Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Manjula Padmanabhans Harvest a Study - 2518 Words

Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest: a Study The author Manjula Padmanabhan (b. 1953) is best known as a journalist, illustrator, cartoonist, and author of children’s books and short stories. She became a celebrity when her fifth play, Harvest (written in 1996; published in 1997), won the first prize in the first Onassis International Cultural Competitions for Theatrical Plays in 1997. The characters In the play the themes of economic exploitation, reification (=commodification) and acculturation are presented through the mercantile as well as surgical metaphor of body-parts transplantation. The Donors and the Receivers in the play represent the natives of the Third World and the First World respectively. Om, his wife Jaya, and Om’s†¦show more content†¦The chief attraction for Virgil is of Jaya because she is the only person in that house capable of procreation and genuine emotion. There is a passing reference to a seer’s prediction that she would never become a mother. As prophecies are often equivocal, the curse on Jaya may be in fact indicative of her husband’s impotence. The illicit relationship with her brother-in-law must be seen as the manifestation of her irrepressible yearning to become a mother. Though her mother-in-law always finds fault with her sexual transgressions, she is the only character in the play who is true to herself. She desperately protests against the encroachment of colonial coercion and urban mechanization that enter in the form of the Guards and Agents. Her thirst for motherhood remains unquenched by the sham finger-play of her pitying brother-in-law. She is the only person who stands her ground in spite of the devious argumentations and warnings of Virgil. And she alone is fully conscious of the present condition: â€Å"It is not really a life any more. We’re just spare parts in someone else’s garage –† (34T). Ma Indumati Prakash, the mother of Om and Jeetu, represents the older generation, preoccupied with the petty concerns of their narrow world. Her self-centeredness matches that of Virgil, both being old and preying upon the young for the purpose of seeking pleasure at the personal level. Though Ma is vociferous

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