Romila Thapar in her essay ‘The Theory of Aryan Race and India: History and Politics’ opens with the argument that the “invention of the Aryan race” was to have far-reaching consequences. “Its application to European societies culminated in the ideology of Nazi Germany... Some European scholars now describe it as a 19th century myth. But some contemporary Indian political ideologies seem determined to renew its life,” she writes.
At a distance from and possibly oblivious to Thapar’s red flag on nationalism couched in constructed pasts, S.S. Rajamouli, director of the fabulously successful Baahubali duology, is soon to launch his television serial Aarambh , written by his father K.V. Vijayendra Prasad, author of Baahubali 1 & 2 and Bajrangi Bhaijaan .
The serial centres on the narrative of the Aryans’ quest for Sapta Sindhu—the seven holy rivers spoken of in the Nadistuti Sukta of the Rigveda—and their clash with the Dravidians. Coming close on the heels of Baahubali , Aarambh is in the realm of imagined histories, fictive myths, and a created cultural identity. Arguably, it may also offer redress in terms of an equal exchange between the historically ‘dominant’ and the ‘oppressed’ races.
Many possibilities
Especially at this moment in our times, how are the real and the imagined to be reconciled in the realm of fiction? Prasad, who specialises in the genre of the mythic-historical, and who has spoken of his inspiration from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata , creates a consummate flow of possibilities.
It is the climactic scene of Baahubali 2 . The great fight between Shiva, son of Bahubali, and Bhallala Deva is under way. It is an evenly matched struggle of crushing muscular power until the shivalinga, object of worship in Mahishmati, looms on the screen. Shiva covers his torso with sacred ash and convincingly destroys his opponent. With this gesture of supreme faith, the pastoral idyll of Kunthala, home to Devasena, and the stony palatial presence of Mahishmati, are convincingly grounded in the mythic past of Bharatvarsha.
Mythic imaginary
Whether we see fictive histories as post-truth or as feeding the frenzied imagination of a “new India”, their success depends on a balance between the known and the imagined. Rajamouli’s film plays into many of the known tropes of the social and mythic imaginary.
If you Google Map the kingdom of Mahishmati, it appears close to the sites of Omkareshwar, Maheshwar and Ujjain, collectively a centre of jyotirlingas that has spawned Shiva worship, scholarship and architecture.
Mahishmati’s present location is unknown, although it is believed to have been a part of Avanti, a flourishing kingdom till the 13th century, thus locating it within the realm of possibility.
The film’s impeccable taste in costumes seems to draw from Raja Ravi Varma in khadi (Sivagami) and a contemporary version of Bharatanatyam (Devasena). Battles are fought and kingdoms protected against bloodthirsty, disruptive Kalakeya who reside in the forests, their dark skins and wild demeanour according them a racial difference. As he grows, and later in exile, Shiva lives among farmers and fisherfolk, the kind that lived beyond the city walls during the medieval period, famed for their fraternal generosity, the class from which have traditionally sprung bhaktas and religious reformers.
Living outside the gates of Mahishmati in the lap of nature, it is their collective energy that fights for the greater good. The Kshatriya clans represented by the ruling families of Mahishmati and Kunthala are neatly divided as Shaivites and Vaishnavites, whose forms of worship and rituals of varnas are observed. Thus, caste and class aspects are in place, odd-bod spectres and ghouls have no place in this real-fictive narrative, and the lack of a succession plan, the bane of Hindu kingship, feeds into the magnificent scenes of battle.
Flights of fancy
Rajamouli’s panoramic sweep is so humongous that it can easily slip into caricature. All the flights of fancy, of ships that take wing, visionary landscapes and impossible feats of valour, render the film like an animated narrative from Amar Chitra Katha. The two-dimensional delineation of character adds to this sense of a comic book epic.
However, the outstandingly redeeming feature would be the role of the women, led by Sivagami, the powerful queen of Mahishmati. No longer young, yet powerful and decisive, she is in fact a reversal of the female figures of the great epics. Prasad’s characterisation imbues Sivagami with all the characteristics of the ugra goddesses, most closely Durga, who can nurture her children even in an embattled state, who can energetically lead armies, and plot vengeance.
She even sits on her throne with the open-legged stance that you find in the Shakti peeth of a Kamakshi devi or a Lalitambika temple icon.
In some senses, Devasena is a younger clone of Sivagami. She is a feisty warrior princess who can round up bandits and compete in archery and acts of warfare. The writer has spoken of being inspired by powerful women, Indira Gandhi and Jayalalithaa, and perhaps this is his most interesting contribution to the fictive; in imbuing a modern, feminist sensibility to his narrative. Sivagami, played to the hilt by Ramya Krishnan, makes compelling viewing because there is nothing like her autocratic, powerful, on-screen persona. Gandhi and Jayalalithaa, who rendered grown men into hapless schoolboys, have passed into history. The space for a Sivagami is vacant, and waiting.
The author is an art critic and curator who, while preoccupied with her art website www.criticalcollective.in, is also contemplating a book on the Middle Ages
