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The author admits at the outset
that satisfactory answers to such questions are noteasy. He
has taken Krishna as a composite image with historical and
mythological ramifications and most of his text is based on
classical texts of ancient India. There is a constant
development in the character of Krishna as it travels across
the centuries.
The most
accepted biographical sketch of Krishna is like this. He was
born in the family of Vasudeva, grew up in Gokul and Brindavan
on the banks of the Yamuna. There he defeated Indra, Agni and
the serpant god Kalia. Then he shifted to Mathura where he
killed his maternal uncle Kansa and made Ugrasen, his maternal
grandfather, the king of Mathura. Jarasand and Kalyavan
repeatedly invaded Mathura. So Krishna took his people to
Kushalthali and founded the city of Dwarka.
In the war of
Kurukshetra he fought on the side of the Pandavas, his
cousins. It was here he gave the message of the Gita. After
the ruin of the Kauravas in the war, he was cursed by Gandhari,
their mother, that his own people would also perish like hers.
Consequently, Dwarka had a severe famine, followed by a civil
war and a tribal invasion. Ultimately the town submerged in
the sea. Krishna was killed by Jara, a Bhil, whose forests had
been destroyed by Krishna and Arjuna to appease god Agni.
Swarajbir
begins his play with a blazing fire in which a forest is
burning. Trees, plants, animals and tribals living in the
forest are being consumed by it. Krishna and Arjuna claim that
the forest has been set on fire to please god Agni. But the
author thinks that this is a tale of the victory of the Aryan
people over the original inhabitants of Indra and every victor
brings devastation to the vanquished.
The first
part of Krishna’s life is more sensuous, physical and
natural. That is why it is least alienated. The second part of
his life begins at Mathura and ends at Dwarka. This is the
tale of a power struggle and its legitimation through the
discourse of the Gita. But this part of the tale is riddled
with dilemmas and irreconcilable contradictions. Hence the
Krishna of this play is caught in the maze of these
contradictions. Both the Mahabharata and the puranas give
clear indication of such a condition.
But if we go
back to the history of the concept of god ("A History of
God" by Karan Armstrong) the most important stage in the
development of this concept comes when the temporal king is
invested with divine attributes and is presented as the
perfect god. Strangely, Krishna as people’s God is the one
who roamed in Gokul and Brindavan, playing with gopis and,
above all, with Radha, was fully integrated with nature, and
invested with unpolluted innocence and goodness. The politics
and the compulsions of the power structure had not yet become
part of his consciousness.
This image of
Krishna is totally free from alienation. But as he delves
deeper in the mechanics of power, he gets alienated and feels
absolutely lonely, displaying the usual human passions in
action. In fact K.M. Munshi’s novel "Krishna Avtar"
gives clear hints of such traits in his character.
As mentioned
earlier, the narrative of this play begins with a fire in the
Khandare van (forest) which badly hurts the denizens there. In
fact, many forests were destroyed by agricultural communities
when social transformation from pastoral societies to a
settled way of life was taking place. Krishna and Arjuna in
this play represent those forces that brought about this
change in north India. But when the new order establishes its
hegemony, a part of the old is invariably destroyed. That is
why the emergence of the new socio-economic-political order
always entails turmoil and even violence. The new order then
grows and develops on the ruins of the old, of course,
retaining whatever is still vital and relevant. The present
play has 17 scenes in addition to a prologue and a two-part
epilogue. In the first scene the Bhils are talking about the
great fire of their forest in which many tribals perished. The
Bhils led by Jara resolve to avenge the death of their kin.
The next four scenes deal with the socio-political situation
obtaining at Dwarka, which in any case is very dismal. There
is a severe famine, though the rich and the powerful are
frolicking, completely oblivious of the plight of the people
in general. There are conspiracies and intrigues everywhere.
People feel that the time for the Gandhari’s curse to
materialise has arrived. The atmosphere is surcharged with
frustration and disappointment.
In the sixth
scene the Bhils again appear and they plan their strategy to
attack their Aryan enemies. In the next four scenes Krishna is
shown to be in council with his wife, his courtiers and
commanders. In the 11th scene the Bhils appear in a battle
formation and they march to the place where most of the people
of Dwarka had congregated for a ritual celebration. In the
12th scene Kali appears and informs Krishna that the time of
reckoning has arrived and she exhorts him to reach the field
of Prabhash.
In the 13th
scene an announcer appears and exhorts the people of Dwarka to
reach the field of Prabhash for a celebration. In the next
scene the inhabitants are shown in uninhibited celebration in
the field of Prabhash drinking and carousing. In the next
scene the Dwarkans and their chiefs are shown to be fighting
among themselves and killing one another.
Precisely at
this hour the Bhils attack the Dwarkans making the best of the
fratricidal war. In the last scene Krishana is shown to have
been hit by an arrow in his heel by Jara, the Bhil leader. He
is in great pain and Jara addresses him thus, "O the one
who proclaimed himself to be God, listen! Birth and death, the
beginning and the end, are the same for all beings....I made a
beginning with a shriek and will depart with a shriek. My life
spans between these two shrieks. I may win or lose the battle
of life, but today I have won."
The epilogue
says, "Myth and history are blended in most of our
classical writings... The same Ahirs who once had fought
against Krishna along with the Bhils, Nishads, Nagas and other
tribes, in course of time accepted Krishna as God.... There is
no mention of Radha in the Mahabharata. Long time after the
events of the Mahabharata had taken place, Indian literature
gave birth to an Ahir or gowala heroine who became famous as
the pious beloved of Krishna. The tale goes on and on like
this."
The
playwright has done thorough research before writing this
script. His sources are the Rigved, Chandogya Upnishad, the
Mahabharata, Vishnu Purana, Shatpath Brahmana, Srimad Bhagwat,
the Bhagwad Gita, Padma Purana, Geeta Govindam and a host of
other texts by many well-known Indian and western scholars. It
is very rare in Punjabi scholarship that a creative text has
taken birth out of this kind of intense research and hard
work.
Swarajbir deserves all
admiration for taking up such a challenging job while trying
to understand the most complex and colourful character of our
culture. His sheer effort in itself is a great reward.
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