Rajasuya

(A SKIT)

BY N. KASTURI*, M.A., B.L.
(Rendered by the author from the original in KANNADA)

It is a big event, every year, the School Day at our Girls’ Middle School. Preparations begin as soon as the school doors open after the summer recess and the children troop in. The person who is afflicted with headache earlier than all others is, of course, the Music Teacher, for, she has to select the play. Modern prose plays are too short and too drab for mofussil audiences. Besides, like processions before mosques, they avoid music. (And, they revel in widows. No girl dare play that role in our town, as elsewhere.) An up-country stage without a harmonium to raise a curtain of accompany for the play to break through, will attract only as many fans as a naphthalene ball can gather ants! So, the story has to be pre Kailasam,¹ preferably puranic. Even then, the choice is severely ringed by the devious laws of politics and sociology. They are tough critics, the elders of our place, and their skins are of the stuff of gossamer. Some plays, for them, are too ungodly and others too erotic. Harischandra is too Gandhian and Prahlada too revolutionary. Mudrarakshasa is pro-Brahmin, Parasurama is anti- Kshatriya; Sadarama is anti-Vaisya; Uttararama Charita is anti Sudra(ka) Sakuntala introduces fishermen; Lava-Kusa traduces washermen; Krishna Leela elevates cowherds and Choodamani sanctifies monkeys! Aswamedha goes against the grain of the half dozen jutkawallahs of our town. The choice, last year, therefore fell on Rajasuya. This play had another argument in its favour; its cast was so numerous that every single girl in the school could be thrown in, somewhere. This was an important consideration, for, if any tot, was dropped, her parents would go to pieces and prevent the Music Teacher from raising her voice in the town, again.

For some years now, the tradition has taken root in our town that some girls shall appear as some characters in the school play, whatever the theme. Doddapapanna’s daughter is a hardy annual as Krishna. The audience cannot escape her and her only song, Nagumomu. Break that unwritten law and you start a fusillade of irresponsible, anonymous missiles against all responsible. Rajasuya had, thank God, Krishna in the regular cast. The Post-Master’s daughter had on her the stamp of the heroine, and who but the Police Sub-Inspector’s daughter had the make up of the hero? The daughter of the Ration Officer was a born Bhima; the temple priest contributed a Bhishma; a jutkawallah’s family contained the needed Aswathama....About thirty girls who were ‘extras’ could assist as Rishis on the occasion of the great sacrifice.

Rehearsals were held every evening till the sun went down, for over six months, in the school gymnasium. Every word and note was drilled into the children. The townsmen put up with all that noise, hoping that a decent show would finally emerge. Many of them stealthily peeped through the window bars and learnt the lilts and the cliches and made them the property of the public. You could hear even elderly men, at their desks in the shops, discuss the samgita and the sahitya with their customers and pompously prognosticate the finale.

At last, a President was secured and the date fixed. Subscription lists went round and came . The pandal rose up proudly in the school compound, with its fringe of green mango leaves.

The drama was definitely not a ‘failure’! Indeed, it could well have been worse, as many remarked, considering the talents of those who trained the girls. The criticism of others was moderated by the thought that the children were young and they could only do their best.

Before the curtain fell, the President, no less a person than the Amildar of the Taluk, scrambled on to the stage and made a speech. That speech and the distribution of prizes that came later marked the beginning of the end.

The speech conformed strictly to standard. The President began by confessing that he was utterly incompetent to preside over the function, for the obvious reason that he had never attended a Girls’ School. He then elaborated, for the benefit of a restless and gradually emptying house, the basic principles of education (especially female), the burdens of parenthood (especially male) and the mysteries of Divine Dispensation. While distributing prizes, the Amildar melted somewhat. He condescended to stroke some winners on the head, smiled equinely on others and sought to educe the names of a few. He was a young man who had been turned out of the University but a few years ago, and he had a habit of grinning blandly at all and sundry. He congratulated Bhishma with the words, “Your beard is quite natural”; he complimented the Head-mistress on her twins; he said it was unlucky that the Harmonist could not be seen by the audience and that the Music Teacher deserved a long rest. He asked all the actors to give up the Stage and take to the Silver Screen. When, finally, he dangled silver medal before Sisupala, he stood up in his shoes and spouted three complex sentences, full of adjectival clauses, praising her vituperative venom and, believe it or not, her musical voice.

After he left the town, we reaped the whirlwind. The girls whom he stroked and to whom he spoke became so swell-headed that they taunted the others into unrighteous indignation. All the noses of the school were either up in the Appleton layer or down under the teakwood desks. Those who did not get the prizes attributed their fate to ignorance, partiality or communal prejudice. They refused to attend a school in which they were insulted and others prized.

Bhishma went home weeping, at the head of a giggling crowd, and her prospective groom cancelled the marriage, for, as he said, “Her cheek was astounding”! This news alarmed other parents and many marriageables withdrew from school.

But, it was Sisupala’s mother, the Second Assistant, who suffered the worst. People wondered in whispers why the Amildar had dilated so fulsomely on her daughter’s meagre accomplishments. The silver medal too was a surprise, pulled out of the President’s packet at the last moment, by his own tainted hand. Constant repetition made even the waverers accept the stories as authentic. Whiff of suspicion from the main cloud cast ominous shadows, even on the other Mistresses and the Music Teacher.

The local M.L.A., who is a puritan in public affairs, branded the entire bunch as undesirable, and led a delegation to the higher regions of Government. The Inspector of Schools attempted to assuage the fury, which only added another chapter to the adventures of scandal. Finally, the teachers were all transferred to other institutions, but no one dared take their places, under the pitiless floodlight of small talk.

Thus, Rajasuya, in our town too, sowed the seeds of discord and yielded a harvest of hate.*

* A famous modern play-wright in kannada, who passed away last year.
** The Rajasuya performed by King Yudhishtira sowed the seeds of the war in the Mahabharata.