Vasantasena and Madanika

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The playwright has presented Vasantasena and Madanika as playmates that enjoy gossip around love. The subject also proves beyond doubt that women in ancient India would converse freely and intelligently if they were in private territory with no males to pry into their privacy. Also, that class means little when it comes to agility of the mind. The give and take between Vasantasena and Madanika shows that it is beyond doubt the fertility of imagination that is shared between women belonging to the lower and middle rungs of society. It also points towards the fact that the playwright Sudraka was a promoter of decorum but he also gave scope to people of different sections to assert selfhood. This is clear from the way the mistress and the maid servant spend time together and secrets between the two are freely shared. Such characterization helps build an atmosphere of close bonding, a hallmark of humanist representation. Aesthetically, too, it enables the viewer to enter the consciousness of characters on the stage where ideas, notions, sensations and feelings surge and win their own specific expression.

Read the following to see how social, ideological and emotional areas are investigated—

Madanika: Well, I am glad indeed! Herein you are indeed obliging the mighty Cupid, who is a glorious festive joy to allyoung persons. So Your Ladyship will please tell whether he is a king, or a king’s favourite, who is thus desired to be served!

Vasantasena: Girl, I want to enjoy, not to serve.

Madanika: Do you love some Brahmana youth, distinguished for his deep erudition?

 Vasantasena: I have veneration for all Brahmanas.

Madanika: Do you then love some young merchant, who has amassed a great fortune by visiting many cities?

Vasantasena: Friend, a merchant causes great pain of separation, by going to other countries, leaving behind his beloved even though her love for him be very deep.

Madanika: Madam, he is not a king, nor a king’s favourite, nor a Brahmana, nor a merchant. Who may he be then, that my mistress desires?

 Vasantasena: Girl, you visited with me the garden of Cupid?

 Madanika: I did, Madam.

Vasantasena: And still you ask me, as if you are stranger?

Madanika: I got it! Is he that same gentleman who favourably received my mistress when she sought his help?

 Vasantasena: Well, what is his name?

 Madanika: My lady, he—of auspicious name—is called the noble Charudatta.

Vasantasena(joyfully): Excellent, Madanika, excellent! You got rightly.

 Madanika (to herself): Let me speak to her now. (aloud) My lady, it is heard that he is a poor man.

Vasantasena: Hence it is, that I love him. For a courtesan who fixes her affections on a poor lover would not incur censure from the world.

Madanika: But Madam, do the honey-bees frequent a mango tree which has lost its blossoms?

Vasantasena: And hence they are known as ‘honey-suckers’ (It means that honey-bee are bit examples of true lovers, since they suck honey – are interested only in honey)

Madanika: Lady, if you desire him, then why is it that you do not now approach him clandestinely, at once?

Vasantasena: Girl, if I were to go to him myself clandestinely, then, being unable to make an adequate return, he may probably make it impossible for me to visit him again, and that I wish to prevent.

Madanika:Is it for this very reason that you deposited the ornament in his hands?

 Vasantasena: Girl, you have guessed it correctly!

The mention of Cupid as a “glorious festive joy” provides wings to the mind of the maidservant as well as to Vasantasena. It also facilitates the entry of the king, the nobleman, the merchant, the man with wealth, the “Brahmana youth distinguished for his deep erudition” and outside these, another person who could be a true possessor of dignity and honesty. The last characteristic belongs to Charudatta.

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