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Articles: Literature | Chalam’s Maidanam
- Dr. Rajeshwar Mittapalli
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While Rajeswari fetches the Muslim girl for his gratification, reminding us of the Puranic figure Sumati, and witnesses their physical union almost stoically, Ameer cannot bear even the thought of sharing her love with Meera. The double standard of morality, which is a bane of contemporary society, is nonchalantly practised by Ameer. Ameer and Meera are never viewed from inside. Their motives and feelings are never documented. It is clear however that they have no pretensions to a romantic attitude towards life. In their own separate ways, they try to “own” Rajeswari and invariably fail because there is no room for the exertion of compulsion or obligation in free love.
Has Chalam contributed to the demolition of the marital edifice by striking at its very roots in Maidanam? He believed that if marriage has hypocrisy, deceit, falsehood and make-believe for its foundations, and metes out blatant injustice to women, it needs to be demolished. By propagating his free love theory he succeeded in causing cracks in that edifice. People were forced to shake off their complacence and think seriously about the liberation of women from the shackles of tradition and domestic slavery.
However, in his Musings Chalam clarifies : “The change I want is that the imperfections and injustices in marriage should go. Marriage is not so weak as to die out just because these atrocities are eliminated. Furthermore, my argument is that marriage should not be forced upon people who do not want it, and that being married should not be foolishly thought of as being moral and not being married as immoral.”
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