The Sun’s Seventh Horse: Sooraj Ka Satvan Ghoda

$17
Item Code: NAD826
Author: Sachchidanand Vatsyayan Agyeya
Publisher: National Book Trust, India
Language: English
Edition: 2001
ISBN: 812372862X
Pages: 102
Cover: Paperback
Other Details 8.5 inch X 5.5 inch
Weight 90 gm
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Book Description
About the Book

Reinterpreting the pauranic myth of seven horses of the Sun to essay a powerful indictment on the disrupted, struggle- filled, hypocritical and deceitful life of the lower middle class, the novel, The Sun's Seventh Horse, breaks new grounds in the art of storytelling. Each of the stories in the novel, brought to life and strung together by the narrator who is also the common link, is told through the six afternoons representing the six horses. While the seventh horse, with its chest wide and head held high strides along the desolate life scope bringing with it the much needed hopes and dreams. A unique and significant novel from modern Hindi literature.

About the Author

Dharmavir Bharati, (b.1926-1997) is a poet, novelist, playwright and essayist of modem Hindi literature. He is the author of jive collections of poetry, two novels, three short story collections, one act play and four collections of essays. He is also the recipient of Padmashri 'Award.

Sachchidanand Hiranand Vatsyayan 'Ajneya' (1911-1987), honoured with many awards including Sahitya Akademi and Jnanpith, India's highest literary award, for his varied contributions to the world of letters is also a fine translator with six books of translations to his credit.

Introduction

Dr. Dharmavir Bharati's novel Suraj Ka Saiioan Ghora (The Sun's Seventh Horse) is an innovative endeavour in modern Hindi narrative literature. The subject, skill, literary style and felicity of expression used in the text is unique. Despite not having a vast framework, the subject matter which the writer has expanded in this novel through the speaker and listeners has a base which is whole, enriched and solid like the seed to tree. To grasp the basic meaning of the story we have to keep in mind the middle-class strata of society after the Second World War; their financial condition and mental state arising there from.

Gunahon Ka 'Deota, Dr. Dharmavir Bharati's first novel, also became very popular and was much raved about at the time of its publication. The critics wanting to dismiss it as a romantic expression of a young• mind, outcast it from the periphery of mature writing. However till date it retains its popularity because of the fascinating subject it dealt with. The Sun's Seventh Horse is a altogether different from Gunaho Ka Oevta in its subject, treatment and style. An emphasis on dialogue predominate the language. Apart from this, there is no sort of similarity in the conceptual background. The writer himself indicates the reason for this about maximum possible social enhancement in my outlook. Whatever I write certainly has a social message but it also gives personal satisfaction". To construe the main purpose of The Sun's Seventh Horsit is essential for the reader to keep in mind this remark of Dr. Bharati.

On reading the novel the reader's curiosity is aroused to know whether it is a collection of five stories or is it solely an exceptional experiment to combine them and make an integrated novel. Manik Mulla the person presenting the stories is a wordly man striving to know himself through the medium of love. Enticed by the love of three girls he tries to appraise them. Manik Mulla's sensibility is brought to light by the essence of the stories he narrates. As a matter of fact even on being told separately during seven afternoons they are not seven tales but rather one story slotted in seven parts, which on the whole becomes a novel. The writer has adopted the Pauranic tale (myth of The Seven Horses of The Sun) to convey the reality of the people living in his times and his own experiences. All the stories are interrelated; Very well fabricated, within a small framework, it is an excellent novel from the narration point of view. Today's disrupted, immoral, dishonest life reeking of hypocrisy and deciet is revealed completely in these tales. Manik Mulla's descriptive manner is delightful. The splashes of amusing anecdotes make his method of narration pleasing to the reader. An attempt to lend authenticity to the narrative can so be attained by sometimes resorting to conclusions drawn at the end of the story. Manik Mullahimself clarifies, "You see, those stories are not really stories of love, but of the sort of life which the lower middle class of today lives. In this life the importance of love has been overshadowed by economic struggle and moral disintegration, resulting in the chaos, bitterness and dark despair that envelope the middle class".

The novel consists of five stories. Manik Mulla is their narrator. 'The first Afternoon', the first story has been titled 'Earning His Salt.' Actually this story revolves around Jamuna who could not marry her lover Tanna, even if she longed to because of her financial condition. The definition of love she had gathered from these stories she saw befalling on herself. The second story is also centred about Jamuna who married Tihaju, an old man, and he died. Jamuna became a widow and began living in the ashram of Ramdhan, a tonga-puller. The third story. is about Tanna. He- was Jamuna's lover in his youth. He spent his entire life enduring difficulties and finally died slogging as a clerk. Leela is the girl who is married off to Tanna. Her misfortune is apparent from these stories. The fourth narrative is associated with Mahesar Dyal and Manik Mulla. 'The story of Devasena, princess of Malwa' is the sub-title of the story. In fact the sub-title gives us a glimpse of the author's mind. The thought of Devasena in Skandagupta's play rises in the writer's mind and amidst tensed surroundings along with a painful farewell he remembers Manik Mulla. The romance of Manik and Leela and ultimately Leela's marriage to Tanna is depicted in an emotional fashion.

The fifth story titled 'The Knife with a Black Handle' is a tragic tale of love. The publisher moving aside from the love angle of the story asks Manik, "The stories must have some teehnique too."

The fashion in which Manik answers the question is either the writer's own mode of writing or resembles Jainendra's literary style. Manik answers, "Oh technique! Emphasis on technique is merely a sign of immature, the experimenter, the man who has not yet mastered his medium. But sensitiveness to technique, provided it does not exceed due limits, is a healthy tendency."

The closeness between Satti, a girl brought up by Chaman Thakur the barber, and Manik is essayed in this story. Chaman and Mahesar Dyal connive secretly and murder Satti by strangling her neck. The compassionate story throws good light on love's escapades. The narrative of the sixth afternoon does not usher in any new character. Manik's heart stricken version gives a' true to life portrayal of Cham a Thakur, Satti and her miserable plight. Satti trudges on the road pushing a beggar-cart loaded with a wretched child when Manik sees her. On seeing her alive he is relieved of the burden weighing on his mind and takes up ajob with R.M.C. The adversities he entails whileworking. are also expressed.

Not penning a story of the seventh horse the writer assumes it to be a horse resplendent with sending dreams. He sees a golden dream about the future. The six horses are wounded and rendered incapable of pulling the chariot. Only one, the seventh horse remains, which is strong, robust with his chest stretched out and head held high. He struts ahead .The horse of the future. A horse belonging to the innocent children of Jamuna, Tanna and Satti whose lives will be far more peaceful and contented. The very same seventh horse sends us dreams of the future and new readings of the present enabling us to construct a path on which the horse of the future will arrive. Helping us pen new pages of history on which Ashwamegh's victorious horse will stQde forth. Manik Mulla has informed us that the seventh horse will be bubbling with energy and very patient. We must focus our attention and pin our faith on him.

In the novel Dr. Bharati has interwoven his message with such dexterity in the stories of Manik Mulla so that only on merging with the reality it is presented to the reader; not as an idealistic piece of advice. Short interludes dot the novel amidst chapters. The writer's views are essayed in the interludes following the first, second, third and sixth chapter, hints being dropped as gists arrived from the stories in the four interludes. In the interlude written after 'The First Afternoon' the impact of Shyam's comment on Jamuna's life gives us an insight to life's struggles girls usually undergo. The interlude of 'The Second Afternoon' also portrays Jamuna's life story in a dramatic discussion. The author describes the sequence of incoherent thoughts resembling his daydreams at the end of the third Chapter. He talks about Ramdhan, Jamuna, Tanna, Tanna's mutilated feet and her whimpering child. Along with them the many horseshoes. Presenting all that in the form of a dream, hinting towards all those incidents and people he fills the reader with enough information to ponder over. The interlude of the sixth afternoon is a dreadful nightmare. Manik, Leela, Mahesar Dyal, Chaman Lal, the children of Jamuna, Tanna and Satti are present. There is a gory depiction of Chaman thakur's maimed hand and Tanna's severed feet. The action rotates around flesh and blood.

If we reflect on the treatment of the subject in the four interludes we can grasp the mystical meaning of the novel. Dr. Bharati conveys the message in a subtle manner through the stories making it more abstruse in the interludes. Here his point of view is presented in a suggestive fashion. This is the writer's extremely original and creative composition. A suggestion of sorrow pervades the love affairs of the girls. Dr. Bharati has been completely successful in picturing the middle-class society reeling under dowry, caste, customs, marriage to older men, financial inequality and unsatiated passion. This segment is slogging through difficult and distressing living conditions. The short stories may apparently seem light-hearted but if we just lift the upper. layer and look a bit deeper there is so much of hidden squalor and much tlltat truly one feels like crying over the sordid situation. The framework of the text is very subtle but there is only one secret of painting a vast social reality on such a small canvas, a firm grip of the realistic conditions which the writer has seen prevailing all around him arid lived. His close association, knowledge and judgement of this particular segment of society.

Dr. Bharati's solid grasp on his writing is revealed ina simple, unaffected manner through these stories. If the stories of the The Sun IS Seventh Horse are not read collectively with the novel but independently the reader's attention is drawn to the various shades of love, pain, compassion and passion. Jamuna is the leading lady of the first story. Against her wishes she is forced to marry Tihaju, an old man. Somehow they get married but a woman's prime desire to become a mother. To fulfill this longing Ramdhan, the tonga-puller takes Jamuna every morning for a stroll. He succeeds in getting close to her, cleverly convincing her that she can fulfil her desire by wearing a ring made out of an old horseshoe.

The anguish the women characters undergo because of their love affairs can be noted everywhere in these stories. Manik defining love in his own fashion states, "It is true that love is conditioned by economic factors; but that love is only another name for economic dependence is, as I had said the other day, a travesty of the truth, for, though it cannot be denied that love touches the strings of beauty deep down in the recesses of the soul and wakens them to music, it fills us with a sense of grace and light and moral upliftment". What the writer expands about love through Manik Mu1la is in fact his own belief. Manik tells the writer who is a dreamer, "Love which does not contribute to social progress and individual development is meaningless.

Dr. Bharati's infatuation for Skandagupta's Devasena is apparent in the introduction of Lily. Manik takes Lily's hand in his own and says, "I want my Lily to be as pure, as delicate as strong as Devasena." In the context of projecting the various angles of love Satti's spiritual enlightenment is a complete story by itself. Her tale is unique. She believes Manik is a pure man, untainted by today's world. Lily is certain that Manik is the only person before whom her soul is unblemished and innocent. All shades of Satti's character have not been etched in the story.

Amongst the men characters in the novel, Manik is the one who shapes and narrates the story. Tanna, a victim of faith is not guilty but undergoes a life worse than a criminal's. A spoilt, wealthy man, Mahesar Dyal Lampat is a truly arrogant personality. Full of conceit, Chaman Thakur is essayed as a selfish, corrupt useless man who has no role in the text. The novel has an anonymous character, I, who converses with Manik Mulla the mediator. Weaving the warp and woof of doubts and solutions offered in the text he makes the narrative interesting. Dr. Bharti has made no controversial comment on Marxism in the novel. If Marxism was made a subject of discussion in any way then certainly not participating in the story as mere dialogue it would unnecessarily have become a question of needless dispute.

By and large if the characters of the novel are assembled in one story from the novel's angle then this composition essays a life-like portrayal of middle-class strata of society. The segment enduring a struggle-filled life breeding in the upheavals of present day living conditions. An unknown person remarking on the text's subject, style, skill and character sketches ill his preface has written, "The scenario is not beautiful, lovable or pleasant since the life style of this rung of society is not so. Bharati has strived to depict it as close to the truth as possible. But it is not hideous or detestable either because it is not dead: Neither in any way is it a worshipper of death." Bharati pins his faith and firm belief on the seventh horse of the Sun in the last and seventh chapter of the book. The horse which dispatches dreams of the future to us and new evaluations of the present, enabling us to make the path on which the future's horse will stride and arrive,

The aspect of the sun which Dr. Dharmavir Bharati presents, through the symbol of the seventh horse is one which will tear through the uncertain darkness and galloping ahead change the existing social conditions and renew all values of humanity. The pauranic use of 'The Seven Horses of The Sun' may be a myth where seven horses pull the sun's chariot. However in the novel six horses have given way. “Actually it so happened that trundling on the lanes of our classless, immoral, corrupt and dark lives the' sun's chariot is quite damaged. The poor horses are in a wretched state. A horse's tail has been mutilated another horse's foot is tom apart, withering yet another horse has virtually become a skeleton and a fourth horses's hoof has been wounded. Now all that remains is merely one horse whose wings are still intact. He strides ahead with his wide chest and head held high. The horse of the future. A horse belonging to the young, innocent children of Jamuna, Tanna and Satti whose lives will be far more peaceful and contented then ours.

To sum it up The Sun's Seventh Horse is a novel apart, written away from the rut of set canons of literature. The ability to comprehend social reality, an analysis of psychological traits in character sketches, a flavour of amusing anecdotes in the delightful affairs of the heart, suggestive usage of language and unity in the stories is a miracle which is truly astonishing. In short the novel is a unique composition with an original style in Hindi narrative literature. No writer has so far exemplified this specialised mode of narration. The middle-class strata of society deluded by existing false ideals will rightly perceive the reality on reading the text. The hidden immoral norms of conduct will become dearly visible and succeed in changing the prevalent social conditions.

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