LANGUAGE IN INDIA

The Fire and the Rain
Deriving Meaning for Modern Life from Myths

Megha Trivedi, Ph.D. Candidate

Introduction

In The Fire and the Rain, Girish Karnad deals with the universal theme of Love, Jealousy and Isolation. He tries to interpret the past in terms of the present and vice versa, by exploring the universality of some basic human emotions and sentiments.

Like his other plays, The Fire and the Rain has the influence of folk tales and different traditions. Karnad employs mythical, historical and folk theme as a frame of this play as well, and through this he conveys a message to the modern-day world.

Myth in Karnad's Plays

According to Jung,

Myths are expression of the primordial images in the collective unconscious of man. In the beginning, man had certain experiences and received them in their psyche in the form of images. Since they are the first images they are called archetypes of the collective unconscious. (Jung 130)

Karnad said in one of his interviews with The Hindu:

Drama is a means of self experiences for me. Dramas can be a production of meaning also… The function of artist is to create the world for the story to happen and then, if possible to interpret it.

The remark of Hazel E. Barnes is most appropriate in relation to the use of Myth by Karnad in his plays:

In a period when values are relatively stable, authors tend to use the classic myths merely allusively, enriching the poetic quality of their work with layers of older connotations. In an age more obviously transitional, there is likely to be more of new interpretations. (Barnes 110)

Karnad on The Fire and the Rain

In The Fire and the Rain Girish Karnad gives some focus to the betrayal of a brother against another. He says:

Myth can be seen as expressing a deep anxiety which informs the whole of Indian mythology the fear of brother destroying brother. This fear branches out fully and nakedly in the Mahabharata where the bonding of brothers within the Pandava and Karu clans is as close as the enmity between the cousins is ruthless and unrelenting. In the Ramayana the fraternal bonding in the Raghu family Rama and his brothers-expresses other facets of the same anxiety with the betrayal of surgical and vibhishana (interestingly in the cause of the ethically correct side) marking the counter points. The story of Arvasu and Paravasu fascinated me as unusual variant of this Indian obsession with fratricide and it seemed logical too that Yavakri should be their cousin through the Mahabharata does not explicitly say so, I cannot remember, when I decided to incorporate the Indra-Vitra legend in my plot, but years later, while rereading the original version, I was astonished to find that right at the beginning of the tale of Yavakri, Lomasha mentions that the whole story took place on the banks of a river in which Indra had bathed to cleanse himself of the sins of killing Vitra! One of the fascinating aspects of dealing with the myths is their self reflexivity. (F&R 68-69)

Karnad uses mythology, history, legends to project a world of intensities, uncertainties and unpredictable devour. He believed that there is a unique energy in the Indian Folk tales and there is every possibility of using them in the modern context. In his interview with 'The Hindus', he has said:

I go in for stories that are exciting. I think these are better stories than I will be able to botch up. At least in the want of originality I am perhaps as good or as bad as Shakespeare.

The Myth behind The Fire and the Rain

The Fire and the Rain is based on a little known myth from the Mahabharata.

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Ergativity in Pahari Language | The Robustness of Free Reading in Second and Foreign Language Education | Conversational Cloze as a Measure of Ability in English in Indian Schools | Teaching the Intangibles - The Role of the English Teacher | Failures and Disillusionment in Naipaul's Miguel Street | Issues and Problems in Ph.D. in English - Degree Quality Assurance in Pakistan | Socio-Linguistic Constraints of Code Switching in Hindi-English-Kannada Multilinguals | Nature of Perception according to Gautama | The Quintessence of Sports Psychology and Language | Some Characteristics of Tamil Jokes | Lexical Opposites in Tamil | The Fire and the Rain - Deriving Meaning for Modern Life from Myths | Realilty and Challenges for Tamil in a Multilingual Environment - Tamil in Malaysia: An Essay in Tamil | Teaching and Learning a Classical-Modern Language - Some Thoughts Relating to Tamil | HOME PAGE of December 2009 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR