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Of wily women scholars, imprisoned women warriors, and one idiot on a tree branch.
Just finished reading India Authentic's thirteenth issue, "Saraswati." It wasn't so much about Saraswati as it was about Kalidasa, the legendary poet and playwright about whom little biographical information is known, but plenty of folk stories abound.
And, inevitably, I found myself comparing and contrasting IA's take on Kalidasa's life with that told in the Amar Chitra Katha comic book, "Kalidasa."
LOL yes, my copy is old.
First, the AKC issue, written by Yagya Sharma and illustrated by Dilip Kadam:
Vararuchi goes on his way, until he encounters a simple and foolish cowherd. This cowherd's devotions to the goddess Kali have earned him the nickname "Kalidasa."
Kalidasa begs Vararuchi to tell his future. Jokingly, Vararuchi says, "In the future, you'll marry a princess." As soon as he says it, however, he gets an idea: he can use this simpleton to exact his revenge upon Vasanti. So he dresses Kalidasa up as a scholar, takes him to court, and introduces him to the king. Vararuchi says that Kalidasa will accept the Vasanti's challenge to a debate, but only on the condition that Kalidasa, like Vasanti, also not speak. Vasanti accepts. Hilarity ensues.
Kalidasa and Vasanti immediately marry, and Kalidasa takes Vasanti back to his rustic country home. Vasanti doesn't mind living in poverty, as long as she is married to someone with a brilliant mind. Unfortunately, Kalidasa soon betrays himself: He can't speak Sanskrit, the language of the learned. Shamefully, Kalidasa confesses: he's not a scholar, just a cowherd.
Vasanti is furious when she realizes that Vararuchi arranged her farce of a marriage solely to humiliate her. She angrily yells at Kalidasa, "Go away! Only a great scholar can be a fit husband for me - and you are only a country bumpkin!"
Kalidasa leaves, but Vasanti immediately regrets her cruel words. Why was I so harsh? she thought-bubbles. I did not expect him to take my word...
Kalidasa, determined to become worthy of Vasanti, goes to the temple of Kali to pray. He starves and meditates himself for many days, until Kali finally appears before him, and makes him into a "genius."
Kalidasa returns to Vasanti, who is overjoyed to see him again:
Afterward, Kalidasa leads the life of a wanderer, traveling from court to court, composing clever poems and writing some of the greatest plays ever written. At this point, the comic launches into several short anecdotes about Kalidasa using his genius wit to impress kings and survive the treacherous wiles of rival court poets. I'm going to skip all of that in this post, although it is shamefully good stuff. Most of the material has to do with Kalidasa's relationship with his friend and patron, King Bhoja. But for the purposes of this post, we're going to skip to the end of the story, when Vasanti's curse is fulfilled.
Kalidasa and King Bhoja are great friends, but they have a quarrel. Wanting some time to cool his head before an attempt at reconcilliation, Kalidasa heads to the kingdom of Lanka. He decides not to appear in the court of King Kumaradasa, however, since he fears that Kumaradasa will immediately inform Bhoja of his wereabouts. (I know, it sounds silly, but I think we've all been in a situation were you just want to avoid somebody for a little while, amirite?) Anyway, Kalidasa ends up staying at the house of a beautiful dancer instead.
Eventually, King Kumaradasa, being a great patron of the arts and literature, issues a challenge to all of his kingdom: a lakh of gold coins will be rewarded to anyone who can complete a particularly difficult unfinished poem.
The dancer informs her houseguest of the challenge.
The dancer reads "her" completed verse at court, but Kumaradasa is immediately suspicious, since the style seems so much like Kalidasa's work. He asks the dancer if she truly wrote the verse herself, and she answers, "Yes," but her nervous manner only confirms the king's suspicions. He continues to grill her until...
THE END.
Next, the India Authentic version! Get ready, kids, because this is going to be equally as cheerful as the AKC version. (*cough*)
In this version, it's Saraswati, not Kali, who grants Kalidas with his wisdom. The comic begins with Saraswati musing on the nature of wisdom, how it always begins with mere "potential."
"I see your thoughts as clear as the waters of a mountain spring," Saraswati says, "I see a soul without a hint of malice. I, Saraswati, grant you the boon you seek." Then Saraswati grants Kalidas wisdom, and he beholds her in a form of his mind's choosing. Unfortunately, Saraswati is displeased with the form that Kalidas sees her taking.
After receiving his blessing and his curse, Kalidas returns home to his village. One of the villagers attempts to mock him, but Kalidas immediately puts the bully in his place with one single devastatingly witty retort. (Man, haven't we all had a fantasy of being able to do the exact same thing?)
Anyway, Kalidas leaves his village, and becomes a great poet and playwright. He travels from court to court, impressing every king that he meets. The kings lavish wealth upon Kalidas, but he remains humble, taking only a tiny amount of money to subsist on, and insisting on giving the rest to charity. Kalidas not only remains poor during his wanderings, but he also remains alone: keeping Saraswati's curse in mind, he carefully avoids any ties of friendship or romance.
Eventually Kalidas ends up at a southern kingdom. While speaking to the king, Kalidas spies a beautiful woman on an overlooking balcony. He immediately falls head-over-heels in love with her.
Kalidas asks a palace servant about the identity of the woman. The servant quickly admonishes Kalidas, "Please remove such thoughts from your mind! The Lady Adhaara, the beauty you speak of, is the king's concubine. He won her in conquest of the northern lands. It is a crime punishable by death for a commoner to gaze upon the king's consorts."
Upon hearing this, Kalidas is ready to give up. However, Lady Adhaara sends him a discrete letter, inviting him to meet her in the palace gardens. Kalidas eagerly joins her in a series of secret dalliances.
Kalidas joyfully accepts her proposal. "Till this day I had not a thing in the world to call my own," he says, "but with you by my side, I feel that I am the richest man in all creation."
This, unfortunately, is Adhaara's cue to go, "Wait, what did you say? The kings you visit lavish you with gifts. How can you say you are without possessions?"
Kalidas explains his simple-minded view of the world, and why he gives away all of his wealth. Hearing this, Adhaara realizes that they could never be together: She, in the words of Saraswati's narration, "had a measure of cunning and a world-wise sense of survival that Kalidas the romantic could never fathom." Adhaara realizes that although she is a practical woman, Kalidas still has his head stuck in the clouds. It is this - not so much the fact that Kalidasa is poor, but the fact that he is incompatibably foolish - that causes Adhaara to break up with Kalidasa on the spot. She rejects him: "Go away, bard, and take your pipedreams with you."
Kalidas is heartbroken. But, even worse, neither Kalidas nor Adhaara realize that one of the king's soldiers has been spying on them.
So, basically, this ends the way that you would expect it to end. Adhaara offers to prove to the king that Kalidas is smitten with her. She sends him another letter, asking him to meet her in the garden again. Kalidas rushes eagerly to meet her, ignoring the warning that Saraswati places in his path. When he sees Adhaara, Kalidas promptly falls to his knees and confesses his love for her, not realized that the king and his soldiers, hidden around the garden, are watching him.
Eventually, when the king has seen enough, he makes his entrance, and wastes no time in killing the Kalidas (thus sparing Adhaara's life). Kalidas ends his life with a sword sticking out if his chest and an epiphany on his lips: "I see it now, Goddess. I comprehend. What you tried to show me that day." He dies seeing a vision of the truth not as a beautiful woman, but as a single feather from a swan's wing. The End.
So! Those are two comic-book versions of the life of Kalidasa. For films, I would recommend Kavirathna Kalidas, a Kannada film that's similar to the Amar Chitra Katha story, although it ends with Kalidasa and his wife happily reconciling. So far that film is basically the only version of "the life of Kalidasa" that I know of that doesn't end in horrible, horrible tragedy.
Anyway, I thought that both of these stories were interesting, mostly in terms of their treatment of the women characters: Despite the fact that a recurring theme seems to be "icky treacherous women," only the unnamed dancer in the AKC version really truly comes across as villainous. Adhaara, in the IA comic, could have easily been portrayed as just another cookie-cutter greedy bitch; but in the hands of Saurav Mohapatra (who is a freakin' fantastic writer of women characters), she's a much more complex and sympathetic figure. Her reasons for seducing Kalidas are as complex as her reasons for deciding to spurn him - and, to Mohapatra's credit, her decision to dump Kalidas is motivated by much more than simple greed. It's also hard to fault her for "selling out" Kalidas at the end. Either both she and Kalidas would have been killed, or she could have offered him as a sacrifice to save herself. Yes, Adhaara is the Bad Guy in this story, but not really, not when you think about. Again, mostly, I think this is because it's just plain hard to fault her for the decisions that she makes.
Oh yeah, and Vasanti, from the AKC comic, is just awesome. Yes there's a squicky element of "LOL bitch got put in her place!" to her story, although it's not hard to approach the story without that reading, either. Mmmm, maybe that's why I like the film Kavirathna Kalidas better than the AKC comic, because in the movie, Vidyadhare (the scholar princess) is the one who really ends up on top, so to speak. In the end, she's happily married to the most brilliant man in the world. So she ends up getting exactly what she wanted. Go her!
And, inevitably, I found myself comparing and contrasting IA's take on Kalidasa's life with that told in the Amar Chitra Katha comic book, "Kalidasa."
LOL yes, my copy is old.
First, the AKC issue, written by Yagya Sharma and illustrated by Dilip Kadam:
Vararuchi goes on his way, until he encounters a simple and foolish cowherd. This cowherd's devotions to the goddess Kali have earned him the nickname "Kalidasa."
Kalidasa begs Vararuchi to tell his future. Jokingly, Vararuchi says, "In the future, you'll marry a princess." As soon as he says it, however, he gets an idea: he can use this simpleton to exact his revenge upon Vasanti. So he dresses Kalidasa up as a scholar, takes him to court, and introduces him to the king. Vararuchi says that Kalidasa will accept the Vasanti's challenge to a debate, but only on the condition that Kalidasa, like Vasanti, also not speak. Vasanti accepts. Hilarity ensues.
Kalidasa and Vasanti immediately marry, and Kalidasa takes Vasanti back to his rustic country home. Vasanti doesn't mind living in poverty, as long as she is married to someone with a brilliant mind. Unfortunately, Kalidasa soon betrays himself: He can't speak Sanskrit, the language of the learned. Shamefully, Kalidasa confesses: he's not a scholar, just a cowherd.
Vasanti is furious when she realizes that Vararuchi arranged her farce of a marriage solely to humiliate her. She angrily yells at Kalidasa, "Go away! Only a great scholar can be a fit husband for me - and you are only a country bumpkin!"
Kalidasa leaves, but Vasanti immediately regrets her cruel words. Why was I so harsh? she thought-bubbles. I did not expect him to take my word...
Kalidasa, determined to become worthy of Vasanti, goes to the temple of Kali to pray. He starves and meditates himself for many days, until Kali finally appears before him, and makes him into a "genius."
Kalidasa returns to Vasanti, who is overjoyed to see him again:
Afterward, Kalidasa leads the life of a wanderer, traveling from court to court, composing clever poems and writing some of the greatest plays ever written. At this point, the comic launches into several short anecdotes about Kalidasa using his genius wit to impress kings and survive the treacherous wiles of rival court poets. I'm going to skip all of that in this post, although it is shamefully good stuff. Most of the material has to do with Kalidasa's relationship with his friend and patron, King Bhoja. But for the purposes of this post, we're going to skip to the end of the story, when Vasanti's curse is fulfilled.
Kalidasa and King Bhoja are great friends, but they have a quarrel. Wanting some time to cool his head before an attempt at reconcilliation, Kalidasa heads to the kingdom of Lanka. He decides not to appear in the court of King Kumaradasa, however, since he fears that Kumaradasa will immediately inform Bhoja of his wereabouts. (I know, it sounds silly, but I think we've all been in a situation were you just want to avoid somebody for a little while, amirite?) Anyway, Kalidasa ends up staying at the house of a beautiful dancer instead.
Eventually, King Kumaradasa, being a great patron of the arts and literature, issues a challenge to all of his kingdom: a lakh of gold coins will be rewarded to anyone who can complete a particularly difficult unfinished poem.
The dancer informs her houseguest of the challenge.
The dancer reads "her" completed verse at court, but Kumaradasa is immediately suspicious, since the style seems so much like Kalidasa's work. He asks the dancer if she truly wrote the verse herself, and she answers, "Yes," but her nervous manner only confirms the king's suspicions. He continues to grill her until...
THE END.
Next, the India Authentic version! Get ready, kids, because this is going to be equally as cheerful as the AKC version. (*cough*)
In this version, it's Saraswati, not Kali, who grants Kalidas with his wisdom. The comic begins with Saraswati musing on the nature of wisdom, how it always begins with mere "potential."
"I see your thoughts as clear as the waters of a mountain spring," Saraswati says, "I see a soul without a hint of malice. I, Saraswati, grant you the boon you seek." Then Saraswati grants Kalidas wisdom, and he beholds her in a form of his mind's choosing. Unfortunately, Saraswati is displeased with the form that Kalidas sees her taking.
After receiving his blessing and his curse, Kalidas returns home to his village. One of the villagers attempts to mock him, but Kalidas immediately puts the bully in his place with one single devastatingly witty retort. (Man, haven't we all had a fantasy of being able to do the exact same thing?)
Anyway, Kalidas leaves his village, and becomes a great poet and playwright. He travels from court to court, impressing every king that he meets. The kings lavish wealth upon Kalidas, but he remains humble, taking only a tiny amount of money to subsist on, and insisting on giving the rest to charity. Kalidas not only remains poor during his wanderings, but he also remains alone: keeping Saraswati's curse in mind, he carefully avoids any ties of friendship or romance.
Eventually Kalidas ends up at a southern kingdom. While speaking to the king, Kalidas spies a beautiful woman on an overlooking balcony. He immediately falls head-over-heels in love with her.
Kalidas asks a palace servant about the identity of the woman. The servant quickly admonishes Kalidas, "Please remove such thoughts from your mind! The Lady Adhaara, the beauty you speak of, is the king's concubine. He won her in conquest of the northern lands. It is a crime punishable by death for a commoner to gaze upon the king's consorts."
Upon hearing this, Kalidas is ready to give up. However, Lady Adhaara sends him a discrete letter, inviting him to meet her in the palace gardens. Kalidas eagerly joins her in a series of secret dalliances.
Kalidas joyfully accepts her proposal. "Till this day I had not a thing in the world to call my own," he says, "but with you by my side, I feel that I am the richest man in all creation."
This, unfortunately, is Adhaara's cue to go, "Wait, what did you say? The kings you visit lavish you with gifts. How can you say you are without possessions?"
Kalidas explains his simple-minded view of the world, and why he gives away all of his wealth. Hearing this, Adhaara realizes that they could never be together: She, in the words of Saraswati's narration, "had a measure of cunning and a world-wise sense of survival that Kalidas the romantic could never fathom." Adhaara realizes that although she is a practical woman, Kalidas still has his head stuck in the clouds. It is this - not so much the fact that Kalidasa is poor, but the fact that he is incompatibably foolish - that causes Adhaara to break up with Kalidasa on the spot. She rejects him: "Go away, bard, and take your pipedreams with you."
Kalidas is heartbroken. But, even worse, neither Kalidas nor Adhaara realize that one of the king's soldiers has been spying on them.
So, basically, this ends the way that you would expect it to end. Adhaara offers to prove to the king that Kalidas is smitten with her. She sends him another letter, asking him to meet her in the garden again. Kalidas rushes eagerly to meet her, ignoring the warning that Saraswati places in his path. When he sees Adhaara, Kalidas promptly falls to his knees and confesses his love for her, not realized that the king and his soldiers, hidden around the garden, are watching him.
Eventually, when the king has seen enough, he makes his entrance, and wastes no time in killing the Kalidas (thus sparing Adhaara's life). Kalidas ends his life with a sword sticking out if his chest and an epiphany on his lips: "I see it now, Goddess. I comprehend. What you tried to show me that day." He dies seeing a vision of the truth not as a beautiful woman, but as a single feather from a swan's wing. The End.
So! Those are two comic-book versions of the life of Kalidasa. For films, I would recommend Kavirathna Kalidas, a Kannada film that's similar to the Amar Chitra Katha story, although it ends with Kalidasa and his wife happily reconciling. So far that film is basically the only version of "the life of Kalidasa" that I know of that doesn't end in horrible, horrible tragedy.
Anyway, I thought that both of these stories were interesting, mostly in terms of their treatment of the women characters: Despite the fact that a recurring theme seems to be "icky treacherous women," only the unnamed dancer in the AKC version really truly comes across as villainous. Adhaara, in the IA comic, could have easily been portrayed as just another cookie-cutter greedy bitch; but in the hands of Saurav Mohapatra (who is a freakin' fantastic writer of women characters), she's a much more complex and sympathetic figure. Her reasons for seducing Kalidas are as complex as her reasons for deciding to spurn him - and, to Mohapatra's credit, her decision to dump Kalidas is motivated by much more than simple greed. It's also hard to fault her for "selling out" Kalidas at the end. Either both she and Kalidas would have been killed, or she could have offered him as a sacrifice to save herself. Yes, Adhaara is the Bad Guy in this story, but not really, not when you think about. Again, mostly, I think this is because it's just plain hard to fault her for the decisions that she makes.
Oh yeah, and Vasanti, from the AKC comic, is just awesome. Yes there's a squicky element of "LOL bitch got put in her place!" to her story, although it's not hard to approach the story without that reading, either. Mmmm, maybe that's why I like the film Kavirathna Kalidas better than the AKC comic, because in the movie, Vidyadhare (the scholar princess) is the one who really ends up on top, so to speak. In the end, she's happily married to the most brilliant man in the world. So she ends up getting exactly what she wanted. Go her!
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But... but... what's wrong with my pipe dreams. ;_;
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I mean, how could you possibly ignore a great swan glowering at you, when you're secretly meeting the king's favorite concubine in the middle of the night? Then again, Kalidasa being naive is kind of the point of the whole story, I guess.
Btw, have you read any of the Kalki comics yet?
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Thanks^^
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Yeah, I can't really blame Kalidas for ignoring the swan glowering at him. Swans glower at everybody. They HATE humans. Have you ever had a close encounter with a swan before? I have, and I have stories. Those birds are nasty, just mean old buggers.
ha, finally someone gets it :)
-- Saurav Mohapatra
(mohaps AT gmail DOT com)
(http://mohaps.com)