[silence] The Grand/petite narrative of Bharat , Part-I I

Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay anekanta@rediffmail.com
Wed Sep 20 08:07:31 EDT 2006


  
Silence fiction 
The Meta/petite narrative of Bharat (Contd. Posting-4) 
(Summarized and  translated  version of a Bangla pseudo-novel, published in Kalodhvani, 13:1, October, 2005)
CANTO-II
TRANSITIONAL PHASE: WHEN purana REAPPEARED 

Bharat was sitting in front of a TV. He was watching Animal Planet – a lioness was attacking a pregnant deer. She jumped and grasped her. The TV screen was full with blood. 

Bharat stopped speaking---an absolute “pathological” silence
 he was silent as if he was a corpse. 

Bharata the Matter- a zombie in the Jambu-island 
Once upon a time, there was a king in the island called Jambu.  He was Bharata, son of Risabhadeva. Being aggravated by his family and kingdom, he shunned off all the bondages and went to jungle for contemplation. One day, when he was meditating, a pregnant deer jumped into his lap to protect herself from the attacking lioness. And she died by giving birth to a child. 

Bharata had begun to rear that child. That deer was his everything—sage Bharata had become a deer-fetish. And the king-turned-sage Bharata, as it was told by the purana, in the next birth, had become a deer. 

During his deer-life, Bharata practiced sexual austerity and cultivated knowledge-system and in the next birth, he had become a Brahmin. However, he shunned off ritualistic practices as well as all types of daily performances including interactive acts—thus he had achieved complete reification. For his complete “transcendental” silence, he was famed as “jarabharata” (Bharata the Matter). Purana told us, Bharata was a very knowledgeable person.  

One day, the king Rohu, sitting in a palanquin, was passing through the Bharata’s hamlet and wanted to replace one of his tired palanquin-bearers. He got Bharata and engaged him in bearing the palanquin. Bharat was unable to carry the palanquin as he was obese (thanks to his non-activity) as well as a zombie. The king Rohu was angry and rebuked Bharata. Bharata then initiated an epistemological discourse with the king regarding the status of master and servant. 

In this non-puranik time, Bharata had become Bharat, though a thinking-person, he was told by his authority to build up archive or to act as a surveyor—that is the “real” work of so-called third world local subaltern academicians. They cannot contribute their epistemological voices in the realm of the “Theory”
 Bharat had become dumb. 
(to be contd.) 
DEBAPRASAD BANDYOPADHYAY 
http://linguistlist.org/people/personal/get-personal-page2.cfm?PersonID=2503
N.B. Dear readers, pl. "wait", John Cage is part of this narrative. I'm
trying my best to link different silent spheres.



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