Abstract
Charandas Chor is a carnivalesque play of impossibilities. The ‘true’ conscience of a thief is set against the very act of ‘theft’ he commits. A ‘just’ thief, an ‘ungodly’ guru and a ‘corrupted’ queen constitute the plot of the play where the contours between right and wrong, truth and lie disappear and merge into one! This paper attempts to study the central theme of the play- Theft! Focusing on the central characters of the play and the design of the plot, the truth and lie of theft, the motive behind it and the conscience of the one who commits the theft are subjected to study.
Keywords: Theft, Truth, Carnivalesque
Habib Tanvir, the leading Urdu dramatist of the 20th century is one of the most well known and respected names in the field of modern Indian theatre. He has established himself as a journalist, playwright, play producer, poet and director. Among those writers who were interested in folk forms and traditions, Tanvir made his own course of performance by blending folktale with folklore and poetry of his own. He was an active member of IPTA (Indian People’s theatre Association) during the 1940s and in the year 1959, Tanvir and his wife formed their own company the ‘Naya theatre’ and continued to produce a variety of plays including modern and ancient classics of Indian and European traditions. Some of his major plays include Agra Bazar (1954), Mitti ki Gaadi (1958), Bahadur Kalarin (1978), and Charandas Chor (1975).
Tanvir’s endeavor was to develop and perfect a style of theatre which is both ‘traditional’, in the sense of being oriented towards folk and popular forms, and ‘modern’, in the sense of being alert to the major issues and concerns of contemporary existence and experience. He was the recipient of numerous awards such as the Shikhar Samman for Drama, the Nandikar Award, the Sangeet Natak Academy award, the Padmashri and the Padma Bhushan among many others. His ‘Charandas Chor’ has come to be regarded as a masterpiece, indeed, a classic of contemporary Indian theatre. Tanvir first heard the story in 1973 from the writer- folklorist Vijaydan Detha, who recorded it from the oral cultural tradition of Rajasthan. The play was first presented in 1975 and its first name was just ‘Chor, Chor’.
The plot revolves around an interesting character Charandas Chor who is a thief. But he is not the usual, expected character of a thief. He is a figure of the common man who is capable of rare virtues in an unjust, class-based society. He is a thief whose heart melts at the weeping of a woman he just robbed; He is the thief who vows to give up lying at the word of a guru knowing completely that it will mark his doom. He steals bags of rice from a landlord and gives it to peasants. He has a firm stand of social justice, he is truthful and a man of his word. Thus he rises from the status of a petty, village thief to that of a popular hero. Charandas Chor is a thief. But he is also a man of honesty! This is exactly where the Utopian dimension of the story is established strong and the ideas of theft, lie and truth come into question. Charandas steals for a living and he doesn't see theft as anything less than a profession. He earns his living by theft.
GURU. If you want to be my disciple you’ll have to give up stealing, my son. CHARANDAS. Then how will I survive- what will I eat? (Tanvir 7)
And it is not even ironic to say that he is a thief who does his work in truth! When the queen asks about the stolen mohurs, he is clear in stating that he has stolen only five mohurs not ten because the only thing he wanted was to make his presence felt to the queen and five mohurs is just enough to get noticed. Just like the queen’s remark “Thieving and truthfulness-what an unheard-of combination!” (Tanvir, 99), Charandas is a man of contradictions and opposing combinations. Javed Malick, in his An Introduction to Charan das Chor says “Through his acts and deeds Charandas debunks religion, the state, and class economy. He shows up the existing social order as a disorder” (Malick 13).
The generous personality of Charan is projected in sharp contrast with the guru who preaches to give up all bad habits but never forget to ask his due or guru dakshina if not in terms of money, then as bidi or even ganja. Once Charandas vows to tell the truth, he makes the most scathing statement that the only difference between the guru and himself is that he steals secretly during night and the guru openly in daylight. At one point, when Charandas reminds the guru about his followers and the fortune he earns from them, the guru replies “But they’ll be buying their own salvation, not yours” (Tanvir 76). Thus according to him, higher the money one pay, greater and sooner his salvation would be. The guru is a man of greed. He runs after money and fame. Religion is the shade under which he disguises his desire for wealth. Contrary to what is expected out of a guru, the guru in the play is totally into his own self. He is a worldly man in all sense. He too is a man of contradictions. Though he condemns Charandas for stealing, he is all ready to accept guru dakshina from a thief. Though he made Charandas promise that he would never lie, the guru is not seen changing his greedy ways. Simply, he is a man who doesn’t walk his talk! What the havaldar tells the smoker about the guru is true in a way. He looks like the king of thieves indeed!
The theme of theft is dealt rather interestingly in the play. A thief is supposed to lack humanity, run away with his stolen stuff and lie about theft. All these behaviors are contraindicated in Charan. He returns the stolen stuff and goes to the extent of sacrificing his own life in order to save his word of truth. For him, stealing is his ‘dharma’, his way of living. He robs the landlord not for his own sake, but for the sake of the entire village. He robs the Queen not to enhance his fortunes, but just to make his presence felt. Later on, time tests him. He is offered the opportunity of leading a procession, marrying a queen, eating in a golden plate and becoming a king. But he refuses to do any of the things just because he has promised the guru that he won’t. Had it been any other common man, he could have pounced upon this golden opportunity without caring for future consequences. As readers we feel like all the vows he pledged were playful and fun. But Charan takes it seriously. Charandas the chor marks his elevated identity and personality here!
It is interesting to note that Charandas who is a thief by profession is just and honest at his heart but the havaldar and the munim, who are bound to keep the law, act against what is expected out of them. The havaldar steals the money of the smoker, gambler and drunkard obtained by gambling. The munim steals from the royal treasury thinking “Now who’s going to believe that someone stole only five gold coins? That’s no theft at all! I think I’d do well to keep five myself and claim that ten were stolen.” (Tanvir 96) Here the readers are confronted with the question of who the real thief is! By profession, Charandas is the thief. But his thefts are driven by a moral righteousness. The other characters steal out of their pure greed! Thus in the play, the one who is called a ‘thief’ is someone who has ‘truth’ inside and who are called the men of law, are corrupt and fraudulent inwardly.
The case of the wealthy landlord and the queen is also not different. Though his fields are flourishing, the landlord is blind against the cry of all those people who are stricken by hunger. He could have shared a part of his reap with those men who deserve it but he doesn’t! In a sense, this man can be called a real thief because he thieves people out of their right to food! What he does is anti human in all its sense. He is a miser and a tyrant indeed! The queen, who represents the state, should be legitimate, honest and truthful. But In fact, it is the queen who does the most gruesome act of dishonesty in the play. She deceives Charandas by claiming that he escaped the prison and proposed marriage to her where in reality, whatever happened was the other way round. She sensed the danger in Charandas’ vow of truth that it would reveal her true colour and therefore played cunningly well in putting him to death! Here, the queen became a symbol of deceit, falsehood and lie against Charandas who in spite of being a thief, confronted death for the sake of truth! The theme of theft and the motive behind it is put to a moral test in these characters of the play.
Charandas Chor is constructed on the principle of carnivalesque reversal, the principle of a world turned upside down. There is a reversal of hierarchy, particularly on moral and ethical levels. Truthfulness, honesty, integrity, ethical values, and even professional efficiency are shown to belong exclusively to a thief, leaving the upper echelons of society devoid precisely of these values and virtues. His integrity, uprightness and professional efficiency are in direct contrast to the lack of these qualities in the policeman, the priest, the government official (the munim), the wealthy landlord, and, finally the queen. (Malick 13)
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, Russian philosopher and literary critic discussed and developed the idea of ‘carnival’ in his works Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1929) and Rabelais and his World (1965). According to him, carnival-the sum total of diverse festivities- is not a literary phenomenon. But it has built a symbolic language that expresses a unified carnival sense of the world. This language cannot be translated into a verbal language but can be transposed into the language of literature, which Bakhtin calls the carnivalization of literature. That is, literature can embody the ‘carnival’ sense of the world. Now, what is the essence of the ‘carnival’? In Bakhtin’s words,
The laws, prohibitions, and restrictions that determine the structure and order of ordinary, that is noncarnival, life are suspended during carnival: what is suspended first of all is hierarchical structure and all the forms of terror, reverence, piety, and etiquette connected with it —that is, everything resulting from socio-hierarchical inequality or any other form of inequality among people (including age). All distance between people is suspended, and a special carnival category goes into effect: free and familiar contact among people. This is a very important aspect of a carnival sense of the world. People who in life are separated by impenetrable hierarchical barriers enter into free familiar contact on the carnival square (Bakhtin 168)
Thus in a carnival world, a new mode of interrelationship between individuals that subverts the otherwise socio-hierarchical relationships is established. In another sense, a free world and liberated lives are the essence of the carnival. Bakhtin also talks about other peculiarities of the carnival sense of the world which are ‘eccentricity’, ‘carnivalistic misalliances’ and ‘profanation’. When eccentricity welcomes and acknowledges unaccepted behaviours in the carnival, carnivalistic misalliances stand for a free and familiar attitude that brings together everything that was distanced and disunified in the non carnivalistic hierarchical worldview. “Carnival brings together, unifies, weds, and combines the sacred with the profane, the lofty with the low, the great with the insignificant, the wise with the stupid” (Bakhtin 168). Profanation, on the other hand connects with carnivalistic debasing, blasphemies and obscenities.
In the light of these characteristics, Charandas Chor can be identified as a typical carnivalesque play. Tanvir has intelligently incorporated the spirit of the carnival in his characters. A guru, a thief, governing officials and a queen interacting with each other is probably the weirdest combination a carnivalesque sense can ever have! Not just that but we also see the impossible eccentricity when Charan is offered to lead the procession, marry the queen and become the king of the place. Also the otherwise established holds of power and sanctity is brought into contact with the irreverent and subjects itself to the question of reality and truth. In short, there is an impossibility associated with the plot of the play and it is in this impossibility, the ‘carnivalesque’ reveals itself!
The end of the play is significant enough to discuss the ideas of truth and honour! Charandas, the thief is put to death but his name has attained the status of an immortal because of the virtue he stood for. The song at the end says
Charandas the Thief he was, he was an honest thief,
Charandas the honest thief,
Who always told the truth.
An ordinary thief, dear friends, who’s now a famous man,
And how did he achieve this?
By telling the truth! (Tanvir, 113)
Tanvir draws the audience to how a hero is being born. ‘Death’ of the protagonist plays a crucial role in the theme of the play because Charandas faced death to save his word of truth and the truth that prevailed in the end is the truth about Charandas who was an honest thief! The fact that he died for truth lessened the gravity of the thefts he had done. But what about the other characters in the play, the guru, the government officials and the queen? The play didn’t speak of a transformation of any of these characters. In It must Flow- A Life in Theatre, Tanvir engages in conversation with Anjum Katyal, the translator of the play. He says how he altered the end of the play from the original story by Vijaydan Detha
Actually I didn't even stick to the story. Vijaydan Detha, who related the folktale, is also angry. His chor gets killed, but that's not the end. The queen takes the guru as her consort and the guru accepts, because, in the story as written by Detha, in order to save face she proposes to the guru and the guru, who is very worldly, becomes her consort. That's the way the story ends. Vijaydan's argument is valid enough, that if you're showing present-day conditions, evil continues, hypocrisy continues, the raj must continue with all its corruption, nepotism, everything; your story is romantic. (Tanvir 52)
Here, Tanvir quotes Vijaydan Detha to show us a bigger truth about the world we are living in. Perhaps, the only possible way for Charandas the truthful, to attain ‘salvation’ in a world of chaos is to confront death with valor. At the same time, the guru and the queen truly belongs to this world itself because they can adapt to whatever the surrounding demands. In that sense, adapting the ending of the original story would have provided a completion to the plot of the play. But Tanvir had something else in mind. “I wanted a cruel end. I wanted to say something different. I had something different in my mind: on the subliminal level the effect of Yama, and I analysed it later, when it had a big effect, the word Yama coming so often in the sequence 'Give Death its Due', and then death coming really unexpectedly. People were stunned” (52)
It is clear that Tanvir wanted the focus to be on ‘death’. The death of Charandas is symbolic of the death of truth! The failure of everything just, honest and good! But this is not a pessimistic end. Rather, Tanvir emphasizes the inevitability and consequences of ‘change’ that happens to man. It is possible that a person can change, but not his world. Also sometimes the world around can change, but not an individual! This is the ultimate reality of human existence. “I don't even believe that you can change a man, unless it happens that he changes himself. It doesn't help him that you're asking him to change” (Tanvir 50)
Tanvir didn’t want Charandas to be a hero. “Here is a common man—and that's why he must remain a common man—an unheroic, simple man who gets caught up in his vows and though he fears death, can't help it and dies.” (52) It is this portrayal of Charandas that makes the play interesting. Above all, he is nothing but an ordinary man! Tanvir talks to Anjum about how Charandas faces his death. “He doesn't think that he's going to really face death; and when he's threatened with it, he cowers, cringes, supplicates and shows all the fears of the commonest man. But at the same time he has a total inability to find a way out of it, because he is caught up in a vow. He happened to have taken it. Having taken it, he faces the consequences.” (53) It is in death that a person is seen in his true character. Charandas was caught up in a helpless situation that made him lose his life. It is ironic to note that he was put behind bars and sentenced to death not because he was a thief but he had made a vow of truth! Charandas was caught up in a storm of truth and lies where his choice paid his life. There are Charandas in all of us. It is our choice of lie or truth that makes us ordinary or extraordinary.
Neither the play nor its characters define what truth and lie is. In the play, the line between the two merges and disappears. Sometimes truth lives in lie and sometimes lies live in truth! Tanvir has set the plot of the play in a hanging balance where the real question of truth and lie is left unanswered! Every second time you read the play, you may have new dimensions of truth revealed to you. This is the beauty of Charandas chor!
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