Kanthapura by Raja Rao summary, Indian Writings in English| B.A English Literature 1st Year 1st Semester

  B.A English Literature

[1^st Year, 1^st Semester] 

Core Paper IV: INDIAN WRITINGS IN ENGLISH 

Unit - 5 : Fiction

Kanthapura by Raja Rao

About The Author:

            Raja Rao was born in 1909 in the village of Hassana, in Mysore in a very old South Indian Brahmin family. He lived in France from 1928 to 1939, returned to India on the outbreak of World War II in 1940 and again went to France in 1946 and lived there till 1956. It was in France, thousands of miles away from India that his first novel Kanthapura (1938) was written. His love for Indian culture and philosophy colors his second novel The Serpent and the Rope (1960). 

Introduction:

Raja Rao's novel Kanthapura is the first major Indian novel in English published in 1938. It is a fictional but realistic account of how the great majority of people in India lived their lives under British rule and how they responded to the ideas and ideals of Indian nationalism.

The theme of Kanthapura may be summed up as ‘Gandhi and our Village’. Though the narrative style makes the book more a Gandhi Purana than a piece of mere fiction. Kanthapura follows the oral tradition of Indian Sthala-Purana. The story is narrated in flashback by Achakka. The style of Raja Rao in Kanthapura combines the flexible expression of English languages with the fast tempo of Indian speech in a very pleasant manner. It provides delight to the Indian readers because those of simple yet beautiful English prose.

Summary: 

The story of Kanthapura is about a village in the south of India and how the rise of Gandhism in the 1930s affects it. It is told by an old woman named Achakka, but she uses the word "we" a lot and doesn't say much about what she thinks and feels.

Moorthy is the major character in this book. He is a young man who lived in the city and was kind, smart, and educated. Moorthy becomes a follower of Gandhi and goes back to his village to share the Mahatma gospel, which is mostly about freedom from British colonial rule and self-rule. He goes from house to house to talk about how important Gandhi's fight for freedom was. As he carefully explains to his neighbours how love, truth, and nonviolence will help them get free, he gains more and more support. One of his more divisive ideas is that the Pariahs shouldn't be shunned as much as they are.             

Moorthy and a few other young guys are leading the way in the village to set up a Congress Committee. People from the city who work for Gandhi bring informational papers that are given out for free to make sure people know what the goals of the freedom movement are. The Congress makes a Corps unit whose job is to teach people in the movement how to stay nonviolent at all times, even when government forces are trying to hurt them.

As soon as Gandhi's freedom movement starts up in Kanthapura, the British government comes up with plans to stop it and keep Gandhi from getting too far. Bade Khan, a police officer, is sent to Kanthapura village by the government to calm things down. Bhatta, who owns a lot of land and is rich, helps the police officer and tries to get his friends to turn against Moorthy.

Moorthy and his followers gather the village to protest how the Pariahs (coolies) at the Skeffington Coffee Estate, a British plantation nearby, are treated badly. They hold protests and shout their support for Gandhi. In response, the colonial police hurt many locals and arrested others. Villagers expect justice and take to the streets to protest this decision. The colonial government reacts more harshly this time. During the picketing, the cops don't care about old people, kids, or women. When they see their fellow locals being hurt by the government, the coolies who work at the Skeffington Coffee Farm get angry. They decide to join the protest, which makes things even worse. Because of this, Moorthy is taken into custody and given a long prison sentence. Rangamma stays and runs the Congress to continue Gandhi's fight for freedom. She is well-educated and well-liked. She gets a lot of young women together and teaches them to lead the fight for freedom. Moorthy finishes his sentence and stays away from Kanthapura to work for the cause.

The leaders of the movement start a campaign asking their followers not to pay taxes and land income to the government. They teach their members how important it is to stay peaceful even though the government is trying to take away their farms and property. As a response, the government goes to Kanthapura and beats and shoots the marchers, hurting thousands of them. When people are shot without mercy, protesters start to fight back. The protesters are put down by government troops, and they are then forced to leave the village. Some of the women set fire to the village before leaving. They find safety and comfort in a nearby village, but most of them will stay here for good. 

Characters List:

Moorthy: Moorthy is a young Brahmin who has gone back to his home town of Kanthapura. He is described as a "noble cow" who is "quiet, generous, serene, respectful, and brahmanic". He gets a lot of ideas from Mahatma Gandhi's effort to free India through nationalism. People in Kanthapura love and admire him, and they decide to follow him without question. In the book, he is called the "small mountain," while Mahatma Gandhi is called the "big mountain." He is able to set up the Congress Party in Kanthapura according to Gandhian ideas. He sticks to truth, nonviolence, and civil disobedience, and he won't even protest the fact that he is in jail. At the end of the book, he is out of jail and wants to help Gandhi and Jawarhal work towards "swaraj" (self-rule).  

Bhatta: Bhatta owns a lot of land in Kanthapura and is very rich. He takes advantage of the people in the village and has nothing to do with Gandhi's ideas. He then works against Moorthy when he tries to start the Congress Party. He does this because he is a secret spy for the British government. During the revolt, people burned down his house. 

Patel Range Gowda: Patel Range Gowda is the village's official Chief Executive Officer. But he runs the whole town like the mayor. Range Gowda has a strong and intimidating presence, and no choice can be made without his approval. People in the town call him the "tiger" a lot. He uses his social power to help Moorthy, and in the end, his patelship is taken away from him.  

Rangamma: Rangamma is a strong woman with a "different, soft-voiced, gentlegestured" manner, but she can also read and write. She is a widow with no children, but people admire her because she is determined and has high goals. She thinks that Gandhian Moorthy is better than Bhatta's religious rule. She teaches the women of Kanthapura how to resist without violence and gets them to form a group called "Sevis." Eventually, she is put in jail.  

Bade Khan: Bade Khan is a Muslim police officer who just moved to Kanthapura. He is big and has a beard. Skeffington Coffee Estate is where he stays. He works for the British government and doesn't like protests of any kind. At one point, when Moorthy tries to meet the people who work on the coffee farm, he beats him badly. 

Kamalamma: Kamalamma is the sister of Rangamma. She stands in stark contrast to the values exhibited by Rangamma. She rejects her sister's conversion to the Gandhian lifestyle. The only concern on her mind is to somehow remarry her widowed daughter Ratna

Ratna: Ratna is the fifteen-year-old daughter of Kamalamma. However, she has more in common with her Aunt Rangamma. She, too, is inspired by the Gandhian philosophy. She is very iconoclastic and independent and does not care for traditional social propriety. She leads the Sevis after Rangamma's imprisonment, having attained a new gravitas and wisdom. At the end of the novel, after having spent some time in prison, she comes out to visit the people of Kanthapura and then heads to Bombay.

Narsamma: She is Moorthy's elderly mother, who loves her son very much but is extremely distressed to think about the trouble he is bringing to the village—especially excommunication. She eventually dies due to her distress.

Narrator: The narrator is an old widow with only sons, one of them being Seenu. We do not learn much about her as an individual, as she always speaks collectively.

Waterfall Venkamma: She is a spiteful, gossipy, and constantly aggrieved woman in the village.

Ramakrishnayya: He is the learned, elderly father of Rangamma. One evening, he trips and loses consciousness, then dies.

Jayaramacher: He is a Harikatha-man Moorthy brings to the village for the Ganeshjayanthi. Instead of telling them about Rama or Krishna, he tells the villagers of Mahatma Gandhi. This causes a bit of trouble and he is not invited back.

Mr. Skeffington (Nephew): The successor to control of the Skeffington Coffee Estate, he does not beat coolies like his uncle did, but takes Indian women for his own pleasures and punishes their husbands/fathers when they do not go easily.

Mr. Skeffington (Uncle): The British owner and founder of the Estate, he is cruel to those who work for him. Seenu: One of the narrator's sons, he becomes a Ghandi-man and works with Moorthy, teaching the Pariahs and helping with the Congress committee. He is arrested and is still in jail at the end of the novel.

Siddayya: A coolie at the Skeffington Coffee Estate, he has been there a long time and tries to let the new coolies know what they should expect here.

Rachanna: One of the most prominent Pariah men in the text, he is killed in the uprising.

Nanjama, Chinnamma, Seethama, Satamma, Ningamma, Vedamma: They are village women.

Vasudev: A Ghandi-man and comrade of Moorthy's, he helps organize the Pariahs at the Skeffington Estate.

Rangappa: He is the Temple brahmin, who is against the Gandhist movement in the village.

Seenappa: He is an advocate who loses his wife and who Bhatta sets up with Venkamma's daughter in order to win her loyalty against Moorthy and Gandhism.

Sankar: The secretary of the Karwar Congress committee, he tries to help Moorthy fight his charge, but agrees to help run the meetings in his stead. He has Rangamma come live and work with him. He is an ascetic widower who will not remarry because he loved his wife so much, but the people are generally fine with this because they respect him despite his idiosyncrasies.

Ranganna: He is a Brahmin who opens his private temple to the Pariahs. He is arrested when he gives a speech at the Congress criticizing the Swami and the British government.

Seetharamu: He is an advocate who lives in the city and will not remarry because he loved his wife so much. He provides the villagers with updates as to what is going on with Moorthy. At one point, he is thrown in prison himself, and has horrible stories to tell of its conditions.

Radhamma: She is a village woman who gives birth during the uprising. 

Puttamma: She is a village woman who is raped during the uprising.

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Dance Like a Man by Mahesh Dattani summary, Indian Writings in English| B.A English Literature 1st Year 1st Semester

 B.A English Literature

[1^st Year, 1^st Semester] 

Core Paper IV: INDIAN WRITINGS IN ENGLISH 

UNIT 4: Drama

Dance Like a Man by Mahesh Dattani 

About the Author:           

            Mahesh Dattani was born on 1958 and he is one of the most celebrated playwright of India. His plays are well-known for addressing issues that society tries to hide or turn their face away from. In his plays he talks about homosexuality, he talks about HIV positive people, talks about physically challenged people and touching these radical themes like gay, child abuse, homosexual, he is expanding the new horizons for Indian English Drama.

          He created a theatre group named Play Pan in 1984. Dattani has written 11 stage plays, 7 radio plays and 3 screen plays. His notable works are Where There’s a Will (published in 1986, it is an example of Black Comedy), Dance Like a Man (1989, it deals with patriarchy), Tara (1990, it deals with gender discrimination), Final Solutions (1993, it deals with partition, communal violence) and The Big Fat City (2012).

About Play: 

The play ‘Dance like a Man’. It is a stage play in two acts. It is one of the most wonderful dramatic creations of Mahesh Dattani. The play was first performed at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore on 22 September 1989 as a part of the Deccan Herald Theatre. 

The play depicts the clash between issues such as marriage, career and the place of a woman in patriarchal social set up. It deals with the lives of the people who feel exhausted and frustrated on account of the hostile surroundings and unfavourable circumstances. The story is unfolded in time past and time present. 

Dattani focuses on the conflict and clash between three generations, their conflicts and individual struggle. It tells the story of three generations; their personal ambitions, sacrifices, struggle, compromises, internal conflicts and the way they try to cope up with the life; and mainly focuses on a dancing couple. 

Characters:

1. Jairaj - Ratna’s husband, who wants to become a dancer.

2. Ratna - Jairaj wife

3. Amritlal - Jairaj’s father

4. Lata - Jairaj and Ratna’s daughter

5. Vishwas – Lata’s husband, Jairaj’s son-in-law.

Summary:    

The story revolves around three generations. Jairaj and Ratna want to develop their career as a dancer. Dance for them is not only their passion but also their life and soul. They want to develop their careers in this field. The stereotypes of gender roles are set in the society and in spite of that Jairaj goes on to pursue his career as a dancer. This is the twist that the playwright gives to the stereotypes associated with ‘gender’ issues that view solely a woman at the receiving end of the oppressive power structures of the society. The play flips open in the opposite gender’s point of view and shows that even men can be a part or a victim to such circumstances by being oppressed, and suppressed by the opposite gender and society. 

Jairaj and and Ratna have to live within the domain of the ‘patriarch’ Amritlal, father of Jairaj. Dance for Amritlal is a profession of a prostitute and which is why he cannot accept his daughter-in-law learning it and is unimaginable for his son to learn it and make career out of it. Mostly this is also because he was a reformist and people would laugh at him for Jairaj’s actions and his reputation would be sacrificed. 

He cannot tolerate the sound of dancing bells in his home and his son roaming around with the tinkling of bells in his leg during the practice session. His father also hates the effeminate guru that comes to their house and also the long hair that he and his son both have kept. So Ratna goes on to learn the dance from a lady who lives in a brothel. Amritlal thinks that the temples have slowly turned to brothels as they practice dance there. He forbids Ratna to visit the old devadasi who teaches her the old forms and techniques of ‘Bharatnatyam’ which were slowly extinguishing. 

Here there are subtle signs that learning dance and having a guru like that would definitely make him an effeminate man which suggests the idea of homosexuality though it is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the text. 

As he cannot accept his son pursuing his career as a dancer, he tries all the possible means to stop him from seeking his ambition. He removes them from his house and his property, not giving them a single penny to survive. 

Jairaj, leaves and take Ratna along with him. But the results are disastrous. They stay at Ratna’s uncle’s house and he tries to take advantage of her and so they leave the house only to return. 

He then later makes a deal with Ratna. He says that he will allow her career to take off only if she helps him pull Jairaj out of his passion and make him a more ‘manly’ man. 

The character of Ratna can be called as that of a selfish one because she agrees to her father-in-law’s demands and also considers that there would be one less person to compete with. She constantly misguides him and plays with his emotions in spite of being his partner. Though Jairaj was a male member, he never forced his opinions on anybody and instead of that Ratna would always dominate and take decisions for herself, for him and now their daughter as well. 

She wanted her own career to prosper and so she is willing to sacrifice her husband’s career in the process. She was blinded by her passion so much so that she joined hands with Amritlal. This subtly displays the relationship she herself shared with Jairaj which was more for her own personal motive than anything else. She married him because Jairaj himself was a dancer and he would never stop her from dancing even after getting married. Had it been that she would have married another man, there was a possibility that she would be deprived of her career and her passion and she would be helpless. 

When Jairaj possibly knew about her motives, the purpose was already achieved, that he was a failed dancer and that he did not make much out of his life. He had become an alcoholic. She constantly took advantage of Jairaj’s love for her and being his wife. She pushed him into the world of dance though she knew that he was not a great dancer himself, and would not reach the place among the top dancers, as he was just a mediocre dances. She was responsible for Jairaj’s undoing as a character as well as a dancer. 

Ratna here did not stop but went on to make her daughter Lata, also a Traditional dancer. She used her daughter too, to earn fame and money all over the world. She schemes and manipulates and uses all her contacts to put her daughter’s career on the right track right from the start. She also uses the contacts to get appreciative reviews for her daughter’s performance. Lata here is seen as the younger Ratna who succeeds with the help of her mother. 

Later, in the play Jairaj blames his wife for their son’s death as she wanted to be successful and she had left him home along with a nanny. The nanny had given him a sleeping dose so that he would stop crying and that she could also sleep peacefully but unfortunately, she gave it too much in quantity which ultimately led to his death. Jairaj blames her for his unsuccessful career. 

Dattani uses the technique of Traditional Dance as a medium to portray the conflict of gender issues in the play. Hence his plays are relevant and will be relevant even for years to come. Amritlal would never accept his son becoming a dancer, Ratna misguided him, Jairaj was blamed to be not being a man enough to earn and support his family. All these things led to the circumstances that show how gender stereotype works in the Indian society. 

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