ABSTRACT
Mudgara the Messenger (Mudgaradūtam) is a messenger poem composed in Sanskrit, in the mandākrāntā meter, by Ramavatar Sharma between 1912 and 1914. I suggest that the poem be read as a “deformation” (vikāra) of Kalidasa’s—not quite a parody or satire, but a reworking of its language, themes, images, and tone for a story for which they might seem completely inappropriate. Sharma’s poem is about a contemporary charlatan named Murkhadeva who abuses the faith and naiveté of the public. With an unnamed woman, he established “Society of Vandhyāputra Followers.” When the woman suddenly leaves for the United States, he enlists the help of an advanced spiritual being named Mudgarananda to send a message to her. The poem as a whole critiques, rather coarsely, the dual irrationalisms of traditional Indian devotion toward charismatic gurus and contemporary spiritualist movements such as Theosophy. Sharma’s use of Kalidasa for this purpose is not just humorous but makes us think of his source, Kalidasa’s Cloud Messenger, in a new light: perhaps the “deformation” from Kalidasa’s cloud to Sharma’s fantastical voyeuristic sleaze is not as radical as we might first suspect.
