ENGLISH LITERATURE: Epithalamion

ENGLISH LITERATURE: Epithalamion: Epithalamion   is an ode written by   Edmund Spenser   as a gift to his bride, Elizabeth Boyle, on their wedding day. The poem moves throu...

Epithalamion

Epithalamion is an ode written by Edmund Spenser as a gift to his bride, Elizabeth Boyle, on their wedding day. The poem moves through the couples' wedding day, from the groom's impatient hours before dawn to the late hours of night after the husband and wife have consummated their marriage. Spenser is very methodical in his depiction of time as it passes, both in the accurate chronological sense and in the subjective sense of time as felt by those waiting in anticipation or fear.

As with most classically-inspired works, this ode begins with an invocation to the Muses to help the groom; however, in this case they are to help him awaken his bride, not create his poetic work. Then follows a growing procession of figures who attempt to bestir the bride from her bed. Once the sun has risen, the bride finally awakens and begins her procession to the bridal bower. She comes to the "temple" (the sanctuary of the church wherein she is to be formally married to the groom) and is wed, then a celebration ensues. Almost immediately, the groom wants everyone to leave and the day to shorten so that he may enjoy the bliss of his wedding night. Once the night arrives, however, the groom turns his thoughts toward the product of their union, praying to various gods that his new wife's womb might be fertile and give him multiple children.

Stanza 1

Summary

The groom calls upon the muses to inspire him to properly sing the praises of his beloved bride. He claims he will sing to himself, "as Orpheus did for his own bride." As with most of the following stanzas, this stanza ends with the refrain "The woods shall to me answer and my Eccho ring."

Analysis

In the tradition of classical authors, the poet calls upon the muses to inspire him. Unlike many poets, who called upon a single muse, Spenser here calls upon all the muses, suggesting his subject requires the full range of mythic inspiration. The reference to Orpheus is an allusion to that hero's luring of his bride's spirit from the realm of the dead using his beautiful music; the groom, too, hopes to awaken his bride from her slumber, leading her into the light of their wedding day.

Stanza 2

Summary

Before the break of day, the groom urges the muses to head to his beloved's bower, there to awaken her. Hymen, god of marriage, is already awake, and so too should the bride arise. The groom urges the muses to remind his bride that this is her wedding day, an occasion that will return her great delight for all the "paynes and sorrowes past."

Analysis

Another classical figure, Hymen, is invoked here, and not for the last time. If the god of marriage is ready, and the groom is ready, then he expects his bride to make herself ready as well. The focus is on the sanctity of the wedding day--this occasion itself should urge the bride to come celebrate it as early as possible. Here it is the marriage ceremony, not the bride (or the groom) which determines what is urgent.

Stanza 3

Summary

The groom instructs the muses to summon all the nymphs they can to accompany them to the bridal chamber. On their way, they are to gather all the fragrant flowers they can and decorate the path leading from the "bridal bower," where the marriage ceremony is to take place, to the door of the bride's chambers. If they do so, she will tread nothing but flowers on her procession from her rooms to the site of the wedding. As they adorn her doorway with flowers, their song will awaken the bride

Analysis

This celebration of Christian matrimony here becomes firmly entrenched in the classical mythology of the Greeks with the summoning of the nymphs. No more pagan image can be found than these nature-spirits strewing the ground with various flowers to make a path of beauty from the bride's bedchamber to the bridal bower. Although Spenser will later develop the Protestant marriage ideals, he has chosen to greet the wedding day morning with the spirits of ancient paganism instead.

Stanza 4

Summary

Addressing the various nymphs of other natural locales, the groom asks that they tend to their specialties to make the wedding day perfect. The nymphs who tend the ponds and lakes should make sure the water is clear and unmolested by lively fish, that they may see their own reflections in it and so best prepare themselves to be seen by the bride. The nymphs of the mountains and woods, who keep deer safe from ravening wolves, should exercise their skills in keeping these selfsame wolves away from the bride this wedding day. Both groups are to be present to help decorate the wedding site with their beauty.

Analysis

Here Spenser further develops the nymph-summoning of Stanza 3. That he focuses on the two groups' abilities to prevent disturbances hints that he foresaw a chance of some misfortune attending the wedding. Whether this is conventional "wedding day jitters" or a more politically-motivated concern over the problem of Irish uprisings is uncertain, but the wolves mentioned would come from the forests--the same place Irish resistance groups use to hide their movements and strike at the occupying English with impunity.

ENGLISH LITERATURE: Astrophel and Stella By Sidney

ENGLISH LITERATURE: Astrophel and Stella By Sidney: The names Astrophil and Stella mean Star-lover and Star, suggesting the impossibility of their union because of the distance between them ...

Astrophel and Stella By Sidney

The names Astrophil and Stella mean Star-lover and Star, suggesting the impossibility of their union because of the distance between them

The sixteenth century was a time of scientific, historical, archaeological, religious and artistic exploration. More attention was being allotted to probing into the depths of the human psyche and it was up to the artists and poets rather than the priests and scholars to examine and mirror these internal landscapes. The 'little world of man' [1] was reflected through various artistic forms, one of which was the sonnet, which was conventionally used for dedications, moral epigrams and the like. Traditionally most sonnets dealt with the theme of romantic love and in general the sonneteer dealt with the over-riding concern of the self and the other, the latter of which normally referred to a mistress, friend, or a familial relation. One of the first important artistic creations witnessed by the Elizabethans was Sidney's sonnet sequence called Astrophil and Stella, a variation on Petrarch's Canzoniere. Sidney who was indeed acclaimed the 'English Petrarch', nevertheless wrote with his Elizabethan readers in mind as his characters spoke in English accents, voiced English concerns and evoked the spirit of the time.

The sequence, which like all Renaissance sequences is not a realistic autobiography, is about a man, Astrophil who is attracted to and in pursuit of a married woman, called Stella. On stealing a first kiss from Stella whilst she is asleep the male protagonist worries about her reaction lest she should find out, but later on chides himself for not taking advantage of the situation. He then goes on to recount how he is filled with hopes one minute and despair the next, whilst trying in vain to pursue her. In constantly being refused, he feels angered and offends her but does not wait too long before trying to seduce her yet again. After a few more refusals he is moved to desperation, evoking his misery in the last few sonnets.

Incidentally, although not a realistic autobiography, Stella is modelled on Penelope Devereux, who was supposed to marry Sidney but was then forced to marry Lord Rich, and 'phil' in 'Astrophil' is indeed an abbreviation of Sidney's first name, 'Philip'. After finding out about Penelope's marriage, fate had it that Sidney started to truly have feelings for her although by this time it was too late.

Astrophil's actions seem to be forgiven by some critics because he is after all driven by love. In fact Sidney's depiction of the male protagonist is one which makes some critics and readers empathize with him during his lamentations and praise of Stella. This may be because it is thought that Sidney's aim was to show readers how a man can let his emotions get the better of him, thereby leading him into eventual despair. It is through Astrophil's mistakes and negative example that Sidney is able to inculcate morality. This is also another typical quality of sonneteers, who aim to morally instruct through their art.

Beneath the witty surface of Astrophil's lamentations, Thomas P. Roche seems to feel that 'Sidney is using Astrophil's journey from hope to despair as a fictional device for the analysis of human desire in Christian terms.' [2] Consequently Roche points out that in witnessing Astrophil's despair the readers' reaction is supposed to make them conscious of his limitations from a Christian perspective.

Conventional topics such as addressing the moon, appealing to the world of sleep and dreams, bemoaning the lady's absence, praising her unique beauty and virtue, reprimanding her cold chastity and affirming his frustrated longings are all infused within the sequence, but the impossibility of the hero and heroine's

relationship, coupled with Astrophil's weak and uninspiring character, are highlighted in the complementing structural and thematic devices which Sidney adopts.

In the opening sonnet Sidney explains how he painfully resorted to every aid to compose his sequence, 'oft turning others' leaves' but that his impotence grew to a climax whereby it dawned on him to 'look in thy heart and write.' In writing about how to compose a love sonnet he did just that and what formed itself on the page before him was pure spontaneous feeling. However it is apparent that the hero is a combination of both the besotted lover and the self-critical poet. His emotional conflicts increase as he grows aware of his sexual needs despite his knowing that he is ultimately a product of Protestant training and needs to restrain his longings. It is a perpetual war of desire against reason and nature against nurture. Moreover he knows that no matter how much he craves for Stella it is a lost battle already and this is where the endless laments emerge. This incessant interplay of opposing forces, that is of paradoxes, is also considered an essential part of the sonnet structure.

The impossibility of a successful relationship is also highlighted through the sonnet title. Whilst normally, sonnet sequences are entitled with the lady's name as she is typically regarded as the sole subject and object of the poetry, this poem's title:Astrophil and Stella immediately hints at the disjunction inherent in Sidney's subject. Other disjunctions are apparent, such as the title holding both a Greek name (Astrophil) and a Latin one (Stella). Furthermore the presence of the grammatical copula: 'and', immediately hints at the two people being a couple (like Romeo and Juliet for example), whilst in reality readers soon learn that they in fact are not. Indeed their names, which mean Star-lover and Star, further suggest the impossibility of their union because of the distance between them, whilst the name Stella immediately highlights how unattainable she is and that she is after all not quite as unique as Astrophil portrays her to be as her light is indeed shared and shown by thousands of other Stellas.

The impossibility of their union reflected in the title is reinforced in the sequence. Astrophil is adept at colouring a dark and sombre picture of his love life as, whilst his starlit stage has indeed become dark and dangerous, Stella's eyes which he calls, 'nature's chiefest work' are also black, 'sweet black which vailes the heav'nly eye.' The recurring metaphor of blackness is a result of his increasing preoccupations and he broods over the fact that his once starlit world seems none other than his own living hell. The Christian opposition of heaven and hell is evident from the verse in sonnet 2, 'No doome should make one's heav'n become his hell.' Whilst the word 'doome' suggests the speaker's Christian damnation, it is nothing more than Stella's rebuttal.

Astrophil's, bewildered feelings are made more explicit and reach a climax in Sonnet 89, the only sonnet to employ just two rhymes, where in 'suffering the evils both of the day and night' his infernal desperation is manifested. He confuses day and night where both have become one to him and from this point on the rest of the sequence is shrouded in physical and moral darkness.

Astrophil's obsession with conquering Stella is further amplified when he invokes Morpheus, the son of Somnus, god of sleep who appears to dreamers in human shape and who will therefore bring Stella with him. He cannot bank on meeting Stella in the waking world, so he succumbs to and relies on the world of sleep even though he is well aware of its artifice.

Sidney's sequence also reverberates with one of Homer's epics. It has been suggested that the 108 sonnets represent the 108 suitors in Homer's Penelope, who played a game of trying to hit a stone called the Penelope stone as a way of deciding who would win and court her. Just as the wooers banked on their fate pathetically and were aware of disappointment, so is Astrophil embarking on the same painful and disappointing journey.

Roche suggests that within the sonnet sequence there lies another Homeric metaphor. The 119 poems are one short of the number of months Ulysses spent returning home to Penelope and the very structure of the sequence therefore implies Astrophil's only-too-obvious defeat. Astrophil too may be looked upon as Ulysses' antithesis as he does not possess such qualities as strength, endurance and fidelity. Furthermore his lack of integrity and malice may be witnessed when he rebukes himself in Song II for not having seized the opportunity after secretly stealing a kiss from his sleeping sweetheart. He says;

Oh sweet kisse, but ah she is waking
. . . 
Now will I away hence flee:
Foole, more Foole, for no more taking.

Astrophil presents Stella as his sun, which lights his world and warms his spirits yet as is always the case he finds a downside to this, saying that, moreover, 'it burnes', concluding in the couplet that 'that my sunne go downe with meeker beames to bed.' It is evident that he wants these burning beams to become meeker, really referring to Stella's meekness or rather submission to him in bed. The frequent use of sexual allusions are used in the sequence to portray the problematic nature of Astrophil's paradoxical obsession as he craves for her love but for her sex too.

The structure of the sequence also has a vital role to play. The sequence was probably composed in 1581-82 and is made up of 108 sonnets combined in the Petrarchan manner with lyrics in different forms.

Sidney uses a variety of rhyme schemes, which reflect Wyatt's influence. The structure of the individual sonnets amount to an octave constrained by some interlacing rhymes, followed by a sestet where the rhyme scheme is completed in the first four verses indicating an unexpected change in feeling or argument in the final couplet. Whilst the punctuation seemingly divides the sestet into two tercets the rhyme scheme creates two groups made up of four and two verses consecutively. The couplet normally consists of a paradox reflecting Stella's influence on Astrophil who on the one hand yearns for his love to be reciprocated but on the other feels angered at her for not quenching his sexual thirst; feelings which consistently run throughout the whole sequence.

The structure also enumerates the songs, which have a significant place in further explicating the course of events. Song I reflects Astrophil's idolatrous and blasphemous nature, Song II is about the stolen kiss, Song III is a praise of the power of music, IV is the conversation between the hero and heroine, in which she rejects his advances, and Songs V to IX evoke Aristophil's desperation. In fact in song V (which is the second longest song in the sequence) he vilifies Stella for her 'change of lookes' despite all the praise he heaped on her in the preceding 92 poems. What he obviously aims to do is seek revenge for his injured feelings by calling her all sorts of names such as a thief, a murderer, a tyrant, a witch and also a devil, the latter of which may preside over his hell. The irony lies in the fact that he used these same terms earlier on in the sequence in order to praise her.

Song VI is a debate between beauty and music, and some believe that it is more precisely a debate between Stella's beauty and Astrophil's music. He questions the reader about which of the two gratifies him more, and in describing how both the eye and ear are pleased to different degrees, his thoughts swiftly become more abstract reflecting the conflicts he is enduring internally.

Song VII rightly voices the words of reason (following the footsteps of Petrarch in Canzoniere) pointing out Astrophil's foolishness by citing his own words from the previous stanzas.

Like other sonnet sequences Astrophil and Stella concentrates primarily on attitudes and states of mind, whereby all the poems centre on a single all-absorbing experience, in this case Astrophil's obsessive and rejected love. The autobiographical element is evident and the sonnets voice Sidney's desires, regrets, and conflicts of conscience, which resulted from the social pressures and moral restraints of his time. Even though the reverberating theme of the poem is one of moral bleakness it was nevertheless greatly admired and appreciated by the righteous and virtuous Elizabethans because of the conventions it adhered to, such as the didactical element, and the complementing structural features.

 

Best Regards

K.K SINGH

ENGLISH LITERATURE: Ambai: Squirrel

ENGLISH LITERATURE: Ambai: Squirrel: Ambai or C.S.Lakshmi was born in a large middle-class Brahmin family in 1944. Her parents hailed from Palghat, which was a constituent of ...

Ambai: Squirrel

Ambai or C.S.Lakshmi was born in a large middle-class Brahmin family in 1944. Her parents hailed from Palghat, which was a constituent of the Madras Presidency but is now a district in Kerala. It had a predominantly Brahmin population. The family had settled in Coimbatore. Ambai was the third child of her parents, the eldest being a son while the second was a daughter. When the third child too happened to be a daughter the family was visibly upset. More so because it was an unplanned pregnancy and Ambai’s birth was an accident. In fact Ambai recalls in an interview how for many days her father did not even cradle her in his arms and always called her ‘blackie’ because of her dark complexion. ‘Blackie was however named Lakshmi for two reasons, firstly because her maternal grandmother’s name was Lakshmi and secondly because she was born on a Friday. Prejudice against the girl child in Indian society is a well-known fact and Ambai was to some extent a victim of this prejudice being the second daughter. Her first photograph was taken when she was four years old. Before that nobody ever thought of taking a snapshot of hers.

Ambai was put in a Tamil medium school as against the English medium one to which her elder siblings went. This happened soon after her younger brother was born. When in a few years her father got transferred to Bangalore, Ambai was again put in a Tamil medium school. According to her own admission ‘In my family I am the only one to write in Tamil. The others write even their personal letters in English.’ Despite these minor irritants, Ambai’s childhood was a happy one and she remembers fondly the many enjoyable vacations spent at her maternal grandmother’s house with innumerable cousins who became her playmates. Ambai was greatly influenced by her grandmother who was a self-taught Tamil scholar and who cultivated an interest in the young girl for Tamil literature by reading out poems to her in the language and explaining their meaning and also sang beautiful Tamil songs that enraptured the young Ambai. She gifted her book of songs to her when she died. In addition to her grandmother, Ambai’s own mother too was another constructive influence on her and who became at many points in her life the pillar of support she needed to stand on her own two feet. Ambai read avidly all the Tamil magazines and journals her mother subscribed to and grew up on the conservative, tradition bound often-romantic writings that these magazines encouraged and perpetuated. When Ambai first began writing at the age of sixteen, she wrote in a style similar to the one she had soaked up from those magazines. As she comments on her early writings she says: ‘Most of my initial stories had very rigid and orthodox views of sexuality, femininity and life in general. The widows in my stories, after a speech full of symbolic metaphors always refused to remarry and my heroines married idealists who were combinations of Tagore, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.’

Ambai’s family was a conservative one, as a result her upbringing followed on the lines of a conventional pattern. She took the usual training in Carnatic music and Bharatnatyam and gave performances till 1974. There was a tacit code of conduct for women and all had to adhere to it. Whatever they did had to be within the bounds of the tradition oriented demands of Tamil life and culture where an ideal woman was a perfect wife, mother and daughter having no desires or demands separate from those of her husband or father or brother. She was required to readily submit to whatever the patriarchal authority desired from her. Thus, to take a step which would run counter to the wishes of her father required tremendous courage and some guile from the young Ambai when she decided to move away from the confines of her home to Madras for widening her horizons and spreading out her wings as it were. She cited education as a genuine excuse and applied for MA at Madras Christian College. Her father was dead against the idea saying, ‘If you wish to study at Bangalore it’s OK. If you go to Madras you will get out of our hands. I wonder if you would ever return home.’ It was her mother who asked her if going to Madras would change her life. When Ambai replied in the affirmative, her mother did not say a single word more and pawned her jewelry and arranged for her to go and pursue her dreams. It was only after the mother and daughter had reached Madras and Ambai had been put up in a hostel that her father was informed. By then it was too late for him to do anything. He relented and resigned to Ambai’s decision and financed her education in Madras.

Ambai had already published two novels before she turned twenty. At sixteen she had won the first prize in a competition organized by the journal Kannan. Her entry Nandi Malai Charalile (At Nandi Hills Falls), a novel, was published shortly after she won the competition. This novel appeared under the name ‘Ambai’, the pseudonym that she had used for the first time on this occasion and was to continue using it thereafter for all her creative writing. The choice of the name ‘Ambai’ was determined firstly due to her atheist attitude and secondly by the strong impression that a character of that name left on her in Devan’s novel Parvatiyin Sangalpam (Parvati’s Vow). In this novel Parvati’s, the protagonist is abandoned by her husband because her education is not equal to his. At this Parvati takes a vow. She uses her knowledge of Tamil and begins writing. For her writings she uses the pseudonym ‘Ambai’ for it is another name for Parvati, and becomes a famous writer. When her husband learns of her new found fame he wants to return to her. At this Parvati tells him, ‘I do not need you any more.’ Ambai liked the determination of this woman protagonist of Devan’s novel and made her choice. As she recounts in an interview she says, ‘I do not believe in rituals or dogmas associated with Fridays in our culture. So I did not like my name Lakshmi and wished to use a pseudonym.’ Having read Devan’s novel she says, ‘I liked [Parvati’s] determination very much. So I chose Ambai as my pseudonym. Later on, I learnt about the character Amba, in Maharashtra. I began to like my pen name even better.’ Ambai always distinguishes between her persona as Ambai, writer of fiction and her persona as C.S.Lakshmi, cultural anthropologist and critic.

Her first short story Gnanam (Knowledge) was published in the journal Ananda Vikatan. She published many more stories in this magazine in the coming years. But her early writings were modeled on traditional concepts of womanhood and chastity. Her world was still limited to her home and there was a tacit rule limiting her interaction with the world outside. She therefore naively went along believing in the prevalent concepts, which required women to be chaste, pure, submissive and docile. To believe that a modern woman was one transgressing the bounds of morality was merely an extension of these conventional concepts.

Ambai struggled to break free. A rebel at heart she knew that there was a different and wider world beyond the confines of her walled existence. Thus her decision to move to Madras came about. She did her Masters from Madras and though she missed her mother immensely she never thought of returning home unlike the protagonist of her story ‘Kaartu’ (Wind) who does. She became friendly with writers like Ramaneeyam, Meyyadiyan and Aar. Vi. After her MA she worked briefly as a schoolteacher at Panruti but was asked to leave because of her anti-establishment activities. She would read works like A Tale of Two Cities to the children in their Moral Science class. Most of her energy at this time was taken up in fighting against the management and consequently she hardly wrote anything during her stay at Panruti. Her novel Andhi Malai (Twilight Time) was being serialized and she was ‘vaguely embarrassed’ by it, though she did not know the reason why. After leaving Panruti she took up a job as an English tutor in Tyagaraja College in Madras. Subsequently she secured a UGC fellowship and took admission in JNU for her Ph.D. and moved to Delhi in 1967.

Ambai’s experiences had widened her horizons till now. She had begun questioning the constant suppression that women were being made to submit to in all spheres of life. Her whole being rebelled against the men who oppressed women as well the women who meekly submitted to men. Before leaving for Delhi she wrote a storySiragugal Muriyum (Wings Get Broken) and sent it to Ananda Vikatan. Written form the woman’s point of view the story was about ‘a sensitive woman married to an insensitive man and the sense of suffocation she felt.’  It was promptly rejected and returned. Kalki and Kalaimangal, two other popular journals, returned it too. In Delhi when Ambai sent it to Kanaiyazi, she asked the editor Kasturi Rangan, to tell her what was wrong with her story. She thought that not having written for a long time has made her go out of practice. But Kasturi Rangan was a keen and perceptive editor. He was quick to see why the story had been rejected. It talked of a woman’s silent suffering and highlighted the male insensitivity. Had the wife meekly submitted and prostrated herself at her husband’s feet the story would have been readily published by any of the magazines it was sent to. But the fact that the wife dares to murmur a protest was enough to blacklist it. Kasturi Rangan published the same in his journal Kanaiyazi and thus began a new chapter in Ambai’s literary career. Venkat Swaminathan and Indira Parthasarthy who were her friends from her days in Madras helped polish her art and constantly encouraged her to write.

Ambai’s literary career aptly reflects the various stages in her development both as a writer and as a person. From her early idealistic writings like Andhi Malai she moved to writing stories with new concerns but still wrote in the conventional style. Moving to Delhi, however, was the bold step she took to venturing into women centered stories that questioned the paradoxes of their suppressed existence. Coming under the influence of Marxist ideology at JNU she examined its inherent contradictions when she saw it being practiced by her upper class friends. From writing in the conventional style she moved to experiment with new forms, new themes and looked at old subjects from new angles. Her interests widened to include films, theatre, painting and Hindustani music. She learnt the Rudra Veena in the Drupad style from Zia Moinuddin Dagar Saheb. Ambai was deeply influenced by what her Guru said about rendering and appreciating a Raga. He said that a Raga ‘should not attack you like a huge ferocious wave. It should touch you gently like the wave does when you stand on the shore. It is a massive wave initially. But it internalizes its power, its impact lies within and touches you gently.’ Ambai admits to applying the same to everything -- all branches of fine arts as well as to ideologies. According to her ‘Be it feminism, Marxism – whatever it be, it ought to contain its potency before it touches you Stories that have a lot of feminist ideas go unappreciated if they lack an engaging style.’ Herein lies the germ for Ambai’s desire to evolve new forms and a new language for expressing her ideas in her writings. Her friends from the literary circle helped perfect her idiom and develop an individualistic style.

In 1974-75 she began research for her book The Face Behind the Mask. Meanwhile she continued writing stories, articles and novels. Apart from this she also wrote a few plays. During this period her research took her once again to Madras where she interacted with the Pregnyai (Consciousness) group. She became quite friendly with other members of this group such as Veerasami, Ravishankar, Paravi and Ravindran. She was the only woman in the all male group but suffered from no inhibitions while she argued with them, read with them, watched films and reviewed the same with them and on the whole spent an invigorating time with them. In the year 1976 she met and married Vishnu Mathur after living with him for six months. The decision to marry came after a lot of thought because neither of them believed in the institution of marriage. It was only to avoid countering criticism all the time and thus waste their energies in a meaningless activity that the two decided to have a registered marriage. According to Vishnu it was better to spend that energy on their relationship. But the conservative household at Vishnu’s parents’ made her feel suddenly imprisoned. It took a lot of determination and a tremendous amount of understanding on both sides for the relationship to last. Neither of them wanted to compromise their principles for anything. For this reason both of them decided not to have any children. Ambai had meanwhile started teaching at a college in Delhi. In 1978 they decided to move to Bombay. To resign from her job was Ambai’s own decision. In Bombay she did not take up any teaching assignment and devoted all her time to writing. She even wrote stories for a few films. The Face Behind the Mask was published in 1984. In 1987 Ambai received a fellowship in social history and researched on the lives of workers from the beedi industry. She had stopped writing for the journals in the early 1970’s and subsequently her stories came out as collections. Ambai’s recent writings have been for a journal from Neiveli, called Dalit. She has written on the death of the Marathi poet Vilas Gokhare and also on the Sathin, Bhanwari Devi from Rajasthan. The Dalits as well as women are a suppressed lot in Ambai’s opinion and the various modes of oppression practiced against both the groups have a striking similarity. Ambai has also worked on the social history of women in Tamilnadu, and the same is currently under publication.

The Short Story in the Tamil Literary Scene 

The Tamil short story was born in the writings of V.V.S Iyer (1881-1925), who wrote a few stories from 1915-1917 and published them together in Mankayar Karsiyin Katal in 1917. With the sudden increase in literary journals and magazines, the Tamil short story finally found its niche. Writers like Rajaji and Narana Duraikannan used the form for didactic purposes and the short story unlike the novel became a powerful tool for dissemination of current concerns and ideas. Anthologies were compiled and writers like Subramanya Bharati, Pudumaipittham, N.Pitchamurthy, Kaa Naa Subramanyam, Chidambara Subramanian, Mouni, and B.S.Ramaiah and of course V.V.S Iyer became famous and helped the Tamil story to flourish. Many periodicals gave an impetus to this growing popularity of this form. Ananda Vikatan was one of them and was headed by R.Krishnamurthi, himself an established writer who wrote under the pseudonym Kalki. This popular journal published stories with an apparent preference for simplistic, entertainment-based narratives. Manikkodi, was another periodical launched in 1933 by Stalin Srinivasan, with the cooperation of his friends Va.Ra, and T.S.Chockalingam. Even though Srinivasan’s main interest was politics, he encouraged the younger generation of creative writers to contribute to his magazine. Ku. Pa. Rajagopalan, Na.Pichamurthi and P.G.Sundarajan wrote frequently for this periodical. In 1935 B.S.Ramaiah took over as editor and made it his ambition to raise the Tamil Short Story to world standards. The writers associated with Manikkodi came to be known as the Manikkodi group.  Though Manikkodi was devoted to the short story genre it was different from magazines like Ananda Vikatan and endeavoured towards writing of more serious concern that would pose a challenge to the established social mores and customs and also provide an alternative to magazines like Ananda Vikatan. The Manikkodi writers wrote against child marriage, against exploitation of women, against traditionally accepted norms about chastity. They wrote about the ordinary people, their trials and tribulations, their small joys and big sorrows and their constant battle against the elements. T.Janakiraman, Jayakanthan, Pichamurthy, Mouni and Laa Saa Ramamirthan carried forward the Mannikodi tradition in their writings.

The 1970’s witnessed a boom of ‘little’ magazines – a sudden spurt in publication of small periodicals and journals which wanted to cash in on the increasing readership. When a number of periodicals were circulating over a hundred thousand copies a week or month, the kind of writing they carried and generated is anybody’s guess. Only stories with a strong entertainment value, written along simplistic lines, upholding the conservative social, cultural structure could find a place in them. Any serious writing that could have benefited from this wide circulation had to take a backseat due to the market dominated policies of these new periodicals. Despite this, however, a few good writers did emerge and also endured. Kandasamy, Konangi, Dilip Kumar, Thopil Mohamed Meeran are a few of the notable names of the post 70’s Tamil short story writers. The image of the woman that found expression through most of these writers’ works, remained one that was modeled on the precepts of Manu. Woman was the goddess of chastity; she was required to be passive and submissive, accepting her fate unquestioningly and uncomplainingly, worshipping her husband like a veritable god and finding fulfillment only in marriage and children. Apart from her home, her husband and her children, a woman was not supposed to have any life let alone have any personal longings, aspirations and desires separate from those of her family. Even if some writers were bold enough to raise a few questions the ending always showed the woman conforming to traditional beliefs. Such was the image propagated and reinforced by these male authors and the majority of women readers staunchly believed in this image themselves.

What about the women writers however? Did they make their presence felt and if yes then did they do so by writing about issues closest to their hearts or were they swept along by the wave that commercialized literature? Gowri Ammal, Vai. Mu. Ko., Gugapriyai, Kumudini, Savitri Ammal, Visalakshmi Ammal, ‘Lakshmi,’ Krubai Sathyanadhan Ammal, Tamarai Kanni were familiar names in Tamil households. The society demanded from women the impossible task of being a repository of all its social and moral values. Brought up on a surfeit of such social precepts and religious customs these women writers merely reinforced the hackneyed ideas which gave man the freedom to have his will and asked women to submit to the same. Though most of them remained tradition bound, for some it was not due to any lack of awareness but more because the dominating market forces required a certain kind of writing only. Even a slight hint of challenging those traditions meant rejection such as ‘Kumudini’ faced when she wrote Diwan Magal. The story was about a non-Brahmin boy marrying a Brahmin girl. Ambai writes how ‘the orthodox Ananda Vikatan editor kept it rotting in the drawers of his table considering it too bold a theme, and it lay there till it was serialized in Manikkodi and later brought out as a book in 1946. Hemmed in by conservative thought, these women writers, with the exception of a few continued to write within the male paradigms and happily affirmed the patriarchal social structure.

For most of these women writers the image of a writer was more important than finding a means of self-expression through their writings. As Venkat Swaminathan observes, ‘Women writers were pampered and made into stars, but they were not allowed to question tradition or break the rules of convention.’ They genuinely believed in the shackles they adorned themselves with. They willingly conformed believing implicitly in the roles that the male dominated society had chalked out for them. Gugapriyai was quite convinced about a woman’s role in society: ‘Service, motherhood, chastity, wife-hood – what else is necessary for a woman?’ she coolly asked Ambai when the latter interviewed her for her book The Face Behind the Mask. Visalakshmi Ammal told Ambai she is certain that only marriage can bring fulfillment. ‘Lakshmi’, who was a doctor by profession, did bring in the working woman as a new subject but ultimately found that marriage was the final goal for them too. A man’s presence was absolutely necessary for a woman’s existence. These were early writers who genuinely believed in denying themselves any voice of self-assertion or even self-expression. The same was not expected, however, of the later women writers, Ambai’s contemporaries, who nevertheless continued to conform and submit to the dictates of the patriarchal configuration. Rajam Krishnan, Siva Sankari, Indumati, Vimala Ramani, K. Jayalakshmi, Gomati Nagarajan, Vasanthi, Girija, Kritika and R.Chudamani are some notable women writers of the period after 50’s. With the exception of a few like Kritika and R.Chudamani, the rest continued to reinforce the traditional renditions of womanhood because they let the market forces determine the kind of writing they did. K. Jayalakshmi admitted to Ambai, ‘I write for money now and cannot write whatever I want.’ A story that she wrote on a woman’s right to adornment even after her husband’s death was rejected by every magazine and finally was accepted for broadcast over the radio by a stroke of luck.’ Thus personal convictions of a few of these writers differed from what emerged in their writings. Girija, for instance, remarked in an interview that a woman is still a slave and ‘most laws to protect women and the so-called rights of women are only and eyewash.' R.Chudamani expressed that ‘women have been praised, protected and glorified and in essence enslaved. A woman wanting to break this is stopped by the social system that is only a larger form of this exploitation.’ But as Ambai notes in her research on Tamil women writers, most of them writing after 1950 and later ‘seem to present uniform traits that lead to facelessness. In reality this facelessness has been assumed in some cases and natural in others for many reasons.’ As pointed out earlier, these reasons were at times located in the demands of the market and at other times in the demands of the family as happened in the case of a writer who was beaten up by her husband when she wrote about the inner sufferings of a middle-class housewife. Can she write about anything else than husband-worshipping wives, she asks in a defeated tone? At the same time, reasons for not giving expression to issues closest to their heart also lay for some in the inherent contradictions within them. Such was the case with Girija, who on the one hand talked about the individual’s right to defy false norms and on the other remarked sincerely that she accepts most of the social restrictions imposed on women.

The reasons could be many but the fact remains that the image of a woman in Tamil literature and Tamil short stories continued to be predominantly the kind that staunchly adhered to tradition. It preserved the hallowed image of a goddess of chastity but in essence enslaved women to this image. Ambai’s probing, questioning, protesting stories caused disturbing ripples in this apparently smooth exterior of the Tamil literary scene and proved to be a trailblazer for the feminist voice in Tamil literature. 

 Ambai’s Writings

Ambai’s early stories conformed to traditional precepts but the second phase of her writing that began withSriragugal Muriyum (‘Wings get Broken’), propelled her towards serious self-expression and a questioning of the centuries of oppression to which women have been submitting without so much as a murmur. Chaya, the neglected wife in ‘Wings get Broken,’ questions the sanctity of marriage even though ultimately she resigns herself to her fate. It is small wonder that all established magazines rejected the story. Ambai’s voice registered displeasure and agitated the calm surface of conventionality and conservatism. She realized that self-expression for women writers had no place in the male-dominated literary scene. She remarked that her story about the protesting wife could have been published ‘if the girl Chaya had committed suicide or had been killed as a punishment for her “sinful” thoughts. Traditionally she has no right to live the moment she questions, even to herself the sanctity of marriage.’ Ambai, however, was not one to be cowed down by convention or be dictated to by market forces. For her writing was a vehicle for expressing herself and in the story she highlighted the way men have circumscribed the world of women and determined their parameters for them. She has delineated a wide variety of women characters in her stories. Ranging from Chandra who enjoys the protective cover of her household, which nevertheless works as a control in ‘Gifts’; to Jiji who takes pride in slaving for her family and is overjoyed by the authority that a bunch of keys brings her way ‘A Kitchen in the Corner of the House.’ Then there is Rosa, who, though a victim of custodial torture and rape refuses to be used as a pawn by people who want to cash in on the publicity in ‘Black Horse Square.’ In ‘Wrestling,’ Shenbagam quietly asserts her position as she slips into her rightful place on the stage, singing with her husband, Shanmugam.  The place that she claims for herself had been denied her till now due to her husband’s fear of being overshadowed by his wife. The facets are many and all make a disconcerting statement about the position of women in society. As Venkat Swaminathan observes, ‘Shorn of the specificity of time, place and milieu, the undercurrent is a cry against oppression which is timeless and universal,’ (From Many Indias, Many Literatures). Ambai pointed out in her works, the innumerable clever and subtle ways in which society sought to suppress and repress women in all areas of life. She protested against ingeniously cultivated beliefs, against deep entrenchment of traditional ideas about womanhood that prevented women from seeing themselves as persons, separate from their family, parents, husbands, and children. She boldly sought to foreground the feminist concerns through her writings and succeeded in forcing people to take notice despite the stories being unconventional not just in their choice of subject and theme but also in their treatment of the same, in Ambai’s experimentation with form.

Ambai moved from writing simple realistic stories to highly complex ones where she made use of multiple perspectives, various levels of narration, and plurality of voices and skillfully wove in symbolic and archetypal sequences which at times placed an ironic interpretation on the main narrative. At times her stories were just a series of reflections, interior monologue which effected the protagonist’s ‘realization of the tragic contrast between the freedom of the inner world and the constraints of the outer world’ (Chaya in ‘Wings Get Broken’). At other times she experimented with form using the structure of a fable (‘Yellow Fish’) or a collage of surrealist images as in ‘Some Deaths.’ Then there were stories like ‘My Mother her Crime’ which had an inter-mingling of dream and reality. Lakshmi Holmstrom has observed that in Ambai’s work ‘there is a kind of exhilaration in this playing with forms at the height of her work, in what looks like post-modernistic techniques of multiple perspectives - many voices, fragmented and interspersed narratives – techniques which are normally used in the post modern novel.’ Ambai’s method is post modern but on the other side of it is her rootedness in Tamil literature and culture which is evident in her easy and often inverted use of allusions such as Ahalia in ‘Squirrel’ or Vamanan in the story with the same title.

Along with using different forms Ambai also felt the need to evolve a new language to give expression to her deepest concerns. This new language she feels, can evolve only out of our understanding ‘as gendered and historical beings’ and requires ‘going down into the deep foundations of life.’ She articulates her need for such a language in her research The Face Behind the Mask and ends by saying that ‘a language such as this does not come out of the experience of oneself and others alone, but by an ability to “see” the experience – by expressing the experience.’ Women, according to her, need to express the silence in their lives and need to create a space for themselves. In her essay entitled ‘Dealing with Silence, Space and Everyday Life’ Ambai reiterates that ‘the key struggle in women’s lives, it appears is the struggle to become conscious of this space, and where possible transform the quality of this space and loosen its bindings, fight its corrosion.’ The space exists but there are various processes working towards obliterating that space and silencing the voice, which expresses a need for that space. This is a process that is ageless and ubiquitous and has been going on for centuries.

If one ventures to explore this inward space that is a woman’s ‘it would mean tapping into a silence that tethers a range of passionate feelings – it means laying bare what has not been voiced hitherto because it has not been able to be voiced.’ There are so many unarticulated desires, emotions, aspirations in women’s lives that make up that silence, that space. In most of Ambai’s writings she endeavours to express this silence in words and images – a task that seems to be a difficult and daunting one – almost impossible Ambai’s fiction thus becomes a continuous quest for freedom to express, to communicate. It becomes a quest for self-fulfillment for understanding gender constructions, social, cultural oppressions. Ambai firmly believes that an understanding of what we are today can come only from our understanding of our past and thus her fiction becomes a quest for one’s roots, a journey into the historical past that has created the present self. Historicizing the self is a step towards understanding and one that she undertakes in ‘Squirrel.’

 BEST REGARDS

K.K SINGH

ENGLISH LITERATURE: Toba Tek Singh by Sadat Hasan Manto (SHORT STORY)...

ENGLISH LITERATURE: Toba Tek Singh by Sadat Hasan Manto (SHORT STORY)...: Two or three years after the 1947 Partition, it occurred to the governments of India and Pakistan to exchange their lunatics in the same m...

Toba Tek Singh by Sadat Hasan Manto (SHORT STORY)

Two or three years after the 1947 Partition, it occurred to the governments of India and Pakistan to exchange their lunatics in the same manner as they had exchanged their criminals. The Muslim lunatics in India were to be sent over to Pakistan and the Hindu and Sikh lunatics in Pakistani asylums were to be handed over to India.

It was difficult to say whether the proposal made any sense or not. However, the decision had been taken at the topmost level on both sides. After high-level conferences were held a day was fixed for exchange of the lunatics. It was agreed that those Muslims who had families in India would be permitted to stay back while the rest would be escorted to the border. Since almost all the Hindus and Sikhs had migrated from Pakistan, the question of retaining non-Muslim lunatics in Pakistan did not arise. All of them were to be taken to India.

Nobody knew what transpired in India, but so far as Pakistan was concerned this news created quite a stir in the lunatic asylum at Lahore, leading to all sorts of funny developments. A Muslim lunatic, a regular reader of the fiery Urdu daily Zamindar, when asked what Pakistan was, reflected for a while and then replied, "Don't you know? A place in India known for manufacturing cut-throat razors." Apparently satisfied, the friend asked no more questions.

Likewise, a Sikh lunatic asked another Sikh, "Sardarji, why are we being deported to India? We don't even know their language." The Sikh gave a knowing smile. "But I know the language ofHindostoras" he replied. "These bloody Indians, the way they strut about!"

One day while taking his bath, a Muslim lunatic yelled, "Pakistan Zindabad!" with such force that he slipped, fell down on the floor and was knocked unconscious.

Not all the inmates were insane. Quite a few were murderers. To escape the gallows, their relatives had gotten them in by bribing the officials. They had only a vague idea about the division of India or what Pakistan was. They were utterly ignorant of the present situation. Newspapers hardly ever gave the true picture and the asylum warders were illiterates from whose conversation they could not glean anything. All that these inmates knew was that there was a man by the name of Quaid-e-Azam who had set up a separate state for Muslims, called Pakistan. But they had no idea where Pakistan was. That was why they were all at a loss whether they were now in India or in Pakistan. If they were in India, then where was Pakistan? If they were in Pakistan, how come that only a short while ago they were in India? How could they be in India a short while ago and now suddenly in Pakistan?

One of the lunatics got so bewildered with this India-Pakistan-Pakistan-India rigmarole that one day while sweeping the floor he climbed up a tree, and sitting on a branch, harangued the people below for two hours on end about the delicate problems of India and Pakistan. When the guards asked him to come down he climbed up still higher and said, "I don't want to live in India and Pakistan. I'm going to make my home right here on this tree."

All this hubbub affected a radio engineer with an MSc degree, a Muslim, a quiet man who took long walks by himself. One day he stripped off all his clothes, gave them to a guard and ran in the garden stark naked.

Another Muslim inmate from Chiniot, an erstwhile adherent of the Muslim League who bathed fifteen or sixteen times a day, suddenly gave up bathing. As his name was Mohammed Ali, he one day proclaimed that he was none other than Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Taking a cue from him a Sikh announced that he was Master Tara Singh, the leader of the Sikhs. This could have led to open violence. But before any harm could be done the two lunatics were declared dangerous and locked up in separate cells.

Among the inmates of the asylum was a Hindu lawyer from Lahore who had gone mad because of unrequited love. He was deeply pained when he learnt that Amritsar, where the girl lived, would form part of India. He roundly abused all the Hindu and Muslim leaders who had conspired to divide India into two, thus making his beloved an Indian and him a Pakistani. When the talks on the exchange were finalized his mad friends asked him to take heart since now he could go to India. But the young lawyer did not want to leave Lahore, for he feared for his legal practice in Amritsar.

There were two Anglo-Indians in the European ward. When informed the British were leaving, they spent hours together discussing the problems they would be faced with: Would the European ward be abolished? Would they get breakfast? Instead of bread, would they have to make do with measly Indian chapattis?

There was a Sikh who had been admitted into the asylum fifteen years ago. Whenever he spoke it was the same mysterious gibberish: "Uper the gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the mung the dal of the laltain." The guards said that he had not slept a wink in all this time. He would not even lie down to rest. His feet were swollen with constant standing and his calves had puffed out in the middle, but in spite of this agony he never cared to lie down. He listened with rapt attention to all discussions about the exchange of lunatics between India and Pakistan. If someone asked his views on the subject he would reply in a grave tone: "Uper the gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the mung the dal of the Government of Pakistan." But later on he started substituting "the Government of Pakistan" with "Tobak Tek Singh," which was his home town. Now he begun asking where Toba Tek Singh was to go. But nobody seemed to know where it was. Those who tried to explain themselves got bogged down in another enigma: Sialkot, which used to be in India, now was in Pakistan. At this rate, it seemed as if Lahore, which was now in Pakistan, would slide over to India. Perhaps the whole of India might become Pakistan. It was all so confusing! And who could say if both India and Pakistan might not entirely disappear from the face of the earth one day?

The hair on the Sikh lunatic's head had thinned and his beard had matted, making him look wild and ferocious. But he was a harmless creature. In fifteen years he had not even once had a row with anyone. The older employees of the asylum knew that he had been a well-to-do fellow who had owned considerable land in Toba Tek Singh. Then he had suddenly gone mad. His family had brought him to the asylum in chains and left him there. They came to meet him once a month but ever since the communal riots had begun, his relatives had stopped visiting him.

His name was Bishan Singh but everybody called him Toba Tek Singh. He did not know what day it was, what month it was and how many years he had spent in the asylum. Yet as if by instinct he knew when his relatives were going to visit, and on that day he would take a long bath, scrub his body with soap, put oil in his hair, comb it and put on clean clothes. If his relatives asked him anything he would keep silent or burst out with ìUper the gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the mung the dal of the laltain."

When he had been brought to the asylum, he had left behind an infant daughter. She was now a comely and striking young girl of fifteen, who Bishan Singh failed to recognize. She would come to visit him, and not be able to hold back her tears.

When the India-Pakistan caboodle started Bishan Singh often asked the other inmates where Toba Tek Singh was. Nobody could tell him. Now even the visitors had stopped coming. Previously his sixth sense would tell him when the visitors were due to come. But not anymore. His inner voice seemed to have stilled. He missed his family, the gifts they used to bring and the concern with which they used to speak to him. He was sure they would have told him whether Toba Tek Singh was in India or Pakistan. He also had the feeling that they came from Toba Tek Singh, his old home.

One of the lunatics had declared himself God. One day Bishan Singh asked him where Toba Tek Singh was. As was his habit the man greeted Bishan Singh's question with a loud laugh and then said, "It's neither in India nor in Pakistan. In fact, it is nowhere because till now I have not taken any decision about its location."

Bishan begged the man who called himself God to pass the necessary orders and solve the problem. But 'God' seemed to be very busy other matters. At last Bishan Singh's patience ran out and he cried out: "Uper the gur gur the annexe the mung the dal of Guruji da Khalsa and Guruji ki fatehÖjo boley so nihal sat sri akal."

What he wanted to say was: "You don't answer my prayers because you a Muslim God. Had you been a Sikh God, you would have surely helped me out."

A few days before the exchange was due to take place, a Muslim from Toba Tek Singh who happened to be a friend of Bishan Singh came to meet him. He had never visited him before. On seeing him, Bishan Singh tried to slink away, but the warder barred his way. "Don't you recognize your friend Fazal Din?" he said. "He has come to meet you." Bishan Singh looked furtively at Fazal Din, then started to mumble something. Fazal Din placed his hand on Bishan Singh's shoulder. "I have been thinking of visiting you for a long time," he said. "But I couldn't get the time. Your family is well and has gone to India safely. I did what I could to help. As for your daughter, Roop KaurÖ" --he hesitated--'She is safe tooÖin India."

Bishan Singh kept quiet. Fazal Din continued: "Your family wanted me to make sure you were well. Soon you'll be moving to India. Please give my salaam to bhai Balbir Singh and bhai Raghbir Singh and bahain Amrit Kaur. Tell Balbir that Fazal Din is well. The two brown buffaloes he left behind are well too. Both of them gave birth to calves, but, unfortunately, one of them died. Say I think of them often and to write to me if there is anything I can do."

Then he added "Here, I've brought some plums for you."

Bishan Singh took the gift from Fazal Din and handed it to the guard. "Where is Toba Tek Singh?" he asked.

"Where? Why, it is where it has always been."

"In India or Pakistan?î

"In IndiaÖno, in Pakistan."

Without saying another word, Bishan Singh walked away, muttering "Uper the gur gur the annexe the bay dhyana the mung the dal of the Pakistan and India dur fittey moun."

At long last the arrangements for the exchange were complete. The lists of lunatics who were to be sent over from either side were exchanged and the date fixed.

On a cold winter evening truckloads of Hindu and Sikh lunatics from the Lahore asylum were moved out to the Indian border under police escort. Senior officials went with them to ensure a smooth exchange. The two sides met at the Wagah border check-post, signed documents and the transfer got underway.

Getting the lunatics out of the trucks and handing them over to the opposite side proved to be a tough job. Some refused to get down from the trucks. Those who could be persuaded to do so began to run in all directions. Some were stark naked. As soon as they were dressed they tore off their clothes again. They swore, they sang, they fought with each other. Others wept. Female lunatics, who were also being exchanged, were even noisier. It was pure bedlam. Their teeth chattered in the bitter cold.

Most of the inmates appeared to be dead set against the entire operation. They simply could not understand why they were being forcibly removed to a strange place. Slogans of 'Pakistan Zindabad' and 'Pakistan Murdabad' were raised, and only timely intervention prevented serious clashes.

When Bishan Singh's turn came to give his personal details to be recorded in the register, he asked the official "Where's Toba Tek Singh? In India or Pakistan?"

The officer laughed loudly, "In Pakistan, of course."

Hearing that Bishan Singh turned and ran back to join his companions. The Pakistani guards caught hold of him and tried to push him across the line to India. Bishan Singh wouldn't move. "This is Toba Tek Singh," he announced. "Uper the gur gur the annexe the be dyhana mung the dal of Toba Tek Singh and Pakistan."

It was explained to him over and over again that Toba Tek Singh was in India, or very soon would be, but all this persuasion had no effect.

They even tried to drag him to the other side, but it was no use. There he stood on his swollen legs as if no power on earth could dislodge him. Soon, since he was a harmless old man, the officials left him alone for the time being and proceeded with the rest of the exchange.

Just before sunrise, Bishan Singh let out a horrible scream. As everybody rushed towards him, the man who had stood erect on his legs for fifteen years, now pitched face-forward on to the ground. On one side, behind barbed wire, stood together the lunatics of India and on the other side, behind more barbed wire, stood the lunatics of Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.

BEST REGARDS

K.K. SINGH

ENGLISH LITERATURE: V M Basheer: The Card Sharper’s Daughter (SHORT ST...

ENGLISH LITERATURE: V M Basheer: The Card Sharper’s Daughter (SHORT ST...: An Introduction As mentioned earlier, ‘The Card Sharper’s Daughter’ belongs to the group of stories known as the Sthalam stories. All th...

V M Basheer: The Card Sharper’s Daughter (SHORT STORY)

An Introduction

As mentioned earlier, ‘The Card Sharper’s Daughter’ belongs to the group of stories known as the Sthalam stories. All the features of a Sthalam story discussed above are therefore quite evident in this story too. The ‘humble historian’ makes an early appearance in the story and states in a mock serious tone that he is going to relate the history of how the arch card sharper Poker was done in by the slow-witted Muthapa and how the latter thus succeeded in winning the hand of Zainaba who is Pokker’s daughter There is the same exaggeration of a small event which lays bare its triviality when considered against the grandiose style used for narrating the same. We witness the use of the whole rigmarole of historical writing in the narrativization of this small event and we are also consistently exposed to a parody of political discourse throughout the narrative The narrator remains an amused observer merely recording objectively the ‘essential facts’ concerning the debunking of Poker by Muthapa. Yet the emphasis placed on ‘essential facts’ springs from the desire to give a resemblance of history to the narrative. In a tongue-in-cheek manner Basheer has a dig at Marxist learnings when he describes Zainaba and Muthapa’s love affair as a people’s movement and makes a liberal use of the Marxist terminology in describing people and situations so that the small village, the Sthalam becomes a microcosm of a polity. Irony, satire and humor are all present in a deliberate parodying of not only historical fiction but also romantic conventions and political discourse. Let us look at the story in detail to see how this is achieved.

 Detailed Analysis

The First Person Narrator

The sense of the teller and the tale is created right from the first sentence itself and the ‘performance’ of the story begins. From the manner in which an emphasis is placed on ‘the moral’ of the story the teller’s apparent aim seems to be didactic. A sense of curiosity is aroused by placing hints that the story may go against the fair sex since ‘girls will find it neither amusing nor enlightening.’ Sweeping statements however, put the reader on guard — why murder all daughters in cold blood? We might well ask ourselves this question.

The first person narrator, who has set the ball rolling, now makes his appearance as the ‘I’ of the story and indicates that what he has just said is not a matter of personal opinion. He implies that he is the narrator as well as the writer here for he mentions his lady readers who might get incensed by his ‘blatantly misogynist observations’ and he hopes they would not condemn him ‘to eternal damnation’. The sense of the teller and the tale is going to be present throughout. The point of view is going to be that of this narrator who is will observe the action and the characters and present the same to us. The story proper has not been launched yet. Till now the narrator has merely laid the ground for the narrative to unfold and has succeeded in implying that the subject of the story is a serious one. Yet you cannot fail to notice that the tone he adopts is a mock serious one and in the same mock serious tone he introduces the main characters of the story in one go.

 Characterisation

Ottakkannan Poker is introduced as the ‘tragic protagonist’ and the narrator tells us that all ire of his lady readers should be directed at this figure rather than him for it is Pokker who had made the misogynist observation mentioned earlier. The other characters are Mandan Muthapa and Zainaba who is Poker’s daughter. Muthapa begins as a villain in the story but attains a heroic stature as the story progresses and ends up a chivalrous knight where he takes up arms against Poker. Zainaba proves to be his ‘comrade in arms’. Once again the manner in which these charac ters have been introduced, builds up expectations for a serious story, grand in ‘theme and heroic in statutre. There is talk about a ‘battle’ about ‘comrades in arms’ about ‘chivalry’ about ‘tragedy’. A steady elevation of an event is being effected through a deliberate use of these terms that are drawn from romantic literature about knights and ladies when according to conventions battles are fought by these chivalrous knights for the love of their ladies. Yet a sudden deflation occurs when it turns out to be not a grand tale about knights and ladies but an amusing story about a few simple people in a small village in Kerala. The prosaic fact is mentioned soon after the gradiose introduction of the three main characters. This device of inflation and then deflation creates the mock serious tone in the story. The style is akin to the mock-epic style where grand themes are applied to puny subjects and the disparity makes for humour.

Other characters in this Saga are next introduced and we have the two police constables who are called ‘Stooges of the Tyrannical regime’. These are Thorappan Avaran and Driver Pappunni, the two master rogues. Then Anavari Raman Nair and Ponkurissu Thoma, who are referred to as ‘the bigwigs of the local criminal fraternity’ and then there is Ettukali Mammoonhu who is their protege. Apart from these there are about 2200 other villagers and they are all ‘peace lovers’ and have nothing to do with ‘war-mongering reactionaries’.

Notice that the main characters all have sobriquets prefixed to their names which in turn describe either some physical feature, a character trait or links them with a past event Thus Ottakkannan means one-eyed; Mandan means slow-witted, Thorapan is the mole, Anawari is the elephant-grabber and Ettukali is the spider. Prefixing desscriptive sobriquets to a person’s name is a regional specificity as it is a common practice in Kerala. These sobriqüets however, also link these characters to other stories in the group because at times they refer to the events that have already occurred in an earlier story e.g.; Anawari Raman Nair is called. Anawari, the elephant-grabber, because he had once mistaken a dung heap for an elephant and had stealthily tried to grab it. Similarly Thoma is known as Ponkurissu Thoma because Ponkurissu is a cross made of gold and the sobriquet got attached to Thoma’s name because he had once stolen a gold cross from the Church. Some of these sobriquets work as visual aids and help us imagine what a character may look like eg: Ettukali who is called a spider because of his small head and long drooping moustache. At other times a prefixed sobriquet determines our opinion about a character even before we are given a chance to form one eg: Muthappa is called Mandan, the slow-witted and we begin by precluding that he is a fool. The whole story however is directed at proving that he is no fool after all for he succeeds in outwitting the arch card sharper Pokker whose sobriquet Ottakkannan simply informs us that he is one-eyed.

You must have noticed that the world we have just been introduced to is an anti-world peopled by characters who are the dregsof society being rogues and criminals all. They are the marginalised beings and Basheer’s technqiue of characterization is such that not even for a moment are we made to feel that he is criticizing them or moralizing through them. In fact his attitude towards them is an indulgent one which accepts them along with all their failings. You may recall at this point that Basheer had himself come in close contact with such people on innumerable occasions, especially while being incarcerated along with their likes. He had had the chance to observe them with a humane eye rather than a judgemental one. He had looked at them just as human beings and consequently when he included these characters in his stories, he delineated them with the same indulgence and acceptance.

The Event as History

Having introduced the main characters and laid the ground for the story to unfold, the narrator comes to the verge of beginning the narrative but not before he has made it clear that what we are about to read is the narrativization of a historical event. Thus the narrator refers to himself as ‘the humble chronicler’ and uses the textual apparatus of historical writing. This is the reason why he draws our attention to procedure. Like a historian he has given us ‘the essential facts’ and again like a historian he is going to base his narrative on these facts as well as whatever other data he has collected from ‘interviewing major characters’. Ultimately he concludes by saying that he is now going to record the whole event for the ‘benefit of students of history’ thus driving the point further. The whole procedure of modern academic historiography will therefore be mobilized in this narrativization of a historical event. Yet the idea itself is undermined and debunked by the fact that the event is of no historical importance at all. It is in fact at best a small event having just local reverberations rather than national or international ones. The triviality of the event exposes and thus parodies the structuring of historical narrative. This parodic debunking of historical writing and also historical explanation is carried on throughout the story.

Notice that the narrator makes a very clever use of political rhetoric and leans towards Marxist terminology for describing people and situations. By doing so, while he is depicting the popularity of Marxist ideology, he is also presenting a critique of it by applying it to trivial matters like a domestic conflict. Thus the two constables are described as representatives of the ‘tyrannical regime’ meaning the government, the village big-wigs are also named but it is pointed out that they are all peace lovers and have nothing to do with ‘war reactionaries.’ Phrases like ‘tyrannical regime’ and ‘reactionary’ are lifted straight from Marxist terminology. By applying the same to people and situations that have no grandeur or no importance to merit such treatment, Basheer succeeds in making a travesty of the politically charged atmosphere of Kerala which at the time was reeling under the influence of a lot of slogan shouting and political happenings.

 Laying the Ground for the Narrative to Unfold

Having introduced the characters by name, Basheer moves on to now describe them and begin with Ottakkannan Pokker and then proceeds with the descriptions of Zainaba and Muthapa. It is made evident that these three are going to be the main protagonists of the story. In these descriptions a lot of emphasis is placed on the visual, so, while Pokker’s complexion is fair Muthapa is jet black in comparison. If Pokker is ‘one-eyed’ Muthapa ‘is ‘cross-eyed’. Pokker’s teeth are stained red since he is a voracious betel chewer whereas Muthapa’s smile is always charming. Both are therefore almost opposites of each other. Both are known by their respective professions, so, Pokker is called ‘Ottakhannan Pokker, the card-sharper’ while Muthapa is called ‘Mandan Muthapa, the pick pocket’. Pokker’s wife is dead whereas Muthapa’s parents too have both passed away. Zainaba, Pokker’s daughter is the village beauty- and being nineteen years of age is all set to be married off ‘to some hard working young man.’ Pokker is working very hard to collect the money needed for marrying off his daughter. In a racy colloquial style Basheer continues to bring us up to date with the situation and we are next informed of how the one hundred and twenty rupees that Pokker had collected over the years, are already lost. But nobody had stolen it so where had the money gone? In a chatty tone, where the narrator enters the narrative in first person, refreshing the sense of the teller and the tale, he asks the reader to be patient. Thus suspense and curiosity, two important ingredients of a short story, are both brought into play.

The build up to the main narrative is however not over yet. It is not sufficient for Basheer to simply mention the respective professions of the arch rivals Pokker and Muthapa. He gives us an indepth look at how card-sharping or pick pocketing works. As mentioned earlier Basheer had modelled many of the characters in his Sthalam stories on the various ‘jail-birds’ he had met while incarcerated along with them. His behind-the-scenes knowledge about card-sharping and pick- pocketing, could very well spring from the same source. Like any other profession, Basheer gives due respect to these too and in a style which is typically Basheerian, he proceeds to give us an objective description of them. He is not a conscious social reformer, therefore, while he tells us about professions which run against the law, he neither condemns them nor valorizes them in any way. He remains objective as well as slightly amused, using his device of inflation and deflation to create irony, satire as well as humour. Thus, while on the one hand he tells us that card sharping requires brains as well as capital, in the next breath we are told what that ‘capital’ is — ‘pack of cards, an old issue of Malayala Manorama and a handful of small stones.’ Any inflated expectations that might have sprung up from the imposing word ‘capital’ are imediately punctured in a manner where the tone remains dead-pan and there is no obvious laughter. An amused smile however, cannot be pushed away. Basheer’s humour therefore is not the raucus kind. In fact, it is very subtle.

With Pokker’s cry of ‘Hai Raja ....,’ Basheer makes the card-sharping language come alive for his readers. At this point you must remember that Basheer was writing at a time and place when the literary scene was riddled with conventions of Sanskritized Malayalam writings. In such a milieu he intrudes with not only the colloquial everyday speech of the villagers, but also the language of card sharpers and pickpockets. Basheer believed that each profesaion creates its own language and the same is very evident in Pokker’s speech as he entices customers to come and play his game. The cry rings in our ears and we can almost visualize him shouting at the top of his voice “Hai Raja.... Come on everybody.... Double your money folks . . .  two for one, four for two, the joker makes your fortune. Never mind if you place your money on the numbered cards. It’s your alms for a poor man... hai raja!”

The translation can capture the rawness of this language only partially. It would deliver its crispy effects better in the original. As pointed out in the annotations to your text, Basheer used the Mappila dialect of the Malayalee Muslims which was interspersed with-Arabic words. The dialect cannot be reproduced in an English translation exactly but we have come as close as possible in capturing the briskness of the card-shaper’s language. Both Pokker and Muthapa are called artists and Basheer describes in detail how they practice their art. There is a lot of emphasis on the visual and minute observations go in to make up the descriptions of both. The humour is sardomic, tongue- in-check and can be glimpsed in the way Basheer first describes in detail how Pokker cheats his clients and then ends by saying ‘There was no fraud in it really!’ and finds nothing ‘demeaning’ in the profession of a pickpocket. Basheer treats pickpoeketing as he would treat any other profession -- in his world there seems to be no disrespect attached with cheats and swindlers and the lies they indulge in. The tone of righteous indignation is entirely missing in Basheer’s narrative for the simple reason that he is not here to sit in any moral judgement on his characters. He is merely an amused observer, a humble chronicler. While the tone is ironic in this sense, at the same time it is mischievous. He seems to take delight in the fast-paced human drama that he records for us here.

The sheer energy of life and its celebration by the inhabitants of this village affect our detached observer too and it seems difficult for him to remain detached for long. He is irresistibly drawn towards the ups and downs, the small domestic conflicts the rumours, the gossip, the exaggerations, the posturings of these people. In the process of noting these various things Basheer manages to recreate for us a very realistic picture of an Indian village in Kerala complete with its bustling market day; the mounds of tapioca, coconuts, bananas, and vegetables waiting to be unloaded from the boats at the landing; the obscure little coffee shop which serves coffee with jaggery; restaurants which serve tea with boiled black gram, appam, vada and bananas; buyers and sellers who jostle with one another for best bargains and villagers who feel it their duty to be involved with the issue of Zainaba’s marriage to Muthapa. Visual details, like the ancient silk cotton tree under which Pokker conducts his daily business, also make up the realistic dimension of the village picture we get in this story.

In a manner similar to his description of the profession of card-sharping, Basheer describes-for us the modus operandi of a pick-pocket. Having thus generated a suitable interest in both the protagonists he next fans our curiousity further by mentioning that the tale he is now about to unfold describes how ‘Mandan Muthapa, the nitwit, vanquished his nimble witted adversary and won the hand of’ and he leaves us teetering on the edge of suspense.

Till this point in the story Basheer has just managed to introduce his characters and set the stage for the action to begin. Unlike the modem short story where character and scene are revealed or implied through dialogue Basheer, like Premchand’s ‘Holy Panchayat’, has devoted a lot of time and space for giving us detailed descriptions regarding both. Can you guess the reason for this? Well, the reason lies in the fact that in telling the story Basheer is following the oral tradition He is writing this story as it would have been narrated by a story teller to his audience. That is why the sense of the teller and the tale was created right in the beginning from the first sentence itself. The conventions of the oral tradition demand that listeners be told about the characters and the setting. They fall in line with the tradition of stories which begins ‘Once upon a time there lived a king. ’The modem element in Basheer’s story however is, that instead of kings and queens or princes and princesses or knights and ladies he talks here about the marginalized sections of society, the thieves, the pickpockets, criminals and so on. And. he talks about them, not with a sense to reform but with sympathy and acceptance.

 The Plot

Having enlightened his readers about the characters and the situation, Basheer is now ready to unfold the main narrative which is about the debunking of the arch card-sharper by the dimwitted Muthapa. At the same time however, the narrative is also about the rornantic involvement of Zainaba and Muthapa and about their struggle to get married. The two are linked because it is Zainaba, who helps Muthapa to out-wit her father Pokker and Muthapa in turn does so because he wants to marry Zainaba. Keeping true to the parodic mode of the narrative Basheer uses the love affair of Zainaba and Muthapa to make a deliberate mockery of the romantic conventions and the tragic conventions of romantic love stories. He raises their struggle to mock epic heights. With characteristic irony he presents here a love between two riff-raff of society — a pick-pocket and the daughter of a swindler who is caught in the act of stealing a bunch of bananas herself by her lover. Once again her modus operandi is described with interesting details and without any admonition or indignation on the part of the narrator. In this world of criminals and cheats, it is entirely possible to have your lady-love too indluging in such nefarious activities. Yet quite characteristically, the event is recorded objectively rather than it being used as a moral platform.

The romantic conventions which talk of perfection in their lovers are thus made to stand on their head by the realist Basheer. He seems to be saying here that the love between these two crooks yields as well to romantic treatment as any grand and lofty passion between the knights and ladies of conventional romances. He raises the affair to mock-epic heights and presents it as a people’s movement with the whole village getting involved in Muthapa’s struggle-to win Zainaba’s hand, despite opposition from her father. In such a scenario Pokker comes to represent a reactionary force while Muthapa’s supporters are the radicals. The evet is presented as the narrativization of history and ‘the humble chronicler’ intrudes into the narrative with a reminder that he is narrating a history here. The implements used in historical writing are mobilized once again and it is implied that whatever is being recounted here has emerged from the fact-finding mission of the humble historian. This mission included his interviews of the main characters Muthapa and Zainaba. So he writes: ‘Muthapa testifies to all these facts — Zainaba however, refused to reply when she was con- fronted by this chronicler and asked whether she loved Muthapa. But she was quite certain that Muthapa was not a mandan ‘“Bapa says that out of spite,” she said.’

The rhetorical devices of the grandiose Tone on the one hand and of the undercutting of that grandeur by the triviality of the event at the centre on the other are both at play in this narrativization. The insignificant and the trivial are elevated to the significant and grand heights. A pompous tone is developed and the event becomes a battle for Zainaba’s heart. Yet at the centre of it all, the event is a small event, not one to have any far reaching ramifications. The whole rhetoric therefore serves to expose the triviality of the event which is at the centre of the narrative. Thus the narativization becomes a deliberate travesty of the process of historicization of events.

Linked to this factor of academic historiography is the use of elements from the discourse of political analysis of historical events. The same is a very common practice in academic historiography and more often than not political ideologies and political rhetoric are a part of the textual apparatus of the historicization of events. In the case of Zainaba and Muthapa, their struggle is presented as a people’s movement with the whole village becoming involved. Muthapa becomes ‘the universally acclaimed leader of the masses’ while Pokker is denounced as a hoarder, a black- marketer and above all ‘a bourgeois reactionary.’ There is a lot of slogan shouting in keeping with the politically charged atmosphere in the village. Basheer is having a dig at the Marxist leanings of the people of Kerala and in a sardonic, tongue-in-cheek manner presents burlesque at its best by applying these grand terms to insignificant and unimposing subjects.

With Zainaba’s help Muthapa is able to connive and beat Pokker at his own game. The secret however, is not revealed till the end and Basheer’s talent as a raconteur par excellence is evident in the manner in which he is able to keep his readers and his listeners riveted to the narrative in order to find out how Muthapa could win each time he placed a coin on one of Pokker’s cards. The involvement of the onlookers catches on to the readers too as they witness the undoing of the clever Pokker by the slow witted Muthapa. While the crowd applauds Muthapa’s luck, we have an ironic comment from our humble chronicler: ‘There was absolutely no connection between card sharping and luck. Pokker knows this too and is at his wit’s end. Zainaba’s connivance in the game is complete for she offers a lame explanation that probably by now every one has caught on to the trick. But what this trick is Basheer still withholds from us, whipping our curiosity further and thus maintaining our interest in the narrative till the end. Quite ingeniously Muthapa has hit upon the best method in making Pokker concede to his demand “let me marry Zainaba and I’ll quit card shaping for good.” The ‘valiant villagers’ were firm on this compromise formula.

Ultimately Pokker isleft with no option and the lovers win. Yet the mystery rankles in Pokker’s flesh like a thorn. He is almost driven mad thinking how Muthapa could beat him at his own game. Eventually, Muthapa reveals the secret and we have a perfect epiphanic moment in the story when everything falls into place. It was Zainaba’s brain-wave and Pokker understands everything in a flash. It.was Zainaba who had revealed her father’s secret to Muthapa so the latter could adopt the same strategy at cardsharping and drive her father up against the wall. Ultimately Pokker would have to relent and agree to their marriage. Thus the battle for Zainaba’s heart is won not by any knights in shining armour but by wiles and deceit. Once again there is a deliberate parody of romantic conventions and the humble chronicler has no answer for Pokker when he asks ‘Can you ever trust your daughter?’ The wheel has come full circle and the gets connected to the beginning where the narrator had begun by stating a generality that all daughters ought to be murdered in cold blood! Step by Step he has brought us to the point where we now understand why, such anger against daughters. Being familiar by now with the style and tone we can take the comment with a pinch of salt.

While Basheer has presented a parody of romantic conventions in his delineation of the romance between Muthapa and Zainaba, he has at the same time also presented a burlesque of the tragic conventions as well. We witness here not the conventional fall of a prince or king but the fall of the clever card sharper who is beaten at his own game.

 Best Regards

K.K.SINGH