DIALOGUE BETWEEN KARNA & KUNTI

Dialogue Between Karna and Kunti Rabindranath Tagore Translated from Bengali by Ketaki Kushari Dyson Translator’s Note This dramatic poem based on an episode in the Mahabharata is from Tagore’s collection Kahini (1900). Reworking old stories from the Mahabharata or from Buddhist lore, reinterpreting them so that they resonate in modern times, so that the new interpretations act as bridges between tradition and modernity: these were artistic tasks that Tagore took very seriously in his poetry and drama. For this particular poem, Tagore takes details from two contiguous sections of the ‘Udyogaparva’ of the Mahabharata, a dialogue between Krishna and Karna, and a dialogue between Karna and Kunti, to make a new composite story of an encounter between a fostered son and a long-lost natural mother, set against the backdrop of the preparations for the great war between the rival collateral houses of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The outline of the original story should be familiar to most Indians. Kunti, of course, is the mother of the five Pandavas – the natural mother of the three elder brothers, Yudhisthira, Bhima, and Arjuna, and the stepmother of the two younger ones. Karna is Kunti’s eldest child, born before her marriage, whom she had carefully packed and consigned to the mercy of a river, just as Moses had been consigned in the Jewish story. Karna was found and reared by foster-parents of the charioteer caste, eventually becoming a warrior, a man noted for his generosity, and an ally of the Kauravas, led by Duryodhana. On the eve of the war of Kurukshetra there is an attempt to woo Karna over to the side of the Pandavas, first by Krishna, who is an ally of the Pandavas, then by Kunti. Karna refuses to change sides. In the Mahabharata, Kunti meets her first-born son when he is finishing his late morning prayers by the Ganges. She waits in the scorching sun till he finishes his prayers at noon. Tagore transfers the meeting to the glow of twilight deepening into a starlit night. The softer setting is more appropriate for Tagore’s purpose of highlighting the human emotions. Also in the epic, Karna does not really learn about his birth for the first time from Kunti. Krishna has already told him the details before Kunti has had a chance to do so, and in any case, Karna seems to know the essential facts already, what Krishna says being merely a confirmation. Tagore, interested in making a different kind of audience impact, makes Karna hear about who his natural mother is from her own mouth, thus making the encounter much more meaningfully dramatic. At the same time, Tagore’s Kunti, more of a Victorian aristocratic matron, is too embarrassed to reveal the actual details of how she had conceived him out of wedlock, whereas in the Mahabharata, both Krishna and Kunti relate them to Karna in a matter-of-fact manner in keeping with the mores of the old epics. In the original poem, Karna is much sterner with his mother, more outspoken, acerbic, and unambiguous in his condemnation of her actions, past and present, more sharply Hindu in his understanding of right action and caste ethics. He actually offers Kunti the consolation that he will not kill all her sons: he will either kill Arjuna or be killed by him, so that she will still remain the mother of five sons! He is, of course, eventually killed by Arjuna. Tagore’s treatment is more psychological: Karna is humanized to suit the tastes of Tagore’s own times. Tagore’s Karna berates his mother indirectly, rhetorically, through questions, with a mixture of sentiment and irony. He wavers, is flooded with nostalgia and filial affection, then retreats to a noble resolve. Jahnavi and Bhagirathi are names for the Ganges. Kripa is a martial instructor. In the transliterations of proper names I have given a slight tilt towards the original Bengali sound-values by making them end-stopped when they are so in Bengali pronunciation, i.e. Adhirath, not Adhiratha; Bhim, not Bhima; Arjun, not Arjuna. I have also written Durjodhan and Judhisthir instead of Duryodhan and Yudhisthir. These are just a few gentle hints to remind potential readers/performers that this is after all a Bengali text that has been translated, and it is right that the names should be heard as they would be in Bengali. Those who intend to perform the text should find out from native Bengali speakers how all the names need to be pronounced. It is impossible to indicate all the sounds without an elaborate academic apparatus. This translation was done in the spring of 2000 at the request of Bithika Raha of London, who choreographed a dance performance to accompany the words.