Meera

The great poet saint Meera, though a historical personage made only too obviously of flesh and blood, has always been regarded somewhat as a mobile miracle more than anything else. Most accounts of her life are extraordinarily free of any connection with reality, except occasionally by accident. Since she is one of the great poets of the National language Hindi, and her songs are both melodious and paeans of devotion, a normal education ensures that you had to interact with somebody who was simultaneously capable of writing sterling good sense and, apparently, of drinking poison unharmed and merging into images of god. Such a reputation has ensured the saint is held in great reverence but never taken seriously. Director Gulzar, in his film, Meera, has attempted to reverse the normal course of Meeralotry and find the very complex and brave woman she really was. Naturally the movie did not do well, the people do not appreciate their pet fancies being taken away from them. Obviously if Meera was not a miracle-monger she ought to have been one.

The director is actually right. Meera is a fabulous figure in the imagination but she lived, in historical terms, only yesterday. It was the age of the Great Mughal, Akbar, who was a contemporary of Elizabeth 1. The Renaissance was in full swing in Europe and India was more than holding its ground, though the signs of decline were already manifest in the literature. At a social, monetary and technological level however, India was ahead of Europe, a statement that shocks all but the professional historians because of its truthfulness. Akbar was the greatest king of the time and India had its last age of great women under his rule. It is an extraordinary list of unique women who disregarded convention and social rules, following their inner convictions to the end. There was Rani Durgavati, a Rajput princess who fell in love with a lower caste tribal prince and practically commanded him to attack her father and carry her away. There was Chand Bibi, the regent of the kingdom of Ahmadnagar, who resisted all the attacks made on the kingdom by Akbar with genius and energy while ruling. There was Jodha Bai, Hindu wife of the Muslim Akbar and universally acknowledged as his influential favorite. There was the extraordinary Rai Praveen of Orchha, who was the most accomplished woman of that age including the refined ladies of Europe and Japan. She was, let me see, a poet, singer, musician, dancer, music critic, painter, patron of the arts, mathematician, astronomer, designer of fabrics and jewelry, horsewoman, swordswoman, archer and mistress of the King of Orchha. She also had a deft wit that saved her from the admiring lechery of Akbar who wanted her for his court. She responded to the pressing imperial attentions with a verse that said only crows, dogs, vultures and scavengers eat the leftovers of others and would the great King state which of these he was? And amongst all of them was Meera, who led a life of such breathtaking adherence to inner truth that it is beyond most people in its practical implications.

Meera was of royal blood from the Rajput clan of the Rathods, who had a perpetual feud with their neighbors the Sissodias. She was the orphan niece of the Rathod king who was a man with an unusual perspective that extended beyond the end of his nose. He realized that Akbar's imperial ambitions are being served, and could not be blocked, by the perpetual strife within the Rajputs who were the only credible Military power left in India. He was prescient, for once the Rajputs had been won over or conquered they became the sword arm of the Mughals. The Sissodia King had his wits sharpened by peril too and they agreed to an alliance symbolized by marriage between Meera's cousin and the Sissodia prince Rana Bhoj. Unfortunately, the girls brother had contracted her marriage elsewhere and both marriage parties meet up claiming the same bride. Rajputs are fanatically touchy about points of honor and large-scale slaughter was imminent when the poor girl commits suicide and lets all of them off the hook. The Sissodias claim the body of their promised bride to honor their commitment. The Rathods are overwhelmed by this magnificent gesture and marry Meera off to Bhoj. All seems well, but they had all caught a tigress by the tail..

Meera had a monomania that was harmless in itself but strange in the extreme. She considered herself married to the god Krishna! There was no fuss about this; it was just a settled conviction that nothing could budge. She frankly informs her husband about this aspect of herself. Bhoj thinks this is the shock of a sisters death and unprepared for marriage talking, and he is more than naturally gentle with her as befits an enemy you marry. He is somewhat amused by it and does not mind which is the typical Indian reaction. You can believe anything you want without fear of being labeled 'mad' - as long as you observe the outward norms. Meera however began to show that she cared not a fig for norms if they interfered with her belief. One of her first acts of defiance was the refusal to cook consecrated meat of the sacrifice for the ritual feast she is supposed to supervise as a symbol of her new responsibilities. The consternation caused by this application of vegetarian principles amongst the meat eating Rajputs was immense. It was regarded as a deliberate slight to their Family Goddess, Ranchandi, a fierce warrior aspect of Durga and Kali. Her husband remonstrates with her, the family guru debates with her, and her sister in law muddies the water as much as she possibly can, but Meera remains obdurate. The king however recognizes that a principle of faith cannot be forced and agrees to the vegetarian repast..

Meera's first victory earns her the enmity of her sister-in-law in proportions far more than is usual in the Indian family. As portrayed in the film there is something definitely strange in her jealously mad hatred for the woman her brother married, but such things can only be alluded to in India with great circumspection. Meera finds the routine of palace etiquette irksome, it takes away from her poetry and her endlessly ecstatic worship of Krishna. Her bewildered husband tries to be understanding of his unusual wife but ends up increasingly frustrated by the calm regard she gives him instead of the love he desperately wants from her. He even admits he is in the miserable position of being jealous of god. Meera takes to frequenting a Krishna temple on the outskirts of the city where she can sing and dance to her hearts content. It immediately establishes her as a saint in the eyes of the common folk, who were also enchanted by the fact that the princess had condescended to worship with them. Her songs to Krishna, which flowed out of her heart as an inevitable necessity, were easy to understand, charged with spiritual import and so melodious in their inner rhythm that she became a musical and spiritual phenomenon simultaneously. The realized saint Raidas, incidentally a low caste cobbler, was the first to recognize her greatness and proclaim it. This delighted the people and infuriated the palace establishment, who considered rightly that the hoi polloi were sniggering at them. Meera did not care as her inner intoxication with god was growing every day and whenever denunciation became too much for her she ran away!.

In the context of that time, and even today, this is an incredibly brave and independent thing to do. She used to travel all over India visiting sites associated with Krishna, but she was never in any danger. Divine madness is respected and feared and her constant composition of new songs ensured she was never incognito at any place. There was only one Meera, and all India reverenced her genius. Thus she was always found out and brought back by a palace that was growing weary of this god-mad woman. Trying desperate measures they locked up the Krishna temple and insisted she fast for her husband's longevity in the ritual known as Karva chauth. It was an attempt to force her back into the ambit of acceptable ritualism and assert the primacy of familial and social ties over whatever inner truths may be driving you. Meera was delighted at the chance to fast for her husband, only she meant Krishna! She also declared she would not fast for the customary night but till the temple was reopened. The individual standing on his conscience is always a powerful force, and if nothing else the establishment looks like uncharitable bullies..

The first of her many 'miracles' occur after four days of fasting. The wind swings a lamp full of hot oil onto the door of the shrine, which soon catches fire, and the temple is thus 'opened'. The usual version of this myth is that the power of her song shivered the timbers of the door into smithereens but this is a more rational reworking of what happened. This occurrence sets the seal on her holiness in the popular mind and a discomfited palace, which had waited in vain for her spirit to give out, has no choice but to accept her back. They even build a temple for her within the walls of the palace so that she would not embarrass them with her public dancing and singing. With Bhoj away on war however she becomes almost a prisoner in her room. As always, her spirit flares up and she runs away once again, this time to Vrindavan, childhood home of Krishna. Everybody is aware that she is there but a convenient silence is maintained until she does something that the palace could not ignore. She accepts a gift from Akbar!.

Akbar was a man of great faith and spiritual energy and as a natural consequence he was hated by all the religions in India. The Shia Muslims sent him Hindu articles of worship as taunts, the Hindus were wary of his Muslim antecedents, and his fellow Sunni Muslims were aghast at his habit of listening to preachers of all faiths as though there was more than one truth. European missionaries were convinced he was on the verge of converting, unused to Indian notions of interest and respect in all faiths. Akbar even got a gift from Elizabeth of courtier's apparel and he had his portrait painted in it but that was about as close as he came to being Christian. In the end he created a syncretic faith of his own, the Din- illahi with himself as the head rather like Elizabeth's father Henry VIII. It had 18 adherents at its peak and remains the only faith to originate in India which was such a spectacular failure. This was the man who decided he had to hear for himself the songs of Meera. So overwhelmed was he by the experience, and by the fact that her eye had seen through his disguise, that he laid a precious necklace at her feet as a donation for her temple. He had just killed Meera's brother in battle but she was above petty revenge as well as the fact that he was a Muslim. Popular sentiment was wildly enthusiastic about both Akbar and Meera's behavior in this episode but the palace was furious and decided to put an end to this once and for all..

In a scene reminiscent of the trial of Saint Joan, she is confronted with a series of charges that range from the absurd to idiotic all of them being variations on the theme that she was not doing the done thing. Meera takes her stand on the individual's right to love god as they please, in ecstasy, not cowering before a Nobodaddy that benefits the establishment. She is unanswerable in her refutations, but to concede the point is to bring down the entire social structure they have so much invested in. She is condemned to drink poison for her crimes and she willingly does so, tired of this foolish chatter. The director plays safe here showing her walking to the temple and 'disappearing', with an open door behind the image of god and a trail of footprints in the sand. He was obviously not willing to concede the rational explanation, nor forgo the miraculous. In real life Meera survived her husband and, as always, defiant, refused to immolate herself on his funeral pyre as was the norm for all royal women arguing that she was not a widow as she was married to Krishna! .

The songs of Meera are immensely popular even today; it would not be too much to say they are more popular today than they ever were. They are a living component of faith and worship as well as classical music performances and seldom has a poet had such an impact or longevity. Her verse is as well known in India as Shakespeare is to the English and perhaps even more so as she is not a preserve of the educated alone. It is not so well known that Meera has written devotional songs to other gods too, especially Rama. She had no problem acknowledging other forms of divinity; she just wanted to be left alone with her divine husband. With regard to her life as a personal example - which is her real contribution, she was a genuine Hero - India maintains a discreet silence. There is much praise for her love of god but if any married woman tried to act as she did the reaction would be far worse than anything the Sissodias did. However it is not unknown, though it is still uncommon, for young girls to declare that they are brides of Krishna and for the parents to conduct a marriage ceremony for her. Just last year there was such a case and the young lady in question is a successful lawyer. She is not mad, just unusually fixated on an idea like Meera was. In all other respects Meera was the creative and intellectual superior of the people round her, and like many a saint before her she was impossible to live with!.

- Rohit Arya

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