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Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature , Jan. 27-28, 2012, Nanded met with vulgar whistles and shrieks if excitement from the front-block viewers. Moving back from this transgression to the serious literary business, let us take into account the nature of the texts in ancient Indian literature. Ancient Indian texts like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and even some of the later epics were never restricted to their written form. Interpolations and variations were not frowned at as the transmission of the texts was in the oral form. Thus they are aptly called as the mobile texts. A further extension of their mobility is underlined by the fact that their movement (I do not say the translation deliberately) into other Indian languages from Sanskrit is marked by genuine alterations and deviations in response to the literary traditions of those languages and influence of their surroundings. The Ramayana by Valmiki in Sanskrit, by Kamban in Tamil, by Tulsidas in Avadhi and by Eknath in Marathi are different varied forms of one text which is formed in the public psyche as The Ramayana. A common man would not believe you if you tell him that the famous Lakshmanresha, a circle drawn by Lakshman around their hut to protect Seeta from any possible danger warning her not to cross it under any circumstances, is not a part of the Sanskrit Valmiki Ramayana, or the extremely popular confronting dialogue between Lakshman and Parashuram is an invention of Ramleela troupes and not part of any written text, or the portrayal of Ram as an incarnation of the Almighty presented by Tulsidas is totally different from his portrayal as an ideal human being presented by Valmiki. This is exactly what is meant by “playful recreation of different meanings” as expressed by Roland Barthes. So the concept of mobile text in ancient Indian literature is quite helpful in understanding the concept of text as sites where the playful creation of meaning. Even when we come to the texts in modern times we find some useful illustrations to facilitate the understanding of the concept. Those familiar with Marathi poetry know how different critics have presented different interpretations of poems like Oudumbar by Balkavi, Chafa by Bee and Navavadhu Priya Mi Bavarate by Tambe. After initial debate over which interpretation is the correct one, finally it was agreed that all of them are simultaneously acceptable leaving place for further different interpretations, if any. Barthes developed this idea further in his book The Pleasure of the Text (1973/1975) and finally pronounced in Death of the Author (1977) that a perception of the text cannot be tied to the author, or a real person or his or her intention. This point can well be understood by taking into consideration appreciation of the sculptures of the copulating couples at Khajuraho. There have been different theories about the intension of the sculptors in sculpting such erotic figures in the vicinity of temples, but none of these match with the perception of the viewers while appreciating the artistic beauty of these sculptures. Coming back to the literary scenario, take the case of the historical novel Swami by Ranjit Desai. Rightly without taking into consideration his intentions, critics have interpreted and criticized the presentation of history, the characterization of the protagonist and the end of the novel glorifying the eradicated custom of Sati. Death of the God was proclaimed by Nietzsche. Now Roland Barthes proclaimed the death of the author. He pioneered the post-structural viewpoint that there is no possibility of the personality of the author being reflected in the text and also there is no need to investigate the intension of the author in order to decipher the meaning of the text. For, text is not at all a material object created by a person called the author. Text is created from the process of writing and the reader has the right to decipher the text. (Does this argument remind us of the reception theory in Comparative Literature? The readers’ response to literary creation is held there with equal importance and seriousness.) Let me cite an interesting episode from my childhood here. When I was studying in my S.S.C. class, we had the poem Datapasun Datakade by Vinda Karandikar in our textbook of Marathi. P.G.Sahasrabuddhe, a very reputed Marathi critic, used to write a ‘guide’ for the S.S.C. Marathi text, without any feeling of guilt or shame as his ‘guide’ was meant not for below average students to mug up the answers of probable questions, but for scholars to mould their talents effectively. Before discussing the poem, Sahasrabuddhe gave a note saying, “We give below the meaning of the poem as we 78 PLTL-2012: ISBN 978-81-920120-0-1
Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature , Jan. 27-28, 2012, Nanded decipher it. We had sent this interpretation to the poet for his perusal, but in his reply he ridiculed us saying that this was not his intention at all while writing the poem and the poem is beyond our comprehension. However, despite this ridicule from the poet, we firmly believe that the meaning of the poem is as we are giving below.” Such bold rejection of the intention of the poet and firm insistence of the right of the reader to decipher the meaning of the poem came in 1957, well before Roland Barthes’ proclamation in 1977! Barthes explained that the process of the construction of the meaning takes place in the reader, or in the readership. The author has nothing to do with it. He has done his job. He has written a text and presented what he wanted to present. Now he has to move away and allow the reader to negotiate with the write-up, decipher his meaning and create his text. He has to die so that the reader could be born. The death of the author is the birth of the reader and consequently the birth of the process of creating a text. As many texts of the same write-op are possible as many are the readers. This is the reason why there are different readings of a text leading to different types of analysis and different evaluations of the same text. For example, the feminist reading of V.S.Khandekar’s novels or even Vijay Tendulkar’s plays can bring out quite different evaluation of them than the traditional one and the cultural criticism of translations of Shakespeare’s plays in Marathi can bring out totally different picture that what we used to project. The notion of the ambiguity of the author and the non-rigid nature of the text is known to Indian literature since the ancient time. Who was Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata? Modern research claims that Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata might not be a single person, but a tradition of disciples of the same clan. Even the text was not the same in the beginning as it appears today. Initially it was a small composition entitled Jaya, then it expanded to become the Bharata and finally it took the shape of the Mahabharata. As regards different readings of a single text, Shreemadbhagawadgeeta is a glaring example. Different commentators have interpreted its text differently. Shankaracharya found Sanyasa as its core-message, Dnyaneshwar emphasized on Bhakti and Tilak interpreted the same text as giving the message of karmayoga. Having said all this and having understood the notions in the light of Indian literature, it would not be impertinent to raise a question, which should be lingering in our mind by now. Things like insignificance of the author while deciphering the meaning of the text and the right of the reader to decipher the meaning are all right, but what about enriching the sensitivities of the reader by taking into consideration the personality of the author? It may add new dimensions and extra layers of perception to his understanding. Take the example of Savarkar’s poem Sagara, Prana Talamalala. Savarkar composed this poem on the beach of Brighton when the clouds of the possibility of him being arrested in England were hovering over his mind and his heart was paining with the fear of losing the sight of his motherland forever. If a reader approaches this poem with full knowledge of Savarkar’s personality, his unprecedented sacrifice for the nation and the condition of his mind when he composed the poem, his deciphering the meaning is bound to be enriched. Ganesh Choudhari was an over-sensitive schizophrenic man in Jalgao. He killed his wife and children in a fit of rage brutally with an ace. Later, in the prison, as part of his mental treatment he was advised to express his feelings in words. He wrote poems and the poems were o such a caliber that the collection of those poems bagged the literary award of the Government of Maharashtra. The anguish of his repenting broken heart is intensely expressed in those poems. Now, if a reader deciphers the meaning of these poems with the knowledge of the poet’s personality, his deciphering is bound to be enriched. Exactly the same tune is found in the arguments of Michel Foucault (1926-1984), another flag-bearer of.post-structuralism. He contradicted Barthes’ concept of total elimination of author and argued that, if writing is considered as a cultural and historical process, then authorship is an essential and inevitable 79 PLTL-2012: ISBN 978-81-920120-0-1
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