Surviving prejudices, intolerance

Bindu Menon

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In an age of calcified beliefs and rising intolerance, can humanity rise above prejudices and survive? It’s a question explored in two starkly different works — a collection of stories in Konkani by Damodar Mauzo and a novel by Malayalam writer VJ James. The underlying commonality in both works is that they hold a mirror to a society that is increasingly intolerant of divergent viewpoints.

Infusing humour and satire, James upends the concepts of belief and divinity in his novel ‘Nireeswaran’. When three atheists decide to play an elaborate prank on their village folk, little do they imagine that it will lead to a situation they least desired. Having tasted success in an earlier prank on the village folk, the trio of Antony, Bhaskaran and Sahir, who go by the acronym Abhasa or ‘the debauched’, devises another trick to fool the gullible villagers. This, they believe, will validate the falseness and futility of religion among the villagers. They scheme to create a new god “who is an antithesis of all existing gods, an Eswaran to face-off all the gods”. And thus, the un-god or Nireeswaran is consecrated under a conjoined peepal-mango tree.

Soon, unimaginable events begin to occur. A man wakes up from coma after 24 years, a sex worker is anointed a saint, a man past his prime lands a government job — all of which is attributed to the anti-god, who attracts hordes of believers, much to the dismay of the debauched trio. Is the Nireeswaran a Frankenstein’s monster that is out to destroy them? Are hardened non-believers no different from intractable believers? The temple priest, who consecrated both the god and the ungod, tries to reason with the three friends, when they are at their wit’s end: “Both belief and disbelief are fundamentally the same! The intensity of belief the devotee has in the existence of God is of the same magnitude as the belief a disbeliever has in the non-existence of God. But the truth is naked, devoid of the garb of either belief or disbelief.”

As the novel tries to find answers through its interplay of narrative and discourse on science, religion, philosophy and spirituality, the befuddled trio also grapples with another worry: the endurance of their friendship. The translation by Ministhy S brilliantly renders the spirit and essence of the original Malayalam work.

One experiences a similar immersiveness into the spirit and essence of Goa in Jnanpith awardee Damodar Mauzo’s ‘The Wait and Other Stories’. Goa, writer Maria Couto once said, is a state of mind. “It is life lived without feeling circumscribed by geography or by time.” Mauzo’s stories transcribe that life in Goa, its people, its cultural diversities, sweet-sour human relationships and everyday realities.

Translated from Konkani by Xavier Cota, the stories convey at once the Goenkarponn or the emotional and cultural identity of being Goan, while also being universal and relatable.

The story ‘Yasin, Austin and Yatin’, for instance, captures the deeply polarising tide in Goan society through a cab driver, who assumes multiple identities to pander to his clients’ religious beliefs so that he can earn for the day, but caring little for the toxic divide he is helping widen. ‘Burger’ explores the beautiful friendship between two innocent schoolgirls from different communities that may be on the verge of being ruined by a beef burger. There is usually a twist in every tale, and often a comical one in the stories that explore man-woman relationships. In his simple, earthy, sardonic style, Mauzo brings alive a Goa not trapped and defined by touristy brochures.