Re: Parayi Petta Panthirukulam Malayalam Pdf Download
Matt Dreher
In India I was principally concerned with the question of the psychological nature of evil. I had been very much impressed by the way this problem is integrated in Indian spiritual life, and I saw it in a new light. .. For the Oriental the problem of morality does not appear to take first place as it does for us. To the Oriental, good and evil are meaningfully contained in nature, and are merely varying degrees of the same thing. (1989; 305)
But land becomes region in the minds of a people who live in it, and however much we divide it politically and economically into zones and states it little affects the people internally. The power of myth is much more potent than the forces of history and people often choose to live by it.
Kerala is rife with myths and legends, with folklore and tales, its history embedded in its terrain; the region breathes through its memories. A close reading of three formation myths of this region could help us explore the fashioning and maintenance of socio-political power and patterns of its structures.
Asleep under a tree, Vararuchi[1]a Brahmin overhears two gandharvas discussing the prospect of his imminent excommunication from his caste on account of his physical contact with someone of a lower caste. Vararuchi is involved in a desperate search for the most outstanding passage in the Ramayana. The gandharvas in the course of their conversation point out the key passage and also predict that the Brahmin would have to face dire consequences soon. Vararuchi decides to leave his village and wander off to avoid his fate. Can he?
These twelve children of Vararuchi and the parayi come to be known as Parayi-petta-panthirukulam, or the family of twelve born of the parayi. Each one of them later comes to occupy a significant place in the order of things on account of their miraculous careers, and each one marks out a special space in the minds of the people of Kerala.
The Parayi-petta Panthirukulam tale underscores the multicultural order of things in this part of the world. Each caste, each community maintains a status by remaining within its purview and thus maintaining the dharma or the social order of things. Nevertheless all trace their origins to Brahminical roots. The tales are always told right, because each tale is a process of telling it right.
Venkat answers urgent knocks on the door to his flat one evening to find two insolent young men claiming to have business with his daughter Rekha. He deals with them shortly, only to find his quiet, middle-class life upended by a bewildering set of events over the next few days.
Even as Venkat is hurled into a world of street gangs and murky journalism, we see a parallel narrative unfold of a betrayal and disappearance from long ago. Could there be a connection? Set over four mostly sleepless days, we see Venkat lose grasp of the narrative even as he loses grasp of his wife and daughter.