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Naga - Mandala : Play Review By Mabel Annie Chacko (India, 08/12/06)
Girish Karnad, one of ‘Naga-Mandala’ is a play divided into Prologue, Act I, Act II and the latter half of Act II acts as the Epilogue. The prologue has character like Story, Man, Flames, etc which fade into the background with the exposition of Act I, only to return to centre-stage in the Epilogue. In ‘Naga-Mandala’, Karnad weaves two Kannada folk-tales together. The first on comments on the paradoxical nature of oral tales in general: they have an existence of their own, independent of the teller, and yet live only when they are passed on from one story-teller to another. Ensconced within this, is the story of Rani, who makes up tales to fill the void in her life. Rani’s predicament poignantly reflects the human need to live by fictions and half-truths. Truth and fiction, history and illusion, get linked in ironic ways, in ‘Naga-Mandala’. The emerging issue is not just of truth and falsehood, but their desirability and relevance in the Post-colonial space. A.K.Ramanujan discusses how the story mocks the classic chastity test considered, then, to be the test of truth. In ‘The Ramayana’, Sita comes through the ordeal of fire, proving her chastity and faithfulness. In ‘Naga-Mandala’, the protagonist Rani comes through the ordeal of holding a venomnous snake only because she has her lover in the snake. Thus, ironically, it is her infidelity that is used to prove her ‘pati-vrata’ status. Tales are an empowerment for Rani. In her days of sheer unhappiness and desolation, Rani weaves tales wherein she can transgress the restrictions of reality. The story of Rani, however is not fixed and permanent. It gets formed through a constant dialogue with the Story- a character in the Prologue- which instructs Rani at highly crucial points. This problematizes the authorial voice. It also implies that the reader of listener is not given a story that pre-exists, but one that is born of “creative co-operation”. This further reinforces the possibility of interventions in narratives. Finally, ‘Naga-Mandala’ virtually demonstrates the process by which narratives are brought to a formal closure because all of us share a “deep need for intelligible ends”. In the epilogue, when Rani finds love and acceptance from her husband and community, the Story wants to leave. But the Man stops her by saying: “There are too many loose ends…” The Story suggests that the Man fills in some details and in this way points to a very fundamental feature of all Narratives- they are formed, modified, and mediated in the process of communication. The play calls for destroying all boundaries including those between the author and the reader, as well as between the read text and the heard performance. It is crucial to take cognizance of these disruptions in narratives. Narratives form one of the systems through which we “make sense” of the world. The validity of Narratives lies in its being mimetic, representing a state of life. Hence, narratives acquire a cultural authority and disseminating power. Karnad’s treatment of the story of Rani questions such meaning-fixed closure in Narratives. Closures seal possibilities and closed Narratives become oppressive. Karnad praises the open-end, to show fissure and to facilitate an articulation of conflicts. Yet, it must be admitted that closure is an aesthetic as well as psychological need. After the objection raised by the Man, the Story irons out the “loose-ends”. The King Cobra’s life undergoes a further modification, and the story heads towards a ‘lived happily ever after’ ending. Once again, “headaches are swept under the pillow…” The post-scripting doesn’t give voice to all silences. What happens to Kurudavva? But that’s a different story… Kurudavva’s story… isn’t it?
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