"Draupadi on Dice": Our Homepage Image

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The image topping our Group page this week is "Draupadi on Dice," by

M.F. Husain, who is undoubtedly India's most famous (and

controversial) modern artist. Whether you're a modern art lover, or

just curious about what the hey this picture means, you may find this

critical discussion useful:

 

"Draupadi is the common wife of the five Pandava princes, who are the

joint heroes of the epic, Mahabharata. A number of exceptionally

complex significations attach to this character, and these require

some summarizing of events in the narrative:

 

"Draupadi was 'won' by Arjuna, one of the Pandava brothers, in an

archery contest. But when the brothers returned home and announced to

their widowed mother, Queen Kunti, that they had brought home a

prize, the old lady instructed them to share 'it' equally among them.

By the time the mother's misunderstanding about the nature of

the 'prize' is cleared up it is too late for her to take back the

words she had spoken. In this narrative, words acquire the status of

phenomenal reality, and overwrite their meanings. The Pandava princes

cannot disobey their mother once she has uttered her words. The

narrative clearly underlines the logocentric nature of human

understanding, and foregrounds the philosophical notion of the

prapanca, or unavoidable verbal proliferation. Classical Indian

philosophers have often maintained -- not unlike recent

poststructuralists -- that what we claim to be knowledge is limitless

replication of words. The wise person is as much caught in that web

as the fool, the virtuous as much as the villainous.

 

"A common point of debate about this 'marriage' episode of

Mahabharata focuses on how well Draupadi and her five husbands honour

not merely the words, but also the spirit, of the old Queen's

(clearly mistaken) 'wish.' It is evident that they heeded the literal

sense of the command by marrying Draupadi jointly; but did they love

her 'equally'? Did she love them 'equally'? Or, in spite of the

apparent social arrangement, was it not the case that Draupadi and

Arjuna were truly the 'real' husband and wife in this marriage?

Clearly that special bond can be defended in terms of romance

tradition, which is appropriate to this kind of narrative. But how is

such ambiguous treatment of the mother's words to be evaluated?

 

"The story of Draupadi's marriage to the five princes, which I have

recounted at some length, is not the ostensible subject of Husain's

painting. The particular episode illustrated in the painting has to

do with the aftermath of the fateful dice game called satranj

(broadly similar to chess), in which the five Pandava princes lose to

their cousins, the Kauravas, their entire kingdom and every other

earthly possession. (Indians regard their country as the birthplace

of the game. Chess is a central metaphor in many Indian narratives--

recall, for example, Ray's movie 'The Chess Players' [1977]). The

last Pandava 'property' left to be wagered is Draupadi; and this

time, too the Kauravas win their object of desire.

 

"In order to humiliate their enemies to the utmost, Duryodhana, the

eldest of the Kaurava brothers, decides to force Draupadi to undress

in public. Whether it is mere malice or has a prurient undertone is

unclear from the text, although the catcalls of the audience suggest

the latter possibility quite distinctly. In her desperation, Draupadi

appeals silently to Krishna to save her honour. Krishna is Arjuna's

friend--although he is also quite notorious for his erotic adventures

in other Indian narratives. As Duryodhana tries to pull off

Draupadi's garment--in a scene saturated with images of violence--

Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, miraculously extends the length of

the distressed woman's garment. After many futile attempts an

exhausted Duryodhana is compelled to give up his evil desire.

 

"As might be guessed, this complex scene is a popular theme of Indian

religious paintings; these usually depict the smiling deity answering

the earnest entreaties of his distressed supplicant.

 

"But Husain's treatment of the episode is anything but comforting. It

focuses tightly on the helpless figure of Draupadi painted against a

forbiddingly grey background. No other figure, human or divine,

intrudes on the scene. The drama is purely private; it is as much

true to say that the space contains Draupadi as to suggest that she

contains the space in which she is depicted. Colouful pieces of the

chessboard, square-shaped projectiles, fly about the woman who has

lost her balance is falling backward. Husain has captured the figure

at the middle point of the fall: her feet are in air, and her head is

yet to hit the ground. But, we cannot be sure that there is a solid

ground that will end her fall even if it also breaks up her body into

fragments.

 

"The end of Draupadi's 'endless' garment is clearly visible as it

flaps about the body of the tumbling woman. It has been reduced by

the painter to a narrow and short strip of fabric barely covering the

breast and the hips of the woman. Draupadi appears to be almost

naked. Or is she? While her ashen- white body is quite visible, and

its contours, limbs, and extremities clearly painted on the canvass,

it also seems that her body is actually wrapped like a mummy in white

bandage. The endless sari gifted by Krishna is here reconstituted as

wrapping signifying deadly bondage. Draupadi's face is featureless

except for a dark open screaming mouth. It registers eloquently her

scream of terror …

 

"Ambiguities abound. But these are the ambiguities are born of the

complexities inherent the ancient epic, and which make it relevant to

contemporary readers: Draupadi's bondage in the strange 'marriage,'

the 'illicit' favouring of one love over others. There is also the

suggestion in the swirling coloured spaces--the squares representing

the fragmented chessboard--of the hopeless tangle brought about by

words as 'facts' of the narrative seem to pass all at once before the

bandaged eyes of the victim. The rapidly circulating coloured pieces -

- red, green, blue, orange -- appear to suggest taunting (as well as

erotically stimulating) memories of past pleasures, lusts, joys,

deceptions. In short, they may very well represent the volatile,

perhaps even unreal, nature of all sexual giving and receiving, all

such promises and betrayals.

 

"It should be needless to add that Husain does not undermine the

character of Draupadi in his painting -- rather he humanizes it. It

is apparent that Husain has powerfully reconfigured an epical or

mythic matter that the comfort and solace seeking middle-class mind

had reduced to safe pietism. If my speculation about the painting is

even partly valid, we have to assume that Husain finds little in the

complexities of contemporary life to which the Indian epics cannot

respond fully."

 

Excerpted from:

http://www.asianart.com/articles/husain/index.html#figure8