Wednesday, November 14, 2018

paper:4 Eklavya as a subaltern (Assignment)


NAME:- SEJAL R PARMAR
COURSE:- M.A SEM-1
BATCH:- 2018-20
ROLL NO:- 40
ENROLLMENT NO:- 2069108420190033
EMAIL ID:- sejalparmar095@gmail.com
PAPER NO:- INDIAN ENGLISH  LITERATURE
TOPIC:- CHARACTER OF EKLAVYA AS A SUBALTERN
GUIDED BY:- HEENABA ZALA

INTRODUCTION

T. P. KAILASAM:-

Thanjavur  paramasiva kailasam ( 1884 – 1946 ), was a playwrite and prominent writer of Kannada literature. His contribution to Kannada  theatrical comedy earned him the title prahasana prapitamaha, “ the father of humorous plays” and later he was  also called “ Kannadakke  obbane kailasam”  meaning “ one and only Kailasam for Kannada”.

CHARACTER OF EKLAVYA AS A SUBALTERN
The play “ purpose”  by T. P.KAILASAM is a short play. The story of this play is based on Mahabharata. In this play we find character is taken from Mahabharata. Here in this play we can find character of eklavya as a subaltern. In the story of Mahabharata ‘arjunas’ is the hero while studying under Dronacharya or throughout  the epic . but here in the purpose kailasam  more focus on the character of ‘ eklavya’ . and he is the main hero of character of the purpose . the protagonist of the play is Eklavya .  purpose , by T. P. Kailasam,  is a short play dramatizing event that occurred in the Mahabharata involving Drone, Arjuna, and Eklavya … Arjuna is a prince of a prince of a great kingdom. Eklavya is a tribal boy from a relatively far away area.

EKLAVYA:-
Ekalvya means self learned person, is a character from the epic the Mahabharata. He was a young prince of the nishadha, a confederation of jungle tribes in ancient india.he was offered as the son to vyatraj hiranyadhanus  by sulekha and possessed powers given by bhumi devi. As he was her son in previous life. Ekalavya aspired  to study archery in the gurukul of guru drone.

WHAT IS SUBALTERN

A subaltern means someone with a low ranking in a social , political , or other hierarchy.
“ subaltern” means someone who has been marginalized or oppressed.
Gayatri chakravorty spivak has given “ subaltern theory”
She is best known for her wsay.

“ CAN THE SUBALTERN SPEAK ?”
in can essay she had written about marginalize people and also given voice to oppressed people of society.
“ subaltern” – who oppressed by someone in society.
In society we find many example of subaltern who marginalized and oppressed
THE VARIOUS KIND OF SOCIAL FORMATION AND THE SUBALTERNS THEY CONSTRUCT:

Social formation: class , empire , patriarchy , nation
Subaltern: working classes , natives , women ethnic – minorities
Dominant group: capitalism – bourgeois Europeans , men majority
Ideology: capitalism , colonialism , gender , homogenization and nationalism.

In this play “ purpose” we find character of ‘ eklavya’ as a “ subaltern” .
We find that he is oppressed by Arjuna and in many dialogue we find at that time and in this way we cansee or saidhim asa subaltern.
In play we find Arjuna’s dialogue to eklavya like:
“ an arya is an arya!
And a nishada is only
A low – born nishada” !

So in this dialogue of arjuna we can find that arjuna feel proud about his caste and considere his caste as a higher and he said eklavya  A nishada – a lower class person, and according to my opinion he treated as he is superior than eklaya.

ARJUNA : ‘ I do not like you ! I dislike you ! very much” !

Eklavya was a nishadaboy so Arjuna dislike his caste because Arjuna belongs to “ Arya” . here we can find that T . P . kailasam conflict also . due to eklavya’s low caste he is not able to learn Archary from guru Dronacharya.
We also find eklavya’s voice as a oppressed when he thinking that :

“ I fear he will never take me as his pupil ! he will mayhap think that I am not fit to be a fellow – pupil of these princes !

eklavya is in fear that due to his lower caste and he is a nishadha so guru will never ready to taught him . sowe can say that eklavya as a nishadha he had not right to learn archery from guru Dronacharya.
Drona didn’t teach archery to eklavya because he belonged to ‘ Nishadha’  tribe … but sadly bound to hiswords to Arjun he asked for guru dakshina wgich eklavya couldn’t refuse and gave his thumb to guru as adakshina …thus ending a great warriors feat …
Doctoring of an ideal life Mahabharata , Ramayana , Upanishads are rich heritage .
If you want an answer from current perspective it will seem that eklavya was victim of caste bais ,and that dronacruelly denied him his destiny to be a great warrior for his own selfish reasons.
However there are two more incidents about drona that need to be compared with the above incident befour we call drona selfish
1.   The most powerful weapon that drone had was brahmashira which he gave to arjuna buthis own son ashwatthama who was also a Brahman by caste he gave only a partial knowledge of it . so that aswathama can use it as a defense but not offense. Why ? because he noticed that his son whom he loved so dearly was impulsive and short tempered and therefore not worthy it fully.

2.   Drone accepted drishtadyumn as his student and trained him well knowing fully that dhristadyumn was born to kill him.

Can we call such a man selfish. Would a selfish man deny his knowledge to his own son on the ground of merit. Would a selfish man personally train a person to kill himself
So  why did drona do what he did.
It’s about right and responsibilities.

Responsibilies

As a teacher appointed for kshatriya princes by hastinapur he was bound by rules of hastinapur society to accept only the peinces allowed by them. Drone was not running his personal gurukul. He was fulfilling  the responsibility of an employee.
Just like today a woman’s no means a no. at that time a
Teacher’s no meant a no. drona rfused to accept him as a teacher. But there were other gurus to whom he could have gone instead he chose to practice by making a statue of  drone as his guru and not only that when asked by pandava and kaurava princes he declares himself as student of drone proudly
If groan did not punish eklavya’s transgression than blam would be on drone that hetaught eklavya indirectly against the prevalent rules, when he had actually notdone such a thing.

Rights

A teacher had the right to ask for any gurudakshina he desired. Krishna’s guru sandipani asked him to bring back his long lost son. Drone himself asked kaurava and pandava princes to wage a war against drupd with whom they had no personal enmity. Against a very well known warrior and formidable army their first battle. The princes could have died in the war, not everyone was a great warrior in the 105 princes. But they all went and risked their lives.  So he had every right to aks eklavya for the thumb, but drone tells eklavya, “ if eklavya indeed considered him as a guru then he should give his thumb as afee” . he was giving an option to eklavya,that if he wants he can still say that drone is not his guru and keep thumb.
It is a credit to eklavya that he chose to forego his thumb. But he tried to force drone to be his guru which he had no right to.

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