Friday, July 04, 2008

Garud and pigeons

Patan, Kathmandu
Photo: Amruta Patil

7 comments:

Jellicles said...

i love the characters appearing in this photo..:)

Anonymous said...

one more for kari. did you really mean all this or is your reviewer more imaginative than you? http://www.hindu.com/lr/2008/07/06/stories/2008070650090300.htm

amruta patil said...

i have a close up with the sleeping birds nestled under garuda's neck. he looks so benevolent. reminds me of wilde's 'the happy prince'.

:)

Jellicles said...

reminds me of a story from hindu mythology about garuda and adishesha. as you know, garuda is a raptor and snakes are his natural prey. the story goes that one day garuda went in to pay his respects to vishnu. vishnu splits his time at his abode atop adishesha, the multiheaded snake and hovering the world looking after his devotees on top of his vehicle, garuda.

generally, a weak person is subservient to the one who wields power over him. he bows..shows respect..doesnt speak unless spoken to...etc. thats the power hierarchy..but this particular day, when garuda came to pay his respects to vishnu, adishesha feeling cocky that he has the favour of vishnu asks garuda, "hey garuda, old pal, howz you doin'?"

garuda assesses the situation and shoots back a reply.."everything is fine as it should be as long as everyone knows..and stays in.. their place."

altho' i dont doubt that garuda is benevolent as well..:)

amruta patil said...

our tracks are overlapping, jellicles.

Alka and Arun said...

Apart from the pigeons on the statue's neck, you seem to have missed out the fact that the bird soaring overhead is an eagle (Garuda in Sanskrit) So you have a very special photo :)

Anonymous said...

Anonymous - It's a wonderful review. It certainly adds to my understanding of Amruta's book. The question is not whether Amruta meant this. For a reader to move around with the "did she mean this?" scanner would be, as a critic has said, "intentional fallacy". A text gives us much more than "only" what the writer "wanted" to. A novel like Kari is served well by readings like the one you have mentioned in the review. N Mohanty.