About Us: Ashvamegh Vol.II Issue.XXIII December 2016

Ashvamegh Biharsharif, India [email protected], +91 7004831594

Editorial Board on Ashvamegh:

Alok Mishra (Editor-in-Chief) Murray Alfredson (Sr. Editor) Dr. Shrikant Singh (Sr. Editor) Nidhi Sharma (Sr. Editor) Vihang Naik (Sr. Editor) Pooja Chakraborty (Editor) Anway Mukhopadhyay (Editor) Munia Khan (Editor) Dr. Sarada Thallam (Sr. Editor) D. Anjan Kumar (Sr. Editor) Ravi Teja (Editor)

Advisory Panel on Ashvamegh: Dr. Swarna Prabhat Ken W Simpson N. K. Dar Alan Britt

Ashvamegh is an online international journal of literary and creative writing. Publishing monthly, Ashvamegh has successfully launched its 23rd issue in December 2016 (this issue). Submission is open every day of the year. Please visit http://ashvamegh.net for more details.

Find Ashvamegh on Facebook Twitter Website Table of Contents: Ashvamegh Vol.II Issue.XXIII December 2016

Cover About Us

Authors whose papers have been selected

• Dr. M Vishnupriya • Prakash Babu Bodapati • Roohi Rachel D’cruze • A Rajalakshmi • Reeswav Chatterjee • A Harisankar

Essays:

• Gautam Dhanokar

(note: you can download research articles and essays in a different non-fiction edition of the issue from the website)

Find Ashvamegh on Facebook Twitter Website Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Alok Mishra: Editorial ISSN: 2454-4574

What is the best way that you might think of right now if I ask you about teaching the students of English literature? This question was natural to arise because the circumstances that led to this were too much. A week ago or two perhaps, a junior friend, who completed his MA a year after me, came to visit me. His purpose was to discuss which way to go ahead in the future. And I leave no opportunities untaken when it comes to counselling. In the course of the discourse, unfortunately, came the twist that I was not at all expecting! ‘Do you know what theory is?’ I asked my friend and his response was ‘no’. And when I asked if he knew Post- colonialism, he told me that this topic was taught in the class. Now this is highly interesting: here we have the students who don’t know who Shakespeare was but they know that king Lear might be interpreted in various modern ways because their class tells them so. Amazing, isn’t it? Where is the problem in our education system (not only India, I think the education system needs a revamp in most of the countries, especially, when it comes to the study of subjects as important as literature)? The attempt that we need to make must be from both the sides – the teachers as well as students. Talking about the conditions of the institutions in India, I must admit that we lack that will as well as strategy on both ends. Students are preparing for their examination all the time rather than actually understanding what they are being taught. On the other hand, teachers are merely helping them understanding the ‘pattern of examination’. Nevertheless, I must make it clear that there are the teachers and students who don’t come in the circumference of my discourse. However, unfortunately, most of them do subscribe to the policy which I just presented! And the result I have experienced in the same personal library in which I am writing this right now. We will have to come out of the delusion that literature is lesser than science subjects if we want to improve the scenario. It’s as important as understanding Einstein’s E = MC2 Well, this is the final issue of Ashvamegh for the year 2016 and when I look back, I am enthralled to see that we have come so far from where we have started! On 12th of January 2017, Ashvamegh will be proudly celebrating its second anniversary! It was just impossible without the support that I am getting from across the globe! I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart! This is just the beginning of another year for us and we have to go more and more. In the journey of two years, Ashvamegh has inspired many emerging poets, featured many established authors and presented the talks with many renowned literary figures from the world. I am sure we will keep the momentum always! Like previous time, in the beginning of December, we organized a first of its kind Digital Poets Meet on WhatsApp. We invited poems on friendship: Read Here: http://ashvamegh.net/whatsapp-literature-group/poems-on- friendship-digital-poets-meet-whatsapp/ Another important information that I would like to convey to my readers that Ashvamegh is looking for book bloggers. If you are interested in reading a lot and also doing book reviews, please follow this link: http://ashvamegh.net/book-blogger-get-paid-for-book-reviews/ We have so much to offer you! Best wishes for the coming year! Love, Alok Mishra

Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Dr. M Vishnupriya: Soyinka’s Kongi Harvest ISSN: 2454-4574

Introduction to the Author: Dr M Vishnupriya M.A. (S V University), PhD (SK University), PGDTE (CIEFL Hyderabad) is currently working as an assistant professor of English at MITS, Madanapalli, Andhra Pradesh. She has ten years of teaching experience in this field and is very much interested in research.

Politics and Festival in Wole Soyinka’s Kongi’s Harvest

Abstract: Nigerians are very zealous about their community festivals. The New Yam Festival is very popular in all towns and villages in Eastern Nigeria. The festival has a different history behind it in different places. The Festival of New Yam, which is celebrated after the harvesting of the crops, in order to give thanks to the god of agriculture and to ask for new blessings for the coming year. Invitations are sent out to friends and relatives from neighboring villages about a week before. This festival and many others are recorded by African writers, who attach great importance to them. Kongi’s harvest grew out of Soyinka’s concern with human rights and political liberties out of his conviction that the role of political activist was an important and an honorable one, out of his perception of political developments on the continent of Africa and out of his anxiety to root his theatre in the idioms of African Festival performances. Key words: New yam, festival, celebration, politics, tradition. Soyinka’s Kongi’s harvest was inspired entirely by a sentence which (he) once heard an African leader pronounce ‘I want him back alive, if possible’1. In the East, every god or goodness has a feast day in the year on which, early in the morning, the Osu (that is, cult slaves) receive presents on their behalf. In Onitsha, it is said that the early settlers there crossed the Niger the Benin. They comprised a family of nine. They had no food and so they were very happy when they arrived at Onitsha and saw wild yams there. They were afraid to taste them, because they thought they might be poisonous. However, forced by famine to explore every possible source of food, the people decided to eat the yam. Precautions were taken to avert possible harmful effects. The youngest member of the group was asked to eat the yam first. Later they became bold enough to eat the yam in various forms; each attempt was accompanied by prayers, incantations and offerings to the gods and ancestral spirits to make them allies in the act. No evil befell them. Yam thus became a solution to their problem and a cherished source of food. This family then decided to settle at Onitsha to cultivate yams instead of

1 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Dr. M Vishnupriya: Soyinka’s Kongi Harvest ISSN: 2454-4574 allowing them to grow wild. They also decided to celebrate a feast every year in memory of the discovery of the wild yams. This eventually led to the feast. The ritual ceremony starts in the morning when the elders of the villages collect all their farming tools and put them in front of the appropriate shrines. They kill goats or hens in front of them and sprinkle the blood on the tools and the shrines as their share of the sacrifice. After cooking the meat and pounding the New Yam, they give portions to the shrines. When the sun is overhead the invited guests begin to arrive. If a bride and bridegroom are celebrating the feast with their in –laws, they take wine to present to them. The in-laws feed them on food and take wine to present to them. The in-laws feed them on food and palm wine and also give them pounded yam to take home and share among their well-wishers. All the invited guests eat a great deal. In the evening people go to the village squares where there is a gathering with masquerades. Music is supplied by the local drummers to which everybody in their best clothes dances. On this and other big occasions, the chiefs wear multi-colored robes with coral beads and headwear studded with tiny bells, small mirrors and beautiful ostrich features. Young girls paint themselves with red cam wood powder and draw delicate patterns in indigo all over their bodies. They wear rows of beads round their waists, and they plait their hair and stick decorative, carved ivory pins into it. This is done to attract young men. When everybody has had a good time they all go home. This festival is celebrated in a slightly different form among the Yoruba. The ritual ceremony in the morning is not followed by dancing in the evening. Instead the women in their different age groups; accompanied by local drummers, dance to a central spot where a bigger shrine has been erected for the celebration. They are dressed in their best clothes and carry pounded yam and soup in white calabashes to the shrine. Each group deposits its present of pounded yam and dances back home. They are also much concerned with describing and emphasizing the part played by chiefs and different age groups in the political, social and economic organization of a tribal society. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe gives an idea of the heavy responsibility which a title imposes on the holder and how the religious beliefs of the people affect their actions and attitudes, for instance in the wrestling match in the village square. The background of Achebe’s writing is the Ibo way of life. The same thing is true, though to a lesser extent, of other Eastern Nigerian writers, such as Onuora Nzekwu, Nkem Nwankwo, Gabriel Okara and J. P. Clark. Wole Soyinka, Amos Tutuola, Duro Ladipo, Hubert Ogunde and the writers and artists of

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Western Nigerian origin operate against a Yoruba background which is different, and they describe the customs and festivals popular in communities of that area. In African festival theatre the narrative performances is often buried and digging it up does not necessarily enrich the experience of participants. The play is set in the imaginary African state of Isma during the presentations for, celebration and aftermath of a new yam festival. The ruler of Isma, Kongi is a repressive, ambitious autocrat who is assisted by a ubiquitous Organizing secretary, advised by a fraternity of largely sycophantic Aweris and enthusiastically supported by a brutal carpenters’ Brigade. He has put some of his most powerful opponents, including Oba Dandola, into detention, but he has not, as the opening sequence ‘Hemlock’ makes clear, quarreled the Oba’s ebullient and independent opposition. Kongi’s rule is also challenged by his ex-mistress, the mysterious and beautiful Segi, by her female supporters and by Daodu, Danlola’s much-traveled nephew and heir who is the leader of a successful farming co-operative. The dictator wants to usurp Danlola’s position; specifically, he wants to receive the new yam from the Oba’s hands at the new yam festival and by eating part of it, to present himself to the people as their protector and spiritual leader. Danlola is understandably unwilling to abdicate his religious functions by co-operating in this image-making exercise, but Segi, and Daodu are anxious that he should at least pretend to co- operate in order to draw Kongi to the public celebration of the new yam festival. There they plan to have him assassinated just as the new yam is presented to him, just when he is about to commit an outrageous blasphemy. In the course of the play, plans are discussed and move forward. Danlola is persuaded to accede to Kongi’s request and Kongi agrees to release some political prisoners. A detail of the assassination plot is changed slightly when Segi’s father escapes from detention and takes on the role of marksman. But before he can kill Kongi, he is himself shot. In an ‘improvised’ dénouement to part Two, Segi dances in accompanied by her women supporters and presents Kongi with her father’s severed head. This is followed by ‘Hangover’ from which it seems that, despite the shock which the system has received, Kongi remains in control. The plot that makes an impact on all is the yam festival. The play builds up to that celebration; much of the dialogue is about the preparation for it and the most spectacular scene is the festival itself-or an improvisation based on it. Soyinka has found an idiom for this piece in the celebration of the new yam festival, the image and the new yam and the songs which celebrate it provide a cultural and dramatic context for the working out of his ideas. The festival provides

3 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Dr. M Vishnupriya: Soyinka’s Kongi Harvest ISSN: 2454-4574 an excision when the paranoid Kongi is out in the open and can be hit by an assassin’s bullet. To strike him down at a moment when he is violating a taboo is a refinement which will win friends for the plotters. The play, inevitably contains a great deal more than the festival and when this extra material is studied it reveals that Soyinka has employed techniques which have become familiar from the examination of previous plays; these include careful attention to comparison and contrast but not, in this instance, shifts into the past. The opening scene ‘Hemlock’ shows Danlola in detention; the leader under the old dispensation has been placed behind the barbed wire by the new the khaki uniforms and detention camp regulation speak volumes about Kongi’s regime and by showing us these things Soyinka saves hundreds of words. The Oba’s poetic, musical, richly dressed retinue, vivacious despite Danlolas captivity, places before the audience an image of the old order in durance vile’. Here, these is a moment of particular tension when in the middle of the praise song for Danlola, the superintendent ‘seizes the lead drummer by the wrist and everything stops’. After a pause and in the ‘complete silence’ which follows, Danlola asks with great deliberation, ‘You stopped the royal drums?” The interruption of the ceremonies of Oba is not, Danlola makes do not clear, the first, nor will it be the last. Indeed, it looks back to the imprisoning of Danlola and anticipates both the bursting of Danlola’s drum by Daodu and the interruption of the new yam festival. Danlola is, it is apparent not completely at the superintendent’s mercy, and in order to show this he ‘makes a notion as if he means to prostrate himself’ before the slave in khaki. The superintendent is sufficiently affected by the attitudes of the community in which he was reared to beg the Oba not to reverse the appointed order by prostrating before him. The recognition of the honor due to Danlola by the superintendent is contrasted in the scenes which follow with the over-wearing ambition of Kongi, who thanks it right and proper that the Oba should hand the new yam to him. The enormity of this demand is made clear by the exchanges and gestures in ‘hemlock’ between Danlola and the superintendent even if we come to the play ignorant of the respect due to Yoruba Obas this scene provides information about expected attitudes and behavior. In part one of the play the little action that there is moves forward slowly as the audience’s attention is switched back and forth between Kongi’s mountain retreat and Segi’s night club. The stage direction indicates that both sets “are present on different parts of the stage and are brought into play in turn by lights”, an arrangement which is ideal for making contrasts. In the

4 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Dr. M Vishnupriya: Soyinka’s Kongi Harvest ISSN: 2454-4574 mountain retreat, against the background of a chant in honour of Kongi, the Aweris bicker and squabble as they endeavour to manufacture an image for the dictator. There are topical allusions, and through the fifth Aweri whose independence and spirit separate him from the others in the retreat, the atmosphere is sterile, the jargon barren, the image making synthetic; it is perfectly appropriate that the Aweris should be starved for it is clear they are working for a negative, life-denying force. During the brief scene in the retreat which closes the first part, Kongi, frantic at the news that some detainees have escaped, uses almost the very words which ‘triggered’ the play; ‘I want him back-alive if possible ….’And then, as a comment on his condition, he falls into an epileptic fit. In this instance, as in many others, Soyinka uses action to speak louder – and more clearly-than words. Kongi and his drab advisors in their austere retreat are sharply contrasted with Danlola and the vivacity with which Danlola’s supported enliven the detention camp. In part one, Soyinka establishes Segi’s club as the third point in the political, social and emotional landscape of Ismaland. The organizing secretary, whom Kongi has made responsible for the arrangements concerning the new yam festival, is nervous and out of place in the night club brisk and businesslike, he brings the chill of the Aweri’s retreat into the life-assertive club, which belongs to Segi, a woman, a femme fatale’, an inspiration and an enigma. The lyrics of a song in his honour establish the mystery of the lady. “The being of Segi Swirls the night In potions round my head”. Segi is one of a live of ‘super women’ in Soyinka’s plays which stretches back to Rola /Madame Tortoise and even to Sidi, all’ right cannibals of female species’ she are not a ‘round’ character but she fulfils an important dramatic function; she establishes that the female principle supports the opposition to dictatorship and on occasion, leads it. The second part of the play begins as the play itself had begun, with Danlola in fine form. The excitement builds up through singing, dancing and the tension apparent in leading characters. Daodu delivers a speech in which he denounces Kongi as a ‘messiah of pain and identifies himself as a messiah of abundance joy and life’. Danlola offers the new yam to Kongi, but as the autocrat places his hand over it in benediction, there is a burst of gun fire. But it is not Kongi who is hit-it emerges that Segi’s father, the substitute assassin has been killed. Segi

5 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Dr. M Vishnupriya: Soyinka’s Kongi Harvest ISSN: 2454-4574 refuses to give way to grief and saying she is ‘tired of being as the mouse in (Kongi’s) cat-and- mouse game’, sets off to improvise a fitting denouement to the festival. Kongi makes his speed; he exhorts, declaims, reviles, cajoles, damns, curses, vilifies, excommunicates, execrates, but the sound of revelry rises and drowns his words. “Kongi: the spirit of harvest has smitten the enemies of Kongi. The justice of earth has prevailed over traitors and conspirators. There is divine blessing on the second five-year development plan. The spirit of resurgence is cleansed in the blood of he nation’s enemies, my enemies, the enemies of our collective spirit, the spirit of planting, the spirit of harvest, the spirit of inheritable history and victory, all of which I am. Kongi is very Ismite, and Ismite . . . . (Shoots out a clenched fist). (CPII 29-30) He is reduced to a gesticulating, sweating figure, foaming in the background, possessed by a spirit of hate. When Segi moves, she manages to take Kongi by surprise and makes a muffled symbolic statement about the regime by presenting Kongi the several head of her father. The play treats of Kongi’s modern regime; how in the sections concerned with traditional rulers, the play is rooted in African tradition, especially in the elaboration of concepts concerning the feast of the new yam, in the extensive employment of proverbs and in the ritual of the king’s dance. The dance that Oba Danlola and his retinue perform in the introductory ‘hemlock’ section of the play seems to have a royal quality. These words from the praise song, sung by Oba Sarmi, pay tribute to the night and majesty of the king: “Oba mi I f’epo inu ebo rain none but the king Orisa l’oba Takes the oil from the Cross roads Oba ni I f’epo inu ebo r’awaje And rubs it in his awje Orisa l’oba. The king is a god (KH 3) These lines stress the spiritual authority of the Oba when he anoints the head’s pulse centre with the oil of sacrifice as well as his power as a god. But the Oba now has only the trapping of royalty, since he is in detention after being stripped of his political power by Kongi. The regal dance is therefore sheer make-believe, as we discover when the superintendent stops the dance by grabbing the wrist of the lead drums. Danlola exhibits his resignation to his loss of power when he says:

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“My friend, you merely stopped My drums, but they were silenced On the day when Kongi cast aside My props of wisdom, the day he Drove the old Aweri from their seats” (KH 4) The drums which sound now have a hallow ring since the real drums which symbolize power have been snatched from the Oba by president Kongi. In the play, the dance of the king, with all its pomp and majesty, is a remind of the departed graces of traditional authority to which the Obas hark back nostalgically. The abrupt ending of the dance brings a jolting return to the reality. The feast of the new yam is an indispensable ritual of celebration in traditional black Africa which symbolizes the renewing cycle of the nature. It also symbolizes the supremacy and power of the clan. The yam, as a symbol of harvest embodies the fertility of the tribe and the festival symbolizes the purgation of the clan’s sins and the restoration of its commonweal through the medium of its spiritual head. Soyinka thus deals in this play with the classic conflict between religion and polities that led, some centuries back, to the cleavage between church and state in Western Europe. In the African context, Soyinka portrays the ineluctable scarifies of tradition on the altar of modernism. Although the forces of Kongi will prevail in the end, the death of tradition will be a disaster for the new nation since the wholesale abandonment of traditional culture will mean ridding the state of good as well as bad customs. As Oba Sarumi points out at the start of a dirge which is sung traditionally when a king dies: “They complained because the first of the new yams Melted first in an Oba’s mouth but the dead will witness We drew the poison from the root” (KH 7) In fact, Kongi personifies the poison in the body politic. Though he professes harmony, yet it is already suggested in the sentiments expressed in Oba Danlola’s final chant of the dirge of ‘ege’ sentiments that predict the impending blighting of tradition. “This is the last Our feet shall touch together We thought the tune Obeyed us to the soul But the drums are newly shaped And stiff arms strain On stubborn crooks, so Delve with the left foot For ill luck; with the left Again for ill-luck; once more With the left alone, for disaster Is the only certainty we know.” (KH 10)

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Kongi’s newly shaped drums do not beat a harmonious rhythm since the leader is preoccupied with power and divinity as ends in themselves. His reformed Aweri fraternity is a part of his propagandist machine. Soyinka unsparingly satirizes these new Aweri in their use of bombast to mask their vacuity. Although they pretend to spin their predecessors’ “glamourised fossilism” (KH 24) their own so-called “Enlightened ritualism” is patterned on the policies of the Old Aweri. In spite also of their rejection of proverbial wisdom in favour of “ideograms in algebraic quantum” (KH 13) which they themselves do not understand, their petty squabbling is a far cry from the image of “positive scientificism” which they claim will dominate their pronouncements. Since they are hollow men bandying words about, it is fitting that they envision themselves, in self-contradictory terms, as “youthful elders of the state” and as “a conclave of modern patriarchs” (KH 12). They are in fact simple minded stooges of Kongi who view their image of themselves as Magi as “one step to his inevitable apotheosis” (KH 11). For, not content with usurping Danlola’s role as god’s viceroy on earth, their master, Kongi, wants to be a god in his own right. The barren hypocrisy of Kongi’s messianic is open to view as he operates from his cell in a mountain retreat on the eve of the festival. He is supposed to be fasting and meditating as Isma stands on the threshold of its second Five Year Development Plan. But the image of total harmony which he is busy setting up for the state has been disputed by the recent bomb throwing attempt on his life. Kongi’s pretentious posing for “Last Supper” portraits instead of engaging in earnest meditation betrays the fictional foundation of his mission which the secretary helps him fabricate: SECRETARY: It’s all part of one and same harmonious idea my Leader. A Leader’s Temptation….. Agony on the Mountains….. The loneliness of the Pure…….The uneasy Head…..A Saint at Twilight…….. The Spirit of the Harvest……. The Face of Benevolence….. The giver of life who knows how many other titles will accompany such pictures round the world. And then my leader, this is the Year of Kongi’s Harvest! The presiding Spirit as a life-giving spirit. We could project that image into every heart and head, no matter how stubborn. (KH 39). The fabrication of images that are to be forcibly projected into the minds of the people reveals the regime’s lack of creative ideas and its reliance on brute force. Professor of The Road tries unsuccessfully to achieve godhead through a ritual of possession and the unlocking of the secret of the Word. In Kongi’s Harvest, Kongi assumes the mantle of

8 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Dr. M Vishnupriya: Soyinka’s Kongi Harvest ISSN: 2454-4574 divinity without the ritual of investiture and proclaims himself the Spirit of harvest. Unlike him, Danlola, the lecherous old realist, never forgets that he is yoked to the corporeal, a yoking that he symbolizes in an excremental image (KH 4). Kongi, however, is so far gone in self- conceit and in delusions of immortality that he is ready to change the course of the world. In his pitiless satire of the man Soyinka exposes Kongi’s approval of a new calendar that will date from the current harvest. Kongi’s rejection of his Secretary’s nomenclatures which omit Kongi’s name in favour of the unambiguous “Kongi’s harvest” (KH) and “Before Kongi’s Harvest” (BKH – “No need why we should conform to the habit two initials only” KH 37) is typical of a self-love that seeks self-proliferation.” If Kongi were to enter into the true spirit of harvest, he would endorse those principles and practices that proclaim life and abundance. But he merely disguises his treacherous, unforgiving and murderous spirit by assuming the posture of a Messiah and of a benevolent life-giver. His hypocritical proclamation of a reprieve for the men condemned to die for the attempt on his life, when he fully intends to have them hanged, goes beyond his reputed “flair for gestures” (KH 30). It characterizes the bloodthirsty tyrant who preys on his own people. His convulsions, like those of a god possessed, actually bring him down from his pedestal to his true level of impotent humanity. Oba Danlola is right in picturing Kongi s the son of the crow which feeds on carrion. Because Kongi is so rapacious, the only way he can regain his composure is through the exercise of “scientific exorcism”. As Fourth Aweri calls the slaying of the condemned men is the circumstances, the repressive measures of this regime are not very far from the dismal world of Madmen and Specialists. While Oba Danlola falls under the weight of Kongi’s repression Daodu, his nephew and heir, is quietly involved in a scheme to oust the dictatorial Kongi. Even Danlola, fooled by Daodu’s calm exterior, describes him as “Lately returned from everywhere and still / Trying to find his feet” (KH 54). In fact, Daodu has his feet planted in the soil and his yam will easily win the competition for the prize yam at the new Yam Feast. Ironically, however, his prize yam is a monster, “a most abnormal specimen” (KH 72) for, while the fertilizers and the labor are the soil is still Kongi’s. In Kongi’s Harvest Soyinka presents Daodu as the antithesis of Kongi. The contrast between the two men is dramatized in the stage set by the juxtaposition of scenes. In the First Part, Kongi’s ascetic mountain retreat is worlds removed from the gay atmosphere in the night club scene where Daodu consolidates his opposition to Kongi by joining forces with Segi. Segi calls

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Daodu her spirit of Harvest but, in a reference to Kongi Daodu tells her resignedly “I hate to be a mere antithesis to your Messiah of Pain.” (KH 46). Instead he would like to fight Kongi with his own weapons of hate and destruction. The litany in which Daodu and Segi take part lays bare the dangerous effects of the will to power: DAODU: Let me preach hatred Segi, If I preached hatred I could match his barren marathon, hour for hour, torrent for torrent……….. SEGI: Preach life Daodu, only life….. DAODU: Imprecations then, curses on all inventors of agonies, on all Messiahs of pain and false burdens……. SEGI: [with mounting passion.]: On all who fashion chains, on farmers of terror, on builders of walls, on all who guard against the night but breed darkness by day, on all whose feet are heavy and yet stand upon the world….. SEGI: Life….life….. DAODU: On all who see, not with the eyes of the dead, but with eyes of Death…… SEGI: Life then, it needs a sermon on life…….love…. DAODU: [with violent anger.]: Love? Love? You who gave love, how were you required? SEGI: [rises]: My eyes were open to what I did. Kongi was a great man, and I loved him. (KH 45) Segi, a modern version of Madame Tortoise in A Dance of the Forests, is privy to the warping effect that absolute power has had on a once loved, once great man. Since Kongi has been corrupted by the lust for power she wishes to steer Daodu towards positive goals that uphold life. Daodu’s speech at the festival is made with the assurance and the vigour of a Conquering Hero. Fully confident that Kongi will be overthrown by the time the Oba presents the sacred yam and before Kongi makes his marathon speech, Daodu speaks as a Savior at the Second Coming. In contrast with the asceticism of the First coming he declares “This trip I have elected to sample the joys of life, not its sorrows, to feast on the pounded yam, not on the rind of yam, to drink the wine myself, not leave it to my ministers for frugal sacraments, to love the women not merely wash their feet at the well.” (KH 79). Daodu will not subscribe to the false asceticism of Kongi. As Redeemer he unequivocally preaches libertinism instead and he contemplates the ismites’ liberation from the barren hold of the autocratic Kongi.

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One issue on which the New Aweri seems to reach a consensus is that Kongi’s rule is “part of a normal historic pattern” (KH 20). Nations and empires rise and fall; cultures reach their apogee and decline, and the strong over-power the weak. The foiling of the plot against Kongi demonstrates that, Daodu’s assurance to the contrary, it is not such an easy matter to depose an established ruler, especially one, like Kongi, who runs a police state. For the present, Kongi is entrenched in power but the promise of greater repression after the aborted Bacchanal will not wipe out opposition to his oppressive regime. The doctrine of Inevitable History dictates that Oba Danlola cannot hold on to power indefinitely. Nor can Kongi, as long as there are those who have the will and courage to oppose him and eventually to expose him to the people for what he really is. His discomfiture when Segi serves up the head of her father in a platter as the orgiastic harvest feast becomes nightmare brings home to him the stark reality of his diabolical regime. According to the world view of Kongi’s Harvest, Oba Danlola, Kongi and Daodu represent moribund, entrenched and challenging orders of power respectively. Oba Danlola, the wily and dilatory reactionary, is the traditional chieftain who has ruled his people with an absolute power which lies more in the paraphernalia of custom and taboo than in the exercise of brute force. He now knows that he and others of his breed are “the masquerade without/Flesh or spirit substance” (KH 53). But this realization of the loss of political and spiritual power does not deter him from resisting the nullification of his function or from indulging in make-believe pomp and majesty. Kongi, the autocrat, has inverted the old order of communal sharing and responsibility in which the individual’s actions for good or evil have repercussions on the body politic. Under his coercive and unimaginative rule, the people have the support of their traditional beliefs taken from them. Instead they are subjected to propaganda and brute force which win their allegiance through fear rather than through trust. Daodu, the quiet revolutionary, is impatient with the ritual and slow dignity of traditional authority and abhors the image-making and the unproductive terrorism of the present government. Although he adopts the productive tools of the modern world he fails to recognize that he must also respect the soil of tradition in order to produce a normal harvest. Success in the future will depend on the just matching of tradition and modernism, not on the elimination of one by the other. Although the three characterize differing and conflicting interests, Danlola, Kongi and Daodu are afflicted, in varying degrees, by much the same syndrome of power. Soyinka considers true humility and generosity as the indispensable counterparts of power and greatness. The

11 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Dr. M Vishnupriya: Soyinka’s Kongi Harvest ISSN: 2454-4574 besetting sin of greatness is that it all too often gives rise to an overdeveloped ego with manic propensities Intimations of immortality are the direct result of a mania which causes the subject to lose touch with reality. Soyinka denounces this overblown sense of divinity in the Oba who inherits it with the rest of traditional culture as well as in Kongi and in Daodu who exhibit traits of Messianism. Kongi’s affliction is the most advanced as, through his actions; the playwright demonstrates that notions of omnipotence and divinity can reduce a man to quaking impotence. Here, Daodu is presented as the antithesis of Kongi.

REFERENCES 1. Spear Magazine, P. 18, Banda’s Dead-or-Alive Search Order was reported in The Times, London, 29 October, 1964. Textual References are cited from Collected Plays II, Soyinka, Wole, Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford, 1982, p.3-80.

Works cited: Radhamani Gopalakrishnan, At Ogun’s feet, S. V. University Press, 1986. Eldred D. Jones, The Writing of Wole Soyinka, Heinemann, London. Gibbs James, Wole Soyinka-Macmillan modern Dramatists, Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Hong Kong, 1986. Etherton, Michael, The Development of African Drama, Hutchinson University Library for African, (London) 1980.

12 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 P B Bodapati: Globalization & English language ISSN: 2454-4574

Introduction to the Author:

Prakash Babu Bodapati is a research scholar enrolled at Kakathiya University, Warangal,

Telangana. He is also an asst. professor in English Sri Venkateswara Engineering college.

Impact of Globalization on English Language

ABSTRACT

English language is a language before Globalization; English is the language after

Globalization.

Globalization and English language are said to work as pull factors for one another.

English language plays a major role in the progress of Globalization. Globalization of trade and

commerce, increasing diversities of work force with different set up values have increased the

importance of English language usage.

Man has been using language as a medium of communication for the ages, today due

to Globalization English language has become the most prized possession of communication. In

this Global village English language acts as a repository of wisdom and wit. English language is a

propeller for advancement of career and a machine to mint money. And is a telescope to view the

vision of future. In this Global world, communication in English is now recognized as an

inseparable part rather the life blood of every activity which occurs in our day to day life. Now a

day’s every organization functions through a communication process, where in mutually

independent persons create and exchange messages to articulate and achieve commonly held

objectives and goals.

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English language can be rightly regarded as the key to the store house of production

and productivity. We can make use of this language to promote our world view and spiritual

heritage and promote cultural and traditional aspects across the globe. Globalization has brought

English language into limelight. The scenario of the usage of the language has changed drastically.

The Queen’s language has become a common man’s curriculum. The language has become a silver bowl to earn one’s bread and butter.

In this Global world English is the language of the latest business management. English

language is not only a means for international commerce, it has become increasingly essential for

inter-state commerce and communication. It is the official language of air transfers and shipping,

the leading language of science and technology, computers and commerce and a major medium of

education. In an era of increased communication through the telephones, fax machine, television

and modem, the world is becoming more and more globally oriental. Business, families, friends

and many other groups with common interests are able to form small tele or cyber communications

that transcend geographical boundaries.

INTRODUCTION:

The word Globalization is the buzzing word to all economists, a magical word to

entrepreneurs and a material word to the governments and all other business people. Globalization

is the trump card for the rapid development across the globe in terms of language, culture, tradition,

customs, lifestyle, economy and science and technology.

If we go back to the origin and existence of this term Globalization, the term has been there in the

annals of history and it got its significance just a decade ago. It started on the point of business

then spread like a wild fire to all aspects of human’s survival. Technological advances in

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production, transportation, and tele-communication and more advancement with internet the firms

got access to customer’s supplies and collaborators around the world.

Globalization originated with trade and marketing and crossed the national boundaries to

connect people. Globalization has brought everything together but the English language made

Globalization more possible and affective one.

Due to globalization, English language emerged as a global force. As statistics say English language is the most widely spoken tongue in the world today. It is English language however a bigger impact on the world as a whole and has become the global de-facto standard used in business, cultural, political and linguistic exchange.

“English rules” is an old phrase, “English language rules” is the new phrase emerged out of Globalization. Knowledge of English is very essential because countries are becoming globally integrated and coupled with each other in all aspects in terms of culture, economy, trade and commerce. This integration can happen only when language spoken is the same.

As per the international publication “Economist”, said India has multi languages out of these English is the only language understood all over India. Language remains potentially a

communicating medium capable of expressing ideas and concepts as well as moods, feelings,

thoughts and ideas. English language has revolutionized science and technology. It has become

the main tool in computer languages and components. The purpose of the language and its

influence leading to common objective. Computers are the most important technical tool that has

revolutionised all walks of life and communication is no exception to the phenomenon.

The English language has taken u-turn after globalization. The musing language has

become an item of economic value. Due to Globalization the companies are using English

language as a medium to sell their products across the globe. There are constant advertisements in

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print and electronic media English language sweeps all the advertisements. Globalization leaves

no stone unturned, as current Globalization seems to demand comprehensive transformation of a

society, its impact on language and culture be detected in every facet of life.

The parliament has also recognized English as an official language in addition to Hindi.

Realising the importance of English language then railway minister Laloo Prasad yadav demanded

teaching of English language in schools. The greater demand for admission in English medium

schools throughout the country is a testimony to the attraction of English to the people of India.

We can make use of English language to promote our world view and spiritual heritage

throughout the globe. Some spiritual gurus have been using this language to establish cultural

identity. Swami Vivekananda established our identity in overseas and manifested our culture with

this language.

The main reasons for language Globalization are a] rule of British colonies b] exchange of socio-

economic, political and technological advancements c] new trends in education system d] changing

trends in market and world economy e] improved means of communication.

Here the very important way of promoting Globalization of language is through education,

the policy of teaching a foreign language is a policy of globalization. It promotes the pulling down

of linguistic barriers and encourages languages to travel freely across national frontiers. English

language present enjoys a position second to none in the educational system of many countries

including Arab world. Rampant use of English loan words in Japanese it is almost impossible to

live in Japan without knowing English language.

CONCLUSION:

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There is no doubt that Globalization has changed the face of English language. In fact,

Globalization has changed the life style of human beings altogether, English language has given a new life to the modern man.

A sea change has taken place in the selection process especially at corporate sector that is because of Globalization. Communication in English is the major requirement in the day-to-day selection process.

Today English is news; the language continues to make news daily in many parts of the world. If English language is not your mother tongue you may still have mixed feelings about it.

You may be strongly motivated to learn the English language because you know it will put you in touch with more people than any other language. It gives you scope to work anywhere across the globe. More over it will give you economic, political and cultural status in the society.

As I started “English” is a language before Globalization and “English” is the language

after globalization and I end with the same phrase.

Finally, English and Globalization are inseparable, living one on another in the present day

world like body and soul of a human being.

REFERENCES:

Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Graddol, David (1998). The Future of English. London: The British Council.

Jenkins, Jennifer (2003). World English. London: Routledge.

Mc Kay, Sandu (2002). Teaching English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

17 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Roohi: The domestic maid & post-colonial feminism ISSN: 2454-4574

Introduction to the Author:

Roohi Rachel D’cruze is an ardent student currently pursuing her Masters in English from Christ

University, Bangalore, Roohi has a passion towards Gender Debates in the Indian context. She

wants to pursue a PhD in the field of Gender and Masculinities.

The Domestic Maid a Post-Colonial Feminist Analysis

Abstract:

The paper considers Spivak’s idea of epistemic violence to read Anita Desai’s The

Domestic Maid to study how the short story represents the identity of the Indian subaltern woman

is completely vanquished in the face of class struggle in a third world country. The paper refers to

various articles on the construction of hegemony and its eventual effects on the subaltern to expose

the mistreatment meted out to a section of the community by another.

The Domestic Maid a Post-Colonial Feminist Analysis

The Domestic Maid is a short story written by Anita Desai, a story that narrates a day in

the life of a domestic worker. The protagonist in the story is Geeta who works at the household of

a Ms. Asha whom she calls ‘Asha didi’, in one of the posh residential apartments. Geeta is

disturbed and morose as she enters the complex on the morning of the day. This does not go

unnoticed by her co-workers as they try to cheer her up. Soon as she enters the household she gets

shouted at by her employer for showing up late. She gets hurled at all day with piercing abuses

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until she leaves the house. On her way out she meets Chaaya her neighbour, while discussing the events of the day and more they head back home.

The story although lucid and simple at the outset provokes several arguments about the status of women in the post-colonial India. On the one hand, there is Asha an upper class married

woman, working as well as managing the household, on the other hand, there is Geeta, her maid

who struggles every day to make ends meet, needless to say she jostles with limited choices in life.

The lack of agency in Geeta is attributed to the class she belongs to, that restricts her from speaking

her mind and asserting what she wants.

This story destabilizes the popular feminist notion that, ‘only a woman understands the

pains and suffering of another.’ Desai through her story marks this statement as an illusion of sorts.

When Geeta recollects while she is sulking about the way Asha treated her that day, she recollects

the time when ‘Asha didi’ had been favourable enough to give her a loan when she needed it. In

the course of the story it is made clear that this assertion of Geeta was to pacify her own instincts

because Asha is actually not really tolerant towards her. ‘Asha didi would not understand. No one

did’, this statement made by Geeta later in the story clearly negates the former stance she tries to

take for her employer.

The identities of the women as portrayed in the story are representative of the subaltern

women. It is further accentuated by the class distinction made apparent in the story. The Identity

cards handed to the domestic workers becomes a symbol of class distinction. Along with

identifying them as employed women and promising safety, it poses restrictions on their

expression and denies them agency. Their identity is absolved as a domestic maid working for an

employer who hurls abuses at them by right. They are treated as low individuals (as the ‘other’),

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denied all rights to the favourable things in life, and are expected to survive on the leftovers of the

supposed high class with absolutely no hope of improvement.

The author attributes an identity even to the upper class women, that of the ‘memsaab’.

‘Memsaab’ because they are women of better means, living in a respectable household, working

in offices and are not being ‘beaten black and blue’ by their husbands. However, on a closer

reading one finds this apparently privileged position exceedingly delusional and subject to the

same subaltern angst as the lower class women. Hurling abuses at the maid is way of venting out,

pent up frustration that they perhaps are unable to, in their otherwise respectable households, in

front of their supposed sophisticated family. The mental frustration of managing household, workplace and living up to expectations of the respectable family is far greater than the physical torment borne by the maid.

The story throws light on also how the domestic space is seen as the woman’s only domain, even though both the protagonist Geeta and Asha are working women. There is no way of getting out of domesticity or sharing the kitchen with the male counterpart. It proves to be a quintessential subaltern phenomenon that dominates the Indian frame of mind.

The story prompts many such questions about class, gender, and femininity; overthrowing popular notions and illusions about feminism as a movement. One such illusion is mentioned in the paper, of women being the sole pacifiers of women, however the belief could be reframed as: women are the pacifiers of women belonging to their own class.

20 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Roohi: The domestic maid & post-colonial feminism ISSN: 2454-4574

References

Barry. Peter. Beginning Theory, Manchester UK. Viva Books. Print. 2010.

Juneja, Renu. “Identity and Femininity in Anita Desai’s Fiction.” Journal of South Asian

Literature Vol. 22 No. 2 (1987): 77-86. JSTOR. Web. 10 February 2016.

Sengupta, Ashish. “Anita Desai’s ‘Voices in the City’: Reconstructing Indian Female Identity.”

Indian Literature Vol. 48, No. 6 (224) (Nov-Dec 2004): 181- 193. JSTOR. Web. 10 February

2016.

21 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Rajalakshmi & Roshini: Bharati Mukherjee’s ‘Wife’ ISSN: 2454-4574

The Idea of Modern Woman in Bharati Mukherjee’s Wife

Introduction to the Author: A Rajalakshmi, M.A., Mphil, (Phd), is an assistant Professor in English, Mother Teresa Women’s University, Kodaikanal. The co-author of the paper, Ms. A. Roshini is a Ph.D Scholar at the same institution, Mother Teresa Women’s University, Kodaikanal.

Abstract

Bharati Mukherjee illustrates a modern woman as a girl who rebellious, mutiny next to all prospect in her life daringly, adjusts herself to all traditions and atmospheres thereby existing and livelihood her life audaciously. Mukherjee swigs the best of Indian and Western culture, finds modern women to be mandatory clarification to gaze life with modishness. Her novel Wife stands out as a unique fictional work by virtue of its insightful probing into heroine’s psyche and its indubitable technical excellence. Dimple, the protagonist of Wife, is the perfect example of the misery of women in India. She suffers due to the callous and non-responsive attitude of her husband. Her husband treats her as a mere object subjected to his will as a result there is a complete loss of her identity. Mukherjee’s attack is not against the individuals, it is against the system that favours men and causes women’s subjugation. The other important aspect which Mukherjee highlights in this and other novels is a woman’s role in the oppression and suffering of her fellow woman. In our society, women ill-treat and exploit women instead of showing love, respect and understanding for their own sex. This paper scrutinizes a multiplicity of tribulations that occur in ordinary woman’s life, the quandary of bodily and psychologically beleaguered women and ultimately venture to specify the connotation of being a modern woman in order to surmount the obstruction in her life. Keywords: modishness, tribulations, quandary, connotation, surmount.

1. INTRODUCTION

Mukherjee’s novels represent the contemporary modern women’s struggle to define and attain an autonomous selfhood. Her female protagonists are at great pains to free themselves from stultifying, traditional constraints. The social and cultural change in the post- Independence India has made women conscious of the need to define themselves, their place in society, and their surroundings. Wife is the plain tale of Amit and his wife Dimple, newly married Bengali immigrants to the USA. Her knowledge of the possibility of greater happiness with a different man ruins her attainable happiness with Amit within the marital relationship. Life with him, both India and America is naturally a big disappointment for her. In her moments of feverish introspection, she thinks that life has been cruel to her. The tale enlarged as a story of a married

22 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Rajalakshmi & Roshini: Bharati Mukherjee’s ‘Wife’ ISSN: 2454-4574

girl uproots herself from her life in India and re-roots herself in search of a new life and the picture of America as well. It is a story of disruption and repositioning as the protagonist continually sheds lives to stir into the story, rousing further westward. She happened to set a high store on marriage: “Marriage, she was sure, would free her, fill her with passion. Discreet and virgin, she waited for real life to begin. She hoped that marriage would offer her a different kind of life- an apartment in Chowringhee, her hair done by Chinese girls, trips to New Market for nylon saris” (p 3)

Marriage has not provided all the shimmering things she had imagined had not brought her cocktails under canopied skies. It is fascinating to note why Amit is what he is. Like anybody who has made pragmatism a way of life he is unsentimental, nippy and crucial in gestures, vigilant in approach and scrupulous in planning for future. But for his cautiously cultivated pragmatism he would not marry the flat-chested, short and wheatish Dimple who can converse only kaput English. Like any traditionally brought up Indian husband, he does not know how to pay a compliment to his wife. He would like her to reside at home and focus to the household chores rather than go out, work and earn. The culture he is born in requires of him to earn and grant for future whatever be the cost and he withdraws his love and other emotional attachments from his wife in recreation of the cultural aims.

Wife, primarily the story of Dimple, the heroine contains many women characters, which represent different aspects of women. Dimple is born of a traditional God-fearing Brahmin family whose father is a patron of culture representing protected atmosphere. She had just for life finding pleasure in nature and world. She had sensual pleasure in living. Her husband blames her father for her immaturity and inability to cope with realities of life which is more often than not unpleasant. The first chapter of the novel discovers the materialistic approach of Amit and his indifference to or rather abhorrence for the emotional attachment. He is too cold and prosaic to bother about his sensitive wife, too much concerned with facts and is quite philosophical. This is one of the rare insistences when Dimple confronts and is aware of reality. Amit is no company for Dimple and they are miss-matched. The fundamental humanistic values which bind a man and woman into the bond of togetherness the fidelity and companionship are away from social world today. Men take pride in having relationship before and after marriage but this thing they do not expect from their women. Women abstained from the world of imagination so to look after their household duties. Women work a lot from early morning to late night; still their work is not being paid. The Indian women have changed a lot. She works and earns for family like the man. And today society also gives her respect and recognized her contributions to it.

1.1 SURREALISTIC TOUCH

23 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Rajalakshmi & Roshini: Bharati Mukherjee’s ‘Wife’ ISSN: 2454-4574

Dimple’s life is a long rendezvous with death. As her desire to die protuberance in intensity, she becomes more and more neurotic and vice versa. However, death should also be viewed here as the logical and final goal of the conservative instincts in order to do justice for its employment as a literary device. It can therefore be understood that her awareness of death is partly a thematic necessity and partly an aesthetic necessity. During her Calcutta days she has two significant encounters with death-one symbolic, another actual. The first, her sadistic killing of a mouse has a surrealist touch to it. The occurrence happens after Dimple has undergone a series of tedious experiences which comprise particularly her marriage to Amit. She ruthlessly trails the rodent and kills it with an uncalled for show of anger.

“I’ll get you!”she screamed. “There’s no way out of this, my friend”. She seemed confident now, a woman transformed. And in an outburst of hatred, her body shuddering, her wrist taut with fury, she smashed the top of small gray head” (p 45)

And to her, the mouse looks pregnant which introduces the motif of pregnancy. Presumably Dimple herself is pregnant by this time. Symbolically, in her rejection of the pregnancy she rejects Amit. The New York life appears to prove particularly destructive to Dimple. At a further remove she begins to experience a split personality sees her body and soul apart, manifests extreme self-consciousness and acutely suffers from imaginary illnesses. Dimple can afford to be immediate and physical in her reaction with others. With Amit she cannot be so dramatic. She has to repress a good deal of anger which keeps simmering in her unconscious all the time.

During her psychotic spell the hitherto unthought-of of defence strategies are pressed into service while her death-bound journey takes her closer and closer to the end-point. Now that the ego’s hold on her is considerably relaxed, a clear pathological picture emerges. In this light, her seduction of Milt, her landlady’s brother in her own bedroom, can be interpreted as a desperate attempt by her diseased psyche to preserve her and stop her further deterioration. She wishes him to do her. In other words, she wishes to die but by forming a reaction she kills Amit. Her killing of Amit with a kitchen knife is the most longed for, albeit unconsciously masochistic, event in her life. The incident occurs in a free-floating dream-like state and is rendered by the author in a virtually delirious style:

“She sneaked up on him and chose a spot, her favourite spot just under the hairline, where the mole was getting larger and browner, and she drew an imaginary line of kisses … she touched the mole very lightly and let her finger’s draw a circle around the delectable spot, then she brought her right hand up and with the knife stabbed the magical circle once, twice, seven times, each time a little harder, until the milk in the bowl of cereal was a pretty pink and the flakes were mushy and would have embarrassed any advertiser, and then she saw the head fall off- but of course it was her imagination because she was not sure any more what she had seen on TV and what she had seen in the private screen of three A.M”(p 212-13)

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Having thus killed Amit, Dimple has ultimately succeeded in achieving a modicum of satisfaction for masochistic drives. She has turned the whole society into a punishment agent. Society will never forgive her for killing a dutiful husband and there is also the law to contend with. It will treat Dimple as any ordinary criminal and may even award her the death sentence. And as thought that is not enough by a trick of fantasy she has in effect killed herself through this act. Mukherjee has portrayed the inner turmoil of a woman, fighting within herself, between her own knowledge and that thrust on her by the surrounding. The condition of the girls from lower strata as presented by Mukherjee, is really pitiable- in fact it is so pitiable that the writer wonders if the age old practice of strangling to death the girl baby right at the moment of her birth was not less cruel than making her undergo a life long suffering, beginning at the tender age of five or six and ending only with her death which generally occurs much earlier than ripe old age.

2. CONCLUSION

Dimple has all along been firmly set on her way to death whether viewed in terms of the artistic requirements of the novel or her rather peculiar mental frame. A close attention to the inner dynamics of the novel would dispel any doubts in arriving at this conclusion. That death has been delayed so long is a fact which comes as a big surprise to the readers. Dimple has been allowed to use all the devices available to an organism to preserve itself. It is only when further prolongation is not possible that death occurs in such concrete shape.

References

[1]. Nelson ES, Bharati Mukherjee: Critical Perspectives, New York: Garland, 1993. [2]. Kumar N. The Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee: A Cultural Perspective, New Delhi, 2001. [3]. Mukherjee, Bharati, Wife, New Delhi: Penguien Books (India), 1990. [4]. Alam, Fakrul. Bharati Mukherjee. New York: Twayne, 1996. [5]. Moline, Karen. “Passage from India: Award Winning Novelist Bharati Mukherjee”, Harper’s Bazar (Australia), Autumn 1990.

25 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Reeswav: Sanskrit plays to modern drama ISSN: 2454-4574

Sanskrit plays to Modern Bengali drama: - Transformation of the reciprocating influences between East and West Introduction to the Author: Reeswav Chatterjee is a third year student of English Literature at RKMRC, Narendrapur, Bengal. He is interested in writing and researching in the field of dramas, Indian as well as Western. Present paper is an attempt of the same quality.

Abstract As the western influences of capitalism, existentialism and individual crisis in the times of the world wars, flowed into the arena of Eastern theatre, adaptation of ancient, Elizabethan or modern works explored new vistas in the contemporary socio-political situation of 20th and 21st century India with the help of ancient ideas. This paper will try to access the development of western themes in front of the Indian backdrop in some Bengali adaptation. As "Poshukhamar", an adaptation of Orwell's "Animal Farm" hinted at the hypocrisies of the contemporary communist government, "Nandikar"s" production "Nero" in recent times plays similar role, in showing the censorization of freedom of expression by Nation, through the characterization of Seneca. The crowd desperately searches for the protagonist after her physical death in "sopnosondhani's" production "Antigone"; symbolizing as a search for an individual who can revolt against the prevention of establishing individual rights by the nation. In this particular production, two men roams about among the awaiting crowd outside the theatre, holding a picture of a girl putting up her hands in the fear of gun, begging mercy. This doesn't only break the fourth wall most brilliantly, but this picture from Palestine also hints at how national political power in the form of the gun threatens individual right of living and at the constant surveillance on freedom of people in the middle East. Two men wearing similar masks throughout the play enliven, in this modern era, the servile people of Athens, showing them as a continuing legacy. Key Words: - Eastern and western theatre tradition, Ancient Indian drama tradition, similarities, Bengali drama, Western absurdist influence

Behind the established fact that Eastern and Western plays and theatre culture have been influencing each other over ages in theme, expressions and dramatic devices, a very interesting and astonishing fact often remains un-highlighted. And that is that there were striking similarities between East and West, not only in themes but even in the idea of "Drama and Theatre", at a time when the existence of the East was a mere concept to the West and vice versa. Naturally, as the thoughts of the two cultures intertwined despite the distances of time, place, society and politics, this tradition of influence was destined to transform itself with time. This paper will try to access how those "similarities" transformed into strong 'influences' over time and how those influences effected the development of theatre in both the culture. Today what is "drama" to us, to the ancient Indian society it was "Rupak". "Rupak" in Sanskrit means "metaphor". And this particular naming of theatre is very interesting, as theatre is where some people present a metaphorical parallel of the lives of others. This perspective makes us

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realize that Shakespeare comment that "All the world is a stage" (*1) was an indirect or rather an implied commentary of theatre itself. He thus depicted the stage to be a reflection of the world. Dhanajay, an ancient critic of Sanskrit drama categorized Sanskrit drama into ten groups, on the basis of their unique specificities in theme, calling them "Doshrupak". Among the others, "Ehomrigo" was a kind of play which revolved around the lives of residents of Heaven. This immidiately reflects the Mediaeval miracle plays in the western tradition. Now, Bhorot, who penned "Natyosastro", observed that there are four rudimentary styles of drama from which those ten groups are developed. He termed them "Britti" and those four "Britti", "Bharati", "Swatoti", "Koishiki" and "Arvoti", have complete similarity with specific categories of English drama. In "Swatoti" there is no place for pain or disgrace and it celebrates the goodness, magnanimity, and heroism of the characters, especially of the hero. It is to a great extent, reflective of the idea of comedy in western drama. " Koishiki" is identical to "masque", as it deals with glorious costumes, dance and song, with love and euphoria as the central theme. "Bharati" on the other hand reminds of Dryden's "Heroic Tragedy", as it is about depiction of the Hero's ideologies and masculinity expressed through dominance of lyricism. And last to come is "Arvati", which with overflowing anger, battles, and intense crisis can be called as the eastern counterpart of the western idea of 'Tragedy". The theme being "Karun ros" and "Voyonkor ros", "Arvati' echoes the Aristotelian idea of "pity" and "Fear" associated with tragedy. (*2) Now let us look upon some dramatic element of Sanskrit plays. "Probeshok" was a scene in those ancient plays where through the conversations of some minor characters, an idea about the central characters and about the milieu of the play is revealed. It reminds of the similar Shakespearean tradition evident in "Romeo and Juliet", where we see Gegroy and Samson preparing the context for the arrival of the major characters. This tradition continues in English drama, as we find similar introductory scenes used for the purpose of exposition even in late 18th century in Sheridan's "Rivals". But, the only difference was that those expository scenes were annexed at the end of a scene in the case of Sanskrit plays. According to Manmohon Ghosh, sudden revelation of a significant truth, proving itself pivotal in altering and deciding the destiny of the characters and the plot was common in Sanskrit plays. The greatest example is obviously of "Sapnobasobdattam" by Vass, where the protagonist suddenly realizes that the woman he is seeing for a long time is actually his lost wife who he was convinced to be dead. Kalidas utilizes this same technique to direct the plot to its culmination in "Shakuntola", as the heroine suddenly sees her husband, lost for a long time. Needless to say, the requirement of such similar impact in plays were advocated by Aristotle in "Poetics", calling this sudden realization "Anagnorisis". Using Anagnorisis, in "Othello", "Macbeth" and in "King Lear", Shakespeare made himself a follower of not only Aristotle but also of his Sanskrit predecessors, probably being completely oblivious about it. But in the treatment of female protagonists, Sanskrit plays place itself in stark contrast with Shakespearean tradition. In Sanskrit plays, presenting two female characters, belonging to different social class, and with contrasting characters and disposition was strictly prohibited. But Shakespeare exploited the possibilities of showing the clash of feminine emotions to its

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fullest extent both in comedy and tragedy. For instances: - "Olivia and Viola" or "Desdemona and Emilia". The idea of sub-plot was also dominant in eastern ancient culture, as some goals were achieved for the fulfillment of the central theme. In the play "Rabon Bodh', Vali is killed by Rama, for acquiring Sugriv as a partner in the venture of killing Ravan. Sub-plot was indispensible to Shakespeare in almost all his comedies, for not only providing variety and a perfect culmination to the complexities of the plot, but also to create contrast and exploit wit, humour to create a genial ambience to its fullest extent. "Olivia- Sebastian", "Caliban", "Celia- Oliver" instances are present in abundance. But Shakespeare didn't think sub-plot to be applicable to tragedies. And this goes with the Shakespearean idea of tragedy. His tragedies always happen in the extremely individual sphere they focus on one single them and one individual. The idea of foil, which was implemented abundantly by Shakespeare in both comedy and tragedy, was a common phenomenon in Sanskrit play. “Ratnokosh” comments on this, “When a character’s presence is for the sake of the protagonist and when he is depicted as a substitution of the protagonist’s heroism, then he is “Pataka”—the Indian counterpart of foil. For example, Karna in “Benisonghar” is used for helping Durjodhon, but he is at the same time conscious about establishing his own heroic features. But the antagonist being a foil, as Iago to the moor, doesn’t occur much in Sanskrit plays. Sagarnandi, a Sanskrit critic, recovered a book by an unknown ancient author, whose idea about the form and construction of the play reminds us of ‘Freytag Pyramid.” The anonymous author prescribes a play to be developed through five stages, “Mukh” (Exposition), “Protimukh” (Complication) “Gorvo” (Climax), “Obomorsho” (Catastrophe) and “Nirbohon” (Denouement). In the first stage, ‘Mukh”, a significant characteristic element is ‘Upokhep’, which suggests the happenings of the play later. Now, the supernatural soliciting in “Macbeth” plays the similar role. In Kalidas’s “Avvigan sakuntalam” through Anusuya and Priyonboda, the character of king Dussonto was elevated, which was called “Bilovon” in Sanskrit plays. Similar element is evident in Duncan’s speech about Macbeth. In “Rotnaboli”, protagonist Batsoraj disguises as the God and this disguise is used to increase the intrigue Which is called “Porivabna” in Indian Plays. Viola’s disguise creates the same intrigue in the audience. Expressing self-pride in Sanskrit plays is called “Babosay”. Macbeth boasting as “come to me as a Helican tiger” echoes the presence of this characteristic. A common feature in most of the Sanskrit plays is that the seed of all the complexities and also of the denouement is hidden in the plot itself. Shakespearean tradition follows this pattern. Viola’s disguise leads to all the complications and her revealing herself leads to the unknotting. The evolution of the idea of proscenium stage was generated in the western arena (in 17th and 18th century) as Shakespearean playhouses structure was being transformed to make the playhouses look like a one side open box. Behind the stage there would be a fitting backdrop. As the actors were present on the stage, to some people the structure was more two dimensional, instead of three dimensional and this made them call proscenium stage to be like a ‘picture frame-stage’. This western influence was later to be proved as the first development of theatre as aa unique form of art, as this significantly drew probably the first discerning line between the popular ‘Jatra” culture and theatre in India in the 19th century. Now people don’t sit

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surrounding the ground level stage in an open field like ‘Jatra’, rather they feel to be part of a make-believe world, detached from the world outside --- a world which is unique and complete in itself. Here curtain rises at the beginning of a scene to introduce the spectator with the happenings of the stage, and it close the world on stage at the end of the scene. The audience, as if, eavesdrops into the secret world of the characters. Later, a big pit would be created between the audience and the stage for the orchestra. Whatsoever, this particular influence of stage structure and more importantly of the complete metamorphosis of the identity of drama was the first step to prepare Indian people to Judge Theatre as a unique expression of artistry. Researchers have observed that in the 19th century there were three ways of involving in the growing theatre culture, evolving under the influence of British plays and performances in India. Pobitra sarkar points out, “The first one was as a spectator—this was instrumental to lure Indian People to British theatre culture. (*3) The second option was to buy the rights of staging plays and the last one was as an actor.” But this involvement was very limited, as the option of buying tickets was available only for rich Indians. Prince Dwarkanathy Thakur introduced Bengali to the second role by buying Chowronghi Theatre on 15th august 1835. And it was Boisnobchoron addho who first performed as a native actor in British performance, and that too as the protagonist in ‘Othello’. But, in all three departments those beginners were not at all followed by numbers, as introducing natives for staging English plays, except using a black skin for the role of the moor, doesn’t seem to be a very favourable option for the British. But actually, the jealousy caused by the unattainable desire of participating enhanced the attraction of the Bengalis to the theatre tradition of the colonizers and most importantly to the proscenium theatre even more between 1775 and 1884. Gradually, productions with native investment, direction and performances of English Plays were starting to be staged by Hindu College, Boisnobchoron Addho’s “School Oriental Seminary” and by others. Apart from “Merchant of Venice”, “Julias Ceaser”, Othello, Henry IV, Adddison’s “keto” and Thomas Otway’s “Venice Preserved” were among the favorite choices. The milieu that all those instances create is of an incredible interest among the 19th century bangali for the western philosophy of theatre and for seeing life beyond the pages of the book. Whether that LIFE is imaginary, distant or even mythical was not important for them, they simply wanted to watch dramatized life, in Pobitra Sarkar’s expression, “…wanted to gain life through visual and audio.” In the mid-19th century, the theme and content of plays in Bengal resembles the mid and late 18th century nouve riche drama culture of social comedies, with all its indulgences in satire, social portrayal of aristocracy, scandals, sentimentality and licentiousness. Both the cultures, despite being distanced by a century, had their shares of the sudden rise of affluent middle class through trade, excessive dominance of finance resulting into breaking down of all sorts of moral restrictions, rise of indulgence in manifold social and individual moral decadence and transgressions. From the twenties of 19th century, social satire on the hypocrisy and dubiousness of the riches was growing in stature, as a genre, through ‘Samachar Darpon’s’ “Babu upakhyan”, Bhabanicharan Banerjee’s “Nabababubilas”, “Nababibibilas”, and “kolikata Kamalalay”. The genre reached its pinnacle in Kaliprasanna Singh’s “Hutom Pechar Noksha”. Parychand Mitra’s “Alaler ghore Dulal” was also bordering on this aim of satirical portrayal of the rising ‘babu somaj’ of 19th century Kolkata. But the first play to introduce this genre efficaciously was Ramnarayan Tarkoratno’s “kulin kul sorbosso”. This particular play, though inherits some elements of the ancient Sanskrit plays, is based on the contemporary social structure and culture. The debates over polygamy of male and legalization of the marriage of

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the widow were also highlighted here. This influence of contemporary clash of social status and ideologies in the second half of 19th century proved to be hugely instrumental in giving birth to unique Bengali natok. The soul and body of unique Bengali play was formed by this contemporary social conflict between tradition and modernism, extending to the dealing of objects like literacy to women, alcoholing, whoring and decadence of the male, destruction of the lives of high-born women due to the hypocritical dominance of the ‘kulin protha’. In 1872, ‘Sadharon Rongaloy” was established by Amritolal’s “Bagbazar amateur Theatre” with the aim of reflecting contemporary life and society. And thus Bengali culture slowly but steadily rose above the mythical and epic world of ‘Jatra’ to feel the pulse of the present. But Madhusadan Dutta’s treatment of mythology was completely different, with humanized mythical heroes, whose conflicts and crisis occupied the central arguments of the plays instead of the idea of establishing morality. “Krisnokumari” and “Mayakanon” reminds us of “Oedipaus” and “Antigone”, as it’s the destiny that controls all the happenings to which the protagonist, no matter how much larger than life he is, has to yield. A strong influence of Greek Tragedy on him is made evident here through his implementation of the idea of nemesis. Probably, “Sharmistha” which was partly influenced by “As you like it”, can be judged as an exception, in this case, that follows the Shakespearean implementation of the idea of Hamartia”. In his legendary satire “Ekei ki bole sovvota”, shadow of restoration wreck is prominent in the portrayal of the drunkard, whoring humbugs of the times. Through Girish Ghosh, Amritolal and Dijendrolal Roy, when Bengali theatre reached its modern era, then the greatest western influence was of existentialism and communism. Interestingly, these two influences were to be clashed later, producing various progenies of “Ganonatyo Sangha”--- the first attempt of turning the flow to focusing on the psychologically awakened individual and politically awakened common poor people. Bijon Bhattacharya’s “Nobanno” will strike the first note of this new beginning as the entertainment and commercial “sadharon Rongaloy” will be slowly overshadowed by “Ganonatyo”. From now on, important playwrights would write unique plays and transform contemporary western texts only for Group Theatre. From now on some educated middle class people, will dominate the positions of playwright, producer, director and actor, as a plethora of intellectual and meditative minds in the field of modern Indian Theatre will be produced in the forms of Utpal Dutta, Shambhy Mitra, Bijon Bhattacharya, Ajitesh Bannerjee, Tulshi Lahiri, Rudraprasad Sengupta, Shamik Bannerjee, Rittik Ghotok and many more. All these people were directly or indirectly involved with “Gononatyo and Nobonatyo” and after the breaking down of Gononatyo, those fallen stars would begin the tradition of Group Theatre in Bengal. The productions of Nandikar (Ajitesh and later Rudraprasad), Bohurupi (Shuvam Mitra), Calcutta Theatre (Bijon Bhattyacharya), Gandhorbo (Shyamal Ghosh), Rupkar clarified determinedly that they had no faith on the commercial perspective and had a strong ideology. This ideology was both political and artistic. Ganonatyo not only had their political motivation in communism, one of their fundamental reasons of engaging in the theatre culture was to inject the political awareness of rights in the poverty-stricken multitude of the mid-20th century Bengal. Naturally western playwrights propagating communism including o casey, Brecht, odets, Arthur Miller hugely influenced Ganonatyo. From the forties to the sixties, when Communist party was being termed as ‘reactionary and sedative’ in India and was time and again being banned, captivated and tortured, these western playwrights ensured the devotion of the Bengali communist even more,

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with providing them with ideological support from outside the country. Ganonatyo was also banned as cultural propagator of communist party. And Bengal was the strongest pillar of the growing communist movement in India, other than Kerala and this political oppression of the Government ensured more determination and obstinacy in the members of Ganonatyo. They were now being engaged to theatre for giving expression to their political belief, which they want to establish and spread among the numerous people starving, which they are desperate to protect from extinction under the suppression of the Government. Theatre was not for its own sake; it was now for the establishment of ideology that led them to engage in theatre. Needless to say, how immensely those communist western playwrights influenced the movement of Ganonatyo and how they helped Ganonatyo to connect itself with the communist movement going on in the world led by Russia. But, when ‘Ganonatyo’ transformed into “Nabonatyo’, a sense of dissociating from the completely political basics was evident and to experiment with various eastern and western texts for betterment of drama, as a form of art was the central aim. But, it should not be missed to notice that in the initial productions of translations and adaptations of western texts performed by “Bohurupi”, community life, questions about the wellbeing and existence of collective mass were not at all minimized. Staging of “Dosho chokro” (Ibsen’s “An enemy of the people), “Putul Khela” (A Doll’s House) all these productions talks about the crisis of community. The influence of Marxism in Utpal Dutta was clearly evident in almost all his plays. His own “Angar” talks about the life and struggles of the community of the miners, “kollol” talks about the fight of the Indian Navy under British Rule, and probably his greatest creation “Tiner Talwar” highlights his deep nostalgic compassion for the 19th century theatre culture. He adapted Stiphen Heimar’s Novel as “Shrinkhal Chara”, a depiction of Marx’s life, Gorki’s “The Lower Depths”, and Simonof’s “The Russian Question”. Chittoranjan Das was for a long time a part of the “Gononatyo” movement and his plays thematically rely on the struggle of a community in National and international sphere. His ‘pala bodol’, ‘joseph Stalin’, ‘Roktakto romeo juliet’ faithfully generated power to the Gononatyo movement. Pobitra Sarkar depicts, “The theme of Gononatyo was basically ‘anti- establishment’ and revolutionary, aiming at the exploration of the suppressed questions regarding society and life.” Ganonatyo organizing seminars, trying to communicate with the audience gives a definite hint about their intense desire of spreading their artistic ideologies. Their motive was to awaken people politically and psychologically about the larger problems of the day. The influence of existentialism came mostly through the staging of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godo”. This play was one of the initial executions of western absurdist movement. Such plays are reflective of the rising individualism in 20th century Europe, as the focus from society shifts completely to the self-questioning and analysis of one individual. Such plays question the very existence of an individual by asking him whether his consciousness, his soul is alive or is his mere body is living? Whether he is psychologically alive from within, and able to express ‘the man within’ to go beyond the social and physical existence? And this inability of expressing and establishing the conscious identity of an individual often happens because of the oppression and demand of the society. These existentialist plays pose individual against community, and shows how the pressure of community engenders his crisis, psychological decay and destruction. Naturally, this too much emphasis on individualism, and that too posing

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against community, considering community as senseless, uncompassionate, though some thinkers in Gononatyo, it angered most of the communist member. People who take theatre as a weapon to change the society and fulfill the requirements of community, this is quite natural. This debate reaches its zenith when Nandikar produced “Natyokar er sondhane choti choritro”. Interestingly, Rudraprosad Sengupta, at that time was an active member of undivided communist party, and the playwright of this particular play, Pirandillo’s closeness with Mussolini and his belief in (obokhoybadi) philosophy must be definitely known to him. But despite this that they were attracted by the goodness of the text shows the rising emphasis of play over political ideologies and how western influences ensured preferences to art over political ideologies. This disagreement in “Gononatyo” probably echoes a conflict, existing from ancient times, between two different ideologies regarding the role of arts. Plato, though despised art as a twofold or even threefold imitation of truth, thought that it has its only significant role as a toll for the betterment of the society. He was more supportive of the idea of implementing art for people’s sake. But, his greatest student Aristotle saw art as a liberal form of expression, detached from social happenings. His aim and analysis of tragedy as an ideal form of art reflects his emphasis on aestheticism. This emphasis on individualism seemed to the devoted communist of the times be the first step of asserting capitalism on Bengali stage. Sekhar Chatterjee severely criticized Nandikar for staging reactionary plays while giving a speech. Sekhar performed his plays at Maxmuller Bhavan that was an organization of West Germany. Now, it would be interesting to know how he could create a bridge between the reactionary Government of West Germany and his leftist ideologies. Whatsoever, Nandikar later staged another reactionary play—Sher Afgan, an adaptation of Pirandillo’s “Enriko Karto” but this production had behind itself an urge of staging good play breaking the shackles of political ideologies and a desperate requirement of rescuing the group for its perishing. After some important members left Nandikar, Ajitesh selected some plays which he decided to perform in moments of crisis. Significant to note is how the tradition that began with establishing its political ideologies as one of the major aims, is now compromising its political ideologies for keeping the tradition alive. It can’t be denied that the ideas of Absurdist Theatre and existentialism played a major role in this context. In fact, there was no definite idea among the Marxist about which play is progressive and which one is reactionary. When Nandikar staged “jakhan Aka”, an adaptation of Arnold Weskar’s “Roots”, one leftist called this to be a very progressive one and the other termed this reactionary. Needless to say that most of the famous productions of 20th century in Bengal were adaptations of western plays. While adaptations of western plays satisfied the quench of Bengali for connecting themselves with the International thinkers and kept the theatre groups busy in progress, those adaptations also served to fulfil the drought of new unique plays by Bengali dramatists. Among those adaptations, Chekhov’s “The proposal”, and “The wedding”, Eugene o Neill’s “Where the cross is made”, Ionesco’s “The lesson” and “Rhinoceros”., Brecht’s “Three Penny Opera” were significant. In the very recent times, Indigenization saw a great implementation in “Minerva Repertory Theatre”s “Mumbai Nights”, an appropriation in its most truest sense of Shakespeare’s

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“Twelfth Night”. As the backdrop shifts from Illyria to underworld of Mumbai, the city comes alive at the very beginning of the production with all its attachments with cricket, fashion and glamour, Bollywood and shooting of films, and most importantly with underworld. Those passing visuals as a kind of prologue, one after another Bollywood song that will return time and again to exploit the emotional elements of the plot, all these devices firmly announce at the very beginning of the play that the production is actually using the plot of the Bard’s play with the central aim of picturizing the socio-political scenario of India or Mumbai, to be more specific. The captain who saves Viola in the play, slips into the costume of a narrator for adjusting the audience with the shift of time, place and milieu from the Bard’s play. Some universal elements of the age come alive in one of the initial short scenes, or visual rather, as they were all speechless. All the people talks over mobile, busy in their own lives, without slightest concern, knowledge or care about others’ life. This is a perfect portrayal of excessive individualism, self-indulgence, absence of any community life and complete unconcern about fellow people’s life, which is so typical of 21st century. The narrator saying that his brother has become such a big man that now he can’t even recognize him. This all the more emphasizes the loss of emotions and human relations under the mechanical shadow of money and power. The adaptor, Bratyo Basu moves forward even more to change the initial threads of the plot to suit the political world of Mumbai and India in the large scale. No Elizabethan shipwreck throws Viola amidst an unfamiliar world, she is broken touch with her brother because of a bomb blast, which immediately refers to the political scenario and social life of after 1990 Mumbai. It immediately connects the plot with the futility of human life in a world where power, money and commerce is everything and humanity nothing. Viola and Sebastian facing problems in India being Pakistanis, refers to the communal enmity leading to the military sphere between the two neighbouring countries. And when the depiction of Rakesh Maria comes, it ensures that the basic aim of using the Bard’s play was to present The life of India, the country, with all its social, political, individual and psychological perspective. And the culmination of the plot of the play matches the utterance of the adaptation of communal friendship. In the unison of Viola-Orsino and Olivia-Sebastian here lives an implied hint of the communion of Indians and Pakistanis through the way of love. On the other hand, Noye Natua in their “Fagun raten Goppo,” an adaptation of the Bard’s “A Midsummer night’s dream” uses Bengali folk song and hindi song for showing the celebratory ambience of all Shakespearean comedy to initiate the Indigenisation. The fairies become the ghosts of the native Indian fairy tales, with fitting attire and behaviour of the Indian Adibasis. The presentation of the uproarious and celebratory world of Shakespearean comedy is done through intellectual usage of the Bengali language and its rural dialect. Wit, humour and pun, exploited in abundance, were perfectly suiting to the demand of the language. It’s a treat to see how the adaptor wedded the Shakespearean theme to the Bengali language to create a perfect Indigenisation. When Bottom says, “I will tell the audience that I am not dying, I am simply acting. “it becomes a statement of the ‘illusion of reality” that drama creates on stage. This is an affirmation of one of the rudimentary uniqueness that drama has as a form of art. And this direct statement to the audience during the performance also breaks the fourth wall and urges the audience to enjoy the essence of the play with full knowledge of the ‘make-believe world’ that they are creating on stage. This is not only a commentary on theatre but also an attempt of urging the audience to be mature enough to discard any dreamy conception of the stage and

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enjoy it as it really is. This is a commentary on the development of the basic ideas of theatre. Moreover, Bottom saying, “I will write ‘wall’ on a man and say the audience have to take him as a wall.’ is ridiculing the weird usage of props on stage after the development of Proscenium Theatre, which Rabindranath also loathed. He disliked strongly the usage of painted background, artificial things and expressed his opinion of emphasizing more on “Chittopot” than “Chitropot” on stage. By “chittopot” he meant that unnatural props should be replaced by fitting dialogues and acting. Whatsoever, in “Fagun Rater Goppo”, the comical presentation of using a man with heavy beard as a woman, satirically hint at the unrealistic utilization of male actors as female in Elizabethan era. It also shows that how this can evoke hilarious laughter even in tragic moments of the play. This is not only a mocking of Elizabethan times but also of Indian ancient theatre where similar was the custom. This actually draws a parallel between the cultures of two different times and place on the basis of social structures and how it affected the tradition of theatre. Utterance of a grave and meditative realization at the end of all euphoria is a common element in Shakespearean comedy. And puck takes this responsibility of evoking the needful truth, that this false world utters, through breaking the fourth wall, by appearing in the audience. Puck gives the message that amidst all this blissfulness and unison the chief realization that the play offers about the realistic understanding of fantasy, shown through this dreamy world should not be missed by the audience. In case of “Mumbai Nights”, the fourth wall is broken by the narrator communicating directly to the audience saying that this is going to be a performance of an opera prepared for them. But the only strange element regarding the Indianisation is keeping the western names of the characters intact, while using Bengali language, its dialect and folk songs. And this creates some horrible mismatch sometimes, for example, Hippolyta saying, “aye porarmukho minshe Oberon” is something really illogical and ludicrous. But this fault is perfectly avoided in “Mumbai Nights”. Not only Indian but also names easily associated to Mumbai underworld are used. The adaptor furthermore contemporaries the plot as Viola’s confidence is established through her ability as a computer analyst. Interestingly, the aspect of homosexuality hidden in the plot of “Twelfth Night” was emphatically exploited in this production. Viola, dressed as Ceasario, passionately hugging and kissing Orsino, Olivia saying with frustration, “O faith! I have rendered my heart to a homosexual!”, 6 or 7 same sex pairs dancing in a scene all these hint to the implied homosexual element in the play. Olivia’s ambivalence is shown through her voluptuousness, as she says to Malvolio, “I am more interested in your physiology, instead of your psychology. “Malvolio, the social climber, is portrayed beautifully, through a beautiful use of the stage. While reading Maria’s message, Malvolio dreams of Olivia seducing him, as at this point Olivia appears in the balcony and Malvolio says, “If I get a LADDER, I would go up to her.” “Sopnosondhani” contemporaries “Antigone” by showing a man reading out a newspaper reporting about the devastating situation in Palestine after the attack of Israel, and this gives hint to the theme of sacrifice of individual rights and freedom under the power and dominance of state. This places “Antigone’s” Greece and the present world at the same level and thus reminds us of the relevance of the text even in today’s world. This eternalizes the theme of

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state’s dominance over individual. Three people always wearing mask in front of Creon and always abiding by his orders without judging them reflect the spineless, servile people with complete absence of individual judgement available in all age. This production breaks the fourth wall most dramatically. Even Before the beginning of the performance, two men with a photo of a child surrendering with her hands up, hanging from their shoulder roams about among the awaiting audience. This immediately increases the intrigue among the audience and also connects them to the central theme of the play. The play ends with the people of Greece searching for “Antigone” among the audience, making the audience a part of their quest of finding an “Antigone”, a voice that has individual judgement and has the courage to scream against the oppression of the state.

Notes 1. The quotation "All the world is a stage" is taken from Shakespeare's "As you Like it"; P:- 73, The Arden Shakespeare 2. There was an ancient idea in Indian drama tradition, called "The Navarasa", depicting various emotional state of human beings. 3. The quotation is taken from Pabitra Sarkar's "Natmoncho o Natyorup"; Dey's Publication

Select Reading:- Aristotle, Poetics; Penguin classics Sarkar Pobitro; Natmoncho Natyorup; Dey’s Publication Dalmia, Vasudha; Poetics of Plays and performance Trivedi, poonam; We play Shakespeare in Asia Trivedi, Poonam:- India’s Shakespeare Sanders, Juli; Adaptation and Appropriations

35 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Harisankar: Boys don’t cry ISSN: 2454-4574

Baudrillardian and Levinasian Echoes in Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry

Introduction to the Author:

A Harisankar is a student of MA in English Literature St Thomas College, Palai. He is interested in writing fiction and non-fiction articles as well. 22 and a tech enthusiast, he has cleared the NET exam.

The Academy award winning movie Boys Don’t Cry is based on the real life story of Teena Ranae Brandon, an American trans man who was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nabraska on December 31, 1993. Directed by Kimberly Peirce, the movie released in the year 1999, focuses predominantly on Brandon’s love affair with Lana Tisdel, a girl he met in Falls city and his pseudo life as a man there. This project is an attempt to look at the movie through the Baudrillardian concept of “Simulacra” and the Levinasian notion of “The face of the other”.

Looking through the Baudrillardian Lens

Desiring to live the life of a man, Teena Brandon (Hilary Swank) moves to Falls city, Nebraska and befriends ex-convicts Tom Nissan (Brendan Sexton III), John Lotter (Peter Sarsgaard) and their friends Candace (Alicia Gorandson) and Lana Tisdel (Chloe Sevigny). Brandon stuffs a towel down his pants to mimic the appearance of male genitals and later uses grafted skin to mimic the appearence of the loose skin of male penis. He also reads a booklet named The Uninvited Dilemma which was on cross dressers and transsexuals. Brandon’s disguise succeeds and Tom and John and invites him to be a part of their gang .Brandon’s successful disguise can be read as an example of the second order simulacra of Baudrillard. Whereas first order simulacra consists of signs that “dissimulate something”, second order simulacra consists of “signs that dissimulate that there is nothing”. In the words of Baudrillard

The transition from signs that dissimulate something to signs that dissimulate that there is nothing marks a decisive turning point. The first reflects a theology of truth and secrecy (to which the notion of ideology still belongs). The second inaugurates the era of simulacra and of simulation, in which there is no longer a God to recognize his own, no longer a Last Judgment to separate the false

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from the true, the real from its artificial resurrection, as everything is already dead and resurrected in advance.

Brandon, who was born a girl thus successfully disguises as a boy thereby hiding or dissimulating an absence (the phallus). However, the world of Falls city is a world of third order simulacra where Tom and John has created their own version of masculinity consisting of booze, drug addiction, bar fights, self torture and bumper skiing. The following scene from the movie depicts Brandon’s failed attempt at emulating the adventurous lifestyle of Tom and John.

John: Allright, Brandon, that means you. Come on.

- Yeah, stud. Let's go, cowboy. - Come on, you can do it.

Come on. Come on.

[John] This here's Brandon.

A mean prizefighter from Lincoln, so be careful what you say to him.

Very tough.

Don't let'em scare you. You can do it.

[ Whooping ]

[ Groans ]

John: He is a freak. - [ Laughing ]

- Come on! - [ Laughing ]

You can do better than that!

- One more time. One more time. – Lana: John, come on. Stop it,John.

- Oh, okay, okay. - Stop it!

- [Candace Laughing] - Ow!

- [John] Take it easy. - [Brandon]No, I'm fine.

- Yeah, you're fine. - I'm fine!

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- Bring that truck back around! - You're a crazy fucker. What are we gonna do with you?

Brandon: Man, it's nothing. , John:Yeah, it's nothing.

Another theme that looms large in the movie is the crisis of masculinity. Brandon who disguises as a man manages to win the love of Lana Tisdel, whereas John who is a real man is considered by Lana to be a nuisance and a stalker. This very scenario later proves to be the undoing of Brandon. Later in the movie , police arrests Brandon on charges that arose prior to his relocation. Brandon was placed in a woman’s prison and Lana understands the trans man identity of Brandon. Even after the reality of Brandon was revealed, Lana still chose to believe in the simulacra of Brandon as a man. For Lana, the second order simulacra of Brandon were more alluring and she willfully ignored the reality in favour of the simulacra (the hyperreal). The following conversation took place between Brandon and Lana in prison.

Brandon: I'm a hermaphrodite.

Lana: A what?

Brandon: Come here. [ Clears Throat ]

It's a person who has both... girl and boy parts.

Brandon's real name is Teena Brandon.

See, Brandon's not quite a he. Brandon's more like a she.

Lana: Shut up. That's your business.

I don't care if you're half monkey or half ape, I'm gettin' you out of here.

However, for Tom and John the realization that Brandon who has ingratiated himself into their gang pretending to be a man, whereas he really being a trans man was a challenge to their hegemonical masculinity. The simulacra of masculinity that they projected and it’s expected advantages like being attractive to women like Lana, fell apart with the realization that Brandon who was loved by Lana was a trans man. At the end of the movie Tom and John rapes and kills Brandon to protect their simulacrum of masculinity and heterosexuality.

Levinasian Echoes

38 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Harisankar: Boys don’t cry ISSN: 2454-4574

According to French-Jewish thinker Levinas (1905-1995) , ethics begins with a consideration for the other person , or as he mentions in his first major work , Totality and Infinity(1961) with his or her “face”.According to Roger Burggraeve What Levinas really means by the “face of the other” is not his physical

countenance or appearance, but precisely the noteworthy fact that the other

—not only in fact, but in principle—does not coincide with his appearance,

image, photograph, representation, or evocation. “The other is invisible” (TI

6). According to Levinas, we therefore cannot properly speak of a “phenome-

nology” of the face since phenomenology describes what appears. The face is

nonetheless what in the countenance of the other escapes our gaze when

turned toward us.

Therefore, according to Levinas, the “other” is much more than a collection of his/her material and physical attributes. Similar to the Buberian notion of “thou”, Levinasian “other” cannot be reduced to a specific point in the enormous network of space and time. In this movie the way in which Tom and John viewed Brandon was essentially different from the way Lana viewed and loved Brandon. John first met Brandon while the latter was engaged in a bar fight for a girl named Candace. Despite his small fingers, John perceived in Brandon a possible new ally.

For Tom and John, Brandon was exactly what his external appearance (the disguise) suggested to be.They considered him to be a comparatively timid young man who can be initiated into the macho life of the duo. What they saw in Brandon was not a person, but only an image.In the words of Roger Burggraeve

The appearance of the face as countenance as it were, invites the “I” or “ego” to reduce the other to that countenance. This “invitation to reduction” depends not only on the vulnerability of the face but also on the way of the being of the I to whom the face appears. Borrowing an expression from Spinoza, Levinas describes the I as conatus essendi– as effort and tension of existing. As an individual being, the I is persistent in its concern with its own existence and tries

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obstinately to maintain itself. The “natural” or spontaneous being of the “I” is self interest : it’s esse is interesse .This position implies that the I also approaches the other person from an “interested” position , which is to say that it tries to integrate the other into its project of existing as a function, means or meaning.

Levinas speaks about the responsibility, the “I” has towards the “other”. This responsibility consists of a commitment not to violate or destroy the “other”, which is to say not to reduce the “other” to his/her physicality but to recognize and respect his/her “otherness”. According to Levinas the evil consists of “reduction of the other to the same”. For Tom and John, Brandon was just a “little man”, in comparison to whom they looked much more masculine and courageous. Thus for both of them, Brandon was just an object they toyed with in order to boost their self-esteem. It is exactly this image that they have constructed for Brandon that falls apart with the realization that Brandon was a trans-man. They were not able to come to terms with the fact that there was more to Brandon than they realized. Further shocking to their notions of conventional masculinity was the realization that Lana whom John loved, fell in love with Brandon who was not even a man. With the destruction of the image they have created for Brandon, collapsed their own sense of “I” or “Ego”. To retain their sense of self, meaning the “I” the only option that was left to them was to kill Brandon, thus destroying the “other”. In the words of Roger Burggraeve

Murder manifests itself not so much as a fact taking place once and for all , but as a passion driven by a well determined intentionality-namely to destroy the other totally. The “denial” occurring in the “consumption” and “use” of others still remain partial. In the “grasp” that I exert on them, I do indeed contest their independence but I still preserve their existence in reality so that they are and continue to be “for me”. Killing is radical: One does not dominate (appropriate, use and consume), but clears him out of the way or destroys him; the other is driven even from existing. Murder then renounces absolutely all “comprehension” of the other, for no one wishes to include the other in the “same”, that is, in one’s own project of existing, but, on the contrary to exclude him, because he is “too much” in the way of one’s struggle for identity.

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There is also a kind of racism involved in the failure of Tom and John to respect the “otherness” of Brandon. According to Levinas, racist sentiments are not just about denigrating some races as “inferior”, but it consists of the failure of an “I” to understand the uniqueness of “other”. A racist relationship wants to recognize and value only the “same” or one’s “own”. One is usually inclined to accept and consider positively only that which agrees with or is “similar” to ourselves. One finds the ‘other’ embarrassing, threatening and frightening.

However, Lana’s relationship with Brandon presents a different picture. Similar to Tom and John, Lana initially mistook Brandon to be a man. However, Lana loved Brandon, not for his physicality but for his unique character, or to put it more precisely, for his “otherness”. According to Lana, Brandon was the first nice man in her life. According to Roger Ebert who reviewed the movie.

Brandon is not the smartest person on Earth, especially at judging which kinds of risks to take, but he is one of the nicest, and soon he has fallen in love with a Falls City girl named Lana (Chloe Sevigny). For Lana, Brandon is arguably the first nice boy she has ever dated. We meet two of the other local studs, John(Peter Sarsgaard) and Tom (Brendan Sexton 3rd), neither gifted with intelligence, both violent products of brutal backgrounds. They have the same attitude toward women that the gun nut has about prying his dying fingers off the revolver.

Along with Tom and John , Lana also realizes that Brandon is in reality a trans-man .In fact it is Brandon himself who reveals to Lana the truth of his identity .However Lana’s reaction to this revelation is markedly different from that of Tom and John , as the following conversation between the two while Brandon is in prison illustrates .

Brandon :I'm a hermaphrodite.

Lana: A what?

Brandon: Come here. [ Clears Throat ]

It's a person who has both... girl and boy parts.

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Brandon's real name is Teena Brandon.

See, Brandon's not quite a he. Brandon's more like a she.

Lana: Shut up. That's your business.

I don't care if you're half monkey or half ape, I'm gettin' you out of here.

The “otherness” of Brandon instead of repulsing Lana further endeared him to her .The movie ends with the rape and murder of Brandon by Tom and John .Tom and John cannot be reduced to two neurotic individuals who committed a brutal rape and murder .They in fact symbolize the hostile attitude of an entire society towards transgenders and homosexuals and through them to all marginalized sections of society signifying the “other” .The film Boys Don’t Cry effectively captures the banality of a world where “otherness” is seen as a threat .

Select Reading:

Boys Don't Cry. Dir. Kimberly Peirce. Perf. Hilary Swank and Chloe Sevigny. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1999. BlueRay.

Baudrillard, Jean. "Simulacra and Simulation." (1995): n. pag. Web.

Burggraeve, Roger. "Violence and the Vulnerable Face of the Other: The Vision of Emmanuel Levinas on Moral Evil and Our Responsibility." Journal of Social Philosophy 30.1 (1999): 29-45. Web.

Ebert, Roger. "Boys Don't Cry Movie Review & Film Summary (1999) | Roger Ebert." All Content. N.p., 1999. Web. 08 Nov. 2016.

42 Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXIII: December 2016 Gautam: Sound and fury ISSN: 2454-4574

Sound and Fury Introduction to the Author: Gautam is a 39-year-old post-producer working with an ad production house in Mumbai. One can't really call him an avid reader; on and off at best. But he is most definitely a complete cynic with a tendency to examine issues around him with a sceptical eye, peppering his writing, if you can call it that, with self-deprecating humour. You can assess his work at www.pampoozled.wordpress.com.

Being an inherently nervous person, I have often contemplated the possible causes that have made me so. Besides the extensive grudge held by nature against me from the womb, I have found myself zeroing in on another cause that substantially challenges the former for the crown- the sounds that surround me.

For every occasion in this wide and varied land there seems to be only one answer- Song and dance, and other complimentary sounds. Hardly a venue remains, except possibly funeral grounds with good reason of course, that isn’t infused with ear-splitting sound, ensuring that I am reduced to a nervous wreck, if I wasn’t already; no harm in reconfirming I mean.

It is not an uncommon experience to get stuck in the middle of religious or wedding processions on narrow roads, merrily celebrating the occasion, exercising their freedom of speech and expression. Dancing on the streets seems to be a way of letting go and celebrating life for most Indians, for want of suitable venues I reckon. Not to be outdone of course, trapped motorists register their protest by honking their roofs off, initially in a haphazard manner, and when they see no impact being had, joining in the rhythm, creating a unique orchestra of sorts; might as well enjoy the detention seems to be the attitude. Silence may be golden, but, despite the ever- soaring gold prices, the unfortunate blighter weighs nothing on the scale, and hence is worth naught.

From reverberating solid-metal bells in shrines to maddeningly innovative mobile ring tones, tacky hip-swinging songs in the movies to fireworks celebrating special family occasions since the 187 festivals are not nearly enough, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that living in this land is nothing short of an assault on the senses, and particularly an offence to the ear drums. The land is richly blessed with animated talkers tailored with a booming voice regardless of gender. What a waste it seems to me for some people to pay their phone bills when, given their naturally boisterous voices merged with a robust will to unleash them, they could be conveying their views far and wide without the aid of any devices.

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And when it comes to sound, how could Diwali- the festival of lights be far behind. And here, it is important to highlight Diwali as the festival of lights, for it could just as easily be misunderstood to be one of sound. One can understand firing colourful rockets into the night sky, lighting sparkling fuljharis, glittering anaar trees, or scattering chakris of various hues; all of these engaging the visual senses. It’s a different matter that granting a break to the poor overworked ears is just a clever ruse by these attractive pyrotechnics. They more than make up for the grand gesture by masterminding a lethal assault on the lungs. However, at least they are visually a treat to watch.

But, what is even the point of what I believe are locally known as rassi bombs or atom bombs. When found inadvertently in the society of these nasty little brutes better men than I have jumped several feet and shaken to the core. Just a sudden jarring of the ear drums, and what’s more, continuing to jar in every limb for quite some time after. There appears to be no semblance of the festival of lights in it. I fail to comprehend which part of it is music to the ears. No stretch of the imagination at any angle or length assists me in gauging how one could find this amusing.

Diwali also seems to inadvertently provide a convenient mark for the annual calendar for other city life forms. The intolerable sound of relentless fireworks must inevitably signal to stray animals and birds that the New Year is upon us and, I imagine, they must strike off a year from their calendars accordingly. Conceive their surprise then when there are random fireworks yet again in celebration of the men in blue, once in a while, registering an important win in cricket, leaving them entirely disoriented by throwing their calendars off schedule.

Another contributor to the communal sound family, since the others put together fell short of the intended effect, is the reverse horn for cars. I recall an occasion when I was at an auto parts store trying to get a bargain on something insignificant. I noticed a fellow customer going about testing some car reverse horns with the view of buying the most suitable one. An assortment of reverse horns with mounting degrees of annoyance were being eagerly presented with gay abandon and disgustedly rejected with equally vile rebuke, until one particularly annoying one finally made the grade. He smiled a menacing smile that said to me- “Oh how this horn annoys me despite having braced for its intended effect. Imagine how much it will annoy the unsuspecting gullible passers-by. Just what I need! Done deal!”

As I got chatting with the vile customer, I dropped a hint, as politely as I could, as to why car reverse horns are needed after all. I pointed out that cars have been able to reverse just fine for a considerable while before now without the aid of horns. My words seemed to displease him and he shot a sharp look at me. Eyeing me with contempt, I could see that the vile customer regarded me as some sort of a rural stooge.

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Besides, there seemed to him a perfectly practical purpose for the foul thing after all. In case he knocks into someone passing behind his car while reversing, he can officially state that the right amount of care had been taken to warn about his movements, thus freeing him from any moral responsibility and enabling him to pounce upon and launch into knuckling the sinning passer-by with no shackles whatsoever. How considerate of him I thought.

Having been enlightened with this thoughtful core function of the reverse horn, I am proud to say, since then I have instilled substantial nimbleness of the feet instinctively triggered with practically no delay at the sound of a reverse horn anywhere in the vicinity. What a pity they don’t allow cars to be reversed at track-and-field events; seems like a deliberate ploy to take away a legitimate career choice of mine.

For eons now Man has been considered as the final word of Nature, but I beg to differ. In designing man, I thoroughly feel, nature has committed a minor flaw which, thankfully, our great and ancient land offers a grand stage to rectify. I’m sure it hasn’t escaped the notice of anyone that man is abundantly equipped with the choice of shielding the precious eyes from an eyesore by the mere act of closing the eyelids.

Where the snag lies, I’d like to draw attention to, is that no such protection seems to be lent to the unfortunate ears. Why such step-brotherly treatment I wonder! And here is where I spot evolution coming to the aid of the party and playing its bit by making humans evolve hitherto unheard of auricular parts called ear lids, thus helping keep out infernal noise when one chooses to, which is more often than not I reckon. Without a doubt this is the next step in human evolution; just the thing that is needed. It seems to be in order to keep the overloaded cerebrum from vaporizing.

Oh how I wish to live to see that day, if only to pass away in sound peace.

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