Summary
Act Two
Bhagavata begins, asking what the audience thinks the solution to this problem is. He speaks of King Vikrama ruling the world long ago, and how he was asked the same question by the demon Vetala, and how the king offered a rational solution. He wonders if this will work for the three.
Devadatta, Kapila, and Padmini go to a great rishi, and the rishi gives the solution: “As the heavenly Kalpa Vriksha is supreme among trees, so is the head among human limbs” (110), so Devadatta’s head on Kapila’s’ body gets to be with Padmini.
Padmini and Devadatta scream with joy and embrace each other, while Kapila is mournful. Padmini exults over her husband’s “wide chest” (111) and he laughs joyfully at her words. As they prepare to leave, Padmini tells Kapila not to despair, and whispers that she is going with his body, after all.
After Devadatta and Padmini leave, Bhagavata tells Kapila not to grieve, for this is fate.
Bhagavata narrates that their worlds diverge. Kapila goes to live in the woods and never sees the city again. Devadatta and Padmini return to Dharmapura to experience the joys of married life.
Padmini is stitching clothes and Devadatta enters with two large dolls. Padmini is pleased with the dolls and Devadatta says they are for their child, who is coming soon. Padmini asks about the fair, grumbling that she could not go, and Devadatta happily explains that he saw a wrestling match and was compelled to participate and won. He is intrigued as to how this new body simply acts and does not wait for thoughts. He has been running around and yet does not feel tired.
Devadatta and Padmini embrace, but she smells sandal oil on him and asks why he is wearing it. He is perturbed, wondering if she wants that “unwashed, sweaty smell Kapila had” (113). She replies lightly that it was just a suggestion.
After they leave, the dolls start to talk to each other. They are acerbic and snobbish, remembering the awful people they saw at the fair and wondering if this child will even deserve them.
The child is born, and the dolls complain about its crying and messiness. They know Padmini’s dreams and should have known that something was going on and there was a child inside her. They are dispirited, frustrated that the child gets all their attention. When Padmini and Devadatta walk in with the child, talking about it, they watch and bemoan that no one has come near them for six months.
Padmini is saying to Devadatta that she wants to take the baby to the lake; after all, he is six months old now. Devadatta refuses and says it is too much trouble. She is annoyed, and replies that he never does anything anymore except sit around. Devadatta protests that he is a Brahmin, and while the new body was fun at first, it became too hard to maintain. He has to read and write and care for his family.
Devadatta puts his hand on her shoulder and she involuntarily shudders. Devadatta looks at her curiously, and goes to find a book. Padmini says she will help. Alone again, the dolls talk about Devadatta’s hands, which were rough at first and are now soft, and his stomach, which is now flabby. They mock him and wonder if he will also fill up with child.
Padmini enters, singing a lullaby about a horse and rider galloping to an unknown land. Devadatta comes in while she sings. The dolls notice that Padmini is dreaming of someone who is not her husband. They wonder at this, and the dream fades.
Devadatta has a sharp shoulder pain and tells Padmini he went to the gym and then swimming. She frowns and asks why, and he says he just felt like it and she should not ask any more questions. Padmini asks him why he fears going soft again. He leaves angrily, saying he knows he is foolish.
Padmini muses that Devadatta should not be afraid; she will not be stupid again, and Kapila is out of her life. Yet, she wonders where he is and what he is doing. The dolls sense she is thinking of the man again, seeing him climbing trees and diving into the river. Then the dream is gone.
Devadatta comes in. He is as slender and slight as he once was. He tells Padmini he has a pundit coming over to hear about some verses, and asks her to watch the child. She tells him she heard that Kapila’s mother died this morning, which aggravates Devadatta, who asks what he can do about it.
Once alone again, the dolls think about the shameless dream Padmini had. They devolve into arguing and fighting and wrestle on the floor. They tear their clothes and finally sit up, giggling. Padmini comes in and sighs at their condition.
Devadatta joins her and she tells him they must have new dolls for the baby, as it has ruined these. She suggests he go to the fair; if he starts now, he can be there in time. The dolls are aghast that she would want to rid of them. They curse her.
Devadatta says he will go, but it will take more than a week to go and come back. He wonders if he should get a neighbor to go instead, or if someone should come stay with them. Padmini replies that no, they do not live in a forest and will be fine. Devadatta departs. The dolls are furious.
Analysis
The end of the prior act articulated the various arguments regarding the supremacy of the head or the body, but such arguments were rapidly shut down and ruled upon by the rishi, who stated, “As the heavenly Kalpa Vriksha is supreme among trees, so is the head among human limbs” (110), so Devadatta’s head on Kapila’s body is the “real” Devadatta and gets to go home with Padmini. This ruling is what Devadatta and Padmini want, and for a time they live in marital bliss. It seems as if Padmini in particular has everything she wants. However, the transposing of the heads brings with it unforeseen and strange realities—the bodies attached to the new heads start to revert back to what they once were. Whereas Devadatta initially enjoyed wrestling and his newfound strength, he eventually loses it all and returns to his slender, slightly flabby self. And as we learn in the next section, Kapila’s weak body eventually reforms itself as strong and agile.
The way Karnad narrates these changes to Devadatta, as well as Padmini’s growing distaste for him, is through the dolls. The dolls are extremely perceptive and act, Amara Khan suggests, as “psychological masks for Padmini just like the Female Chorus.” Through them we learn she is dreaming of Kapila, and feel her “nuances of sexual repressions.” They are “anti-naturalistic devices,” William S. Haney writes, “that undermine the theatrical illusions commonly sustained in modern Western theater.” Thus they are affiliated with the folk theatre tradition of Yakshgara, and their presence reinforces the disintegration of the characters in the second act; Karnad says, “[The dolls’ interruptions are] done merely to bring out the disintegrated state of the three people’s lives. In the first half everything is neat and clear, but in the second I wanted to create the impression of a reflection in a broken mirror—all fragmented, repetitious, out-of-focus, all bits and pieces.”
So how do we understand what is happening to Devadatta and Kapila? Which really is more important—the head or the body? Both? Neither? William S. Haney believes the answer Karnad puts forth is neither, for the play demonstrates that “human identity extends beyond the materialism of the mind/body to include witnessing consciousness.” Trying to identify with one or the other to the exclusion of its counterpart is frustrating, confusing, and ultimately fruitless.
It is impossible to separate head and body, and the reason why both men retain their sense of identity at all is because “their witnessing awareness [remains] unchanged, providing a sense of continuity to a shifting mind/body complex.” This is because selfhood is both “the dynamic experience and instability of a constructed subject” and “a witnessing observer that never changes.” Thus, “if the self is not an isolated, autonomous entity, neither is it a passive product of society. As a bimodal entity, the self assimilates, interprets and integrates the contents of one’s cultural environment, while simultaneously witnessing that content from the unboundedness of pure awareness.”
To further that assertion, Haney contends, regarding the Shastras claiming that the head is the sign of a man, as Devadatta uses in his argument to keep Padmini, “what the Shastras are referring to is not the mind as the home of intentional knowledge, but rather non-intentional consciousness and distinct from mind and body.” The mind and body are both physical, so Devadatta returning to the body he once had, and the same thing happening to Kapila, “must hinge on something beyond the mind/body complex, namely nonchanging consciousness.” Ultimately, a socially constructed nature is an illusion, and when Padmini realizes this in her moments of lucidness, she knows she is engaged in a fruitless endeavor to fix either man as her ideal.
