Filigree and Sovereignty of Human Bonds – A

FILIGREE AND SOVEREIGNTY OF HUMAN BONDS - A STUDY OF DYNAMICS IN AMEETA RATHORE’S BLOOD TIEStc "FILIGREE AND SOVEREIGNTY OF HUMAN BONDS -                   A STUDY OF DYNAMICS IN AMEETA RATHORE’S          BLOOD TIES"
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P. Rajendra Karmarkar

Blood is thick. Relationships are hard to be broken unlike the links between friends. They haunt the humans like their shadows. The sheep believes its own butcher. When the choice is between the shepherd and the butcher, the sheep prefers the butcher who has been relentless all the time but appears occasionally in sheep’s clothing. Hard-hearted, self- righteous, snobbish, ostentatious and inculpating husband is the bane of a woman’s life. Such husbands think that women are their subjects submitting themselves to their suzerainty but unmindful of the decisive damage they cause to them. Their hearts sometimes incline to be sympathetic giving way to exonerate the victims of their intransigence but within no time, they go to their dark and dry bent of mind.

Ameeta Rathore, who was formerly a lawyer, was born in Bihar, one of the ward states in India and brought up in Delhi. Rathore is writing her second novel. In her first novel  Blood Ties (2001) she tells a story of a minor girl, Ila, born in a Brahmin royal and feudal family marked by traditional binds and bounds. Raja Bahadur Brahmanand Singh, who is a landlord and zamindar holds dominance over the town Brahmanagar situated in Bihar. His only daughter was married to an Indian Administrative Service officer Mr. Prabhat Kumar Jha whose expression of displeasure at his wife’s giving birth to a female child, Ila, struck a permanent breach between his wife and himself. Later, Prabhat Kumar’s wife died of malaria. Ila was taken care by her grandfather. Ila received lavishing love not only from her grandfather but also form the servants of the household especially Hirya and Machali Yadav. In a dispute about the custody of Ila, Raja Bahadur Singh sends her to the care of her father who proves to be callous and self-righteous. When Raja Bahadur files a suit in the court seeking the legal custody of his granddaughter and while framing charges against her father that he was not treating her her well, Ila’s choice of staying with her father surprises the judge. It summons a vicious smile from her father.

Traditions and customs are a like ‘blood ties’. They hold the people in their places and guide them with the force of an undercurrent and require them to follow the etiquette. Though people might neglect the traditions, traditions seem to cling to them, like parents who do not discard their children even if children are unkind to them. In their compass, traditions rule both the rich and the poor. People preserve the relations for the sake of social life, harmony, and honour, though their love is at a low ebb. Some develop possessiveness towards somebody and keep the loveless bonds.

Raja Bahadur Brahmanand was dying in a hospital. His sister Ranakpur babi, setting aside a kind of long standing enemity between her family and her brother’s, came to perform the funeral rites of her dying brother. She places the tail of a calf driven into the hospital in the hand of her brother. If a cow is the symbol of a mother, can the calf be the symbol of Ila? Or does this gesture enable Raja Bahadur Brahmanand to attain heaven or goddess Parvati’s abode? “... Ila’s Ranakpur babi, who had made sure her brother’s oxygen supply was not cut off till the calf’s tail had been placed in his hand”. Ranakpur babi, proclaims with her strong appearance at her brother’s death bed that her brother was not alone and he was deprived of none. “Ila’s Ranakpur babi had forgotten her life-long rivalry with her brother to make sure that in his death he was not diminished in any way”. 

The oppressed and the poor find some relief from the saviour role now and then being played by the militant groups living mostly in forest areas. People believe that the militants are fighting for the just cause. Although Naxalites are not related by blood, the poor and the victims foster feelings of spiritual affinity with them and treat them as their brethren and liberators. Ranakpur babi, Ila’s grandfather’s sister, declares proudly that her grandson, Tuttu, had gone underground to join Naxalism waging armed struggle for social justice. On the other hand, she cries in private for the heavy loss his family had suffered. Ila’s cousin, Tuttu has become a Naxalite at his college in Calcutta...In public Ila’s Ranakpur babi had applauded her grandson’s social conscience and sense of justice. In private she had cried...”

Servants who have stayed long with their masters often make their presence felt in running the affairs of a large house. They declare their allegiance to their masters in the time of crisis, even if they commit mistakes or small crimes just like the sons and daughters of the house. Their actions demand to be judged in good faith and without reservations. They share the joys and sorrows of their masters. At the time of Raja Bahadur Brahmanand’s death Machali Yadav carries into the hospital ward the ‘retting jute’ taken from Kosi river with its typical smell symbolizing the spiritual relations invisibly gripped in and around of Kosi river, as a last favour or rites he can do to his master. “Machali Yadav, bringing the smell of retting jute into the antiseptic ward, had performed the last unsolicited favour for his master,..

The only relation to whom Ila was closely attached was her grand father’s sister, Ranakpur babi who is so called as she lived at Ranakpur, six miles away from Brahmanagar. Ranakpur babi had a grouse that she was married at ten insinuating the prevalence of the abolished social evil of the Hindu society which gained notoriety of marrying daughters aged between two and ten. Hindu society enjoys its cruelty at the deprivation of their daughters’ right to choose the bridegrooms at such tender age. “She had been married at ten by the tenets of the diabolically clever Hindu way of life, which perhaps had to protect itself from this very problem, married girls off between two and ten years of age.” 

Hindu husbands want their wives to bear the brunt of marital life without complaining. They should be patient to the accusations and humiliations made by the dominant members of the family. But, under no circumstances they should revolt against either their husbands or the other members of the family. There is peace in the dictum. God is in his heaven, all is right with the world. Ranakpur babi led a submissive life in her father-in-law’s house. When she got married, she was the only daughter- in-law in the house. But, after her husband’s brother     re-married, Ranakpur babi lost her importance systematically and was reduced to complaining like a child, a nagging wife whose cries went unheeded. Her husband had never taken her charges against his sister-in-law seriously. He died thinking that he was the best and the just husband and his wife was good enough not to be worried about. “Her husband had died thinking himself the fairest and most just of men, leaving his wife to crave the understanding that she was not bad, not all women are bad...,

The Hindu marriage system and marital relations are reflected in the lives of adversaries, Raja Bahadur Brahmanand and Prabhat Kumar Jha who remain widowers though they could remarry to lead better lives. Their adherence to widowhood evidences that they have been wedded to human bonds more spiritually than physically.
Mrs. Prabhat Kumar Jha, daughter of Raj Bahadur Brahmanand was brought up in the western style education which made her assimilate modern life style helping her to be extremely sociable with men and women. Her socializing attitude embarrasses her husband and he keeps his mother and his secretary to watch her movements. Having made allowances as a flirt and socialite, Prabhat Kumar Jha’s wife created suspicion in her husband’s mind beyond a patch-up. “Ila’s mother had given her father a lot of fodder for the beast in his mind. She had played bridge and mahajong-gambled, had smoked-loved cheap romances.” But it was more a clamor in the mind of the suspicious husband that led him to consider his wife an infidel. His mother who had been assigned the job of a spy, finds nothing of that sort. Though it was true, somehow it appears an exaggeration when she declares to herself “She knew, despite her son’s assertions, that her daughter-in-law never looked at another man.” Moreover, her daughter-in-law offered worship to the Goddess and performed rituals regularly. “She did her Durga Path everyday, spending half an hour reading the praises of the goddess.” The fact that her son had never passed an accusation on the veracity of Ila’s birth itself shows the virtuous character of Ila’s mother.

True love is unfettered and dispassionate. None can resist its intrusion, as one cannot deny human nature. When love hits, it hurts. “As time passed, Ila’s father found himself looking at his daughter with approving eyes. Every once in a while he found himself feeling a pang that he did not recognize as love having no experience of such an emotion. He quickly pushed away all such thoughts that came unbidden.

Developing aversion and ill-will toward his father-in-law, Prabhat Kumar Jha brings up Ila who was left with him by his father-in-law in Patna, in such a way that she is stripped of all the luxuries she had enjoyed at her grandfather’s house. And he did not take her to places to entertain her. But to her surprise, he took her to the film ‘Sangam’ which portrays triangle love between two bosom friends who do not know each other’s love towards the girl. The story ends in the death of one of the friends for the sake of his friend, which strikes a resemblance of filial love between father and grandfather for Ila. “It was therefore a great surprise when her father came home and told her he was going to take her to see Sangam.”

Significantly, Prabhat Kumar Jha had never hit his daughter, Ila, because he was a member of shrotriya (Brahmin) caste which knows how to behave courteously in the society but his words and abominable actions are as much lashing as of whipping physically. “He never hit Ila, after all he was a shrotriya and knew how to conduct himself in life... His principles did not allow him to touch his daughter, but words were a different matter.”

Actually, Prabhat Kumar Jha’s actions had never been able to instil faith in Ila’s mind, who might have taken pleasure in the trouble taken by her father to regale her. The motives that had driven the father to behave unnaturally were evident to Ila. “Ila looking at all these efforts ... realised her father’s motivation.” Sensing the defeat for his attempts, Prabhat Kumar Jha resorted to employ moral binding on his daughter. “.. So I’m sure you will realise that a daughter’s home is with her father and not in anyone else’s house.”

Being a discerning, and a kind girl, Ila derives strength from the roots of relations which finally come to her rescue when she is embroiled in a crisis. Her father, showing the sadistic pleasure, and eagerness, admitted her in a humble Hindi medium school which was filled-in mostly with lower class children. Ila had put up with the situation in silence and stood first in her class amazing both her classmates and her father. “By the end of her first year in school she had topped her class, to the chagrin and astonishment of her classmates, just as he had. The only difference was that she had made the journey in reverse, from English to Hindi.” 

Scrutinising the thoughts of her father, Ila understands that her father being unable to love, seeks her love and wants her to treat him as her true guardian. His nature and bent of mind resembling the lotus leaf that does not hold the drop of water which is in its contact corroborates the Brahminical creed that pleads for indifference while one is in the thick of human bonds. She finds her heart entertaining no love for her father. “All these years I struggled for his acceptance and love, and now he thinks he can call on my love or duty. Well love dies.”
The district judge when apprised of how her father was looking after her and how he admitted her in an unknown Hindi medium school becomes annoyed. “He had been shocked to discover that the girl was not going to the convent in Patna but to an unknown school.” The judge who thought that Ila’s father’s conduct was worse than a charge of rape or sexual abuse, inclined to rule in favour of her grand father but he was prevented from doing so because of Ila’s stunning declaration of her willingness to stay with her father. The judge says to Ila, “we have to see what would be the best for you. If you have any strong reasons why you would prefer to live with anyone, you can tell me. She heard herself say ‘My father, I suppose”

‘...And you would like to live with your father’.

‘Yes’

In fact, Ila in a way, wants to wreak vengeance upon her father. But, unexpectedly, like a child that searches for its mother, and like an eagle that unpredictably comes from far away and snatches its prey, Ila was seized by the call of blood or gene that drives her to find her right place. It goads her to favour her father in spite of the impending permanent loss of a loving grand father and her roots at Brahmanagar.  “...At that moment the gene struck , seething and churning, emerging out of the slime of life like a monster surfacing from the swamp in science fiction movies ...but now she was claimed by her rightful owner she was her father’s daughter.”¹⁹

The way Ila reacted to her chromosome signalled judicious ruling that endorses the law of nature that father is the lord of the house under whose care children enjoy the pride of living. The death of her grandfather soon revealed that she would have been left an orphan if she had gone to live with her grandfather, however, the cruel father did not allow his daughter to have a last sight of the dying man and to have the honour of conducting the final rites.

 

In 2005, Kavya, an Indian American girl of 17 years, a fresher of Harvard has become the new star in the literary world by getting an advance of Rs 2.2 Crore for two-book deal. The tentative title of the book is ‘HOW OPAL MEHTA GOT KISSED, GOT WILD AND GOT IN. The offer is from Little, Brown and company, one of America’s prestigious publishers–Courtesy THE WEEK.

Good news for teenage writers and first time authors!