Page 203 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Unit 24: Girish Karnard: Nagmandla—Introduction to the Text

with its own existence and identity; and to emphasize its individuality it is personified in the form Notes
of a woman. V. Rangan says "A story is born and grows; it has life. Each story has an independent
existence, and a distinctive character. All story tellers are ancient mariners cursed of keep the
story alive." The Story seems to echo that in order to live, a story has to be "told" and "re-told ".i.e.
the story has no role without the listener or perceiver. And cannot help thinking that whether the
author is stressing the reader's role in constructing meaning or phenomenology. The reader-
response theory questions the endurance of the author's viewpoint that has no existence without
the reader's perception. Being "told" and "re-told" is nothing but "interpretation" and "re-
interpretation". Therefore, any literary piece is only an object without the reader breathing meaning
into it. So for the story to survive, it must be ultimately "passed on". The backdrop of the flames
emphasizes the idea of 'passing on'.
Otherwise, the flames in the story were attributed with 'not having' the qualities of 'passing on'.
However, this is what they were precisely doing at the outset. Therefore, 'passing on' has wider
ramifications here, than merely physically transmitting.
Again the playwright is a man, and the story is personified as a woman. So does Man create
Woman? However the playwright echoes that the story has an autonomous existence and lives by
virtue of interpretation and re-interpretation. Likewise, a woman has her own existence and lives
by virtue of meaningful procreation. Thus, the gist of the framework of the story runs parallel to
the theme of the main story. As Rani's role gets inverted at the end of the story and Appanna
turns into a mere "instrument to prove her divinity", likewise roles get reversed as the playwright
(a man who tells stories) "listens" to the Story (a woman).
Self -Assessment
1. Tick the correct statements
(i) Appanna poses her as an adulterous woman whereas he himself has an illicit relationship
with a concubine.
(ii) Nagamandala is a folktale transformed into the metaphor of the married woman.
(iii) Rani's flight of the imagination transports her to a seventh heaven where her parents wait
for her.
(iv) Nagamandala is a critically acclaimed Kannada movie released in 1997
(v) The name 'Rani' ridicules at the Indian ideal of womanhood as the Rani or Lakshmi of the
household.

24.2 Summary

• Karnad is most famous as a playwright. His plays, written in Kannada, have been widely
translated into English and all major Indian languages. Karnad's plays are written neither in
English, in which he dreamed of earning international literary fame, nor in his mother
tongue Konkani. Instead they are composed in his adopted language Kannada.
• Nagamandala is a critically acclaimed Kannada movie released in 1997. The story of the film
was adapted from a play of the same name written by well-known writer Girish Karnad.
• The film touches one of the most sensitive issues of marital life. In folk style and form, the film
throws open a question as to who is the husband - the person who marries an innocent girl and
indulges in self pleasures or the person who gives the real and complete experience of life.
• The strong points of the movie remain the amazing acting by the leading cast and an authentic
portrayal and command on story by the director. The director has made some change to the
original play in the climax.
• Nagamandala is a folktale transformed into the metaphor of the married woman. It is a
Chinese box story with two folktales transformed into one fabric where myth and superstition,
fact and fantasy, instinct and reason, the particular and the general blend to produce a
drama with universal evocations. The predicament of Rani as opposed to the name is
deplorable than that of a maid.

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