
second myth enacted in the play is that of Indra and Vritra. Indra and
Vitra are brothers, sons of Rishi Tvastri. However, Indra slays Vitra.
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