Muktadhara: A play of Gurudev(Rabindra Nath Tagore)

                                   Muktadhara:

     Widely recognized as Tagore’s finest dramatic work, The Waterfall (Muktadhara, 1922) has been interpreted as a symbolic play that indicates Tagore’s admiration for Gandhi and his rejection of the machine in favour of the spirit of life. The character of Dhananjoy Bairagi has been seen as a representation of the non-violent spirit of Gandhi and the play has been read as Tagore’s nationalist critique of colonial exploitation. Tagore wrote it in 1922, immediately after his return from America where he had severely criticized the idea of the nation and the spirit of nationalism. He viewed nationalism as a diabolical force, or "the one goblin-dread with which the whole world has been trembling" and considered it to be a highly intoxicating and addictive sentiment that breeds radicalism and passionate excitement in people.

 The Waterfall (Muktadhara) is place in an imaginary location Chitrakoot, ruled by the dictatorial King Ranajit. Chitrakoot is dependent for its financial might on Shiv-tarai and consequently Ranajit attempts to control it by denying its people water by building a dam across the waterfall Muktadhara. The play charts the hostilities between the citizens of the two areas and the non-violent resistance to Ranajit by the enigmatic singer and sanyasi, Dhananjoy Bairagi. Lurking in the background is the gigantic machine built by the royal engineer Bibhuti that towers above the temple of Bhairava. The heir to the throne Abhijit, a foundling adopted by the king, learns that he was discovered by the side of the waterfall and nurtures a deep association with the free flowing Muktadhara. His love for the freedom of the waterfall and his refusal to allow the King to exploit the people of Shiv-tarai, prompts him in the climax of the play, to demolish the machine and let loose the force of the waterfall; in the process he too is swept away.

Tagore started writing this play in 1922 and on 6^th January, 1922 he wrote to Ranu Adhikary, "I have started writing a new play. I want to perform it in Santiniketan." A month later he wrote to Ranu again, "I have finished the play in a week … I have called this play, ‘Path’. This play has an earlier character of mine, Dhanajoy Bairagi from my earlier play The Atonement (Prayaschitto)".Speaking before the play, Tagore once again suggested, "This play is not an allegory for the nationalist movement that is sweeping the country. The play is rather about opening up paths for the broader convergence of all human civilization".Taken in the context of Tagore’s disagreements with Gandhi and his writings on Nationalism, these comments clearly indicate that this play in general and Dhananjoy in particular was not based on Gandhi.

In terms of the plot, Dhananjoy actually has little influence in the particular destruction of the machine. It is Abhijit who finds the weakness in the machine and destroys it at the cost of his own life. What Dhananjoy rather attempts is to sensitize the people to the act of forbearance and renunciation through which a broader understanding of the self can be had. He is also critical of the boundaries between the residents of Chitrakoot and Shiv-tarai and seeks to unite them. The ideal of bringing them together under the broader ideal of humanism clearly replicates the ideal of Visva-Bharati and global co-operation that Rabindranath had fervently pleaded for in his trip to America and Japan. Dhananjoy is thus a mouthpiece of Tagore rather than Gandhi.

Sekhar Samddar notes that the use of music was a conscious dramaturgical strategy that Tagore evolved to provide his plays with a salient characteristic in opposition to the realist five-act structure of Western drama. The presence of the songs ally Dhananjoy with Tagore in their conviction that music, especially folk music could be used to gain proximity to a broader section of the population and that this music could create bonding among estranged communities. The poet- sanyasi Dhananjoy thus echoes the poet-dramatist Tagore.

The initial responses to the machine talk about the ugliness of the edifice and there are strong suggestions that human sacrifice has to be undertaken to bring the machine to perfection. The figure of the desolate mother Amba and her search for her son Suman develops the tone of pathos that highlights the monstrous aspect of the machine. Even the King is uneasy at its size:The choice of Bhairav as the presiding deity in the play is interesting. Bhairav represents within his body the eternal peace of Shiva, his spirit of renunciation and simultaneously reminds us of the destructive powers. The song of the machine reminds us that it has similar powers of destruction akin to Shiva. However, the tale of exploitation that it generates is in direct opposition to divinity.

     That his play had been taken largely as an allegory must have disturbed Tagore. Muktadhara was never performed at Santiniketan and later performers have noted the difficulty in organizing a rendering of the play. Tagore sought to distance himself from the merely allegorical and symbolic reading of the play in his brief note to the translation published in The Modern Review in May 1922, explaining that Abhijit was the representation of a concrete psychology.One realizes now why Tagore renamed this play. The original title ‘Path’ would have rendered this plays wholly allegorical, reducing it to a mere message of uniting humanity and exploring the diversity of life. The title Mukatadhara or The Waterfall alerts us to the deeper affinities between character and setting, releasing an additional dramatic logic for the action of the play. The symbolic and the dramatic closely interact to complement each other.