“Beastly Tales from Here and There, Vikram Seth”

Prologue

I always believe that art, in any form, should never be judged, but only mused over. Different people look at the same thing and discern it differently according to their esthetic of cognition formed over the years. More like the story of those three blind men, who interpreted the elephant in three different ways, and argued that their individual versions of the interpretation were the only correct ones. Art is not an exact science and I may be blind to what you saw in it and vice versa. So I don’t, after I’ve finished an engrossing book, feel the urge to hold someone’s arm and tell how extraordinaire the work is and coax him to read it too. And some things, like orgasms, are only meant to be felt and not described. But given the phobia of losing my thoughts at a speed faster than what they can be stored, I feel the need of archiving, preferable in chronological order, some books which, as my dad always wanted, ‘broadened my horizon’ and shaped (or rather reflect) my literary tastes. Some books which I cherished and re-read. It will be nice if I talk (and not review) about them, and read the posts in future to gauge the difference, if any, in my story of the elephant. Here is the first of it:

                   Beastly Tales from Here and There, Vikram Seth

I remember reading Vikram Seth, for the first time, in class ten English textbook. And it was one of his compositions from this book: The Frog and the Nightingale. Among Ogden Nash’s off-kilter and rebellious rhyming wizardry (This is Going to Hurt Just a Little Bit) and Coleridge’s propriety and romanticism (The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner), Vikram Seth’s depiction was reminiscence of Aesop, whose animal fables were our first moral-lessons during childhood.   

Next summer I had in my hands what probably was the first edition of Penguin’s Indian imprint of the anthology.

It is a collection of ten animal fables, which Seth samples from ancient texts, slightly adapts, and retells, in verse, with his own touch of humor, sarcasm, and wit without much altering the moral lessons beneath them.

1. The Crocodile and the Monkey
2. The Louse and the Mosquito
3. The Mouse and the Snake
4. The Rat and the Ox
5. The Eagle and the Beetle
6. The Hare and the Tortoise
7. The Cat and the Cock
8. The Goat and the Ram
9. The Frog and the Nightingale
10. The Elephant and the Tragopan

The first two tales come from India, the next two from China, the next two from Greece, the next two from Ukrain, and the last two — as Seth puts in introduction — come directly from the Land of Gup. So the hodgepodge of his literary maneuver is quite exotic. And Seth puts amazing skills to re-master these immortal folktales. The moment you read the first verse of The Crocodile and the Monkey, you know you’re reading words as if they were silk. Such is Seth’s exquisiteness:

On the Ganga’s greenest isle
Lived Kuroop the crocodile:
Greeny-brown with gentle grin,
Stubby legs and scaly skin,
He would view with tepid eyes
Prey below a certain size –
But when a substantial dish
-Dolphin, turtle, fatter fish –
Swam across his field of view,
He would test the water too.
Out he’d glide, a floating log,
Silent as a polliwog –
Nearer, nearer, till his prey
Swam a single length away;
Then he’d lunge with smiling head,
Grab, and snap, and rip it dead –
Then (prime pleasure of his life)
Drag the carcass to his wife,
Lay it humbly at her feet,
Eat a bit, and watch her eat.

Seth so easily slips into the hat of a story-teller without compromising with adroitness of his verse. The story of The Crocodile and the Monkey has been told again and again, but one is tempted to read Seth’s version one more time, smitten by his lyrical paradise. The tales may be borrowed, but Seth’s authority is stamped all over. Seth’s rendition of the story still remains the same: the coaxing prowess of women and need to keep head over shoulders when in danger. With Seth’s touch, the Panchtantra tale comes out more suave and literary tastier.

The next story, The Louse and the Mosquito, again from Indian folklore, stresses the old lesson of staying away from trouble-mongers and advices against being too nice to them. A family of louse lives happily and un-noticed in a King’s bed. Too nice to be inhospitable and unfriendly, the provide space and shelter to a mosquito. The mosquito does not pay heed to their advice of sucking the king’s blood only when he’s fast asleep, and bites him before he’s lost in his sense. The whole family of louse is found and killed while the mosquito escapes in merriment. Seth dramatically describes the King’s anger and the subsequent haphazardness of his servicemen.   

The Mouse and the Snake teaches the importance of being brave and upfront in the testing times of sorrow and danger. Two mice, while feasting, are attacked by a snake. One of them escapes but the other is not so lucky. When the snake retreats in his hole, the escaped one bite the snake’s tail persistently until the snake agrees to disgorge the other mice.

The next poem, The Rat and the Ox is a satire on the way government and bureaucracy works everywhere.

The Eagle and the Beetle is a story of revenge. The beetle avenges the death of his friend: the hare, audacious enough to take on Zeus’s own bird.  

The Hare and the Tortoise is where Seth actually adapts the end to reflect current societal moralities. The Tortoise does win the race but the Hare, being a page3 icon gets all the attention. Hare’s beauty and vain-headedness is celebrated over the ugly Tortoise’s common-manly discipline and diligence. Vanity shields shallowness.

Oh Miss Hare, you’re so appealing

When you’re sweating,” said one, squealing.

“You have tendered gold and booty

To the shrine of sleep and beauty,”

Also sample:

Thus, the hare was pampered rotten

And the tortoise was forgotten

The Cat and the Cock is about friendship and helping your peers when they need you the most.

The Goat and the Ram portrays the importance of keeping your cool and presence of mind in the times of danger.

Among all, The Frog and the Nightingale is my personal favorite.  A bossy, cocky and arrogant frog — aplomb of his singing and musical abilities — deceptively impresses the talented but timid and unsure nightingale, destroys her originality by pointing out flaws. He makes her sing day and night for his shows; finally resulting in her death while dictating her to take a higher note.

Now the frog puffed up with rage.
“Brainless bird – you're on the stage –
Use your wits and follow fashion.
Puff your lungs out with your passion.”
Trembling, terrified to fail,
Blind with tears, the nightingale
Heard him out in silence, tried,
Puffed up, burst a vein, and died.

The last poem: The Elephant and the Tragopan, is a satire on the way animals are losing their environment to concrete jungles. Animals in Bingle Valley turn up against humans but the conning maneuvers of humans prove out to be too much for their naïve and simple minds. It is the longest poem in anthology and Seth leaves the fate of animals on the reader:

The resolution of their plight,

Is for the world, not me, to write

Throughout the stories, Seth remains a master of words. He summons up words at will with surgical precision and does not fail to subtly entwine and adapt the underlying morals. Beastly Tales is for readers of all age. A book you’d want to read when it rains, a book you’d want to read to your child before he falls asleep. And you if you think poetry is not for you, Seth is your tabula rasa.

©Rakesh 2011