PAPER: 4,indian writing in english

TOPIC: the effect of myth in the novel of raja rao’s kanthapura

PAPER: 4,indian writing in english

NAME: chudasama pratipalsinh v

CLASS: m.a sem -1

SUBMITED : dr.dilip barad sir

Dept,of English,

Bhavnagar university

the effect of myth in the novel of raja rao’s kanthapura

raja rao is great son of mother india and his greatness has receviced national and international recognition.comes of very old and learned south indian brahmin family.he was born in 1909 in the village of hassana in mysore.he lived in france from 1908 to1939,return to india on the out break of world war-2 in 1940.it was in france thousand of miles away from india,that hos frist novel kanthapura(1938) was written he was awarded the padma bhushn by government of india in 1969.

       Literature is a medium of political and society awakening in country and it is natural that during india’s struggle for freedom,literature played itsown part.most of creative writing which influenced india’s national movement had taken into account the presonality and achivement of mahatma gandhi who dominated the indian political scene from 1916 till his death in 1948.for thousand of india’s illiterate peasants gandhi came to stand for a riligious avtar or incranationof a god,and even many of the more sophisticated city dwellers looked upon him as a prophet as wellas a saviour.

       In kanthapura raja rao made an effective use of the mythical technique used with such success by english writers like t.s eliot and joyce.the useof mythical technique means that the past is juxtaposed with the present anh in his way the past may serve as criticism of the present.or it may be used ti highten and glorify the present.in his waste land t.s.eliot has used the mythical technique to criticise the present and in kanthapura raja rao has used this very technique to glorify the present and impart to the novel the dignity and status of an epic or purana.it is in this way that the gandhian movement,”kanthapura is again another and a larger attempt at creating a sthala purana.

       Kanthapura is microcosm of the macrocosm,for what happens in kanthapura was happening all over the country during those stirring days of the gandhian freedom struggle.as raja rao tells us in the very frist sentence of his well known preface to the novel,every village in india has a rich sthala purana or legendary history.it has a legend concerning the local goddess knchamma who protects the villager from harm and presides over their destiny.the novelist style or narrtion makes it a gandhi purana or a gandhi epic.

       Prof. c.d.narasimhiah explains that “there are three strands of expreience in the novel; the political,the religiousand the social and all the three woven in extricably into one complex story of kanthapura.”

       Raja rao gives a glowing description of the village kanthapura.there are five passages of outstanding description which reach potiec climax.moorthy gets so much engrossed in the congress movement that he ignores even his mother’s effecation.raja rao has brought the indian atmosphere thoroghly well into his study.the various ceremonies and their rites:hair cutting ceremony,rice eating ceremony,marriage ceremony and death anniversary ceremony;are all describe with the natural touch and living force.the description of the skeffington coffee estate is a magnificent piece of masterly prose.life in coffee estate is vivified in lurid colours and realisticallyc described incidents of the kartik festival of the lights is a brilliant master piece of poetic prose.the people of kanthapura wear tell tale nickname :waterfall venkamma,front house akkamma,temple rangappa,coffee planter ramayya,post-master suryanarayana.

       Kenchamma is their bread giver,rain giver,and their life giver.the villagers sing a hynm in the honour pf the goddess kenchamma which runs as under:

           Kenchamma kenchamma,
           Goddess benign and bounteous
           Mother of earth,blood of life,
           Harvest queen,rain crowned
           Kenchamma kenchamma,
           Goddess benign and bounteous.

                  The temple has always been a seat of ancient culture and it is still a source of solace and comfort for the troubled humanity.the kanthapurians installed a’lingam’ in the sanctum of the temple after it was first sighted by moorthy,and they come everyday for bhajans and harikathas and religious cum political meeting.moorthy fasts on the veradah of the temple,which later becomes a center of strong political activity.

       The narrator tells us that as soon as gandhi was born “the four wide walls began to shine like the  kingdom of the sun,and hardly was he in the cardle than he began to lisp the language of wisdom”.the harikatha man raises gandhi to the level of god by identifying his activities with one particular feat of krishna:

“You remember how krishna when he was but a babe of
Four,had begun to fight against demons and had killed
The serpent kali.so too our mohandas began to fight
Against the enemies of the country.”

                Men followed him ,as they did krishna,the flute player,as so he gose from village to slay the serpent of the foreigen rule.

       The british rulers who had”come to bind us as to whip us,to make our woman die milkless and our men die slipped into a deep madetation under the serpent pipal tree on the bank of the river himavathy in the presence of his mother.in his meditation ,he remembered the child prahalad who had said that hari was everywhere,”hum me ram,tum me ram,kharag khambhe me ram”.later on when he took to fasting in the sanctum of the village temple,he saw the vision of his mother and spoke to her thus:

            Mother,now you can throw me down the mountain and
            She asked,”why my son?..”I have seen hari….”

At the other extreme there stands bade khan,the police man whi is the “symbol of the oppressive soulles bureaucracy,made visibly repulsive “.but the villagers are not afraid of the police man because

       “what is police man beforec a gandhi’s man?tell me does a boar stand before a lion or a jackal before an elephant”

       Bhatta is the symbol of false orthodoxy and low cunning.in “the serpent and the rope the ganges is asymbol of purity.what the novelist suggest in kanthapura is that the water of the ocean is not enough to”wash this man’s sins away.”bhatta is by all means agreat sinner and an incurable usurer.

       Kanthapura is raja rao’s ramayana and the serpent and the rope is his mahabharata.as c.d. narasimhiah says,”it is a breathless tale from the beginning to the end and fascinatingly told.it gives us an insight into the appealing social condition of our villages as also the values that have preserved our people against flood,fire and famine and exploitation from within and from without and more than all that incomparable manner in which gandhi tapped the deeply religious and spiritual resources of our people living in the remotest parts of india and built up national movement inone life-time.”