International Journal of Research in Social Sciences
Year : 2016, Volume : 6, Issue : 10
First page : ( 457) Last page : ( 463)
Online ISSN : 2249-2496.

De-braminising the music: a critical review of K.V. Raghupathi's Rajesh, the Musician

Saranya U S

Department of English, School of Social Sciences and Languages, VIT-University

Online published on 19 November, 2016.

Abstract

Rajesh, the Musician is one of the short stories of K.V Raghupathi's The Untouchable Piglet (2015). The short story Rajesh, the Musician aims at depicting the social irony and scintillating satire on the human conditions of the modern world. It is about how a boy belongs to the marginalised sections was denied the art of learning the so called divine karnatic music. As the caste taboo prevails with a blind belief that the Sanskrit is the language of God so as the Karnatic music – the music of the divine, one can learn the music provided he or she should be a Brahmin else others will not be entitled to learn it.

Rajesh is the protagonist of the story and through his character the author puts forth the struggle of a small boy whose eagerness and interest to learn the Karnatic music was under arrest by the chains of insult and discrimination as the boy is a not a brahmin by birth. However the boy was not stunned by the limitations instead he took the curse as the challenge and mastered the so called Dalit denied and Brahmin owned Karnatic music. The meeting place of the boy who grew into a master of Karnatic music who meets the Brahmin masters by whom the boy was insulted in the name of caste which in return made the boy feels that he should develop himself as a true master of the so called denied music and with an aim that there will be day where he can perform the Karnatic music to the surprise of the cunning Dronacharays. The paper looks into the socio-cultural aspects of the Indian society and how the talented youth of the country are being denied the opportunities to exhibit their innate talents due to a particular reason ‘Caste’. The paper is deconstructive in tone and content.

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Keywords

Caste discrimination, humiliation, passion, taboo, marginalization.

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