Anantha Murthy's 'Samskara': A novel of complex structure and narrative technique

Author(s): INDUBALA PANDYA

Source: Indian Literature , May-June, 1987, Vol. 30, No. 3 (119) (May-June, 1987), pp.
135-146
Published by: Sahitya Akademi

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23337934

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 Writers and Their Works

Anantha Murthy's 'Samskara'

A novel of complex structure and narrative
technique

INDUBALA PANDYA

TN U.R. Anantha Murthy's Samskara1, the apparent simplicity

and brevity of the story are really deceptive, external charac
teristics of a novel structured with great complexity. The theme
has an intricate three-layered composition. The overall struc
ture is phasic with an extended exposition woven in and out of
the present action. The narrative mode is a composite of several
styles of presentation and shifting points of view, and even the
characterization-scheme dominated by a single character is, on
closer analysis, found to be complicated by the presence of a
multi-faceted protagonist.
The general theme of the novel is best phrased interro
gatively: 'Who is a real Brahmin?' This, however, is not easily
arrived at, it being the undercurrent of the whole philosophical
question of the work. Other questions, the text-specific concern
with the spiritual transformation of the protagonist, Pranesha
charya, and the more general preoccupation with the decay of
Brahminism, form the first and second levels respectively of the
novel's central issue. While the lines of development of the

1. Tr. from Kannada by A.K. Ramanujan. OUP, Delhi. 1978.

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 ÍNDIAN LITERATURE

three themes can be isolated, there will naturally be several

instances of multifunctioning and overlapping of episodes and
descriptive units. The second and third themes build themselves
up into the immense question-mark that constitutes the first
theme, and this question-mark eventually covers the whole novel.
Therefore, there can be no clearcut compartmentalization of
plot-units into thematically discreet segments, and consequently
any division of the body of the plot for the purposes of expla
nation of the themes will be, to some extent, arbitrary, justifia
ble only with reference to the requirements of critical analysis.
The novel opens with a direct view of the protagonist enact
ing a routine scene from his life of self-imposed sacrifice—
bathing and feeding his wife who is a born invalid. Though no
direct exposition begins with this incident or with the unexpect
ed incident of Chandri, Naranappa's concubine, reporting his
sudden death by plague, facts from Praneshacharya's past and
from the history of the Madhva community to which he belongs
are introduced skilfully with these episodes. It is the death of
Naranappa, the non-conformist Brahmin of this conservative
Durvasapura agrahara, that provokes the Brahmins to reflect on
his unorthodox life and so to a reflection on their own lives. In
particular, it leads to Praneshacharya considering in a new light
many incidents connected with the dead man.
This part of the exposition is very unobtrusively executed.
Controversial issues arising out of Naranappa's death—firstly,
Whose is the duty? and later, after Chandri gives away her gold
ornaments to meet the cost of the cremation, Whose is the right
to perform the funeral rites?—give the novelist the opportunity
to delve into the rigid, often irrational conventions of the com
munity, and more significantly into the pettiness of these men
who consider themselves superior to others. The facts that even
Praneshacharya, the crest-jewel of Vedic learning, cannot find an
answer to the question of Naranappa's funeral and that the dead
body rots away in the heat of the sun, watched over by eager
vultures, speak volumes about the obscurantism of these 'twice
born' men steeped in religious scholarship.

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 SÁMSKÁRA

With the problem of Naranappa's cremation left unresolved,

Anantha Murthy moves the plot on to its next crisis, which
turns out to be the highest climactic point in the protagonist's
story. As far as the structure of the novel is concerned, this is
both a powerful forward thrust in the development of the plot,
as well as the key which opens many areas of Praneshacharya's
spiritual life which had lain hidden even from himself. This
latter function of the episode makes it a useful instrument for
further exposition.
Praneshacharya's years of self-deprivation find sudden, un
expected release in a single sexual encounter with Chandri in a
banana-grove. The episode is, in many ways, a turning point in
his life. It is not merely an exciting new physical experience in
itself, but it opens up for him a whole new world to be aware
of, to be enjoyed. His dormant senses are activated and, with it,
he experiences an expansion of his imaginative delight in all
things bright and beautiful:

He looked about wonderingly. A night of undying stars, spread out

like a peacock's tail. . . Below were green grass smells, wet earth,
the wild vishnukranti with its skyblue flowers and the country
sarsaparilla, and the smell of a woman's body-sweat. Darkness, sky,
the tranquillity of standing trees. .. He gazed, he listened, till his
eyes were filled with the sights, his ears with the sounds all around
him, a formation of fireflies, (p. 67)

With this also begins Praneshacharya's relentless questioning of

himself—the real motives for all his great self-sacrifices, the
kind of man he really was, whether others, especially Nara
nappa, whom he had considered inferior to him in moral stature
and in learning, were not really his equal or even superior to
him. With these basic doubts we see Praneshacharya probing
into his past, unearthing his early experiences and reviewing
them in the new light now pouring all over him. The exposi
tional details now brought forward are extremely important for
our full understanding of the protagonist and his new dilemmas.
The memory of his deep disappointment over his friend Maha

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

bala, a brilliant Vedic scholar, giving up his sacred studies to

live with a common prostitute and the firm resolve Pranesha
cnarya made then to become a contrast to Mahabala, is a reve
lation in many ways as significant as Praneshacharya's later de
termination to win over Naranappa. As he confesses to himself:

Yes, that's the root of it. My disappointment with Mahabala re

mained with me unawares, I have seen Mahabala in Naranappa.
To make up for my defeat there, I tried to win a victory here over
Naranappa. But I was defeated, defeated—fell flat on my face.
Whatever it was I fought all along, I turned into it myself. . . The
form I'm getting now was being forged all along, obliquely, un
known to me. (pp. 100-101)

The encounter between Praneshacharya and Chandri is the most

important turning point in the plot-development of Samskara.
Praneshacharya's life can never be the same again because of the
simple fact that he can never be the same again, that he has to
escape from the bewildering Trishanku-state he now finds him
self in.
Praneshacharya's quest is now clear. He has to discover his
true self which had so long been hidden under layers of mis
directed attempts at self-glorification.
It is a measure of Anantha Murthy's virtuosity in charac
terization (we shall have further evidence of this later) that his
record of Praneshacharya's transformation has not been sullied
by the temptation to project the protagonist wallowing in maud
lin self-pity or even in self-accusation. The Acharya's final
decision to return to Durvasapura to reveal everything to his
community is characterized by the same unsentimental ap
proach:

When I tell them about myself, there should be no taint of repen

tance in me, no trace of any sorrow that I am a sinner. If not, I
cannot go beyond conflict and dualities, (p. 135)

The whole preface to Praneshacharya's transformation has been

carefully mapped out, and stretched over almost the whole
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 SAMSkAftA

novel. A clear picture of the protagonist, his motivations and

compulsions emerges gradually as the picture in a jig-saw puzzle,
the design complete and meaningful when the last piece is put
in its place.
The climactic point of the novel is located easily enough—in
Praneshacharya's impulsively yielding to his unexpectedly
sudden lust for Chandri. The past and the future are arranged
on either side of this incident so neatly that it is raised into one
of the most well-moulded climactic points in all fiction. Before
this, Praneshacharya was a sedate, self-respecting, self-satisfied
Acharya. After this, the very foundation of all that he was and
all that he sjtood for becomes questionable. Everything the
Acharya believed in, all his comfortable myths are uprooted by
the whirlwind of his sudden passion. The confusion in his mind
that follows the episode is total, and when the dust finally set
tles, we see a new Praneshacharya shorn of his cosy notions
about himself and his faith. He is also a much more likeable
character without his pomposity, aware of his oneness with the
world around him.
The climactic peak of the structure of the novel is thus
clearly delineated. But this is not by any means the only very
important episode in the novel. An incident which takes place a
day before the protagonist's encounter with Chandri also has
great structural significance—the death of Naranappa, which
sets off the whole train of events that follow. It raises fundamen
tal questions, creates almost unsurmountable practical problems,
exposes hidden evils and starts that question whose shadow
looms large over the whole novel—Who is a real Brahmin?
In death, as in life, Naranappa tests the? Brahminhood of the
Madhvas. Apart from his openly expressed doubts about the
validity of their claims to superiority, his very life-style was a
challenge to the Brahmins of Durvasapura. His death opens a
Pandora's box for the community and in particular for Pranesh
acharya, the most perceptive and reflective Brahmin of them all.
From the strictly structural point of view, it triggers off a chain
of reactions that enables Anantha Murthy to bring his story

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

to life and to present all his themes—to confront the reader

with disturbing doubts about Brahminism, about a decaying
community of Brahmins and about a particular Brahmin.
The levels of signification of these questions are arranged
with musical precision and close attention to differing tones. The
organization can also be viewed with critical benefit as a geo
metric pattern with the thematic concerns arranged in concentric
circles: the outermost, i.e., the most comprehensive theme,
'Who is a Brahmin?' encompasses the other two, each operating
within definable parameters, but all together forming a harmoni
ous whole.
The narrative modes employed by the novelist make a fasci
nating study. The novel uses several techniques which together
impart a richness to the complex narrative design. There is, of
course, the omniscient third-person narrator of the greater part
of the novel, who needs no comment, because he is no different
from the host of third-person narrators found in most fiction.
What is remarkable is Anantha Murthy's introduction, in parts
of the novel, of what J.P. Houston calls 'Free Indirect Discourse'
(as used by Flaubert in Madame Bovary) and which may, as used
in this novel, be also called the'Free Direct Discourse'. This
technique, as Houston points out, enables the novelist to "weld
together a character's impressions of the outer world and his
subjective interpretations of them."1 All the questions that
arise in Praneshacharya's mind about himself, about others,
about Brahminism, are narrated in this mode—

A. His anxiety about Naranappa's life style:

The Acharya was afraid of the bad example. With this kind of rebel
lious example, how will fair play and righteousness prevail? Won't
the lower castes get out of hand? In this decadent age, common
men follow the right paths out of fear-if that were destroyed,
where could we find the strength to uphold the world? He had to
speak out. (p.22)

1. John Porter Houston, Fictional Technique in France, 1802-1927: Art

Introduction. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge. 1972.
p. 65.

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 SAMSKARA

B. His basic doubts about himself:

Did he clutch this duty, this dharma, to protect his wife lying here
lifeless, a pathetic beggar-woman—or did the dharma, clinging to
him through the action and culture of his past, guide him hand in
hand through these ways? He did not know, (p.75)

The kind of free indirect discourse used in these passages with a

third-person narrator who is really another self of the first per
son allows the novelist the facility to present his character's
thoughts without using awkward narrative devices like mono
logues or the omniscient author's narration of the character's in
nermost thoughts. In this novel, the device also makes it easy for
the novelist to acquaint the reader with increasing perplexity in
Praneshacharya's mind. When the Acharya questions his own
motives, about which he was so sure just a while ago, this mode
of narration gives total objectivity to his brutal self-analysis. The
character sees himself in a detached manner as if he were stand
ing outside himself and therefore he can be referred to in the
third person while the sense of immediacy and urgency of the
questions and comments is retained by the direct speech syntac
tical organization used:
Once you leave God, you must leave all concern for all the debts, to
ancestors, to gurus, to the gods; must stand apart from the com
munity of men. That's why it's right, this decision to walk where the
legs lead. Walk in this pathless forest like this. What about fatigue,
hunger, thirst—Praneshacharya's stream of thought stopped ab
ruptly. He was entering another cave of self-deception. Even though
he had decided he would walk where the legs lead him, why had he
walked all this way within earshot of those bamboo cowbells, that
cowherd boy's fluting sounds? Whatever his decision, his feet still
walked him close to the habitations of men. This is the limit of his
world, his freedom.( p. 92)

The discourse here has many features of what is conven

tionally called direct speech, but since it places the narrator
outside his own inner self, it also derives some of its features
from the indirect-speech mode. This is the reason why it may,
perhaps with equal, if not greater justification, be called Free

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

Direct Discourse. The morphological dispensation of most of the

passage could well characterize an unambiguously direct-speech
passage with only the reference to the character in the third
person reminding us that this is not a monologue. An impor
tant corollary of the employment of this unique narrative style
is, as Erich Auerbach observes, that the writer as narrator of
objective facts disappears, as "almost everything stated appears
by way of reflection in the consciousness of the dramatis
personae."1 Like the reader, the author too looks at the
character with questioning eyes.
There are also large tracts of the novel where Anantha
Murthy seems to use the conventional first person discourse,
particularly to present Praneshacharya's nagging uncertainties.
However, on a closer look, even this apparently uncomplicated
employment of the first person will be seen to have one impor
tant feature that sets it apart—the total absence of reporting
verbs, a device which helps to convey a strong feeling of parti
cipation in and, more importantly, immediacy of the action or
emotion. While inverted commas make it clear that now we
are privy to the character's own thoughts or speech, the transi
tion is smoothly executed with the omission of the reporting
verb. The direct result of this is that the sense that the omni
scient narrator who has been narrating the story so far has now
condescended to let the reader have a closer view of what the
protagonist (this technique is used in this novel mainly with the
protagonist) thinks or says, is totally absent. The reader feels
he is as privileged as the omniscient author to a firsthand fami
liarity with the character.
The excruciating pain of indecision that plagues the Acharya
is often described by a harmonious combination of all these nar
rative styles. Towards the end of the novel, the shifting of the

1. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis, the Representation of Reality in Western

Literature. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. 1946,
Reprinted 1973. p. 534. This remark is part of Auerbach's analysis
of a largely comparable narrative technique by Virginia Woolf in
To the Lighthouse.

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 SAMSKARA

focus from the mind of the protagonist to events outside (many

of them symbolic) and back to his self-analysis is handled with
finesse :

When Praneshacharya came back and stood next to him, he said,

'What? Back so soon?'
'One thing, Putta.'

Praneshacharya looked up. The long evening of a summer day. . .

It's almost time for lighting the lamps. .. Again the drama troupe's
drums will raise and spread their din. 'If I begin walking now, I'll
reach the agrahara by midnight, far away from this world. In full
view of the frightened brahmins, I'll stand exposed like the naked
quick of life; and I, elder in their midst, will turn into a new man at
midnight. .. ' That melodious Sanskrit line came into his mind
again. . . (pp. 134-135)

Another remarkable facet of the superb craftsmanship of

Samskara is, as we have remarked earlier, in its characteriza
tion. One example of this is the way in which the personality
of the protagonist is reflected in a mirror with several per
spectives. Praneshacharya himself is shown as having a dicho
tomous personality, one developing out of the other, but
totally divergent from each other. This divergence is so great
that the transformed Praneshacharya of the later part of the
novel often wonders about his real identity, commenting on the
strangeness of his present action when set against the social
norms he so strongly held earlier:

Why did I walk away after cremating my wife?. . . Why didn't I

want to meet again the brahmins who were waiting for my gui
dance? Why? (p. 92)

At the same time, the Acharya realizes that his new self is not
really a new growth, but a new form of his dormant self. The
character known as Praneshacharya in the novel thus has two
openly projected selves. He himself is aware of it and this is one
of the sources of his agony.
Apart from the two self-declared Praneshacharyas, the prota

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

gonist has two other selves in the novel, one embodied in

Naranappa (who himself is an embodiment of Mahabala) and
the other personified by Putta. Praneshacharya himself is aware
of the extent to which his new self resembles Naranappa:

Just like Naranappa who turned the agrahara upside down by

fishing in the temple-tank, I too would have turned the brahmin
lives upside down. (p. 131)

The Acharya has done many things which Naranappa did—

slept with Chandri, lusted after Padmavati and broken several
Madhva taboos When he eats a meal with the Smarta brahmins
at the Melige temple the day after he has cremated his wife
(that is, during the unclean period of mourning) Praneshacharya
realizes that his sin is as heinous as any that Naranappa commit
ted. Praneshacharya keeps comparing himself to Naranappa so
often that it is clear that he identifies himself with that unortho
dox Brahmin. It would not be an exaggeration, therefore, to say
that the new Praneshacharya rises out of the dead Naranappa.
This is one of the ironies built into the characterization of the
protagonist.
Putta is the other character who can be considered to be
another of Praneshacharya's selves. Putta comes out of nowhere
to join the Acharya on his symbolic journey towards total self
realization. He attaches himself to the Acharya without any
ceremony sticking to him 'like a sin of the past'.

That was his way: if you stop, he'll stop too; sit, he'll sit. Walk
faster, he'll walk faster, if slower, slower. Won't leave your
side. (p. 106)

In short, Putta, the half-Brahmin who declares that he likes

people, who is totally devoid of any inhibition, who takes life
as it comes, and who is therefore radically different from
Praneshacharya, now 'adopts' the learned Acharya. What is
important is that he becomes the self-appointed agent who leads
the Acharya to a new world of experiences—entertainments and
sensual pleasures which the Acharya never knew existed just
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 SAMSKARA

Varanasi Scene VII

outside the walls of his hermetically-sealed world. Pranesha

charya walks entranced through this world of coffeeshops, cock
fights, and colourful melas.
The significance of these new experiences is sharply brought
home to us when we know that Praneshacharya realizes that
he is going through a process of transformation —his personality,
even his identity, seems to be changing rapidly under the
impact of these bewildering experiences:

Even to the point of doubting who I really am, I have become many

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

persons in one single day. (p.123)

Praneshacharya feels that he has moved into another stage in

the life of his soul, that from now on he will be open to all
kinds of impressions. He now inhabits a world totally different
from his earlier world dominated by a routine of sacred duties
He now has to decide whether he should give up his old saintly
life completely and slide easily into his new life. At the end of
the novel, this existential question remains ambiguously un
answered:

He will travel, for another four or five hours. Then, after that,
what?
Praneshacharya waited, anxious, expectant, (p. 138)

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