naga mandala

Naga-mandala is an excellent play by Girish Karnad. It revolves around a young girl, Rani who is newly wedded to Appanna. Appana treats her with aggression and contempt and also distrusts her. He visits concubine much often. It is then when an old lady, Karudava, gives Rani a portion, which according to her, will make Appana fall in love with her. Rani, at the last moment, changes her mind and spills the portion on an ant hill which deep down is a dwelling place of a King Cobra, a Naga.

The Naga falls in love with Rani, enters her room through the bathroom and reaches Rani, taking the appearance of Appanna. Their relationship becomes fruitful and results in getting Rani pregnant. Once Appanna finds her pregnancy news, he takes her for public trial where she is to perform the Snake Ordeal. This whole incident creates a turmoil in Rani’s life where she is left alone to fight the crisis.

The story has four part narration which is one of a kind. This kind of narration has three other stories, one inside the each previous one. In the first level, the frame story has an author who is given a deadline to produce an interesting story or else would be condemned to death. He goes out in search of the story where he comes across a village and takes shelter for the night. He later finds small flames coming out of different houses and gather in a temple on the outskirts of the village.

The second level has flames personified as women who gather outside the village every night and gossip. The third level has a flame who wants to be forgiven because of arriving late. The old woman says she knows a story but refuses to narrate it to other fellow flames. One fine night, she sleeps with her mouth open and that’s how the flame escape and tells us the story of Appanna and Rani. The fourth level has Rani as the narrator of her own story.

Karnad transforms two folktale into one. He adds various themes like superstition, fantasy, instincts, myth and magic etc. to connect the story with a much larger audience. He personifies Naga as a symbol of Shiva and Shakti. Throughout the play, the author tries to unify the three worlds. He tries to talk about a specific hindu tradition where the intersection of two triangles, one pointing upward and the other downward shows the union of male and female also known as the union of Shiva and Shakti. There’s also a third triangle which lies inside the other two which represents the end of the play.

The play mainly depicts man and woman who has to undergo several levels of doubt, uncertainty and failure before they become mature enough and live as husband and wife. Presented through a woman’s point of view, the play shows her need, struggles and problems within a patriarchal society.

The story covers multi layered issue, much common in Indian society. On one hand, it shows about male’s difficulty to trust and love woman and on the other, talks about the difficulties in socialising process of both man and woman after marriage.

Some of his famous works are

•Hayavadana

•Yayati

•Tughalak

•Agni mathu Male

•Anjumallige

•Wedding Album

• Tale Danda