The Play in NAGA-MANDALA

The Play in NAGA-MANDALA

the bitter-sweet headache of identifying the protagonist

Presented as a Paper at a Symposium on Indian Literature in English held at the Department of English, University of Madras, Madras on 11th March, 1994.

Lionel Abel, in his book Metatheater: A New View of Dramatic Form, writes that [it is] “the necessary form for dramatizing characters who, having full self-consciousness, cannot but participate in their own dramatization” [fall into the canon of meta-characters]. Citing this, Joesph Federico says that the heroes of the metatheater have “the consciousness of a dramatist as well as that of a character...” This implies that it leads to a conscious role-playing by the character that cannot participate, and also cannot but participate. Is this ambiguity or ambivalence? That is the question of the day.

When the idea of finding what actually Naga-Mandala is all about came, I was confounded, like so many scholars who still break their heads about the chicken or the egg question regarding Paradise Lost: ‘Who is the hero?’ My trouble was, is there a hero in Naga-Mandala at all? Is the story-teller in the play the hero? After all, the meta-play is about his predicament. Or is it either of the two - Naga and Appanna - in the story told? Or is the story-teller without the play - Girish Karnad, the author - himself? The second question was easily solved - neither Naga nor Appanna could be the hero since, if we went by the normal norms of tragedy, Naga does not have any fatal flaw. First and foremost, Naga-Mandala is not a tragedy; second, Naga is only an instrument. Appanna is too unrounded a character and again a sort of an instrument to explore Rani’s drama that his character lacks any weightage. Then, he cannot be a hero. If we can take the story within the story, or the play within the play more seriously than the Man’s story, then Rani stands to qualify as the protagonist. However, since the story of Rani is only a story told by ‘the Story’ to the Man on grounds of mutual help, it really does not qualify for any further discussion. What can be noticed already are the various layers to the play that makes this Chinese box a fascinating conundrum.

The story of Naga-Mandala is more a story of ‘the Man’ and ‘the Story.’ Of the two, the dominant role is that of ‘the Man’ since the crux of the argument is about his predicament and his imminent death, if he does not keep himself awake at least for one full night. It is obvious, the situation, as the Man says and I quote:

I may be dead within the next few hours. I am not talking of ‘acting dead.’ Actually dead. I might die right in front of your eyes. A mendicant told me: ‘You must keep awake at least one whole night this month... If not, you will die...’ [...] I asked the mendicant what I had done to deserve the fate. And he said: ‘You have written plays. You have staged them. You have caused so many good people... to fall asleep...’ (N-M, pg 1 - 2)

It is a matter of life and death for him, whereas, for ‘the Story’ it is not so crucial. Of course, a story lives only when it is retold. That is the quintessence of oral tradition and that is one of the drive-home points in the play. But then, if ‘the Story’ could not narrate the story that it possesses that particular day, it could be done some other day. For ‘the Man’ though, as he says, ‘Tonight is the only chance.’ Without the Man, the Story-teller, the playwright, the story could not be passed on. Hence we can safely conclude that the play is about the Man.

At this stage of my analysis, a new ambiguity arose, a new temptation to question: Can Karnad qualify as the protagonist of the play? Even as Shakespeare used to play with the modal ‘Will’ in his plays and poems in multifarious ways to imply to him in a playful conceit, is Karnad playing with the idea of the story-teller, playwright? The reasons are not far to seek. The Karnad of the Haya-Vadana who wrote in 1972 that ‘... there is our large-hearted audience. It may be that they fall asleep during a play sometimes,’ and the Karnad of Naga-Mandala who writes in 1988 that ‘[I] have caused so many good people... to fall asleep, twisted in miserable chairs...’ are two vastly different playwrights. That is the journey. That is his curve. The Bhagavata of 1972 has evolved into the Man, the Story-teller of 1988.

The very English diction, despite the Indianness of his folk-tale rendition, albeit verbal than oral, of Haya-Vadana has metamorphosed into the quintessential oral more than verbal folk-tale rendition. He has in the sixteen in-between years found the oral idiom and has also effectively fused it into the Western experimental play-within-a-play theatrical tradition. This is not to negate the fact that the objective Prologue rendered by the Stage Manager is a Natya-Sashtra tradition and hence the play-within-a-play is nothing new to the Indian milieu. In fact, Karnad largely approaches the Scheherazade paradigm of keeping the audience awake with a story that travel within and within which there is further story, which again can be mirrored in the Kathasarithsagara and others of similar plumage. To stress this, come to think of it, most oral traditions have the Chinese Box in them. From Mahabharata to Homer’s twin epics, The Aeneid to the Chinese myth of The Monkey King. Such is the scope of inference in Karnad’s work, in general and Naga-Mandala, in specific. 

In Naga-Mandala, not only that, the oral mode is untopographised. Not only is it given a cross-generical treatment, also does the story-telling cross the parochial Kannada limits from where he gets his base story (via A.K. Ramajunan’s collection: A Flowering Tree and other Folk Tales, OUP), and reaches out for a oneness of national cultural flavour. This is achieved not just through what Karnad describes the folk-theatre style in the following words: ‘...although it seems to uphold traditional values, it also has the means of questioning the values... (allowing) for a “complex seeing”.’ It is achieved through the simplicity and disarming way in which he names the characters. The relative word for ‘The Fair One,’ ‘ The Dark One,’ ‘Rani’ (meaning Queen) or ‘Kurudavva’ (meaning ‘The Blind One’) exists in all Indian languages. This ubiquity has evolved with Karnad’s evolution itself through the last 16 years. Also to be mentioned as Karnad’s greatest triumph, to use the words of our honoured Chairperson for the day, Dr. Raju, is ‘the story and the flames. They are invested with recognisable personalities.’

Despite these reasons, there are also certain pitfalls in calling Karnad the protagonist of the play. The first reason, in a slightly amusing way, is to be found in the following lines uttered by the Man: ‘I swear by this absent God... I shall have nothing more to do with themes, plots or stories. I abjure all story-telling, all play-acting.’ (NM, pg 2) If these words are taken literally as those of Karnad in the garb of the Man, it is contradictory in that in order to survive that night, he proceeds as a narrator to relate a tale and he says: ‘I suppose I have no choice... I have no choice. Bear with me, please. As you can see, it is a matter of life and death for me.’ (NM, pg 5) 

The second and more serious reason is the fact that he acknowledges in the Preface that he has only weaved two oral tales that he heard from A.K. Ramanujan. Here again, he is just an instrument or a catalyst bringing together two existing elements to evolve a third element. So, going back to our original argument, it is obvious that the final remaining candidate is the Man; but then, uncertain clouds mar this supposition when we acknowledge a fact. ‘The play’ has been so carefully crafted that ‘the Man’ does not really get to his Act of leading this play till the end. The moment he explains, although apologetically, why the play is being done, he ceases to hold our attention. The Story takes over. The Man becomes a mere audience: an audience beyond the real audience. How then can he be the protagonist?

Naga-Mandala is more about this audience, an audience-within-an-audience than about a play-within-a-play. At the same instance, the narrator, the playwright and the leading character all become audience to the unfolding spectacle. This, in fact, could be the very crux of Post-modern western theatre whose preoccupation has come more to be identified on a generic front - the focus on the form. The very form of the theatre is an attempt to confront the hostile world by turning inward. It results in two things: one is, it results, as can be seen in the contemporary German plays by Peter Handke, in ‘total autistic withdrawal into an imaginary role;’ two is, it results in a ‘capitulation to a social mask. In either case, the true self succumbs to an artificial existence.’ The self-conscious narrator or the confronting playwright becomes an actor.

In the case of Naga-Mandala, by the time the tale of Rani begins, the Man, a playwright by profession, is condemned to be an audience - moves from one mask to another. Overcome by an impotence, faced with extinction, he accepts to face the same treatment he has been meting out to so many in the audience. It is not just a tactic he is adopting, it is his fate. It is an end in itself and a means to survival.

We might, so, be tempted to ask, in what way is it new, if this play has features like other western plays? The difference is, whereas in most other plays the narrator turned actor-cum-audience’s presence is felt continually, in this play, the moment the play-within-the-play begins, till the Story that narrates Rani’s story says: ‘Rani lived happily ever after...,’ we forget the Man’s existence. Also, it is at this point that Karnad’s main card is played. The Man does not want to give up. The dawn is round the corner. If he can be awake till sunlight, he will live. The story-teller in him does not give up. On two counts. One is the fact that it is an opportunity to live, which is actually peripheral to our consideration. The other is, it is his natural proclivity. At the point the Story ends the story, he says: ‘No one will accept this ending.... Too many loose ends.’ (NM, pp 40-41) He knows he has survived the worst. He can get back to business. He goes about tying the ends. The story-teller in him does not allow loose-ends to the narration. He tries ending after ending, in a bid to hand out impartial treatment to others in the tale - Appanna and Naga. Surely, Karnad’s coup-de-theatre! Karnad does not make the commitment for an overall happy ending come from the Man/Playwright. He makes one of the Flames question the Man. ‘Why can’t things end happily for a change?’ The Flames are also subverted into role-playing here. They sound as though they are a section of the audience asking for a satisfactory ending. This shows traces of the play approaching the Brechtian Epic Theatre.

This in fact, is one other element of the oral tradition, because, at the end of it all, it is difficult to imagine the play as a piece written work. The work, couched naturally in intense Indian images and felt words, does not come through as a read-piece. If the words are not to be felt, as they come from a teller’s mouth, then the work fails. Thus, this has to succeed. After all, as he maintains, Karnad has fused two oral folk tales to his convenience. If the Man / Playwright’s presence is not there, if the Story’s presence in physical terms is absent, the play cannot exist, because the whole edifice on which the work is built is the oral mode. However, the paradox lies here. The tellers are there only to give life feel to the story.

From such a point of view, the problem simplifies. The work depends on the narrator only in as much as it needs a person to say it. On this basis, the narrator is himself a connecting link between the word and the audience, the sound and the audience. Then, neither is the Man in Naga-Mandala the protagonist. For we have too many narrators, too many action-furtherers: the playwright Karnad who combines two folk-tales into one, the Man in the main plot whose personal story he unfolds, the Flames which animatedly gossip the stories of their respective households, the Story’s sad story, the story of Rani as told by the Story, Kurudavva who gives a magic root to Rani in an attempt to make Appanna enamoured by Rani, Kappanna who carries around Kurudavva (playing an indirect action-furtherer) and the story that Rani herself narrates in her story. So what / who then is the true protagonist? Here, it is not what is told or by whom it is told that is important, but how. It needs to be told, to be acted, to be sung; in short, to be vocalised.

The actual protagonist in this work then is the oral tradition, the act of vocalising itself; and it stems from the soil of culture. Everything else is comprised and subsumed in this generic form. It was there at the beginning of civilisation and at the beginning of a culture. It has been existing in its transmission from generation through generation, individual to individual. It has found, from time to time the need to equip itself in order to live, to be retold. And in this work of Karnad, the Indian oral, folk tradition has found a very potential existence, having been combined with the needs of an essentially western-oriented style of theatre. Although Karnad states that “it also owes much to hte Western playwrights as Bertold Brecht and Jean Anouilh who delved into classical stories... and retold them in a Western context,” this work has to be acknowledged as a new contribution to Indian Drama in English, since it transcends both the Western theatrical form and the Indian folk-theatre’s narrative style even while fusing both approaches.

I would conclude by saying that Naga-Mandala needs to be baptised as to its genre, for it is to Indian Drama in English what Midnight’s Children is to contemporary Indian Fiction in English.

- S. Krishna Kumar, Research Scholar

Dept of English, University of Madras

11 March, 1994

The Mark of Cain - PART II

If you want to go back to Part I, Click Here...

Part II...

Eve was outside for some little reason. May be she was combing her hair for the dinner-do. May be she was looking for some flowers to add to her hair for the super-supper. Whatever... she was out.

In the glowing orange dusk of the setting sun, at the rim of the horizon, silhouetted by the aura, there was an energetic creature, walking towards home, with a stick in hand, curly locks blazing like gold. Around his neck, a nice little lamb. Mmmeh! Mmmeh! The homecoming bleat of the sheep.

'Adam, CAIN... Abel!!!'  She squealed breathlessly, unable to contain her excitement. Son comes home... as the sun went slowly down. Cain looked on. First at Adam, then at Abel and then... at the flat top of the rock in the distance. The offer remained untouched.

'Cain! You've been untruthful!' He heard a voice. Only he heart id. He was worried. The Voice could have been God's!

Meanwhile, laughter ringing around him drew his attention back to his family.

That night there was laughter and more laughter. That night there was bonfire. The fire crackled. As they all ate and chewed the juicy meat, a new fire started burning. Cain did not like all the attention Abel was getting. Cain remembered the grains untouched by God. Cain remembered the fat sheep that God accepted. Cain gazed at Abel. He was starting to feel jealous of Abel.

The next morning the sun rose. It was going to be another hot day, a very hard day for Cain. Abel? Oh, he was on a holiday. An idea struck Cain. 'Abel! Would you like to come with me to the fields today?'

They set out together. While they were there, when Abel was not aware, Cain took a big stone and hit him from the back, on his head. Abel looked up surprised. A few seconds. Then his head lolled down, he slumped. Abel died. He lay there in a pool of blood.

Cain realised what had happened, realised what he had done: murder. He had committed Fratricide. He had killed his own brother. 'Oh, my God! My God! What have I done? In my jealousy, I have killed my own brother!'  He moaned. He tried to quickly dig a big hole and bury the body so that nobody would ever know. But... GOD KNOWS! He always knows. He watches us all. He must have watched this. The sun suddenly grew hotter, there was suddenly a heavy wind. It started as a thing wisp of rolling sand under Cain's feet... grew in noise and beat heavily. A little sandstorm brew. Sand swirled and Cain was tossed from side to side. Cain was pushed forward and backward. As he fought to control himself, sand got into his eyes, his hair, his face. He fought to wipe them away. As he touched his forehead, he felt something strange. He fought his way to the little stream and caught a quick glimpse of himself in the rippling water. It was a very small pool. Still, he could see himself. There!

There on his forehead was a mark. A starry mark. 'This will remind you of your shameful act, Cain! Your brother's murderer. In a way, it will also protect you. People who see you will know you to leave you alone!' He heard that invisible voice. 'Oh, God! Oh, God! What shall I do now?'Cain knelt on the ground and lifted his face and eyes upwards to heaven.

'Flee you must! From now on, you will be a wandering soul. You are no man. You acted in a moment of madness and jealousy. You shall become homeless. A wandering nomad!' The voice hissed in his ears icily. And then there was chaos and swirling dust and storm. When it eventually cleared later... Cain was left in the middle of nowhere, in a sandy desert. Thus his descendents too became homeless, wandering nomads.

* * * * * 

Author's Note: If you liked what you read, please do leave comments. Else, too, leave feedback. Thanks.

The Mark of Cain - PART I

The story below is nothing new. It is from the Bible. But, as a story teller, I had to regale a group of tweens and I thought I should make it imaginative and visual without really pushing in the didactic angle to it. Feel free to use it to entertain kids as a story telling, but please do give me the courtesy through a simple acknowledgement.

CAIN AND ABEL

THE MARK OF CAIN

(Anger and After!)

We all know that a star is a five-pointed celestial object. It twinkles. It shines. It can be seen brightly at night, in the backdrop of a clear sky. It is also most commonly used to identify direction by sailors at sea. Our teachers use them to reward us at school for excellence. Now, do you know who gave the first ever star and who first received the very first star in this world? Nooooo!

Have you heard of the Mark of Cain? Nooooo again? Ok... some say the Mark of Cain was not really a physical mark at all. Some others say it was not given on the body, but as accompaniment, to identify. Whatever it is, Cain received it and we can be sure of it. Considering it was given by God, we can be sure it ought to be a STAR... because... God is soooo kind he wouldn't give anything bad. Even just as a mark of identification. For protection. I see you are all getting primed up and curious. So, here goes!

The Story of the first human being that received The First Ever Star! Only, he did not have it pinned on his shirt sleeve. He did not have it drawn on his notebook either, because unfortunately shirts had not been invented, nor notebooks. It was so long and so far back. Unfortunately, also, he did not receive it for doing a good deed either!

Is this getting suspenseful? Are you getting curious?

Have you heard of Cain and Abel? They were the first two children on earth, born to Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve, after they were tempted by the Dark Angel, who took the form of a serpent, and after they were sent out from the beautiful Garden of Eden, lived a normal life like you and I. They had two children: two sons - Cain and Abel.

Cain spent his life farming, and Abel spent his life sheep-rearing. Cain brought home grains and vegetables to eat and Abel brought home milk and meat to eat. It was a perfect combination. Father Adam, Mother Eve, brothers Cain and Abel, their beautiful, fertile, lush farm and the rolling, undulating hills with green, green grassy meadows for sheep to run around; for sheep to eat grass, grow fat and juicy. However, happiness does not last forever.

In our most excited and happy moments, we forget ourselves. In our moments of excessive self-belief and achievements, we forget He who helps us. Cain did too!  After all, he was human, like us. To Err is Human. He erred. To forgive IS divine, but if the error is that of forgetting He who created us, God chooses to remind us. God chose to remind Cain. He punished him. How...?

God sent him away from his parents. Away. Alone. Far Away. However, God is kind. He does not totally let us down. In order to protect Cain, he put a mark on his head. To remind others that Cain should not be touched or hurt. He put a star on his head. Various people say various things, but a STAR sounds a good thing to put. Especially if you want to mark someone outstanding. Only, in this case, as a reminder of his Sin. SO what was the act of sin Cain committed that upset God so much?

It starts thus: like we all do, Cain and Abel grew up playing and having fun when young. As they grew up, one day Adam called them: 'Cain, Abel! Listen up!! You both have grown up. You too are fine young lads now and strong. You will have to start working at our ranch and bring food for the family.'

Cain and Abel listened. When Pa says something, we listen. They must have said, 'Yes, papa. We understand.' But Cain probably did not fully agree or appreciate. He was not disobedient or anything, but was just that bit fiercely proud. Sometimes, as they say, Pride precedes Fall.

Anyway, Cain was asked to be a farmer. He stayed home closer to parents, taking care of the lands and growing wheat for bread, grains and lentils for stew, oats and barley too. He was happy that he did not have to travel and get burnt in the sun. He wasn't very adventurous. Also, he got to keep his parents more. Abel... he went out.

Abel was asked to rear sheep, tend to lambs and ewes. He was the wanderer. No major adventure or anything, but just that he had to travel. It required him to roam about. All over the hills and mountains, greens and glades, wherever grass was to be found. After all, they were the God's special inhabitants of this earth and the entire world that they know was their ranch. Abel must have felt happy to be let to roam, while Cain toiled at home. Only, roaming and shepherding is not always fun. Not when it involves running behind sheep that stray everywhere. Yet, he did what he was told with obedience. So.

Cain was a farmer, Abel was a shepherd. Cain, who must have felt happy being home... was unhappy. Abel, who must be sulking because he was to chase sheep all day long... was happy. We are what we choose to be!

Why was Cain unhappy? The land he had to grow crop were not exactly completely fertile. It was dry and often sandy. At times, he had to dig out rocks. Rains were scarce too. During summer, when the sun beats down hard on your back, as you work, it is not fun. It just is not fun, out to be working in the sun. Remember, shirts had not been invented!

Abel? oh, he was happy; young, cute eyes, curly locks, legs grown strong due to roaming freely around, smile at the corner of his lips... you get the picture. Every time he came back home, he brouhgt along fat and tender lamb. There would be fire in the open at nights. The family of four got together; fire and stake, juicy and succulent tender meat, to savour and eat. Abel was the apple of Adam's eye, the fav of Eve's heart and in general, the toast of the family. Except...

Cain resented it. Would you not? In his place? He toils hard to make harvest out of a land that boils, is sandy and tough; and here comes Abel... takes away the attention. Thus...

One day, Adam beckoned Cain, 'The harvest must be ready. Go get them. Separate the chaff from the wheat. Make a portion of your best produce as offering to God. Then, bring the rest.' Cain, who never generally spoke against Papa, said, ' But, Papa! Why should we give the best away? Even if it's God! It is a tough soil, I have worked it out all by myself. Don't we deserve the best?'

Adam said, 'We deserve the rest, the best to God we reserve!'

'But... but..."

Adam had turned his back.  'It is He who shines the sun, gives rain, tends to the crops when we're asleep at night. o to him we offer the best. It's thanks giving.'

'But, but, but...'

'NO.'Adam was firm. 'This is getting tiresome.' He turned to Cain. 'Remember, Cain. He is everywhere. He sees everything. He knows everything. And when He's upset, he will get angry. So! When you've reaped the harvest, give HIM the best and bring home the rest.' Roger and out!!

Disappointed, deflated, but not sulking, Cain asked, 'How do I offer him, Papa?'

Adam smiled. He must have put his arm around Cain affectionately, around Cain's strong shoulders, big and rugged as Cain was. All the hard work must have naturally made him a big and strong lad. 'My dear son, Cain, simple. Take a portion - a big one -  of the harvest, place it on the top of the flat part of the big rock that we see over there,' he pointed in the distance and continued, 'and God, seeing our obedience, will accept. After that, you bring home the rest. Brother Abel will be back tonight too. Then, tonight, after he too makes his best offering to God, we'll celebrate.'

It sort of made Cain wince. Abel! Oh!! Oooh!!! So he went, heaviness in his heart, plodding and trudging; when you are low at heart, your energy is down. Cain went. He reaped the harvest. Low in spirits, he couldn't care. There was no song during harvest. So he did not separate the wheat from the chaff and kept a good portion of produce on the flat surface of the rock, came home.

Abel too, close to sun down, came home.

Eve was outside, for some little reason....

Author's Note: It's getting too long, I know. So I am breaking it into two. Part I Ends. Part II...

The Fall - a short story

The story below is nothing new. It is from the Bible. But, as a story teller, I had to regale a group of tweens and I thought I should make it imaginative and visual without really pushing in the didactic angle to it. Feel free to use it to entertain kids as a story telling, but please do give me the courtesy through a simple acknowledgement.

THE FALL

(How the Garden of Eden was lost... forever!)

The Garden of EDEN

God took six days to create the world. Then He took a day off. The Seventh Day. However, one cannot go on a holiday forever; definitely not God. He is the Creator and the Preserver. So he went about preserving. Preservation is the art of management. He went about managing the plants and the trees, the birds and the animals... He created a beautiful garden.

Beautiful beyond words. It was the equivalent of the Paradise above. It was called the Garden of Eden. Here all year long it was green, it was joy and happiness. Animals never preyed on each other. The strong and the meek co-existed together. Lions, deers, tigers, lambs, wolves, rabbits, bears, squirrels... And the flowers were unfading, the fruits were ripe always, the water spouted as clear springs, ran as bubbly streams, fell into the ponds where one could gaze into the crystal clear depths like into a mirror. It was heaven!

Here God let Adam and Eve live happily ever after. Wait! Is there a happily ever after where humans are involved? Yes, if we are happy and content with what we have. It is human nature not to be. How does our story take a turn?

There were two trees. The Tree of Life and The Tree of Knowledge. The Tree of Life they were allowed to eat from. As long as they ate the fruits from The Tree of Life, they would be eternal. The Tree of Knowledge, He forbade them to eat from. “Be it known, that you two may roam around wherever you want to in this garden, shall have the fruits of all, but one. This...,” he pointed to The Tree of Knowledge, “you shall avoid eating from, if you want to live eternal and here.” Then He went about his work.

There was a snake. It was the wiliest of all God’s creation. The snake had once been an angel in Paradise and was God’s most trusted and beloved angels. One day the angel got funny ideas of becoming God and challenging His authority... and got thrown out of Heaven. Cursed to be a snake. It waited for revenge.

When Adam was out and about, tending to the gardens, watering the plants and sowing seeds and reaping harvest, Eve was bored. She did what a lot of us do. She wandered through Eden. She sauntered by past The Tree of Knowledge. She passed it by, looking longingly at the ripe, red, juicy fruits that hung ever so tantalisingly close. She stopped. Took two steps back. Stood under the tree. The longing to reach out and pluck one of them, just only one of them once, was building up. “NO Eve!” said an inner voice. She hastened past it, forgetting the longing. The snake, hidden behind the leaves of a higher branch of the selfsame tree, saw this, rolled its eyes in a naughty twirl, smirked. A plan was born! Revenge! It would wait, patiently.

The days rolled by. All was well and God was in Heaven. Of course, he came for daily visits to Eden to know of the well-being of his creation.

Another day. Adam as usual was out and about, working. Eve sauntered around. She wandered past by The Tree of Life, then to The Tree of Knowledge. Something like a magnet welled up inside her and drew her to the Tree. The need was growing. She half-raised her right hand, the delicate fingers cupping the fingers like she was about to pluck a ball. The fingers gently quivered, a strange feeling coursing through the body, from toe to head. She stopped. “Hello... Go ahead!” A voice!

Eve turned around. No one. She looked to the ground. Nothing. She looked up: a little bobbing head from amid the leaves of a branch was smiling at her in a very friendly manner. “Who are you?” “Nevermind me,” the snake said, “what is important is how you feel!” It smiled gently, enticingly. Eve smiled back, not sure, vaguely. “Go ahead! Pluck the fruit.” “Nnnnno!” stuttered Eve, “God has told us to stay away from these fruits. He is our Father and Father know better.” She hurried away. The snake was disappointed. Ssssssooo close! I’ll bide my time, it thought to itself.

Eve didn’t tell this to Adam. You can trust her with a secret, surely! But that night, she slept fitfully. The snake and the fruits kept appearing in her dreams alternately, one after the other, until they were mixed up in a flash of montage and she slept off.

The next day. She decided not to wander through that way. She chose another part of the garden. After all, it was huge. A few days passed and one day, she decided she had not passed by The Tree. She walked in that direction. As though guided by some force, she stopped under The Tree of Knowledge. Should I? Should I not?... I should not! She stepped out of the shadows of The Tree and was about to walk off... “You should!” came a voicsssse! The snake. It stepped down from the tree. Wonder of wonders! Snakehead, walking on two legs, like herself, like Adam! She gaped with open mouth.

The Snake chose the moment, reached out, “inky, pinky, ponky,” selected a rich, red, juicy fruit, opened its mouth, bit it deep that juice, sweet smelling, flowed at the corners of its mouth, down its arm! Eve was transfixed. “See.... I ate. Nothing has happened. Do not deny yourself happiness. Go ahead, bite... Bite!”

“Bbbbut... But but, I shan’t. Orders are orders. I want to live here, eternal. This is dangerous.”

“Bah! You do not seem to know everything. This is The Tree of Knowledge. He has forbade you not to eat because... Well, it is not my business,’ the Snake tried to walk away, carelessly. “Listen... Look... Tell me what don’t I know. What is not your business? Please,” asked Eve.

“Nnnnothing!”

“No, please!”

“Okay. This is The Tree of Knowledge. Anyone who eats the fruits from The Tree will attain Knowledge as God has. Now, if you get Knowledge, you will know everything He knows. He wouldn’t want that, would He? You should want that, wouldn’t you? Eve!”

She had to know. With a flutter of her heart, she reached for the fruit, slowly, delicately brought it close to her lips, with trembling fingers and racing heart.... As her teeth sunk into the succulent flesh of the fruit, a million volt of many things coursed through her veins. The Snake watched, victorious.

Adam, having completed his morning’s work, was heading home for lunch. He happened to be passing by. Eve saw him, “Come here! This is wonderful.”

Adam halted in his tracks. Open-mouthed, he saw with shock on his face, Eve holding a partly bitten fruit, standing under the tree, The Snake next to her. In a minute he understood what had happened. “Eve, Eve, what have you done, oh! That will be it. You have broken God’s Law.”

“Adam, but, this is wonderful. You should taste it too. It is juicy, it is delicious and so very unlike other fruits in the other trees,” she extended the forbidden fruit. Adam was afraid. Also, he did not want Eve to face God alone. He took the fruit in his hand and without delay bit into it. The Snake watched, satisfied. He was beaming smiles.

That moment, as the juices of the fruit raced through his veins, Adam felt funny, looking at Eve curiously as never before. Looked at himself, looked back at Eve. She felt strange, too, looking at Adam looking at her. She felt as if he was scrutinising here. They both held eyes, only for a second, looked back at each other’s bodies, fled behind a bush each, farther from each other, hiding their nakedness from one another. Only their heads showed from behind the bushes. They stayed there, feeling sorrowful, shameful, until almost evening. The Snake? Well, he went back to the branches above.

When the evening came, God came by, to see if his creation was all right. By this time, Adam and Eve had managed to roughly hew a string of leaves for themselves to hide their naked bodies, Adam around his waist, till mid-thigh and Eve around her shoulders and her waist. God saw them. Why are you wearing these? Sheepishly they both came forward. “Ah... Um...” chorused both.

“Did you eat the forbidden fruit?” God gritted his teeth. They were guilty and stood silently. “DID YOU?” God thundered. “Ye...ye...yes, Father!”

“I had warned you not to. Now you know. You feel naked, you feel guilty, you feel pained. GO AWAY from Eden!” They could not look at him. Red-faced, they turned. “WAIT!” He quickly made a dress for each, hewn from Fig leaves. “Wear these... Now leave! But before you leave, let me know how you came to pluck this fruit. How did you muster courage?”

Adam pointed his looks at Eve, who in turn pointed her eyes to the branches above. “The Snake!” hissed God icily. It was the scariest they had felt in his presence. “For heeding to his tempting words, from now onwards you will lose this place. You will find yourselves in a hard landscape, and Adam, you will have to till the land doubly hard, find water by yourself to feed you land. You will toil through scorching sun and chill moon, till your body throbs with pain. Eve, you shall bear children and undergo extreme pain in the process, lose a lot and bring them out. You will both SUFFER! Get out!”

He turned to The Snake, “You shall lose your feet, grovel before me, slither on the ground, find no proper food, live in the pits of the earth, travel on your belly like the worm you are, eat dust and suffer. People will hate you. You will be the enemy of humans! They will hate you, you will bite at their feet and they will kill you.” He shook his fists wrathfully. It was terrifying.

In a moment, around Adam and Eve, the landscape had changed. They were outside the Garden of Eden, the gates have been bolted, a flaming sword swung around fiercely in front of the gates, preventing humans from entering the Heaven on Earth; and the sun burned down on them... as sadly they trudged away.

* * * * *

IN THE WAKE...

IN THE WAKE...

In the light of the tunnel
in the sheen of the cave
in the glint of the deep sea corals
in the silvery meniscus of the anthill's depth
in the powdery silt of the fissures
in the sallow valley of a mother's womb
hope eternal springs:
a hidden cache beyond which
the mother lode of life.

House and I

House and I

Big house
quiet house
darkened house
shades and trellises drawn down
deafening silence inside

twitter and chirp of birds outside
somewhere an automobile squeals
a motorbike sputters by
white walls gaping back
television darkly staring vacuously

I rest my head back on the chair's headrest
close my eyes
a kaleidoscope of memories whirr
prayer bells ring
someone is offering puja
there is hope.

This house and I
we've grown intimate
to each other's smell.

Poems from the past

I, the Living

A Social Perspective

Just another day in my monotonous life

a spark of madness hitherto unknown is  born.

I try to foster this random depression

with images, imageries

however banal they come:

I just shift.

I, who used to be part of colourful mardi gras,

am gazing now at the solitary beach

infested with huts and fishing nets;

no more vista for breathers

all roads in and out

trafficked

by marches varying in reasons

from hunger-strikes to identity-crises.

There seems to be no existence to meaning

since pauses have acquired importance;

since

the watch in the tower (that never works),

ceaseless mortalities,

kids returning from school, with drawn looks and low hung haversacks

have had cessation of interest.

There seems to be no point

since

nature man created

wafts an unwilling body with the sea of life

letting hover like a leaf in fall:

my thoughts are blinking at me, too.

A Family Perspective

They call me a parenthesis!

At home - a thesis of my parents?

Sometimes a sub-ordinate clause!

I wish I was unborn

that my father was left sterile

or my brother the only sprout

and I had lived as ethers in mother’s imagination.

But he is fond of me - 

I too add to his ration quantity

and tread, satisfied of submission, 

a resigned, battered path.

A Memoir

Then?

Ah, I fell vague

like you feel, when you smell

the indentations someone’s breath had left

on your pillow.

I feel my estrangements

me, my thoughts, my inspiration...

and drawl lugubriously within,

blink at the tubelight’s demi-jour.

The side-stuffed mosquito coil

with its head inclined

like a satellite receiver at the

meterologicaldepartmentcampus - that’s me, we.

A total stranger misbegotten to someone’s feuds.

- Nov 1986

The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak

A terrific book... also translated into a terrific movie.

I bought the book, before it's publicity blitz began, upon impulse. I, like millions, have been a product of and fascinated with History, especially European History, both as a student and as a human being. So when I learned that The Book Thief is centered about Holocaust history, impulse lead me to pick the book. No hesitation.

I brought it home and read. Initially a bit difficult going, I gave up, on no particular pretext, after 10 pages. The other book I had done a similar act of give-uppance, that later has come to be my all time Top-3, was Italo Calvino's IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELLER (the other two being Patrick Suskind's PERFUME & Bram Stoker's DRACULA). As it turned out with its predecessor, THE BOOK THIEF has added itself to the Top-4 of my likes.

Narrated from the 1st person voice, uniquely, of Death, the book took a while warming up... but once it warmed up, like the analogous books that Holocaust ended up licking the pages of in its bonfire,  during the infamous Buecherverbrennung (Burning of the Books), THE BOOK THIEF started burning inside me and searing some of my entrails with such emotional intensity, that there was no let down. I finished, in my second try, in one sitting, ended up recommending it to my students.

Recently, I saw the movie. I had the DVD for a while now, but resisting the watch as I did not want the movie to sour the impact the book had had on me. However, it was my best chance to introduce the book itself to my daughter. She has dangerously been discovering rom, com, chicklit and other mush literature as befits the age (teen), I chanced upon. So I had to force a happenstance on her reading life. Over lunch and post-lunch one afternoon, I played the movie, with a bit of trepidation, for the reason I had already outlined above. It did not disappoint. Perhaps, my ulterior agenda to introduce my daughter to the book, overrode any other notions. Nevertheless, it turned out to be as good a watch as a read, though there are parts in book that stand out for its narrative force that a camera can never intensely catch, but only glimpse.

THE BOOK THIEF is now on my daughter's all time list too. Of course, Pride and Prejudice tops her list, as with most aspiring literature students. It's not a bad start, however!