Chakraborty 1

Pritha Chakraborty

Roll no: 18200269

Dr. T. Ravichandran

ENG 749 A: Postmodern Theory and Literature

17th April 2019

A Detailed Analysis of Karthika Nair’s Postmodern Retelling of The Mahabharata in

Until the Lions: Echoes from The Mahabharata

With the advent of postmodernism, there has been a constant distrust towards the

‘grand narratives.’ There has been a constant and continuous attempt to deconstruct the role

of these ‘grand narratives’ as privileged accounts of world affairs, contemporary and

historical. The epics The Ramayana and The Mahabharata form the ‘grand narratives’ which

highlighted India’s ‘grand’ culture and traditions. The attempt of the ‘grand narratives’ was

to hegemonize certain ideological frameworks over others. Postmodern retellings of ‘grand

narratives’ attempt to dissect the grandness of these totalitarian narratives into ‘mini

narratives’ by subverting the hegemonic ideas and using metafictional and self-reflexive

elements to highlight upon its own fictionality.

The Mahabharata is a familiar tale in which the ‘virtuous’ Pandavas eliminate the

‘evil’ Kauravas; it is a tale of victory, of good over evil. The contemporary renderings of the

mythical tale have become very popular in India. Authors are not only experimenting with

characterization; they are also experimenting with various narrative forms. The project is a

critical evaluation of Karthika Nair’s retelling; Until the Lions: Echoes from The

Mahabharata. It is the complexity of the text which leads to its uniqueness. Nair’s text not

only “defamiliarizes” the familiar retellings by its intermixing of genres, it also overturns the

perspective on war and violence. Therefore, though the war remains integral to the text; the

context of the war changes, thereby changing the characters revolving around it. These re-
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interpretations of the epic pave way for “mini-narratives” which do not contend for a

totalizing effect rather, they create multiple versions of a “hegemonized” or “centralized”

idea. The version in the text is treated as one of the many versions of war as the text itself

designates the narratives as “echoes.” The structure of the text is therefore rhizomatic in

nature where the different narrative voices co-exist independently within the backdrop of

war. The connecting thread that can be established between these voices is that of revenge

and regret. Interestingly, the narrative voices are not of men who fought the war; instead

these are the voices who never spoke for themselves within Vyasa’s Mahabharata: Satyavati,

Gandhari, Kunti, Amba, Draupadi’s mother, Sauvali, Poorna, Hidimbi, Dusshala, Ulupi,

Uttaraa, Vrishali, Bhanumati. Apart from these characters, there are separate sections

dedicated to the “Padavit and his Son”; the foot soldiers who fought the war, the first

casualties. The characters speak in monologues, which take the form of poetry; sometimes in

the form of simple and fluid free verse, and sometimes in the form of concrete poetry or

mixed verses. The “simulations” instigated within the text are an amalgamation of trauma,

mixed with memories of violence and desire. The women’s voices create webs of memories

which though distinct are integrally connected.

It would not be a far-fetched assumption to consider Nair’s text as a simulation. The

text produces or rather simulates various ‘realities’ within the backdrop of a war that has led

to devastation. Vyasa’a Mahabharata did not include the aspect of remorse and grief which is

demonstrated by characters within Nair’s text. If one considers Vyasa’a text to a simulation

of a dharmayuddha, Nair’s text subverts that very notion by producing a counter simulation

comprising of the trauma of remorse and grief. The readers are suspended within a world

where both the texts exist and the awareness of the same makes the simulation of the second

order.
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According to Baudrillard, “(t)he real is produced from miniaturized units, from

matrices, memory banks and command models - and with these it can be reproduced an

indefinite number of times” (Baudrillard 167). The “simulated world” thereby is a

combination of the real and the imaginary, where the distinction between the two becomes

impossible. The hyperreal therefore, is “a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real,

nor of truth, the age of simulation thus begins with a liquidation of all referentials”

(Baudrillard 167). But Baudrillard warns against the attempt to trace clear dichotomies

between the real and the imaginary. Rather in case of hyperreality “(i)t is rather a question of

substituting signs of the real for the real itself” (Baudrillard 167). Therefore, in this ‘space’

the binaries of trueness or falsity should not, or, cannot be intermixed. The simulacra evade

the notion of either truth or falsity because “It is no longer a question of a false representation

of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of

saving the reality principle” (Baudrillard 172). Thus, if there is no bifurcation between the

real and its copy, the distinction between what is truth and what is not also stands nullified.

The “simulated world” is always in this flux. Here the copy or copies does/do not signify

what is real but actually substitute for the real. Baudrillard calls this as the rejuvenation “in

reverse the fiction of the real” (Baudrillard 172). Nair’s text in a similar manner subverts and

rejuvenates Vyasa’s text. It simulates the expressions of pain and grief suffered by the

women at the hands of an orthodox patriarchy which endorsed rape and violence in the form

of niyoga as its cultural capital. The dissenting voices form the main crux of Until the Lions,

which indeed is adapted from J. Nozipo Maraire’s famous quote “(u)ntil the lion learns how

to write, every story will glorify the hunter” (qtd. in Nair vii). Interestingly, the “lions” in

Nair’s text are not men or warriors; rather they are the women who had to bear the brunt of

the war both before and after it.

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In the following sections, the paper will formulate an in-depth background of

metafictional elements that will be traced in the evaluation of the text in the next section.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The “mini narratives” are characterized by metafictional elements which undermine

the implied authoritarian attitude of the “grand narratives,” Lauzen traces out the

metafictional elements that function within a text. She defines a metafictional device as “one

that foregrounds some aspect of the writing, reading, or structure of a work that the

applicable canons of standard (realistic) practice would expect to be backgrounded” (94).

Lauzen also highlights upon the aspects of “degree and intent” of the metafictional elements

embedded within a text. According to her, a text /novel becomes metafictional in its

“abundant and systemic use of metafictional devices” (95). The purpose of these devices is

not to fix the meaning of the text within a conventional hold but rather to direct at least partly

to its own artificiality. She also points out the use of both covert and overt metafictional

elements which makes a text metafictional.

Lauzen also provides with a typology of metafictional devices where she categorizes

the various components of metafiction. One of the crucial elements is the component of

“narration and point of view.” In the conventional narratives the use of the narrator and point

of view is usually “built-in conventions of fiction that urges us, paradoxically, to trust in the

illusion before us” (97). Whereas in metafictional-narratives there is an apparent

“overabundance” of the narrators and therefore multiple point of views. Contrary to the use

of non-self-conscious narrative strategies, a metafictional work is mostly concerned about

narrating the story through the realm of “overt self-consciousness” (Lauzen 98).

Also, metafictional narratives overturn the use of chronologically consistent plot

structure. Instead, there is an “overabundance of incident” which “often turns into reduction

of real plot” (Lauzen 99). This overabundance can be depicted through a proliferation of
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events in the lives of different characters which are not bound by a concrete connection yet

are connected through a thematic undercurrent. Referring to the aspect of characterization,

Lauzen indicates that in metafictional narratives, characterization is achieved through

parodying the ‘conventional’ stock characters. Metafictional narratives are bereft of any

stringent setting and therefore, theme too plays very little role in it. There is not much

pervasive structuring of narratives as the focus is no longer on the plot. According to Lauzen,

“(a)bsence or reduction of structure seems a reasonable category to hold the now familiar

practice of writing in semi-disconnected short takes” (105). Commenting upon the use of

language and style, Lauzen asserts that metafictional narratives subvert the traditional use of

language. Instead of using it to serve as “a neutral conduit for the content” (101), the

language in metafictional narratives draws the attention of readers to itself and distracts them

from the “real business of the novel” (102). The language used in metafictional texts is often

characterized by difficult and complex vocabulary along with self-referential elements that

addresses the act of writing itself. Lauzen also points out to the medium used in metafiction;

according to her “a novel printed in blank ink is not notably printed in black ink—but print it

in purple ink and suddenly ink color becomes part of the work” (109). Thus, the main

purpose of the medium is to convey the message but rather to draw the attention of the reader

towards itself. These leads to a break in the linearity, which sustains the “metafictional play

on medium” (109). All these subversive strategies are intended to highlight upon the self-

reflexive faculty of the novel.

Federman insists that the self-reflexivity of a text is not an independent property,

rather it depends upon the readers’ active engagement with the text to uncover the overt and

covert metafictional elements embedded within it. The purpose of the metafictional elements

is therefore to induce within the text a play of self-reflexiveness. According to Federman a

self-reflexive novel “belongs to no one and it belongs to everyone” (Self-Reflexive Fiction,

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1144). This assertion highlights upon the lack of totalitarian principles within a postmodern

text and the way in which self-reflexivity forms a crucial part of mini-narratives and

retellings. Federman defines self-reflexiveness as a “writing process” which “is a private act

but one that makes itself public since it allows the reader to witness the interplay between

author and creation” (Self-Reflexive Fiction, 1145). Therefore, it functions like a “mirror”

within the text. It draws the attention of the readers towards its own fictionality by using the

tools “of—parody, irony, digression, playfulness—to demystify the illusory aspect of the

story” (Self-Reflexive Fiction, 1145).

Federman also indicates to the problems imposed by self-reflexive fiction upon its

readers. Due to the complexities “experimental novels” are often discarded without being

read. As these novels require the readers’ involvement into deciphering the text, they are

termed as “unreadabale.” According to Federman it is the fear of the unknown that makes the

reader search for known conventional paths, and thereby their disability to understand and

appreciate an experimental form (What Are Experimental Novels, 26). As readability is

associated directly with pleasure; in an experimental novel it becomes difficult as meaning is

not easily decipherable. A readable novel provides a reader with an assurance of coherence

and stability, the experimental totally disrupts any attempt to stabilize. Hence, instead of

creating a rather palatable version of reality, experimental novels jerks and jolts the readers

out of any “totalized(d) existence” (What Are Experimental Novels, 29).

Another crucial theoretical framework used in the analysis is the concept of

“rhizome.” Conceptualized by Deleuze and Guattari, it is the notion of looking into and

comprehending multiplicities as “rhizomatic” rather than “arboreal,” i.e., without a root. The

approach inherently dismantles the notion of hierarchy of totalitarian meanings, thereby

making each meaning independently important and effective. The notion dismantles any

effort to search for ‘roots,’ thereby uprooting the hegemonical structure. While dealing with
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interpretations of ‘grand-narratives’ the rhizomatic function plays a crucial role in asserting

the importance and individuality of multiplicity of narratives as well as histories. These

multiplicities can give rise to other multiplicities and thus the structure never stops. Also, the

benefit of rhizomatic understanding is that “a rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in

the middle, between tings, interbeing, intermezzo” (115). This intermediate position allows

the structure to grow beyond its boundaries. The movement therefore is not restrictive, and

the reader is propelled into a realm where s/he has to let go of the totalitarian, hegemonical,

and hierarchical notions in order to appreciate the larger truth depicted by the rhizomatic

narratives.

Derrida’s contribution in the field of deconstruction is also essential and crucial in

understanding the impossibility and incredibility of “totalization.” According to him,

“totalization can be judged impossible in the classical style: one then refers to the empirical

endeavor of either a subject or a finite richness which it can never master” (117). He,

therefore, asserts totalization to be “useless” and “impossible.” He furthers explains his

stance:

If totalization no longer has any meaning, it is not because the infinity of a field

cannot be covered by a finite glance or a finite discourse, but because the nature of the

field—that is, language and a finite language—excludes totalization. This field is in

fact that of freeplay, that is to say, a field of infinite substitutions in the closure of a

finite ensemble. (117)

Derrida’s antipathy towards totalization arises from his analysis of myth criticism where he

observes that “(t)here is no unity or absolute source of the myth. The focus or the source of

the myth are always shadows and virtualities which are elusive, unactualizable, and

nonexistent in the first place” (115). Derrida is already alluding to the rhizomatic functioning

of mythology which cannot be contained within specific structures. Derrida’s primary

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intention was on breaking the preoccupations of ‘structured reality’ and highlight upon the

play of signifiers within languages and in culture which makes fixity of meanings difficult.

He asserts that meaning in language is always in a flux as signifiers are always in continuous

‘play’ with each other.

Deconstruction, therefore is very crucial in the re-reading of mythology. It not only

subverts hegemonical boundaries, but also deconstructs ‘truths.’ Overall, deconstruction

resists any attempt of “easy summary.” It resists singularity and rejoices in plurality. In

Psyche Derrida has noted that “deconstruction loses nothing from admitting that it is

impossible,” that it is “an experience of the impossible” (qtd. in Thomson 299).

Deconstruction is thus, a “series of responses which seek to be as faithful as possible to their

various objects, whether a particular text, author, or historical event” (Thomson 299).

Deconstruction becomes a necessary tool of analysing the concepts of “true” and “false.” It

alerts one about the problems arising from the very idea of what is true or false: “If the very

idea of true and false, on which the philosophical account of the world depends, relies on a

series of metaphors (surface/depth; inside/outside) to explain itself, its literary aspects cannot

simply be inessential. Equally, an account of metaphor, as a deviation or deferral of the truth,

cannot ever be strictly objective (since it in its turn relies on metaphors)” (Thomson 311).

The stance of cynicism is essential to denote the deference that has been silently occurring

within the backdrop of one’s conceptual understanding of truth and untruth.

The need for narrative subversions and retellings of texts can be traced to John

Barth’s formulation of the ‘literature of exhaustion.’ By reworking on ancient literary text,

Nair is actually positing towards a renewal of literature by using unique techniques. The

retellings not only keep a text in circulation, it also introduces different versions of the same

narrative. Until the Lions is one such text which belongs to category of ‘exhaustion’ as the

revisions on The Mahabharata is very extensive. But what makes the text a unique one is
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essentially its narrative techniques. The following section will trace the various metafictional

devices embedded within the text, drawing from the theoretical frameworks established in the

previous section.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Narrative techniques: Nair’s text comprises of dramatic monologues and most of them are

structured like poetry and some like prose. Due to this the text resists any form of definitive

structuring as the poetry often represents that of prose; and prose that of poetry. The text

begins with Satyavati’s opening dialogue:

Listen. Listen: hate rises, hate blazes, hate billows from battlefields. Hate arrives—

searing rivers, shriveling plains, reaping deserts on its path . . . hate blanches your still

human eyes, flows down larynx and pharynx and trachea, leadens the breath and

whirlpools memory’s voice till all you know all you feel all you seek is nothingness . .

. Vyasa, my lone living son Vyasa—with words to hymn this story across millennia

while birth and death and love and youth jostle for place, while hate, old hate, spores

and multiplies. (Nair 3)

These lines are crucial for understanding the tone and theme of the whole text. Hate and

remorse form the fundamental aspect of the narrative. Vyasa’s text too is built within the

trajectories of hate and revenge, but the subversion in Nair’s text is that it talks about the

hatred and vengeance that reaped within the female characters. Vyasa’s text evoked the

divine goddess, whereas Satyavati evokes Vyasa. The text therefore is making the readers

self-aware that it intends to base itself upon Vyasa’s text but paradoxically places itself

before the genesis of Vyasa’s Mahabharata. Ironically the copy precedes the original.

The language often uses complicated vocabulary and allusions to incidents embedded

within The Mahabharata. Satyavati essentially forms the bulk of the narrative and all her

monologues start with the same addressal “Listen. Listen.” This covertly indicates towards
 Chakraborty 10

the text’s metafictional aspect through which the text is drawing the attention of readers to

itself. Satyavati’s monologues address certain critical discourses on truth and power as the

character itself warns the readers of the story’s own volatility: “This is not the whole story,

nor a lyrical history of mankind: It is what I know to be mine, true, or nearly so, perhaps not

at all at times, for Truth is a beast more wayward than Time” (Nair 19). The statement not

only asserts the metafictional nature of the story, but it also ironically subverts the notion of

truth which had played a very crucial role in Vyasa’s Mahabharata. In order to understand

the irony embedded within the text, one should be aware that Satyavati is Vyasa’s mother,

and thus the mother’s text precedes the son’s text. The copy, therefore, precedes the original.

The text is also full of ironical subversions of the stories from the Mahabharata. Satyavati’s

retells her own birth is the following sarcastic manner: “Well, boys, said the king, can rule

even if they smell like tombs but I have no use for a girl, unless she can be my consort—no,

with daughters it is safest to abort” (Nair 20). The use of italics within the narrative is

another metafictional trait which is intended to highlight the threading of other voices within

the voice of the speaker.

Sarcasm plays a critical part in Satyavati’s monologues. Her monogues are scathing

and burning with vengeance and hate in the beginning of the text when she says: “A

demigod: Like umbra appeared a gandharva one afternoon to duel Chitrangada, a new king of

Hastinapur, for the sin of bearing his name and no other crime . . . Slaughter that made no

sense. But since when did the gods need reason?” (Nair 31-32). In such sarcastic tones

Satyavati’s monologues address critical contemporary issues of wars and other forms of

gender injustice. Therefore, by subverting from the conventional narrative mode, Nair was

able to place the context of the Mahabharata within a contemporary framework.

Intertextuality is another aspect endorsed within the text. Hidimbi, the demoness wife

of Bhima refers to her own interpretation in Vyasa’s text (147). Another major instance is
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depicted in “Fault Lines (XI)” where the entire tale of the Mahabharata is paraphrased to

Satyavati by Veda Vyasa (Nair 201-211).

Another metafictional technique employed within the text is the use of light and dark

font. In some instances, words in the same sentence are in bold, whereas sometime a whole

stanza is bold, whereas the succeeding one is dark. An instance is Sauvali’s monologue on

her ‘rape.’ The sanctioned rape is given voice of dissent through her monologues. Initially,

she does not use the word rape but rather uses a roundabout way of implying the same;

“When the king decides to (say it, say it, say the word, I tell myself. But I cannot, I find, not

yet, at least. I shall begin with periphrases and work my way towards the word. I must begin

again.)” (Nair 113). The lightened script within the parentheses not only attaches

metafictional quality to the text, it also attributes to the emotional trauma of giving words to a

traumatic experience.

The text also makes use of concrete poetry; structured poems which highlight upon

the theme of the segment. The sections on “Spouses, Lovers” are mostly structured poems.

These are overt metafictional elements that highlight upon the fictionality of the text by

diverting the attention of the readers to the words on the page.

There are also instances where ‘foreign’ words are also intermixed within the text.

But these also represent a paradoxical condition, as can be observed in the following

sentence: “Three for the price of one and khatam/Kashi’s stiff-assed might” (Nair 40). The

word ‘khatam’ is not unknown to the Indian audience, but its positioning within an English

text is both ironical and paradoxical. Also, later, Nair uses a full sentence in between

Hidimbi’s monologue “Phir bhi yeh naari hai” (149) to depict the ironical position of both

language and the discourse on gender.

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Another interesting thing which is covertly metafictional is the manner of pagination.

Amba’s portion is totally unpaginated except for the first page of her monologue. The portion

of Mohini’s lament is also unpaginated.

Metafictional texts are known for their use of irony. Nair’s text is no different. It has

abundant use of irony as already pointed out in Satyavati’s monologues; but the most crucial

irony is posited by the sections on the common men and women titled: “Padavit: The father

and the son,” and “Spouses and Lovers.” These sections address the loopholes within the

discourse of the ‘righteous war’ by disintegrating the valor associated with it. Instead of

heroic depictions of war, which never mentioned of the common men who became its first

casualties, these sections are full of scathing criticisms: “. . . And how many men will you

summon from our door,/Enlist as living shield for heroes? Spare him. Spare us. Spare us”

(Nair 73).

Nair also refers to works by other authors as subtitles. In the segment on “Poorna,”

there is a monologue titled “Poorna to Satyavati: The Handmaiden’s Grail” (Nair 90) which

without any doubt refers to Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale.

Characterization: As discussed earlier, metafictional narratives use a variety of characters

within a text. Nair’s text draws characters from The Mahabharata but establishes them within

a very different context. The main characters who forms an essential part of the narrative are:

Satyavati, Gandhari, Kunti, Amba, Draupadi’s mother, Sauvali, Poorna, Hidimbi, Dusshala,

Ulupi, Uttaraa, Vrishali, Bhanumati. As can be noticed all the characters are female and thus

the text is a narration which subverts the patriarchal war narrative into a feminine narrative of

remorse and pain.

• Satyavati: Satyavati is the mouthpiece of Until the Lions. The crux of hatred and

vengeance are delivered through her monologues which are aptly titled “Faulty

Lines.” Nair’s focus on Satyavati, highlights her both as a wronged woman as well as
 Chakraborty 13

the one who has wronged others. She represents the faulty lines of discord which

results in the ‘echoes’ of hate and vengeance. The book starts with a bitter Satyavati,

but as the text progresses, she transitions into a serene, calm, resourceful, but a guilt-

stricken woman. Satyavati’s monologues are also crucial as they subvert the images

of the ‘grand’ Bheeshma and Vyasa as flawed characters rather than as heroic or

divine.

• Amba/Shikhandi: Amba’s/Shikhandi’s first and only monologue is titled “Manual for

revenge and Remembrance.” The title is significant as it traces the psychological

dimensions of trauma and the way it can manifest into actions of hatred and

vengeance. Amba’s declaration: “And Begin/Begin to begin/Begin to end” (Nair 37);

is a postmodern manifestation of the “reiterability” of language and birth and death.

Nair intermixes two distinct philosophies effectively through the use of language. But

the complexity of the text is not only in its language, but also in its shuffling between

the awareness of other voices that are both inside the text and outside it.

• Dhrupada’s wife: She is a nameless character in both the texts. By keeping her

nameless Nair is indicating ironically to the position of women in Valmiki’s text. She

is the mother of Shikhandi, Dhristadyumna and Draupadi, yet she was not even given

a name. Her monologues are full of accusations:

The stranglehold of fatherhood

will prevail, mothers will weep stones.

...

...

. . . No Mother should

outlive her blood. I will. I will.

The heart has no bones to shatter.

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It will keep beating just the same. (Nair 69)

The use of “will” seems to be prophetic but Nair is only indicating to the presence of the

other text embedded within it. The readers are considered to be aware of the incidents that are

just being alluded to and that actually retains the ironic implementation of the copy becoming

the original.

• Poorna: She was a companion of Ambika, who begets Vidur after her coitus with

Vyasa. Satyavati has sanctioned Vyasa to ‘forcefully’ impregnate the wives of her late

son. After the first two attempt fails to produce perfect heirs, she asks Amba to forgo

the torture once more. Poorna takes Amba’s place and “teaches” Vyasa about desire.

It is only after Vyasa spends the night with Poorna that he understands his ascetic

qualities and corrects his apparent misdemeanors and illusions. Poorna’s voice also

plays a crucial role in ironically underlying the exploitation that the royalty imposes

upon others: “If a son’s beloved wives, queens themselves, are deemed fields to rake

and furrow till the perfect fruit—grown from passing brahmin seed—is borne, what

kind of favour can other women, mere manure, expect?” (Nair 91)

• Sauvali: She was a servant in Dhritarashtra’s court, who was ritualistically raped by

him in order to beget children for the throne. The sanctioned rape is given voice

through her monologues. Initially, she does not use the word rape but rather uses a

round about way of implying the same; “When the king decides to (say it, say it, say

the word, I tell myself. But I cannot, I find, not yet, at least. I shall begin with

periphrases and work my way towards the word. I must begin again.) (Nair 113).

Finally, through a lot of indirect allusions of “when the king decides to take you”

Sauvali arrives at the crucial juncture where she is finally able to utter the accusation:

“When the kings decides to rape me or my kind, no one will use the word rape. The
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word does not exist in the king’s world. This body is just another province he owns”

(Nair 119).

• Gandhari: Gandhari’s monologue is addressed to her brother Shakuni and is steeped

in regret. She introduces herself as “the dead suffix to land I’ve become” (Nair 123).

Gandhari’s narrative overturns the hegemonic narrative of her faithfulness to her

husband by depicting by imposed blindness as an act of revenge.

• Hidimbi: Hidimbi, is the demoness wife of Bhima. Her monologue is interesting

because it refers to her own interpretation in another text. Another aspect that is

highlighted through her monologue is the ironical distinction between the royals and

the rakshasas: We rakshasas labelled/bloodthirsty, savage, take fewer/lives than

royals,/I proved time after time” (153).

• Dusshala: The only sister to the hundred Kauravas, her monologue serves as a

personalized eulogy to her hundred brothers who have died in the battle. The section

is metafictional in its intertextuality to other sources as well as a simulated reality,

where the distinction between the real and the imagined becomes indistinguishable.

• Uttara, Kunti, Vrishali, Ulupi, Bhanumati: they together form the lament of mothers

and wives whose sons and husbands are snatched away during the war. Their

monologues weave together the pattern of grief.

Krishna/Mohini as a metafictional device: The section on Krishna and Mohini demands

special mention because of the uniqueness of their characterization. Mohini is the feminine

version of Krishna, who appears in the Mahabharata during Aravan’s sacrifice. Aravan has

asked to be married before he was sacrificed, and no woman was ready to be widowed within

a day of their marriage. Hence, Krishna takes the Mohini form to fulfill Aravan’s last desire.

But what is interesting is that as Krishna, his narrative was vehemently bloodthirsty,

when he was coaxing Yuddhishthira for a human sacrifice to ensure their victory. He repeats
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the sentence “Yuddhisthira, someone must die” twenty times but in different syntactical

variations before it final culmination into “Yuddhisthira: someone shall die”. A few instances

are:

- “someone must die, Yuddhisthira”

- “Someone must die, Yuddhisthira”

- “someone, Yuddhisthira, who must die!”

- “Yuddhisthira? Someone must die.”

The whole section epitomizes metafictional narrative strategies and Krishna himself leads to

the culmination of the Leela he is famously well-known for. Though the tone is ironical and

subverts the benevolent Krishna into a malevolent bloodthirsty one, the next section on

Mohini reverses the stance.

Whereas Mohini’s long monologue is addressed to everyone, and she curses everyone

after Aravan’s death in vehement feminine wrath. But what is astonishing in the segment is

the ‘simulated’ grief which transcends to the level of the hyperreal. Mohini’s grief for Aravan

is bereft of any identity attached to Krishna. Mohini herself become the simulation who is

endorsed by not only Aravan but also by the others including herself. The fact that, Krishna

had to take the female form to fill up for the ‘absence’ of a wife apparently becomes filled up

by Mohini’s heartfelt lament upon Aravan’s death. The metafictional component intensifies

in the segment because Mohini curses Krishna vehemently:

A curse a curse on this womb that never will bear his seed and watch it grow and one

last vicious curse on my transient woman’s soul that will forget aravan after this

morning when it becomes male once more for Krishna will not spare me a morsel of

memory not the comfort of mourning nor the covenant of a married name
a curse

a curse a curse

on me
 Chakraborty 17

(Nair 194)

The original text uses smaller fonts for the “a curse” section which might depict that Mohini

is transitioning into Krishna. The use of smaller and bigger fonts could be a depiction of the

flow of memory and lament together. Also, it is noticeable that it alludes to the stream-of-

consciousness form of narration but with a metafictional twist.

Rhizomatic function: All the monologues are entwined within the text through the use of

memory. Each monologue recapitulates incidents of the Mahabharata distinctively and

independently, yet they are bound together through the memory of the readers who are aware

of the texts outside the text. Yet, Nair’s text justifies itself as the “echoes” of the

Mahabharata which can function independently alongside other texts without forming an

“arboreal structure.”

CONCLUSION

Until the Lions is filled with metafictional elements that endow the text with self-

reflexivity. It also allows for narrative subversions of hegemonic ideologies of Vyasa’s epic.

The epic was a heroic depiction of the wars and its warriors, Until the Lions is about those

who were pushed to the abyss of silence within Vyasa’s text. It gives voice to those who

never spoke. But while doing so, Nair makes sure not to fall into the conventional trap of

narrativization and characterization. Throughout, the text remains open. It never asserts or

imposes of a totalitarian stance, rather it rejoices in the sense of induced plurality. The text

subverts an oppressive patriarchal system which glorified war and sanctified rape, by voicing

dissent through a multitude of women characters.

The multiplicity of voices produces a sense of plurality that cannot be contained

within the boundaries of the text. The use of metafictional strategies breaks the illusion of

totalitarianism. The induced self-reflexivity of the text repeatedly distracts the readers from

endorsing the text as a bit of reality, instead it continuously draws the attention of the readers
 Chakraborty 18

to its own fictional nature. The language and its formatting are indeed uniquely metafictional

which ascertains the text as self-conscious postmodern text.

The text also indicates towards the problem of distinguishing between what is true

and false; right and wrong. It subverts the righteousness of Vyasa’s Mahabharata only to

highlight that the very idea of truth is always in a flux and cannot be restricted. By giving

voice to dissenting characters Nair effectively points that the truth constructed in the epic is a

result of oppression and suppression of dissenting voices. Thus, by using postmodern

narrative techniques Nair is not trivializing the whole epic, instead she is trivializing the ethos

of valor, heroism and patriarchal righteousness by indicating that the nature of dissent is

always plural, rhizomatic, and self-reflexive in nature.

 Chakraborty 19

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