Layout 3 - India Foundation for the Arts - IFA

102
ArtConnect: The IFA Magazine, Volume 6, Number 1
Ravana smiled. ‘The body is a prison.
The body is a means of freedom,’ he
said. ‘Look,’ he said, showing her his
rudravinai. ‘A musical instrument that
was created by imagining what
wonderful music would sound if
Parvati’s breasts, as she lay on her
back, turned into gourds, and their
nipples were attached by strings. It is
an extension of Devi’s body. You lifted
Shiva’s bow with one hand. You
should be able to conquer this
instrument easily. Will you try?’
‘Will you teach me?’
‘I did battle for you once, and lost.
Would I deny you music? I will be
your guru and give you lessons every
day. Let the music break out of the
vinai and flow everywhere in the
forest. Don’t think of it as an ordinary
musical instrument. Think of it as
your life, and play on it. Here.’
He lifted the rudravinai from his lap
and stretched it out towards her.
‘Leave it there on the ground,’ said
Sita.
‘Why?’
‘It is my life, isn’t it? A life that
many hands have tossed about, like
a ball. Now let me take hold of it;
take it into my hands.’ So saying,
Sita lifted the rudravinai and laid it
on her lap. 2
Kamban’s text itself is a retelling of
Valmiki’s text. But the final part of
banishment of Sita, the Uttara-kanda,
Kamban cannot bring himself to
write. Uttara-kanda raises so many
questions about Rama the man and
the epic itself that many believe that it
was not written by Valmiki and that it
is a later addition by another author.
Many houses do not even keep the last
volume Uttara-kanda.
The wonderful thing about a text is
that it assumes different meanings at
different stages of one’s life. Time ages
a text differently. It develops layers.
Layers keep getting added to a text in
every reading. As one ages the text
gets transformed with new meanings.
At some point, the body becomes a
text and the text begins to resemble
one’s body. Like language one feels
that the body too has layers. One
suddenly asks oneself: Is this my body
that has so many layers or is it the
text? The body and the text become
one, open to new meanings and new
definitions and new readings and rereadings.