Revisiting Satish Alekar's Deluge (1975)

 

Deluge is the flow, the flow that takes everything along its course -the good, the bad, pride, hatred, envy, anger, success, failure and what not. Satish Alekar’s play Deluge , translated from the original title Mahapoor is thought provoking, critical and highly engaging. It raises questions that shake the very essence of ideological indoctrination and asks one to revisit one’s decisions which might appear to be idealistic but are in reality shallow.

Govinda Raghunath Kavathekar, in this play is a young man of around 25 years whose idealistic view of the world collapses as his expectations and understanding of the promised world fails to meet the world of reality. Govinda is us. We are Govinda. But while in our everyday existence we continue to maintain the garb of sanity, Govinda fails to accept the simulated world of survival and hence faces the ordeal. Govinda 's language is meaningful at one time and fragmented, mismatched at the other. As we read the play we begin to question, if Govinda is insane? Or are we, not ready to answer the questions he is asking? Alekar does not give us answers in his play, he leaves it up to his readers and audience to think and speculate.

Govinda tickles the last drop of sensibility. He questions his parents who met in Dada’s ashram, believed in Gandhian principles, were non-violent, fell in love and married for love and nation. He wonders , how his father  Raghunath, a promising worker of the Gandhian camp, remained happy being a clerk in an office? Why the ideal nation of Raghunath’s dreams finally meant getting the salary and DA in time? Did going to prison during the times ,really have a ‘karya hetu’ or only added to the feather in the cap? Govinda says:

 “…you realized it was the Quit India movement. Now you were caught in it. If you quit it you would face only censure. From here, the only way is Dada’s ashram. Independence was sure to come. Then a delicate halo would be created around you…. Had you been an inspired man you wouldn’t have remained a head clerk all your life.”

Raghunath, a man who once believed in non-violence and peacefulness, protested and rejected Jindal, the extremist vehemently, would in the prison, beat Govinda when he could not recite lines from Shyam’s mother. 

” My non-violent father began saying – Gondya did you learn the prayer? No? Then take this. So, the cane struck again and again. why can’t you learn the prayer? Again, the cane. No, no please don’t hit me, I’ll learn it, I will.”

Govinda is affectionate and loving towards his childhood friend, Sulabha and tries to disrupt her marriage. Sulabha and Govinda were friends, friends who hugged, who kissed but who according to Sulabha were not to be married. Govinda does not understand why and what marriage actually meant? Why love was not enough to be married, why he was rejected for his financial condition? This hurt broke his mental balance. Govinda is convoluted, and assumes Maya Chidgupkar, the imaginary daughter of the bachelor neighbour to be the girl who loved him for who he was. He imagines his parents going to a pilgrimage, him going to Sulabha’s house, cutting open her stomach such that the intestine hangs from her belly and the girl is rejected by her in-laws, because now, she is ugly and hence, not worthy to be married. She is humiliated in the office and threatened with being fired because she is helpless. He imagines a well-dressed man who asks him about the red water from the tank in his terrace and if he had killed his parents. Govinda enquires why a human’s worth is measured by how much he earns, what he looks like, his educational and financial condition in the case of a man and by her looks in the case of a woman. He imagines a court where he is the accused, Sulabha’s father is the defender, the lawyer tries to dominate the judge and there is mayhem.

This play like The Dread Departure is also written in  two acts. The main action of the play takes place in the first Act. The Second Act concludes Govinda’s position. As 21^st century readers, we are aware of PTSD, we may assume Govinda’s condition as being paranoid and schizophrenic. He imagines characters and role play. The well-dressed man of the play, is the real-life doctor who understands that Govinda’s nerve is stressed and gives him an injection to calm him down. Life goes on, his parents are preparing for the Satyanarayana puja of fifteenth August, Sulabha and her father visit them as customary; all is as it is.

Govinda is the one who suffers, he is the misfit. But in Govinda we see that to fit in, we compromise. Do we really believe in what we do, are our actions undeniably real and true? This play was written and enacted in 1975. Fifty years down the line the questions are still valid. In the modern world we are all Govindas trying to fit in to prove our sanity.