Indian Literature: The Polyphonic Nature of Deconstructing Myths

• Main Author: Samaresh Mondal
• Format: Article
• Language: Bengali
• Published: Supriyo Chakraborty, Penprints Publication 2020-12-01
• Series: Litinfinite
• Subjects: deconstruction; tradition; folklore
• Online Access: https://www.litinfinite.com/wp-content/uploads/8_Samaresh-Mondal.pdf

In this modernized world, scientific invention may breathe life into poetry and poetry, along with myth will recreate and redefine literature. Like the way, we collect myths; we create and intrude into myths as well. Language and the world consist of myths and finally it gives birth to life. Etymologically myth came from the Greek word 'muthos' which was later adopted by Latin. Though nowadays the word may signify something else, originally it used to refer to the combination of poetry and music. If we consider myth to be an amalgamation of poetry and music, we can easily state that myth is an imaginative creation of an entire community. This creation is also a process of knowledge production which is explained through the various sensuous colours and forms of different experiences one gathers in one's life. In this process, language as well as the colours and forms change simultaneously and with them, the experiences are re-explained. Thus, the function of myth is to turn experience into knowledge and knowledge into colours and forms. The poet uses myth to achieve a universal truth, which is a general purpose of using myth in any form of verbal arts. Because, it is myth through which the deeper truth can express itself easily and it can expand the horizon beyond the day-to-day notion of beauty. The noted journalist and author, Italo Calvino from Italy opined, Myth is the hidden part of every story, the buried part the region that is still unexplored because there are as yet no words to enable us to get them. Myth is nourished silence as well as by words. The novel Hanshuli Banker Upakathaby Tara Shankar Bandyopadhyay, which is centred on Indian freedom movement, starts with a particular myth of a whistling sound of semi-divine origin that comes from the forest at night and frightens the kahars. The use of myth along with modernity makes the novel truly polyphonic. The author portrayed the ups and downs of the residents of an insignificant and remote village called 'banshbadi', whose lives revolved around the river kopai. He described how the local beliefs, local myths and folklores were gradually changing and giving way to the modern lores and tales and creating a space for heteroglossia and polyphony. In this context, I have cited few indigenous and foreign authors, not only to strengthen my points, but also to show how myth crosses the spatio-temporal boundaries.