THE FIRE AND RAIN - GIRISH KARNAD
III SEMESTER
B.SC. / B.C.A. DEGREE (NEP)
REVIEW ON THE PLAY “THE FIRE AND THE RAIN”
My review of the play " fire and the rain”. The "Fire and the
rain" play written by Girish Karnad. The main Title of the play is
"Agni Mattu male" in Kannada language. it was published in 1998.
Girish Karnad is an actor, director, writer and playwright.
In this play "
The fire and the rain" we find some major characters as like, Bharadwaja,
Raibhya, Yavakri, Aravasu, Paravasu, Vishakha, Nittilai, her brother, Brahma Rakshasa
(Demon)King and actor manager. we find many theme in this play like,
Alienation, Love, family heated, Religion and art, Yagna and theater etc.
There were two sages, Bharadwaja and Raibhya, who were good friends Raibhya was
a learned man. who lived with his two sons Aravasu and Paravasu while Bharadwaja
concentrated on his ascetic practices. Yavakri, Bharadwaj’s son, nursed a
grievance against the world for he felt his father did not receive the respect
and recognition which was his due.
Yavakri went to the forest and did “tapasya"
(Meditation) so that he could obtain the knowledge of the Vedas form the god
directly. The rigors of his ascetic practice were such that Indra, the Lord of
God's, appeared to him, but only to persuade him that there were no such short
cuts of knowledge. "Knowledge has to be obtained by studying at the feet
of a guru". But Yavakri was so adamant that Indra ultimately relented and
let him have his wishes.
Bharadwaja, being a wise man, he has worry
and his fears unfortunately proved well founded. For one of the first things Yavakri
did was to corner Raibhya's daughter in law in a lonely spot and molest her.
Raibhya knew about misbehavior of Yavakri with Vishakha. He tore a hair from
his head and made a Rakshasa (demon) then he sent the Rakshasa to kill Yavakri.
When Bharadwaja leant about it that how his son has died. he cursed Raibhya
that "he would die at the hand of his elder son" and Bharadwaja entered
fire and immortal itself. and that happened Paravasu Killed his father by
mistake and he realized that happen then he said to Aravasu he has to do
father's cremated and I have to went on fire sacrifices so, Paravasu went at
fire sacrifices and Aravasu and Vishakha was on his father’s dead body. Then Aravasu came to fire sacrifices so Paravasu
said that "This is a Brahmin killer, he shouldn't be allowed to enter
sacrifices enclosure" to king. So, King gave order to his servant to throw
Aravasu out.
At the end of drama Aravasu wear mask of Vritra and he became cruel. Because Vitara
get control on Aravasu. and this real story of "The Mahabharata " and
real event of fire and the rain combined. when Aravasu tried to murder Paravasu
that time Nittilai throw the mask of Vritra on the Aravasu face. and he fails
to do this. Nittilai's brother and husband come and murder to Nittilai. The
true love of Aravasu died at the time he decided to murder him. But a real
character of God Indra come and told to Aravasu gets blessed. Aravasu struggles
into decision that release Brahma Rakshasa or return to Nittilai. At that time
Aravasu told to Brahma releasing of Brahma Rakshasa. He became a wisher man of
the drama. Girish Karnad describes that importance of heart, soul, thought of
the character. Blossoming the fragrance of the Rain in the Air, everyone dances
with joy.
If we read this play with feminist perspective, so we find
that two women characters Vishakha and Nittilai suffered a lot in their life.
Nittilai murdered by her husband and brother because she falls in love with
Aravasu. while Vishakha fall in love with Yavakri. and hit by her father-in-law
(Raibhya).
BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE CHOSEN PLAY “THE FIRE AND THE RAIN”
The play The Fire and The Rain is based on
the myth of Yavakri, extracted from the chapters 135- 138 of the Vana Parva
(the forest canto) of the Mahabharata. It took thirty seven years for Karnad to
accomplish this work. According to the myth, Yavakri a sage who had attained
universal knowledge from Indra has a burning desire to revenge on his uncle, Raibhya’s
family. Yavakri’s father Bharadwaja and Raibhya were brothers, they were
equally learned, but Raibhya was getting more recognition among the two, this
was the cause for the anger getting hoarded inside Yavakri. How he satiates
himself and what are the consequences he faces contribute to be the source for
the play. The genius playwright has added the flavor of rage to it and
beautified the plot further.
RAGE (RUDRARASA) AS AN AESTHETIC ELEMENT TO BEAUTIFY THE PLAY
As mentioned earlier, in drama, the playwright has a crucial requirement to fulfil. His script should be well written to convey the exact emotions to the director, actor and even the audience. Karnad, the master playwright is a genius in this skill. The script in itself carries the required emotions. On just reading the play one can understand proportion of emotions added by Karnad in the play. The play The Fire and The Rain has all the elements visible in the renowned revenge play The Spanish Tragedy. Rage is the most important ingredient in the play. The scripting of the characters like Yavakri, Vishakha, Raibhya, Paravasu act are well scripted to exhibit the Rudra Rasa.
THE FIRE AND THE RAIN: RHETORIC OF REVENGE AND VIOLENCE
The entire play depicts the negative impulses of a human being such as anger, violence, bloodshed, jealousy, pride, false knowledge, the intense feeling of hostility, hatred, greed, treachery and revenge. Karnad finds the myth quite relevant to the contemporary society. The play communicates the message that abuse of knowledge ultimately leads to the destruction of the world. It vividly portrays the conflict between the Brahmin traditional community and the benevolent tribal community. The former is rigid and ritualistic (symbolized by “fire”) whereas the latter is community-oriented and life-giving (symbolized by “rain”) .The title of the play is used aptly and suggestively. The Brahminic culture is fire which destroys everything and the tribal culture is rain which gives and sustains life.
THE PLAY’S BASIS: THE MYTH OF YAVAKRI
The Fire and the Rain is Karnad’s most
complex play which is based on the myth of Yavakri taken from chapters 135-138
of the Vana Parva (the forest canto) of the Mahabharata. Karnad spent nearly
thirty seven years to complete the play. In his note on The Fire and the Rain,
Karnad he in brief the original myth of Yavakri: There were two sages,
Bharadwaja and Raibhya, who were good friends. Raibhya was a learned man who
lived with his two sons while Bharadwaja concentrated on his ascetic practices.
Yavakri, Bharadwaj’s son, nursed a grievance against the world, for he felt his
father did not receive the respect and recognition he deserved. He further went
off to the forest and did tapasya (penance) so that he could obtain the knowledge
of the Vedas from the gods direct. The rigors of his ascetic practice were such
that Indra, the lord of gods, appeared to him, but only to persuade him that
there were no such short cuts to knowledge. Knowledge has to be obtained by
studying at the feet of a guru. But Yavakri was so adamant that Indra
ultimately relented and let him have his wish. Bharadwaja, being a wise man,
was anxious lest the triumph turn his son’s head and cautioned Yavakri against
delusions of omnipotence. But his fears unfortunately proved well-founded. For
one of the first things Yavakri did was to corner Raibhya’s daughter-in-law in a
lonely spot and molest her. Yavakri’s misdemeanor incensed Raibhya. He invoked
the Kritya spirit. He tore a hair from his head and made an oblation of it to
the fire. From it sprang a woman who looked exactly like his daughter-in-law.
From another hair he similarly brought forth a rakshasa (demon). Then, he sent
the two to kill Yavakri.
THE PLAY’S THEME AND THE STORY
In this play, Karnad skillfully exploits the
myth of Yavakri and that of Indra-Vritra to focus on the negative and positive
impulses of the human being, the immoral qualities of the priestly class and
how they dominate and exploit the lower class people. The play also highlights
the innocent, pure and natural world of the lower castes. The story of Aravasu
and Nittilai which begins as a subplot grows in significance and towards the
climax takes centre stage.
The Fire and the Rain is divided into three
acts along with Prologue and Epilogue. By making some alterations in the
original story, Karnad unfolds the inner mind of each character. The central
action of the play focuses on the motif of revenge, futility of false knowledge
and the feebleness of human nature. In order to make his play more effective
and relevant to the contemporary society, Karnad deviates from the original
episode at several places. Besides, he has introduced a few additional
characters like Nittilai, the tribals, and the actors who together with Aravasu
make up the subplot. Bharadwaja and Raibhya, the two friends in the myth are
made as brothers in the play and their sons become cousins. Again he makes
Vishakha as a lover of Yavakri. In the myth, Raibhya creates the female spirit
from his hair that resembles his daughter-in-law Vishakha and asks her to
assist the Brahma Rakshasa in the killing of Yavakri. However in the play,
Vishakha herself goes to Yavakri to inform him about the impending danger.
The structural plan of The Fire and the Rain runs into three parallel streams: Raibhya and Vishakha at the hermitage, the sacrificial place with Paravasu as the Chief Priest and story of Nittilai and Aravasu with the company of the theatre. The most significant addition to the myth in the play is the story of Indra and Vritra taken from the Rigveda. It is very effectively presented through the play-within-the-play enacted by the troupe of actors and Aravasu to emphasize the treachery of a brother against brother. Commenting on the inclusion of Indra-Vritra myth in the play Karnad himself aptly remarks: The tale of Aravasu and Paravasu fascinated me as an unusual variant of this Indian obsession with fratricide… I cannot remember when I decided to incorporate the Indra-Vritra legend in my plot, but years later, while rereading the original version, I was astonished to find that right at the beginning of the tale of Yavakri.
The play starts with the Prologue which presents the complicated details of the fire sacrifice ceremony. The entire action of the play centres on the ritual of fire sacrifice. As the play begins, it is noticed that the land is a drought-ridden. So, the King of this region has determined to conduct a fire sacrifice in order to propitiate Indra, the god of rains. Paravasu, the elder son of Raibhya, is the Chief Priest who conducts the ceremony of a seven-year-long fire-sacrifice with several other priests. As the afternoon session of the fire sacrifice is over, the Actor-Manager of a troupe comes there and requests them to grant him a permission to stage a play in honor of the fire sacrifice. The prologue throws light on the inner world of the characters that represents them as the embodiment of fiery desires and ironically it is in the fire that they seek final liberation: Yavakri in the funeral fire and Paravasu in the sacrificial fire. We are tempted to perceive fire as a pervasive symbol in all its potentials in the play.
The first act one focuses on the issue of
love-marriage of Nittilai, a tribal girl and Aravasu, a younger son of Raibhya.
While conversing with Nittilai and Aravasu, Andhaka, in the role of Sutra Dhar-actor,
refers to the penance and achievements of Yavakri, the son of sage Bharadwaja.
Karnad has ironically used Yavakri’s penance to criticize the typical tendency
of the Brahmins to attain universal knowledge for fulfilling their private
ends. Soon after his return, Yavakri learns that Vishakha, his childhood mate,
has married to Paravasu, his rival cousin. He meets her in a lonely place in
the forest. She succumbs to Yavakri’s fascinating words after her initial
resistance. Raibhya, considers it the insult of the entire family.
To take revenge on Yavakri, he creates “Kritya” spirit, i.e., Brahma Rakshasa. Vishakha informs Yavakri her father-in-law’s evil intention. But he is quite confident of his safety since he has the consecrated water with him to take revenge on her family. This knowledge makes Vishakha to turn the tables on Yavakri by pouring all the sanctified water from his kamandalu. To save his life anyhow, he starts running to reach his father’s hermitage. Ironically, Andhaka stops him entering his own father’s hermitage. The Brahma Rakshasa appears there and kills him with the trident.
In the second act, Paravasu, against the rules of the fire sacrifice, returns home to meet his wife. The knowledge of her wife’s seduction by Yavakri as well as by his own father and his (father’s) feeling of jealousy for not getting the role of the Chief Priest of the fire sacrifice renders him infuriated and outraged. Ultimately, he kills his father with his arrow in cold blood. Paravasu goes back to complete the fire sacrifice asking Aravasu to perform the rites of penitence. But to Aravasu’s surprise, Paravasu treacherously blames him of killing his father, when the former reaches the sacrificial area, after performing all the funeral rites of his father. In the assault, made by the Brahmins and the king on the order of Paravasu, Aravasu gets wounded. What Arundhati Banerjee states about Vijay Tendulkar’s play The Vultures is fit for Karnad’s The Fire and the Rain also: The beating up of the father by his own sons, …the mutual hatred among the members of family underline the fundamental evil inherent in human nature.
Vishwarupa and Vritra, sons of Brahma, meet
and embrace each other. Indra, their eldest brother feels jealous of Vishwarupa
thinking that his greatness and popularity has eclipsed his personality. So, he
decides to kill him. In order to succeed in his plan, Indra organizes a fire sacrifice
and invites Vishwarupa. The moment Vishwarupa tries to enter along with Vritra,
Indra stops him objecting to the company of Vritra being a demon, a Rakshasa.
When Vishwarupa was offering oblations to the gods, Indra moves behind and
plunges his thunderbolt into Vishwarupa’s back. Vishwarupa collapses screaming
loudly. This event of fratricide, enacted on the stage, renders Paravasu
guilt-conscious. By using the Brechtian technique of theatre-audience contact,
Karnad throws light on the reciprocal relationship between the theatre and
life. Brahma Rakshasa who is pleading Paravasu for his release, now leaves him.
The audience is greatly perplexed at the increasing sounds and gestures on the
stage. Indra’s vicious laughter, Vishwarupa’s heart-rending screaming and
Paravasu’s anxious outburst— all seem mounting towards terrific emotional
explosion. In this regard Vanashree Triphathi rightly observes: The Paravasu-Aravasu
parallel with Indra-Vritra and Vishwarupa is complete. Paravasu’s calling the
demon, Brahma Rakshasa, loudly… reverberates in Aravasu a recognition of
himself as Vritra-the Demon… Reality is doubled, and tripled, as Aravasu finds
himself enacting two roles, all set to avenge the fratricide of Indra – a
prototype of his brother’s actions. In Vishwarupa’s dying exclamation “You,
Brother? Why? I trusted you.” The memory of the gross betrayal of his own
brother becomes fresh in Aravasu’s mind.
Aravasu, forgetting that he is acting, is
about to attack Indra (Actor-Manager). However, Nittilai comes and takes off
his mask of Vritra. Her interference makes Aravasu normal. But at the same
moment, her brother and husband reach the spot and she is killed mercilessly
with a knife by her husband. She dies like a sacrificial animal. Aravasu takes
her corpse to the sacrificial place. The voice of Indra is heard from the
skies, saying, “Aravasu, son, do not grieve…. Ask for any boon and it shall be
granted.” Aravasu wants the life of his beloved to be restored, but the
Brahma Rakshasa implores him for his own release. Aravasu, remembering Nittilai’s benevolent nature, asks Indra to release Brahma Rakshasa. The play ends in rains. Rain is there not because of sacrificial ritual, but because of the human sacrifice in the form of Nittilai and the grand and noble self-sacrifice of Aravasu. Thus, the Shakespearean technique of the play-within-a-play bridges the gulf between the main plot and the subplot and it brings about a reversal of events.
CRITICAL INTERPRETATION AND APPRAISAL OF THE PLAY
The play originally written in Kannada is titled as Agni Mattu Male. The playwright himself explains the broader meaning of the word ‘Agni.’ He writes: Agni is the Sanskrit word for fire and being a Sanskrit word, it carries, even when used in Kannada, connotations of holiness, of ritual status, of ceremony, which the Kannada word for fire (benki) does not possess. Agni is what burns in sacrificial altars, acts as a witness at weddings and is lit at cremations. It is also the name of the god of fire.” The fire connotes both the negative and positive human impulses such as anger, jealousy, revenge, betrayal, and lust. The rain, on the contrary, denotes the rain of human love and sacrifice, compassion, forgiveness, revival and regeneration. Commenting of various meanings of Agni, P. Jayalakshmi appropriately states: Agni works as anger and revenge in Raibhya, Paravasu, and Yavakri. In Vishakha, it burns as lust; and in the people as hunger due to the persisting drought. In all of them, except in Vishakha, Agni burns as sacrificial fire without its accompanying grace as vision or light. However, this apparently overarching element of Agni (Fire) in the title of the play burns to convey the lessons the human being must learn about the subjugation of one’s ego to the Universal Being. Much of the agony in the lives of the major characters is played out on the canvas of human consciousness till they learn this all-essential lesson of humility.
The play depicts various problems such as caste system, patriarchy, man-woman relationship, existentialism, problem of identity and loneliness, etc. Through the myth of Yavakri, the play explores the futility of false knowledge and evils resulting from pride, jealousy, lust, and anger. Yavakri, Raibhya and Paravasu are the victims of egoism and they misappropriate their knowledge for avenging one another. The worlds of Yavakri, Raibhya and Paravasu are filled with hypocrisy, hatred, treachery, violence and revenge. The seduction of Vishakha by her own father-in-law and brother-in-law, the killing of the father by his own son, and that of nephew by his uncle (indirectly), the brother’s attempt to catch his own brother in his treacherous trap throw light on the fundamental evil that resides in human nature. The pursuit of knowledge does not make them free from evils resulting from pride, jealousy, lust and revenge. Another important theme, the playwright wants to focus is the perennial problem of caste system. The Fire sacrifice is organized to propitiate the god of rains. Low caste people are prohibited to enter the holy area. Priests are directed not to leave the precincts and not talk to the shudras and not to give themselves to sensual pleasures.
The play is Karnad’s comment on caste as well as gender-biased society. Both the female characters try their best to raise a voice of rebellion. But the extent of their resistance is determined by the gender and caste group to which they belong. It is also observed that their characters are shaped by their respective social positions. Jayalakshmi is quite justified in pointing out: “He (Karnad) re-interprets and re-presents the myth to make a definitive statement in the context of the present. He reconstitutes the ancient myth with fresh revisionary meaning with the additional dimension of gender and caste by creating the narrative of Aravasu and Nittilai. Nittilai is as oppressed as Vishakha or maybe even more, but the oppression in the latter is unnecessary and avoidable. As a member of a family of the learned men trained in leading disciplined life, such treatment for Vishakha is unjustified. In the case of Nittilai, the suffering is due to caste division and gender bias in society and ignorance of men in her community: thus suffering is made unavoidable and inescapable.” To quote Jayalakshmi again “Nittilai and Vishakha are both victims of male control, consequent to which is the oppression and exploitation inflicted upon them by the often violent heterogeneous male subjects. Nittilai seems to suffer double marginalization, as is often the lot of communities divided on lines of caste and color, she is marginalized from the mainstream as belonging to Sudra caste. In her own community, she is presented for demanding her right to take a life partner of her choice.”
Nittilai and Vishakha appear to be in the search for identity. Both of them suffer from the problem of anonymity. Although Vishakha belongs to an upper-caste Brahmin family her position is not different from that of Nittilai. Her social position does not provide her any privilege. Throughout her life, she is dominated by her so-called learned male counterparts. Nittilai belongs to the family of hunters. Both of them are the victims of the male dominated society in which they are subjected equally to violent displacement and silencing. These women characters bring to notice the burning reality of the society that women have been used by their male counterparts as stepping stones in their power struggle. No doubt, they try to challenge that oppression but in the process they meet with a tragic end. Suffering is their lot, the badge of their tribe. It is so, because ... humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him, she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is ... the Absolute- she is the Other. Both the women characters appear to be the witnesses of womankind’s endless suffering in the male dominated society. That is why Jayalakshmi is quite justified in pointing out: “Vishakha and Nittilai, thus, are not mere literary constructs but women real and material, carrying within them their collective histories as women…. The need is for a sympathetic understanding of their oppressive past in grappling with our present-day reality in which also lies real humanity.” Thus, the position of women in the patriarchal system of society is one of the major thematic concerns of Karnad’s plays. The women characters in the play are the victims of patriarchy. Vishakha is exploited by her husband, father-in-law and her former lover. She becomes a sexual instrument in the hands of the male characters to avenge each other. And Nittilai becomes a victim of the tribal patriarchy. Mala Ranganathan’s observation with regard to the oppression of Vishakha and Nittilai in the patriarchal culture is worth considering. She remarks: “The Brahminical patriarchy in the play reduces the woman to sexual exploitation and neglect by men vying with one another for knowledge and power. Simple as it may appear to be, the tribal patriarchy also proves to be lethal towards women who do not abide by the community rules framed by the male elders. Vishaka’s loneliness in the male-centric world is very effectively presented in the play. She suffers from loneliness because of her selfish and treacherous lover and her self-centered husband. P. Jayalakshmi aptly describes the miserable state of Vishakha by comparing her lonely life to the image of an empty water pot. She comments, “The image of an empty water-pot covered with cobwebs, lying in a corner, discarded, to be replenished with life-giving water, is suggestive metaphorically of the condition of Vishaka’s life— dry, barren and empty.”
Existentialism seems to be one of the dominant themes in the Karnad play and The Fire and Rain is no exception to it. The characters here are found in the existential situation. It is because of his strong hatred for Paravasu, Yavakri is unable to understand the meaning of knowledge. He projects the image of an existential character and shows that a few men are able to make a correct choice. Aravasu also finds himself in existential situation when he is terribly shocked at the treachery of his brother, Paravasu. There are several instances in the play which throw light on how the principal characters confront the existential problems. Thus, the play, in general, presents existential themes namely, the impossibility of possession in love, the illusion of friendship and brotherhood, the isolation and alienation of man, the difficulty of communication and the quest for identity and meaning in an uncertain and often incomprehensible world. It also highlights man’s inevitable isolation and alienation in this so called cultured world.
THE FIRE AND THE RAIN - SUMMARY
The play itself takes the form of a play, within a play, which is why it's, it's a Meta theatrical play, where performance itself becomes, a theme in the play. Right? So, the inner play, the play within the play, our theme at Isis the outer frame play, and they both in some sense, the distinction between reality, the outside play the frame play, reality and the, the life the world of the inner play, gets blood and collapses by the end of the play. So, there's a complete blaring of the very, distinction between reality and fiction, between a representation and, and the object being represented. And out of play which frames, the inner play is a modern adaptation of the tale of Yavakri. So, Girish Karnad, takes you know, the as the raw material of his play, the story or the tale of Yavakri, which is taken from the Vana, Vanaparvam of the Mahabharata. In a Mahabharata, Yavakri is the son of the stage for Atwater, who acquires knowledge of the Vedas, from Indra, after years of penance, he uses this knowledge that is acquired, from Indra, of the Vedas, to molest the doctrine law of the sage Raibhya, whom he resents and who in turn, creates a demon and a spirit in the form of his daughter-in-law to kill, to kill Yavakri. But, Bharadwaja curses Raibhya: that he would be killed by his own son and thus Raibhya is killed by his son Paravasu, who mistakes his father, who's wearing deerskin, for a deal Barabbas who then falsely accuses his brother, Aravasu for killing the father and excludes him, from the fire sacrifice that, they are both conducting and officiating and we're Paravasu, is the chief priest, Aravasu begins his own penance by praying, to the Sun God who, brings back, who grants him his boon: that Yavakri Bharadwaj and Raibhya, be brought back to life. In Karnad’s modern rendition of the tale, Yavakri and Vishakha, Raibhya’s daughter in law our love was both before and after her marriage to Paravasu, her own marriage is loveless, because a husband after gratifying his desire, for, for her, in the first year of their marriage, abandons her in Raibhya’s care, to participate in the fire sacrifice: that would promise him greater power. So, of course the fire the sacrifice is being conducted to actually, pray for rains, because the land is not the parched, land has not seen rains, for years and many people are dying, you know or relocating fleeing, because of the of the famine, in the drought. Vishakha, brings about Yavakri’s death, get precisely out of her own desire to keep him alive, because when you Yavakri, decides to actually, seek revenge, against Raibhya, because he resents Raibhya for having been the chief, priests and now he's, unlike his father who did not receive any recognition of validation. So, he wants to actually, avenge his father's insult and so he decides to try and kill, Raibhya but, Vishakha then brings about Yavakri his own death, precisely because of our desire to keep in my life. So, there's a cruel irony, to this whole situation where, where Raibhya has created this Brahma Raksha’s, this demon that will, that will kill, Yavakri and Vishakha who's in love with Yavakri, despite the fact that she's been married to her husband, forever so for 10 years, tries her best to keep her Yavakri, alive and although Yavakri tells, Vishakha that, nothing and can kill him, because he has a jug, full of sacred water and even and drop that water is enough, to actually you know, numb the demon, completely freeze him so that, he cannot kill him, Vishakha does not, trust or have any faith in his power and she ends up emptying, the entire jug of water and there's not a drop of water left and then she, she pleads, Yavakri to go and take refuge in his father's hermitage, which is the only place where he, can be safe from the demon. But, of course as, as tragedy would have it he is rushing towards, his father's hermitage, when Andhaka, the blind Shudra man, in the plane, the Shudra character was blinded in the plane, he's unable to recognize Yavakri, footsteps and you know, catches hold of him, as he is guarding Yavakri s, father's hermitage and in the meanwhile, the demon the Brahma Raksha’s, overtakes Yavakri and impaled with a spear. So, he's killed, Paravasu in turn kills, his father deliberately, unlike the tale in the Mahabharata where, he accidentally gives his father, mistaking him for a deer, you're Paravasu hates his father, resents his father and he kills his father, deliberately out of hatred and finally, himself chooses death. I think, Yavakri to expiate himself, to expiate himself, in the act of patricide that, Rakshasa returns to the spirit world as he is, in release from the bondage of life and death, with Aravasu compassion and forgiveness and in tan and with Aravasu intervention, he is freed of the bondage of life and death. There's also, parallel story that Karnad develops in the play, which is the love affair, between Aravasu and Nittilai, Nittilai or tribal woman, while there the male correct characters the play, Raibhya, Paravasu and Yavakri represent the power of violence, of ascetic Brahmanism, Aravasu was caught in between the world the Brahman and the world the non-Brahman, of the Shudra between the sacred and the profane the sacred world of very Brahmanism and the profane world of the non-Brahman of the tribal of the Shudra and the, the opposition between, the brought the world the Brahman in the world with the Shudra, is mapped onto the opposition between, the mind and the body between the life of discipline and ritual sacrifice and emotion. While so, therefore you know, Brahmins are equated with this ruthless, greed for power and violence and the Shudra is associated with, with compassion, compassion and love for Humanity, while Raibhya and Yavakri and Paravasu, have lost the legitimacy, of their power through their acts of violence and killing, Aravasu has a redemptive function to play, in the to, in the play or where he works, for the greater good of his community, even at the cost of losing, Nittilai, Nittilai pays with her life, while she's trying to rescue out of a so from the sacrifice and so, she loses her, she loses he loses her and Vishakha herself is chastised, in the play, for but not punished for transgressing the boundaries of female chastity, because she has an affair with she continues to her to have an affair with Yavakri, even after she's married and Nittilai, loses her life for choosing Aravasu over her husband.
So, Nittilai is actually married off to her tribal a man from our own tribe, because Aravasu loses his opportunity to get married to her, because he is busy trying to, he's stuck, you know carrying out the final rites, for a Yavakri after he was killed and so, he loses the opportunity to actually, arrive on time at the tribal’s, council of elders meeting. Where he was supposed to marry, Nittilai the distinction between the play and the play within the play, is blurred and collapse where the end, when Paravasu pollutes the sacrificial area, with his act of patricide and Aravasu who assumes the role of Vritra, Vritra which is which is the, the half demonic son of Brahma, Brahma has three sons. One is Indra, one is who's a divine son, one is Vishwarupa, who was his son through a mortal woman and Vritra is Brahma’s son, with that he had with a demines. Right? So, Aravasu plays the role of Vritra, in the play within the play and he wears, a mask in the play too in the, in the play to play the role of Vritra, but, ends up bringing the mask to life and ends up destroying sacrificial altar and killing Paravasu. Right? So, the mask comes to life and there's, there's no, no there's no longer a distinction between fiction and reality between the world of the play, outside the play and the play within the play. Nittilai, loop pays, for with her own life, because she cannot stop herself, from rescuing Aravasu from the destruction of the Yagna and finally, Aravasu sacrifices his or her own happiness, with Nittilai for the sake of the, Brahma Raksha’s, as released from life and death. So, now let us just look at the, the details of the play, so as I mentioned only the whole idea, of performance is Schematize in the play, it becomes achieved theme of the play, which in some sense is also an expression of the sacred, it's one of the expressions of the sacred is performance itself, because it, it legitimizes, the divine origins of drama and theater from Bharata Natya Shastra onwards and it also acknowledges and validates, the, the lower caste identity of the actor, in the hierarchy of cost. So, the actors considered to be a lower caste a person, simply also, by virtue of acting, because when Aravasu decides to take on the life of an actor, decides to become an actor, his brother part of us who forbids him, from entering the sacrificial arena, because he is he has polluted, his own Brahminical identity, his polluted his community by becoming an actor.
So, if you look at the opening stage directions of the play the quite elaborate, it says that, it has not rained adequately for nearly ten years, this is the prologue and the prologue and the epilogue, frame the in a play. Right? So, you have a prologue which is, which, which, which is situated, at that point in time, when Aravasu on the verge of acting, in the play within the play, as Vritra and he's looking out he's searching for Nittilai, who cannot be found in the audience, the play also ends with an epilogue, where you know, the, the Yagna has been destroyed and towards the end you know, there is a complete collapse between the play and the play within the play. So, in the initial prologue, the description of the stage directions are like this, so there has been a drought for nearly ten years, which has caused famine and there's been a seven year long fire sacrifice to the Lord Indra. Who's the god of rains, to propitiate him in order to enable rains in, in a land that has been parched, with years of drought, fire burns in the center of step like break altars, there are several such altars at, at all of which, Priest offering oblations to the fire, while singing the prescribed him, the presold rested long, flowing seamless pieces of cloth and where sacred threads, the king who was the host is, similarly just but, has his head covered. Paravasu is the conducting priest; he'll be called the, ‘Chief Priest’ since he is the most important of them all. It is his responsibility to see that there are no errors, either of a mission or of commission, in the performance of the sacrifice, he's about 28, it is an impressive panorama, the Brahma Rakshasa, a Brahmin soul, trapped in the limbo between death and rebirth, he is moving around at the sacrificial precincts, don't know, human I can see him. So the hip production already, exists he is a Brahmin soul: that's been trapped between, death and rebirth and is constantly hovering, around the sacrificial area.
The afternoon session is over, the priests
began to disperse or courtier enters with the actor manager, the latter's made
to stand at a distance, from the fire sacrifice since as an actor, he's
considered lowborn, the quota rushes into the protected, enclosure of the fire
sacrifice and talks the king, the priests around them, is a heated discussion. They
discussing the possibility, of having a plate, to which the king is quite
shocked and will not allow it and when they discover that, Aravasu got to play
the, role in the, in the, in the play, then now they're all, all the Brahmin’s
actually, on the priests a quite shocked: that a Brahmin is going to be acting.
So, the actor manager says, to the Brahmins that sirs, as is well known to you,
Brahma the Lord of all creation, extracted the requisite elements, from the
four Vedas and combine them into fifth Veda and thus gave birth, to the art of
drama. So, of course this is the validation the acknowledgement of drama as the
fifth Veda, the its, its neck knowledge meant of the divine origins, of, of
drama he handed it over to his son Lord Indra, the god the Sky’s, Lord Indra in
turn passed on the art to Bharata, a human being, for the gods cannot indulge
in pretense. So, if Indra is to be pleased and bring to an end this long
drought, which ravaged is our land. Messiah is a fire sacrifices not enough, a
play has been performed along with it, if we offer him entertainment, in addition
to the oblations, the God may grant us the reins we are praying for right. So,
this need to enact to perform, along with our fire sacrifice to propitiate, the
god of rains Indra and of course the courtier, is very clear that, Aravasu
should not be admitted into the sacrificial arena, because he is also going to
be acting in the play, which is, the role of a Lower Cosmos and of course the Aravasu
sends a message with the actor manager, which says, a message from a brother,
dear elder brother, this is a message from Aravasu, elder brother Paravasu
which says, the sons of Bharata were the first actors in the history of theater,
they were Brahmins. But, lost their cars because their profession, a car occurs
plunged them into disrepute and district disgrace, if one values, one's high
birth, one should not touch this profession and I accepted this. But, today I'm
a criminal, I have killed my father, a normal problem, I already stand honest,
I may now become an actor, this follows from your own words. So please, do not
bother way now. Right so here, we must remember that, Aravasu you know,
performs the function of redeeming, the sin that his brother. Paravasu
committed, of killing their father, right. So he, he performs the, the
expiatory rites, of redeeming his, his father's death, at his brother's hands
and he uses this opportunity, to actually you know, seek the possibility of
freedom, of freedom from caste, freedom from Brahminical Hinduism, from caste and
the freedom to actually marry, the woman he loves, which is Nittilai a, a
tribal girl. So, by embracing, a stigma which of patricide, of killing, which
he does not commit himself, Aravasu then, gains the freedom of acting of
performing, of propitiating the Lord Indra, of also redeeming, his father, his brother’s
sin of patricide and not of course to mention also the fact that he can now, he
hopes that he would be able to live, happily with Nittilai.
But, as the play’s about to begin, Aravasu was hoping that Nittilai is in the audience watching the play. Right? So, he's happy when the courtyard might wind up when the courtier and actor manager tell, Aravasu that, Paravasu has given him permission, to act in the play, he says he's a great Nittilai he tells himself, he'll be there to watch the play, but where are you? Why aren't you here, Nittilai, Nittilai I'm, going to act on stage, I hope you're watching please, please watch, the plays about to begin. Yes after all these years it's going to happen, but you know and brother knows and I know that this isn't the real thing, this is a fiction, borrow from the myths, the real play began somewhere else, a month ago, a month was it really that recent, it seems ages and ages of darkness ago, you and I were going to get married, begin a new life and I had to meet the elders of her tribe. Right? So, there's a flashback at this point, which goes back to the point when they, were in love and her Aravasu was going to, meet the tribal council of elders, to ask Nittilai, for her hand in marriage and Nittilai in act 1 tells, Aravasu that, she is hopeful that, the elders of our tribe will agree to the marriage, because it's not often as she says that they get a Brahmin groom. Right? So, they may actually think it's a matter of Honor, to get their daughter married, to a Brahmin groom and Aravasu says that, he is now free to as he says I'm, about to jettison my caste, my people, my whole heritage for you. Right? So, Nittilai of course is initially modest and she does not wish, wish to be touched, by a man before the marriage and so, she says I cannot be touched, Aravasu says I'm actually, giving up pronouncing my entire cost, my people, my whole, heritage for you, can't my, can't you forget a minor custom for my sake and Nittilai says this is, the only custom that actually worth, observing because I actually retained my, my modesty, my reputation.
So that, nothing there can be no mishap, before our, Aravasu says all these days I couldn't touch you because Brahmans don't touch other cars. Now, you come in, now you can't touch me because among hunters, those don't touch their betrothed, are you sure someone won't think of something else, once we married, then later on Aravasu again, expresses his desire, for sheer happiness and joy to be with Nittilai he has none of the ambitions, of the spiritual Aesthetic ambitions that, his brother and father and Yavakri have, his cousin, Yavakri has he says I'll never be loner like father or uncle I shan't, ever conduct the royal sacrifice, like Paravasu or perform penance like cousin Yavakri, all I want is to dance and sing an act and be with Nittilai, it doesn't matter a flake of counter, counter dung to my father, with him alive or dead, my sister lives wrapped up in a world of her own: that leaves only my brother, Sushi's he's not concerned with these temporal ambitions, of power and he's not concerned with the sacrifice, so he's free to do what he likes and Andhaka, who was the bland, the blind Shudra in the play, asks and what would happen if, Paravasu his brother forbids the barrage and he says Aravasu says I'll tell him, I can't give up my Nittilai she's my life, I can't live without her I'd rather be an outside outcast. So, he's willing to actually sacrifice his, his cost community, for his love for Nittilai and Nittilai of course is very concerned, hoping that they will get married because marriage is the only guarantee that she and her, trouble community has that, she will not be misled and betrayed, by a man who was willing to marry her, before the marriage. Then through Andhaka, Nittilai and Aravasu learn of Yavakri’s, pens that Yavakri performs these self-modifications and penance for years, to win the favor of Indra, 10 years under curses, 10 years of rigorous penance and still Lord Indra would not oblige, finally Yavakri stood in the middle of a circle of fire. And started offering his limbs to the fire, first his fingers, then his eyes, then his entrails, his tongue and at last his heart: that's when the God appeared to him, restored him limbs and granted him the boon, Andhaka later on says, 115 every Brahmin on the face of this earth, wants to gain spiritual powers, but few succeed, in my lifetime, I have known only two who did, your uncle as in referring to Aravasu’s uncle, your uncleaned your father, Aravasu.
But, they got their knowledge from human
gurus, by diligent study, Yavakri has gone beyond even them, he received as
knowledge from the gods, direct your uncle was sure he would feel, how he tried
to dissuade, the boy from taking on this ordeal. But, I said to him, master let
him go to the jungle, you don't know your son, I do, I brought him up, on this
lap of mine, he would succeed in anything he tries, you mark my words. So,
Andhaka is raised, Yavakri from the time he was a child and he stands convinced
that, Yavakri is determined, to win greater powers and to be blessed the line
with rain, through his, his harsh, severe austerities and penance, to win Lord
Indra’s favor. And now, he has come back so unlike Aravasu father and an uncle,
who won their spiritual power, through who gained the spiritual power, through
human gurus, Yavakri wins it, through the sheer determination and arrogance of,
of office penance, of Ass Tapasya to actually acquire, power spirit power from
Indra himself. And Nittilai is one of those characters, embodying the, the
profane non Brahmanical, world of the tribes, the tribal world of the tribes,
of the sutras, who calls me questions, the ritual discipline and form of
ascetic Brahmanism, she says you know, their fire sacrifices are conducted in
covered enclosures, they mortify themselves, in the dark of the jungle, even
their gods appear so, secretly, why? What are they afraid of? Look at my
people, everything is done in public view, the priest announces that he invoked
the deity, at such-and-such a time, on such and such a day and then the right
in front of the whole tribe, he gets possessed and the spirit answers your
questions, you can feel it come and go, you know it's there, not mere hearsay.
So, here in the tribal community you have a man who gets, possessed who becomes
the conduit, the medium through which, the earthly world communicates with the
spirit world. Unlike the world of Vedic Brahmanism, where everything happens,
as a secret ritual: that is only, privy to by Brahmins, you have a fire
sacrifice that happens in private, with in the presence in the front, in the
presence of the king and the Brahmins. So, this is the contrast that she draws
between the two worlds, the difference to come out of difference between the
world with Brahman and the world with the tribe, of the tribal. Nittilai says
my point is since Lord Indra, appear to Yavakri and Indra is their god of
rains, widened Yavakri asked, for a couple of good showers, you should see the
region around a village, washed every room, every morning, women with babes, on
hips shrunken children, shriveled old men and women gather in front of my
father's house, for the gruel he distributes, no young people, they have all
disappeared and father says, all the land needs is a couple of heavy downpours:
that will revive the earth, not too much to ask of God is it. So, she is, she's
very practical, she says what is, what, what stop Yavakri from asking Indra,
for rains. So, that they can, you know, overcome the famine and the drought
that has ravaged the land for decades. So, she is more interested in actually
you know, using divine divinity God and divine power to you know, save her
people from starvation and death. But, Andhaka says, half agree in that, these
divine powers, should not be used to solve day-to-day problems, they are meant
to lead to inner knowledge. Right? So, there's obviously a distinction being
made between, inner knowledge, inner spiritual knowledge, self-knowledge,
absolute infinite knowledge and power that's required to actually help,
humanity. Right? So, you have to the sacred, the divine the ritual and, and
human individual ambition, opposed to power that can be used divine power, the
power of humanity: that can be used to, to secure humanity's own welfare,
Nittilai later on says, actually I want to ask Yavakri two questions, can he
make it rain and then, can you tell when he is going to die, just to, what is
the point of any knowledge? If you can't save dying children and if you
can't predict your own moment of death.
Right? So, she's the voice of secular humanism, which is completely crushed and
killed, by the end of the plane. and of course, the Yavakri makes an appearance
later on, in another part of the stage, which is the Hermitage, Hermitage of Raibhya,
in the father Aravasu, Vishakha about 26, but she does not look like she is,
she's happy, I mean, she is she looks completely sullen and Haggard his
description, she was once an attractive woman.
But, now she is trapped in a loveless marriage, her husband has long left her, to be the chief priest of the fire sacrifice. And she's in a father-in-law right, because care. And she just spends our date, through the daily rituals; of you know collecting, the water and a pot. When Yavakri appears and she is quite surprised and shocked to see him, after so many years. And he makes advances at her and she's unable to, stop him, she does field in secret, pleased and happy to see him, after so many years. And Yavakri doesn't seem to have changed, at all from, his ten years of penance, he in his pursuit of universal knowledge, he is still susceptible to his own lust, for Vishakha. Again like Nittilai Vishakha is not a woman in the play, who questions, the hypocrisy of Brahminical discipline and asceticism. Because, these men have obviously not been, able to completely, sublimate their desires, their greed into, into Asceticism independence. Because, they are still the same people they still, overcome by, by lust and greed for power. Yavakri says, for a start, it's not as easy, as you think, to actually get universal knowledge from the God, it's not just that, it's not just a question of performing austerities, in the name of a god and then, winning universal knowledge.
It’s much harder than that, so he describes his arduous life, in the forest. He says, life in the jungle is sheer hell. Flies, giant ants, beetles, pests, leeches and attacking at the suspicion of moisture Vipers, lurking in bowels of, dust, the relentless heat, not demons but mosquitoes to torture you. One would expect the appearance of a God to be a shattering experience, concrete indubitable, almost physical. But, though I think, Indra came to be several times, I was never certain. Then, if the first time he appeared he said, no Yavakri, you can't master knowledge through austerities, it must come with experience, knowledge is time, it is space, you must move through these dimensions, I said, no I must have it, grant me all knowledge, he laughed and said, you're being silly, that's it. Common dialogue, not very profound and when the God disappeared, nothing was left, behind to prove he had never been there, I looked around ,the same old black scorpion, the same on chameleons, the shower of birdseed around me, so it was all a hallucination, caused by something and eaten that morning. Or was it fever working on my brain, so I go on, another year, perhaps two, then the god comes again, why are you being so stubborn, he chides, you can't cross a full stream on a bridges and so on. So, he is you have a Cree is relentless, in his pursuit for greater power, from Indra. Right? An Indra r says, the only way you can actually gain powers through experience, in not a god you're a human being. But, Yavakri it has not refuses to listen. Right? He’s determined to win his, his, his moon. But, Vishakha is in complete contrast to Yavakri. Because, she is only concerned with the fact that, she liked the Shudra, like the tribal is, outside the realm of Brahminical masculinity. Because, she has spent her life, abandoned, neglected, she has lost her youth or desirability; she seems to be even lost her LIF to hell her will to live. And she's not concerned, with these male Brahminical, male ambitions of power. And she also recounts, how after, the first year of marriage, when Paravasu gratified her is, I mean, sought sensual gratification, from Vishakha and then, abandons her in his father's care, to become the chief priest of the, of the fire sacrifice to the rain god, she Vishakha tells that, tells Yavakri, about how after the first year of marriage, Paravasu tells her that, on the first day of the second year of the marriage, she said, enough of that, we now start on our search and then, it wasn't that I was not happy, the question of happiness, receded into the background. So, for Vishakha happiness is just living, being happy with the husband. But, for the husband he wants to seek, absolute knowledge. Right? He used my body, in his own body like an experimenter, an explorer, as instruments in a search, search for what, I never knew. But, I knew he knew, nothing was too shameful, to degrade, to degrading, even too painful. Shame died in me and I yielded, I let my body be turned inside out, as he did his own, I had a sense, he was leading me on to something, mystical, spiritual, we never talked, then one day, he received the invitation from the King, to be the chief priests to the fire sacrifice and he left, the site of the fire sacrifices, only a couple of hours away from here. But, in all these seven years, he hasn't come back. So, he's only interested in, in pursuing in fathering his own, American power while, while Vishakha, has been left abandoned and trapped in a loveless marriage. And so, she blames both Yavakri and on, and Paravasu, of being these typical Brahmin men, who are only interested in, their own selfish ends. And later on, Yavakri actually meets, Nittilai, as she's talking to Aravasu, in fact later Aravasu in Nittilai almost discover, the affair that Yavakri having with Vishakha, as they are, as they are secretly talking to each other, along the banks of a river. When Aravasu walks in and upon them, but at the last moment, of a Vishakha escapes, but her clothes are torn and she's completely dirty with, with mud and the filth and slush on her back. And she sees here, he sees Yavakri pursuing her and on the way, Yavakri meets near Nittilai and, and contemptuously curses her, when Nittilai, he gets to know, he obviously knows through his divine knowledge that, she wants to know when he will die and so he says that, I don't know when I'll die, but I promise you, this you’ll be dead within a month. Right? So, you have a clear actually foretells, Nittilai his death. Later on, Aravasu and does not tell, rapier his father about, the affair between Yavakri and, and, and Vishakha although he discovers it, he learns somehow, he, he arrests, the secret outs out of all, Aravasu he realizes that, there's an affair going on between the two. And she's very disgusted with his daughter-in-law and caused a hole, for having an affair with, another man. But he falls a stop shot of Corsica and he decides that, its Paravasu responsibility to actually, take care of discipline his wife. So, Vishakha is not punished, but she's just iced for her, sexual transgression. And later on, a driver decides to actually, avenge the insult to his family, to his reputation by creating a Brahma Raksha’s. So, he even he invokes a Brahma Raksha’s and he tells, the Raksha’s to, to actually kill Yavakri. Right? He says, Vishakha he tells his daughter-in-law, ‘Vishakha go and tell you lover, I accept his challenge, I shall invoke the Kritya and send a Brahma Raksha’s a, a demon soul after him. Let Yavakri save himself, he need only go and hide in his father's Hermitage, I love my brother, I mean not desecrate his altar, let Yavakri cower in there like a dog, if he steps out, he'll be dead. And so, the only place Yavakri, can be free is that his father's hermitage and his father is, Raibhya brother. Since, Raibhya actually respects his, brother and the sanctity of his Hermitage, that's the only space where Yavakri can be safe and he says that, if Yavakri can keep himself alive for 24 hours, he will accept, defeat and I enter the file. So, Vishakha is intent on saving Yavakri life and they, go in search of him, Under Aravasu unable to find him. But, Vishakha sees him, for discovers in, you know murmuring incantations, sitting cross-legged, with his Kamandalu he is a water job in front of him. Vishakha runs and panting and while, Yavakri continues meditating. And he calls, she calls her to, Yavakri who opens his eyes and acknowledges, Vishakha presence and Vishakha tells him that, her father-in-law has, invoked the Kritya spell, to engage his or his full powers and that ,he has and he as you, he has made use of, all he has created a Brahma Raksha’s to actually kill, Yavakri. And Yavakri is not scared, he's not daunted because he has is, magical water, in his jug and he is, he's convinced that, a drop of this water, will render the demon powerless. But, Vishakha is not convinced and she ends up, pouring the water, into the earth. And Yavakri betrayed and then he starts, panicking and he rushes, towards his father's Hermitage. Because, that's the only space was, he can be safe. So, this is of course, a tragic ironic twist, in Cardinals rendition of the original tale, where Vishakha can only keep Yavakri alive by enabling his death. So, Yavakri rushes back then and Andhaka, who has been placed by Aravasu, on guard at Yavakri father's Hermitage, does not recognize, I don’t leaders not rather, recognize Yavakri footsteps stops him, but in the process the Brahma Raksha’s overcomes, overtakes Yavakri imperial scimitar spear, killing him on the spot. So, the act one ends with Yavakri death’. In act two, Raibhya is horrified to see that, her son Paravasu has left the sacrifice, just a month before his completion, having heard of his wife, Vishakha sexual misdemeanor, Vishakha meets, talks Paravasu after many years, for the first time and he also meets Aravasu and he gives Aravasu, permission to act in the play, it is here that Paravasu tells, Vishakha. Right? In fact, Vishakha again compares Paravasu to Yavakri says then, both of you, resemble each other. Because, both of you go away and whenever you feel like it. Right? So, she accuses both of them of using her, right for their own, sensual gratification. Paravasu says, one can practice austerities like a fool, Yavakri to coerce the gore gods to bend to one's will, stand in a circle of fire, torture oneself, so many techniques, all equally class to make the gods appear and when the given, what do you do: extend the begging bowl, give us rains, cattle, Suns, wealth, as the one defined human beings by their begging, eye despise it, I went because a fire sacrifices our formal right. Right? So, Paravasu describes the form of the fire sacrifice, as a formal structured right, it involves no emotional acrobatics, from the participants, the process itself will bring Indra, to me’. And if anything goes wrong, there’s nothing the gods can do about it, it has to be set right by a man, by mean, that's why, that's why when the moment comes, I shall confront Indra in silence, as an equal, for that, it is essential that one shed all human weakness, be alone, absolutely on one's own to face at moment, become a diamond, unscratched. All right? So, Paravasu desires to become absolutely, all-powerful and not just use prayers, not just use practices, austerities, as a means of gaining, access to the gods and favors from them. Right?
So, she he wants to actually overcome his human weakness. And become a Gordon is’, all right. So, there is no room for emotional attachment, in these fire sacrifices, it's an absolutely structured discipline. Right? Which goes beyond personal, obligations of emotions and an attachment? And Vishakha does not understand, there's an entire this obsession, with absolute power. She says that, what's so wrong in being human, what is wrong with his living, with leading a human life. Where one is just happy with, with what, what has and with, with, with one's attachments and love for Humanity. And she says, later on that,’ that even though Yavakri and you, used me and humiliated me for your own lust, at least Yavakri was warm and gentle, for a few minutes, he made me forget the wizened body, the scratchy claws and the blood and the blood cold as ice and he paid for it with his life’. And that's when. The Raibhya, a father-in-law appears and, and Paravasu here, deliberately kills his father, within her out of his hatred for his father, he kills his father, because his father killed Yavakri to disturb him, in the last stages of the sacrifice. So, he kills his father’. ‘And he returns to the sacrificial altar, meanwhile Aravasu who has been busy, performing the final rites, for Yavakri who has been killed, you know is late by half an hour for the, the meeting, with the tribal elders, where he's supposed to marry, Nittilai but since his late. The council of elders have has left and he is very upset that he has, lost his opportunity to actually marry Nittilai’. Who was then promptly married off, to another man from her own tribe and on the way back, he discovers that his father's been killed and Paravasu tells, lies to him saying that, he mistook their father for a wild animal and shorter with an arrow. But, Aravasu now has to perform the rites, for his, for their father, the rites of penitence and Paravasu tells delegates the, the responsibility of performing. These rights of penitence to his brother. While he returns immediately to the sacrificial altar. And there later on, the he meets the Brahma Raksha’s and, and Brahma Raksha’s, through the Brahma Raksha’s was performed his, his, his role of, function of killing our Yavakri. Now, seeks to be freed from the bondage of life and death. And begs Paravasu to, meet the gods to encounter the gods in his sacrifice and, and request that, he be you know, released from both from the bondage of life and rebirth’. But Paravasu refuses he does not know, how he can help, the Brahma Raksha’s and when I reverse who comes in the sacrificial area, after completing the funeral rites, you know Paravasu falsely accuses, wrongly accused in the Aravasu of having killed their father, for which the Brahmins, refused to let him come in, they take some a couple of soldiers take hold of him and drag him away. ‘Act three begins with Aravasu lying in the outskirts of the city, with Nittilai sleeping next to him. Right? And when he wakes up, he is right and not knowing, not knowing where he is, but he's very happy to see Nittilai. And he's, a he's a neighbor, he's incredulous of a sight of Nittilai and it let us him that, she escaped from her husband and to rescue a reversal. Nittilai is also willing to choose all of, Aravasu over her husband and she says, Aravasu when I say, we should be together, I don't mean we should have to live together, like lovers are like husband and wife, I have been wishes enough to my husband, I don't want to disgrace him further, let's be together, like brother and sister, you marry any girl you like, only please Aravasu square a corner for me. So, she is willing to think outside the fold of marriage, to actually probably even continue in living with her husband, while at the same time, having some kind of relationship with Aravasu. Even if it is not one of marriage or a romantic relationship, outside marriage. And Aravasu who's determined to actually avenge, the death of his father and so he says, he tells Nittilai ,I can't help it, I want to make all, make them all pay’, Yavakri, father, Paravasu, it's a conspiracy, don't you see, it's all planned because I wanted to marry you, because I was, I was, ready to reject my caste ,my birth, can't you see it, I wanted to strike out on my own, so first a corpse calls itself around my ankles’. Yavakri then its father, bodies drenched in blood, like rats that pour out in the plague and die vomiting blood, so he is can he's convinced, he's determined to actually avenge there, their killings. But, ’Nittilai tries to dissuade him from, perpetuating the spiraling cycle of violence and bloodshed. And Nittilai says, leave that to the gods’. ‘Aravasu look at your family, Yavakri avenges his father shame, by attacking your sister-in-law, your father avenges her by killing Yavakri, your brother kills your father and now, you in your turn, want vengeance, where will it all end.
However so, so what do I do? Sit in a corner with my hands crossed, like a eunuch’, Nittilai do that, better than better that, then become the man you hate. Right? She tries to convince him, to not for bitch wait further violence and bloodshed, the actor manager tells, ‘Aravasu any fool can see that, you two belong to, different worlds. anything is possible in these troubled times, so I won't comment, but your names on every tongue in this town and they are mostly trying to spit it out, I didn't save your life, she did, I only found you, you were lucky that she turned up, soon after and as she who has been nursing you, mopping up your vomit, wiping your bottom, like a baby. I am grateful to her because, my babies were starving when she came and now they get a bite to eat every day, when she gets the food from, I where she gets the food from, I don't know, but she knows the woods. So, obviously Nittilai is a symbol of compassion, she someone was able to access, food from the woods the forest that she knows intimately, we would have moved out of this town the day, the old man died, except that we have become dependent on her, for food, for nursing, for laughter, we're just waiting to leave with her, but she won't budge to do better. Then, later on Aravasu decides to actually act in the play and she decides, he wants to play the role of Ritter. Right? And Nittilai tells, the actor manager that her father and brother and husband .Will also be there. Towards the performance. So. They obviously in search of her and they're willing to do it, ok. To do anything to get Nittilai back. So, she's very upscale, that maybe her husband might actually, end up killing a reversal and, and killing her too and she doesn't want to die. So, the whole act of performing in the play itself is, an act of exposure or to that tribal community, the actor manager of course is only interested in the pin, in the performance happening. Because, that's his only source of income and livelihood so, so that's the only way that, he says my children will sleep on a full stomach, for number two months, if this play happens. So, when all of us who decides to play the role Britta and not Indra’. Nittilai says, I'm glad you're not playing Indra, I don't like that god of yours, he's immortal when someone doesn't die, can't die, what can he know about anything, he can't change himself, he can't, can't create anything, I like with Rudra because even when he is triumphant, he chooses death, I always wonder, if flowers didn't know, they were to fade and die, would they ever blossom. Right? So, again the contrasts between immortality, but immortal gods like Indra, who can never change. Because, they can't die. Right? Who can't create anything, because they can't die, but it's far more glorious, far more joyous to play, a human mortal character who, who can, who can create, who can show compassion, for Humanity who can create transformations and change and who can choose death. They use masks in the play. And Aravasu wears the mask of Rudra and the demon and the actor manager wants a saying that you should surrender to the mosque, but surrender you and pull your life into it. But, remember once you bring the mask to life, you have to keep a tight control over it; otherwise it will try to take over. Right? It will begin to dictate, dictate terms to you and you must never let that happen. Right? So, I know the risk that, if he surrenders to the mask, the mask may actually take over him and acquire a life of its own, which, which is exactly what happens in the play. So, in the play of course there are these three characters, in their Lord Indra and his brother’s half-brothers, Rudra and Vishwarupa.
Vishwarupa is Rama, Brahma son with a human,
mortal woman. And Rudra is Brahma son with a dear female demon’. And Indra is
very insecure, about Vishwarupa. Because, Mr. Vishwarupa has won the, the
raises of everyone, for his wisdom and his gentleness and Indra feels extremely
insecure and won arable. Because, he seems he feels like, he feeds like, an
eclipse to moon, he feels like his lorry has been eclipsed by, by Vishwarupa.
And so, he wants to kill, Vishwarupa and therefore, Rudra offers to protect Vishwarupa
from Indra. So, the two are inseparable because, they are paired always trying
to save, each other from Ingra’s wrath. So, Indra organizes a fire sacrifice in
honor of Brahma and he invites all the gods and the men to the sacrifice. And
he also invites, which will part of the sacrifice and but, forbids withdraw
from coming because, he is a rock Chasseur or diamond. So, of course the play
itself is a, an allusion to the actual play, the outs of the play, outside
play, an allusion to the relationship between Aravasu, Paravasu and a father
Raibhya’. And ultimately of course Indra betrays Vishwarupa and he kills Vishwarupa
and Rudra is very upset, at his brother's death. And he enters the enclosure
and he sees Vishwarupa dying and he is furious, at Indra treachery and they
have a, duel and in the fight, the actor managers playing Indra and Aravasu
who's playing Rudra and he completely surrenders to the mask, which actually
brings with Rudra character to life and the very distinction between fiction
and reality is completely, collapsed in this moment, where he says, you can elude
me Indra, but you can't escape me, even if you fly in like a falcon, across 99
reverse, I'll find you, I'll destroy you, I'll raise your befall sacrificed the
ground, I'll burn down the sacrifice. And that's when, other words who begins
destroying the sacrifice and the actor manager says, no, no, not that, stop
him, stop him, for God's sake’. And ‘Agni Varsha who says, I'm a Brahmin, if
you try to stop me, I'll kill myself and the same is done and the sin of
killing a Brahman will be on your heads, I'm a rock show sir and I'll kill
anyone who tries to stop me and the actor manager is trying very hard to get
the mask, off on Aravasu face, which is what Nittilai leaders, Nittilai
struggles and she finally manages to remove the mask from
Aravasu and the Brahmins are furious because,
the entire sacrifice is being desecrated,
by the tribal’s and, and Aravasu who was going to destroy the sacrifice just at
the moment of his completion and Paravasu was watching the entire play realizes
that, the play is alluding is, an allusion to him and he, he tries to stop, the
destruction, by you know, he knocks out of us sit down, he pins him to the
ground and he and the husband , Nittilai husband pulls out a knife and grabs
Nittilai by her hair and slashes her throat. Aravasu who gets up but it's too
late, to save, Nittilai who tried to intervene to save him, from the fury of
the mask that took over and Indra, Indra voice can be heard back in the skies
and he tells her, heaters Aravasu who do not grieve, we are pleased with you,
ask for any boon and I shall be granted. Right? So, Aravasu asks that, that
Nittilai be brought back to life. So, interest please by the way Aravasu, who challenged
Indra and perceived him in the play and then, he says, that he, he asks him to,
ask for a boon and he says, Indra says, it's not, this it's no, it's no big
deal, bringing a Nittilai back to life. But, once the wheel of time starts
rolling back, it will bring back, everyone to life. All those who have been
killed, but ever so, you have Yavakri and Nittilai they will all be brought
back to life. And, and, and you have a Yavakri, Aravasu yes; let them all be
brought back to life. But Indra says that, if they're all brought back to life,
then they may be a repetition of the same tragedies and then, Aravasu who says
that may not happen. Because now, having lived this life, of, of sacrifice, I
have become, I have grown wiser. Right? And I will not commit the same mistakes
again. And Indra is, Indra is on the verge of granting him the boon, of bringing
back Paravasu Yavakri and his father to life, when the Brahma Raksha’s
intervenes and begs
Aravasu to release him from the bondage of life and death and Aravasu who's on the verge of, relenting out of his sheer compassion for, the Brahma Raksha’s. But Indra says, there's another consideration, that if the Wheel of Time must roll back, Nittilai will turn to life, but it must roll forward, for the Brahma Raksha’s to be released, from the bondage of life and rebirth. So you can't have it both ways. You can either bring Nittilai back to life or you can release the Brahma Raksha’s from the bondage of life and rebirth and that's exactly what our Aravasu chooses to do. So, as the Brahma action says that, ‘you're a human being, you are capable of mercy’, so Brahma the Aravasu who actually, takes mercy on him and you know, releases him, from the, cycle of life in death. So therefore, Nittilai actually ends up becoming, a scapegoat, to the rivalries, between these different Brahmin men and also Aravasu’s own desire to, to seek the welfare of his community and so that's exactly how, the, the play ends, with Nittilai living a life, as tormented as the Brahma Raksha’s, where, you know, the Brahma Raksha’s is resurrected and released from the cycle of, life and rebirth. But Nittilai is now living the tormented life of a spirit and this is exactly how the play ends
THE DOMINANCE OF POWER IN THE FIRE AND THE RAIN
The play The Fire and the Rain occurs in a small region of India long ago that has experienced a lack of rain for ten years. The king proposed to propitiate the Gods through fire sacrifice. So that God would be pleased and send rain to the parched land. In this fire sacrifice Paravasu, the son of a learned Brahmin Raibhya, was appointed as the Chief Priest. And the play deals with this appointment and the disappointments of certain other characters. One disappointment definitely with reference to the father going by ancient Indian tradition, a lot of emphasis was put on age seniority Girish Karnad has consummate command over English and he has successfully and artistically nativized it for expressing Indian ethos and sensibility. His diction is apt. His words are suggestive and reveal both character and situation. Economy and precision, clarity, and lucidity characterize his style. For example, the following dialogue between Aravasu and Nittilai brings to light the fundamental difference between the Brahminical and the Tribal social orders. Keywords; Power, Dominance, Situation, Stricken.
The play The Fire and the Rain occurs in a small region of India long ago that has experienced a lack of rain for ten years. The king proposed to propitiate the Gods through fire sacrifice. So that God would be pleased and send rain to the parched land. In this fire sacrifice Paravasu, the son of a learned Brahmin Raibhya, was appointed as the Chief Priest. And the play deals with this appointment and the disappointments of certain other characters. One disappointment definitely with reference to the father going by ancient Indian tradition, a lot of emphasis was put on age seniority i.e., age has always been respected. Older people have always been considered wiser because of their wider experience. Going by this tradition the learned Raibhya should have been appointed as the chief Priest but for practical reasons longevity of life span, the King chose to appoint Paravasu, the elder son as the Chief Priest. This appointment had disappointed and agonized the senior. The high priest of the temple, Paravasu is eager to perform a ceremony to bring rain. The play “The Fire and The Rain opens with the representative of an actor`s group expressing their desire to give a dramatic performance as a means of entertainment for the Gods. After much discussion the group is given permission to perform at the fire sacrifice. The play performed by this group of actors has a dual audience. First group performing the fire sacrifices as well as the survivors of the drought-stricken kingdom. Second group the actual audience watching the play. In this sense the play performed by the group of actors is the play incorporated within the main frame of the play “The Fire and the Rain’ Meanwhile, Paravasu’s younger brother Aravasu is romancing Nittilai. Aravasu is a Brahmin, but Nittilai is of a lower cast, and there is a difference between Brahmin and Tribal customs. Tribals are more free, more open in making a marriage proposal or declaration. Declaration of being fit normal and willing to marry had to be made in front of the entire village as per tribal customs. Aravasu a Brahmin was unaccustomed to this idea and was both nervous and embarrassed about following this tribal custom. Aravasu has very clear idea about his position with reference to his family that he is inferior and therefore considered quite worthless by everyone. He is also clear about the one thing that he wanted in his life is to dance, sing, act, and be with his beloved Nittilai. Paravasu has marital problems of his own, having abandoned his spouse Vishaka, who is establishing a liaison with Yavakri, Paravasu’s first cousin. Yavakri, who has just returned from ten years of meditation, believes that Paravasu is unfit to be the high priest. His actual behavior and words are far from those of a purified and enlightened person. After all the penance and sacrifice he has done with God, he continues to be a victim of lust and desire something not acceptable from an enlightened monk. Thus, the reality turns out to be that Yavakri is not very different from what he was 10 years. For all the apparent “knowledge” he is said to have acquired, is as ignorant and uncontrolled and coarse as he was before. He does not have the mastery of controlling his emotions and desires. All his knowledge is incapable of making him realize what was inappropriate in speech and acts. Through this the playwright raises the issue of knowledge versus wisdom. Blind Raibhya the father of both Paravasu and Aravasu, summon a demon to kill Yavakri, and asks Vishaka to save her lover by asking him to remain in his house for the whole day. After hearing her father-in-law words, Vishakha seeks Aravasu’s help. When Aravasu reaches the place of Yavakri to save him from demon, demon kills Yavakri. After finishing the funeral rites of Yavakri, Aravasu reaches the place of Nittilai’s village. That is the day Nittilai’s father has summoned the villagers to meet Aravasu in order to approve of their marriage. Because of cremation duties and other family matters delay Aravasu’s arrival in Nittilai’s village, her father loses patience and hands her off in marriage to the first volunteer. There is a conflict between father and son, selection of Paravasu at the fire sacrifice instead of the father who is senior in knowledge, experience, wisdom and age. Father`s opinion about the King`s choice is very bad of worsens after he sees the son`s behavior returning home when there is still a month left for the sacrificial rite. Paravasu has responded Raibhya that if he returns back to the ritual in the morning no one would know. The father was shocked at this response because of the foolishness of the response during sacrificial rites were more for the sake of self and God and not for the public. Paravasu: The king often says he would have preferred you to be the Chief Priest. But it was a seven-year rite. They thought a younger man safer. Raibhya: full of anger, is full of contempt on the son`s and King`s behavior. Raibhya: if you want to be alone with wife, send that fool somewhere else. I don’t need him. It’s not the wild beasts one has to watch out for it’s the human beings Soon, Paravasu kills Raibhya because he disrupted the sacrifice by killing Yavakri and he had behaved indecently with his daughter-in-law Vishakha. Hence according to Paravasu, Raibhya his father deserved to die. He asks Aravasu that he has to return to preside over the yajna and cannot leave the precincts of the sacrifice before the completion of the tenure. Aravasu complies with the orders of his brother which results in his being accused of murder and beaten almost to death. A dying Aravasu is rescued by the actor manager and nursed back to health by his beloved Nittilai. The care and concern shown by Nittilai in his hour of need lends a healing touch to Aravasu who had been wounded emotionally and physically by his brother. Aravasu wanted to take revenge for the betrayal by his brother because he was convinced that the chain of events that had occurred recently happened because he was about to reject his caste by getting married to Nittilai. The two deaths and their outcome had driven him away from Nittilai. Paravasu revenges his brother in two ways, one by denying his permission to act and by creating circumstances in which he could not get married to Nittilai. Nittilai who belonged to a hunter tribe that was very close to nature was full of practical common sense. She dissuaded Aravasu from the idea of revenge, because she sincerely thought that there would only be more bloodshed if Aravasu tried to take revenge. This would only lead to more sorrow and suffering. The bloodshed of revenge did not have the capacity to set right or change in any way anything that had gone wrong. Her advice was to leave things as they were so that suffering might
be minimized. When Aravasu regains his strength, he performs in a play wearing a mask in front of Paravasu, the priest, and the villagers. At a dramatic point in the play, Aravasu deviates from the script to burn down the temple, killing Paravasu, while villagers from Nittilai find her in the audience and slay her. With dying Nittilai in Aravasu’s arms, the God Indra suddenly appears, offering to grant Aravasu a single wish. Although he could ask to rain, Aravasu clearly wants Nittilai alive. Indra says that such a wish would reverse time, but ultimately the same events would repeat. Then the demon who killed Yavakri appears, begging Aravasu to ask Indra for his release from a condition in which he can neither live normally nor die peacefully. Aravasu then asks Indra for the demon’s freedom, reasoning that Nittilai would have made the same decision. Rain falls in abundance. In The Fire and the Rain, Karnad treats the problem of a moralism in contemporary life. It is a criticism of the Brahmin society on the one hand, while on the other hand, his approach is realistic and existential. He has artistically and beautifully handled the power of myth. In the Prologue, Aravasu declares, “... this is a fiction, borrowed from myths”. It is a re-enactment of a puranic myth from the Mahabharata of Indra’s destruction of his brother out of jealous fury. Aravasu’s cry, “But why, Brother, why?”, rings throughout the play frequently voicing the puzzled fury and heart-rending agony of betrayal by a worshipped brother. The play has a complex framework with a central myth assuming the form of a framework of the story of Aravasu’s betrayal by his brother Paravasu, the chief priest performing a yajna to bring rain to the drought -stricken land. The Indian mythology, according to Girish Karnad, expresses a deep concern over “the fear of brother destroying brother where the bonding of brothers within the Pandava and the Kuru clans is as close as the enmity between the cousins is ruthless and unrelenting.”
It is a play, which is based on the myth of Yavakri, Indra and Vritra. The eternal conflict of good and evil continues from the period of the Mahabharata to the modern contemporary society. The myth of Yavakri is a story of ambition to achieve the universal knowledge directly from the Gods but not from the human gurus, which is unjustified and immature. Knowledge without experience is dangerous to humanity is the message passed on by Gods to Yavakri as well as to human beings on earth. The mythical play within play is enacted in the last section of the play and depicts Indra’s attempt to destroy Viswa, his stepbrother, in order to be unrivalled in all the domains. Indra considers himself to be the legitimate son of Brahma; he cannot tolerate the existence of Viswa, the son of Brahma from an earthly woman or Vritra. It is a fight for supremacy. Viswa is played by the theatre manager; Vritra by Aravasu. Aravasu is a character in the original play and his task is to protect humanity. He is severely wronged by his elder brother Paravasu and falsely accused by him as their father’s murderer. Paravasu, the chief priest of the seven years” fire sacrifice conducted in the King’s palace in order to propitiate God Indra, represents Indra in the play. The drama of real life runs parallel to the myth. The play underlines the need for supreme human quality, that is mercy and compassion represented by Nittilai, the beloved of Aravasu, who belongs to the Shudra class–the tribe of hunters. Nittilai as a “lamp into hurricane” symbolizes the rains of human love. The play illustrates the use of myth in a powerful way. The game of trickery and treachery adopted by Indra in order to kill Virtra in self-defense is the story of modern politicians in the realm of reality. They are much superior to Gods even in their art of treachery, deceit and cunningness. The myth of the Mahabharata is the story of modern hero of every family and the play through the myth of Yavakri, an elitist Brahmin, tells the sad aspect of jealousy, power politics, and neglect of woman. Myth mirrors the contemporary reality of existentialist society. The context of the mythical play in The Fire and the Rain is relevant, morality-oriented and thought provoking. It possesses the merits of morality with shades of reality and ideology. Fire is used as a myth in The Fire and the Rain. Fire, that is, “Agni”, is worshipped as a deity in Indian mythology. All the rituals and rites are to be performed in the presence of this deity. In this play, it is presented for various purposes, such as for penance in the case of Yavakri, for warning Nittilai and for cremation of Raibhya. And Rain is also equally important in this play.
From the beginning to the end, it is Indra, that is rain, who plays the most vital role in the story of the play. Whether it is Yavakri or Paravasu or anyone else like the King or the Action–Manager, all are seen trying their best to please Indra who grants the last will of Aravasu and gives rain to the world. In the plot dealing with the myth of Yavakri, Karnad has very intelligently incorporated the Indian myth of the slaying of the demon Vritra by Indra. Significantly enough at the end of the play rain occurs only when Aravasu’s mask of Vritra is removed from his face. This is in conformity with the Indra myth found in the Rig Veda as well as in the Mahabharata. Summarizing this myth, Karnad in his “Notes” to the play says, In the Rig Veda, Vritra, “the shoulder less one (a serpent) swallows rivers and hides the waters inside him. Indra, by killing him, releases the waters and “like lowing cows”, the rivers flow out. The importance of this deed to the Vedic culture is borne out by the epithet, “Vritrahan” or the slayer of Vritra, by which Indra is repeatedly hailed. Thus, Indra is the source of all actions in The Fire and the Rain. Yavakri undertakes penance for ten years and Paravasu for seven years in order to please Indra, the God of Rains. The Epilogue very significantly presents the myth of the slaying of the demon Vritra by Indra. Through the dramatization of the mythological episode of Aravasu’s love for a tribal girl, Karnad very significantly condemns and ridicules the caste system, which has been a social stigma for ages. The mythical Paravasu represents modern man, who, because of his self-centered materialistic approach to life, seeks progress even at the cost of his own father and brother. Thus, Karnad in The Fire and the Rain has made use of myth for social, religious and philosophical purposes. In The Fire and the Rain, Karnad focuses on the evil of caste war. This play mirrors the growing war between saints, rishis, Brahmins and low–caste people, actors, hunters and man–made classification of caste war as a tool of achieving the height of superiority and power. He also concentrates on “purusharthas” like “dharma”, “artha”, “kama” and “moksha” as the four ethical goals of human existence. “Dharma” governs the spiritual sphere, “artha” relates to political and economic power, “kama” to the sexual and aesthetic gratification and “moksha” to the final liberation from human bondage from the cycle of births and deaths.
The characters Bharadwaja and Raibhya, the two saint friends, propound the quest for supremacy of knowledge. But their “dharma” becomes “adharma” for achieving the post of chief priest of the fire sacrifice, a symbol of “artha”–political and economic power. Paravasu and Yavakri are also a part of such political ambitions. Yavakri is involved in fulfillment of his “kama” with the wife of Paravasu and finally, they all deviate from the moral standards of purusharthas, which creates a hellish world for them and to repent as cursed beings. Unable to find any liberation from human bondage, they become victims of their attitudes. These characters represent the men of contemporary society who are trying to achieve their goal of political heights without caring for dharma. Yavakri is a symbol of an ambitious person who wants to get knowledge without maturity and experience, not “knowledge from human gurus” but “knowledge from the Gods, direct” and “the whole world is at its feet”. Such short–cut of knowledge for supremacy is a dangerous act and it may lead humanity to disaster. Even Indra has appeared before him and has said that, “No, Yavakri, you can’t master knowledge through austerities. It must come with experience. Knowledge is time. It is space. You must move through these dimensions”. The Gods again come and suggest, “... you can’t cross a full stream on a bridge of sand”. Yavakri represents the contemporary scholar of knowledge who tries to remove all ladders of experience and to reach the peak of knowledge and seat of learning with less experience and less knowledge. The story of Yavakri is a lesson to people that knowledge should be acquired in the right manner. It is a story of modern pundits of the intellectual society that Karnad has beautifully narrated through Yavakri in The Fire and the Rain. The Fire and the Rain is, on the one hand, a criticism of the Brahminic society while on the other hand, Karnad’s approach is to realism and existentialism. The prevailing evil in man is a natural vice, which doesn’t spare anyone. It is not caste that upholds the society, but virtue that maintains the quality of life on earth. This moral consideration is greatly important as it has ensnared mankind from the onslaughts of evils. It is immorality or vice which is attacked and criticized, and after the rehabilitation of values, the face of contemporary society emerges in its triumphant design of richer human and moral values. In this play, Karnad emphasizes that “Brahmanism is no Godism”. He deals with the merits of Brahminic qualities such as goodness, gentlemanliness, truth and sacrifice, but condemns the evils like priesthood and inhuman acts of fire sacrifice at the cost of human life. Paravasu, Yavakri, Raibhya, Bharadwaja and Aravasu belong to a high Brahminic class and their quest for spiritual power and universal knowledge does not bring them to the state of supremacy as they are involved in the sub – human, sub-standard and un–Brahminic acts of jealousy, power hankering, and ruthless curses for total ruin of each other. Brahmins are considered to be the torch–bearers of society but they themselves are lost and misguided in the way of ignoble deeds. The greatest tragedy in the contemporary society is that the educated, talented and meritorious people of the upper strata of society exploit the underprivileged men and women.
Aravasu, the son of Raibhya, a superior Brahmin in the play, the brother of Paravasu and the chief priest, propounds the values of love, kindness and humanity as the rarer virtues of mankind. Nittilai, Andhaka, Sudra and state–manager represent the greater virtues of goodness, humanity, love, kindness, broad mindedness and sense of human touch and human belonging in the play. These minor characters are represented as the makers of a humanistic society while major characters represent a class of higher status who lack impassioned hearts. Aravasu forgets and forgives everybody and on his prayer to Sun God, everybody including his father Raibhya, brother Paravasu, cousin Yavakri are revived. Finally, after the sacrifice of Aravasu and Nittilai all condemned souls are released and “moksha”, the ultimate desire of man on earth takes place because of “purushartha” of Aravasu and sacrifice of Nittilai. It is a great sacrifice of Aravasu and Nittilai for the sake of humanity. Rain falls like gentle mercy and kindness, and all fires of sex, hunger, power and jealousy are defeated, shattered and condemned as evil acts. The final note of the play is the quest for humanity since, according to Ambika Ananth, the Blood which runs in humans is devoid of humanity No elbow- room for love and emotions of a mother, lover, sister or son All are same, rulers are same in the game of gunning pandemic violence. “The Fire and the rain” are the sixth successful drama of Girish Karnad. It is based on mythology, for which the dramatist has relied heavily on an episode in the Mahabharata. The Fire and the Rain is the translation of his Kannada play Agni Mattu Male. Agni is the Sanskrit word for fire and acts as a witness at weddings and cremations, and it is also the meme of God of fire. Mattu means “and” a spoken Kannada word, male means “rain,” “pure” and “simple.” The dramatist has used various devices like – slokas, mask, wind instruments, drums, music, curtains, flashback technique, light, mock laments, the play with in a play, the presence of gods, demonic souls, supernatural elements, fire etc., very effectively. These devices are instrumental in creating an atmosphere suitable for a mythological plot. The plot of the play is not as simple as that of Karnad’s earlier plays. It is picked from the Vana Parva, the forest canto, of the Mahabharata. Karnad presents problems of class system in Indian society by using myths, folklore. In The Fire and the Rain, Vishakha, is related to upper class of society and Nittilai is related to lower caste tribe. Karnad presents how Nittilai is forced to marry within her tribe. The researcher feels Karnad uses myth of Yavakri, Indra, Yajna to present how lower caste people prohibited to attend the Fire Sacrifice. It is believed from very ancient times to modern times some events related to Gods like pelage to God, penance of God must be done by only upper-class people. Karnad used prologue and epilogue in The Fire and the Rain to present the co-relationship between dramatic theme and myth to know audience. In prologue it is explained that the ritual begins for a seven years long fire sacrifice. It is explained in the prologue that in which condition and what reason the King and the chief priest performing the Fire Sacrifice. At the end of the play epilogue is given to explain that how Aravasu puts on the mask. There is a roar of drums and then a sudden silence. Aravasu gives a roar and jumps up. He dances violently. The play is on. The Actor-Manager dressed up as Indra enters from one side. The Actor playing Vishwarupa enters from the other and conversation between Vishwarupa and Indra begins. This information is presented in Epilogue. So, it is one of Karnad’s dramatic characteristics to present his prologue and epilogue to interlink or relate to the main theme of the play and audience should be aware about it.
The play begins with the dominant myth Yavakri. It places the action that follows in the realm of the mythical and the elemental. The quest for personal and social meanings through the myth contributes to the cohesive structure of the play. It involves the nature of the world analysis of the concept of morality and emotion which leads one to the essentiality of human experience itself. The myth of Vritra and Indra acts as catalyst to free Paravasu and Aravasu from the human bondage of fear and vengeance. The prologue and the Epilogue are inevitably conjoined to project a holistic view of life. Thus, researcher feels that Karnad’s use of prologue and epilogue are inevitably conjoined to project a holistic view of life to present the moral lesson or teach some moral to audience. So, it is one of the dramatic characteristics of Karnad to use prologue, epilogue and myths in his plays. In The Fire and the Rain, the fire sacrifice is a symbol of power and that of spiritual and intellectual peak of knowledge for Brahmins as priests. The fire sacrifice represents self-gratification, self- examination and self-purification of jealously, envy, power politics and supremacy of their sectarian attitude. Karnad has beautifully displayed the game of spiritual power as political activity prevailing and society as a contemporary reality. Brahmins are being attacked not as liberators or well-wishers of society but as pretenders and culprits of the contemporary world and they are worst-hit. In The Fire and the Rain, Karnad emphasizes that Brahminism is no Godism. He dwells on the merits of Brahminic qualities like goodness, gentlemanliness, truth and sacrifice, but condemns the devil-like priesthood and inhuman acts of fire sacrifice at the cost of human life. Paravasu, Yavakri, Raibhya and Bharadwaja belong to a high Brahminic class and their quest for spiritual power and universal knowledge does not bring them to the state of supremacy as they are involved in the sub-human, sub-standard and un-Brahminic acts of jealousy, power-hankering, ruthless curse for total ruin of each other. It is the greatest tragedy of the modern society that the educated, talented and meritorious people of the upper strata of society are exploiting the privileged men and woman present. The other characters involved in the quest for knowledge and superiority mirror their meaner qualities in fires of sex, anger, politics and jealousy. Politics- power within the knowledgeable person present the bitter reality of ancient society. Raibhya, Paravasu and Yavakri are the representatives of this society who wanted to get power, prestige and social recognition by hook or crook, particularly by following the unethical ways and means. They invest their energies in the possession of power which made them isolated from society. First of all, Paravasu has gained priestly honors, name and fame but still he was dissatisfied with it. His ambition is to become equal with Indra. So, he crushes or kills those who came in his path, including his own father and wife. Raibhya claims superior intellectual and cultural caliber than his son, Paravasu. His unrest wish is that he should be appointed as the chief priest of fire sacrifice. But the king appoints Paravasu as the chief priest which made Raibhya jealous. His jealousy results in killing of Yavakri at sacrificial time, particularly for disturbing Paravasu in the last stages of sacrifice. Indeed, the father the myth of the slaying of the demon Vritra by Indra. Through the dramatization of the mythological episode of Aravasu’s love for a tribal girl, Karnad very significantly condemns and ridicules the caste system, which has been a social stigma for ages. The mythical Paravasu represents modern man, who, because of his self-centered materialistic approach to life, seeks progress even at the cost of his own father and brother. Thus, Karnad in The Fire and the Rain has made use of myth for social, religious and philosophical purposes. In The Fire and the Rain, Karnad focuses on the evil of caste war. This play mirrors the growing war between saints, rishis, Brahmins and low–caste people, actors, hunters and man–made classification of caste war as a tool of achieving the height of superiority and power. He also concentrates on “purusharthas” like “dharma”, “artha”, “kama” and “moksha” as the four ethical goals of human existence. “Dharma” governs the spiritual sphere, “artha” relates to political and economic power, “kama” to the sexual and aesthetic gratification and “moksha” to the final liberation from human bondage from the cycle of births and deaths.
The characters Bharadwaja and Raibhya, the two saint friends, propound the quest for supremacy of knowledge. But their “dharma” becomes “adharma” for achieving the post of chief priest of the fire sacrifice, a symbol of “artha”–political and economic power. Paravasu and Yavakri are also a part of such political ambitions. Yavakri is involved in fulfillment of his “kama” with the wife of Paravasu and finally, they all deviate from the moral standards of purusharthas, which creates a hellish world for them and to repent as cursed beings. Unable to find any liberation from human bondage, they become victims of their attitudes. These characters represent the men of contemporary society who are trying to achieve their goal of political heights without caring for dharma. Yavakri is a symbol of an ambitious person who wants to get knowledge without maturity and experience, not “knowledge from human gurus” but “knowledge from the Gods, direct” and “the whole world is at its feet”. Such short–cut of knowledge for supremacy is a dangerous act and it may lead humanity to disaster. Even Indra has appeared before him and has said that, “No, Yavakri, you can’t master knowledge through austerities. It must come with experience. Knowledge is time. It is space. You must move through these dimensions”. The Gods again come and suggest, “... you can’t cross a full stream on a bridge of sand”. Yavakri represents the contemporary scholar of knowledge who tries to remove all ladders of experience and to reach the peak of knowledge and seat of learning with less experience and less knowledge. The story of Yavakri is a lesson to people that knowledge should be acquired in the right manner. It is a story of modern pundits of the intellectual society that Karnad has beautifully narrated through Yavakri in The Fire and the Rain. The Fire and the Rain is, on the one hand, a criticism of the Brahminic society while on the other hand, Karnad’s approach is to realism and existentialism. The prevailing evil in man is a natural vice, which doesn’t spare anyone. It is not caste that upholds the society, but virtue that maintains the quality of life on earth. This moral consideration is greatly important as it has ensnared mankind from the onslaughts of evils. It is immorality or vice which is attacked and criticized, and after the rehabilitation of values, the face of contemporary society emerges in its triumphant design of richer human and moral values. In this play, Karnad emphasizes that “Brahmanism is no Godism”. He deals with the merits of Brahminic qualities such as goodness, gentlemanliness, truth and sacrifice, but condemns the evils like priesthood and inhuman acts of fire sacrifice at the cost of human life. Paravasu, Yavakri, Raibhya, Bharadwaja and Aravasu belong to a high Brahminic class and their quest for spiritual power and universal knowledge does not bring them to the state of supremacy as they are involved in the sub – human, sub-standard and un–Brahminic acts of jealousy, power hankering, and ruthless curses for total ruin of each other. Brahmins are considered to be the torch–bearers of society but they themselves are lost and misguided in the way of ignoble deeds. The greatest tragedy in the contemporary society is that the educated, talented and meritorious people of the upper strata of society exploit the underprivileged men and women.
Aravasu, the son of Raibhya, a superior Brahmin in the
play, the brother of Paravasu and the chief priest, propounds the values of
love, kindness and humanity as the rarer virtues of mankind. Nittilai, Andhaka,
Sudra and state–manager represent the greater virtues of goodness, humanity,
love, kindness, broad mindedness and sense of human touch and human belonging
in the play. These minor characters are represented as the makers of a
humanistic society while major characters represent a class of higher status
who lack impassioned hearts. Aravasu forgets and forgives everybody and on his
prayer to Sun God, everybody including his father Raibhya, brother Paravasu,
cousin Yavakri are revived. Finally, after the sacrifice of Aravasu and
Nittilai all condemned souls are released and “moksha”, the ultimate desire of
man on earth takes place because of “purushartha” of Aravasu and sacrifice of
Nittilai. It is a great sacrifice of Aravasu and Nittilai for the sake of
humanity. Rain falls like gentle mercy and kindness, and all fires of sex,
hunger, power and jealousy are defeated, shattered and condemned as evil acts.
The final note of the play is the quest for humanity since, according to Ambika
Ananth, the Blood which runs in humans is devoid of humanity No elbow- room for
love and emotions of a mother, lover, sister or son All are same, rulers are
same in the game of gunning pandemic
violence. “The Fire and the rain” is the sixth successful drama of Girish Karnad. It is based on mythology, for which the dramatist has relied heavily on an episode in the Mahabharata. The Fire and the Rain is the translation of his Kannada play Agni Mattu Male. Agni is the Sanskrit word for fire and acts as a witness at weddings and cremations, and it is also the meme of God of fire. Mattu means “and” a spoken Kannada word, male means “rain,” “pure” and “simple.” The dramatist has used various devices like – slokas, mask, wind instruments, drums, music, curtains, flashback technique, light, mock laments, the play with in a play, the presence of gods, demonic souls, supernatural elements, fire etc., very effectively. These devices are instrumental in creating an atmosphere suitable for a mythological plot. The plot of the play is not as simple as that of Karnad’s earlier plays. It is picked from the Vana Parva, the forest canto, of the Mahabharata. Karnad presents problems of class system in Indian society by using myths, folklore. In The Fire and the Rain, Vishakha, is related to upper class of society and Nittilai is related to lower caste tribe. Karnad presents how Nittilai is forced to marry within her tribe. The researcher feels Karnad uses myth of Yavakri, Indra, Yajna to present how lower caste people prohibited to attend the Fire Sacrifice. It is believed from very ancient times to modern times some events related to Gods like pelage to God, penance of God must be done by only upper-class people. Karnad used prologue and epilogue in The Fire and the Rain to present the co-relationship between dramatic theme and myth to know audience. In prologue it is explained that the ritual begins for a seven years long fire sacrifice. It is explained in the prologue that in which condition and what reason the King and the chief priest performing the Fire Sacrifice. At the end of the play epilogue is given to explain that how Aravasu puts on the mask. There is a roar of drums and then a sudden silence. Aravasu gives a roar and jumps up. He dances violently. The play is on. The Actor-Manager dressed up as Indra enters from one side. The Actor playing Vishwarupa enters from the other and conversation between Vishwarupa and Indra begins. This information is presented in Epilogue. So, it is one of Karnad’s dramatic characteristics to present his prologue and epilogue to interlink or relate to the main theme of the play and audience should be aware about it.
The play begins with the dominant myth Yavakri. It
places the action that follows in the realm of the mythical and the elemental.
The quest for personal and social meanings through the myth contributes to the
cohesive structure of the play. It involves the nature of the world analysis of
the concept of morality and emotion which leads one to the essentiality of
human experience itself. The myth of Vritra and Indra acts as catalyst to free Paravasu
and Aravasu from the human bondage of fear and vengeance. The prologue and the
Epilogue are inevitably conjoined to project a holistic view of life. Thus,
researcher feels that Karnad’s use of prologue and epilogue are inevitably
conjoined to project a holistic view of life to present the moral lesson or
teach some moral to audience. So, it is one of the dramatic characteristics of
Karnad to use prologue, epilogue and myths in his plays. In The Fire and the
Rain, the fire sacrifice is a symbol of power and that of spiritual and
intellectual peak of knowledge for Brahmins as priests. The fire sacrifice
represents self-gratification, self- examination and self-purification of
jealously, envy, power politics and supremacy of their sectarian attitude.
Karnad has beautifully displayed the game of spiritual power as political
activity prevailing and society as a contemporary reality. Brahmins are being
attacked not as liberators or well-wishers of society but as pretenders and
culprits of the contemporary world and they are worst-hit. In The Fire and the
Rain, Karnad emphasizes that Brahminism is no Godism. He dwells on the merits
of Brahminic qualities like goodness, gentlemanliness, truth and sacrifice, but
condemns the devil-like priesthood and inhuman acts of fire sacrifice at the
cost of human life. Paravasu, Yavakri, Raibhya and Bharadwaja belong to a high
Brahminic class and their quest for spiritual power and universal knowledge
does not bring them to the state of supremacy as they are involved in the
sub-human, sub-standard and un-Brahminic acts of jealousy, power-hankering,
ruthless curse for total ruin of each other. It is the greatest tragedy of the
modern society that the educated, talented and meritorious people of the upper
strata of society are exploiting the privileged men and woman present. The
other characters involved in the quest for knowledge and superiority mirror
their meaner qualities in fires of sex, anger, politics and jealousy. Politics-
power within the knowledgeable person present the bitter reality of ancient
society. Raibhya, Paravasu and Yavakri are the representatives of this society
who wanted to get power, prestige and social recognition by hook or crook,
particularly by following the unethical ways and means. They invest their
energies in the possession of power which made them isolated from society.
First of all, Paravasu has gained priestly honors, name and fame but still he
was dissatisfied with it. His ambition is to become equal with Indra. So, he
crushes or kills those who came in his path, including his own father and wife.
Raibhya claims superior intellectual and cultural caliber than his son,
Paravasu. His unrest wish is that he should be appointed as the chief priest of
fire sacrifice. But the king appoints Paravasu as the chief priest which made
Raibhya jealous. His jealousy results in killing of Yavakri at sacrificial
time, particularly for disturbing Paravasu in the last stages of sacrifice. Indeed,
the father
feels jealousy about the prosperity of his own son. Yavakri, the power greedy person is disturbed by the growing prestige of Raibhya family. Paravasu’s marriage with his former beloved, Vishakha and his appointment as a chief priest instead of sage Bharadwaja creates vile designs in Yavakri” s mind. Therefore, he deliberately molests Vishakha in order to disgrace Paravasu and disrupt the fire sacrifice. Thus, he uses his former beloved as a tool to exercise his vengeance upon Raibhya family. Finally, he is punished by Raibhya for his dark deed. On the whole, the game of power politics results in the extermination of these characters. Indeed, their deaths are due to jealousy, rivalry and competition. Thus, they become the victims of power-struggle game. It is criticism of power politics of Raibhya and Bharadwaja family in general and Brahmin community of Vedic period in particular. That the world of gods, too, was not free from cast-consciousness. Lord Indra, the king of Gods, prohibits entry of Vritra, who was his brother from the nether world, near to fire sacrifice. Indra thinks that Vritra is a demon, therefore, a demon would not be allowed into the ritual enclosure as per the Shatras, which was arranged in the honor of Lord Brahma. In fact, Indra wants to kill Vishwarupa, the king of men, who created a challenge to his sovereignty by his wisdom and gentleness. He invites Vishwarupa and asks to enter the sacrificial enclosure but never allows Vritra there. Despite Vritra’s warnings, the innocent Vishwarupa accepts Indra’s invitation saying that “One must obey one’s brother” (34) and killed by Indra treacherously when he was offering oblations to the gods. Indeed, these brotherhood betrayal and fratricidal violence are similar to the betrayal story of Aravasu and Paravasu. In fact, Paravasu kills his own father but imposes the act of patricide on his innocent brother Aravasu and destroys his life. On the whole Vishwarupa and Aravasu are the victims of caste consciousness and brotherhood hatred. An inferior and secondary status of woman in Vedic society is a fine example of social reality. This unequal treatment in patriarchal pavilion is a typical feature of tradition society which expects that woman should follow all moral codes of conduct without expecting any kind of freedom and right. Karnad violently attacks on double standardness, hypocrisy, snobbery and egoism of male dominated society. Exploitation of woman lies at the central of such society. The play present Vishakha and Nittilai as the representative of this oppressed class, though they belonged to two different social groups, castes and system, both are equally ill-treated and exploited. Some clear messages are conveyed through the play that cannot be overlooked: that Brahmins, in spite of their loud claims about possessing the “Knowledge of the Brahmin,” have like common men the propensity to jealousy, revenge, rape and incest with their consequent vicious effects; and that the individual attainment of knowledge has no value unless that knowledge is conjoined with human concerns. As can be expected, at the end of the sacrificial ritual, it is not Paravasu but the simple-minded Aravasu who experiences the revelatory epiphany of Indra. Only the innocent and kind Nittilai and the generous Aravasu have in them the potential to redeem the parched land, since they know what it is to be human. They are “capable understand pain and suffering as the gods can’t”, and unlike the others. They are able to forgive and live or die for the larger good of mankind. In short, the meaninglessness of sacrifice and penance for selfish gain and the need for transcending human weaknesses to have one’s intellect to “Become a diamond. unscratchable” is stressed. The play clearly emphasizes that compassion for the oppressed is what makes a person “beautiful” and “wise. The point that must be borne in mind is that the journey of life is itself a like ritual, into which one’s ego and desires such as Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Mada, and Matsarya have to be sacrificed. As it can happen in a sacrifice, the journey of the human soul toward enlightenment too can be disrupted either through human agency or through the intervention of the Brahma Rakshasa, that lies within the mind, or it can take the shape of a “Yavakri”. In this human drama, the role of the gods who seem to be mere witness to the enactment of human strife and suffering cannot be overlooked. They appear to grant boons to people like Aravasu and Nittilai. The aim of sacrifice, to quote from the synthesis of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo, is not to be mistaken as “self-immolation” (as in the case of Paravasu) but as “self-effacement” (exemplified by Nittilai). The subjectivity is not withdrawal from active life but the attainment of higher spiritual life through a process of transformation of the self, making it sacred. Yet in the play, only the ritualistic concept of sacrifice pervades with a persistence which nullifies other interpretative possibilities. The ritualistic sacrifice that is performed for egotistic and materialistic gain – for riches, strength, power, children, gold, horses, cows, etc.…and of the more violent objective of slaughter and plunder of enemies and the destruction of rivals – is naturally malevolent. The Fire and the Rain and which also invites extensive discussion, that which creates reverberations in the play is the politics of power functioning within the grid of caste and gender. Such politics is by no means new to Indian theatre but the dramatic scale of their presentation in the play with accompanying tensions of subjugation and division among people, especially the treatment of women character, adds deeper dimensions to the action that appears to revolve around the male characters. Any discussion, therefore, of the condition of Vishakha and Nittilai involves an examination of two simultaneous formulations – the understanding of their historical and cultural status as women and the conceptual distinctions that separate them from the male characters in terms of power. The social and cultural contexts determine their action and invite the spectators to re-orient and revise inherited opinions about them. In this, they offer immense scope for analyzing complexities and contradictions that arise in their relationship with life and society around them. Since belonging to two opposing social groups, they represent a resistance to a coherent meaning. Another major concern at the heart of these two polarized patterns is that all the male characters in the play invest their energies in coalition of historical power that cuts across class and caste boundaries. The lives of Vishakha and Nittilai are organized around issues that favor male domination. Their oppression and tragic end are inscribed by the power struggle among the male characters of the upper caste as well as their domination in the marginalized community and in proportion to their lack freedom to control their destinies. The identity of the two female characters is also problematic and illustrative of the anonymity they suffer as individuals. Vishakha belongs to an upper-caste Brahmin family and is dominated by learned men. Her social position does not privilege her in any way that is different from that of Nittilai, a tribal girl from a family of hunters. Though they represent two contesting representational social systems, both are subjected equally to violent displacement and silencing. Thus, both Vishakha and Nittilai, though belonging to a homogenized group as women, represent different backgrounds, one familial and another social, that determine their reactions and responses to life. The patriarchal system denies them both a subject-constitution that the male characters so easily claim as their historical, cultural and hegemonic privilege. They are thus pushed within the confines of object-formation; one cannot help nothing that the male oppressors are all imprisoned in their selves, victims of their own narrow pursuits in life and the women become inevitable victims of power struggle. Nittilai seems to suffer double marginalization, as is often the lot of communities divided on lines of caste and colours. She is marginalized from the mainstream as belonging to Sudra cast. Nittilai being part of nature, is hardened by marginalization and oppression but that is not the case with Vishakha. Vishakha, though surrounded by learned men, suffers from the repression of emotions and desires, and lacks the freedom even to communicate with her husband. Her sexuality becomes conterminous with her subjection as an oppressed woman. Her relationship with Paravasu is one of compromise through which she tries to erase the memories of her former lover Yavakri, who had abandoned her in his quest for easy knowledge. When Paravasu is called to be the chief priest for the sacrifice, she is abandoned again. Consequently, she becomes the victim of lust of the two men. Left unprotected and vulnerable within her circumscribed role, she finds herself exposed to sexual exploitation by her father-in-law Raibhya, for whom she is “a roving whore,” “a buffalo that’s been rolling in mud”. The nature and purpose of knowledge attained by men like Raibhya, Paravasu, and Yavakri leads neither to disciplined life dedicated to common good nor forward the absolute Brahmin. Characters such as they stand as instances of life and energy wasted in pursuit of personal gain. Nittilai’s query “Why didn’t Yavakri ask for a couple of good showers?” or her emphatic statement “What is the point of any knowledge, if you can’t save dying children” Their pursuit of knowledge does not help them transcend caste and gender bias. They carry around them the hellish and wretched state of their ill-gotten power. The words of Nittilai’s father “These high-caste men are glad enough to bed our women but not to wed them” are damning and expressive of the deep distrust that his community has of the Brahmins. Despite Vishaka’s indomitable will, reason and intelligence, she fails to realize her full potential since she is forced to exist in a male-dominated and exploitative. She cannot even hope to enjoy the kind of freedom that Nittilai has. Her character exemplifies stunted intellectual growth and her consciousness is of the withdrawing, reticent kind that consumes and weakens her being. Nittilai alone of all characters progresses towards self-definition by emphasizing her difference and by reflecting an evolving consciousness. She grows from an innocent tribal girl wandering in the forest, observing and tracing animal foot-prints and its flora and fauna, to questioning the goal of sacrifice and ritualistic religion, to attain the status of a benevolent nurturing archetype of universal motherhood tending to the hungry and nursing the sick. “Liberate and dynamic, creative and effective”, an assertion of her joy and freedom. In contrast we notice in others, including Vishakha, a total reversal of this they fail to transcend the physicality of their existence. The slow and gradual rise of Nittilai’s personality is rendered complete with her reification through tragic death. Her death, though dastardly, takes place in front of her tribe as an honor killing, an act of appeasement for the men of her family. In her death she is also the “sacrifice” offered to appease the unrelenting rain gods Indra and Vritra: “She lies there, her eyes open, bleeding, dying like a sacrificial animal”. The two qualities that help Nittilai to tower above the male character with their foolish pride in their knowledge are: her ability to recognize and appreciate goodness in people around her: and of placing social responsibility above the personal. She defines her position continually in relation to men, family and society. In contrast, Vishaka remains till the end of the play an object of male desire and manipulation, despite being privileged as an upper-caste Brahmin woman that falsely invokes caste superiority as fair, beautiful, powerful, knowledge, etc. Nittilai’s firm words to Aravasu, “kick that world aside” indicate her determination to set up a good and innocent world beyond the present one. Aravasu recognizes this quality only in her death, to “provide the missing sense of our lives”, not remain “an unregenerate sinner in the eyes of the world”. Girish Karnad has consummated command over English and he has successfully and artistically nativized it for expressing Indian ethos and sensibility. His diction is apt. His words are suggestive and reveal both character and situation. Economy and precision, clarity, and lucidity characterize his style. For example, the following dialogue between Aravasu and Nittilai brings to light the fundamental difference between the Brahminical and the Tribal social orders. Nittilai: Not until we are married. Until then the girl is not supposed to touch her husband. That’s our custom. Aravasu: Mother of Mine! I’m about to jettison my caste, my people, my whole past for you. Can’t you forget a minor custom for my sake? Aravasu: All these days I couldn’t touch because Brahmins do not touch others castes. Now you can’t touch me because among hunter’s girls don’t touch their betrothed. Are you sure someone won’t think of something else once we are married.
