The Myth of Rama-Sita and Ravna in Kanthapura

 The Myth of Rama-Sita and Ravna in Kanthapura

 Ans. The novel Kanthapura really revolves around the myth of Rama-Sita and Ravana. The Ramayana was narrated by the great Sage Valmiki long ago. In the same way, there is a narrator, Achakka, in Kanthapura also, though not a great Sage, but the grandmother of the village Kanthapura.

She compares Gandhiji with lord Rama and India with Sita. Achakka, the narrator says that as Sita was overpowered by the chief of Evil, Ravana, so was the mother India overpowered by the British. The people of India had been made slaves by the British.

The miserable condition of the labourers working at the Skeffington Coffee Estate is the living example of miniature size. One can guess easily how the people of India were being treated under the foreign rule in India at that time. Lord Rama collected the ‘Vanara-sena’ (the army of the monkeys) and attacked Ravana, the king of Lanka (now Sri Lanka), defeated and killed him. Thus Sita was liberated by Rama from Ravana’s slavery.

Here in this novel, we have the same parallels of the events. The novelist, Raja Rao, projects Mahatma Gandhi to lead the people of India to fight against the  British rule in India. In Ramayana, it was Rama, who fought a decisive fight against Ravana. In Kanthapura, the novelist showed Gandhiji a mighty (powerful) hero to defeat the Evil forces to achieve freedom for mother India. He used his powerful weapons of ‘ahimsa, satyagraha and non-violence.

The war between Rama and Ravana had resulted in the deaths of many people. Women were made widows, mothers lost their sons and sisters lost their brothers. Numerous people were injured. In the same way, the freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi resulted in the deaths of many people in Kanthapura and in the rest of the country as well. The people of Kanthapura were arrested, tortured, and lathi-charged by the police.

 Moorthy as a follower of Gandhiji leads the struggle for freedom in Kanthapura. First, he had to struggle hard to unite the people of Kanthapura. He had to go from one door to the other to spread Gandhiji’s ideas among the people of Kanthapura. Rama had with him his mighty warriors like Lakshmana, Sugriva, and  Hanuman. In the same way, though at a very small scale, Moorthy also had his faithful friends with him. He formed the Congress Panchayat Committee with Pariah Ranganna, Range Gowda, and Seenu. Seenu did his selfless service to him as Veer Hanuman did to Lord Rama.

The people of Kanthapura fought against the British forces as Vanaras fought with the Ravana’s forces in Sri Lanka. Mahatma Gandhi’s trip to England has also been equalized to the one taken by Lord Rama to Sri Lanka to liberate Sita from Ravana’s control.

Gandhiji also went to England to attend the second Round Table Conference. Achakka said that Mahatma would go to the ‘Redman's country’ to get swaraj for the people of India. She gives more detail in the novel, that has parallels to the incidents that occurred in the Ramayana.

Thus, we may conclude that Kanathapura revolves around the myths of Rama-Sita and Ravana.

 

 

Kanthapura-The Language, the Narrative Style and the Literary Merits

 Kanthapura-The Language, the Narrative Style and the Literary Merits’ of Kanthapura

 Kanthapura is a successful novel even if it is judged through its narrative style and techniques used by Raja Rao. It was a big challenge for the writer to achieve his goal by writing this novel in English. He had to make some innovations in his narrative style to suit the Indian atmosphere.

 Let’s study this novel in the light of the use of ‘language, the narrative style and the literary merits’ of Kanthapura.

 As we know, it was not an easy task for the writer to narrate a tale of an imaginary village, named Kanthapura, where people had different mindsets and where most of the people were illiterate, following different myths and superstitions. They were the people who were divided on the basis of caste and religion. The writer was to portray them as living beings, clashing with one another to safeguard their personal interests and then to elevate them to unite for the bigger cause of being a part of Gandhiji’s  Movement.

  So the first priority for the writer was to mould the English language according to the people of Kanthapura in order to express their thoughts and feelings, their dreams, and the harsh reality in which they lived. The second necessity for the writer was to select a narrative style. For this, he decided to use an age-old ancient style of story-telling, which is very popular in our country.

 We all have grown up by listening to the tales narrated by our grandmothers in a simple and spontaneous manner. Here, the narrator is Achakka, the village's old grandmother, who narrates the tale of the events that took place long-long ago in Kanthapura. Some of the incidents have become dim in her memory with the passage of time. But whatever she narrates, she narrates wonderfully.

 Raja Rao himself admits the fact that telling a tale is not an easy job when he was to capture the tempo of Indian life in a foreign language. The novelist was to record the swift movements of thoughts and actions that prevail in an average Indian mind. The novelist has done this successfully in Kanthapura.

The writer does not use any flashback that slows down the tempo of the action. Wherever the writer finds space, we come to know about his viewpoint.  The narrator is one of the people living in Kanthapura and it also lends authentication to the events.

We find word pictures in plenty. The novelist has described everything that he thought necessary very minutely. Sometimes our senses of sight, sound, and even smell are stirred. In the first chapter, the movements of the bullock carts on the zigzag ‘kachcha’ roads creating a cloud of dust behind them are marvelous. Similar examples abound in the novel.

 

The novelist has also kept in mind the subject matter that is used by different characters while speaking in the novel. They speak in accordance with the education, religious and cultural values they have acquired in their rural background. Raja Rao has also used Indianised words for certain religious ceremonies like  “God’s birth celebration ceremony”, “rice-eating ceremony”, “hair-cutting ceremony”, “death ceremony”, ‘Sankara-Vijaya’,  ‘Sankara-Jayanthi’,‘Harikathas’, etc. Even in dialogues, the writer has used their local language.

 As a modern writer of great eminence, T.S. Eliot, Raja Rao has also used myths in this novel. It makes the narrative of the novel look more Indian. He has used the myths of the goddess Kenchamma, Lord Rama and Sita, Lord Krishna, Brahma, Siva, etc. Under the umbrella of these religious myths and belief, the people of Kanthapura stand united in the leadership of Moorthy to participate in Gandhiji’s freedom struggle.

Thus, we may say that Raja Rao’s narrative style and the literary devices he used in this novel are superb.

 

 

 

Moorthy's Character in Kanthapura

 Kanthapura by Raja Rao: Essay-type Questions & Answers

 Character sketch of Moorthy

Ans. Moorthy is the central character in the whole gamut (range) of characters in the novel Kanthapura. From the very beginning, Moorthy catches readers' attention (focus). We come to know that after leaving college education, Moorthy follows Gandhiji. He is so much impressed with Gandhiji’s personality that he adopts his ‘swadeshi ideas.’ Narsamma, his mother, wanted him to see highly educated and sitting on a high positioned seat.

 But her dreams are shattered when Moorthy left education and devoted himself fully to Gandhiji's ‘Swadwshi’ and Freedom Movements. Now he does not wear foreign clothes. He does not read even foreign books. He keeps fasts to purge himself at times.His mother was initially against all that Moorthy was doing, but gradually, she had to accept all that.

 

Moorthy picks up social evils like maltreatment towards widows and untouchability and the caste system. He works against these deep-rooted social evils. These evils were national issues also, but Moorthy works to eradicate (remove) these social evils from his village and the surrounding areas. He went from one door to the other to spread the message that he did not believe in castes and other types of narrow thinking. He is against any discrimination that separates one human being from the other. 

He does not care for Bhatta’s warnings of the ex-communication of him and his family. His mother dies of the anxiety that was created in her mind due the fear of being excommunicated by the Swamiji. His mother’s death does not waver him from his determination. He continues working for uplifting the poor section of society. He does not care for his own community. One day, he openly carries Pattayya’s wife’s dead body for some time as a mark of respect to the dead. That makes all stunned.

 He went to the houses of the Pariahs. He heard their problems and found solutions to them. He advised them to work on Gandhiji’s charkhas and adopt Swadeshi goods. He educated them that by spinning on the wheels, they would not only help Gandhiji’s Swadeshi Movement but also earn money.

When he heard of the miserable condition of the coolies at the Skeffington Coffee Estate, he went there to teach them. But he was not allowed to enter the Estate.

 Moorthy forms Congress Committee at Kanthapura and he is unanimously elected as the President. Rangamma and her sister’s daughter Ratna support Moorthy in his work for Gandhiji. Even Range Gowda also helps him. Thus they all inspire the villagers to join Congress to free India from the British. Women also come forward and form Sevika Sangh to support Moorthy.

Thus Moorthy is a very important character in the novel Kanthapura.