Moving notes: Looking forward to wait

When I created an encounter between a ‘Budabukkala’ man – an adamant beggar who never leaves a house in the rural Rayalaseema before squeezing alms from the householders and an arrogant rural entrepreneur who is averse to the beggars in a story titled ‘Oka Indradanassu Virise Mundu’, it presented a new sense of realisation in me about the existence of man. The businessman who is forced to be in the house waiting for an unknown helper and the beggar in the story, were solitary men, though in different ways. And so, their encounter reminded me of Telugu writer Thripura’s popular story, ‘Bhagavantham Kosam’.

In Thripura’s story the narrator waits for a person called Bhagavantham who never comes and the narrator doesn’t know how he comes or when he comes. Thus it reveals the absurdity of the life in which, the desired and intended never happen and the things in which, one doesn’t have interest and concern take place in the due course. There were many interpretations to the identity of Bhagavantham. Some critics observed that Bhagavantham is none other than God himself, and that the hotel in which the narrator waits is a symbol of the disorderly world, the bus no 7 in which, Bhagavantham is expected is a symbol of Hinduism and the bus no 13 in which, he may come is a symbol of Christianity. And all the characters in that story are dogged by loneliness with their social bondages shattered.

Recently, when I wanted to publish a book, ‘Patanthram’, compiling the story, ‘Oka Indradanassu Virise Mundu’ and a play that emerged while writing the story, I felt that I have to give a serious reading to Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ (1955), which was an acknowledged influence on Thripura’s ‘Bhagavantham Kosam’. Till then I read and understood many things about the play of Beckett only through secondary sources. I didn’t have an in-depth understanding of it. My misconception that Thripura’s story is a comprehensive Telugu version of Beckett’s play - going by the use of the name, Bhagavantham, who I thought was Thripura’s Godot, is a strong reason for overlooking it for a long time.

‘Waiting for Godot’ has two acts and it deals with two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon who are waiting for Godot under a tree on a country road. There arrives Lucky, a silent, baggage-burdened slave with a rope tied around his neck and Pozzo, his pompous and imperious master, who holds the other end. Pozzo tells them that he is taking Lucky to sell him somewhere. They sing, dance and entertain the tramps and then they go away. Then a boy arrives with a message from Godot that he will not come today but he will be coming the next day. The tramps say that they are leaving the place, yet are found rooted there, when the curtain falls.

In the second act Vladimir and Estragon appear near the same tree once again. And Pozzo and Lucky come there again, but Pozzo has become blind and Lucky has become dumb. Pozzo thinks that he hasn’t met the tramps at all and he goes out with Lucky even as they continue to wait for Godot. Another boy arrives to inform them that Godot is not coming that day too. The tramps proclaim that they are leaving the place but remain there like iron pieces stuck to a magnet when the screen falls down.

‘Waiting for Godot’, begins with, "Nothing to be done." It contains plenty of action though of a different kind. It is considered an absurd play and the word absurd, derived from Martin Esslin’s book, ‘The theatre of the Absurd’, that expresses what happens when human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down, in fact alerting their audiences to pursue the opposite. It is one of the modern concepts, which does not have clear cut features but absurd plays are conspicuous because of the aspects like the portrayal of illogical nature of the beings trapped in an incomprehensible world, and the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, purpose etc…

Who is Godot? Is he a saviour, God, traitor, master or a person who shapes the destinies of the tramps? When he was asked the same question, Beckett angrily replied that if he knew who Godot was he would have said so in the play. According to some critics Godot represents an absence and his non-presence is the centre of the play. Some others argued that the play recapitulates Dostoyevsky’s question: whether the tramps have created a Godot as a pretext for their waiting? Finally ‘Waiting for Godot' emerges as a classic, which can be interpreted in many ways like, absurd play, tragedy, tragi-comedy, and problem play and even post-modern.

Reading Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘The Post Office’ in which, the writer discussed the same theme of waiting way back in 1912 is an all together different experience. In Tagore’s play a boy Amal, waits for a letter from the king. As the ailing boy is confined to his bed room he communicates only with people like the curd seller, a wayfarer and bell ringer whom he can see through a window and imagines that he is also going to different places with them. The royal doctor arrives and provides him comfort by opening all the doors and windows of his bed room. Finally, when the flower girl brings him flowers he gets into a deep sleep; i.e. death. Critics consider Amal a symbol of human soul and the play as homage to the spirit of the man, which aims at progress in spite of the negative and destructive forces. Western critics found it not as a pessimistic play that asserts that death is the only solution to life but as a play that celebrates and enhances the zest of life.

Life and literature influence each other and so we can find many and varied readings of the important existential issues of life in literature. Now I realise that my story, ‘Oka Indradanassu Virisemundu’ would have been different had I read ‘Waiting for Godot’ earlier. Tagore had delineated the same theme of waiting, ahead of Beckett, and gave his answer as a true heir of oriental culture and civilization. When I read my story and its play version together as a detached reader, I feel gratified to find a different answer that life has graciously presented me.

(The writer is a bilingual short story writer, novelist and poet, writing in both Telugu and English)