DANA VEERA SHURA KARNA  

Tuesday, August 5, 2008


'Forget your history and you are doomed to repeat it' goes a cautionary note. Here is a series that serves as a reminder to that history - the talent, the hardwork and the toil that went into the making of its greatness, reminding the reader all the time, to not dust up the glorious past under the convenient carpet of the present.

Dana Veera Sura Karna

Prescribed in the state's high school syllabus, more than a decade ago, during the successive grades - 8th and 9th, was a little lesson about the tale of a boy - Casabianca - during the Battle of Nile, in one of the many French-English wars. This boy, son of the Admiral of a naval vessel, one day happens to visit his father on the ship, docked in the harbor, when the English forces suddenly attack it, and set it on fire. The father startled by this sudden attack rushes to his control room, but not before ordering his son, playing on the deck to stay as is on the deck, until he returns. Here's the real magic - the lesson prescribed for the 8th standard extols the virtues of the boy who stands his ground, amidst the rising fires that engulf him, and refuses to move from his position, simply because his father said so, ultimately burning up in the flames. It praises the boy for his steadfastness, his courage and above all his virtue, obeying his father's word down to the literal, even if it meant sacrificing his life, while also mentioning aspects of devotion and belief.

Turn over the leaf and move to the 9th standard. This time the title of the lesson is "doosraa pehloo" (the second side). The lesson starts off posing a question of great incredulity - how can anyone with a sane mind, even if it is his father's command, take such an order so literally? Is it plain stupidity, or in this case shell-shocked muteness, when somebody just stands there and let himself go up in flames with no survival instinct to spur him? The essay goes on to dissect the situations that led up to the tragic death of the boy and goes on to conclude that the boy is plain stupid and his apathy, even in matters relating to his own life and death, is unpardonable. The two essays in successive standards are the first introduction to the young and impressionable minds, the art of circumspection - the ability to look at the same situation in multiple angles and be able to draw different conclusions from it.

Interpretation of popular mythology, that runs contrary to the popular opinion, is always a tabboo in any culture. A society that is founded upon certain principles, which in turn are shaped by the lores and legends of the land, finds it unacceptable to question its own foundations and its own philosophies. Nikos Kazantzakis' "The Last Temptation of Christ", Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" and many such try to question what have been long established as the ways of the land, in the process, earning great ire from the traditional and conservative quarters of the society. Coming to our own telugu literature, M.Ranganayakamma went ahead with her "rAmayaNa visha vRksham", as an obvious send up/counter to the wildly popular Viswanadha's seminal work "rAmAyaNa kalpa vRksham". The objective of going against the grain goes beyond generating a knee- jerk visceral reaction, much more than playing for a shock value. It is to look at the same set of events from a different perspective and announce to the world the findings. If Lord Rama, at the end of the exile period, asking Sita to take a chastitiy test and Sita proving her innocence in the trial by fire, can be taken as testament to Sita's strong sense of conviction and devotion, it could be equally interpreted as Rama's shocking lack of trust on his own wife. Taking the argument a step further, what if Sita posed the same question to Rama and asked him to prove his chastity? Under a different set of not so benign lights, different facets start to surface, each completely valid and each equally important. Though this kind of serious dissection of revered works is common in both print and celluloid media in the Western world, the same cannot be said about its Indian counterparts (in particular, telugu). Though movies like "Bhukailas" and "Sitarama Kalyanam" projected the anti-hero as the protagonist, they still couldn't be considered as the right fora to cast different lights on the greatest stories ever told. As the first and only one of its kind (among the ones that succeeded, at least), "dAna veera soora karNa" is "na bhootO, na bhavishyati"

The genius of NTR, as far as "karNa" is concerned, is neither his impeccable dialogue delivery, nor the subtle variations he displays in all the 3 characters he took on - Suyodhana, Karna, and Krishna, but his initial brainwave of making Suyodhana the focal point and viewing the rest of the story from entirely his point of view. In the lead up to "karNa", NTR briefly dabbled in projecting the other side of Suyodhana in "Sri Krishna Pandaveeyam", but reigned a lot back to make it more mainstream - traditional and conventional. In "karNa", he unleashes whatever he held back, in regard to the views, positions and choices, and drives the entire movie around Duryodhana. His choices (NTR's) neither sound pompous (aabhijaatyamu) nor come across egotistical (ahamkaaramu). His was a sincere attempt at understanding the machinations and the motivations of a beleagured crown prince who got the short end of the stick right from his start. In his quest to explore the character of Duryodhana even more, NTR summons the services of the brutally honest and maddeningly logical pen of 'konDaveeTi venkaTa kavi', whose strokes spared none, including the Almighty ("aala mandalatO, aalu mandalatO alasina kapaTa naaTaka sootradhaari"). Together, NTR and Venkata Kavi, chiselled to the core of Suyodhana's character and started viewing the famed mythology through his lens.

Consider the classic scene of "maaya joodam". Yudhishtira has just bet and lost everything, including his brothers and wife, as Suyodhana proudly gets up and orders the court-keeper to drag Draupadi into the court, when suddenly all the wise talking heads raise objections to his action. And Duryodhana starts "aalini Oligaa peTTinappuDainaa, aa maguvanu magaTimitO matsya yantramu koTTi tecchukunnaavaaDu naenu, draupadipai neekaemi adhikaaramu unnadai ani arjunuDainaa annanu aDigenaa? chaturvidha purushaardhamulalO saha dharmachaariNi ayina aalini dharmajuDu pandemugaa oDDuchunnappuDainaa meelO evaraina pedavi kadipiraa?..... naenu geluchuTa chaeta maayaa durOdaramu ayinadi, adae dharmujuDae gelachina, dharmamae gelichinadani meeru jaejaelu koTTi unDeDu vaaru kaaraa?..."

The inscrutable logic, that if Yudhisthira's actions of waging his wife in the game wasn't roundly criticized by the same talking heads in the first place, then what moral authority/right have they got to question the actions of her rightful owner, who had won her justly in the game of dice, turns the existing conventions and views about the legend upside down right over its head. Same goes during the "rAyabAram" sequence when Suyodhana questions if partnership issues are to resolved in a right way, in a way mandated by the inheritance rules prevailing at that time, then the kingdom should evenly be split among all the surviving members of the kuru dynasty - right from the patriarch Bhishma, down to the 100 kouravas + 5 panDavas. The uncompromising nature of logic is such that there is no clear cut winner, particularly when it comes to subjective assertions and morality standpoints. (NTR continued the same streak of questioning the long held reverential views of epics and personalities in "yamagOla", when, with the help of another sharp, satiric and sarcastic pen D.V.Narasa Raju, he goes on to goad age-old traditions that looked down upon widow marriage, adultery (particulary when committed by Gods), abortion and many such. Compare the scenario with another traditional view dealing with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Godse. Was Godse a traitor or a patriot? No easy answers, only troubling questions).

The courage of standing up to the status quo is what that defines and differentiates true artists from the rest. No amount of words can do enough justice to NTR's portrayal of the characters, particularly Suyodhana's, from chaste diction (of dialogues that run amuck over reams and reams of pure Sanskrit complex, compound, convoluted concoctions), down to the proud demeanor (even in the dying amounts). Comparitively, the rest of the characters have little to say or do, as NTR single-handedly shepherds the entire movie carefully to its conclusion. Sharing the credit with NTR and Venkata Kavi, is the inimitable pen of C.Narayana Reddy who took up the unenviable job of penning a even duet for Duryodhana ("raacharika jittulatO, raNa tantrapu yattulatO sada madamou maa madilO madanuDu sandhi saeyuTa chitram, bhaLaarae vichitram"), besides rich pure Sansrit lyrics ("dhanya gAndhari garbha Sukhti mukhtaa phalaa, maanya dRtarAsTra timira taejah phalaa").

Movies like "dAna veera soora karNa" are certainly important to the culture for encouraging and energizing a debate that would certainly strengthen the foundations of the same. There is a famous quote that goes along the lines of "Many people saw the apple fall, but only Newton questioned why". Though the impact of art cannot be as earth shattering, it certainly is necessary to raise troublesome questions than hide behind convenient answers.
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