Ghatashraddha: A Review

The last rites..

‘Ghatashraddha’ a Sanskrit word for the last rites of a person, is the story about a young Brahmin student; his teacher’s widowed daughter Yamuna, and the Brahmanic society. This short story, written by the renowned writer U.R. Ananthamurthy, is set around the 1930s in British India, though there is no direct reference to that in the story. It is situated in the center of an orthodox upper caste Brahmin community in Southern Karnataka. The story seems to suggest that the particularity towards the brahmanical laws and edicts is a part of the community’s social fabric and world view. Life in such a community is depicted quite vividly in the story which exhibits the various layers prevalent in such a society. The social and political dynamics of the society are starkly brought out in how this community conducts itself in the course of this story. The discriminatory attitude of this community towards the lower castes, their perceptions about women as wives and widows, the role of the man and his status in this society, the adherence to rituals were some of the most prominent characteristics of this society which are brought out beautifully by the author.

 Anathamurthy had ownership of this context because he hailed from it. He was born into an orthodox upper caste Brahmin family. He was educated in a Vedic school like the one mentioned in this story and taught to follows the rules and laws of this community. He, like Nani, followed the rituals of Brahmanism until, like Nani he began to question it. One wonders if the character of Nani is drawn by the author in his own image, for Nani is shown to question what is acceptable in this society and what isn’t. Where a young widow is not allowed to remarry and is deemed a slut for engaging in an affair, and her father is deemed an honorable man for taking a wife at an old age: this is problematic in Nani’s mind and perhaps such instances were problematic for the author compelling him to critique his community. The story reflects the elements Ananthamurthy found problematic in the Brahmanic community and is represented in layers that are complex and nuanced.

 The story is narrated through the experiences of this young boy, Nani, who has come to study from Udupa, a Brahmanic teacher. The story begins with Udupa leaving on a journey for about three months on religious work. He leaves instructions with his daughter to take care of his three students. Nani is the youngest student in his gurukul and seems quite attached to the Acharya’s daughter who he calls “Yamunakka”. At the beginning of the story we get to know that Yamunakka is pregnant from her affair with the village school teacher. She does not want people to know about this secret but people in the community already suspect. The neighbors, her father’s students and others in the community seem to be spying on her activities and she is oblivious of the same. Nani sees these events unfold and is unable to understand its implications or people’s reactions.

 As Yamuna’s condition becomes more apparent and she is unable to hide her secret its consequences begin to emerge. The upadhya who was entrusted with looking after the education of the students in Udupa’s absence stops coming to their house, his classmate Ganesh is taken away by his father and Shastri, the oldest of the students leaves the house and begins living with his friend the Sahukar’s son. Yamuna is seen to disconnect herself from the community and withdraw further into her grief and worry. The teacher who impregnated her refuses to take responsibility for his actions and instead convinces Yamuna to abort the child, and she is hell bent on killing herself.

 Nani hurtles through these events confused at their unfolding and how it constantly disrupts his idea of the world he knows. He is unable to make sense of the degeneration of his comfort zone. He has seen his only ally in an alien environment, Yamunakka fall apart, he has had to seek the help of the lowest caste, Kateera, to save her, he has defiled his purity by stepping foot in the house of a shudra when Yamuna goes to abort her child. Nani faces a maelstrom of emotions and sensations that he can make no sense of and the nature of events reflect in the reader the frustration that that small boy must be feeling, not for the breakdown of his world but for the ridiculousness of the logic driving the Brahmanic world. The story ends Nani being taken away from Yamunakka by his parents and her excommunication from her society where her father performs her last rites – Ghatashraddha.

This story evoked a string of responses. They all seemed to be in the same line of thought where most agreed that they did not like the way the story panned out. They were uncomfortable with its trajectory and the reasons behind this were given by the other members.

 I was unable to attend the discussion that took place in the class however I read through all the reviews posted by my group members to get a sense of where their discussion might have taken them.  I realized that all of us had noticed the significant aspects of the text and largely been affected by that. Everyone had written about how the distinction in caste and the gross discrimination didn’t sit well with them. They noticed the hypocrisy and the blatant disregard for human life in the behavior of the Brahmins. Many said that the edicts of the brahmanical culture were meant to propagate different ideals from what the community here propagated. One of the team members mentioned the three stages in the life of a Brahmin boy was meant to be a method to gain deeper understanding of human life. This practice deteriorated and became rigid and students just followed it without understanding why. Hierarchy and caste structure were brought up by everybody. One of the members related stories from his childhood and how discrimination towards the dalits or the blind following of rituals was not practiced by his father and thus enabled him to look at these systems with a critical eye.

 Sexuality was a topic of discussion as well and the unfairness that was shown and justified by the community in the story. Yamuna who was young was not expected to desire physical companionship but it was ok for her father to marry a much younger woman to keep house.

This sparked a series of comments in our group where one member was angry with the kind of woman Yamuna portrayed to be and another with how she was behaving. They believed she could have been more assertive and demanded her rights but she behaved like a pushover.

This story is more nuanced than it appears in the first read. However the reader also recognizes the many layers that contribute to the complexity of the story. During the first read the obvious element were noticed about the structure of the society, the blatant discrimination, the orthodox attitudes, but a deeper read allow the reader to see the darker underbelly of this system. The story seemed to be more than just the words for me. It made me uncomfortable with what I read and this was voiced by the other members in my team as well compelling them to share with everyone their own views on the same this could be considered transactional criticism and mentioned by Wolf in her book. Here a transaction of ideas had taken place where the readers were sharing their views and experiences to better explain and understand the text.

Another form of criticism was genetic criticism where it was visible that the author was the strongest critic of this system that he was a part of. He saw the disparities while in the system and used a literary text to bring this out. Knowing about the background of the author thus helps us also look at his other work and compare with this to see the similarities in ideas and thoughts that have been influenced perhaps by a similar critical lens. This also puts the text in a larger literary framework where other texts allow us to criticize the text and better understand its literary stand and value

  

The element in the story evoked many questions about human nature for me and though I knew about the issues it talked about I had not experienced anything like it. The style and content of the text allowed me to feel what the author wanted to say. I felt Nani’s frustration and for me that made a powerful impact on my mind.

As a reader I realized that I needed to read something at least twice to get an essence of the text. I grasped the larger themes in the story but a closer reading helped me distinguish the deeper undertones of the issues at hand. It was a frustrating read at first not because the text was difficult but because as a reader with my particular cultural context I was connected to the context of the story. I was connected with it at multiple levels as opposed to a reader who is from outside the context.  I also realized that it is difficult to not report on the text as opposed to build on it. Even though I was not a part of the discussions I could tell that my responses to the text were initially one of reporting. Then having read the other reviews I realized that I was also critical as a reader. I was critical of the story, the world it represented and how others saw that world as well. It was a learning experience that changed how I looked at myself as a reader.

Children also identify themselves as readers quite early into their educational careers. They have a certain image of themselves as readers based on how well they are doing and many time compared to others in the class. They have to be guided as they read. Their understanding of the text can be gauged though discussion and debate about the text. Their critical senses need to be tested and honed through engagement with the text and encouragement towards accountable talk. We haven’t learned to do accountable talk because we were never made to engage with the idea. We were trained to comprehend and report as opposed to engage with the idea. The ideas for literacy learning have evolved to better strategies which if used could create a very different generation of readers and educators. 

Fin..