C H A P T ^ -n r

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C H A PTER - 4

Indian drama, in modem times, has seen a new vision and

dimension through the innovative perceptions of Badal Sarkar, Vijay

Tendulkar and Girish Kamad. Kamad is known for the special use of

myth, history and folktales wherein he brings out their present

relevance by communicating their meanings and impressing upon the

readers.

This chapter focuses on the use of folktales, use of masks and

elements of Yakshagana by Girish Kamad with particular reference to

‘Nagamandala’ and ‘Hayavadana and also examines how Kamad

fictionalises certain instances through his imagination. This chapter

will also analyse the play ‘Anjumallige’.

Folktales, legends, songs, proverbs, riddles, superstitions, songs

and tales of weather, plants, animals, customary activities of births,

marriages and deaths and also traditional dances and dramas which are

performed on communal gatherings are all oral compositions and

social rituals that have been handed down by word of mouth. This oral

tradition of folklore, later made available in written form, has

preserved this rich heritage for posterity. Some of the forms are folk

drama, folksongs and folk tales. Folk drama originated in primitive

rites of song and dance related to agricultural activities and goddess of

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vegetation and fertility deities. Folk songs include love songs,

religious songs, work songs and children’s game songs. Folktale is a

short narrative in prose of unknown authorship in oral form later

preserved in written form. Folk tale, as A.K.Ramanujan opines is “a

poetic text that carries some of its cultural context within it; it is also a

traveling metaphor that finds a new meaning with each new

telling.”(Preface to ‘Folktales fi*om India”) Folktales are found among

peoples everywhere in the world. They include fables, myths, tales of

heroes and fairy tales. Sanskrit literature contains the earliest

references to some of the best known stories in the world. Folklore

comprises all we do: the stories that are told, the foods that are cooked

and eaten, and quilt and baskets that ate created are all examples which

depict the fundamental human activities. Folklore, in short, is a

collective name for verbal compositions and social rituals handed

down, by word of mouth. They are “in the form of proverbs, oral jokes,

stories and varieties of word play.” [Abrams, M.H. P. 100] Folklore

includes legends, songs, tales, riddles, pseudo-scientific lore about the

weather, plants and animals and traditional dances and forms of drama

which are performed at communal gatherings. Folk songs, folk dance,

folk drama, arts and crafts like basket and pottery are all folk arts and

crafts. According to the definitions given by Malinowski, folklore

“ .. .may be viewed as the wisdom of the people. It is the thought of the

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community that gets preference in folklore - It is a way of life.

Undisputedly, folklore permeates every aspect of social living

particularly in traditional societies.” [p. 18]

Folklore best represents the vast variety and vibrancy of

multilingual cultural and multi-ethnic fabric of Indian society.

A.K.Ramanujan is a great scholar who specialised in folklore and

linguistics and spent most o f his teaching career in Chicago, was

interested in all forms of folklore and was specially drawn to the

folktales. His essays on Indian Cinderella and on the; Indian versions

of the Oedipus story are best examples of his scholarship in folktales.

He has compiled Indian folktales in diverse languages - ‘Folktales of

India’, ‘Folktales from India’, and ‘A Flowering Tree’ are his unique

contributions to the study of folktales in India.

Indian folktales played an influential role in the history of

folklore scholarship offering in the discipline with theories of origins.

This is called “Indian School” because it “traced the origins of many

folklore items to India, arose in part because Sanskrit Literature

contains the earliest reference to some of the best known stories in the

world.” [Blackburn, Dundes. P. xi]] The Indian school of folklorists

influenced others in such a way that folktales were collected by

colonial administrators at every place they colonised. Stuart

Blackburn, Allen Dudes, John.B.Carman, Edward C. Dimock Jr are

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some writers who have made a major contribution in this area. The

strength of the folktales is the multiple versions o f a single tale and

comparison with international parallels. A.K.Ramanujan viewed

folktales as a genre. Folk genre, as he has suggested, divide into the

‘domestic’- akam, and the ‘public’- pur am. Riddles are domestic

proverbs are public and household tales evolve into public performed

epics. Indian folk traditions, particularly in Karnataka, feature a

variety o f puppetry, yakshagana, oral epic singing and tales.

The folktales weave every aspect of city, village and small-town

life. Public culture and domestic culture are well understood with the

knowledge of folk tales. Indian cultural practices, Indian cultural

performance - classical epics and theatre or modem films owe their due

to oral traditions and folk forms. These tales are male-centred tales,

women centred tales, tales about families, tales about Fate, Gods, and

Demons, humorous tales. Animal tales and even stories about stories.

Here the skills or devices include meta fiction or fiction about fiction

where “the tellers reflect on tales in the form of tales.’’[Introduction:

Folktales from India] Usually such tales have specific beginnings such

as “once upon a time”. They have characteristic endings - “They all

lived happily ever after.” Or “They are there, we are here.” Such

closures break any kind of identification with the characters and

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separate our world from those of the stories to emphasise the nature of

fiction and fantasy.

The oral tradition of narrating tales is predominant in India and

this tradition is very rich as it covers innumerable regional languages.

A.K.Ramanujan has selected and translated Indian oral tales from

twenty two languages covering most of the regions of India and has

anthologised them: ‘Folktales from India’, ‘Folktales of India’ and

‘The Flowering Tree. These tales spread through “childhoods, families

and communities as the symbolic language of the non-literate parts of

the people and the culture” and are “chosen from a teller in one

language and region” and “told with variation in other regions.”

Introduction-Folktales from India-A.K.R.] These stories are told and

retold, with perhaps a twist here and a turn there, among other tongues.

Girish Kamad is quite adept at amalgamating ideas from

traditional folklore, contemporary literature, mythology and history in

his plays with results that leave aficionados o f literature and

performing arts enraptured. Hayavadana which literally means ‘the one

with a horse’s head’ combines a fable from 'Vetalapanchavinshati’

with Thomas Mann’s "The Transposed Heads". In the thematic

analyses Kamad examines the idea of love, sexuality and identity in

this play.
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The original story of ^The Transposed Heads' in Sanskrit is a

story in which the riddle predominates the plot. Mann’s story ridicules

the distinction between the body and the spirit, as the organic unity of

the body and the soul, to Mann, is steered by nature for the registration

of human destiny. In a situation where Nanda’s and Sridhaman’s heads

are transposed, feel that their destinies are also altered, but they do not

change. The only transformation one can see, in the story, is that the

two protagonists suddenly become rivals for the possession of Sita.

Kamad, apart from borrowing this stoiy, adds a sub-plot of

Hayavadana, who craves for completeness and identity. The story

blends effortlessly, modernist ideas of identity, sexuality and

completeness with techniques of folklore, particularly the use of

masks, folk songs, songs, puppets, story within a story, the Bhagavatha

- the story teller who acts as a narrator and sings about the characters

in first and third person often reveals their thoughts. He is almost like a

stage manager who appears on stage and directs the action o f the play

by providing narration. The use of masks paves way for a situation

again blending with rational questioning. Along with the oral tradition

of folktales, the non time-specific manner makes the play

contemporary as it depicts friendship, jealousy, self- possession and

self-doubt and most important, love.

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At the heart of the story is a confusing philosophical question: if

two heads switch bodies, how to identify the husband and friend?

‘Hayavadana’ has more than just this question to pose: a love triangle,

a pair of talking dolls, a man with a horse’s head. The symbolic core of

‘Hayavadana’ comprises the philosophic crisis o f estrangement

between the mind and the body. It is a story o f a charming, loquacious

young woman Padmini married to an intellectual - Devadatta - but

attracted towards his rough and robust childhood friend Kapila.

Devadatta loves both his wife and fi-iend immensely hence tries to

avoid reacting on the behaviour of Padmini and Kapila who often

exhibit excess concentration on each other.

Devadatta: ... .once he (Kapila) came, there wasn’t

the slightest chance of my reading any

poetry. You had to hop around him

twittering ‘Kapila! Kapila!’ every

minute, [p. 21]

Padmini: How beautifully you drive the cart

Kapila. Your hands don’t even move, but

the oxen seem to know exactly where to

go.....

Padmini: What a terrible road...you drove it so

gently - almost made it float. I remember

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when Devadatta took me in a cart - that

was soon after our marriage - I insisted

on being shown the lake outside the city.

So we started - only the two of us and

Devadatta driving - against my advice

....And we didn’t even cross the city-

gates. The oxen took everything except

the road. He only had to pull to the right,

and off they would rush to the left! I’ve

never laughed so much in my life. But of

course he got very angry, so we had to go

back home straight! [p. 25]

He suspends suspecting them for a while but it takes too much

on his mind at one point. Unable to bear this pain and remembering his

vow Devadatta beheads himself before Goddess Kali. Kapila is

shocked and he also beheads himself When Padmini also tries to kill

herself Goddess Durga appears and advises her to rejoin the heads to

the bodies inorder to bring both of them back to life. Padmini follows

the instructions; the men come back to life except that in her conftision

she exchanges the heads. The story ends with the question: who is now

the real husband; the one with husband’s head or the one with his

body? According to the story of ‘Switched Heads’ in the

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Kathasarithasagara - a woman travelling with her husband and her

brother discovers the men’s beheaded bodies in the temple of Goddess

Parvathi. She receives a boon from the Goddess to bring them back to

life, but switches their heads by mistake resulting in the problem of

true identity. The solution offered in this story is - the one with her

husband’s head is her husband because the head rules the limbs and

personal identity depends on the head. The second male is a friend

rather than the woman’s brother.

Thomas Mann’s philosophical elaboration of this story in 'The

Transposed Heads'" is about matrimonial problems, desire and

accidental exchange of wrong heads to the bodies resulting in

disruption of identity which can be solved only by death. Sita, who is

married to Sridhaman, is physically attracted towards her husband’s

friend Nanda. The husband beheads himself out of jealousy in Goddess

Parvathi’s temple. Nanda also beheads himself out of guilt. After the

accidental transposition of heads, a holy saint grants Sita to the new

Sridhaman by using the same logic of the folktale, but in Mann’s text

the supremacy of the head is challenged and sustained - the new

bodies of the two men go on changing till they are in harmony with the

heads once again; but the original bodies also exert their own

subversive power, and change the heads indefinably, Sita, to whom the

man with the husband’s head and friend’s body had given full
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enjoyment and the pleasures of the sense for a time, finds herself

yearning for the man with the friend’s head and husband’s body and

returns to him in full knowledge of the consequence of her action.

Sridhaman and Nanda kill each other in the forest and Sita commits

‘Sati’ on their funeral pyre, leaving her precocious four year old son

behind to keep alive the memory of her strange sacrifice. Mann brings

his logic to bear upon this solution - if the head is the determining part,

and then the body should change to fit the head. Hence the bodies of

Sridhaman and Nanda have changed again and adjusted to the heads so

perfectly that both men are physically exactly as they were at the

beginning and the problem remains unsolved.

Kamad’s play has a plot and sub-plot that intertwine to explore

the tricky questions of identity and the nature of reality. All theatrical

performances in India begin with the worship of Lord Ganesha, the

God who ensures successful completion of any endeavour. According

to mythology, Ganesha was beheaded by Shiva, his father, who failed

to recognise him which was later substituted with an elephant’s head,

since his head could not be found. Ganesha thus becomes the one with

elephant head and human body. This God, M.K.Naik says, “ ...aptly

suggests a major development in the action as well as the central theme

of completeness of being.” [Pp. 197-198] The Bhagavatha stresses this

point in the opening scene:

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“An elephant’s head on a human body, a

broken tusk and a cracked belly - whichever way

you look at him he seems the embodiment of

imperfection, of incompleteness. How indeed can

one fathom the mystery that this very

Vakratunda Mahakavya, with his crooked face

and distorted body, is the Lord and Master of

success and perfection? Could it be that this

image of purity and holiness, this

Managalamoorty, intends to signify by his very

appearance that the completeness of God is

something no poor mortal can comprehend?”

[p.l]

The Bhagavatha’s role is very interesting and important as he

has several duties to discharge; he is the narrator who presents the

major characters in the story; he supplies links to the action; he

communicates to the audience about the major developments such as

the marriage of Devadatta and Padmini. His songs establish him as a

choric commentator on the action of the play. At times he plays the

role of revealing the deepest thoughts of a majorcharacter. Heeven

armounces a short break of ten minutes.

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Dr.U.R.Ananthamurthy has stated rightly that the theme of

‘Hayavadana’ “is serious; its tone” is “light and comic”; and “a

significant theme like ‘incompleteness’” is “in a comic mode....yet the

play leads one to depths which require serious attention despite the

comic mode.” [p. 37]

In the play ‘Hayavadana’ both Kapila and Devadatta represent

body and mind. Padmini wants Devadatta’s mind and Kapiia’s body in

the same person, which is her search for completeness. The main story

o f Devadatta, Kapila and Padmini projects the purpose of the play: to

depict the working out of the problem of human identity. Devadatta

and Kapila are friends who are bound by mutual love and like one

individual in two physical frames. K.D.Kurtkoti has aptly observed

that “the problem of identity does not occur as long as they are friends.

But Devadatta falls in love with Padmini and marries her and from this

moment the relationships get complicated.” [p. 74]

The day Kapila visits Padmini at her residence to plead for

Devdatta’s marriage with her, at the first instance what Kapila feels is:

Kapila: [Gapes at her. Aside] ...I hadn’t thought

anyone could be more beautiful than the

wench Ragini who acts Rambha in our

village troupe. But this one! You are right

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- she is Yakshini, Shakuntala, Urvashi,

Indumathi - all rolled into one. [p. 16]

After conversing with her for a while Kapila understands her

taste and choice. Kapila in a soliloquy says:

Kapila: ...You are a gentle soul ... She is not for

the likes of you. What she needs is a man

of steel. ... [p. 19]

Padmini is committed to her husband, but at the same time she is

attracted by the masculine form of Kapila.

Padmini: [Watching him, (Kapila) to herself]

How he climbs - like an ape. Before I

could even say ‘yes’, he had taken off his

shirt, pulled his dhoti up and swung up the

branch. And what an ethereal shape! Such

a broad back - like an ocean with muscles

rippling across it - and then that small,

feminine waist which looks so helpless.

[p. 25]

K.D.Kurtkoti says: “ ...the story does not result into a situation

of ‘love triangle’ or does not get a tragic twist by the theme of a jealous

husband.” [p. 74]

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The Bhagavatha’s introduction and description of the two

friends, Kapila and Devadatta, is noteworthy. He says Devadatta is

“Comely in appearance, fair in colour, unrivalled in intelligence.” He

“debates on logic and love” Kapila “in strength and in physical skills,

has no equal”. [Pp. 1-2]

The description speaks of the intelligence and physical strength

of Devadatta and Kapila respectively. If Devadatta is as intelligent as

Kamad describes him to be, it is surprising to note the way in which

Devadatta takes a vow with Goddess Kali and God Rudra. He offers

his hands and head to these Gods if he would get to marry Padmini.

With this offer, the very purpose of marrying Padmini with so much

eagerness and desire is defeated. This kind of taking vow certainly

does not exhibit Devadatta’s intelligence which is acclaimed. Dr.

U.R.Ananthamurthy is also of the same opinion: “Devadatta not only

lacks Kapila’s physical prowess, he is undistinguished in his mind

also.” [p. 38] It is evident that “a barren virtuosity of scholarly intellect

is not enough to make him superior to what Kapila represents.” [p. 39]

What is seen in Devadatta is a ‘conventional poet’. He loves her but

that does not attribute to his creativity as he is seen suffering in

jealousy. Noticing Padmini staring at Kapila when he climbs a tree to

pluck for her The Fortunate Lady’s flowers, Devadatta says aside:
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Devadatta: [Aside] No woman can resist him -

and what does it mater that she is

married?... Look how she’s pouring her

soul in his mould. Look! Let your guts

bum out - let your lungs turn to ash - but

don’t turn away. Look - and don’t

scream. Strangle your agony, [p. 26

On the contrary, though Kapila is not as intelligent as Devadatta,

his creativity and his ability in describing a flower so very artistically

makes one wonder at his expression:

[Kapila comes in, miming a whole load of

flowers in his arms and hands. He pours them out

in front of her.]

Kapila: Here you are. The Fortunate Lady’s

flowers.

Padmini: And why a ‘Fortunate Lady’, pray?

Kapila: Because it has all the marks of marriage a

woman puts on. The yellow on the petals

- then that red round patch at the bottom

of the petals - like on your foreheads -

then here - that thin saffron line - like in

the parting of your hair - then - uhm .. .oh

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yes - here near the stem a row of black

dots - like a necklace of black beads.

Padmini: What imagination! [To Devadatta] You

should put it in your poetry. It’s good for

a simile. [Pp. 26-27]

Had it been Devadatta who described the flower, then his

intelligence would be established. This description certainly proves

Kapila’s ability as a poet. Devadatta is not seen displaying such

knowledge. Padmini also displays her imaginative power when she

describes the forest to her child.

When the heads of Kapila and Devadatta are transposed she

chooses the one with Devadatta’s face and Kapila’s body on a logic

that is suitable to her: the one with the face of her husband must be

taken as her husband as it is the face that denotes a person. Padmini is

totally confused in her attempt to combine man as intellect and as

body. M.K.Naik states that this kind of “integration caimot be achieved

by trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, but by accepting cheerfully

the fundamental disharmony in human life.” [p. 196]

Initially, after the heads are transposed, Devadatta (with Kapila’s

body) tells Padmini that he felt like taking part in wrestling. Looking at

the way in which he wrestled his friends asked him if he was trained by

Kapila.
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In the conversation between the dolls, one of the dolls also feels

that the rough hands of Devadatta were hurting.

As the logic goes: if the head is the determining factor, then the

body should change to fit the head. Slowly Devadatta’s head rules and

the body automatically changes from the robust Kapila’s body back to

Devadatta’s delicate being. The same dolls are found saying:

[Devadatta goes to Doll I, moves it aside

and picks up the book. Doll II shudders.]

Doll II: Why? What happened?

Doll I: He touched me, and...

Doll II: Yes?

Doll I: His palms! They were so rough,

when he first brought us here. Like a

labourer’s. But now they re soft -

sickly soft - like a young girl’s

Doll II: ..I’ve noticed something too....

His stomach. It was so tight and muscular.

Now....

Doll I: I know. It’s loose, [p. 47]

Ravana, in one of the versions of the Ramayana experiences the

same. “In one of the versions of Ramayana, having attempted to win

over Sita in many ways Ravana ultimately devices a strategy: As Sita

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does not think of anyone else other than Rama, it flashes upon Ravana

to become Rama himself and as he is a master of disguise, a mayavi, he

easily dons the persona of Rama. In this attempt he could perhaps have

succeeded but because Ravana becomes Rama, the mind to attract

another woman, it is said did not occur to him at all! Perhaps this is

how a change in persona also effects a change in emotional persona

too.” [Flaming Tongue - by Kirthinath Kurtkoti, an unpublished

translation by Dr. K. M. Chandar]

Similarly Devadatta’s body possessing the head of Kapila

wishes to participate in a wrestling match and Kapila’s body

possessing Devadatta’s head feels tired to walk in the forest.

[Unpublished]

After the heads are transposed, Padmini is fixed between the

two. Her child’s situation is that of an orphan as he is initially accepted

by the forest people as Kapila’s son and is later rejected as a child of

the city. He is now alienated, lonely and disturbed losing his child-like

wonder who refuses to communicate with anyone. He is dumb and

morose without a sign of a smile on his face. He is incomplete and

without identity. He has a pair of dolls with which he is totally attached

not parting with them even for a second. He resists anyone trying to

touch him. He is cooped in his world deliberately refusing to come out

of the shell which he has created for himself. It is only after he sees a
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laughing horse his normalcy is restored in a flash as his child-like

wonder comes back to him at that instance. He immediately drops the

doll like the albatross that falls off the neck of the Mariner.

In the outer plot of the play, Kamad has introduced the character

of Hayavadana meaning, a man with horse’s head. Kamad offers a

story behind this unusual birth of Hayavadana: He is the son of a

princess who falls in love with a horse - a gandharva, a celestial being

who is cursed to be a horse for his behaviour for a period of time. After

that period the horse becomes Gandharva and he asks his wife to

accompany him to his ‘heavenly abode’. She says she would

accompany him only if he changes back to a horse. He curses her and

she becomes a horse herself and runs away leaving behind the horse­

headed human child.

Now Hayavadana’s problem is how to shed the horse’s head and

become a complete man. It is a problem of incompleteness and

identity. Apama Dharwadkar says: “ ....Hayavadana, the horse-headed

man who gives the play its title, lacks any vestige of divinity [divine

and the animal that we see in Ganesha - the patron deity of scribes and

performers, the remover of obstacles - Vigneshwara - and the god of

all auspicious beginning - an embodiment of both divinity and

perfection] and appears painfully suspended between the animal and

human worlds.” [p. xxvii] In his search for completeness Hayavadana

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goes to Kali’s temple and threatens to slice his head off. This links the

sub-plot and the main plot and as in the main plot, here also the

goddess Kali’s ambiguous blessing generates a fresh problem: when

Hayavadana asks the goddess to make him complete, she makes him a

complete horse instead of making him a complete man. “Hayavadana’s

attempts” Kamad says “to become a complete man and ironically the

head is the man. He becomes a complete horse. The central logic of the

tale “The Head is the Man” remains intact, while its basic premise (that

the head represents the thinking part of man and is therefore the

supreme limb) is subverted.” [p. 347] The Goddess retains, in him, his

human voice leading him once again to incompleteness. Hayavadana is

again linked with the main story when Padmini’s child asks him to

laugh, his laughter changes into a horse’s neigh. Hayavadana, in his

laughter, brings about a change in the boy: the boy who had forgotten

to laugh starts laughing which restores the boy to normalcy. Thus the

main and sub-plot are merged.

After the transposed heads everyone comes back to normalcy.

When everyone comes back to normal what about Padmini? - is the

question that is to be considered. Both Kapila and Devadatta again

claim the possession of Padmini. Devadatta even suggests: “couldn’t

we all the three live together - like the Pandavas and Draupadi?”

Kapila says “No” to the suggestion. Finally Devadatta says: “There’s

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only one solution to this.” Kapila completes the sentence: “we must

both die” [p. 61]

“[Kapila wounds Devadatta who falls to his feet

and fights. He stabs Kapila. Both fight on their

knees, fall and die. A long silence. Padmini

slowly comes and sits between the bodies.]”

[p. 62]

Later Padmini requests the Bhagavatha to prepare a ‘large

funeral pyre’ for the three of them. Before performing Sati Padmini

addresses Kali and says: “...Kali, mother of all Nature, you must have

your joke even now. Other women can die praying that they should get

the same husband in all the lives to come. You haven’t left me even

that little consolation.” [p. 63]. At the end the Bhagavatha comments:

“.. .India is known for its Pativratas - wives who dedicated their whole

existence to the service of their husbands - but it would not be an

exaggeration to say that no Pativrata went in the way Padmini did.”

[p. 63]

Kamad has added richness to the fabric of the play with usages

which are typically India such as the Bhagavatha’s account of

Devadatta’s intelligence: “Having blinded the greatest poets of the

world with his poetry and wit, Devadatta is as it were the apple of

every eye in Dharmapura.”[p.2]. Padmini’s wealth which is described

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as “in her house, the very floor is swept by Goddess of wealth.” [p. 19]

Devadatta describes Padmini as “the Shyama Nayika - bom of

Kalidasa’s magic description - as Vatsayana had dreamt her.” [p. 14].

Padmini’s description of the beauty of nature in the forest as “The

shadows of twigs draw alpanas on the floor. The stars raise arati and

go.[p. 52] Kamad has used some typical India idioms : “one has to

collect merit in seven lives to get a friend like him,” [p. 21] and

Padmini’s description o f her husband as “you are my saffron, my

marriage thread, my deity.” [p. 21]. Introducing speaking-dolls adds to

the extraordinary fictionalising ability of Kamad. K.D.Kurtkoti opines:

“‘Hayavadana’ as a play is closely connected with the theatre that

Kamad is contemplating to start. Up till now we had only drama of

language and we have enjoyed the masterpieces of that kind. The new

drama can make use of the other kind as Kamad himself had done in

his second play ‘Tuglaq’, a magnificent combination of language

costume. This only shows that Girish Kamad is a developing artist and

also a genius because through him Kannada drama also has developed.

His ‘Hayavadana’ is an index to show that Kannada drama has moved

from poetry to theatre.” [p. 76'

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II

Kamad’s ‘Anjumallige’ is a less discussed and less produced

play which has not yet been translated to English. It deals with the

theme of incest which is a universal theme. The story is set in England

where Sathisha is a Biologist on scholarship, his elder sister, Yamini, is

also in England doing a course in painting. The play has both Indian

and English characters: apart from Sathisha and Yamini, there are

Julia, Patricia, David Kirkwood, Gouthama, Harin and Simon, the

doctor. The incestuous relationship between Yamini and Sathisha pulls

Yamini to England on some pretext: painting class which she is not

really committed to.

Scholars round the globe have studied and compared the habits

of different cultures and discovered meaningful regularities in human

behaviour. They agree that the universal trait that is found in every

known culture is the prohibition or taboo of incest. Warner

Muensterberger states that “no known tribe has ever permitted incest.”

[p. 35]

Incest taboo is universal and so is kinship. It is a cultural feature

that regulates biological behaviour. Man is said to be biologically

incestuous but culture regulates his behaviour imposing incest

regulations thus creating the cultural concept of kinship. Freud

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believed that children have a secret desire to commit incest and in

particular baby boys experience innate sexual desire towards their

mothers, which he considers natural. Claude Levi-Strauss attributes the

origin of culture to the incest taboo and says that man became man

inasmuch as he regulated his sexual conduct, imposing incest

restrictions and differentiating individuals into different kinship

classes. He says that incest taboo and kinship constitute the core of the

transition from nature to culture. The incest taboo, which for Levi-

Strauss is universal, is composed of a law: In human societies a man

must always obtain a woman from another man (a daughter or a sister).

The woman is always that which is given in relations of exchange

between men and she is thus the symbol of exchange for a system that

functions only to perpetuate itself

Apart from incest regulations separating those allowed and those

forbidden as sexual partners, the Old Testament also differentiate

among the descendents of man through primogeniture, an institution of

great importance of ancient Israel. In Genesis 19:30-38 it can be seen

how the two daughter Lot beget sons - Moab and Ben-Ammi from Lot

himself. It is also said in Leviticus 20:17-“If a man takes his sister, his

father’s daughter or mother’s daughter, and sees her nakedness and she

sees his nakedness it is a wicked thing. And they shall be cut off in the
 206

sight of their people. He has uncovered the sister’s nakedness. He shall

bear his guilt.” [p. 81 making incest a taboo.

The Hebrews had two institutions that shaped their marriage

system: the levirate and the parallel cousin marriage. The Levirate rule

held that if a man dies without sons, his brother must take the widow as

his wife and their offspring must bear the name of the deceased

brother.

The New Testament is compared to the most widely read Greek

tragedy. Antigone, the Greek heroine is sentenced by her uncle Creon,

tyrant of Thebes, after having performed the funerary rites upon the

corpse of Polyneices, her brother killed in battle. The conflict between

Antigone and Creon has traditionally been interpreted as the struggle

between kinship and state: tradition and modernity.

For Freud incest taboo is a primary characteristic of any society

which is in the stage of advanced cultural development. In his

celebrated work on the origin of the incest taboo, one can notice taboo

on incest in any society that is in a stage of cultural development at an

advanced level. It means that there is no human society that sanctions

incest which is socially disruptive. Prohibition against incest and

marriage within close kinship is found in the most primitive societies.

Freud cites examples from the primitive society wherein the father had

total control and access over all the female members of the family. The
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sons who were deprived of female company, faught with the father to

the extent of killing him, amounting to patricide. Then brothers became

rivals in the process of appropriating female members. In order to

avoid such violence they formed a taboo on mating within the family

and the same was allowed with members of other hoardes.

Among Australian Aborigines, a person is permitted to have

sexual relations with or take as a spouse only someone from a

relatively narrow category of people. Relations with anyone else are

regarded as incestuous.

Incest is neither biologically impossible nor psychologically

abhorrent. On the contrary “psychoanalysis has discovered a universal

phenomenon, not in repulsion towards incest but in its pursuits” [Levi-

Strauss, p.20]. Thus the incest taboo is universally imposed to counter

the equally universal desire for incest.

In India the incest taboo dates back to the times of the Vedas.

Kamad quotes the first conversation between Yama and Yami from the

Rig-Veda. According to the Rig-Veda, Yami is the twin sister of Yama

who is very fond of her brother. There is a dialogue in the Rig-Veda

(10.10) between the two where Yami expresses her love for her brother

Yama and invites him to her bed. He promptly rejects her invitation

saying: “Never will I mingle my body with your body. They call a man

who united with his sister a sinner. Arrange your lustful presence with
 208

some other man, not with me, lovely lady. Your brother does not want

this.” [p. 248] Yama perhaps does not wish the woman of his kind, his

sister, to act like a stranger, like a woman with whom sexual contact is

allowed. He probably avoids marriage within the subgroup and argues

that they should not break the moral law and that he and Yami having

the same parents cannot procreate together suggesting incest taboo.

Kamad derives the name of the female protagonist o f the play from

Yami and calls her Yamini which echoes the name o f Yami.

There is a similar story called "Sona and Roopa' in Malwi, a

Rajasthani Hindi dialect of Madhya Pradesh, which is anthologised in

A.K.Ramanujan’s book ‘Folktales from India’ that has a similar theme.

Once, when a prince takes his mare to drink water, he beholds silver

and gold hair floating in the water. He thinks that some beautifiil

women must have bathed there. He falls in love with the owners of

such beautiful hair and wishes to marry them. His mother, the queen,

promises to find those girls whose hair matched with the ones he had

gathered from the water. All the girls in the town are summoned, to

check whose hair would match with this. To the shock of the queen it

is found that his sisters’ hair ( Roopa and Sona) matched exactly. The

prince says: “Marry them I must, whoever they are. If I can’t, I’ll leave

the country.” [p. 13] The prince insists on marrying his sisters. When

all arrangements for the marriage are made, the sisters are speechless
 209

with horror. On the wedding day both of them climb a sandalwood tree

and hide behind the leaves. When the father asks them to get down

they say: “O Father, we called you father. How can we call you Father-

in-law?” [p. 13] The tree grows higher and higher. The brother asks

them to come down. They say: “O brother, we called you brother. How

can we call you husband now?” [ p . 14] The tree goes higher and

suddenly splits open and takes them inside thereby Roopa and Sona

vanish within the tree.

The beginning of human culture was characterised by incest

taboo and “the prohibition of incest can be found at the dawn of

culture... (it) is culture itself.” [Levi-Strauss. P. 41]

Kamad has quoted the first dialogue between Yama and Yami

from the Rig-Veda and has dextrously dealt with the theme of incest.

Since incest has been a taboo ever since the dawn of human

civilization, one is prone to be psychologically affected due to the guih

of the act; this might even necessitate clinical treatment. Such is the

case of Yamini, the protagonist of the play ‘Anjumallige’. Yamini and

her younger brother Sathisha come from a middle-class Indian family.

Sathisha, a scientist, who is in England on scholarship, is engaged to

Julia. Since Sathisha is economically independent, his father manages

to send money to Yamini, in spite of his poverty. Sathisha realises the

difficulty of his father. Yamini, right from her childhood feels and
 210

nurses a feeling that her father takes more interest and spends more

money on Sathisha’s education and career and has neglected and

exploited her, under the pretext of poverty:

Sathisha: ....Father is sending money for you to

learn painting, Understand? When he is

sending money, in spite of the

difficulties, you learn painting properly

or else return to India and take care of

the household. Read this letter - mother

is not well. Father is diabetic. To meet

the expense of your education, see how

they are struggling, read the letter and

understand.

Yamini: (angrily) without reading the letter I

understand how much they are

struggling. If little money is sent to me,

does it become struggling? Father always

used to brood of poverty when we were

young - who looked after the household

then? Did you do that? Or did mother

look after? I have managed everything

then! I was just a girl of 11-12 years - I

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too aspired to play with other girls, I too

wished to buy ribbons and nice clothes.

Didn’t I feel like any other girl then?

You were very young - mother was ill -

above all poverty.

[With tears in her eyes]

Okay! How long does father wants to

extract work from me? Now he has leamt

to make money and save money. Let him

spend now. Let him pour some money on

my education also. If you want to win a

Nobel Prize, I will say that I too want to

become a Picasso. Who will say ‘no’ let

me see? [p. 16^

Sathisha has a good number of friends who meet regularly. Julia

is Sathisha’s fiancee; Harin and Patricia are married; Gouthama is

interested in Yamini but she doesn’t reciprocate. Yamini often

interferes in Sathisha’s personal life by way of buying him grocery and

shirts though he has not asked her to and by always being a third

person; she is a nuisance to Sathisha and Julia who express

discontentment about her presence and interference. Whenever Julia

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visits Sathisha, she finds Yamini there and considers her presence to

intrude her privacy. She even tells her:

Julia: Yamini, I need to talk something

personal with Sathisha. Please...

[Yamini goes to the bedroom without

speaking a word. The door of the room

remains open, again silence.] [p. 16]

The fact that she keeps the door open deliberately indicates her

inquisitiveness to over hear the conversation between Sathisha and

Julia. In the ensuing conversation, Julia complains and objects to

Sathisha’s visits to Susan’s room for which he defends himself saying

that he has no specialfeelings towards her and that he needs to visit her

as she happens to work m the same place as he does. As Julia is not

convinced she bangs the door and walks out. Yamini comes out

immediately to find out what happened between the two of them.

Sathisha is irritated by her excessive curiosity and asks her to get back

to her room. The detail, in the text, within the bracket says:

(Sathisha, not having any mood to argue with

her goes to the bedroom and shuts the door.

Yamini looks at the bedroom door. Her face

reflects happiness and cheer. She picks up shirts

which are lying on the floor and caresses them

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lovingly. She picks the phone and dials a

number.)

This detail throws light on Yamini’s sadistic happiness at their

estrangement and her love and concern towards Sathisha.

Once, Julia avails a lift from David Kirkwood, a truck driver to

reach Sathisha’s house. Yamini gets some grocery to cook something

special for Sathisha for lunch and by this way she wants to help

Sathisha to get over his morose feeling. To her surprise she sees Julia

back and learns that they are going out for the weekend. Yamini meets

David there for the first time. Julia asks Yamini to serve tea to David

and walks out. David who is jealous and envious looking at the cross-

cultural friendship of Indians and English, misbehaves by talking in an

obscene way. Yamini invites David for lunch after Julia and Sathisha

leave, though he is a total stranger. Yamini’s behaviour is shocking as

she asks him to stay particularly in the absence of her brother and Julia.

The only reason one can attribute to this is that Yamini is jealous of

Julia and Sathisha who have gone out to enjoy each other’s company

solving their problems. Out of sheer envy Yamini ventures to invite

David, whom she has met for the first time. She even dares to have

sexual relationship wit him the very first time she has met him.

Everything happens due to Yamini’s envious nature. Hence envy is the

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chief ingredient of ‘Anjumallige’. Dr. U.R.Ananthamurthy also opines

that:

“Another interesting aspect of his (Kamad’s)

plays is the ‘texture’, the insights he offers into

human relationships. Take for instance, the

treatment of envy in man-man or man-woman

relationships - how envy is generated, what it

feeds on, how it grows the possible,

psychological depth of it...etc. In ‘Anjumallige’,

envy is the basic raw material for a novelist or a

story-teller.” [p. 131'

Sathisha tells Yamini: “You should not

meet him (David) again.”

Yamini retaliates spitefully: “Is it? Thanks.

You are not my guardian. I am not

a small kid. [Self-translated

The question now is with her envy and jealousy. There are

instances, in the play, where Yamini complains about head ache and

her strange experience of having conversed with God:

Yamini: Of late I feel as if someone is

trying to talk to me.

Sathisha; Tell me what?

 215

Yamini: A feeling that God himself is

trying to talk to me but her never

speaks. Day before yesterday when

I myself tried to talk to him, I had a

feeling that my head is going to

split to pieces. I felt blinded for a

while; I was blind for two minutes.

Sathisha: When I advise you, you get

angry. But the doctor has told you

that unless you reduce this tension

you cannot overcome head ache

and sleeplessness, [p. 21

That means Yamini is under doctor’s care for her health problem

- mainly tension. Her excessive attachment and concern towards

Sathisha; her envious entanglement with David troubles her all the

more. She, perhaps, is under an impression that her commitment with

David would bring her some solace. On the contrary it takes a toll on

her psyche and she becomes a wreck, which results in her confinement

in an asylum where she receives psychiatric treatment. After she

returns fi*om the hospital Yamini tells Julia:

Yamini: After I went to the hostel, God

spoke to me for a month in the

 216

voice of David. I asked him angrily

“we have thirty three crores of

Gods. Not one! Which God are you

tell me?” He replied

“Y amadharmaraya.”

Yamini confesses to Julia about her childhood experiences:

Yamini: childhood is a disease. Some are

lucky. They get well and escape.

For a person like me the disease

remains and becomes infected.

Julia is ready to share Yamini’s childhood experiences. Yamini

confesses about her incestuous relationship with Sathisha and also tells

her that she had become pregnant and had to abort the child.After this

instance Sathisha never commits the mistake again whereas Yamini

still craves for his physical proximity. She becomes very jealous to

learn that Sathisha sleep with Julia. She says;

Yamini: .. .the whole of last year I have not

slept in remembering Sathisha.

While both of you were tossing

happily on bed there I have wept

again and again remembering

him.... Why did he marry you

 217

when I was locked inside the

asylum? [p. 63^

Julia is a broad-minded, modem girl who understands Sathisha

well and she never misconceives their relationship. She takes it in a

very practical way and tells Sathisha:

Julia: Don’t say she has no mental

equilibrium. She has not done

anything to lose it. Being your

sister she loved you. That’s all isn’t

it? Just like me -as much as I did -

loved you.........

Julia: Yes, she loved you, what’s wrong?

Till we accept this we cannot be

emancipated Sathish.

Julia accepts Sathisha, as he is, without complaining. She never

considers incest as a crime or taboo and advises Sathisha also to

develop the same attitude.

David Kirkwood is a truck driver and a ruffian exhibiting his

class, in his use of language, who still feels superior about his colour

and ill treats others particularly Indian and Pakistanis. He stands as a

symbol for the superiority complex of the once ruling English over the

once colonised natives. He treats Indians, who are settled in England,

 218

in a very harsh and disgusting manner. When Yamini has to be shifted

to the mental asylum, she refuses initially, but later agrees on a

condition that if David would accompany she would go to the hospital.

When requested by Sathisha, David consents only after forcing

Sathisha to utter some nauseating and averse words and phrases.

Helpless Sathisha utters all the disgusting words David asks him to

repeat only to help Yamini at the time of crisis like a slave. Yamini is

taken to the hospital, treatment is given and she is brought back home.

Even then she keeps brooding over her past experiences: her

incestuous relationship with Sathisha and her own guilty mind trying to

punish herself by way of imagining David as a God -

Yamadharmaraya, the God of death. David as Yamadharmaraya is

perhaps an extension of her own guilt-stricken mind. Yamini’s weak

mind cannot exercise any control over herself. Finally she picks up a

blade and says:

Yamini: You have to protect my honour. Understand? [p. 67]

Saying that she commits suicide. Yamini’s suffering ultimately

ends with her self immolation. Having in mind the title of the play

‘Anjumallige’ meaning ‘“ Shy Jasmine’ - the plant that doesn’t bloom

on the soil on which it has grown, and which, therefore, needs to be

transplanted - ably connotes the varied emigre experiences of those

transplanted from one culture to another.” [C.N.Ramachandra. p. 25]

 219

Yamini does not bloom though she is transplanted from Indian soil to

that of England. Change of culture does not help her to get over her

guih feeling, amounting to ‘wherever you may migrate but the mind is

veiy much with you’ factor. Therefore Yamini becomes a total wreck

and succumbs to her guilty mind. ‘Anjumallige’, as C.N.Ramachandra

says, is thus a “tragic incestuous love of a woman for her brother, and

the emigre experience of Indians in England.” [p. 25]

III

The play ‘Nagamandala’ has an English title called ‘play with a

cobra’, based on a Tamil story ‘The Adventures o f the Princess

Standing Lamp’ which is anthologised in a Tamil folk story collection:

“Matanakamarajan Katai”. ‘Nagamandala’ is also based on a South

Indian story called ‘The Serpent Lover’ found in ‘A Flowering Tree’

It again has a resemblance to a Rajasthan folk tale titled ‘Duvidha’ or

‘The Two Roads ’ written by Vijaydan Detha. The basic story line of

all the three stories are same but with certain variations. Kamad

borrows heavily from ‘The Serpent Lover’ which provides the

necessary impetus to the play ‘Nagamandala’. Regarding the use of

folktales Kamad says;

 220

“The energy of folk theatre comes from the

fact that although it seems to uphold traditional

values, it also has the means of questioning

these values, of making them literally stand on

their head. The various conventions - the

chorus, the music, and the seemingly unrelated

comic interludes, the mixing of human and

non-human worlds - permit a simultaneous

presentation of alternative points of view, of

alternative analysis of the central problem.”

[p.l91]

The purpose of the use of dramatic devices paves way for

multiple interpretations which invest power to the story, as drama, to

Kamad, is not just for self expression but also for “production of

meaning.” [Kamad, p.82]

In his oeuvre ‘Nagamandala’ is the only work in which Kamad

has written a prologue which prepares the audience and sets the mood

and atmosphere of the play. The readers are lead to a different world,

for drama is such a world which is fanciful and the play

‘Nagamandala’ is all the more omate. In the prologue we meet a man

who is a dramatist and a story-teller accursed for putting many viewers

to sleep ‘twisted in miserable chairs.’ The anti-curse is that he has to be

 221

awake one full night in thirty days to escape from death. We see

‘flames’ speaking in female voices thus providing an ambience of a

magical world. ‘Story’ is personified as a ‘woman dressed in a new

colourful sari.’ It is the Story which narrates the story of Rani, the

heroine of ‘Nagamandala.’ Then we have the man and the flames

listening to the ‘story’ narrating the story that form a section of

audience. During the process of keeping aweike the whole night, the

dramatist beholds a host of ‘lamps’ and listens to their conversation in

which ‘Story’ agrees to narrate the poignant story o f a young bride -

Rani, queen o f long black tresses. Newly married Rani leads a

miserable lonely life as her husband chooses to spend the night with

his concubine.

With the help of Kurudawa, the blind woman, who gives her a

magical root, Rani, unknowingly conjures a passionate lover Naga [the

cobra] who transforms into a likeness of Appanna, her husband, and

visits her only at nights. His nightly visits comfort her but threaten the

sanctity of her marriage; accused of adultery Rani has to prove her

innocence. This is the outline of ‘Nagamandala.’

The title of the play ‘Nagamandala’ initiates the readers to know

about the meaning of Nagamandala. ‘Naga’ is the serpent; the word

‘mandala’ means a geometric figure consisting of a triangle and a

square, a square closing a triangle. In rituals this geometrical figure

 222

assumes a magical significance possessing a power of its own.

C.GJung uses the word ‘mandala’ to describe the complex patterns

created by various aspects of personality-ego, persona shadow, anima

and animus. Serpent has several connotations. All cultures that know

them have found serpents fascinating, who shed their skin and seem

rejuvenated and their symbolic possibilities are rich and often

ambiguous. The most important for western literature, is the one in the

Garden of Eden who enticed Eve to eat the fruit of temptation from the

tree of knowledge thus bringing about the expulsion of Adam and Eve

from the Garden. The serpent; is thus connected with knowledge and

wisdom, though fatal knowledge and with human mortality. A great

number of sacred animal representations are seen in the religions of

antiquity, especially those of India, Greece and Egypt. The Bull was

sacred in Egypt. All godly qualities were attributed to animals hence

they were worshipped. In Assyria God was always associated with a

sacred animal, often a goat, which was supposed to possess the

qualities for which the animal body and the human head and the

winged bulls of Nineveh are examples. The mystic Centaurs and Satyrs

(In ancient Greek stories, a god of the woods with a man’s face and

body and goat’s legs and horns) originated from this source. In these

religions the animal was not merely worshipped as such. It was a

certain quality which was deified.

 223

An animal symbol of universal use is that of the snake or serpent

whose worship has been described in almost every country. Sanger

Brown II, in his essay, “The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive

Races” has states that in Egypt, the serpent is found on the headdress

o f many of the Gods. In Africa the snake is sacred with many tribes.

The worship o f the hooded snake was probably carried from India to

Egypt. The dragon on the flag and porcelain o f China has serpents.

Enormous stone serpents are found in Central America carved in

various forms. Divine honours are paid to serpents. Scandinavia and

the druids of Britain carried on a similar worship. The Greeks had an

ideal figure of a serpent; rays were added to the head of a serpent

thereby bringing it into relation with the sun god Apollo. Buddhist

tales have the snake as a motif. Kamala Vasudevan, in the essay “The

Legend of the Naga” iterates that a Naga named ‘Machalinda’ offered

protection to Lord Buddha from incessant rains by extending his hood

over his head after his enlightenment.

Serpent worship has been shown by many writers to be a form of

sex worship. Hargrave Jennings has said that the serpent was added to

the male and female symbols to represent desire and it is often a phallic

symbol. The Hindu women carry the lingam in procession between two

serpents; and in the sacred procession of Bacchus the Greeks carried,

in a sacred casket, the egg and a serpent. Many reasons have been
 224

offered to explain why the serpent is used to represent the male

generative attribute: its tenacity of life, its mystic power of

regeneration by casting its skin. This universal serpent worship of

primitive man is a form of phallicism that was prevalent.

The snake finds a mention in all Hindu mythological legends in

one form or the other. Most of the Hindu Gods like Vishnu, Krishna,

Ganapathi and Shiva are associated with snake in their heroic exploits.

Balarama is considered as an incarnation of the cosmic snake ‘shesha.’

There is a tribe called the ‘Nagas’ who probably reigned in Mathura at

one time. The practice of worshipping the snake is very ancient in

India which has its roots in the Vedic period. It is found more in

Karnataka which is a ritual performed all night during December to

April. The ritualistic performance starts before monsoon. Serpent god

is a symbol of fertility and life. This serpent worship is found in Kerala

as well. The all night ritual is called ‘Nagamandala’. These rituals are

usually observed in naga temples.

 225

Serpent God a symbol of fertility and life of coastal Karnataka

Design of Naga Mandala, the Snake Web, Wooden

Carving
Laxmi Venkatesh Temple, Village of Hosad, Uttara
Kannada District
 226

Nagamandala, The Snake Web

Stone sculpture depicts a circle of snakes

This ritual is mostly observed by the Brahmins. They dance and

sing around an elaborate serpent design drawn with colours and

flowers. Five colours are used to draw the design. The dance is called

the ‘naga dance’ which takes place around these mandala drawings.

This all-night singing and dancing creates an awe inspiring experience.

Brahmins utter the mantras in Sanskrit and the other proceedings take

place in Kannada. This ‘Nagamandala’ is performed by two groups of

performers who get possessed. People worship serpents in anticipation

of offspring as they symbolise fertility and phallus. During the

‘Nagapanchami’ festival, women pour milk on snake mounds to

propitiate the snake aspiring for offspring. Kamala Vasudevan states

that the devotes of snake worship are mainly women who pray to beget
 227

children. ‘Nagaprathishta’, setting up of snake icons made of stones

under a tree in the temple is another fertility rite. Carved snake stone

slabs are found under the pipal or the Margosa tree in temple premises:

Snake-stones after worship. Women worshipping snake-stones,

Kacchabesvara temple

Snake-stones after worship, Kacchabesvara temple, Tamil Nadu

Kamad, in 'Nagamandala’ has shown how Indians’ strong belief

in snake worship, at times, leads to superstition, and with this

superstitious belief how p^oplp make major decisions of life such as

deciding one’s chastity in a body like village panchayat. With this

background, it is possible to view and analyse the play ‘Nagamandala’

in its broader perspective. A Mandala consists of a triangle and a

 228

square: a square enclosing a triangle, the three points of the triangle are

represented by Rani, Appanna and Naga who form wife, husband and

lover angles thus paving way to a situation of seeming adultery. The

four sides of the square are ‘Flames’, ‘Story’, Man and the

audience/readers. By making ‘Story’ tell Man, in the prologue, Kamad

insists that folktales should be ferried from one generation to another

failing which they will be erased from human memory. “You can’t just

listen to the story and leave it at that. You must tell it again to someone

else.”[p. 252] Kamad also hints at the problem of the helplessness of

man and the plight of the writer. ‘Flames’ speaking like women - in

female voices - bring wonder in the man who says:

I don’t believe it! They are naked lamp

flames! No wicks, no lamps. No one holding

them. Just lamp flames on their own - floating

in the air! Is that even possible? [p. 248^

Folklore conjures up many fanciful things. These flames

personified - “The Story, in the form of a woman dressed in a new,

colourftil sari, enters, acknowledges the enthusiastic welcome from the

Flames with a languid wave of the hand and goes and sits in a comer,

looking most despondent. The Flames gather around her.”[p. 251] - is

an invitation to ‘willing suspension of disbelief. By introducing this

technique Kamad is preparing the audience/readers to such a setting

 229

where non-human things can communicate, even a cobra can speak and

father a human child. It is here Kamad has used successfully the

inanimate - the Flames - as he has used ‘dolls’ in ‘Hayavadana’ to

depict the commonness in the life of man, where jealousy, love, agony

are prevalent. Each flame is given an identity: Kusbi oil flame,

Kerosene oil flame, Castor oil flame etc. These flames, having female

voices are gossip prone

Flame 1: That master of our house, you know what a

skinflint he is! He is convinced his wife has a

hole in her palm, so he buys all the groceries

himself This evening, before the dark was

even an hour old, they had run out of Kusbi

oil. The tin of the peanut oil didn’t go far. The

bowl of castor oil was empty anyway. So they

had to retire to bed early and I was permitted

to come here. [p. 249^

and ‘Story/Stories’ are immortal who almost play the roll of a

‘Bhagvatar’. The names of the characters of the story narrated by

‘Story’ are appropriate. Rani, in the original Tamil story is a princess;

here her name is Rani, which means princess, but without that status.

Story: A young girl. Her name....it doesn’t matter.

But she was an only daughter, so her parents

 230

called her Rani. Queen. Queen of the whole

wide world. Queen of the long tresses. For

when her hair was tied up in a knot, it was as

though a black King Cobra lay curled on the

nape of her neck, coil upon glistening coil.

When it hung loose, the tresses flowed, a

torrent of black, along her young limbs and

got entangled in her silver anklets.” [p. 253]

Appanna is any man, everyman as in morality plays. Kurudawa

means a blind woman; she is old who suggests wisdom bringing the

knowledge of love to Rani who is innocent and unaware regarding

‘love’. Kurudawa is like a mother figure to both Rani and Appanna.

She asserts that she was like a sister to Appanna’s mother: “Your

mother-in-law and I were like sisters. I helped when your husband was

bom.,..Appanna is like a son to me.” [p.258] Appanna himself

acknowledges: “In my sleep, it sounded like ... my mother calling

m e...”[p.297] Kamad uses capital M for mother giving her the

dimension of a universal mother who wants to groom Rani to an

adorable wife. She tries to bring husband and wife together. Kappanna

means a person who is dark in complexion; denoting mysteries of life,

who always carries his mother Kurudawa suggesting that one has to

carry the onus of love which is mysterious. His movements are

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mysterious and his disappearance at the end o f the play is equally

mysterious. He is enticed by one Yakshini who is supposed to have

taken him away. The play has one set of audience from among the

dramatic personae and the other is the real audience who are watching

the play. The play has many a myth - in Naga coming disguised as

Appanna; one can recall Indra visiting Ahalya disguised as her

husband Goutama. Naga comes from the Nether world and Indra from

the Upper world. The myth of women worshipping cobra and offering

milk on ‘Nagapanchami’ day to propitiate the phallic symbol is very

close to Rani pouring the magic potion to the snake mound,

unknowingly, which she prepares with the magic root given to her by

Kurudawa, to attract her husband. Here the cobra which drinks the

potion poured by Rani, gets allured and comes in the form of her

husband to woo her. The herb wrongly administered, instead of

bringing Appanna to Rani’s bed brings an impostor -Cobra in the guise

o f Appanna - to her. Circumstances make the love potion work

differently.

In ‘Nagamadala’ Kamad has made use o f two oral tales he had

heard from his friend and mentor A.K.Ramanujan. “The first story,

about the lamp flames that gather in a village temple to exchange

gossip about the households they inhabit, is part o f the outer play and

gives imaginative expression to the idea of community life. The second

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Story, about the woman who was visited by a king cobra in the form

of her husband is personified in the play as a beautiful young woman in

a sari, and it ‘tells itself (as the inner play) to an audience composed of

the playwright and the flames.” [Dharwadkar. P. xxx] The first

comments on the nature of oral tales. Within this is the story of Rani

whose predicament reflects the human need to live by fictions and half-

truths. Rani, who is neglected by her husband Appanna, gets consoled

through her dream in which her innate desire for love gets solace. The

Prince, ‘the stag with the golden antlers’ plays a significant roleand

reflects the sub-conscious mind of Rani which is quite similartothe

song ‘Here comes a rider’ in ‘Hayavadana’ to project the inner self of

Padmini. Rani dreams of the demon:

“ ..... the demon locks her up in the castle.

Then it rains for seven days and seven nights. It

pours. The sea floods the city. The waters break

down the door of the castle. Then a big whole

comes to Rani and says: “Come, Rani, let’s go.” [p.

263]

It is Rani’s suppressed desire trying to find an outlet. A little

later “Then the snake strikes and swallows the bird.”[p. 274] is very

suggestive - justification of the act to accept as a natural need rather

than to consider it as a sin. These fantasies and dreams reveal her

 233

personality. Growth in Rani’s personality at various stages can be

traced. When ‘Story’ narrates Rani’s tale, it is said that she is an only

daughter. When she comes of age, she is married to Appanna, a rich

man, a wrestler, a well-built man who has his own expectation in his

wife. Right from the day Appanna marries Rani amd brings her home,

he locks her inside the house and spends the nights with his concubine.

He orders Rani to keep his food ready and comes home only to have

bath and food. If Rani is not found around he is angry and beats her:

(Rani come to the front door and freezes. Appana is

waiting for her.)

Appanna: Rani, where have you been?

(no answer)

I said where have you been? Rani, answer me!

(Moves aside so that she can go in. but the moment

she steps in, Appanna slaps her hard....)

Appanna’s treatment meted out to Rani results in the

incompatibility between the two. Her unbearable loneliness compels

her to dream about herself that express her deepest longings. First, she

wishes to go back to her parents, who dwell in the seventh isle or

seventh heaven in a magic garden. She is carried by an eagle across the

seven seas, back home. She sleeps between her father and mother. She

feels protected and looks for a similar kind o f protection from her
 234

husband failing to realise that there are many more things a husband

and wife can give each other, due to her child-like innocence. In her

second day dream she finds a stag with golden antlers at the door

calling her. She refuses to go which indicates that Rani is still not

mentally prepared to lead a life with her husband whose animus is not

fully developed. The animus is the male factor in the psyche of a

woman and is shaped by a woman’s relationship with her father or any

other father figures who come into her life during her early

development stage. [Rancham. p.80] Such a woman, like Rani needs a

man who helps her discover her feminity. Naga, in the form of

Appanna, helps Rani in this respect. He educates her about sex and

elaborates on the myth of natural life which is part of the life of man:

“Frogs croaking in pelting rain, tortoise singing

soundlessly in the dark, foxes, crabs, ants, rattlers,

sharks, swallows - even the geese! The female begins

to smell like the wet earth. And stung by her smell, the

King Cobra starts searching for his Queen. The tiger

bellows for his mate. When the flame of the forest

blossoms into a fountain of red and the earth cracks

open at the touch of the aerial roots of the banyan, it

moves in the hollow of the cotton wood, in the flow of

the estuary, the dark limestone caves fi-om the womb of

 235

the heavens to the dark netherworlds. Within

everything, that sprouts, grows, stretches, creaks and

blooms - everywhere those who come together cling

and fall apart lazily! It is there and there and there,

everywhere” [p.276]

Once this latent power is awakened she is able to act

courageously. She is totally unaware that the husband who visits her at

night is the cobra personified and the one who visits her during

daytime is Appanna, the real one. If the same psychological

interpretation is applied, it is interesting to see Appanna and Naga and

even Kappanna as aspects of a single character. Naga and Appanna can

be considered and seen from this perspective is suggested by Kamad’s

comment at the end of Act 1;

“The cobra takes the shape of Appanna. To

distinguish this Appanna from the real one, we shall

call him Naga, meaning a cobra.” [p. 267]

Naga, therefore be considered as the shadow of Appanna, the

unconscious side of his personality or even as the projection of Rani’s

fantasy on Appanna. In the real Appanna’s personality the anima is

distorted. The anima is the female factor in the unconscious of man,

contra sexual to the male ego, which takes shape by man’s relationship

with his mother or mother-surrogates who come early in his

 236

development. [Rancham p.80] This brings about healthy attitude in

man towards women, otherwise it may lead to extreme hostility

towards them or develop oedipal attitude. A distorted anima results in

man treating a woman as an object, a possession that can be used or

abused. Appanna treats Rani as one who has to merely gratify his

physical needs. The Rani-Naga relationship is not a complete and

healthy one either. The innocent Rani is trapped in the world of

fantasy. She cannot reconcile with possibilities of two Appannas:

“All these days I was never sure I didn’t dream

up these nightly visits of yours.” [p. 282]

She is projecting her fantasy on Appanna. The Appanna at night

has wounds on his body and her husband Appanna who visits her

during the day-time, has none. Naga, as Appanna, appears to be an

honest and true lover. Even this is unhealthy as it is a resuh of the

working of the magic potion, the potion which has turned blood red. In

this relationship Rani discovers her feminity but she is not out of

fantasy. When Appanna learns about Rani’s pregnancy, his sense of

possession is outraged and he is angry, angry enough to kill her with a

stone. There is no feeling of jealousy bom out of love in Appanna. He

knows that he has not had any physical relationship with her therefore

there is no question of he fathering the child and his male ego is

enraged to the extent of smashing her to death with stones:

 237

Appanna; I swear to you I am not my father’s son if I

don’t abort that bastard! Smash it into dust!

Right now -

(Drags her into the street, picics up a huge stone to

throw on her ... Rani Screams.) [p. 33]

The moment of confronting reality comes for both of them.

Time comes when Rani has to prove her chastity before the elders and

the entire village as Appanna pleads for justice at the village

Panchayath. It is the trial which Rani has to face. It is now and here

that Rani has to overcome her fears and fantasies. Naga advises t tell

only the truth only then she can successfully cross the test of holding

the cobra in her hand to prove her chastity. She confronts the test with

her child-like honesty and holds the cobra and says:

Rani: Since coming to this village, I have held in

this hand, only tw o....

Appanna: (triumphant) There. She admits it. Two

she says. Two! Who are they?

Rani: My husband and ....

Appanna: And -say it, who else?

Rani: And this Cobra.

(Suddenly words pour out)

 238

Yes, my husband and this King Cobra. Except

for these two, I have not touched anyone of

the male sex. Nor have I allowed any other

male to touch me. If I lie, let the cobra bite

me.

(The cobra slides up her shoulder and spreads its

hood like an umbrella over her head. The crowd

gasps. The cobra ways its hood gently for a

while, then becomes docile and moves over her

shoulder like a garland ... .Rani stares

uncomprehending as the cobra slips back into the

ant-hill. There are hosannas and cheers from the

crowd.)” [p. 292

Rani confronting truth and acknowledging it results in a change

in her animus. Appanna’s anima also changes as the entire village

considers Rani as the icon of truthfulness and a Devi - goddess and

everyone starts prostrating:

Elder 1: A miracle! A miracle!

Elder2: She is not a woman. She is a Divine being!

Elder3: Indeed, a Goldess-----!

(They fall at her feet. The crowd surges forward to

prostrate itself before her. Appanna stands.

 239

uncomprehending. The elders shout, ‘Palanquin!

Music!’ They lift her into the Palanquin. Then, as

an afterthought, Appanna is seated next to her. The

couple is taken in procession to their house) [p.

292-3]

Kamad has shown, here, how when myth becomes belief in an

individual and prompts him to a certain action, he becomes an

archetype. The archetype, in turn, reinforces belief and contributes to

the mythic consciousness of the race.

Rani and Appanna both have to face reality now - Rani has to

learn to live with the real Appanna and he has to learn to live with a

new Rani. Story says;

“When one says, ‘And they lived happily ever

after’, all that is taken for granted. You sweep such

headaches under the pillow and then press your

head firmly down on them. It is something one has

to live with, like a husband who snores, or a wife

who is going bald.” [p. 295]

It is suggested that these problems remain in the subconscious

mind. From this point of time onwards Naga cannot meet Rani in the

guise of Appanna as the real Appanna takes over. Naga loves Rani

deeply and sincerely which he proves by aiding Rani to cross the trial
 240

scene successfully. He helps her to prove, before her husband,

Panchayath and the entire village people, that she is chaste and honest.

When the real Appanna and Rani are united, after the snake ordeal, he

wishes to see Rani but hesitates. “Naga: Why should I not take a look?

I have given her everything. Her husband. Her child. Her home. Even

her maid. She must be happy” [p. 295] Naga makes Apparma’s

concubine work in Rani’s household as a menial worker:

Naga: ...I have given her everything. Her husband, her

child, her home. Even her maid. She must be

happy...[p. 42

Story: So Rani got everything she wished for, a devoted

husband, a happy life. She even got a life-long

servant to draw water for her house. For

Appaima’s concubine was present in the trial.

When she saw Rani’s glory, she felt ashamed of

her sinful life and volunteered to do menial work

in Rani’s house ...[p. 40^

Naga then decides to visit Rani at night. Seeing Rani in another

man’s arms he cries:

Naga: Rani! My Queen! The fragrance of my nights!

The blossom of my dreams! In another man’s

arms! In another man’s bed! Does she curl

 241

around him as passionately every night now?

... .this King cobra is now no better than a grass

snake...,a common reptile. That’s what I am

and I had forgotten that. I thought I could

become human. Turn into my own creation.

No! Her thighs, her bosom, her lips are for one

who is forever a man..... How could I even

hope to retain the human form? [p. 42'

The pang of separation suffered by Naga here is evident. What is

commendable in Naga is that he realises the situation. He, instead of

envying her and troubling her helps her in every aspect on the contrary.

Naga gives Rani the kind of love she aspires for; he gives her a child,

above all gives her great honour and position in the society, as a chaste

honest woman - Pathivratha Sthree, unlike an envious, disappointed

lover. Naga reminds one of Mathew Arnold’s ‘The Forsaken Merman’.

Even here the human, non-human love concludes in the separation of

both of them. With Appanna what Rani gets is separation, loneliness,

humiliation, pain and threat of more pain. Naga accords her idyllic

happiness and everything a young bride aspires for. Appanna’s

reaction to the news of Rani’s pregnancy is rather harsh. What is

significant here is the transition from the night to the day. In Romance

tradition the Prince rescuer is a charmed person capable of punishing

 242

the cruel or removing the curse. Here Naga is one such. Appanna is the

wrong-doer and Rani is the Princess-victim. In Romance tradition the

prosecutor is killed and the rescuer gets the Princess. But here Kamad

reverses the tradition: the prosecutor survives and gets the Princess and

the rescuer dies. ‘Story’ first describes Rani as the queen of the long

tresses. When her hair is tied up in knots it is as though a black King

cobra lay curled on her neck. At the end of the play Naga becomes one

with these tresses and uses those very tresses to kill himself.

There is a sub-plot in the play involving Kappanna who is loved

by a snake-woman, Yakshini. The human, non-human relationship of

the main plot is replicated in the sub-plot with a small change: the non­

human, in the main plot hangs himself in the thick dark tresses of Rani;

here Kappanna disappears mysteriously. Kamad keeps the flow of folk

atmosphere throughout with the help of a Yakshini who bewitches

Kappanna.

When ‘Story’ ends the play stating that “Rani lived happily ever

after with her husband, child and servant,” the audience (Flames) is

unhappy and dissatisfied hence it is eager to know what happened to

Kappanna and Kurudavva. Therefore the story offers an alternate

ending. Not satisfied with this also. Flames compel man to suggest yet

another, satisfactory happy ending of the play. The man - the writer -

who keeps listening to this story doubts that people will not accept this
 243

kind of conclusion - they lived happily ever after; he opines that there

is a loose end where the listeners do not know what happened to

Kappanna. The story tells him that it is possible to meet Kappanna

anywhere, the way he has met him or the story o f Kappanna can be

woven by anyone and that he is ‘the story of Rani’ - Rani’s story

personified as a story-teller. The Man says: If I were to be Appanna:

Appanna breaks into a soliloquy. He says that the child Rani is

carrying is not his and that he knows it for sure. He regrets that no one

respects what he knows so surely. He says that though the snake has

justified Rani’s fidelity he knows the truth that he has not fathered the

child.

Another alternate ending is; Man, the listener o f the story asks

what happened to the snake at the end. The Story narrates the story of

Nagappa, the snake. The snake transforms into Naga who wants to see

the happy family of Rani. On beholding Rani sleeping peacefully with

another man and child contented he feels jealous for a while. He

decides that one of them, either Rani or he himself should die. For a

minute there is an instinct, in Naga, to kill her and make her his own

forever. But his conscience directs him that he is not fit to possess her,

and that a snake can never own a human wife. Therefore he decides to

take refuge in Rani’s tresses. Rani, who hears the voice of Kurudawa,

tries to get up and see what the matter with her is only to realise that
 244

her hair is very heavy. When she tries to comb her hair, the dead Naga

falls down her hair. Appanna feels that Rani’s fidelity - Pathivratha

Dharma - has saved her again from a snake-bite. Rani opines that they

are indebted to the snake as it has spared the child from being bitten.

She also suggests that the snake has to be given proper cremation rites,

not only then, but every year on that day by her son. Logically Naga is

the biological father of the child hence what Rani says also sounds

logical which Appanna cannot understand. When Appanna questions

Rani as to how his son can offer such a rite to the Naga. Rani says that

she should not be questioned. Appanna accepts it as he considers her as

'JagajjananV after the trial. The lamps, who are listening to the story,

are happy that they got to listen to a nice story. But one of them opines

that even this is not a proper ending as she feels that a story should end

in a happy note. She asks the man, the story writer, to alter the ending

part. Thereby the man changes the conclusion thus; Rani feels her hair

is heavy. Appanna tries to help her. A snake falls down from her hair.

Appanna rushes to get a stick to kill the snake. Before his return Rani

takes the snake back in her hair giving it a place there as she deems it

as her husband. The man, the writer and listener; the l ^ p s and the

story personified offer an outer frame work to the tale of Rani,

Appanna, Kurudawa and Kappanna.

 245

Looking at the use of all these dramatic devices and techniques

by Kamad, G.S.Amur states:

“Several stories have gone into the making of ‘Nagamandala’ -

the story of the dramatist under sentence of death for causing boredom

to his audiences, the story of ‘story’ itself, rebelling against

suppression and demanding audience, the story of Rani with her human

husband and non-human lover and the story of Kappanna, Kurudawa’s

son, haunted by the presence of an unseen sexual force. The blending

of these narratives into an integrated theatrical unit shows the hand of a

master craftsman. ‘Nagamandala’ is a technical triumph.” [p. 272]

 246

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