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Valorisation of the Marginalized Culture in Girish Karnad's The Fire and the Rain - Dr. Pratima Chaitanya

 


VALORISATION OF THE MARGINALIZED CULTURE IN GIRISH KARNAD'S THE FIRE AND THE RAIN

Dr. Pratima Chaitanya

Associate Professor

Department of English & Modern European Languages

University of Allahabad

Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract:

 

Girish Karnad is an Indian playwright who picks up themes and techniques from the folklores, mythology and history and accords contemporaneity to them. The Fire and the Rain (1995) originally published in Kannada as Agni Mattu Male is based on a mythical tale in The Mahabharata which after improvisations made by the playwright, touches significant modern day concerns such as the rigours of religion versus faith, the simple forest life as against the intricacies of city life and the immanence of love over futile rites and rituals. The present paper explores how the marginalised culture and people have been valourized in The Fire and the Rain. The paper also seeks to analyse how Karnad, without being didactic, subtly weaves contemporary ideological issues in the play and presents with objectivity the pros and cons of two diverse ideologies and leaves it for the audience to contemplate on the situation.

 

Keywords: Indian English Drama, Myth, The Mahabharata, Marginalisation, Valourization, Syncretic theatre

The Original Myth and Deviations from it in the Plot

Girish Karnad is a practitioner of syncretic theatre in which themes and techniques from folklores, myths and history are merged with contemporary concerns.  The Fire and the Rain, like several other plays drawn from mythical tales, is based on the myth of Yavakri which he had come across decades ago in prose retelling of C. Rajagopalachari’s Mahabhararta. In the original myth, the story is about two learned sages, Bharadwaja and Raibhya and their sons. Karnad digresses from the original tale and makes the sages brothers to intensify the impact of sin committed. When the king appointed Raibhaya as the royal priest, 

     Bharadwaja’s son Yavakri was furious. He already had a grievance against Raibhaya's family and felt his father was not given due respect by not appointing him as the royal priest. In protest, Yavakri retires to the forest to do penance and is finally granted universal knowledge and invulnerability by Indra. Drunk on power, Yavakri in order to take revenge tried to molest Raibhaya's daughter-in-law, Vishakha. Karnad here alters the story line to introduce a pre-marital love story between Yavakri and Vishakha and projects that the latter willingly submits to Yavakri because of her desperation due to the seven year long separation with her husband, Paravasu. When Raibhaya came to know of Yavakri's sin, he invoked a kritya spirit through his spiritual power from which sprang a demon, the Brahma rakshasa who was sent out to kill him.  The consecrated water of invulnerability was seductively stolen by the revengeful Vishakha, bitter and heart-broken at the realisation that Yavakri had used her to avenge the insult of his father, and emptied out. The Brahma-rakshasa then pursued the vulnerable Yavakri and killed him with a trident. Paravasu incensed by killing of Yavakri which caused subsequent disturbance in the yajgna being conducted for the king, kills his father and tells his younger brother Arvasu--“In the dark, I—I mistook him for a wild animal—” (The Fire and the Rain 34) "The intentional killing of one’s blood relation in Karnad’s play seems to be a pointer to the speedily and remorselessly growing sins in the contemporary world" (Chaitanya 2143). He asks Arvasu to observe the last rites of their father. After doing so Arvasu returns to the fire sacrifice only to discover that Paravasu accuses him of the murder of Raibhaya. He charges him of patricide and asks the king's guards to push him out of the yajgna out else his presence would desecrate the area. Arvasu pleads his innocence to no avail. Then Aravasu goes to the forests and prays to the Sun God. When Sun God appears he asks them to restore Yavakri, Bharadwaja and Raibhya back to life and make Paravasu forget his evil act. The gods granted him the boon. To the original mythical tale, Karnad makes improvisations and introduces the character of the simple, tribal girl Nittilai who is in love with Arvasu and who finally becomes a victim of honour-killing due to caste-based conflicts.

         What makes the play even more interesting is that there is a reference not to one myth but also to another which parallels and reinforces the first. The second myth used in the play is the Indra-Vritra myth. Indra, the king of gods, the lord of rains and the wielder of the thunderbolt slays the demon Vritra. Indra-Vrita myth is one of the archetypal myths of India. We find it in the Rig Veda; it appears again with variations in the Mahabharata nearly a thousand years later. Indra has two step sons, Vishwarupa and Vrita. Vishwarup born of Brahma and a woman becomes extremely popular. The jealous Indra treacherously invites him for a yajgna and kills him. Infuriated Vrita who was stopped from entering the yajgna place on account of being born of the union between Brahma and a demon woman, is also killed with wrong means by Indra. "Fratricide and the fear of brother destroying brother form the crux of both the Indra-Vritra myth as well as the Paravasu-Aravsu episode" (2143).

The Tribal versus the Brahminic Culture 

      The Fire and the Rain extensively contrasts two cultures, two ways of life, two approaches to existence and two varied value systems—the Brahminic and the Tribal:

Whereas the Brahminic culture, represented by Raibhaya and Paravasu, is rigid, ritualistic and life-thwarting, the Tribal culture is community-oriented, accommodative and life-giving. As the title indicates, the Brahminic culture is Fire, which destroys everything; the Tribal culture is Rain, which gives and sustains life (Ramachandran 27).

In a very subtle manner, the play insinuates at the prevailing practice of gross exploitation of those belonging to the lower strata of the caste system by the privileged castes. The schism between the two castes is hinted at the very outset of the play, when the Actor-Manager enters the very precincts of the sacrificial area with his proposal to enact a play, “the latter is made to stand at a distance from the fire-sacrifice since as an actor he is considered low-born” (The Fire and the Rain 2). The Courtier enters the protected area of the fire sacrifice to inform Paravasu and the King of the Actor-Manager’s arrival and proposal. The Actor-Manager is not allowed to face the sacrificial area and the Courtier says to him--"You may shout out whatever you have to say, but please face away from the sacrificial enclosure so you don’t pollute it" (2).   

     The people of the lower castes are looked down upon by the upper caste as no less than animals or demons who may desecrate or profane a ritualistic sacrifice and so they are supposed to keep away from pure and sacred places. The fact has been hinted at by Karnad in the Note to the play:

The conduct of the participants is regulated by stringent rules. They cannot go outside the sacrificial precincts. They cannot indulge in sexual dalliance. They cannot speak to “lower-caste” people etc (Karnad, "Note" 294).

The playwright appears to be highly critical of the mysterious rites and rituals of the high castes which hold no real significance in the sense that they do little good to the human cause. Through Nittilai he voices his views and openly ridicules the meaningless customs of the high castes and upholds the simplicity of worship and way of living in the Tribal caste:

You know, their fire sacrifices are conducted in covered enclosures. They mortify themselves in the dark of the jungle. Even their gods appear so secretly. Why? What are they afraid of? Look at my people. Everything is done in public view there. The priest announces that he will invoke the deity at such and such a time on such and such a day. And then there, right in front of the whole tribe, he gets possessed...You know it’s there (The Fire and the Rain 11).

     The meaninglessness of such rites and rituals which detach one from his/her loved ones is hinted at by the playwright in the following words of Arvasu which he utters when the sacred duties of obsequies expected of his caste stop him to achieve his lady-love:

...but I had just cremated a dead body. I couldn’t bear the thought of touching you with those unclean hands. An untouchable wouldn’t have cared. An outcaste wouldn’t have cared. But my cursed caste wouldn’t let me go…To think you would have been mine. Half an hour (34)!

         In the play Karnad not only criticizes the brutal system of caste prevalent in contemporary India but also wishes to make people realize that one’s caste is determined not by one’s birth but by one’s abilities and profession, which was the basis of Varnashram dharma and the concept of which deteriorated with time. The Actor-Manager, while talking about the art of theatricality brings this point to the fore:

The sons of Bharata were the first actors in the history of theatre. They were Brahmins but lost their caste because of their profession. A curse plunged them into disrepute and disgrace. If one values one’s high birth, one should not touch this profession (3).

He even casts off the fear of his elder brother for opting to become an actor for the love of Nittilai— “Paravasu himself has ostracized me. I’m an outcaste now. He can’t stop me from acting”(49). As Budholiya says  

This change of caste brings the postcolonial perspectives into this play. The novels like Nachyo Bahut Gopal by Amrit Lal Nagar and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy also exemplify the postcolonial perspectives of social change. Nirgunia, a married woman in Nachyo Bahut Gopal breaks off all the shackles of high-caste family and marries willingly an untouchable against the injustice of society….(155).

Even Nittiali quotes the words of her father to show the double standards of the high caste men. She says— “These high caste men are glad enough to bed our women but not to wed them” (The Fire and the Rain 8). Arvasu thus becomes a “low caste actor”. Again he unveils the conspiracy of his father and brother— which is symbolic of the conspiracy of all the pundits and believers in caste-system— which was aimed at withholding him from his profession and from Nittiali’s love. A hunting girl of the Tribal clan attracts Arvasu more than the snobbery, hypocrisy and egoism of high-caste society. As a secular writer, Karnad weaves the myriad ideologies and groups of society together.

     By way of the traditional theme of the Purusharthas, Karnad again subverts the hierarchy of caste and privileges simplicity over religiosity, the Shudra over the Brahmin. The PurusharthasDharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha, forms the centre on which the play seems to revolve. Purusharathas form a very important aspect of Hinduism. The theme has also got a mention in the Note on the play by the playwright himself. To take a cue from that we can say that Purusharthas are conceived to be the four ethical goals of human existence: Dharma, which relates to spiritual sphere, Artha: that belonging to the economic realm, Kama, which denotes sexual pleasure and the fourth is the goal which is attained after crossing these hurdles—Moksha (redemption). Karnad wanted to give the concept of Purusharthas, a modern interpretation and so he conceived the idea of the play. As he says in an interview with Tutun Mukherjee:

During this time, I also met Dr. K.J. Shah who used to teach that the Natyasashtra mentions the four Purusharthas as themes for theatrical enactment and wondered whether a modern drama could be written to exemplify them. I contemplated these issues for several years….I knew that the myth could show both the centrality of yagnya with parallel drawn from theatre and also dramatise the interplay of dharma—as ritual, tapasya; artha—power; kama—love, sex; moksha—redemption, sacrifice. I struggled for nearly thiry-seven years to organize the ramifications of the myth and did an enormous amount of research (46).

In The Fire and the Rain, the upper-caste Brahmins do not achieve the final bliss which is Moksha. Even Yavakri, with his Universal knowledge, leads to no good and is stuck up in his viciousness. It is only the loving, spontaneous Nittilai who gets release from the endless chain of birth and death and thus is completely emancipated. She is the only character in the play who achieves the final, the ultimate, the Moksha or Nirvana or the supreme salvation.

         In a play entitled Live Like Pigs (1958), John Arden too privileges the gypsy life-style over the hypocrisy involved in the notion of respectability and morality. The play leaves us with the feeling that the official guardians are ultimately far more hurtful to the society than the unusual mores of the nomad gypsies.        

Demons/ Outcastes Valourised Over Gods

         Throughout The Fire and the Rain, we find that Karnad has played on the privileging of the deprived against the bestowed. Shudras are privileged against Brahmins, rural/ natural life against urban setting of city life, secular against ritualistic and demons against gods. The Brahma Rakshasa, even though a demon, fulfills his duty of killing Yavakri while the gods appear to be unreliable. Gods, as we can see from the Indra-Vritra affair as also from episode of granting of boon to a selfish man like Yavakri, appear not only indifferent (as Kali in Hayavadana, or the “absent god” of Naga-Mandala or the broken idol of Bali) but also treacherous. As Nigam says—“Whereas Gods and Brahmins represent treachery and evil, Nittilai though an outcaste, is full of human attributes and beauty (39).” Hers is the only meaningful existence amongst all other characters who spend their lives searching for meaning and purpose.

 

Conclusion

         The presentation of strain and conflict of opposing forces, values and ideologies seems to be Karnad’s supreme interest in his plays. The Fire and the Rain presents the strain between two ways of life, the Brahmin, laden with rites and rituals and the Tribal/ Dalit with its simplicity and spontaneity. As has been already discussed, chiefly through the character of Nittilai, an outcaste woman, Karnad privileges the latter over the former and makes an appeal to the audience to shed all differences and believe in one religion, from which all religions of the world ensue, which is the religion of humanity, of compassion, oneness and selfless love. What Karnad wishes to portray is that blind adherence to stringent rules and regulations, rites and rituals will serve no good. It is only through the religion of humanity that the redemptive “rain,” regenerating the parched land of our spiritual selves, can be achieved. The playwright, without being didactic, subtly weaves contemporary ideological issues in the play and presents with objectivity the pros and cons of two diverse ideologies and leaves it for the audience to contemplate on the situation.

Works Cited

Arden , John. Three Plays: The Waters of Babylon, Live Like Pigs, The Happy Haven. Grove Press, 1958.

Budholia, O.P.  “Myth as Symbol: An Interpretation of Girish Karnad’s The Fire and the Rain.” Reflections on Indian English Literature, edited by M.R. Verma and K. A.

Agarwal. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2002. pp. 147-158.

Chaitanya, Pratima. "Creative Interpolations in Mythical Narratives: A Study in Girish Karnad's The Fire and the Rain." Mukht Shabd Journal Volume IX, Issue V, May 2020.

Karnad, Girish. "Note on the The Fire and the Rain." Collected Plays: Volume Two. Tale-Danda, The Fire and the Rain, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, Two Monologues. Oxford University Press, 2006. pp. 289-302.

---,The Fire and the Rain. Collected Plays: Volume Two: Tale-Danda, The Fire and the Rain, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, Two Monologues. Oxford University Press, 2006. pp. 103-176.

---,Three Plays: Naga-Mandala, Hayavadana and Tughlaq. New Delhi: Oxford  University Press, 2005.

Mukherjee, Tutun. “In His Own Voice: A Conversation with Girish Karnad.” Girish Karnad's Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives, edited by Tutun Mukherjee. Pencraft International, 2006, pp. 27-55.

Nigam, N.M.  “Myth and Folklore in Girish Karnad’s The Fire and the Rain.” Perspectives and Challenges in Indian-English Drama, edited by Neeru Tandon. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2006. pp. 29-41.

Ramachandran, C. N. "Girish Karnad: The Playwright in Search of Metaphors". The Journal of Indian Writing in English, vol. 27, No. 2, July 1999. pp. 21-34.