Resurrection

 Some literary texts move you to the very core of your being. One such great novel is "Resurrection" by Leo Tolstoy, his last. It is a touching story of the literal "rising again" of an aristocratic wastrel.  As in the tale of Dimitri Nekhlyudov that the text explores, this Tolstoy novel can genuinely move any sensitive soul to be re-born, to rise again from the ugly self the social structures and the societal pressures have imprisoned him in to.

Written against the backdrop of the injustices of the Tsarist regime and the ills of serfdom, the novel is a passionate plea against class injustices, and how they harm women. Like the hero, it can move any thinking and just person towards prison reform and land/labour amendments.

I like the novel for yet another reason,  its most beautiful depiction of the Resurrection rituals. Resurrection is undoubtedly symbolic in the novel. Yet the actual church ceremony on the Resurrection  Day is so lyrically and poetically depicted that the entire Lent rituals, the Holy week, the actual  Easter Sunday ceremony, all literally come alive.

Russian literature, even in the 'Progress Press' translation series, is great. Earlier, on the footpath next to Ranade Institute, there used to be this vendor who used to sell these nicely printed texts literally for a pittance. Obviously, on the way to the British Council Library, I used to buy them by dozens. Aai-Papa never said 'no' to anything we asked for (as sure they were about what possibly we could demand), least of all for a book. So I indulged myself quite freely, and hence I have quite a fine collection of the Russian greats.

Remembered all this as it is the Easter Sunday. Well, this Easter, I found rather senti the fact that the King of Britain attended the Resurrection rituals, the Easter Service.

No, do NOT mistake me. I am rather good at the post-colonial critique. I know my Frantz Fanon to Ngugi to Homi Bhabha real well. Shashi Tharoor,  J. Sai Deepak, Vikram Sampath, Prof. Meenakshi Jain, and many more others, eh, authors, do present great de-colonising critiques that I admire immensely.

Yet it moves me most that a seventy-five year old frail man who is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer, who must read in the newspapers not only ugly scandals about his immediate family, but also daily the doctors' dire diagnosis that he has tops two years to be and not to be, who knows that the procedure for his final farewell has already begun, who has a daughter-in-law stricken with the same grim tragedy, who has to witness the brave face his son must put for the sake of his young family and his future career, such an old gentleman puts up a brave front, actually attends an annual religious ritual, greets the crowds gathered there. 

I suppose even the worst critic of monarchy must mull this " rising again", despite all the prejudices harboured against the monarchy, the colonial past, the class objections, and so on. Sheer humanity, pure humane considerations insist that we greet the brave face and the"complain not, explain not" policy of the British Royalty. Some Resurrection indeed!

Pratima@ One of my personal resurrections as a literature student was I hence, and thus, understood the poignancy of "Macbeth" better today even when "the sceptre and crown must tumble down, and in the dust be equal made"!