CC - I : Mrichchhakatika: Theme of poverty and its effects

 

        Mrichchhakatika, which in the canons of Sanskrit dramaturgy is known as ‘Prakarana’, ‘a play of invention,’ having drawn the plot from ‘real life,’ depicts classical Indian culture in its varied richness. Mrichchhakatika offers deeper insights into the sociocultural fabric of the contemporary society as defined by its politico-economic conditions. Unlike other playwrights; Sudraka preferred to describe poverty in his play. The hero Charudatta, the gambler Samvahaka, Sarvilaka the Brahmin who commits burglary, the police officer who lets Aryaka escape are all poor people. Since the royal patronage nourished the poets of antiquity, they were unaware of poverty and so they ignored it and extolled the life of the elite and their luxurious life. Sudraka draws his major characters in the Mrichchhakatika from the lower strata of society.
                Poverty and the effect it has on the psyche of man is a central theme in Shudraka’s play Mrichchhakatika. Poverty forces the characters to explore three main life-paths: of being oriented towards this world, where everything is mediated through power and money; towards the other world, where the spirit reigns supreme; and towards another world that can emerge out of this world, through love and politics. Maitreya mentions the days when Charudatta was wealthy, and then he compares it with the days when he is not. Poverty is not simply a social state in which Charudatta finds himself, rather it becomes the very force that derives Charudatta's thought and ideas because in the entire play he is seen coming back to the fact that he is poor; for everything that happens to him, he blames his poor condition. Charudatta rues the effect of poverty because of which everyone, including those that had received his benevolence and patronage in the past, avoid him like plague. After experiencing utmost poverty, Charudatta describes it as the sixth sin, after the ‘panchamahapatakas’. Because of poverty even the crime of ‘killing’ Vasantasena, was thrust on him saying that he did it for her ornaments.

However, poverty is the bane of the best of individuals and though their innate goodness wants to triumph over the conspiracy of circumstances it puts them through an ordeal. As for Charudatta, the impoverished situation did not do anything to reduce his wisdom and kindness. Charudatta’s meditation on poverty, his stoic acceptance of it, and the way he is rewarded for it eventually is the point of importance that the play makes.

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