Universal Journal of Education and General Studies Vol. 1(2) pp. 017-027, February, 2012 Available online http://www.universalresearchjournals.org/ujegs Copyright © 2012 Universal Research Journals

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Mapping culture through ‘A river Sutra’: Tribal myths, dialogism, and meta-narratives in postcolonial fiction Bhasha Shukla Sharm Head, Department of Humanities, University Institute of Technology, Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya Bhopal. (M.P). Email: [email protected], Tel: 98260902099. Accepted 2 January, 2012

My attempt in this paper would be to study Indian culture through the tribal myths, Bakhtian concept of dialogism, and meta-narratives in ‘Gita Mehta’s ‘A River Sutra’. Gita Mehta is a prominent postcolonial writer and has dedicated her writings towards contemporary India. As Salman Rushdie (1997) puts it, “Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra is an important attempt by a thoroughly modern Indian to make her reckoning with the Hindu culture from which she emerged.” I would also try to reestablish the cultural overtones by touching upon some of Bakhtein’s central theories concerning how social discourses are represented in the novel. Bakhtein’s refusal to lose sight of role of chance, accommodation, and the conscious and unconscious weight of tradition in all instances of genre building stands a needed corrective to theories of the novel that, while insisting that we always historicize, seem oddly oblivious to literary history. It is important to recall that this novel, like all genres, is the product not of one century but of many. A River Sutra (1993) is a series of interlocking stories, spread across many centuries, reflecting the depth and complexity of India’s spirituality. The seamless flow of the narrative is like the flow of the river goddess Narmada. The elements of nature have been frequently elaborated by the oral tribal tradition of storytelling, the Puranic and the Vedic texts. Key Words: Indian culture, Tribal myths, dialogism, meta-narrative, post-colonial writing. BACK-GROUND A River Sutra juxtaposes myth, reality, desire, sorrow, passionate intensity, detachment, blind faith, renunciation, self-realization disappointment, love, pain, calmness with wisdom. Mehta treats the elemental Hindu myths through the meta-narrative technique and uses Narmada as a gamut or ‘sutra’ to create an ideological consensus between Hinduism, Islam and Jainism. According to John Stephens (1998) a meta-narrative "is a global or totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience". The prefix meta- means "beyond" and is here used to mean "about", and narrative is a story constructed in a sequential fashion. Therefore, a meta-narrative is a story about a story, encompassing and explaining other "little stories" within totalizing schemes. Meta-narratives are not usually told outright, but are reinforced by other more specific narratives told within the culture. The Narmada acts as

the ‘sutra’ and the nameless narrator as the ‘Sutradhar’. Together they connect and capture Indian myths, rituals, traditions, culture and philosophy. The unknown narrator at once acts as the story teller, translator, and the audience or listener with complete ease. He creates apt background for each narration. Since we don’t know much about him, he transforms from the author to a story teller, from the reader to a listener with complete ease. He is as curious as the reader to know more about the episodes and is cautious enough as the author to speak in a calculated manner, to put forward the thoughts of characters without interpreting it, so that the audience or the reader can interpret it in their own manner. Gita Mehta uses religious invocations, poetry, and the dialogism to construct her narrative. And her stories embody manifestations of the divine as in various religions (Hinduism, Jainism, and Islam). ‘A River Sutra’

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is not only about a narrator and his six stories but is much more. In this paper I attempt to unfold the myths and traditional Hindu practices in ‘A River Sutra’. I further posit that Gita Mehta uses the meta-narrative technique as used by the old Indian texts like Panchatantra, Kathasaritsagar, Kadambari, and Mahabharata. I would also analyze the narrative style of the novelist that can be called info-dumping- where the author puts concentrated amount of background material in form of conversation between two characters or Dialogic. The ‘dialogic’ work, as coined by Bakhtin (in ‘The Dialogic Imagination’, 1981), carries a continual dialogue with other works of literature and other authors. It does not merely answer, correct, silence or extend a previous work, but informs and is continually informed by the previous work. Dialogic literature is in communication with multiple works. As Bakhtin puts it, ‘a particular language in a novel is a particular way of viewing the world,’ and therefore, ‘the speaking person in the novel is always, to one degree or another, an ideologue, and his words are always ideologemes’. Generally dialogism is associated with narrotology. Mikhail Bakhtin considered the nature of the whole of human consciousness as dialogic. He considered that dialogism is a universal phenomenon that covered all expressions of the human life. ‘No idea’, He said, ‘is simply able to survive in isolated consciousness of a human being…if it remains there only, it degenerates and dies’. (Bakhtin, 51-71). Linell remarks ‘ In large measure, the ease with which dialogism has been appropriated as a tool for (not only) literary analysis, and the blunting of this tool by casual use, are consequences of a failure to recognize and engage with the concept’s place in intellectual history, with the philosophical and philological contexts in which dialogism denotes not an identifiable quality of a narrative text, but a set of problems in the study of human language, communication and cognition’ The narrator, the reader and the speaker and the listener are participating in the dialogue. Dialogism appears to be a simple expression to the philosophical implications of narratology. Cates Baldridge analyses it further and remarks, ‘whenever a character in a novel speaks, he or she reveals a perspective on reality shaped by concrete cultural factors such as class, occupation, gender, or generation, meaning that when fictional persons interact, what really come into proximity and often into conflict are the various self-interested and partial descriptions of the social system they articulate.’ A River Sutra can be labeled as a polyphonic novel by Bakhtian classification of novels. A polyphonic novel is the one in which ‘a character’s word about himself and his world is just as fully weighted as the author’s’ and in which those figures whose social perspectives oppose that of the narrator are

represented ‘not only (as) objects of authorial discourse but also (as) subjects of their own directly signifying discourse’ (Bakhtien). Cates Baldridge remarks, ‘this does not mean that the author remains neutral (an impossible undertaking); it means only that she endeavors to present the worldviews of even her villains as if from the inside, granting these dissenting ideological positions their full status as coequals with the one she chooses to inhibit. Finally, within a polyphonic novel it is possible for the characters’ differing social vocabularies to interact ‘dialogically.’ When this occurs, the conversation between clashing social perspectives creates an exchange in which ‘each language reveals to the other what it did not know about itself, and in which new insights are produced that neither wholly contained before.’ Furthermore, the languages come to reflect a new self-conscious understanding that, far from unproblematically reflecting reality, they merely give voice to one possible viewpoint among many, all of which are equally limited by cultural circumstances, and thus they lose their naïve belief in their own ‘authoritative’ (i.e. unquestionable) status. After a character has been involved in a dialogic exchange, he sees the social field from a Copernican rather than a Ptolemaic perspective, and that the contingent nature of all cultural discourseshegemonic and subversive alike-begins to reveal itself.’ Gita Mehta uses the dialogue between the unnamed narrator and other characters to develop the narration. She refers continuously to Indian mythology, Vedas, Puranas, work by Shankracharya, Bhakti philosophy, Sufi philosophy, and many other references to Ancient Indian Literature. This is not merely a matter of influence, for the dialogue extends in both the directions, and the previous work of Literature is as altered by the dialogue as the present one is. In this sense, Bakhtin’s ‘dialogic’ is analogous to T.S Eliot’s ideas in ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’ (1919), where he holds that ‘the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. The paper will also examine the conduit role of the narrator who himself does not participate in the course of action and is therefore inactive. The cultural aspect of various communities which are independent but interdependent, homogenous within themselves but heterogeneous outwardly having Narmada river as unifying factor will also be analyzed, where Narmada is called the ‘sutra’ or the link and the unknown narrator is the ‘sutradhar’ or the linkage or the commentator. I examine the traditional Hindu myths incorporated in the novel, Shiva and Narmada myths being prominent. Secondly I state that Mehta has used the river Narmada as a sutra or link between the past and the present. Thirdly I wish to highlight how Mehta presents the

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secularism of Indian subcontinent as an ideological consensus Between Hinduism, Islam and Jainism. Fourthly I argue that Mehta through the nameless narrator becomes translator and interpreter-translator of multiple narratives, and transcripts various facets, the oral and literary traditions of Ancient Indian Culture. The narratology is loaded with symbolism that arises from a mixture of affirmation of myth and life - faith in life and living life itself. Mehta has used myth as a powerful tool to connect the past to the present forcing us to transcend borders of time. The river Goddess Narmada, Siva’s unmarried daughter, the beguilingly beautiful seductress, whose name suggests both chaste and unchaste, represents the duality of Indian myths where the river is represented as mythological symbol of Indian culture. As the daughter of lord Siva, it is referred to as ‘Her Holiness’ (as a mother who nourishes surrounding human settlements) and as ‘a whore’ (one that takes away your sins). In A River Sutra, Gita Mehta, employs the ambiguity of Narmada’s driving impulse to provoke to the sexuality in her myth: ‘Did they (the ascetics) brood on the Narmada as the proof of Shiva’s great penance or did they imagine her as a beautiful woman dancing towards the Arabian sea, arousing the lust of ascetics like themselves while Shiva laughed at the madness of their infatuation.’ (ARS 13839) ‘A mere glimpse of the Narmada’s waters is supposed to cleanse a human being of generations of sinful births’ (ARS 151) And again a character in the novel, Dr Mitra says: “Did you know ‘Narmada’ means a ‘whore’ in Sanskrit?” (ARS 150). In ‘A River Sutra’, Gita Mehta reports the legend of birth of Narmada, inspired by the old texts: “It is said that Shiva, the creator and destroyer of worlds, was in an ascetic trance so strenuous that rivulets of perspiration began flowing from his body down the hills. The stream took on the form of a woman- most dangerous of her kind: a beautiful virgin innocently tempting even ascetics to pursue her, inflaming their lust by appearing at one moment as a lightly dancing girl, at another as a romantic dreamer, and yet another as a seductress loose-limbed with the lassitude of desire. Her inventive variations so amused Shiva that he named her Narmada, the delightful one, blessing her with the words you shall be forever holy, forever inexhaustible. Then, he gave her in marriage to the ocean, Lord of rivers, most lustrous of all her suitors” ( ARS 08-9). The narrative begins with narrator’s musings on Narmada where he imagines the ascetics with ash smeared naked bodies, their matted hair wound on top of their ascetic god, witnessing the river’s birth as they

chant: Shiva-o-ham, Shiva-o-ham, I that am Shiva, Shiva am I. (ARS 5). The nameless narrator is a retired bureaucrat who chooses to be a Manager at Narmada rest house and lives in a small cottage adjoining the rest house. From the gardens he could see Narmada ‘the river has become the sole object of my reflections. ’ And because he was fascinated by the river and wanted to learn more about it, he explains: ‘. . . the bungalow’s proximity to the Narmada River was its particular attraction. Worshipped as the daughter of the god Shiva, the river is among our holiest pilgrimage sites. During my tours of the area I had been further intrigued to discover that the criminal offence of attempted suicide is often ignored if the offender is trying to kill himself in the waters of the Narmada.’ (ARS 02). But it is strange and perhaps amazing to find out how Mehta personifies the river seeing it from the eyes of a man, he says: ‘In the silence of the ebbing night I sometimes think I can hear the river’s heartbeat pulsing under the ground before she reveals herself at least to the anchorites of Shiva deep in meditation around the holy tank of Amarkantak.’ (ARS 5). Mehta tries to develop an erotic imagery of the virgin River. Narrator calls himself vanprasthi (one who seeks personal enlightenment) but watching the river in isolated darkness he imagines her as a woman ‘painting her palms and the soles of her feet with vermilion as she prepared to meet her Lover,’ or ‘indolently stretching her limbs as she oiled herself with scented oils, her long black hair loosened, her eyes outlined in collyrium’. (ARS 139). While I was gathering facts about river Narmada, I came across some other myths prevailing in the region, which perhaps are not mentioned by the novelist, but they might present an interesting angle about Narmada. Geographically the source of river Narmada is in Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh. From the same source the rivers Son and river Johilla also flow out in different directions. Johilla is a tributary of the Narmada and rejoins it a few kilometers further downstream. In the legends of Kurma and Shiva Puranas, these three rivers are inter-dependent. In Indian mythology river Son is one of the two rivers that have been given a masculine form, the other being Brahmhaputra. These ancient texts recount the history of the marriage arranged between the Son and the Narmada. It is a story of love and betrayal. The Narmada, like a future traditional Indian wife had never seen her betrothed. Curious, she sent her friend, Johilla, daughter of the barber, so that she submitted a report to her on what he could resemble. When Johilla

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saw Son, she fell under his charm. Son, seeing the pretty young woman approaching, supposed that she was his betrothed. Consequently, he gave the order to begin the marriage ceremony. When Narmada discovered that she was deeply offended. Turning her back on Son, she flew in the opposite direction. She sprang through rocks and chasms, formant of the rapids and waterfalls which always resound of her disappointment. She finished her escape towards the west by drowning her misery in the Gulf of Cambay. The rejected Son flowed down to the top of a high hill, and ran out towards the east then towards north to join the Ganges on its way towards the Bay of Bengal. Narmada, therefore, is considered unmarried, pious, and the one who would take all the sins away. Mehta remarks that the Narmada was renowned even in the ancient world. Ptolemy, Greek astronomer and geographer, wrote regarding this river in the 2nd century AD. ― Even the Greeks and the Alexandrines had heard about the Narmada’s holiness and the religious suicides at Amarkantak- people fasting till death or immolating themselves on the Narmada’s banks, or drowning in her waters-in order to gain release from the cycle of birth and rebirth.’(ARS 152). In ‘A River Sutra’, Dr. Mitra, points out that the Alexandrine geographer Ptolemy wrote about the Narmada: “The ancient Greeks would probably have sympathized with the river’s mythology but at least they only had to deal with one set of myths, whereas Indians have never been prepared to settle for a single mythology if they could squeeze another hundred in.” (ARS 152 ) The nameless narrator tells about his experiences in first dimension. A retired bureaucrat, free from his worldly obligations, who has retired to the forest, to reflect as a vanprasthi, again reflecting the four ashramas in Hindu philosophy, (The four stages of life in Indian philosophy are called brahmacharya, grihastha, vanprastha and sanyasa). His interest in the traditions of the river bring him in contact with the outside world whose stories he narrates and realizes that even at this stage he knows little of life. After getting a job in Narmada rest house, he befriends Tariq Mia, an old Muslim mullah, a Sufi, who acts as co-narrator- giving a second dimension to the story. There are six narratives in the novel which are linked through the river and the narrator acting as the ‘sutra’ or link and the ‘sutradhar’ or linkage or the connector or the storyteller. The six stories are about a rich diamond merchant who becomes a Jain monk, about murder of a young innocent, blind, talented singer Imrat, the seduction of an executive in a tea plantation estate and the curse that befalls him, the love-story of a courtesan and a bandit, the story of the disfigured ugly

musician, who is abandoned by her betrothed and the story of the Naga-ascetic who returns to his previous life after saving a child from prostitution. Apart from these stories there are certain references to certain myths, customs, traditional practices, ancient literature and the tribal faith. The last chapter the song of Narmada culminates the development of all the six narratives and is a sequel to the Minstrel’s story that might come as a surprise to the reader. Somewhere these myths penetrate deep and are submerged in all the narratives. The myth of Shiva and Narmada infuses all the narratives in one form or the other. The plot is relatively simple. The nameless narrator introduces us to various sub-characters who carry the narrative further, perhaps, holding its inspiration in Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’. It’s like holding the baton in the relay race. The baton is passed by the narrator and whoever receives the baton tells a story. Different characters belonging to different religious backgrounds narrate the stories in first person carrying the baton and then passing it further. The guest house becomes the intersection of the lives of various characters that flow in and out of it like the tidal water of the river Narmada. As in A River Sutra, Professor Shankar points out to the Narrator: “You have chosen the wrong place to flee the world my, friend . . . too many lives converge on these banks.” (ARS 268). The characters of each story appear only once and the same subject-matter travels from one story to another. Each narrative represents the story of a particular cultural unit. Gita Mehta uses meta- narrative technique and at the same time she manages to fill the gap between each story beautifully using the river Narmada as the ‘sutra’ or the link. And in this way she is able to reflect how different religions share the same myths, traditions, forest, space, river and still they maintain their diversity. The principal myth is that of the Lord Siva and his daughter Narmada. The novel begins with Narmada and ends with ‘The Song of the Narmada’. This is echoed in the profane canvas of parent-child relationships that punctuate the many sub narratives. It may be the story of Uma-Shankar- the female infant rescued from an abusive brothel keeper and the Naga-turned archeologist or the story of the bandit and the abducted girl or the story of exceptionally talented singer Imrat and his father like teacher or the story of the musician who was deformed and stood up on her wedding day by her fiancée, but was vindicated by the love of her father. Mehta pens down the stories with the careful planning. She begins the narratives with the story of renunciation of the Jain monk. The monk relates the essence of his vow to the Narrator: “You will be deprived of the ministrations

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of any woman lest she arouse your desire.” (ARS 34). Only austere asceticism and shunning of sexual desire, domination, and pleasure of women would allow the Jain monk to possess new powers. The Monk’s story is in from of dialogues between the narrator and the Monk. Within the dialogues principles of Jain philosophy are disclosed to the reader. The narrator appears to be surprised to see a young man who ‘not more than thirty years of age’ dressed as a Monk. The narrator refers to the Narmada pilgrimage- the Narmada ‘parikrama’- made by the Hindus to which the Monk replies that he was not a Hindu and the narrator accepts that he ‘pretends ignorance to keep him talking’ and passing the first hand information- first person narration- to the reader. The monk flung his head back, blowing the thin muslin of his mask outward with the force of his uninhibited laughter makes fun of Hindus. A stark contrast is created between Hinduism and Jainism by Monk’s statement: ‘You Hindus. Always disguising your greed with your many headed gods and your many headed arguments’. (ARS 13) Mehta fictionalizes the process of diksha, or renunciation of the Jain Monk. As a representative of Jain religion the monk tells about the Jain principles and about Mahavira, the pioneer of Jain religion. The monk through his story explores the principles of Jain religion such as non-violence which is considered as a sharp weapon of Gandhian ideology and the Diksha ceremony. The Jain Monk remarks: A jain monk seeks to free himself of the fetters of the worldly desire through the vows of poverty, celibacy, and non-violence’. (ARS 11) The narration is in ‘flash back’ to an earlier point in the story- analepsis. The monk as a son of a rich diamond merchant enjoys every moment of life and thinks that life is a blessing of God. He travels all over the world for fulfilling the purpose of trading. He returns from his journey and decides to renounce the world because he observes and feels the depth of poverty and hunger. The life of unremitting pleasure ceased to satisfy him. The monk says: ‘ once the birth of our daughter was followed by a son, my wife became so preoccupied with her maternal duties I no longer needed to play the husband". (ARS 29) He elaborates that life was like a dreamless sleep. He is confused when he observes his father’s ill-treatment to his miners. Through the character of the monk, Gita Mehta recreates the image of Lord Mahavira . The elderly Jain monk tells him about Lord Mahavira’s teachings and says: ‘You have travelled the world and think you have

seen everything. Perhaps you have. But you have not learnt the secrets of human heart’. The monk follows the footsteps of Mahavira. For making the narration reliable Gita Mehta chooses the monk as a narrator of this story. Mehta uses Monk’s renunciation as a curtain raiser to the next five narratives. Jainism believes in ahimsa. The father-child relationship has another turn in this narrative. The Monk after his renunciation turns a ‘stranger to his father’, his features hidden behind the muslin cloth hearing the chanting of the other monks: ‘You will be free from doubt.’ ‘You will be free from delusion’. ‘You will be free from extremes.’ ‘You will promote stability.’ ‘You will protect life.’ (ARS 41) Mehta represents the river as a center of pilgrimage for all religious minded Indians- followers of Hinduism, Jainism, or Islam. The second story is told by Tariq Mia, the secondary narrator, in the mosque. It is narrated from a third person’s point of view giving a third dimension to the narration. She positions Jain Monk’s story and Imrat’s story one after the other. One is the son of an affluent diamond merchant who has everything in life and the other is a blind but talented orphan. Jain Monk says: ‘I have loved only one thing in life’ (ARS 14) But the narrator forgets to ask the Monk about it. After his departure he tries to find the answer and discusses it with Tariq Mia. The reply comes from Tariq Mia who reveals Bhakti philosophy: ‘The human heart, little brother. Its secrets’, and further ‘The human heart has only one secret. The capacity to love’ (ARS 48). To elaborate this secret he tells the narrator The Teacher’s story. Tariq Mia is an acknowledged Islamic scholar and acts as a friend, philosopher and guide to the narrator. He tells the story to help the narrator understand the ways of human heart. This story has a third person narrative. It is the story of Master Mohan, a music teacher, who had an unfulfilled desire of being a famous singer. He meets an exceptionally talented, orphan, blind child Imrat with a voice Master Mohan ‘had only heard in his dreams’. There is another reference to Kabir, one of the great poets in India, whose poems, according to Tariq Mia ‘made a bridge between your faith’ (Hinduism) ‘and mine’ (Islam), (ARS 46). Gita Mehta refers to this HinduMuslim bonding tracing it back to History and the sixteenth century sufi-Bhakti philosophy. ‘Kabir was free from religious practices against either (Hindu or Muslim). Though intensely religious in outlook he was not a slave of either Hinduism or Islam. He rubbed shoulders with Bhakti reformers as well as sufi saints.’(Mehta.J.L. 193).

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Imrat sings Hymns by Kabir: Some seek God in Mecca, Some seek God in Benares. Each finds his own path and the focus of his worship. Some worship him in Mecca. Some in Benares. But I centre my worship on the eyebrow of my beloved. (ARS 74) It is significant that Mehta prefaces the novel with a couplet from the poet-mystic bhakt Chandidas: Listen, O Brother Man is the greatest Truth Nothing beyond. (ARS 53) It reverberates through the novel in many forms, through the words of many characters. The refrain from Kabir, the Sufi mystic, punctuates the tale of the blind young singer Imrat, who ‘always wanted to sing at the tomb of Amir Rumi’ sings: “O servant, where do you seek me? You will not find me in temple or mosque, In Kaaba or in Kailash, In yoga or renunciation. Sings Kabir, “O seeker find God In the breath of all breathing.” (ARS 72). Master Mohan feels great love for the child and gives him music lessons devotedly. He finds a way to live by teaching and caring for the blind by. Their relationship and bonding evolves from teacher-student to a parentchild relationship. Master Mohan gets totally involved in Imrat and when Imrat is suddenly murdered by the landed gentry, he holds himself responsible for murder. He considers himself a murderer, unable to find solace even on the banks of Narmada, commits suicide by throwing himself under the train. Tariq Mia explains: ‘Perhaps he could not exist without loving someone as he had loved the blind child. I don’t know the answer, little brother. It is only a story about the human heart.’ (ARS 91) Strangely, Mehta juxtaposes the Jain Monk’s story with the story of a Hindu teacher Master Mohan and a Muslim boy Imrat indicating multicultural positioning of Narmada. Indecently the unknown narrator is also Hindu and Tariq Mia is a Muslim, but their religions don’t hold their friendship. The religious preaching are at par with each other and perhaps all religions have a single objective of purity of human heart. Mehta’s narrative has an undercurrent highlighting the importance of the river as the pilgrimage centre for pilgrims of varied faiths. We find references to Sufi and Bhakti poetry (spread in India between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries) here

reminding us about the multicultural nature of Narmada finding representations of many faiths and highlighting the all pervasive truth about equality of all religions and faiths. J.L.Mehta remarks in the Advanced study in the History of Medival India: ‘The devotional worship of god with the ultimate object of attaining ‘moksha’ or salvation is called Bhakti’ and ‘The Islamic mysticism is known as Sufism’. The Sufis were peaceful emissaries of Islam. A practitioner is called a Sufi and seeks remembrance of god through love of god, and above all else, through constant remembrance of the creator and asceticism. ‘Bhakti reformers and Sufi saints took up the cause of socio-religious reforms and preached the gospels of Equality of all mankind and universal brotherhood’. (Mehta.J.L 1987,183). The third story is the story of Nitin Bose The Executive’s Story, who ‘has imagined his sickness. Let him imagine his cure,’ is a first person account of an incident as it is narrated through a diary which belongs to Nitin Bose, a tea estate executive. The unnamed narrator reads Bose’s personal diary, goes again in ‘flash back’ and creates a relationship between Bose and the reader. While staying at the estate, driven by solitude, ‘solitude of the tea estate was its most attractive prospect’, he is involved with a tribal woman, Rima. Bose’s tale is highly symbolic. It carries shades of meaning. Nitin reads profusely the books from his grandfather’s trunk and ‘became fascinated by the endless legends contained in the Puranas’. He remarks: “I even discovered mythology dealing with the very area in which my tea estate was situated, legends of a vast underground civilization stretching from these hills all the way to the Arabian Sea, peopled by a mysterious race of half-human, half-serpent.” (ARS 119). After the visit of his colleague, Ashok, from Calcutta, whose words left a mark on Bose’s mind and ‘sexual restlessness began to gnaw at the edges of my content’. (ARS 122). He is haunted by erotic imaginings and gradually his will to self-destruct is almost predicted as his grandfather’s books “offered no escape” from sexual temptation. Nitin Bose does not realize when he transcended, ‘reading the labyrinthine ales of demons, sages, gods, lovers, cosmologies’, from this world of reality into their world of dreams, ‘Or perhaps I had already become the victim of my grandfather’s books’. (ARS 124). Following the example of his predecessors ‘putting aside his books to sit in the darkness, a bottle of whisky at my elbow, while the head bearer waited in the garden, drawing on his bidi as I drank myself into oblivion’. (ARS 123) “For the first time I was lonely and when I entered my bedroom I felt the massive bed sneering at my unused manhood.” (ARS 122). Thus begin his nights of delusion in drunken stupor until one

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evening he finds the tealeaf-picker in his bed, and surrenders without a fight in the arms of a woman from the “Naga world.” In the cold light of day he recalls: “. . . her small teeth pierced my skin again and again, like the sudden striking of a snake, and I heard the hissing of her pleasure against my throat.”(ARS 125). And when she left his bed, Bose was already asleep and “dreaming. I still held a creature half-serpent in my arms, my sated senses pulling me to the underground world of my grandfather’s legends.” Bose again started enjoying life at the tea-garden. When he was promoted to the tea company’s headquarters in Calcutta, he abandoning Rima and goes to Calcutta. Rima turns vengeful. She turns to her serpent goddess for help. Rima performes ‘magic’ of the Serpent goddess Mansa. Suddenly Nitin Bose starts singing a song and talking about Rima. He is said to have possessed by his lover. Incidentally the unnamed narrator has already created a background. He remarks about Vano villagers that ‘they believe their goddess (a stone image of half woman with full breasts of a fertility symbol but the torso of a coiled snake- only a divine personification of the Narmada river) cures madness, liberating those who are possessed’.(ARS 6). When Nitin Bose arrives at Narmada rest-house he sings in a strange haunting voice: ‘Bring me my oil and my collyrium. Sister, bring my mirror and the vermilion. Make haste with my flower garland. My lover waits impatient in the bed’ (ARS 134). Bose turns to Narmada, the river goddess, who is related to the snake goddess Mansa as sister. (being formed by the same father Shiva). Manasa is believed to have been born from the erotic imaginings of Shiva and his seed fell on a lotus leaf and seeped into the underworld kingdom of Nagas, or serpents, where it took the shape of a girl, named Manasa, since her origin was in Siva’s mind. Before Nitin Bose’s arrival at the resthouse, the Narrator wonders whether Bose was aware of the powers of the goddess: ‘Did he know the goddess who had incinerated even the Great Ascetic in the fires of longing, the Goddess whose power had been acknowledged by the ancient sages with such fearful names as the Terrible One, the Implacable Mother, the Dark Lady, the Destroyer of Time, the Everlasting Dream--did he know the goddess had been worshipped by the tribal inhabitants of these jungles for thousands of years? . . . Would a brilliant mind be enough to protect the young man from the dark forces of the jungle, from the tribal worship of that Desire which even their conquerors had acknowledged to be invincible, describing it as the first-born seed of the mind? (ARS 86). The priest from

Vano tribe remarks: ‘If your sahib wants to recover he must worship the goddess Narmada at any shrine that overlooks river Narmada. Only the river has been given the power to cure him’, (ARS 137), from the ‘power of desire’ (ARS 141). Nitin Bose gets cured only when he surrenders and makes offerings to Narmada. He is cured after the Vano tribe ceremony of immersing the idol in Narmada (which signify his sins drowned in Narmada). The tribals waded in behind him, their hands raised, their faces turned to the West and chanting: ‘Salutations in the morning and at night to thee, O Narmada. Defend me from the serpent’s poison.’ (ARS 145). The story internalizes legends of two tribes, one from the eastern part of India and the other from the west with the legends of Narmada. The Naga mythology of the snake goddess Mansa (a snake goddess in human form) finds its cure in the Vano tribes near the river goddess Narmada, linked through Lord Siva. There exists no reference to the parent child relationship except when the narrator finds responsibility of Nitin Bose a burden. He says: ‘Never having been a parent, I found this unfamiliar burden of responsibility an irritant’, (ARS 150) and is relieved when finally Nitin Bose left the bungalow. It is interesting to note that most of the references in the novel are real. Strangely enough during my research I found that there is no tribe called ‘Vano’ around Narmada. Although the whole area is surrounded by tribals, but these tribals are called the Gond. The name Vano has been created fictitiously. The ritual that is described is also real in nature. Mehta talks about the relationship of the high class and the lower class in the executive’s story where the lover from high class abandons the tribal woman. In the next story ‘The courtesan’s story’ she again talks of love but here love is eternal. It is the story of a bandit Rahul Singh who kidnaps courtesan’s young daughter because he thinks that she has been his wife in so many lives before that one. As a witness she describes, again in ‘flash back’ the life of bandits in the state of solitude. Even after kidnapping the girl the bandit never forces himself upon her and wins her over by respect. Eventually the young girl falls in love with him (her kidnapper). She says: "So I punished him by inflaming his longing for me. Then I laughed at his misery when I showed him how coarse I found him, how lacking in the refinements I admired" (Mehta 183). And later: "Not until I conceived did my husband truly believed I loved him" (ARS 186). The story also describes the tribal myth of a headless

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Aryan warrior living in the dark forest. Inclusion of this myth establishes a connection between the two worldsthe tribal (who shun away the outer world) and the bandit (who is shunned by the outer world) - bridged by the deep-dark forest and the river Narmada. According to the myth the Aryan warrior had fallen deeply in love with a tribal woman of Narmada Valley. The aborigines caught him beheaded as punishment. Since then he was said to be sleeping somewhere deep in the forest: “He [the abductor] told me a great warrior slept somewhere close by with honey bees circling his head. He laughed, saying his men thought he was himself immortal because he had been stung by one of those bees. I wanted to be stung by such a honey bee so we could be together forever and sometimes we set out to search for the warrior but we never found him . . . ” (ARS 185) Rahul Singh, the Bandit, has certain similarities with the Aryan warrior. His love is also pure and eternal and he too is shot by the police before he could live a happy life with his love. He dies leaving her alone and pregnant. The girl could not bear such shock and result is miscarriage. She plans to take vengeance on ‘the men who killed her husband and unborn child’. Her plans are thwarted when the arms she has prepared for the vengeance are found by the Manager of Narmada guest house. The courtesan’s daughter unfolds Rahul Singh’s greatness before the nameless narrator, who is the Manager of the Narmada rest house, and tells him how the society forced him to be a murderer. ‘Denied justice, Rahul Singh only did what a man of honor would do. He swore vengeance on his family’s murderers and killed them all. Of course he has become a hunted man. But he has never harmed anyone who did not deserve it.’ (ARS 182). From the flash back she comes to the present. In the present condition she herself could not return to the society as a murderer’s wife. A victim of social ethos she is left with no choice but is forced to commit suicide by jumping into the river Narmada for which her mother is happy because “her daughter had died in Narmada she would be purified of all her sins" (ARS 190). The Courtesan’s Story is again narrated in the first person by the courtesan herself and later by her daughter. Paradoxically the river Narmada is a source of renewal of life (in the previous story of the executive) and in the second story it’s a giver of death. Perhaps through the courtesan’s story Mehta wants to inform us that irrespective of the caste or creed, high or low class, the river provides solace to all. Although this story has no traces of father- daughter relationship but has a parent child relationship where a longing mother tries to get

back her abducted daughter safely and finally lets the daughter sleep forever in the arms of motherly Narmada. When the narrator first meets the courtesan’s daughter he is aroused by her physical beauty and suddenly he changes his identity from the story teller to a very human, retired bureaucrat, acting as the manager of Narmada rest house. Soon enough he realizes his folly and feels embarrassed and again gets back into the role of the narrator. Describing her he says: A slender young woman stood in the hall. Although she was dressed in white sari, the home spun cotton gave her almost a royal air… Her thick hair had fallen over her shoulders. She swept it back impatiently, lifting her arms to wind into a bun at the nape of her neck. The gesture pressed her round breasts against the thin fabric of her sari and I saw a mole on the curve of her throat. Embarrassed that I should be so aroused by her beauty when she is telling me her dreadful story I began rifling through the papers on my desk. (ARS 142) In contrast to the beauty of the courtesan’s daughter is the ugliness of the daughter of the musician in the next story. The ugly daughter of the musician describes her story to the narrator in the first person. It is called The Musician’s story. The story establishes the art of music as all pervasive and describes music-legends of Siva, also called Natraj and Bhairav meaning the ‘Fire of Time’. The music teacher says explaining how melody was born: ‘There was no art until Shiva danced the creation. Music lay asleep inside a motionless rhythm- deep as water, black as darkness, weightless as air. Then Shiva shook his drum. Everything started to tremble with the longing to exist. The universe erupted into being as Shiva danced. The six mighty ragas, the pillars of all music, were born from the expressions on Shiva’s face and through their vibrations the universe was brought into existence.’ (ARS 205). ‘Fire of time’ also symbolizes that the musician’s daughter perfects her music nodes with time but is burnt by rejection of her love, unable to come to terms with life again. The music embedded in nature cannot be imitated or trapped and in the music of nature lies perfection/ beauty. Through her story she describes her genius father who ‘through music’ tries ‘to free’ her of own ugly image so she ‘could love beauty wherever it was to be found, even if it was not present in’ her ‘mirror’. Her father would say: ‘A goddess presides over each of the ragas. If you truly meditate on a raga’s sacred teaching, its goddess will give you mastery over its melodies’. ( ARS 211) But his daughter wanted him to give her ‘a sacred saying, a goddess who would grant’ her beauty. Her father is a famous music teacher who is cheated by his

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disciple. The disciple promises him to marry his ugly daughter after learning the art of music but after accomplishing his purpose he marries someone else. He rejects her because she is ugly and could not see the beautiful heart and an extremely talented musician inside her. Unable to bear rejection she shuns music. The very sound of music turned ‘hateful’ to her ears. Her father, unable to console her that beauty is a passing thing and it lies in the eyes of the beholder, brings her to the banks of river Narmada. ‘The river has power to cure’ a person ‘dead from inside’. She says about her father: ‘He says that I must meditate on the waters of the Narmada, the symbol of Shiva’s penance, until I have cured myself of my attachment to what has passed and can become again the ragini to every raga.’ (ARS 225). The musician’s story clearly demonstrates the fatherdaughter relationship. As a devoted father, the musician is almost blind from the fact of ugliness of his daughter. He helps her to elevate herself from the mundane world and takes her as his student. He wants her to be married to music. Again the narration revolves around Shiva, father of Narmada, and the musician brings his daughter for cure to the banks of river Narmada, Shiva’s daughter. Incidentally the legend of Narmada is very similar to the story of musician’s daughter. Both are cheated by their lovers and both remain unmarried in the end even after their marriage has been fixed. The next story is The Minstrel’s story narrated by Tariq Mia. Mehta starts the narrative in her novel with renunciation of a Jain Monk and ends it with the last narrative describing the life of an ascetic. Again with a paradox, Lord Shiva, is also said to be an ascetic. This narrative again describes the father-daughter relationship between Naga Baba, also called Shankar, and Uma. Tariq Mia meets Naga Baba – who ‘belongs to the martial ascetics, the ones they call the Naga sadhus, the Protectors’, (ARS 231), who rubbed ash over his hair and body in the ascetic’s bath that would increase the power of his meditations. Crossing his legs in the lotus position and continues his chant for nine days and nine nights by that funeral pyre: ‘Shiva-o-ham I that am Shiva Shiva-o-ham Shiva am I.’ (ARS 241). The ascetic rescues a little girl from prostitution and calls her ‘Uma’ which symbolically means ‘peace in the night’. (ARS 252) and its literal meaning in Sanskrit is ‘oh, don’t do’. The Ascetic says to the little girl: ‘The Narmada claims all girls as hers. Tonight you become the daughter of Narmada’. (ARS 254). That summer the child and the Naga Baba ‘lived in the cave behind the waterfalls’. He ‘taught the child to read

and write, and at night he sang to her of the Narmada. Over the months the child heard the songs so often she often asked to learn and recite rivers praises herself. Only when she had fallen asleep did the Naga Baba begin his own meditations so that sometimes in her dreams she heard his deep voice chanting ‘Shiva-o-ham I that am Shiva Shiva-o-ham Shiva am I.’ (ARS 255). The last chapter called The Song of the Narmada is the ‘show stopper.’ This narrative is a ‘flashing forward’ to a moment later in the chronological sequence of eventsprolepsis of ‘the Minestrel’s Story’. It can be called a sequel to The Minstrel’s Story as it carries her story further. Although, the narrator here, is not Tariq Mia but it again the ‘unknown’ narrator himself. This chapter focuses on Narmada. It further discloses the identity of Naga Ascetic as heavy spectacled and deep voiced ‘Professor V.V. Shankar, the foremost archaeological authority on the Narmada in the country’. (ARS 260). He used to head the Archaeological Department …until he was ‘Fed up from the red tape he resigned from government service.’ And no one heard from him for absolute ages and he resurfaced with a remarkable book on Narmada. Through Professor Shankar, Mehta tells us about the river’s immortality. She speaks about the fertility of the region around it. She even makes the mind fertile and creative. She spreads the canvas of the novel as the flow of Narmada. Professor Shankar says: ‘Thousands of years ago the sage Vyasa dictated Mahabharata on this riverbank. Then in our own century this region provided the setting for Kipling’s Jungle Book . In between countless other men left their mark on the river.’ (ARS 264). There is reference to Kalidasa’s Cloud Messenger and his great play Shakuntala, Poems written by Rupmati and Baz Bahadur and also the poem composed by Shankaracharya on Narmada. Shankaracharya was a great reformer of Hinduism in the 8th century. ‘Sankaracharya started a vigorous campaign for the revival of Hinduism as a living and progressive faith, based on solid foundations of Vedic philosophy and ancient Indian cultural traditions. He was also the founding father of bhakti movement which found its way in the Medieval period. Nevertheless, he laid stress on gyan or jnana- the true knowledge- as a means of attainment of salvation.’ (Mehta.J.L. 186). Shankaracharya with his yogic powers is said to have filled whole Narmada River into a small jar (kamandal). He wrote ‘Narmadashtaka’ to pray to the goddess Narmada to relieve common man from its flood. (Shukla). ‘You cross ground by leaping

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Like a dancing stag. The faithful ones name you Reva, The leaping. But Shiva named you Delightful and, in his laughter, He gave you the name of Narmada.’ Talking about the father daughter Shiva in form of Professor defends and praises and exerts pride on his own daughter the river Narmada. In fact the story of Shankar-Uma runs parallel to the legend of Lord SivaGoddess Parvati or Uma. We are further introduced to grown up Uma, the child saved by Naga Baba, who is a river minstrel. When folding her hands she chanted to the water: The sages meditating on your riverbanks say You are twice born, Once from penance, Once from love. (ARS 275). Here she perhaps talks of Narmada but is so true for herself as well. Uma, like Narmada, has two births. She further chants: ‘O copper-colored water Below a copper-colored sky From shiva’s penance you become water. From water you become a woman So beautiful that gods and ascetics Their loins hard with desire Abandoned their contemplations To pursue you . . . The Terrible One was moved to laughter. Looking from his inward contemplation To watch you the Destroyer said, Oh damsel of the beautiful hips, Evoker of Narma, lust, Be known as Narmada Holiest of Rivers.’ (ARS 273-274). When the minstrel completes her chanting Professor Shankar asks her, ‘where do you go from here?’ to which she answers ‘to the coast’. Shankar adds, ‘To find a husband, like the Narmada found her Lord of Rivers?’ And Uma replies, ‘You can see into the future, Naga Baba’. To which he replies, ‘The future reveals itself to everyone in time.’ The last chapter is presented as the culmination of Narmada. Mehta concludes her stories here stating that since thousands of years, all kinds of people find solace when they come to Narmada. All her stories culminate in its characters finding solace in the arms of Narmada-bards, ascetics, gamblers, cheats, dancers, singers- find refuge in her embrace. As he minstrel sings: ‘You remove the stains of evil. You release the wheel of suffering. You lift the burdens of the world.

O holy Narmada.’ (ARS 278). In nameless narrator provides background to each story so that a suitable atmosphere is created to capture reader’s mind. There is no central character in the novel. The narrator of the story is present mostly in all the stories but he himself in unknown. Mehta does not even feel the need to give him an identity. The events in the novel are in form of incidents or memories of past, but these are related with different characters each time. The novel explores the complexity of the human mind or man. As Mehta through Professor Shankar says: ‘If anything is sacred about this river, it is the individual experiences of the human beings who have lived here’. (ARS 267). However, I, following the novelist, would refrain from the political aspect of the dam that is being constructed on the river and the ruckus created further. In her narrative Mehta makes the reader swing between myth and reality. She is highly symbolic and changes facets like the fast flowing Narmada. She delves deep into Indian philosophy and tries to search the key to release from the cycle of birth and rebirth. She discusses the religious traditions in India and describes the practices in Hinduism, Islam and Jainism. She is not only presenting a great research from the ancient written texts but also gives us great description of the contemporary life of Indian subcontinent. She displays great command in dealing with complex descriptions making it simpler and lucid. She explains with definite ease how Narmada is a place of varied descriptions. She juxtaposes Hindu and Muslim myths, the tribal ‘Vano’ from the west with Naga tribes of the east, Jainism with Naga ascetic cult, Vedic ‘slokas’ with Sufi mysticism. She describes the life of luxury (Monk) and penury ridden (Imrat), beauty (courtesan’s daughter) and ugliness (musician’s daughter), pride and guilt (the teacher in Imrat’s story), violence (Rahul Singh) and helplessness (his wife). Mehta effortlessly follows the old tradition of metanarrative. She conveys meaning through dialogues and explains the philosophy of many religions. There is structural potential, as well, in the text towards which Bakhtin draws our attention that their oppositional counter currents can be observed. Concluding I would consider how Gita Mehta uses the river Narmada to capture multitextured contemporary India, with diverse voices, myths, symbols, rituals, beliefs, behavior, and customs empowering the inherited cultural forms. Each enchanting tale is a rivulet pouring its truth into the long river of life. All are bonded through one sutra, the river Narmada. The study of cultural identity reflected in the narrative also suggests that culture is a powerful adhesive force and ‘controls our lives in many unsuspected ways’ (Hall, 1959: 52). The problem, Hall says, is that ‘culture hides

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much more than it reveals, and …it hides most effectively from its own participants’ (p. 53). In this article, I have analyzed how Mehta, tries to penetrate into the hidden dimensions of Indian culture by focusing on individual culture while maintain the traditional focus on the collective cultural identity of others. In presenting these interpretations, I would agree that the text closely echoes the hegemonic discourses of the post-colonial India. It also reflects the new identity of the empowered post colonial novelists who create stories keeping in mind to highlight the forgotten, ancient tradition and culture. REFERENCES Bakhtin Mikhail (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and M. Holquist. University of Texas Press: Austin, pp. 84. Baldridge Cates (1994). The Dialogics of dissent in the English novel. Hanover, USA: University press of New England. pp. 6-13. Hall ET(1959). The silent language. New York: Doubleday, pp. 52-53. Mehta Gita (1993). A River Sutra. New Delhi: Penguin India. (Hereafter the work would be cited as Mehta, ARS). Pp. 1-127. Mehta JL(1987). Advanced study in the History of Medieval India, vol iii: Medieval Indian society and culture. Delhi: Sterling publishers Pvt ltd. Pp.193-194. Madan TN(2011). Sociological traditions- methods and perspectives in the sociology of India. New Delhi: Sage publications. Sharrad Paul (2009). The River is Three-quarters Empty: Some Literary Takes on Rivers and Landscapes in India and Australia. http://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/186/bss. Shukla HL(2002). Madhyapredesh mein NarmadaAdi Shankaracharya. Bhopal: Swaraj Samsthaan Sanchalanalaya, M.P Government. pp 2-4 Gerald Prince (1994). "Narratology," Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, ed. Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP. Pp. 524-525. Jonathan C (2001). The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction, Routledge Classics ed. London: Routledge. Pp. 189190. Felluga Dino (2011). "General Introduction to Narratology." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory.[date of last update, which you can find on the home page]. Purdue U. [visited on 1 September 2011]. . bss Linell Per (1998). Approaching Dialogue: Talk, Interaction and Contexts in Dialogical Perspectives. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Rushdie S , West E (1997). The vintage book of Indian Writing.( West Elizabeth, ed) 1947-1997. Great Britain: Vintage, pp xxi, introduction. Stephens J, Robyn M (1998) Retelling Stories, Framing Culture: Traditional Story and Metanarratives in Children's Literature. New York: Garland Pub. Pp. 62-63. Propp V(1968). (Translated by Laurence Scott). Morphology of the Folktale. University of Texas Press. P. 26 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogic http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/freud5.html