Page 157 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

132 Guy Poitevin

deaf to that discourse, and their narrative is unable to reactivate that
memory of assertion and revolt.
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On the contrary, Vadars identify themselves with the donkey, whose
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subordinate condition and toiling life is an inalienable curse. This is the
only sense that they can make out of it. They are even proud of show-
ing the seal of the divine blessing that Śankar left for them under the
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hoof of their donkey as a reward for the latter’s surrender. In fact, the
donkey’s submissiveness is semantically redundant as it duplicates
the whole import of a discourse, which seals the inalienable victory
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of those whom their hero wished to annihilate. Vadars and their old
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narrative nowadays are at cross purposes. Their narrative is actually
meant to seal their subordination together with the defeat of their hero
and the surrender of their donkey. They are tragically unconscious of it
and unable to recover a past memory of rebellion that their narrative
itself, though a discourse of defeat, could not completely erase.
Nevertheless, although this contradiction measures the amplitude
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of the tremendous amnesia that affects the memory of the Vadar
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community, the smothered memory of rebellion can be retrieved and
repressed drives reactivated. Our present cultural context makes us
aware of the contradiction. It enables us to unearth the buried memory.
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A new lease of life opens up in a new context to the extent that Vadars
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wish to live up to their own initial inspiration.
The two following narratives show no such contradiction. They un-
ambiguously display, each of them, one of the two opposite alternatives:
repression and mute subservience in Vdr-17 and utopian imaginary
reversal in Vdr-24.

The Donkey is Punished by Indra (Vdr-17)

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Indra had picked a quarrel with Surya. In order to pull Surya down,
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Indra told Megharaj the king of clouds, to sit still and keep hiding.
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Thus, Megharaj hid in a well.
A drought spread all over the earth and lasted fourteen years. All
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life vanished, and the gods set out in search of Megharaj.
A green grass, haral, had grown all around the well in which
.
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Megharaj was hiding. A donkey used to come there to graze. He was
the only being alive as he alone was getting grass to graze upon.