The Ramayana Manuscript Trails

           The Ramayana Manuscript Trails

Today I shall expound on texts old and colossal, which have prevailed through the upheavals of the human civilization and come to us profound and pure. In their inception, hands and souls worked tirelessly to give them their monumental status, imbuing them with metaphysical powers. Texts and illustrations created out of a labour of love and ingenuity, not of an age but for all times.  Along the way, they suffered and were maligned by ignorant fools, but the saving grace of the continuous tribe of cultural creatives, washed stains of negligence and tedium incessantly, breathing fresh vigour and strength into them intermittently. Such unfailing energy and ceaseless rallying against all odds have finally morphed the ageless texts to suit the climes of the present age.

Our greatest and longest love story with the epic Ramayana saw another triumph this year. The Mewar Ramayana, the most beautifully illustrated manuscript of the Valmiki Ramayan, is available today at the click of a mouse at www.bl.uk/ramayana. Sources say that it was a mega project costing Rs 27 lakhs sponsored by Jamsetji Tata Trust, and was unveiled at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) Museum in March, 2014. Readers can view 377 rare paintings out of the 450, and listen to an audio, turning digitized pages like leaves of the original text.

My trail of research inspired by the lecture series VISUAL NARRATIVES OF INDIA: TEXT AND IMAGE by Professor Vidya Dehejia at the Goa University last month turned out to be an interesting tale of treasure lost and found. The seven Kandas of the Mewar Ramayana created in the 17^th century, got segregated and handed down to different people and countries through the continuing centuries, with trails gone cold.  It was commissioned by Maharana Jagat Singh of the Rajput kingdom in the early half of the 1650s. The Mewari Ranas extolled the service of scribes and artists to build great manuscript libraries, a mark of great prestige and honour of the times. The project was carried out by many painters, the Sahibdin workshop being the most noteworthy. A single scribe undertook the text. The entire manuscript took five years for completion and was revered by the dynasty as an extremely valuable treasure. (Sisodiya Rajputs are thought to be the direct descendants of Rama in the Suryavanshi clan).

 JP Losty, the curator of visual arts at the British library, recounts an interesting story of how the Mewar Ramayana comprising of seven volumes got segregated and transported to different lands from Rajasthan. In 1820, Maharana Bhim Singh, great friends with James Tod the then British agent of Rajput states, presented him four volumes of the mega literature who in turn gifted them to the Duke of Sussex, a man of letters with a magnificent library. Thereafter, they were bought by the British museum and pristinely bound into two volumes at the British library. Losty came upon them in the 1970s and, highly mesmerized by the magnitude of his find, relentlessly pursued all clues leading him finally to the volumes at Jodhpur and Mumbai in museums and private collections of royal families. After 200 years, the Mewar Ramayana, a colossal monument of our rich heritage, exists in a modern technological avatar within everyone’s reach, to savour and delight to our heart’s content.

The folios are horizontal, like leaves, with paintings on one side and the text on the other side. It is intriguing to note that the illustrations illuminate three forms of Mewar paintings– the Sahibdin and Manohar workshop studios and an unknown artist working in Mewar- Deccani style. Use of reds and browns, pointed nose, large eyes and angular features mark a Mewari figurative painting. The skyline is shown in waves and water in semicircular markings of inky blue. Trees are elaborate with the ubiquitous mango tree with fresh-washed green interspersed with dark green and red leaves.

Equally intriguing is the story of the first Persian manuscript of the Ramayana during king Akbar’s reign. The great patron of arts and culture commissioned the imperial Ramayana in the 16^th century to dispel the fanatical hatred between Hindus and Muslims, an offspring of ignorance of each other’s scriptures. He called upon his senior scholar Abdul Qadir Badayuni to render the Ramayana in Persian. The latter, a staunch Muslim, took up the project reluctantly, but meticulously worked on it for four years, to excellent results. The 176 illustrations are replicated in imperial Mughal art. The manuscript was greatly revered by his mother and line of Mughal rulers later, who perused it at different times through the next two centuries. It is interesting to note that about the same time, Tulsidas  too worked on the Ram Charita Manas, Rama’s story in Awadhi.

Greatly enamored by the  imperial Ramayana, Abdur-Rahim Khan-i-Khanan   commissioned the Khan Khanan Ramayana that was accessible to general public and scholars who came to see him in his library, workshop and at other forums. He was the mightiest general of Akbar’s army, son of Bairam Khan who had served as regent to young Akbar. Sources indicate that in 1886, Colonel Henry Bathhurst Hanna, a Britisher stationed in India for about thirty years, purchased the Khan Khanan Ramayana thinking it to be the Imperial Ramayana. Later research on the Persian scripts of the Ramayana itself proved that it was not the Imperial Ramayana. In 1907, Charles Lang Freer purchased the Khan Khanan Ramayana and since then it is in the collections of the Smithsonianâ Freer Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.  Written in lucid Persian in the Manaswi fashion rather than the cantos of Valmiki Ramayana, it is calligraphed by the experts of Akbar’s court. The paintings show apparent influences of Indian, Iranian and Mongolian styles of art. The text at times disrupts the paintings and appears on the same side of the folio as the painting. 

Another notable work is that of Masih, a Sanskrit scholar in Benaras for 12 years who reworked the  Ramayan into  5407 couplets. Sham Lal Angara in Jammu is in possession of a rare Ramayana in Persian which begins with Bismillah-i-rahman ar-rahim, which is also how the Quran begins: clearly indicative of the secular outlook of Shah Jahan’s son who was the translator of this beautiful treasure.

These old texts exist in a class of their own.  Custodians of our tradition and history, they are a living presence and bind centuries of human souls, who speak to us of our rich heritage. Mortals engaged in their creation and preservation acquire an immortality carried through   whispering echoes within the confines of these monumental volumes! 

The Lightness of Being

         The  Lightness of  Being

                   A meditation on Ananthamurthy’s writing and a comparative study in reflection :

 “Once more there sounded within me the terrible warning that there is only one life for all men, that there is only one life for all men, that there is no other and that all that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. In eternity, no other chance will be given to us.” 
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba The Greek . (Greek writer and philosopher 1883-1957)

“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is, therefore, simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment.  The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?” 
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Living Czech literary icon 1929)

“Quite a lusty lot, those sages. What was the name of the fellow who ravished the fisherwoman smelling of fish, right in the boat and gave her body a permanent perfume? And now, look at these poor brahmins, descended from such sages! . . . Let’s see who wins in the end—you or me. I’ll destroy brahminism, I certainly will. My only sorrow is that there’s no brahminism really left to destroy in this place—except you.”

UR Ananthamurthy, Samskara (Great Indian Kannada writer1932-2014)

Life is a conundrum and in its unravelling many philosophers and thinkers have written and shared their insights. The above three writers are famous deep thinkers whose writings have impacted the world. In these novels, they explore the common theme of what path a human being should take- “weight or lightness?”  

A world where the sacred and the profane exist together, we are lost in a maze of big questions of God, religion and its ramifications of virtue and sin. We revel in segregation, compartmentalizing ourselves on the basis of religion, borders, colour, language, caste etc.  It does not end there. There are gulfs tearing the hedonists from the pious within communities and families.  A rivalry which has left many; confused and perplexed.  Who is a man of God – one who is good but indulges his senses; is wild, nomadic, parties, drinks, gambles, has mistresses; or the one who prays religiously, has no desires, is a celibate, crown jewel of vedic knowledge. What do you choose- ‘weight or lightness”

The epitaph on Kazantzakis tomb illuminates the path of freedom - "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free." Kazantzakis’ works are full of joy, especially Zorba the Greek. The book is a hymn to life and love, personified in the character sketch of Zorba; the epitome of pulsating life force. It urges you to stop reading words and go jump into the stream of life; and live it king size. Wrapping oneself in an atmosphere of daily sights, sounds and smells – wild sage, savory mint and thyme. The orange-blossom scent worn by Madame Hortense, silvery olive trees, fig and vines, kitchen gardens, swims in the sea, the wine drunk; dancing to strains of the santuri, friendship, sex, separation and loss.
Zorba, the wonderful Macedonian man lives each day as if it is his last, completely involved in what he is doing; making love or working the lignite mines. He dances to life, actually, authentically and practically. When he cannot express the feelings and energy in words, he dances with gay abandon to the beat of each moment. He lives in perpetual awe of everything around him. He looks at trees, the sky, flowers, women, children as if he is seeing them for the first time. He revels in the mystery of creation and considers the world his playground to frolic and indulge.  His zest for life is all inclusive. The narrator played by Alan Bates is a foil to Zorba. He is a writer wrestling in his lair with his writing of Buddha, trying to comprehend the world through words and mysticism. Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’ and the ‘Man as Overman’, are concepts which pattern the exchange between them. In the end, it isn’t squiggly inky impressions of words on paper, and the endless ruminations and reflections, but the act of living them which can make a difference. If ever there was a role that Anthony Quinn was born to play, it was the lusty, life-affirming character in Zorba, the Greek. The film made the book world famous.
Kazantzakis was an existentialist as much as Franz Kafka, his contemporary. But their philosophy was so very different. Whereas Kafka battled with a meaningless existence with paranoia, absurdity and madness, Kazantzakis pitched into the flow of life with a madness of sheer abandon and love. While Kafka is disturbed and depressed by the cruel universe, Kazantzakis is delighted by its mystery. He does not know if God exists or truth exists, but he has an amazing appetite for plain existence. Life is simple, devoid of Cartesian duality. Therefore, the ordinary is extraordinary for him. The Kafkaesque ideology imbues us with dread and gloom. A contemporary writer who comes to mind in the same line of thought would be Milan Kundera.

Kundera’s  ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ compares and contrasts light and heavy characters. The former live a full life indulging their senses.  Self-centeredness, detachment and the present moment to be explored and lived to its hilt form their guiding principle in life. They are not guided by regret, sin, guilt or an afterlife. The latter are bound by duty, honour and truth and their karma. The ultimate climax, nonetheless, does not render any one character contented and happy with their choices.

Ananthamurthy, the doyen of brahminical  practices,  pitches moral superiority of  Praneshacharya’s yogic existence against the degenerate living  of Naranappa.  Each of them is principled and staunch in his armour. The former is an ascetic having married an invalid girl and is regarded as the crown of vedic knowledge. His route to salvation is open , bright and clear. And Naranappa can see through the bigotry of the entire clan and lives life on his terms.   ”The battle of wills continues even after death, with Naranappa  demanding death rites  across the void. Pranesacharysa meets his nemesis in Chandri – the prostitute- mistress of his rival when he embraces her and in his act of loving her, he becomes Naranappa. Thus begins  his journey of rebirth, wisdom and a questioning of what he believed to be true.  What do you choose “weight or lightness?”

The common thread in each of the books forefronts the conundrum of the yogi versus the hedonist. What do  you choose – “ weight or lightness?”  The dawn of the wisdom that the duo rest on an even plane leads to the lightness of being! Samskara becomes the tenet of transformation, liberation and ultimate freedom. 

Crusade for Freedom

Crusade for Freedom

Much in news, Ritu Menon’s Out of Line: A Literary and Political Biography of Nayantara Sahgal catapults the duo again into the limelight. Nayantara Sahgal the first woman political columnist of India, daughter of Vijayalaksmi Pandit and niece of Jawaharlal Nehru, and Ritu Menon famous writer and publisher of the fame of Women Unlimited, and co-founder of Kali for Women. 

The Political Imagination: A Personal Response to Life Literature and Politics, Sahgal’s latest book, was also launched together with her biography. From the personal stemmed the political and the literary. The political became her truth because of her family’s legacy and literary her passion, a clear paper canvas on which she artistically inked her life in totality. A chronicler of the making of modern India, she opposed Indira Gandhi vehemently during the emergency, through her underground literature and spent a year abroad to escape the threat to her life. She became the keeper of Nehruvian (a surrogate father, her idol) democracy and secularism, when his own kith and kin were embroiled in despotic measures. She yearns for a restoration of the idealism of Gandhi and Nehru – and rests her faith on change, the harbinger of balance and rectitude.

 The title ‘Out of Line’ of the biography could be interpreted as an unusual attempt by Menon to write on a person who has already been written about expansively, and whose writings and interviews have appeared in print extensively; or the ‘out of line’ material that Menon manages to unearth, details{ intimate and personal} of her glamorous life, close to her being, which she divulges now that she is a happy 87 years old. Menon describes Sahgal’s ’writing life’ evocatively as one “in which the personal, the political and the literary were so intertwined as to be like three plyn yarn.” The chapters in the book are titled after her novels: A Time to be Happy, This Time of Morning, A day in Shadow....Rich like Us, Mistaken Identity..........

What ties the two women together, the subject and the biographer is their crusade for women emancipation. Sahgal is foremost a political writer but her fiction is a diatribe against the oppressive forces of tradition and society. Her characters are not so much as products of imagination as real life people in her own society. “In fiction there is no such thing as closure, you keep drawing on your own life and those of many people’s around you. “ Nehru’s direction that she write from her own experience, stayed with her and her political columns in newspapers, non-fiction writings and also fiction became autobiographical. The journey from Maya in A time to be Happy to Ranee in Mistaken Identity is a coming of age story of woman’s determination and self actualisation.

 Two real life events which guided her writing were her marriages, man- woman relationships and the arena of emotions accompanying them. The first turning point was her marriage to Gautam, a businessman. She got married at Anand Bhavan in Allahabad the Pandit’s  family home, attired in a khadi sari. She was at the time quiet taken in by Gautam, his suave intelligence, much like her uncle she thought. . She couldn’t have been more wrong. He was consumed with jealousy; he could not forget or forgive her affair with sculptor Ismat Noguchi and relationships with other men. The alienation and abandonment destroyed her. The unhappy marriage ended in a debilitating divorce in 1967. Thus, the major theme in her works is disharmony and dissolution of marriage. In storm in Chandigarh with a backdrop of the Punjab divide and acrimonious relationships of the chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana she portrays a miserable and discontent female protagonist Saroj who is tortured by her husband for having an affair in college before they got married. She wrote about divorce and freedom of an individual in lieu of a compromised silence at a time when divorce was heavily frowned upon.

The second major event was her decision to live with a brilliant bureaucrat, Edward Nirmal Mangat Rai which she described in her own words, “not an affair but a revolution, a self discovery that life had to be lived more fully in order to be meaningful.” Heroines in her successive novels progressively set out on a path of reflection, and self actualization, heading on a course of liberation and realization of their potential without remorse or guilt or help from any male or female counterpart. It’s as if they came upon the discovery within  themselves, to live full human lives of joy and contentment. Her feminist ideology propels women to seek autonomy and individuality, an assured self, a self- possession fired by an inner flame of shakti.  She delineates male protagonists like Ram, Dev, Inder, who propagate the patriarchal attitudes, and in the process not only victimize the women in their lives, but harm themselves through the oppressiveness and misery of their actions. When we downgrade the other, a part of us remains steeped down with them. She inspires men to rise and evolve to a full humanity.  

She was the first Indian women author writing in English to be published abroad. Ranee and Bhushan  in her last novel, Mistaken Identity, are her most evolved characters. Ranee though an illiterate 1930s queen, refuses to abide by her husband’s third marriage and live a life of indignity and utter disgrace. She abandons the veil and walks out of his house and later lives with comrade Yusuf of her own choice. Without him too she moves on bold and undeterred and does not even take help from her son Bhushan. The latter through his alliances with various women comes into his own and finds himself, for it is only through our relationship with others that we can know and discover ourselves. Each relationship is sacred and a conduit to realise your inner potential , a path to self discovery. She declares: "It takes half of life to achieve personhood but there is no greater glory." True to reflection her heroines Maya, Rashmi, Saroj, Simrit, and Devi act as real Shaktis and achieve freedom, after an initial phase of hesitation and turbulence. Thereafter Sonali, Anna and Ranee are self –realized protagonists who rebel remorselessly and fiercely treading their own paths of emancipation and victory.

Tradition and modernity are intertwined in her writings. The legacy of truth, nonviolence, satyagraha, social justice, prayer, simplicity, socialism, democracy, and progress is our political heritage. But when this tradition extends to interpersonal relationships a play field of ambiguity enters into it.  Her ambivalence to tradition in relationships comes across clearly through one of the characters: “Hinduism was boundless enough . . . to encompass the loftiest of metaphysics, rigid enough to despise the Untouchable. It was goodness and piety and the living light of faith. . . . Yet it was the sufferance of disease and clamour near the temple. It was torpor that accepted maimed limbs, blind eyes and abject poverty as destiny, letting generations live and die in hopelessness, and at the same time it was the majesty of the mind engaged in lifelong combat with the senses. It turned men into oppressors, who have internalized the violence of the patriarchy and in turn directed it outward at their wives. They have been handed down expectations about "husbandhood" and "wifehood" which are incompatible with contemporary reality.” When women like Saroj, Anna, Simrit walked out of their marriges they chose personal fulfilment, and individuality over silence and  obedience, that patriarchy upholds in marriages. The modern over the traditional – their guide being an inner strength and  shakti  which blazed a trail of light for them.

 "It has taken a million years of evolution for a person and his cherished individuality to matter . . . and no terror must be allowed to destroy that. In other words, tradition itself must provide the impetus for change by negating those of its aspects which are inimical to its survival,” states Nayantara Sahgal emphatically.

No doubt, she has been rightly compared to Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing for her crusades in political and feminist thought.

Book Readings - Live book Apps- Visual Storytelling of Classics

My Salinger Year

                                                           









 My Salinger Year             

The title of the book by Joanna Smith Rakoff, which appeared in June 2014, created a stir in the literary circles.  J.D. Salinger fans grabbed copies of My Salinger Year to peek into the world of the reclusive writer.  Salinger, the creator of the Glass Family stories and two priceless works of writing – The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey- remained shrouded in mystery throughout his career in writing. When he died in 2010, the world knew as little about him as aliens from outer space; conjectures and speculations continued to thrive. The mere mention that this book was a chronicle of the days that Rakoff spent working as an  assistant in the literary house of the century’s giant, piqued curiosity of many readers.

 The first quick read became both a discovery and a disappointment. The latter because at the culmination of the exercise, we are nowhere near more familiar with Salinger. On the contrary, the chance meeting of Rakoff  with Salinger in the office, resounding of a loud remote voice on the phone asking for his literary agent often, and the strict dictum issued by Rakoff’s boss,  “but you must never – never, never, never – give out his address or phone number," further thickens  the  cloud of mystery around the taciturn author, without giving any further cue to his persona.

Rakoff’s admission that she had never read Salinger in her 23 years of her study life ( she thought him “insufferably cute and aggressively quirky”) transforms into  devotion during her sojourn at the agency, reading his works  and then answering the deluge of fan mail meant for Salinger. She cannot bring herself to throw letters from Holden Caulfield-like characters (who seem at their wits and desperately need to connect to the creator) into the bin after writing a perfunctory coded answer. The entire experience changes her irrevocably, and she sees herself caught in a superficial world (which applies to her dad, live- in boyfriend and the fast changing publishing world) overflowing with phoniness and brutality.  Rakoff’s  passage from naivety, idealism and purity to stoicism and acceptance, with a rough intervening phase of emotional turmoil, is  a nostalgic Franny Glass experience. It  gives the book a Salingeresque edge, of lost innocence; and becomes a pleasant discovery for the reader.

The theme of innocence lost is very interestingly also interwoven with the delineation of the ‘world of books.’ The story is set in the late nineties, the pre-digital era on the cusp of a metamorphosis and yet a space still clinging to antiquated Dictaphones and heavy typewriters and the power of words. The agency represents heavyweight older authors, defining an age where the word was sacred and supreme and writing was a culture and not a business. When the duo, the writer and the literary house, formed a committed relationship in the sanctimonious service of the word, and did not view it as a trade to a fortune. A climate where budding artists still thought that they had to work as assistants to legendary literary figures and publishers; to garner the best education; on the road to becoming great poets and authors themselves.   

That Rakoff was able to morph a 2000-word article written in 2010, after Salinger passed away(My Adventures Answering J.D. Salinger’s Mail) into a complete book is a feat in itself. But what is more amazing is her accomplishment to imbue the ambience in the book with a Salingeresque essence. Reading the coming of age story of Rakoff, the reader is transported to the world of Franny and Zooey, Seymour and Buddy and the legendary Holden Caulfield. Lives of characters who waged battles within, on the road to understanding the world for what it is: a hypocritical illusion which in the name of love trades love and souls. Veneers of false pretence, of unscrupulous crafty humans, yes, but a complete 360 degree turn and the same finger of hypocrisy points to one’s own self. Duality and falseness stripped to the core to show your naked dark self. Finally, the journey will culminate in a merging, with a love beyond barriers of all human creed, doubts and fears.  A rendezvous with Seymour’s Fat Lady; a moment where your love flows as a clear cascading stream to subsume everything you thought was repulsive and dirty.  A cleansing that renders you and the world into a sparkling hue of light.  Salingeresque achieved!

Thank you, Joanna Rakoff!          

     

                     

Book Reading - The Indian Bond - Ruskin Bond

Book Reading Session on the 16th of August. 

Let your kids go on an adventure with Ruskin Bond, the Indian Bond!  Watch Ruskin bond on screen, Hear him talk – power point on his journey through books, Book Readings, Films based on his books, Activities – Find answers and win PRIZES! Write Book Reviews.

Resource Person : Jugneeta Sudan.

Time - 3 PM - 6 PM

Age - 8 - 16 years.

Fees - Rs. 300/-

Hope to see you for the events! 

Spread the word!

Warm Regards!

Sonia Fernandes

(Coordinator at Carpe Diem)

Contact - 0832 - 2881035

Shakespeare's Shylock

Shakespeare’s Shylock

We have all read Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare in school with great censure for Shylock, who was greedy, cruel and mean. He deserved to lose his dignity, wealth and religion at the end of the trial. Justice prevails and the devil always meets a gory end. A stereotype propounded and etched in the minds of children, who grew to relate to Jews with mistrust. A play used by Nazis to stoke anti-Semitic feelings during the holocaust. Shylocks or loan sharks entered the lexicon and terms like ‘pound of flesh’ became common when someone demanded onerous returns. Is Merchant of Venice a play about anti-Semitism? A moralistic play about good and evil, mercy and justice, love and greed became a major controversial work of Shakespeare with the turn of the 20^th century.

Shakespeare had good business sense and he wrote the play in the aftermath of the execution and public hanging of Roderigo Lopeza, a converted Portuguese Jew. The latter was the official physician of the Queen. In 1594, he was convicted of plotting to poison Queen Elizabeth I and was executed as a traitor. The Lopeza trial and execution inspired the revival of playwright Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, in which the play's title character is a Jew named Barabas, a greedy, cunning and murderous stereotype. It fanned frenzy against the Jews, though at the time only about 200 Jews lived in England, after they had been banished in 1290 under the Edict of Expulsion. Horrifying legends and gory stereotypical stories, about the absent English Jew became rampant; poisoning Christian children, using blood of murdered humans for passover rituals.......When Lord Chamberlain’s Men staged Merchant of Venice, it was a delightful success. The existing atmosphere of hatred for Jews gave the audience more fodder for glee and Shylock was perceived with added hatred and revulsion. The blinkers of vengeance made the masses completely miss the point of a more complex, sympathetic and whole Shylock.  

The tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically began in the first half of the 19th century with Edmund Kean, the famous English actor of his times. It established him as an actor. His portrayal of Shylock completely turned the tables on previous enactments by repulsive clowns or monsters of unrelieved evil. Henry Irving’s act of a proud aristocratic Jew in 1879 was hailed the ‘summit of his career.’ He was followed by Jacob Adler in the early 20^th century, who played the role in Yiddish in an otherwise English production. The new perspective morphed him into a proud man whose self-respect is maligned and destroyed by the so-called men of God. His actions of revenge ensue from pride and he demands justice for a blow to his individuality, profession and religion. The guardians of law – Portia, Antonio, Bassanio, make a mockery of justice and facilitate the passing of a harsh sentence, contrary to their qualities of goodness, love and justice. The final act bares hypocrisy of the so-called good and lends authenticity to the image of Shylock who walks out of court with his head held high -"would he not walk out of that courtroom head erect, the very apotheosis of defiant hatred and scorn?”

Henrik Eger writes- “Some theatres have gone where most directors dare not tread, including the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, by presenting a bare-chested Antonio with the knife of Shylock on his chest. However, few companies like the Quintessence Theatre Group have come as close to the Rembrandt-like scene with Antonio flat on his back, almost a corpse—all in the presence of the entire Venetian court, with Shylock approaching like Dr. Tulp, holding a huge knife in his hands, ready to cut out the promised pound of flesh. This naked determination for physical justice, against the background of years of having been bullied, maligned, and treated like a criminal, is a scene so direct that it is painful to watch.  Benim Foster (Shylock), originally a Jew on being interviewed said-“The play has always been a mystery to me. Something I feared. I avoided it, believing that it would just upset me too much, being Jewish. I also struggled with the thought of Shakespeare, himself, being an Anti-Semite. However, I have come to believe that he was just the opposite. He gives Shylock so much depth, so much humanity, love, pain, beauty and grief, plus his anger, stubbornness, and impatience that he shows us Shylock as human.”

Contemporary adaptations and films continue the trend of giving multiple voices to characters in the play. In the 2004 film adaptation starring Al Pacino as Shylock, the film begins with text and a montage of how the Jewish community is abused by the Christian population of the city. One of the last shots of the film also brings attention to the fact that, as a convert, Shylock would have been cast out of the Jewish community in Venice, no longer allowed to live in the ghetto and would still not be accepted by the Christians, as they would feel that Shylock was yet the Jew he once was.

‘Andrew Dickson, writing in his The Rough Guide to Shakespeare, found that audiences can view The Merchant of Venice from two different perspectives: Antonio's and Shylock's. Both sides of the story are there in this brilliant and troubling play and it's easy to feel that they're irreconcilable. “But,” Dickson continues, ''it is impossible to sit on the fence when watching The Merchant, and the issues it raises about religious intolerance and conflict seem more pressing now than ever before.'' Norrie Epstein, writing in the book The Friendly Shakespeare, calls The Merchant of Venice a troubling play, for the same reason that other critics have come to this conclusion. It is difficult to say, after you have seen it, if it is ''a tragedy or a comedy, a love story or a tale of hate.'' Epstein's conclusion, however, is that in the end, ''in its infinite ambiguity, it is quintessential Shakespeare. No sooner have you reached one conclusion about the play than it's immediately contradicted in the next scene--or line.'' Despite the fact that Shakespeare's audiences in Elizabethan times enjoyed coming to the theatre and ridiculing stock, stereotypical Jewish characters, as was a routine at that time, Epstein states that ''yet embedded within this caricature there's a real human being [in Shylock's character], and every so often Shakespeare lets him out.'' Shylock shows sadness, and he respects his own culture, Epstein writes. And he displays many other emotions in this play. ''He's like a survivor of the Great Depression who grows up valuing money more than love.'' Shakespeare's talent is demonstrated in that he is able to go beyond his ''age's prejudices'' and present ''the world from the alien's perspective.''

Thus, Merchant of Venice cannot be taught in classrooms without historical, circumstantial, political, economical and theatrical context, of the times. It remains a sensitive and highly controversial play 400 years down the line and must be dealt in multiple ways for students. The teaching must open channels for them to perceive it in a wholesome manner and exhort them to further research, to discern truth on their own.

In my humble endeavour to revisit and elaborate on Shakespearean works during his 450th year of celebration, we shall be meeting on 23^rd August at ICG to expound on the tragicomedy Merchant of Venice in the afternoon from 4-6pm. Do join us!