Tragedy

Most of us harbor this mistaken idea about tragedy. Our mind binds tragedy, romantic or otherwise, with death, with destruction, with annihilation. For us tragedy is inextricably linked to non-existence, to irretrievable loss. Perhaps it is humankind’s unconscious necessity to reaffirm life and deny death. And we try to do so in all possible ways.


“Indeed, O king, with that excellent Anjalika weapon inspired with mantras into a mighty weapon, the son of Indra cut off the head of Vaikartana in the afternoon.

Thus cut off with that Anjalika, the trunk of Karna fell down on the earth. The head also of that commander of the Kuru army, endued with splendour equal to that of the risen sun and resembling the meridian sun of autumn, fell down on the earth like the sun of bloody disc dropped down from the Asta hills.”

We cry not because Karna suffered all his life for his convictions. We cry because he died at his brother’s hands.

What is Karna’s tragedy? Is it the death he received at his brother’s hands? No. Karna becomes the only standing protagonist at the precise moment of his death. The sage tells us vividly – “Till now there weren’t any and from now on too there will not be any.” At least for a moment Karna was given his due. And it was Death, being more benevolent than Suyodhana, that caused it.


“I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee: no way but this;
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.”
(Falls on the bed, and dies)

We cry not because Othello killed or kissed Desdemona, we grieve because at the end of the play he, our object of love, ceased to exist.

What is tragic about Othello? Is it his death? Never. Is there anything more glorious for a tough man than to get stabbed by himself? Is there anything more romantic for a man than to die kissing his beloved? If he hadn’t killed himself, he would have been nothing but Iago. With that one act Shakespeare carved a hero out of Othello. Death, being more benevolent than Love, again made a protagonist out of a mere mortal.


This makes Oedipus Rex more tragic than Othello. And Ashwathama than Karna. Death didn’t contaminate their dreadful tragedy; at least we didn’t mourn their deaths thereby redeeming their lives. They did not get a salvation called Death before their story ended and this makes them truer tragic heroes.

Theater

An actor is performing in a stage, many centuries ago. The stage is lighted only for his lean fragile figure making it impossible to know where the corners end and the wall begins, where the stage ends and the gallery begins, where he ends and they begin. But with his practiced body and concentrated mind he holds everything together, though loosely. His countenance revel in the ecstasy of imitation – of a reality, of a dream, of a truth vaguer than shapes formed in the mist. He takes his audience with him to a moment in future, in their ears he whispers the thoughts of tomorrow, to their eyes he brings a sight never seen before, and he let them feel the next spokes of the wheel of time, all the while suffering from the mortal wounds of art.

He guides them through unknown alleys with his invisible hands and rows them through strange sea routes that lead to wider seas, which lead to oceans. They advance with bated breaths, squinting eyes to see through the thick fog, and steps onto, sinks into, the bottomless pits and depths of future.

That actor was a humble link in our chain of ancestors, rendering his art somewhere in the wilderness and precariousness of Eurasia. And we were the bewitched audience.

Now, precisely at this moment, here where we speak neither Sanskrit nor Latin, we are that actor. And we are acting with numerous eyes riveted on us.

City

My eyes have not seen much. All they have seen is this city, a relatively new one with just a few centuries of memory. I have not read the history of this city. I don’t know which dynasty shared power during the more recent colonial times. And I don’t even know who built that Tudor style palace.

Cities are like that, they veil everything with their dust. They do open up their sumptuous bodies for meticulous academicians. But their spirits remains indecipherably scripted - sometimes in the longing look of an over aged maiden in the fruit market, sometimes in the smell of overripe guava piled up for sale beside her and sometimes in the indecent pomp of the old mansion overlooking the market.

This city, like every other one, renders us incapable of loving other cities.

This city does not want us to hate it by knowing its infamous past. Just like a whore entering a marriage.

This city empties the primitive desire in our eyes to see the tempting cleavages of other cities too. Just like a virgin entering a marriage, scared every moment of losing her husband to treacherous whores.

Yes. We are. We are in a sense bewitched by this ugly city.

Machine

The mini-truck looked old. The paint on the hood was faded and was full of scratches. The bonnet had bulges and dips here and there. The bumper was bent a little at the left side, perhaps due to a minor collision. But there is no reason to infer from these that it was involved in any serious accidents.

The driver too was not much different, though he looked rather younger; maybe in his mid thirties. The grey color and the fine dust on his shabby hair made him one with the vehicle. It cannot be otherwise, for he had been driving it, he had been traveling with it as a companion between towns and cities across rocky hills.

Both of them do not cut a sad picture. They certainly do not; even if we wish so because they are miles away from our mind’s silly, sadistic pleasures. They have been wandering and their happiness in that is much more than our vulgar pleasure in attributing boredom and melancholy to them. They are happy in gratifying their primordial need – the want to wander. And what else is worthier than quenching the thirst of one of your basic instincts?

Both the man and the machine – The man uses the machine to honor his fickle, vague and at the same time compelling instinct to say farewell to known lands. The machine uses the man to get driven to faraway lands and feel new forms of perennial lifelessness (its own kind).

Man needs the machine to speed away while leaving his homeland so that those who he leaves behind do not see tears of weakness sparkling in his eyes. Machine wants the man to forget its inherent paralysis, the truth to which it will fall back after every stimulating lie (lies like a “firing” engine).

Machine gives man its wheels. Man gives machine his legs.

Our Wounds

No. We do not expose the deepest of our wounds. Not to our mothers because we cannot stand the sight of our mothers bleeding in torment. Not to our lovers, more certainly, because our love for them never overpowers our shame, our pride.

These wounds - sometimes an embarrassing moment locked somewhere in childhood memory, sometimes a depressing mistake that makes us frown in suffocating agony, sometimes a schoolteacher’s curse – have rendered us poorer in life and much, much weaker.

And these moments, these mistakes, these defeats, die with us unsaid. As if they too are condemned to a lifetime of loneliness, within us.