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The kaleidoscopic nature of Mahabharata has awarded nearly every revisitation of this Epic with interesting glimpses of the layers of complexities it has. One of the major contributing factors to its complexities is the abundance of unheroic deeds, committed by characters that are otherwise best summed up as heroic. Such deeds, when analysed from the perspectives of a present day reader or a critic, often turns out to be progenitor of many contemporary problems of the Indian society or at times, the whole world. A significant aspect of the politics of reading such problematic portions of this epic is the tendency to either avoid or replace such controversial contents by facts that reinterpret the issues in ways that do not problematize the aforementioned actions. In this paper, Rajesh M Iyer’s Evading the Shadows will be discussed with focus on this work’s politics of re-presenting one of the most controversial episodes of Mahabharata.

Iyer subtitles the work as “A fictional spy thriller set during the Mahabharata” and this frank declaration of the Authorial intent by Iyer seems to be unignorable for an analysis of the politics of this work. Since the writer intended to mould Evading the Shadows as a spy thriller, it is expected that it will call into play the generic features of a spy thriller. One such integral elements of the genre that Iyer attempted to use as a frame for narrating a select portion of the epic is its politics in framing of the identity of the enemy. As suggested by Oliver S Buckton in his recent work on British Espionage Fiction as well as Films: “An important part of the spy story’s ability to adapt to changing historical conditions while remaining current and compelling, is this power to reflect the prevailing anxieties and even obsessions about the threat from without (perhaps especially when that threat has already penetrated the host society)” (xiii). Buckton’s observation seems quite relevant for analysing Indian spy thriller books or films where the enemy is located outside the country, namely, Pakistan but when it comes to Iyer’s book, the pattern seems significantly different. The Enemy that the book talks about is located within the country and the very genesis of the Enemy-figure in the book seems to be replete with politics.

What Iyer has created seems to be a result of the amalgamation of the traditional features of the genre of spy thriller with a particular kind of anxiety of contemporary India. This discussion will at first attempt to depict Iyer’s utilization of the generic elements. Though apparently unusual, according to critics engaged with the form and evolution of spy thriller, there is an important link between this genre and that of Epic. Bruce Merry comments in Anatomy of the Spy Thriller (1977):

The spy theme is considered to date back to classical epic poetry, and a number of clear parallels with Homeric or Virgilian epic are drawn. The classical champions pour libations, enlist the aid of gods, clothe themselves in special armour, connive with informers and cross the enemy lines by night. These germinal situations develop into canonical features of the modern spy plot. (3)

Such insightful observations indeed help a spy thriller enthusiast but it is to be noted that Bruce Merry refers to the Greek and Roman epics and throughout his book he has either British or American spy plots in the observation. Until recent times, Spy Thriller or Fiction was considered to be typically a part of British or American Literature only. JA Cuddon observed: “Very surprisingly, the spy story has not flourished in other languages and literatures. In fact, the British (and, to a lesser extent, the Americans) have been overwhelmingly the main practitioners” (862). After the arrival of Evading the Shadows (2016) which very emphatically states that it is a thriller using India of the past as its setting and is derived out of an Indian epic which is certainly different in its politics from the Greek or Latin epics, it seems necessary to study the negotiations this work has done with the generic features of spy thriller in order to map the dimensions of this work as a spy thriller. Hence, it is significant to study how this work of fiction by Rajesh M Iyer uses the tropes and narrative patterns of spy thriller and forges a spy thriller out of the scope provided by an episode of Mahabharata. Attempt shall also be made to study the extent of changes made by Iyer in his work, not simply for comparing the epic and this new text in order to measure the deviations from the former but also to explore the politics of this thriller itself. The way Iyer has introduced new characters and particularly the modus operandi of the main villain figure seem to indicate that apart from producing a thrilling narrative of hide and seek, Iyer has also attempted to bury some disturbing facts, albeit under the guise of something fictional. The paper will draw attention to significant sections of the text and relevant observations regarding the very genre of spy thriller for discussing the way this work has managed to achieve the effects of the spy thriller by using the great Indian epic.

Since Iyer claims his work to be a Spy Thriller, not Spy Fiction it is clear that the making of the plot was influenced by the generic features of a thriller. Looking at Cuddon’s definition of the genre it is found that a thriller “is a tense, exciting, tautly plotted and sometimes sensational type of novel... in which action is swift and suspense continual” (914). The very name of the genre gives clear indications of its effect on the readers. In order to have an understanding of the kind of effect this genre might have on the audience, it seems important to begin by having a look at the etymology of the word ‘thrill’, which is behind the agent noun: ’Thriller’. According to Etymonline’s entries, ‘thrill’ as a Verb has its first traceable meaning in early 14th c., and it is: “to pierce, penetrate,” and is a metathesis of Old English ‘þyrlian’ which meant: “to perforate, pierce.” In 16^th century the word meant to “give a shivering, exciting feeling” and it has a relation with the metaphoric notion of “pierce with emotion.” (Etymonline) Oxford Dictionary of Word Origin’s gloss on the word reads: “In medieval times thrill meant ‘to pierce, penetrate’... The sense ‘to affect with a sudden feeling of excitement and pleasure’ dates back to the 17^th century… The first thrillers were exciting plays in the 1880s” (445).

So what these etymological notes seem to agree upon is that, the very genre of thriller is defined by its significant effect of thrill and excitement upon the readers. Bedford Glossary discusses thriller under the umbrella term mystery fiction as it is to be found in thrillers that there are ‘baffling problems or enigmas demanding a solution or explanation’ (Murfin 317-318). Successful thrillers’ success is hence measured in the conventional sense by judging the extent to which these works manage to arrest the readers’ attention and then pierce them with suspense. But at this point there arises a question, how can a genre be marked as something that keeps the reader glued to its content if it is actually very predictable? Readers familiar with the essential features and recurrent events of this genre know that at the end no puzzle will remain a puzzle, justice will be served and most importantly, the hero will not die, which is to be traced back to the core of this genre’s predecessor genre, that is, Romance. Jerry Palmer comments: “It is often suggested that the thriller hero is no more than the medieval knight in shining armour, minus chastity, plus technology” (Palmer 115). This does not simply mean that Thriller has a reliance on Romance but it actually has a formulaic convention derived out of Romance that it frequently follows.

Every formulaic work has to face a paradox. It has to abide by the formula’s fixed pattern in order to utilize the formula and thereby consistently achieve the intended end result. Yet while doing this a work cannot simply surrender to the formula. It has to keep on adding surprise elements. Hence for a thriller, to be successful means to combine the generic sequence of events, familiar tropes with an element of surprise. It is this element that causes the excitement. Thriller, according to Palmer is a genre that is not only formulaic like any other genre is to a lesser or a greater extent but at times the exponents of the genre have created works that seem to depict a complete subjugation by formulaic conventions. Palmer comments:

as we have already seen-all thrillers have something in common. Clearly, the notion of originality in the thriller is a relative one, relative, that is, to the need for the fundamental components of the genre. Many thriller writers in fact turn out series of novels with an even higher degree of family resemblance than the minimal demands of the thriller as a genre impose… Like other commercial products thrillers require a brand image to promote brand loyalty. (69)

Keeping these in mind one feels really surprised to recollect that a thriller is actually supposed to thrill. Just like a Romance of a Knight, a thriller’s ending is nearly always predetermined and hence the readers are always informed technically about what is exactly going to be the conclusion .In case of Thrillers belonging to a series the very fact that it is part of a series provides the guarantee that the hero will not die or even if he does, the work will bear some premonitions in its title itself. In case of single works, however this is achieved most of the time by using events that are familiar. They are familiar in the sense that readers know what actually happened at the end of the crisis that the Thriller is depicting. To borrow Palmer’s idea: “the appreciative reader follows the action through the eyes of the hero and exercises a kind of ‘suspension of knowledge’” (Palmer 69). Writers of thriller therefore, often work on content whose ending or at least significant portions of the ending are known to the veteran reader. In fact, in a way, it seems that the more predictable the situation presented in the text, the more attention is generated in the readers’ mind. For instance, the sub-genre of locked-room murder mysteries seems to exploit this equation. The key ingredient of a successful thriller is thus its ability to make the reader ask: ‘how come?’ not ‘what’ or ‘why.’ Rajesh M Iyer’s text seems to have followed a similar strategy.

It presents a very familiar episode of the epic. The ending portion of Virata Parva, in the form of a spy thriller. The advantage of selecting this portion is it involves the chase sequence, one of the most basic elements of a Thriller. Since Mahabharata tells the reader that though Duryodhan tried to expose the Pandavas,’ he never succeeded and only due to the incident of Keechak badh, Duryodhan had his suspicion raised, the readers are given the confirmation that Iyer’s Thriller will end with the failure of whoever is going to be the schemer trying to track down the Pandavas. Therefore, the work demanded the involvement of such a Spy as the Enemy who is literally formidable. Only after introducing such a character whose very ontology makes him appear undefeatable Iyer could raise the suspense to the level that can make a reader ask: ‘how come?’ about this work. Apart from choosing a widely familiar incident of the Epic, Iyer appears to have used some elements typical to that of Spy thriller in particular. Iyer has invented the character Jartasya, who is the evil Spy master, a very important stock character. There is the classic trope of two groups of spies facing off each other. On one hand there is Jartasya and his associates, working under Duryodhan or to be more precise, Shakuni and on the other hand there is the team of Indrasen, Kausik and Jayhriday who are working under the instructions of Krisna. While the former group is trying to expose the Pandavas, the latter tries to prolong the Pandavas’ underground status.  Krishna is here, depicted not only as a strategist but a spy master minus the malice. Even the Pandavas are shown to be using one of the most basic strategies of spies: remaining undercover. However amongst all these, the main villain of the Thriller seems to be the pivotal point that helps the plot to move.

What appears at this point is that the design of the work demanded a menacing villain but the way Iyer manages to generate this figure seems problematic. At this point it seems important to explain who is this villain and why is he distinct from all the Spies Jartasya employed. It is important to have a look at the way this character is introduced in the book for getting these questions answered. When Duryodhan is frustrated at the failure of the general failure of the spies in finding the hidden Pandavas, Jartasya says, “The older spies aren’t as efficient. But, I have just the right man for the job” (92) and introduces Kedipal in the following way: “My lord, Kedipal is the younger brother of your favourite architect, Purochan” (93). He offers Kedipal in Duryodhan’s service introducing him as a man with a personal grudge against the Pandavas. Jartasya kindles Kedipal’s emotion saying: “Never forget your brother and sister and their children”. Iyer’s novel becomes a very problematic text at this point by showing its far from apolitical take on the incident of burning of five Nishadhas inside Jatugriha. The text says:

Wanting to please his masters, Purochan went a step further. To make sure that the Pandavs didn’t escape, he invited his sister and her five sons to stay in the new palace. His sister and her five sons were powerful enough to overpower the Pandavs and stop them from coming out of the palace.

Purochan introduced his sister as a tribal lady living in the faraway jungle who had come for the religious festivities with her five sons. Purochan asked permission for them to stay for a couple of days. Kunti readily agreed. (96)

It seems really odd that out of the innumerable incidents in the Epic where the actions of Pandavas had every potential for giving birth to a powerful enemy whose sole purpose would be the extinction of the Pandavas, Iyer had to choose this incident in which violence against the lower-caste people is very prominent. If Mahabharata is to be consulted, it seems that burning those Nishadhas seemed very guiltless particularly because they were Nishadhas, belonging to a caste that is literally disposable at any time, not for the greater good but for the greater castes. Therefore, by offering this explanation about the identity of the five people who were burnt alive inside Jatugriha, Iyer’s text shows how it is haunted by the anxiety of the caste issue intimately involved in this incident. Iyer’s decision does not seem to be defendable by getting considered simply as an attempt to make Kedipal an interesting character, a man driven by personal revenge, which has been frequently mentioned as well throughout the text. Such a defence seems unconvincing because there are other elements in the text that emphasize that; this text appears to be driven by anxieties about caste. It seems that the author Rajesh Iyer has forged this character Kedipal not just as a fulcrum to the entire plot, but also for covering up the incident of burning down five Nishadhas and their mother.

Iyer seems to have made use of another important element of the genre of spy thriller. Jerry Palmer offered a highly useful and interesting analysis of the basic difference between the Hero of a spy thriller and the Villain. Palmer titled the chapter as ‘The Amateur, the Professionalist and the Bureaucrat’ and commented “Clearly the distinction Amateur/Professional/Bureaucrat is an inadequate criterion for distinguishing between the hero and the villain. On the other hand, it does demarcate the zone where heroism can occur: the hero can be neither an Amateur nor a Bureaucrat” (np). Palmer explains that Amateurs and Bureaucrats are generally women and villains respectively in the world of the Thriller. What demarcates the Hero from these two is his qualities like reciprocity, experience and most importantly, participation, i.e., “involvement in a collective undertaking”. The Amateur, as explained by Palmer is fundamentally ‘incapable’ of the aforementioned things and the Bureaucrat isolates himself from people of his own group, he treats them only as parts of his plan not allies. Palmer comments “There is no dynamic in the Bureaucrat’s group because there is no interaction” (14).

Iyer’s main villain in the text, Kedipal is a mixture of both Amateur and Bureaucrat. He is Amateur as he was not actually trained as a spy and secondly, he gradually stops interacting even with Jartasya, his master as soon as he becomes sure that he has detected the Pandavas and in Iyer’s book it is shown that this strategy of shutting himself out from everyone used by Kedipal is what led to his failure while the servants’ trio do not fail because they did not isolate themselves from each other. When Kedipal is killed Shakuni’s remarks about Kedipal’s methods indicate that both Kedipal and Jartasya are Amateurs and Bureaucrats: “‘I don’t understand your network’, Shakuni told Jartasya, as days passed and they had no information. ‘One of your most trusted spies finds out Yudhisthir’s identity, but doesn’t tell you whom he suspects” (228). This use of the stock characters again makes one wonder, was it absolutely necessary to make this stock character a man whose very existence seems to raise questions about the politics of the text. In fact, Kedipal could have been a relative of the Nishadhas but that does not happen because the text seems to constantly depict the Nisadhas as nearly passive tools who are at best allies of the villainous Kouravas.

Along with the aforementioned covering up, there are at least two instances where the author seems to colour the people of the Nishad caste in a particular way. The text mentions Nishadha king, Hiranyadhanus, who is mentioned in the source text as the father of Ekalavya. Here however, he is just the King of a community who was very loyal to the Kouravas. The text reads: “The Nishadha king, Hiranyadhanus, soon heard of unknown foreigners infiltrating his kingdom and sneaking around to get some information. What baffled him was that all these spies belonged to the Kuru kingdom. The perturbed king wondered at this clandestine insurgency, for they shared a friendly relation with the Kurus.” (115) .There is also the mention of Nishadhri, who is the only female spy in this text, recruited by Kedipal for spying on Sairindhri. Nishadhri is presented as the spy of the lowest kind. The text reads: “She is after all the lowest rung spy, just an observer. They are never given much information. Her job is to just to keep her eyes open and pass on any information that she hears at the queen’s chamber” (230).

Thus, the text appears to frequently highlight the negative and inferior quality of the Nisadhas and limit them as the spies and the people inclining towards the Kouravas under the influence of what one might say an anxiety related to caste issues. This anxiety becomes evident also when Yudhisthir tells his brothers and Draupadi about the alias he will be using during Agyatabasa. Yudhisthir, in text says: ‘I’ll become a poor brahmin... We know that the king is highly respectful towards scholars. I will ask him to hire me as a consultant to help him with administrative matters. I’ve even decided upon the name. I’ll introduce myself as Kanak. How do you find it?’ (109)

In the source text Yudhisthir had taken the name ‘Kanka’, which, in Pradip Bhattacharya’s opinion, has an interesting meaning. The review reads: “It is with Yudhishthira that the Vyasa-knowing reader experiences the first stumble when Iyer gives his assumed name as “Kanak” (gold) instead of the original “Kanka” (flesh eating crane). “Kanka” is drawn directly from Yudhishthira’s interaction with Dharma disguised as a crane over the corpses of his brothers immediately before the incognito period” (Bhattacharya). Dictionary by Monier-Williams suggests that ‘Kanka’ has many meanings like: “a false or pretended Brahman” and it even means “a Rakshas” (242)  and here it has been changed into Kanak which means gold.

It is also to be noted that despite references, in Mahabharata itself that it was a custom to have the spies dressed up as Brahmins, this text of Iyer has no spies pretending to be a Brahmin. Gayatri Chakraborty observes: “In Mahabharata it is also mentioned that these spies will take the guise of Brahmins, hypocrites...” (14), which indicates that at least in the field of Espionage, the identity of a Brahmin was easily adoptable and that too by people of lower castes, since according to Chakraborty, Yayurbeda indicates that people from the lower castes were trained to be Brahmins. This text however seems to argue that the guise of a Brahmin fits only someone like Yudhisthira, not just any spy of any caste. The text thus uses a character for covering up the killing of six lower-caste Nishad people, refers to two Nishad people as allies of Kouravas, who were representing the side that represented Adharma and changes Yudhisthir’s alias from a man whose chief occupation was to play the game of dice to a Brahmin who is highlighted as a scholar as well as an expert in the running of the administration of a kingdom and in doing so seems to glorify the image of a Brahmin This text therefore, raises what feels to be a very significant question, is the yet to be significantly developed genre of Indian spy fiction going to use people of particular castes in the same way the majority of the British or the American spy fiction writers used the Germans or Russians in the past and are at present using the Muslims in a recurrent manner?

Works Cited

Bhattacharya, Pradip. Boloji.com. 6 November 2016. 18 May 2018 <http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=49407>.

Buckton, Oliver S. Introduction. Buckton, Oliver S. Espionage in British Fiction and Film Since 1900. London: Lexington Books, 2015. xi-xix.

Chakraborty, Gayatri. Guptochorbritwi Prachin Varot o Modhyoyug. 2nd Edition. Kolkata: Ababhas, 2014.

Cresswell, Julia, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. 2nd Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Cuddon, J.A. Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory. 4th Edition. London: Penguin, 1999.

Etymonline. 17 May 2018 <https://www.etymonline.com/word/thrill?ref=etymonline_crossreference>.

Iyer, Rajesh M. Evading the Shadows. Mumbai: Kriscendo Media, 2016.

Merry, Bruce. Introduction. Merry, Bruce. Anatomy of the Spy Thriller. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1977. 1-8.

Monier-Williams, Sir Monier. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. New Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass, 1986.

Murfin, Ross and Supriya M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. 3rd Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.

Palmer, Jerry. Thrillers Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre. London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1978.