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Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man
by U. R. Ananthamurthy
Samskara is a Sanskrit word with multiple meanings, including that of a rite, making pure, making perfect. The book, like the title, works on different levels and warns of the dangers and hypocrisy of religious extremism.
Set in pre-independence India within a strict Brahmin village colony, it begins with the death of Naranappa, a rebel amongst his orthodox and conservative neighbours, who lived with his low caste concubine, Chandri, and openly questioned the religious and cultural beliefs of his fellow Brahmins, drinking alcohol and eating meat with Muslim friends. After his death the community, led by their religious guru Praneshacharya, has to decide who should carry out the funeral rites, without jeopardising the purity of their caste. Whilst they argue over this, suffering the stink of Naranappa’s corpse as it is left to rot in his house, their hypocrisy and sins are laid bare.
As more neighbours die, it becomes apparent that there is a plague. The guru travels to consult with the gods at the temple and at night he chances across Chandri, with whom he has a sexual encounter that forces him to question the pious life he has lived up to that moment. Should he go back to the colony and confess his sin, or abandon his hitherto forced aversion of worldly pleasures, to go and live with Chandri? As he travels by foot through forests and villages in search of an answer he meets Putta, a practical young man who himself will take on the role of his guru for physical pleasures, taking Praneshacharya to a carnival, introducing him to cock fighting and a prostitute. Thus, a novel that starts with a rite for a dead man reviled for his sins, ends with the rite of passage of his guru into the world of pleasure.
The novella was originally written in the 1960s in the Kannada language of south west India, and later made into a film.
Set in pre-independence India within a strict Brahmin village colony, it begins with the death of Naranappa, a rebel amongst his orthodox and conservative neighbours, who lived with his low caste concubine, Chandri, and openly questioned the religious and cultural beliefs of his fellow Brahmins, drinking alcohol and eating meat with Muslim friends. After his death the community, led by their religious guru Praneshacharya, has to decide who should carry out the funeral rites, without jeopardising the purity of their caste. Whilst they argue over this, suffering the stink of Naranappa’s corpse as it is left to rot in his house, their hypocrisy and sins are laid bare.
As more neighbours die, it becomes apparent that there is a plague. The guru travels to consult with the gods at the temple and at night he chances across Chandri, with whom he has a sexual encounter that forces him to question the pious life he has lived up to that moment. Should he go back to the colony and confess his sin, or abandon his hitherto forced aversion of worldly pleasures, to go and live with Chandri? As he travels by foot through forests and villages in search of an answer he meets Putta, a practical young man who himself will take on the role of his guru for physical pleasures, taking Praneshacharya to a carnival, introducing him to cock fighting and a prostitute. Thus, a novel that starts with a rite for a dead man reviled for his sins, ends with the rite of passage of his guru into the world of pleasure.
The novella was originally written in the 1960s in the Kannada language of south west India, and later made into a film.