Helplessness of Human Life against the Strike of Ailments: Study of Samskara, The Post Office and Rebati as the Authors’ instinctive assertion of it
Abstract
Human life and civilization developments can be seen as man’s constant struggles and conflicts with nature and her phenomenon. Right from the early days this struggle has remained at the centre. On a wider scale the history of human civilization is the history of wars, struggles and conflict stories. In the very initial phase of it was predominantly the phase of man’s race to overpower and figure out the natural enigmas of the thunderbolt, rains and so on. As man found the answers to this, got settled and grew up on the timeline of development, the race took the shape of establishing territories and domination on specific parts and regions. The struggles now were born from these territorial issues with fellow beings and sometimes for winning the sex partners. The course of development allowed man to have answers to many of the initial puzzles and to exercise a considerable hegemony over the natural phenomenon. Man, thus, sought to take into the stride the entire globe and added chapters of colonization and imperialism to the History Books. The two world wars and the other stray terrorist attacks on regular intervals occurring at any corner of the world are the same elements of the power game played in the name of national or religious pride.
The entire power game may for momentary consciousness make man feel rest on the top of the grid; at regular intervals the world is turned and tossed upside down either by any natural calamity or by the outbreak of mysterious disease embossing the glimpses that there are much more powerful resources than the man generated power structures. Literature too reflects man’s fear structures and attempts to overcome these factors. This paper is an attempt to study two Indian stories which develop in the backdrop of such epidemics and successfully portray man’s helplessness against the ailments.
Key Words: Civilization, development, ailment, disease, epidemic, pandemic
Literature reflects the most genuine feelings of the human race. Just as a rule creative writing is not everyone’s cup of tea; the creative minds undertake to capture the deepest allies of human sensibilities. The responses to the ordinary happenings and the regular occurrences may find their vent, but the extraordinary or the uncommon events surely find their way into the creative writings for sure. Human history is rich and replete with man’s struggles to overcome the natural phenomenon. The ancient classical literature, hence, presents the stories full of feelings of wonder, giving form of supernatural forces to those ‘unknown’, ‘Intangible’, ‘unintelligible’ forces.
Later literatures capture the struggles of man’s territory establishment or the man’s trying to overpower his fellow beings, revenge stories or feudal warfare. With the advent of scientific awakening, there are colonial expansions. There are the stories of sea adventures thrilling with fear of encountering the sea monsters and pirates; ultimately winning them too. Life itself is posed with many questions. In the race of getting refinement, in the process of progression, man has always wished to attain supreme power. But at the regular intervals, if we examine the pattern of history, man finds himself helpless, feeble and sheer powerless while confronting nature.
The two literary works picked up here are two different genres. One is a novella and the second is a small two act drama. But both interweave man’s struggle with the unknown and unintelligible force. The impending shadow of death and gloom resulting out of it makes the atmosphere heavy and gives the impression of the unending tunnel through which the human beings are destined to pass with no alternative left to apply.
Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man.
Samskara is an important novel of sixties. Originally written in Kannada by U. R. Anathmurthy, it is translated into English by the renowned Indian English writer, poet and critic A. K. Ramanujan. Basically the storyline revolves around a decaying Brahmin Agrahara (Colony) in a small village of Karnataka. The very title Samaskara and the epigraph added by the translator ‘A Rite For A Dead Man´ gives us the glimpse that there is going to be the gloom of death in the entire story. But as the translator A. K/. Ramanujan makes it clear in the Afterword:
The opening event is death, an anti- brahminical Brahmin’s death --- and it brings in its wake a plague, many deaths, questions without answers, old answers that do not fit in the new questions, and rebirth of one good Brahmin, Praneshacharya. (Ramanujan)
The entire novel revolves round the death and the death rites of the anti brahmanical Brahmin Naranappa. Naranappa led the most unscrupulous life. Against the brahminical norms, he ate all sorts of forbidden foods, drank liquor and mixed with the non brahmin and even muslim friends. In doing so, he never felt ashamed, though his unspoken norms were boycotted from the social group. His anger was on the hypocritical ways of the brahmin creed. He openly challenged the brahmin in general and Praneshacharya in particular with his upholding the values. Naranappa’s arrogance did not stop unto his mixing up with the low caste friends, feasting with them and intoxications with them, but he had kept a low caste beautiful woman Chandri whom he kept in his home in the Agrahara.
Another accusation that was fixed upon Naranappa was that he misled the brahmin youths. He raised questions in their youthful minds and fired their imagination by asserting his own example. Laxamnacharya’s son in law Shripati and Dashacharya’s son were his prey. He had under his influence converted Laxaman’s son in law into a wandering bard who never remained at home and moved along with the drama player’s company. And in case of Dasacharya’s son, he had fired his imagination and made him run away from his home to join the army in Pune. He openly challenged the brahmin community. “He threatened to become a Muslim. On the eleventh day of the moon, when every brahmin was fasting, he brought in Muslims to agrahara and feasted them. He said, ‘Try and excommunicate me now. I’ll become a Muslim, I’ll get you all tied to pillars and cram cow’s flesh into your mouths and see to it personally that your sacred brahminism is ground into mud’.” (Murthy)
As in his life, Naranappa was a challenge to the brahmins in his death too. Chandri had brought the words of his death to Praneshacharya with the great hope that her Master must be cremated and his final rites are performed in the perfect brahminical ways. When she arrived at the Praneshacharya’s doorstep, the acharya was engaged in nursing his invalid wife. For him, the lam wife was the great support for performing Brahmacharya and performing the household duties, a sort of sacrifice. Now, since Naranappa was never excommunicated he must be cremated in the brahmanical traditions. But the question was ‘Who would perform the last rites?’ The Brahmans Laxmana or Dashacharya fell in his close circles but they had their excuse not to do the rites and by doing so distancing from incurring expenses. So for Praneshacharya this was the question. Everybody expected him to find out such a solution which did not injure their interest. The morning turns into evening, with the dead body lying in the agrahara, nobody could eat. Thus, hunger, heat and indecisiveness and anger for Naranappa all these factors had created discomfiture in the entire group.
The first case of bubonic plague is reported in the low caste colony. The people do not have the knowledge or course of treatment for it. As typical Indian style, initially it is taken as the wrath of a demon. Just as the spark in the heap of hay, the mysterious disease spreads everywhere engulfing all high and low and creating a gloom of heaviness. Actually, Bali was Sripati’s friend. On his way back to Naranappa’s house, Sripati approached her to satiate his physical fire. But as he reached the colony, he saw a hut was on fire and was burning hard. To his wonder people stood surrounding it but no one attempted to put out the firpe. When responding to his secret signals Balli came, she had her story, but Sripati had only one mission, so he did not pay any attention to her words and not take her seriously,
“Pilla and his woman died today --- struck by a demon or something, ayya.”
Ayya, I want to tell you something. I’ve never seen such a thing before. Why should rats and mice come to our poor huts? Nothing there to eat. Our huts aren’t like brahmin houses. Now the rats come like the relatives looking for the place to stay. They fall pattering from the roof, run round and round, and die. Like folk running for life from the hut on fire, they run into the forest. I have never seen the likes of it. We must get the shaman possessed by the demon and ask him about it. (Murthy)
The outbreak is introduced in this way. For Sripati it was all the babbles of Bali who was only good for sleeping with, but not for listening to talks. Sripati had only one mission and once it was over, he tied up his dhoti and went away and did not pay slightest attention to what Bali had to say. Bali had a valid surprise that what the rats were doing in the poor’s’ huts. Her observations also hold that the mysterious behavior of the rats was the curse of a demon.
The reference to the ‘shaman’ reminds of the very superstitious temperament of the people. Just as the Brahmins of the agrahara who were not ready to rise above their scriptures while the world had taken giant strides in the realm of development, the rustic folks were all confined into their ritualistic superstitions. These people’s sensibilities and power of perception did not allow them to look at the issue scientifically; rather it was seen superstitiously and therefore, Pilla and his woman were cremated with their hut so that anything injurious must get burnt with them too.
The outbreak does not end here. It was just the beginning of a dark saga. With a desire to rest and to have something to drink, Sripati directly went to Naranappa’s house. Unaware of what had preceded here, he entered his mentor’s house fearlessly thinking that his master must be awake at this hour as the door was half open. After entering the house, what his hand torch showed him was a horrible sight.
There was a stench of something rotting, enough to make one sick in the stomach. He wanted to go upstairs, knock at the door of his room; he walked in the dark towards the stairs she knew well. When he turned the corner, his bare foot swished on something soft and cold. Startled, he flashed his light on it. A dead rat, dead on its back, its legs up in the air. The flies on it buzzed in the beam of the flashlight…..Sripati smiled and pulled down the blanket and shook Naranappa, calling, ‘Naranappa,Naranappa,’. Like the rat, the body was cold. He pulled back his hand in a hurry and turned on his flashlight. Open-lidded, sightless eyes, turned upwards forever. In the circle of his flashlight, flies, small insects. And the stench. (Murthy)
Chandri was also clueless as to the cause of her Master’s death. All that she knew was when from outside, Naranppa came, he had fever and there was bulbous swelling under his arms. He withered with pain and died. Thus, the clear cut symptoms of bubonic plague or ‘Black Death’ could not alert the ignorant lot. There is not a single reference to that of consulting a doctor. All the brahmins are concerned for the last rites of Naranappa. Everyone wanted a solution from the scripture, that is from Praneshacharya which did not injure their personal interest. Praneshacharya too, perhaps knew this. So he finally resorted to the Maruti. But there also he did not receive any inspiration. But his encounter with Chandri opened up new horizons of understanding. His wife also had graced death by getting enveloped in the disease plague; thus, liberating the Acharya from her responsibilities.
The agrahara was under the great gloom. On one hand there was the stinking dead body of Naranappa waiting to be cremated, on the other hand the dying rats had invited the vultures from some unknown lands to add still more gloom to horrors of death. In the absence of Praneshacharya, all the brahmins sent their wives and children to their in-laws and they all started for Kaimara to have a word of counsel from the higher religious authority. But here too, the plague tolls for the lives of Dasacharya and Padmabhattacharya.
Thus, in the course of the entire novella, the plague operates its wagon wheel and keeps on trading on the lives of several characters.
The Post Office
The small drama of Rabindranath Tagore was originally written in Bengali in 1912. Basically it is famous for Tagore’s employment of symbolism and allegory in it. Still, it can also be studied on the scale of the little boy’s pains as he undergoes the painful quarantine as the remedy to his ailment.
The drama opens on the gloomy note of impending death of the small adopted son of Madhav. The disease is so mysterious and severe that the doctor advised the little kid Amal to be kept indoors and safeguarded from the wind and the sun. Thus, in a sense, he is under the strict ‘quarantined’ norms. Now the confinement comes as a curse on the little child. Madhav, the foster father, rightly observes:
“Your (the doctor’s) system is very, very hard for the poor boy; and he is so quiet too with all pain and sickness. It tears my heart to see him wince, as he takes your medicine.” (Tagore)
The little boy’s heart constantly yearns to go out and play with the squirrels, wanton boys and even yearns to be the king’s postman; all with a wish to be free from this confinement.
The ailment with which the little boy suffers demands strict confinement so as to keep away from the humid winds and the exposure to the direct sun. The little boy for whose imagination the world is full of many possibilities and myriad colors, the confinement results in an unbearable punishment. His little heart harps on this variety. So, in order to cheer him up, when Madhav suggests that when he (the little boy) grows up, he will read a lot of books to be a learned man.. To this the innocent boy reacts that he does not want to read heaps of books to be a learned man. He says innocently and plainly: “I would rather go about and see everything that there is,” And “Oh, I will walk on, crossing so many streams, wading through water. Everybody will be asleep with their doors shut in the heat of the day and I will tramp on and on seeking work far, very far.” (Tagore)
This yearning to go out gives us the glimpses of the pains of confinement. It seems the boy suffers more pains just from being shut within rather than that of his real ailment. The severity of his pain comes on the surface when he wants to be like the squirrel and run away like it.
When the little boy understands that under no alibi he would be allowed to go outside, he seeks permission to be at the window that falls on the road side. Thus, this will allow at least seeing and observing the road farmers and would find solace through communicating with them.
His conversations with the curd seller, he inquires about his village and longs to go to that village by crossing the Shamli River. Even in his imaginative flights, he visits there and even goes on the top of the mountain too.
In his conversation with the watchman, the little boy strikes a very important and philosophical note: “How curious! Some say time has not yet come, and some say time has already gone by!” (Tagore)
His curiosity for the building of the Post Office and longing to be the Postman is great one. To everyone he happens to talk, he inquires about that. Even to the boys he requests to bring one of the king’s postmen along with them. So that the postman happens to know him, so in case when his letter comes it should be in the knowledge of him.
The fakir’s promise of taking him to the parrots’ island gives him equal elation and excitement as if he had really visited that imaginary place. This extremity of desire is enough proof of the pains of confinement.
The last act where the little boy is counting his breaths and everyone has grasped his premature death, still, the boy presents his trance: “I shall ask him to make me one of his postmen that I may wander far and wide, delivering his message from door to door.” (Tagore)
Rebati
Originally written in Oriya by Fakir Mohan Senapati is also a story which treats human helplessness against the ailment of Cholera. Shyambandhu Mohanty was the tax collector of the landlord. There were four persons in the family: Shyambandhu, his wife, his daughter Rebati and the old mother. The family enjoyed good economic stability. As a tax collector Shyambandhu was the most honest fellow. He even took care of the villager’s arrangement and ability to pay the taxes. He would never allow any of his village fellows to fall victim to the goons for the defaulters.
The happy note of the family also reflected in the upbringing of the only daughter Rebati. Every evening Shyambandhu would recite bhajana and Rebati, at a very early age, had caught the bhajans. To his great delight, Shyambandhu would make her sing bhajan in her sweet voice.
A government school is opened in the village. And Basudev Mahapatra is appointed as the teacher of the school. Since Basu belonged to their own caste Shyambabu would invite him to his house at regular intervals. And as they came to know about the humble character of Basudeb and his being orphan, Shyambabu hatched a dream of setting the match between him and his daughter Rebati.
As Basu became a regular visitor to the house and as the familiarity increased, Shyambabu, to the resentment of his old orthodox mother, invited Basu to educate Rebati. Rebati too started dreaming of going to the girls' school at Bhubaneswar.
But, things took a sudden, horrible turn. There happened the outbreak of cholera in the village. People start dying one after another. One day Shyambabu fell victim to it and died of cholera bringing hell down to the earth for his family. Hardly had the cremating pyres of Shyambabu subdued, when his wife too fell prey orphaning Rebati in the care of the old mother.
Initially, the old grandmother held Rebati responsible for the entire tragedy as she was against the rule though being a female wanted to study. The landlord withdrew all the amenities which he provided to Shyambabu. The bullocks, the two acres of land and all the sources of income were confiscated.
Rebati and her Grandmother survived and supported their lives by selling the household things. For Rebati life had left no meaning, her days and nights spent crying and sobbing. But still, when Basu visited them, it gave her a sort of solace. But one day Basu went to another village as a part of his duty. There he too fell victim of cholera. This was the last blow. Both Rebati and the old granny were left helpless. Rebati had grown too weak and ill, one evening she was found dead in the backyard and the old grandmother, who had grown blind, too fell and died of grief and shock.
The story presents how a disease enters a village and shatters the happy going life of Shyambandhu’s family.
The literary artists have the capacity to present the plights of pains processed through their creative capacities. And therefore, the paintings of them we find more crystal clear than the original ones. Depicting the stories of disease, epidemics or pandemics is as old as literature itself. As it is mentioned in the beginning, the reason is obvious; the conflict with this kind of mystery has remained on the focus. When the disease, outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics spread they impart great influence on human life. The life force and human beings get divided into three sections. The first in them are the victims, the second are the force engaged in the treatment of it and the third lot which has been left out from the infectious disease. There come into existence different kinds of strategies, and codes of conducts. Literature captures all these minutely and preserves the most lifelike accounts of such happenings.
Works Cited:
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Dr. Divyeshkumar Devendraprasad Bhatt. Assistant Professor, Department of English, Gujarat Vidyapith, Mahadev Desai Gramseva Sankul, Sadra At. & Po: Sadra, Tal. & Dist.: Gandhinagar Pin:382320, Gujarat-INDIA Email: divyeshdbhatt@gmail.com Mobile: 9426402639