palimpsest india: my impressions of "the moor's last sigh"

#Reading Rushdie's "the moor's last sigh" brought me face to face with what he calls the "other" india... india minus the majority hindu population and the "majorest" minority... the india of jews, parsis, catholics..very often relegated to the back ground..he wonders aloud that how would reader take his family history which isn't about hindus and muslims...

#the protagonist's personal history as in rushdie's other novels, is the history of not only india but also takes us to the moorish spain...he takes us back and forth in time.. combining the events in his life with that of the nation.. strutting from spice garden kerela to mumbai of mob wars...then again to a dali-esque labyrinth...this two times faster growing and wasting Moraes who becomes the confidant of the hapless reader :-)

#the recent rapid depletion of tolerance for "the other" also has been more than hinted in the antics of "the croaking frog" and uninhibited censure that "in the end would come a battering ram, knocking at our doors"... the fear of the minorities and the non-marathi population are almost as relevant today as were during the time this book was written...

#using a device called "ekphrasis" in which the writer uses the description of art to describe things, rushdie has also made the strongest metaphor of the book...ie. of a palimpsest...how india like the paintings of moor's mothers were palimpsested with the previous impressions that can't be wiped out completely...and how the acceptance of these various impressions without trying to wipe off the past completely in order to write a new chapter today will probably make this kaleidoscopic india survive... 

poems written under the influence of modernism and existentialism :-) back in 2003

the human apocalypse

there was darkness at noon

the screaming scavengers

restless pursuit...

the sun eclipsed

the moon turned bloody

the trees devoid of life nourishing sap

the graves upturned

skeletons strewn across the wasteland

oceans retracing tsunamic steps

rivers parched to thirst

sacrificing babies at desperate altars

sisyphus pushing the boulder uphill

i walk on, pained at my own aching tooth

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from womb to tomb

the umblical cord has snapped

and i see myself in the mirrors of the world

trying to identify with that woman

On Razor's edge, would i be tested?

would i be blown in a thousand directions?

while the delicate glass is moulded

shall my spirit overcome uextinguished

Do i dare trust humans

with faces out of kaleidoscope

one shade less, one hue graver

Teddy bears won't be soft anymore

scaring me with that carnivorous teeth

the eyes of fairies not so benign

as their hardness would gnaw at my heart

solidified tears  would refuse to fall

choked voice humiliating me

while depth would be equated with cowardice

would I forever be procrastinating?

in this journey from womb to tomb

or like the protagonists of many plays

"I can't go on, i will go on.."

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in praise of the resilience shown by afgani women : a poem

Do you remember all those wounds on her body and soul?

when she was pulverised like bamiyan buddhas never to again become whole;

incarcerated in veil, with a merciful one-way window to the world,

silence was rammed down the throat of the singing bird.

denied all laughter, hope, song and even the fresh air,

she was expected to deliver, in dark rooms, the male heir.

her face corrupts, they explained, her footstep excites,

shaming her for the raging lust that within them fights.

her thumbs chopped off to teach the lesson to painted nails,

kicked in flank and shin, for venturing out, unchaperoned by males.

when her flight was cut short midway, with Kalashnikov's aid,

who could have thought that of much stronger stuff than bamiyan stones she was made

that not only she, in all fortitude, survived the night,

but rose from her incinerated self to make her nation see the light

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devi - journey of a woman in to divinity and lunacy

Its the tale of Doyamoyee who having unwittingly cured one villager after another,  fails to cure the one who mattered the most- her cherubic nephew khoka... its the tale of a woman who willingly chooses to live the dream of her father-in-law (who saw her as an reincarnation of goddess kali) and so convinced of her own divinity, refuses to go with her educated husband who tries to make her see sense.... its the tale of a woman who experiences solitude even amid the myriad who had flocked to her door for blessing or boon or treatment... its the tale of a woman who loses it all.. her beloved nephew khoka, the belief in herself, her husband, and most importantly her sanity... and in the end vanishes in the mist...losing herself....

the president gold medal winning, satyajit ray's movie generated a lot of controversy when many fanatics saw it as an attack on hinduism and tried to stop it from its international release. but with it eventual release, it won standing ovation everywhere, apart from the coveted president's medal. Sharmila tagore who in her teenage gave the outsatanding perfprmance as Doyamoyee once commented "Devi was what a genius got out of me, not something I did myself". 

What made me ruminate for days was what was Ray's intention (if it was to be believed that all art had a purpose)? the spectator as per his/her socio-cultural baggage would interpret the end of this movie differently. a person not aware of hindu customs and beliefs may see it as a divine nemesis of sorts... a woman who tries to become goddess faces the wrath of goddess by losing what ever she valued the most?? but then the question i would like to ask is... that if it was a blasphemy for a woman to see herself as the goddess, why was the one who put this in her head spared?? otherwise as well... as i said.. one has to understand that in hindu culture.. it is not out of place to have human incarnations for gods and goddesses.

The other explanation vendible is the psychological breakdown a human undergoes when he/she carries more weight than one can.. the responsibility of the goddess to cure the multitudes of their "fever and fret" of the world sequesters her from all that was hitherto dear to her.. she plays lesser with khoka now..can't seem to connect to her role as wedded wife.. can't hold gossip sessions with her fellow woman and can't even massage her father-in-law's feet,  all thanks to her newly found status of being a "devi"... for a devi doesn't trifle over such things... and when the final test comes, she realises all her ministrations have come to nothing. All her divinity comes to nothing when she had to heal the one most cherished.. and she fails the ones who mattered the most... a reason good enough for anyone to go insane.

perhaps, the beauty of any classic lies not in establishing the real meaning of the text but relishing in its ever-fleetingness... :-)

- Neha Bansal

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writing back to the centre

from: classical telugu poetry - an anthology

edited and translated by: v narayana Rao and david Schulman

Sita

Sita was my classmate

she and i pored over

that great new poem the Ramayana

of Satyanarayana

when we were finished I asked her

looking ar her thoughtful eyes:

"You listened to the whole story

we followed Rama

with the swiftness of poetry

into the wilderness of ancient times

we met him, went, to the forest with him,

we saw him

kill Bali from behind the tree

and test his wife by fire

Now tell me, do you want to 

live like sita, the wife of hero Rama?

When she heard me, she said:

"hey Pratabhi

Sita is the very epitome of

Indian womanhood

Its a dream, having

the good fortune

to live like her

But even if I want to be Sita

I'd never want to be Rama's wife

tell me, would you ever want to be 

Rama yourself?"

why should I, when you don't want

to be Rama's wife?

My desire, rather is to become Ravana.

with all my ten mouths

I will kiss your lips, your face. I will

bind you

with the gaze of my twenty eyes

I will press you to my chest

with twenty strong arms

and make you one with me

in one embrace 

Now,

Sita is my wife

                          - pratabhi (1919- )

isn't it interesting?? here Pratabhi, the poet wins the hand of "sita", who'd prefer to be Ravana's wife and not Rama's. What we see here is the subversion of a Grand Narrative built over a myriad years that all hindu women would  naturally and blissfully want to chant the hymn to gauri and fast on to ensure a Rama like husband. The test by fire to which sita is subjected  and insensate machinations to kill Bali on the part of Rama is contrasted with the pratabhi's passionate "Ravana role-playing"..

These little subversions here and there perhaps make life less tyrannical with those little gaps to be filled with all those hitherto supressed voices. Writing back to the centre hence becomes one of the greatest freedom that a writer representing the voice of "the other" can enjoy. And the hitherto "infallible" fortresses of the given narratives become less formidable to scale.

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