TRANSLATION
A touch of the serene
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`The novel, its title borrowed from a phrase in the Gita, is remarkable for the ease with which it achieves a denouement without any drama.'
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OVER the hamlets with their trees and temples, earthen houses and cremation grounds, clouds pass in a rhythm as do the birds; seasons repeat as do the usual exchange of pleasantries and queries among the residents. Nothing seems to be changing yet everything changes in an invisible manner, never at a time, nevertheless inevitably.
This is the backdrop against which we meet Sanatan Dase, a poor Brahmin of about 50, the protagonist in the Oriya novel Yantrarudha. He is well settled in his pattern of life, nurturing a family consisting of children and a wife, the latter often looked upon by him as a "stupid woman" yet who means so much to him. And of course, Dase philosophises like any other mature male on this paradox: "Life is not possible without women who are at the same time the source of all mischief. They are at the root of all the conflict and the quarrels — it is they who are at the core of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata."
A priest in the temple, Dase is also a popular reciter of scriptures. The humble fee he receives from his performance at different houses obliged to fulfil their vows through listening to holy verses, supplements his main income which itself is so meagre. But, bound to the deity for generations, Dase surely knows the art of living not by bread alone. He has his philosophy, his share of reflections on the futility of worldly charms, on the impermanence of things and the need to remain alert against illusions. He tries to, but cannot break out of the inexorable law of hope and despair, desire and disappointment. His wife and a child die, his eldest son, an unconscious symbol of his own indestructibility, proves unworthy of his expectations. The situation around him also begins to undergo unforeseen changes — through the impact of a distant war, political upheavals in the form of elections, undeniable evidence of social and moral degradation at the collective plane.
But every situation has a hidden dimension. If his superficial faith in the deity, and all the values that go with it, is challenged, Providence seems to extend an unanticipated support in the person of one Satpathy, a rare but not at all incredible character in the rural life of India. Satpathy steps into the vacuum in Dase's life as quietly as a rainbow spans the sky and almost takes charge of him during the most significant phase of his life when he has stopped living without and has begun to live within, himself unsure of his motive and direction, often bewildered and lost. Escorted by this selfless agent and witness of his transcendence, Dase goes outwardly from one sacred place to another — Mathura, Vrindaban, Varanasi and Puri — but inwardly travelling towards his destiny of liberation.
There are passages in the novel where the typical rural setting vibrantly mingles with the state of mind of the protagonist. Here is an example, a scene inside Dase's household:
A small oil lamp hung from a nail driven into the wall. Its feeble light fell on two string cots placed side by side. The beds covered by two dirty quills sagged and hung low like cloth bags. Darkness lay thick under the beds and spread itself under the lamp. The air in the room was heavy with the sickening smell of ghee, sunthi and garlic, which blended with the smell of warm perspiration. Dase felt even more depressed than before. Just before he entered the room he stopped dead, startled by his own shadow on the wall. He felt a sudden pain in his chest. Just at this moment, the sickly black cat jumped over the threshold and darted away. His heart sank within his breast.
The novel, its title borrowed from a phrase in the Gita, Yantrarudheni mayaya — souls caught up in the mechanical wheel of Nature — is remarkable for the ease with which it achieves a denouement without any drama. The turmoil and realisations that go on in the consciousness of the protagonist are portrayed through a distinctive pen of empathy, and the climax — if such a phrase is unavoidable even for fiction with a difference — leaves the reader in a state of calm, with a touch of the serene.
The translation is faithful and highly readable and the publication is enriched by an informative and helpful introduction by Prafulla Kumar Mohanty.
Astride the Wheel, Chandrasekhar Rath, translated from Oriya by Jatindra Kumar Nayak, OUP, Rs. 245.
MANOJ DAS
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