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Literary Review
Story of a struggle
INDIRA PARTHASARATHY'S Tamil play, "Nandan Kathai", translated as "The Legend of Nandan" by C.T. Indra, may be a slim Oxford University publication, but has more to offer in terms of academic fodder. The original play itself is in two acts and is contained within 50 pages. But the exhaustive introduction, well-researched references and the appendices enrich the reading, understanding and interpretation of the text.
Indira Parthasarathy's keen sense of theatre has resulted in a play that evokes an intense theatrical experience in the audience. As a play meant to be staged, preferably in an open-air theatre, he makes use of elaborate stage settings, music, pageant, short dialogues, stylised prose, etc. It is the story of a man from the lower strata of society, who, because of his intelligence and aesthetic leanings, aspires to uplift his community and also emulate the upper class. But the upper class is scared stiff of his rise, and plots to foil his attempts through fraud. It dramatises a struggle that is both personal and collective, between the poor, downtrodden class, and the powerful upper class, who try to keep the former under control. Here's all that's needed for a tragedy to be enacted. Unwittingly Nandan is enticed to walk into fire, in the hope of seeing Lord Shiva as Nataraja, and is finally consumed by it.
In texts like "Nandan Kathai", the embedded mix of history and culture cannot escape the astute gaze of a scholar, whatever be the discipline — sociology, history, literature or linguistics. History is used as a peg on which to hang the playwright's social criticism. The translator has delved into the ethos of the play, catching all the hues, and has presented it in convincing terms even to a non-Tamil reader.
In the introduction to the translation, C.T. Indra traces the literary biography of the playwright and draws attention to the contemporary concerns of the legend. She also traces the various legends of Nandan that have found a place in Tamil literary texts through the ages, since the Eighth Century. She analyses the sociologists' viewpoints on the caste system, and how it has metamorphosed "the social dynamics in post-independent India" to a large extent. She points out that the situation may not appear different to a modern reader, several centuries after Nandan's legend was written.
The section, "Critical theory and a reading of Nandan Kathai", while fixing the context of the play in the social, cultural, intellectual and literary milieu, also helps in the comprehension of the nuances that inhere when the whole of Hindu culture becomes the text. This section is a brilliant synoptic overview of critical approaches and theoretical rhetoric.
The appendices add value to the translation. Relevant pieces of Appar's Tevaram and Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam, while introducing a non-Tamil reader to the nuances of this form of poetry, also create ripples of nostalgic pride in a Tamil reader. The details of the Saivaite cult and the devotional ecstasy of saint Manikkavasakar captured in a brief appendix, elucidate the background spirit and atmosphere of the times. The translator has interpreted the interpretation of the playwright who has tried to "rehistoricise" the original legend of the outcast Nandan. That the socio-cultural and material reality of the earlier eras continues to live in every generation, including the present times is the satirical edge that the playwright has scored. The psychology of dominance by those in power, who indulge repeatedly in acts of force and humiliation to bypass the insecurity of their power, is transparent in the murky plotting of the priests and Brahmins.
The apprehension that a certain dimension of the linguistic exuberance of Tamil is bound to be lost when expressed in the English language, is a genuine one. But Indira Parthasarathy's style that has great pace and invention has found a translator in C.T. Indra who is able to match the energy and panache of the original play. Her translation is sure-footed, and rises to the challenges of the "awesome task" of translating into English the "natural poetry, the alliteration arising so effortlessly, visually and aurally" that the playwright has captured.
The Legend of Nandan (Nandan Kathai), Indira Parthasarathy, translated by C.T. Indra, OUP, Rs. 195.
PADMINI DEVARAJAN
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