Sunday, July 6, 2003		Books

Pilgrimage in time of woman power
Samra Rahman

Moebius Trip
by Giti Thadani. Penguin, New Delhi. Pages 181. Rs 250.

TRAVEL books may range from those of wider general interest like Bill Bryson’s delightful excursions into the English towns and countryside (Notes from a Small Island) to those with a limited appeal, (Colin Garratt’s Around the World in Search of Steam). Giti Thadani’s travelogue is the latter. She sets out to rediscover sites dedicated to female deities. It is both an archeological exploration and a passionate pilgrimage. Such a quest can be quite dispiriting.

Worship of female deities, which was universal in prehistoric cultures, was eclipsed with the emergence of patriarchal society. A simultaneous development was on the decline in the status of woman herself. Our ancient land, which springs a surprise to every rule, is perhaps the sole exception in having some powerful female deities, who are regularly worshipped. Yet, innumerable sanctuaries that were once the exclusive preserve of women are now lying in ruins. The consigning of such ancient shrines to oblivion was not just a matter of benign neglect or desuetude but was quite often the result of active suppression and even vandalism. Giti Thadani sets out "to excavate their memories from the debris of destruction". While seeking to rediscover those lost cosmologies, she also mourns their loss, a long threnody that weaves in and out of the narrative.

The title of the book is an inspiration, the subtitle apt. Moebius band or strip is a mathematical curiosity in which the inner and outer surfaces run seamlessly. Moebius strip becomes the Moebius Trip of the title and the subtitle Digressions from India’s Highways reflects her penchant for the exploration of byways — not only in a physical sense but also in the choices she makes to bypass places linked to the cultural mainstream. It is both an exterior as well as an interior journey, encompassing as much of herself as of her travels.

Single-minded in her quest, she chooses to bypass the usual tourist attractions as also the better-known centers of pilgrimage, unless they are dedicated to female deities. En passant, she gives a squalid picture of the bustle and filth of small towns, the ruinous state of the roads and on a rare occasion she dwells on the serene vistas of the still unspoiled countryside. But yet, it is less of a road journal and more of an interior dialogue.

The narrative technique is one of indirection, veering off to the oblique, glancing into the poetic, with incantatory effect: "Is my external pilgrimage no other than a Moebius Strip, in which one side unfolds the other, in which inner and outer differences collapse in the realm of uncanny dreams that elude rational explanation?" There is nothing mushy here, nor that heaviness of incense smoke, so typical of many of our nineteenth-century writers.

One cannot help but agree with her observations on travel by Indians. For us travel is a necessity, never an end in itself. Journeys are undertaken due to exigencies of work or to meet social obligations. A journey to see the land, the countryside and the towns, with an eye to study, to note social and cultural trends, to examine archeological sites or historic monuments, is a rarity unless undertaken in pursuit of a research degree with financial support from some foundation.

Thadani’s preferred mode of travel is by road, in her own jeep, driven by herself. Not for her the train journeys, which she rightly observes are always crowded: "Crowded platforms, crowded compartments, crowded stations reflect the mass of human life. In between the ennui, one seeks to pass the listless time through an inert stare that seeks to lose itself in the landscapes that chug by". Train journeys, she points out, have precise points of departure and arrival. The schedules are fixed, even if they elongate. "A long driving journey has a different metaphysics altogether. The gaze is always alert. There is always an unknown coordinate. The algebra of driving equations is never based on fixed ratios; indefinite are the entities of time and space."

The author has a shrewd eye (even in matters peripheral to her main interest). Her comment on the much-touted Mattenchary palace in Cochin (Kochi) is perceptive: "In its architectural confusion`85all in constant collision"—exactly my reaction during my own visit.

On the flip side, one has to be quite wary of some of her mythological interpretations. I am no Sanskritist, but her reference to ‘Maheshasura’ linking up ‘Mahesha’ the Great God with ‘asura’ seems somewhat reckless. For the less adventurous, it has always been ‘Mahishasura’ and will remain so.