The epic of epic proportions

The Mahabharata appeals as it substantiates the presence of myths in fulfilling our collective desires, anxieties, and fear.

No other text has survived the rise and fall of Indian culture and civilization as the Mahabharata. In effect, the epic story has overshadowed all other forms of human expressions, and remained a product of extraordinary cultural significance. In nutshell, it is an unending story of five generations culminating in a war fought over eighteen days. With dramatic twists and mythical turns in the narrative, the epic has never ceased to excite its audiences and viewers. And, yet it is considered  inauspicious to keep the text at home while the Gita, its quintessential essence, has remained a spiritual text of rich philosophical tradition. Despite the characters and the events of the epic frozen in time, the narrative helps relive those glorious moments and their relevance for the present. What makes the narrative an epic of timeless magic? And, what accounts for its continuing influence on the psyche of millions of Indian? 

Much water may have flown down the Ganges but individuals across the ages have dug into the epic to explore myriad narrative possibilities of the endless story of the Mahabharata. The epic is so crafted that actions by its many heroes, who are victims of their own fallible logic, help the spectators identify with its characters as a means of their own catharsis. This lends the epic an incredible appeal, providing expressions for one’s own actions in judgements and criticisms of those characters. Perhaps, it is the matter-of-fact manner of writing that captures the political and philosophical aspects of the time. With myths still in circulation around us, the Mahabharata appeals as it substantiates the presence of myths in fulfilling our collective desires, anxieties, and fear. On top, the epic is peppered with human emotions of heroism, courage, tension, tragedy, deceit, fantasy, and jealousy to find widespread acceptance across generations. 

Known for his scholarship on language and literature, Prof G N Devy meditates on the Mahabharata at many levels and in many different ways. The slim volume explores the historical timeline of its spellbinding charm; its superlative presence amongst world’s great literary works, the metaphysical and theological tussles it had to endure, and its inherent political message on warfare and nation building. Taking the reader through the epochal journey in the making of the epic, Devy attempts to make the reader understand why it has survived so long. Through its characters and sub-plots, the author argues, the epic presents a palatable pot pourri of historical, mythical, spiritual and psychological perspective of the Time. As a result, the epic ends up being a narrative in subjective reality of the past that is open to multiple interpretations in the present. While several commentaries of the epic already exist, there are many more in the making as well.  

It is indeed arduous to find a predominant reason for the epic to endure itself across millennia. For some, it is a religious text that helps draw distinction between right and wrong. For others, the story provides tenets of being on the side of justice. And, for many the epic offers lessons on what the desire for power does to us. In all these and other readings of the text, it comes clear that Mahabharata is what the reader would imagine it to be. The freedom to view the characters through moral lens rest with the reader, be it divine Lord Krishna or eternal villain Duryodhana.

Devy provides a multi-layered assessment on the epic. Saye he, 'the Mahabharata is yet not regarded by Indian people as a work of the past because it brings to them a distinct method of perceiving the past'. While one may agree and accept that the Mahabharata takes us through the transition from a pastoral state structure to the early feudal one, how is a war justified in preserving and promoting the ritualistic dharma that got codified by religious traditions? Did it not focus on warfare, military tactics, and political maneuvering to depict characters of its actors? However, in many ways the essential messages from the epic have continued to be all pervasive. Some of it, the glorification of dharma and the defense of the varna system, have had deleterious impact on the society.

Though somewhat convoluted for the uninitiated, Mahabharata offers a comprehensive reading of the epic, its evolution and its journey till now. Prof. Devy has written a ready reckoner on the subject, which has the potential to trigger a relook at the epic to address many contemporary concerns that have a direct bearing on it. Mahabharata is a handy and readable addition on the subject, as relevant as ever before.     

Mahabharata: The Epic and the Nation
by G N Devy 
Aleph, New Delhi 
Extent: 142, Price: Rs. 499.

First published in the Hindustan Times on July 23, 2022

The next pandemic is already here

In an increasingly contactless world where we are too busy to stop and smile at each other, loneliness is bound to push us into the secluded corners of our lives. 

People may have just outlived the chilling consequences of the pandemic-induced social exclusion but scars of forced isolation remain deep and disturbing, because loneliness is more than being a state of solitude that has become the defining condition of the twenty-first century. Only by expanding the definition of loneliness, however, can one get closer to its wider societal manifestations. Increasing social and economic inequality is at the root of making it a predominantly lonely world, wherein people feel they have only themselves to fall back on - lacking support from employers, communities, and even the government. Loneliness, defines economist Noreena Hertz, is both an internal state of mind as well as an existential reality. 

The situation is much worse than what the words may describe. The elderly in Japan are known to commit petty crimes in order to go to jail, to secure not only company of the likeminded but also support and care. Before the pandemic, in 2018 a Minister of Loneliness was appointed in the UK to support the lonely from feeling disconnected from the society. Research confirms that loneliness has deleterious health effects – it triggers a cumulative stress response, hampers the  immune system, increases risk of heart disease, stroke and dementia, and counts for one-third of premature deaths too. In an increasingly contactless world where we are too busy to stop and smile at each other, loneliness is bound to push us into the secluded corners of our lives. 

Humans by nature are gregarious creatures, and therefore are not built for isolation. But more by design than default, their profoundly atomised living in recent times has made them miss many of the casual and deeper human connections. Increasing digital communication, growing contactless economy, expanding urbanization, convenient online shopping, and hostile architecture have contributed to the current loneliness crises. Hertz argues that the neoliberal revolution of the nineteen-eighties with its free-choice and free-markets doctrine not only prized an idealized form of self-reliance but reshaped our relationships with each other. Should then it be a surprise that we have become more disconnected, siloed and isolated? 

The Lonely Century is a fascinating and original work on one of the greatest challenges of our time. Deeply researched, insightful and compelling, the book is not so much about the emotional ache we call loneliness as about the fragmentation of the society and its wider political implications. Loneliness therefore constitutes many layers of isolation at various levels: how cut off we feel from our work and workplace; how excluded many of us fell from society’s gains; and how powerless, invisible and voiceless many of us believe ourselves to be. All these add up to make lonely individuals extremely vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation.

Described by the Observer as ‘one of the world’s leading thinkers’, Hertz provides an engaging and compelling analysis of the dangers posed by the loneliness pandemic and our collective failure to bring the disconnected back into the societal fold. As a consequence, the world has never felt this polarised, fractured, and divided. This has become a perfect fodder for political forces to exploit the situation. Quoting research studies from many countries, Hertz believes that loneliness – or perhaps more accurately, marginalisation – is linked to the rise of right-wing politics. Evidence of such corelations are not too hard to find, and this should concern us all because the politicians at the extreme have their ears finely tuned to people’s disaffection with an eye on their exploitation for political gains.

Could loneliness be the only driver to trigger political alienation? Is neoliberalism at the root of the loneliness pandemic? While these questions will continue to get debated, there can be little doubt that loneliness has led to an economic crises, costing us billions of dollars in health expenditure, and a political crises fueling divisiveness and extremism. Hertz doesn’t end at highlighting the physical, mental, economic and societal effects of loneliness, but provides a rousing call for action for government, businesses, society and individuals to address and resolve. Unless a concerted action is mounted at all levels, the world will continue to pull itself apart.    

As long as there isn’t widespread realization of the looming crises, the loneliness economy will cuddle the lonely hearts via the eerie robotic companion. Far from setting the society on right course, tools of the loneliness economy will only reassert the words of one of its champion, Margaret Thatcher, who said: ‘Economics is the method, the object is to change the heart and soul.’ So far, neoliberalism has succeeded in its aim. But Loreena Hertz makes the reader feel that there is every reason to be hopeful in our collective ability to reinvigorate society.

The Lonely Century
by Noreena Hertz 
Sceptre, London 
Extent: 394, Price:  £ 20

First published in The Hindu on July 8, 2022.  

The foot soldiers of uncertain times

The growing number joining the Kanwar Yatra reflect an act of solidarity to seek social recognition aimed at subverting attention from their near-pathological uncertainty of existence.

As they have swelled in numbers so have their woes. From few thousands half a century ago to an estimated  12 million now, these barefoot pilgrims continue to be ridiculed, almost reviled, for clogging roads and disrupting traffic by the urban middle class who find this annual ritual of carrying holy water for offering to their local deity a disgusting act of vulgate religiosity. Undeterred, the pilgrimage has a growing following among poor or lower-middle-class youth who have made Kanwar, the largest annual religious congregation. What keeps them going, and what motivates others to join the ritual remains open to multiple interpretations? 

Attracting gullible youth to prove their resolve, endurance, and moral worth, the annual pilgrimage has continued to grow in size despite lack of an organizational structure to back it up. Actual walkathon receives voluntary benevolence for food, refreshment, and medical assistance en route, and the participants called bhola (simpleton/fool, after the patron deity Shiva (Bhola) remain its intended beneficiaries. Are these youth on a foolish pursuit or is there a deeper meaning to this devoted act of walking hundreds of kilometers on bare bleeding feet carrying water vessels hanging from the shoulders on a wooden plank? Scholars have argued that the growing number joining the Kanwar Yatra reflect an act of solidarity to seek social recognition aimed at subverting attention from their near-pathological uncertainty of existence. 

Exploring multiple dimensions of this religious ritual, the provocatively titled book Uprising of the Fools sees the practice of kanwar as a reactive assertion against social change that has pushed them (pilgrims) to the margins of uncertain conditions. Vikash Singh, a sociology professor at Montclair State University, stretches his analysis to argue that religion has come handy in becoming an expression of anxieties, responsibilities, and desires for millions. Rich with ethnographic insights, the book examines how the person (bhola), the practice (kanwar), and the politics (yatra) may eventually merge to convert popular religiosity into a potential political project. By joining the pilgrims during one of their arduous journeys, the author undertook an intellectual adventure for getting an inside view in connecting religious practice with social theories. Curiously, the populist pilgrimage is more than what it may outwardly seem. 

Uprising of the Fools is a definitive inquiry into an annual ritual which has grown in leaps and bounds ever since it was first reported as a religious practice of little consequence by the Jesuits and English travelers who had seen Kanwar pilgrims during their journeys in northern plains of the country during 17th and 18th centuries. Proliferation of the pilgrimage in recent times, however, is seen as a dramatized performance which carries with it the pulse of social conditions in contemporary India. There seems some truth in it, as espoused by pilgrims’ lived reality of paradoxical experiences between hope and despair, desire and responsibility and, religion and recreation. Voluntary self-surrender is seen as an alternate source of comfort and hope. 

The book is enriched by the stories of pilgrims like Kamarpal, whose anxiety-laden experience under a hegemonic social order is the cause to prove his resolve by submitting to the divine powers. The pursuit of the religious practice provides a textual medium for him to evade being called ‘failure’, ‘unemployed’, and even ‘outcast’. The appeal of contemporary religious practice lies in its promise to emancipate from the agonies of choice.’ Will such unfailing faith in the daunting pilgrimage help them get the desired recognition from the family, and the society? 

Singh’s argument about the forces driving the growth of the annual ritual is endorsed by scholarship in psychological and philosophical theories. The author leaves the reader wondering about this religious ritual being enmeshed and almost inextricable from the undesired fallout of neo-liberalism. If it indeed has arisen in reaction to globalization, then how is this collective expression being perceived and acted upon by the society? In somewhat disturbing tone, the book highlights the factuality of the subject that has so far been ignored in dominant liberal discourses. Only a social system that is not unforgiving of itself accommodate such reactive assertion. 

Scholarly and illuminative, but heavy in academic prose, Uprising of the Fools could not have come at a better time as sectarian forces have gathered momentum to promote religious nationalism. Pilgrimage, the yatra, has always come handy to champion the sacred cause in the past. It is here that politically motivated assertion of national identity may align with the individual’s search for emancipation under duress of globalizing social conditions. Will the gullible youth constituting bulk of the pilgrimage see the sinister side to their likely appropriation by the political project? Uprising of the Fools cautions against being fooled by the system that the pilgrims have intentions of transforming.

Uprising of the Fools 
by Vikash Singh
Stanford University Press, USA 
Extent: 256, Price: US$28.

First published in Hindustan Times on July 7, 2022.

First superstar who played every role to perfection

Holding human values close to his chest, Ashok Kumar had junked Adolf Hitler's  congratulatory note on his performance in Achyut Kanya.

 

A quarter of a century since his last screen appearance and two decades after he died, film buffs still recall Ashok Kumar’s (1911–2001) multiple contributions to Indian cinema. Starting as a reluctant actor in 1936, his career, that spanned 64 years and 350 movies, spanned the evolution of cinema in the country. Launched opposite Devika Rani in Jeevan Naiya, Kumar went on to become Hindi cinema’s first super star. Such was his popular appeal that, for seven continuous years, Roxy Cinema in Bombay showed only Ashok Kumar films.

With no school of acting to fall back upon, Kumar rehearsed before the mirror, much like Adolf Hitler did before he appeared in public. It is a sheer coincidence that Hitler sent Kumar a congratulatory message on the success of Achyut Kanya, the iconic film on untouchability. Far from drawing any promotional value from it then or later, Kumar tore and threw away the historical document. “Laurels can never be more important than principles and human values,” he said. Kumar’s eldest daughter Bharati Jaffrey mentions the incident in the preface to this reissued biography and confirms that he valued equanimity in the pursuit of excellence.

Nabendu Ghosh (1917-2007), author of Dadamoni, who scripted cinematic classics such as Devdas, Bandini, Parineeta and Abhimaan, has drawn a warm and intimate biography of one of Hindi cinema’s great icons. Kumar transformed the prevailing theatrical acting style to a naturalistic one, and played every role to perfection - from the young romantic to the mature hero, to an ageing character actor. The list of his remarkable performances is long and impressive – the suspected judge in Kanoon, an old man in Aashirwad, an unassuming villain in Jewel Thief, and a lecherous senior in Shaukeen. With his signature smoking style and distinct hand movements, Kumar was both smooth and natural in diverse roles.

But things could have been different. German director Franz Osten who was associated with Bombay Talkies rejected him after a screen test: “You have a square jaw; you look so young and girlish”. However, studio boss Himanshu Rai’s insistence on casting him as a hero prevented Kumar from returning to Calcutta to pursue his unfinished study of law. The rest is history. Apart from delivering a series of hit films during the 1940s and early 1950s, Kumar contributed to building Bombay Talkies. He invited the illustrious Bimal Roy, launched Dilip Kumar, initiated Dev Anand, gave a break to BR Chopra, got Sachin Dev Burman to compose music, and introduced Kishore Kumar. He also gave a platform to writers like Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai, Saheed Latif, Kamal Amrohi, and the author of this volume Nabendu Ghosh himself. All these writers introduced complex social reality to cinematic storytelling.

The vibrant culture of filmmaking in the formative years of Hindi cinema comes through in this slim book on Ashok Kumar’s life. Few could have imagined that the initially reluctant actor would one day serve as a textbook for actors wanting to perfect characterization, voice control, timing, gestures and posture. “In acting, you have to give so much of yourself yet not be yourself,” said Kumar who worked with the virtual who’s who of Indian cinema.

An accomplished script writer, Ghosh has not allowed Ashok Kumar the actor to get the better of Ashok Kumar the person. His reservation about embracing female co-stars, his confidence in his fans as he drove with Manto through a tense Muslim neighborhood during Partition, and his real life persona as an ordinary family man are all touched upon. Ashok Kumar lives on in the minds of all those who cherish quality acting.

Dadamoni: The Life and Times of Ashok Kumar 
by Nabendu Ghosh
Speaking Tiger, New Delhi 
Extent: 189, Price: Rs. 499.

First published in Hindustan Times on July 2, 2022.