When I first finished reading Samskara, I thought I had it all figured out. A book about the personal transformation of a priest set against the backdrop of an orthodox brahmin community, is what I thought. Seemed simple enough.
But I knew I was off the mark when I couldn’t tie it all together with that being the central theme. A few probing questions and I was fumbling, mumbling, and completely out of my comfort zone.
What makes an English professor pick up his pen and write his ground breaking, controversial novel in his native tongue? His intended audience, of course. Not the readers from the western world attempting to get a peep into small town life in a remote South Indian village, but his own people. The community he grew up with up and lived in.
URA, in an interview mentions, "My text does not exist in free space that some Westener can read and understand; it exists in my context. I am a critical insider".
And I realized where I went wrong when I understood what he was trying to say with those lines. Understanding his history, his beliefs, his intentions and his targeted audience made me look at the book differently.
If I have to describe the book in a sentence now, I'd say it is a work harshly critiquing the caste system and exposing the absurdity of orthodoxy, thinly veiled by the story of a personal transformation.
Praneshacharya's daily routine is a perfected one - having been repeated for 20 odd years. Every step meticulously crafted and executed according to the right way of Dharma as prescribed in the vedic texts. He "hoarded his penances like a miser his money. Million by million, he counted his earnings, penances reckoned on the beads of his basil-bead rosary". All in preparation for that promised salvation waiting for him at the end of the journey. His entire life was built around this "cultivation of his salvation" - and it determined everything from his daily practices, to his interaction with the people around him.
With such a narrow focus in life, he voluntarily puts himself in his box of orthodoxy.. striving so much to live by the rule book and looking at every situation as just a means to increase his merit and quicken his journey to salvation. So much that a simple enough situation as the final rites for Naranappa makes him first turn to the vedic books and then to the mercy of Lord Maruti to find an appropriate answer. And not being able to find the answer in these sources leaves him confused. "I didn't get the answer in the Books, and didn't get it here with the flower decked Maruti. Do I not deserve it then?" he laments. The situation makes him so helpless and fills him with so much self pity that he seeks comfort in the arms of Chandri - an action that completely unhinges him. Having lived his entire life strictly adhering to the rules of the "Book", he loses his ability to deal with even a slight misstep. So engrossed in his own selfish motives, Praneshacharya detaches himself so much from reality that he is unable to lead his agraharam sensibly. He is blind to the plague outbreak that is seeping in his community through the festering body of Naranappa. Doesn't see it even when his own wife succumbs to the disease.
URA points out the absurdity in a Brahmin's rat race for salvation. What's the point of this orthodoxy, he seems to ask.
Where I'm still struggling is understanding the various other themes in the book - the roles of Chandri and Putta, for instance.
"When I situate my novel in a realistic situation, there is a strong inner text. It allows for all kinds of emotions in authenticity. So to study the novel as a caste and religious text is to diminish it, to underrate its metaphysical dimension." - URA
But I knew I was off the mark when I couldn’t tie it all together with that being the central theme. A few probing questions and I was fumbling, mumbling, and completely out of my comfort zone.
What makes an English professor pick up his pen and write his ground breaking, controversial novel in his native tongue? His intended audience, of course. Not the readers from the western world attempting to get a peep into small town life in a remote South Indian village, but his own people. The community he grew up with up and lived in.
URA, in an interview mentions, "My text does not exist in free space that some Westener can read and understand; it exists in my context. I am a critical insider".
And I realized where I went wrong when I understood what he was trying to say with those lines. Understanding his history, his beliefs, his intentions and his targeted audience made me look at the book differently.
If I have to describe the book in a sentence now, I'd say it is a work harshly critiquing the caste system and exposing the absurdity of orthodoxy, thinly veiled by the story of a personal transformation.
Praneshacharya's daily routine is a perfected one - having been repeated for 20 odd years. Every step meticulously crafted and executed according to the right way of Dharma as prescribed in the vedic texts. He "hoarded his penances like a miser his money. Million by million, he counted his earnings, penances reckoned on the beads of his basil-bead rosary". All in preparation for that promised salvation waiting for him at the end of the journey. His entire life was built around this "cultivation of his salvation" - and it determined everything from his daily practices, to his interaction with the people around him.
With such a narrow focus in life, he voluntarily puts himself in his box of orthodoxy.. striving so much to live by the rule book and looking at every situation as just a means to increase his merit and quicken his journey to salvation. So much that a simple enough situation as the final rites for Naranappa makes him first turn to the vedic books and then to the mercy of Lord Maruti to find an appropriate answer. And not being able to find the answer in these sources leaves him confused. "I didn't get the answer in the Books, and didn't get it here with the flower decked Maruti. Do I not deserve it then?" he laments. The situation makes him so helpless and fills him with so much self pity that he seeks comfort in the arms of Chandri - an action that completely unhinges him. Having lived his entire life strictly adhering to the rules of the "Book", he loses his ability to deal with even a slight misstep. So engrossed in his own selfish motives, Praneshacharya detaches himself so much from reality that he is unable to lead his agraharam sensibly. He is blind to the plague outbreak that is seeping in his community through the festering body of Naranappa. Doesn't see it even when his own wife succumbs to the disease.
URA points out the absurdity in a Brahmin's rat race for salvation. What's the point of this orthodoxy, he seems to ask.
Where I'm still struggling is understanding the various other themes in the book - the roles of Chandri and Putta, for instance.
"When I situate my novel in a realistic situation, there is a strong inner text. It allows for all kinds of emotions in authenticity. So to study the novel as a caste and religious text is to diminish it, to underrate its metaphysical dimension." - URA