Embedded Politics in Abhi Subedi’s ‘Bruised Evenings’

Mahesh Paudyal

Tony Morrison said it perfectly well when she said, anything written is political. ‘The work must be political’ claimed she in her epoch-making critical work Black Women Writers. Literature across the world reveals this, including the most unexpected territories like those of fairy tales and songs. Abhi Subedi’s plays collected in Bruised Evenings (2011) are no exception. Apparently veiled in stage aesthetics, the plays have deep-seated political connotations, and bear sharp commentaries against the culture of political delinquencies, particularly the tendency of the rulers to nullify every possible avenue of revolt from the people.

Bruised Evenings collects two plays: ‘Bruised Evenings’ and ‘Journey with the Body of Time.’ The former is divided into six scenes, while the latter is a monologue to be played a single artist. Both the plays are based on historical and mythical themes and borrow heavily from scriptures that deal with creation myths. This review attempts to make a cultural-political interpretation of both the plays, though they apparently pertain to the genre of methopoetic tradition.

‘Bruised Evenings’ with dialogues in verses and descriptions in prose is based in Bhaktapur around Durbar Square. The very exposition brings in Elder, a seer reminding one of the blind Tiresias in Greek Plays, who knows in advance almost everything that happened in the past, and is likely to happen in the future. The difference with Elder is that, he is one from among the commoner, and the uncanny is established by an alienation effect which the playwright has wrought quite very successfully. Elder is also like modern political analysts who made predication about political upheavals, and dooms likely to befall the nation. He particularly voices the concern of the ruling deities like Bhairav and Bhadrakali, who are apparently worried by the increased consciousness of the people and the boiling desire on their part to break away from the dictates of any authority– including gods– and set themselves free. The concern of Bhairav and Bhadrakali is quite understandable; it is a regal concerns any ruler or dictator feels when movement of the people on the street increases. Their concern is universal: “gods become cowards once they come close to the human beings.”

The very exposition of the play, with Bhairav and Bhadrakali discoursing on human behavior brings in the question of ‘human agency’. ‘Agency’ a theoretical term with its route in Nietzsche deals with nascent human desire to revolt against anything that challenges man’s free will. Agency may, in the beginning show itself in weaker manifestation of resistance such as silence, indifference or non-participation. With time, as it acquires the support of more men and energy, takes the form of revolt. The artists of Bhaktapur who sculpt the images of gods and goddesses according to their need and consciousness is an explicit expression of human agency, talking the free will to decide into their own hands from those of the gods.

The apparent dissatisfaction of the people against their deities is engendered by the divine curse upon Mayaju, a princess in Bhaktapur. Mayaju is an unmarried maid, whose betrothed ones die as soon as they pass a night with her. Snakes snarl out of her nostrils and devour her groom. Her evenings are therefore ‘bruised’.  Because the king does not want her daughter to be a widow even for a second, many grooms die at her bower. It is either god casting his curse, or the king exhibiting his arrogance that brings doom to the laity. Interestingly, it is both the power centers that bring harm to the people.  The king’s justificatory discourse is that one who dies for the princess and for the state becomes a ‘martyr’. This explanation is that he doesn’t kill the youth; they rather come to ‘sacrifice’ themselves in the game of history. “They are making great sacrifices for the sake of the nation,” he claims.

Mayaju, the doomed woman, is critical of her own father, and by the same token, with power-centers. She voices her dissent quite overtly, and claims that she would no longer want to remain a character in the story the powerful ones, especially the males in power, create. She decides to go the people’s court, and their decision would determine what course of action her marriage-tragedy would take in the days to come. An unnamed traveler comes, by people encourage him to marry Mayaju and destroy the demonic serpents. A shopkeeper gives him a sword and a book that details out everything in this connection. Interestingly, the sword and the book, representing military and intellectual power, have come both from the hands of the common people. The traveler goes with no daunt, and in the night where ‘love and myth meet in one place’ he strikes the snakes to death, and delivers the princess form her curse for all time.

Jatras, the festive celebration next morning commemorate the valiance of the young man, and have nothing to cheer about gods and goddess. Culture moves from the domain of deities, and come down-to-earth to real people. Power of the mortal is asserted, and victory of the human agency hailed. From apparently mythological setting, power of the people is exhibited on the stage, and deities are forced to accept their defeat.

Deeply philosophical play with political connotation, ‘Bruished Evenings’ is a revised culture; something that pertains to the domain of what Raymond Williams would call ‘emergent culture’ drifting away from the wrong, dominant one.

The mono play “Journey with the body of times” is an experimental writing, whose message is more important than action or setting. It tells the story of creation, and all the primeval forces coming into life to keep the creation going. It then chronicles the movement of cosmic times, from an apparent zero to an existence, through epochs and eons. Apparently like the Tandav dance of Rudra, the verses tell about the timelessness of time itself. Here, like in ‘Bruised Evenings’, Subedi draws allusions from many mythological sources like Mahabharata and Puranas. In verses, the play brings out one of the finest poetry ever written from the soil of Nepal in English language.

Bruised Evening (2011)

(A collection of two plays)

By Abhi Subedi

Publisher: Bhrikuti Academic Publications

[Paudyal is a faculty at the Central Department of English, TU]