Myth in The FIRE AND THE RAIN

Myth in THE FIRE AND THE RAIN.
In the Indian context, the art of drama is believed to have

originated in a myth.The Actor-Manager in the Prologue of The
Fire and The Rain justifies to the king his proposal for staging a
drama at the yajnya being conducted to propitiate Indra to give
rains to the parched land, by explaining (from Bharata’s
Natyashastra) how Brahma combined elements from the four
Vedas into a fifth one to enumerate the art of drama and
through his son Indra passed it over to a human preceptor,
Bharata, which was why an additional way of pleasing Indra
was a dramatic performance.
In The Fire and the Rain Karnad intertwines two myths from the
Mahabharata- the myth of Yavakri, and the myth of Indra and
Vritra, both having the common motif of fratricide. Karnad
reworks on the myths, significantly departing from the original
at various points and weaves out of it a novel story of love,
passion, betrayal and curse, in a chain of crime and retribution
with uncanny resemblance to that in Aeschylus’s Oresteia
trilogy.
The myth of Yavakri or Yavakrita forms the main body of the
play. Yavakri returns after ten years of ascetic penance in the
forest to acquire universal knowledge from Indra. This part of
the myth, quite similar to the Yajna, is very common in the
Puranas. Propitiate a god by penance or sacrifice and that god
will grant you the boon you ask for. Karnad debunks this myth
by having Yavakri himself mock his enterprise: “Universal
Knowledge!…It makes me laugh now. But do you know it was
in order to win some such grandiose prize that I went into the
jungle?” And he explains how his precarious physical and
mental condition under austere penance might have made him
hallucinate Indra appearing before him and talking to him. What
Indra said to him was in fact his own unconscious
acknowledgement that knowledge can be gained only through
lived experience in space and time. He ignored this voice. He
finally returned on a convenient supposition that he had won.
But by his own admission he has got “some knowledge but little
wisdom”.
Yavakri seduces Bisakha, wife of Parabasu, son of Raibhya by
harping on his passion for her, which, he says, remained
dormant within him all these years. Karnad has modified the
myth by making Yavakri the cousin brother of Parabasu and
former lover of Bisakha to reinforce the motif of fraternal feud
and deceitfulness so pervasive in the puranic myths. For it is
revealed later that Yavakri seduces Bisakha to wreak revenge on
Raibhya for securing the position of the chief priest for his son
Paravasu in the royal fire sacrifice to Indra, a position which he
thought his father Bharadwaj deserved. In fact he went into
penance for ascendency in priesthood and power over others.
As for Bisakha, her husband used her body for violent sexual
exploration for some time and then left to attend his office of the
chief priest in the fire sacrifice, abandoning her to loneliness,
silence and sexual exploitation by her father-in-law (the last one
is Karnad’s quite viable addition). All these made her vulnerable
to Yavakri’s pretensions.
Yavakri made sure, as he tells Bisakha later on, that his
seduction of her did not escape Raibhya’s patriarchal vigilance,
by leaving Arabasu, Parabasu’s brother, a witness. Raibhya
beats her calling her a ‘whore’.He then creates the Bramha
Rakhshasa to destroy Yavakri. Bramha Rakhshasa, like Nemesis
in Greek myth, is nothing but an allegorical representation of
Yavakri’s hubris, his ego. In the original myth Raibhya also
creates a double of Bisakha to take away the protective water
that Yavakri consecrated as a shield against Bramha Rakhshasa.
In Karnad’s adaptation it is Bisakha herself out to avenge
Yavakri’s deceit, which is a realistic interpretation of the myth.
The doubly wronged Bisakha boldly tells her husband Parabasu
everything including Raibhya’s treatment of her and how
jealous he is of his son’s ascendance in power in the priestly
order. Paravasu kills his father deliberately and not by mistaking
him for an animal in the dark as in the Mahabharata. Having
thus avenged herself on her abuse by males she commits
suicide.
After rejoining his priestly duty at the fire sacrifice Paravasu
victimizes his brother, Arvasu with accusations of patricide.
Karnad’s Aravasu is an authentic common man, a lover of life,
interested in acting, dancing and singing and not in the
observance of Bhraminical rituals as in the original myth.
Karnad has developed this character to systematically
counterpoint the hollow Bhraminical life of rituals, false
learning and power politics.
The Indra-Vrita legend is used in the play-within- the play in
Karnad’s own innovative way. It is inter textual with Aravasu
Paravasu myth, as both explore the theme of fratricide. Indra,
Vishwarupa and Vritra are the sons of Brahma. Indra is the King
of Heaven and lord of Rains. Vitra, who swallows rivers and
hides water inside him, rules the nether world and Vishwarupa
is the king of men. Indra deceitfully invites Vishwarupa to the
fire sacrifice he has arranged in the honour of his father and kills
him. Vitra, though not invited because he is the son of
demoness, forcefully enters the sacrificial precincts to avenge
his brother’s death. Indra takes this opportunity to kill him and
thereby release the waters.
Aravasu fittingly plays the role of Vritra. The mask he wears
metaphorically transports him into a frenzy to play havoc with
the whole affair of the fire sacrifice, while chasing the theatrical
Indra played by the Actor-Manager. With his torch he sets the
sacrificial precincts on fire. He also chases Parabasu, the human
counterpart of Indra, when the latter intervenes. Parabasu enters
into the fire, followed by Aravasu in the mask. Nittilai rescues
Aravasu, who now takes off his mask and returns to himself.
Nittilai is killed by her brother for damaging the honour of her
tribe.
Indra, pleased with Aravasu’s performance, tells him to ask for a
boon. Aravasu wants Nittilai returned to life, while the people,
gathered to witness the play, clamour for the boon of rain, and
Brahmma Rakhshasa, Karnad’s representation of the
supremacist Brahmminical ego, pleads for release from
existence. Aravasu’s wish, Indra tells him, would entail rolling
back the wheel of time and bringing back all who died at that
point of time and all the suffering and tragedy all over again.
Granting release of Brahmma Rakhshasa would be to allow the
forward movement of time. Brahmma Rakhshasa argues that
Nittilai would have wanted to help him, merciful as she was.
Arvasu finally asks for the Rakhshasa’s release. And just at that
moment people hear the rains.
Thus, by adapting and interweaving the myths of Yavakri-
Aravasu- Parabasu, and the myth of Indra and Vritra, Karnad
questions the whole patriarchal, segregationist discourse of
Hindu myths in general and the Yajña (the fire sacrifice) in
particular with scepticism and speculative enlightenment.

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Myth in THE FIRE AND THE RAIN.

In the Indian context, the art of drama is believed to have

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