REVIEW
| Moumita De Roy
Yamraj Number 5003:
A unique fusion
of complex philosophy and simple humour
Genre: Novel
Original Odia: Mrunal
English Translation: Thirumoy Banerjee
Publisher: Rupa
First Edition February 2018
Price: Rs 199/-
The very title of the novel is intriguing ‘Yamraj’
brings sweat buds even on the forehead of the mighty, but what does 5003 mean?
Call it a biography or an autobiography of Yamraj, the most awful God, Yamraj
5003 is everything that a reader doesn’t expect at the beginning. Yamraj 5003
is a humorous narrative of Mrityuloka, the abode of the dead, through the
character of the protagonist, Yamraj 5003. At a deeper level, it is a panoramic
portrayal of the two worlds: the world before death and after death.
The story is
woven around Yamraj 5003’s decision to leave the soul of dreamy Sumati in the
world at the face of his beloved, Subrata’s, heart-melting love and dedication
who had saved her from a suicide attempt. This deviation from the norms and
rules of Mrityuloka enrages Chitragupta, the most scrupulously law-abiding
audit officer, leading the Trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar, to hold a
court to try Yamraj 5003’s deed. But who is this Yamraj 5003? Is he not the
same Yamraj we all know about? Why Narad, the news and rumor monger, who
instigated the Trinity to try Yamraj 5003 is against him? The story is an
engaging tale of all these.
Though the
storyline is ostensibly simple, it raises several questions and riddles related
to death, destruction, justice, norms of justice and
exceptions and life before and after death. The powerful speech of Yamraj 5003 to
justify his act and question the morality of the punitive destruction that the
Trinity awards him echoes Shylock's common universal humanity speech in ‘The
Merchant of Venice’ wherein he tries to justify his act of cruel revenge on
Antonio. It is here that the common forbidding image of Yamraj, as a harbinger
of death, starts dissolving. Yamraj 5003’s speech exhumes the deep-seated fear
and fright that man has for him.
Yamraj
5003 also questions the Trinity, why man follows Dharma out of fear and not
happily? Is Dharma second to emotions? The story reaches the climax when Yamraj
5003 says, “People should have embraced Dharma as a part of their life. How
could you attach that with fear, Prabhu? And then Dharma became somehow a
synonym of religion. People will follow the path of religion,
just out of fear? You did not understand the simple thing that if you wanted to
induce religion into the hearts and souls of people, you should have followed
the path of love, not fear. Just for your advantage, you sort of ethically
handicapped human race.” Yamraj 5003 has made such a profound topic much accessible
for the general reader through its easy flowing narrative style.
The character of
Yamraj 5003 is that of a rebel who questions the conventional social canon and
fabric and thus, seeds the validity of such conventions in the common psyche
before breathing his last in the alter of conformed justice. The story also
demystifies the notion that Mrityuloka is ruled by absolute perfection and
discipline. Like a satire, Yamraj 5003 pokes and
ridicules the oddities and incongruities of man’s ways and systems in the
mortal world. It also questions social conventions like caste system, and
preference of position to performance.
Mrunal
achieves this through humour, irony, truism and pithy statements. Like always,
the character of Narad has punctuated the story with an element of mischief.
Through his character, the writer has hailed the inevitability and criticized
the role journalists play in the becoming of an incident.
Humor
garnishes the story throughout. An unexpected humorous turn adorns the story
when the sceptic Chitragupta awards heaven to a goon-like auto-driver and hell
to a priest. The calculations of this rigid audit officer are indeed strange. The
author strikes an ironic chord when Chitragupta highlights that a soul should
be brought immediately as rampage concretization in the empirical world has
gobbled up dark and haunting places suitable for ghosts. By pitying the ghosts
which is rather an exaggeration, the writer pities the human condition in the
mortal world. Through a witty use of irony, the writer has underlined the
strange character of human beings. The betrayed and broken Sumati is not scared
to commit suicide but walk the lonely and creepy road to the railways track.
The truism and curt statements on the characters and situations have elevated
the philosophical vanity of the story. “Money is a strange commodity—tough
with it and tougher without.”
Man’s detest for death
and urge for immortality is as old as man himself. But makes it strange is more
than life, man probes death. Death continues to elude
man with its mysterious nature even after years and years of man’s thoughtful
engagement with it. Though such arduous examination hardly leads to any
timeless and tenacious conclusion, man continues to probe it. The twins, karma
and dharma, establishes a cause effect relationship between what man does in
the life before death with the quality of life after death. This is where, the
other inseparable twins, swarg and narak, comes into play. The destruction of Yamraj 5003 by Trinity
raises the most powerful question: Rule or emotion, which should be the dictate
of the day? Does it also establish the idea that nothing in absolute is
acceptable and humane? Is Dharma a rule-driven or an emotion driven entity? Is Dharma
relative?
The reader
closes the book with many such deep spiritual questions. But what promises to
stay longer with him is the emotional and compassionate character of Yamraj
5003 and a rather amusing image of Mrityuloka. After all, laughter always
conquers seriousness.
***
The reviewer, a Masters in English is a journalist turned language
teacher turned freelance writer. She is presently based in Bhubaneswar and
Bengaluru.
moumita.deroy@gmail.com
