The cruel jaws of death

One of the most enigmatic characters in ’Razor’s edge’ is Sophie. She is the archetype girl-next-door who is easily missed in social gathering. Life throws many challenges at her - she lacks the pedigree, status, looks and even willingness to merge in the prevalent mores. The quintessential outsider, she can barely make sense of her clumsy attempts to fit-in, when deep within she knows that she doesn’t belong to this social circus. The problem is compounded by the fact that she is quick of wit.

Her life changes for the better, when she marries someone who is capable of seeing beneath the exterior. He appreciates her for who she is and not what society expects her to be - a fragile, gullible, decked-up doll, ready to be installed as a decor items in the living rooms of the eligible men. They love each other and don’t care for the world outside. Their devotion for each other assumes obsessive dimensions. They not only shirk all social responsibilities, worse, they refuse to mingle at all with the world outside. On seldom occasions when they are seen outside, their fingers are entwined, bodies close to each other, oblivious to the world around them. This sweet phase of life continues for nearly three years, in which period they are also blessed with a daughter.

And then one day - her world is torn apart as death snatches her life from her nervous fingers. She is inconsolable. The grief is so immense that she loses her sanity. One day she would be found hopelessly drunk outside a bar, the other day she would be in prison for sleeping with a thug. The death of her morality is so shocking that disapproving sideways head wag of relatives, friends and acquaintances, fails to capture the enormity of it all. She has turned into an embarrassment and wouldn’t mend her ways, however much sense, her exasperated in-laws tried to put in her head. Then one day, they decide to get rid of her and send her to France. She can conitnue her licentious ways, if that is what she wants to do, but not in their world. On being quizzed about her disgusting ways, she mumbles philosophically "I was in heaven. And then it all ended. Now I don’t care whether I’m in hell".

Her rebellion is not against the society but against divine. Her peeve is with God who is so unjust as to deprive her of her small joys. She does not want to sob in her room - her muffled cries barely audible to the world outside. She wants to get hysterical and show everyone without any subtelty that her world was shattered by the arbitrariness of His decisions. The scriptures also have some examples of man’s fury at the cruel ways of the divine.

After Duryodhana is slain by Bheema, Gandhari curses Krishna. For years, she followed the path of Dharma, unflinchingly bore every excess that life foisted upon her. But, the annihiliation of her clan destroys her patience and she curses Him - May your clan also die the way you destroyed mine. Another such instance is the curse of Shravan Kumar’s parents to Dashrattha after the king kills their loyal son by mistake - May you also die of separation from your progeny, the way we are dying. What I really find interesting is that the curses don’t go in vain but are actually fulfilled. Krishna and the entire Yadava clan dies in petty vendettas. Dashratta dies grieving for his son after he is exiled.

They took the vows, circumambulated the sacred fire while the chants of mantras rent the air. He brought fulfilment to her unremarkable existence and they were happy together. And then he dies throwing her in a bottomless abyss. Was it her mistake that she didn’t consider the ’till death do us apart’ clause of the agreement. Is she right in holding God responsible for the merciless separation from her beloved?