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Swayamvaraloka by K.V. Akshara

Akshara Prakashana,

Rs. 60

For years now we have been asking why Kannada playwrights are shy of grappling with contemporary social or political material in their works. Even when ‘themes’ have been contemporary or loaded with allegories of people and events present , the plot and narrative is too often borrowed from the great epics, mythologies and histories.

Now we get a response with a slew of new plays, including Girish Karnad’s “Maduveya Album” and K.V. Akshara’s “Svayamvaraloka”. Though they seem to be on the same theme, Akshara’s new play — a tribute to his father, the late K.V. Subbanna, and his family tradition — is really more like a parable, using characters more as representations of ideas and mindsets, their speech as rhetoric and even the plot as a paradigm of peoples and lives in conflict.

There is an island, Haleyooru (Old Village) that survives in the backwaters of a dam across a river. With the building of dam, the people of the original village — also known in its heyday as Holeyooru (Shining Town) — have left for the big city, Bangalore in this case. Among the few of the original inhabitants have continued to live in the island is a Havyaka Brahmin joisa who grows his annual areca crop and practices non-commercial astrology that the villagers have faith in.

The joisa’s two sons, both software engineers, live in Bangalore with their families, thriving with great careers in Forbes’ listed companies. The youngest of the widower joisa’s family is Bhama, yet to be married, who continues to live in the island, imagining an unlimited universe of lore and heroism constructed from the novels and stories she reads. These she shares with Kittu, a young man about the house, who is also some kind of kin, running errands for the joisa and playing fantasies of the imagined world with Bhama.

So, it happens, that the sons from Bangalore must visit with their wives the little island they abandoned long ago for an annual ritual: their mother’s death ceremony and ugadi, the beginning of the Kannada new year. The brothers and wives, separately in their twin flats, decide to carry two gifts of civilisation to the island — a mobile phone and a laptop computer. Bhama is taken up with the possible bridge that Internet connectivity would create between her imagined universe and the real world.

They have a plan: Bhama, fated with svayamvara yoga as predicted by the joisa, agrees to look for a bridegroom through the Internet. In the fantasy-like second half, five bridegrooms come from around the world — the USA, former USSR, South Africa, China and Switzerland. They come as obvious, idealised representatives of their cultures and each presents his case eloquently before Bhama, the bride to be. She chooses, eventually, wisely (if you agree) and subtly a mate for herself… but in truth, it is Akshara arguing emotionally and lyrically for a way of life that Heggodu and Subbanna represent, that Akshara himself is furthering.

Akshara makes his comment with blithe irreverence. In one exposition, joisa’s son implies the four new varnas are the ‘feet’— thousands of workers, like in the call centres; ‘stomach’ — the promoters of the software companies; ‘shoulders’ — the programmers and ‘head’ — the applications’ engineers.

But Akshara’s allegories of the island (Heggodu) and joisa (his family tradition) all culminate in the svayamvara, a choosing of a path to realise a ideal from available alternatives: the American dream of development in a free economy, the lament of a lost socialist ideal in the Russian, the idea of an eternal strife against oppression that the South African brings, the Chinese model of aggressive competitiveness and productivity or the Green Party philosophy of ecological balance that the Swiss bridegroom brings. Akshara reconciles with a life in its place and history, arguing gently for a way of being that could address the world without losing head or ground. “Svayamvaraloka” is a tribute to a lifestyle crafted from community, tradition and informed idealism.

M.N. RAJESH

Krishna Yajurveda Kannada Prakashana

Volume 6, Jyothi Samskritika Pratishtana

Rs. 175

Listening to vedic chants is an enthralling experience. Chanting them is still better. Knowing their meaning while chanting is the ultimate. Not many, however, are in the last category. “Navo navo bhavati jayamano…”, “balamasi brajosi…” and a whole collection of mantras from the Taittariya Samhita of Krishna Yajurveda are explained with clarity by Vidwan Rameshwar Avadhani and his team of Jyothi Samskritika Pratishtana in this book, with reference to the commentary of Sayana.

The various types of yajnas, the role of the yajamana, how to obtain the fruit of the rituals are highlighted as a footnote below the Kannada transliteration of the mantras and the meaning word by word. The scriptures condemn those who learn the vedas by rote without knowing the meaning. This work will be very useful not only to vedic students and purohits but also to the layman who participates in the rituals and is keen on knowing what it is all about. The design of the book is simple and attractive and the typeface makes for easy reading.

S. VENKATESH BHAT

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