Triumph of culture

A gentleman who sat a few vacant chairs away to my right quietly changed over to my side. “Do you follow the recitation?” he asked in a whisper. “I enjoy the melody, but, needless to say, cannot understand the words,” I replied.

For one full hour thereafter the gentleman acted as my interpreter, translating the Malayalam verses into chaste English, in a voice at once tender and subdued, to my great benefit and pleasure. Then came the interval and the lights returned. The gentleman’s was a familiar face and I began to guess from my memory of his pictures in the newspapers. “Are you by any chance”

He spared me my hesitation and politely gave out his name. He was C. Achuta Menon, till lately the Communist chief minister of Kerala. I was amazed, not because he was so kind and courteous but because of his love for the verses and the classical dance which his voluntary exercise betrayed, though their theme was religious and religion, according to his creed, was the opium of the people. I realised at that moment the superiority of culture above political doctrine when it concerned a mature mind.

The programme over, the veteran Marxist guided me onto the stage and presented the singer to me — a Muslim youth engrossed in the delineation of the ‘Hindu’ epic, the Mahabharata. The level of performance he had achieved could not have been possible without love and dedication of a very high order.

The second lesson I learnt in the course of the same evening was about the triumph of culture over one’s institutionalised faith.

Indeed, culture could transcend several limitations. But today we have a weird parade of anti-culture wearing the mask of culture and often not caring two hoots even for the mask.

The other day I caught a glimpse of one of our so-called superstars enacting a caricature of a song by Meerabai. A society where popular figures so easily stoop to contributing to the general sway of irreverence can easily glide down to conditions fertile for violence and every kind of anarchy.

I propose a national vote of thanks to the Maharashtra State Women’s Commission for introducing the Duryodhana and Rakshasa Awards for the senseless vendors of anti-culture, exponents of gender insensitivity and violence in the media.

Let us assure them that they represent our conscience, but what is more, they have the courage while most of us have chosen to reconcile to the macabre and the ugly.

The writer is a Sahitya Akademi and Saraswati Samman award winner. He writes in Oriya and English