Abstract
Anitha Nair’s Mistress is a novel written in the background of Kerala’s prestigious traditional art form Kathakali. The story revolves around the life of a Kathakali artist Koman and his kith and kin. But beyond the surface level of the narrative which deals with the personal life of Koman, the characterizations have the structural and thematic influence of various characters present in Kathakali, particularly characters from Mahabharatha which Kathakali has largely indebted to. This paper tries to identify the various layers of influences the Mahabharatha characters have upon the characters in this novel, especially Shyam and Radha. The paper compares these characters with the characters depicted in the Mahabharatha based novel Bhima: Lone Warrior written by the famous Malayalam writer M T Vasudevan Nair.
Keywords: Kathakali, Performing Art, Mahabharatha, Resort, Epic, Pandavas
Introduction
When a book is being written, it will naturally converse with the books previously written. To borrow Julia Kristeva’s idea, every text is an inter text. Imagination is not essential in nature, but a convergence point of past and the present, may be future too. Hence, the reflections of plot, characters or the cultural and historical background in a modern text could be traced back to a previously written text.
Influence of Epic Characters in the Novel
India has produced two magnificent epics; Ramayana and Mahabharatha. These two epics have made a tremendous impact upon the books written in the Indian subcontinent till date. In this paper, I try to analyze the intertextuality between the epic Mahabharatha and an Indo-Anglian novel Mistress written by Anitha Nair. This paper will focus on two characters in the novel, Radha and Shyam and try to establish that the relationship between these two characters, husband and wife, has the reflections of Mahabharatha characters Bhima and Draupadi.
The story of ‘Mistress’ revolves around a renowned Kathakali artist, Koman. Novel starts with the arrival of Christopher, a foreign traveller to meet Koman. Koman is so fascinated by the young, charming Christopher; so as Radha, Shyam’s wife. Within a short period, Radha has intensely been drawn to Christopher, both mentally and physically. This makes Shyam’s life terribly miserable.
Radha’s marriage with Shyam has, in fact, accidently happened. Shyam was compelled to marry Radha, though Shyam liked her very much right from her younger days. Like Draupadi, Radha always respects the caliber of Shyam as a successful business man and an able individual, but never admires him as an affectionate partner. Shyam, on the other hand, loves Radha sincerely and admires her beauty.
Radha’s uncle Koman also sees Bhima in Shyam. Koman presumes that Bhima is sent to fetch ‘Kalyanasowgandhikam’ (white ginger lily) flower by Draupadi with a vicious intention. It is to keep Bhima away from her for some time. Koman sees Shyam as a personification of Bhima, the Mahabharatha character.
Radha’s friendly relationship with Chris has gradually grown into adultery. By the end of the novel, Radha realizes her mistake and regrets not to understand the love and affection of Shyam. Remorse makes her understand that she must be always for Shyam not for a wanderer like Chris. We can see a similar situation in the life of Draupadi. During the Mahaprasthanam (final journey of Pandavas to heaven), only Bhima comes back to rescue Draupadi when she falls down on the way.
Works Cited
- Kristeva, Julia. Word, Dialogue and Novel in Leon S. Rondiez (ed.) Desire and Language. Trans. Thomas Gora et.al. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.
- Nair, Anita. Mistress. Gurgaon: Penguin Books, 2015. Print.
- Pollock, Sheldon. A Rasa Reader: Classical Indian Aesthetics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Print.
- Vasudevan Nair, M.T. Bhima: Lone Warrior. Trans. Gita Krishnankutty. Noida: Harper Collins, 2015. Print.
- Zarrilli, Philip. B. Kathakali: Dance Drama. London; Routledge, 2000.