Arshia Sattar’s latest book The Mouse Merchant is all about capitalism in ancient India. She talks to Utpal Kumar about breaking clichés like Indians have always been spiritual
As I read Arshia Sattar’s book, The Mouse Merchant, I am reminded of Madhuri Dixit’s Dedh Ishqiya. The woman Sattar talks about is totally unapologetic; she is ambitious, politically incorrect and assertive. She is what she is, to use Sattar’s words. Just like Madhuri and Huma Qureshi in the film. The only thing differentiating the two is thousands of years. Sattar talks about women belonging to ancient India, while the film depicts the lives of women in a 21st century Hindi heartland. Before one takes it as a book on women or feminism, it needs to be known that The Mouse Merchant is primarily about money in ancient India and how people were unapologetically consumerist by nature. Excerpts from an interaction with Sattar on the sidelines of the Jaipur literature Festival:
You have spent your academic time translating the Ramayana and the Kathasaritsagara. What made you write The Mouse MerchantIJ
The credit for this entirely goes to Gurcharan Das who suggested me to put together a series of stories from the classical universe. As I had already translated the Kathasaritsagara, which had a number of stories on the lives of merchants, I didn’t want to repeat myself. So I took up the story of our attitude towards money in the ancient era. This perspective provided me a lot of scope — from the infamous gambling scene of the Mahabharata to the duties and qualifications of a courtesan. Here I would like to tell you that a courtesan handles money as much a merchant does and nowhere is she as central to the life of a wealthy, cosmopolitan gentleman as she is in the Indian subcontinent. In fact, she is placed here firmly within the universe of the merchant. After all, the Sanskrit word used for a courtesan, vaishya, is a generic term for anyone who carries out a trade of any kind.
You teach classical Indian literature at various institutions. Why do you think there is indifference towards this subjectIJ
The big reason is that it is written in Sanskrit, which has always been a language of restriction and exclusion, rather than inclusion. But in general all classical literature is ignored as the language is different, the idiom is different, and what they talk seems far away. I remember Amartya Sen telling the other day that we Indians need to now focus on Humanities. I totally agree with him. Today, we are not encouraged to read Humanities. Parents want their kids to become doctors, engineers, etc, because they believe it’s good from a career perspective. But when you become an engineer, you never read another book again. That’s a tragedy. But, on a positive note, more institutions are now beginning to look for people like me to teach classical texts in schools and colleges. I will give you an example. I was teaching in an institution whose management asked me not to give students more than 40 pages a week to read. When I protested saying it’s a literature course, they said: “No, no, students would be overburdened.” When I followed the ‘order’, students asked me why I was not reading more. They wanted to hear more. This is the power of the classical literature.
Why do we need to read classical literatureIJ
Because this will help us become better human beings. That’s why it’s called Humanities. When you read a lot, you begin to see that there are many ways to be in this world; it increases the potential for empathy and compassion.
You have translated the Ramayana and the Kathasaritsagara. Tell me the challenges you have faced as a translator.
My greatest pleasure today is translating. When I spend a day translating, I feel good. As for the challenges, Sanskrit is a difficult language. The other challenge is to make an indifferent reader want to read this. Believe me, there’s something inherent in classical texts that will give you pleasure. You should not read the Ramayana just because it’s a religious epic, but because it’s a beautiful and, at the same time, sad story. It’s about loss, love and longing which is very much relevant even today in the 21st century. The Ramayana is never out-of-date. But if you see through a religious prism, then you would find it difficult to connect to it.
What’s your latest book, The Mouse Merchant, all aboutIJ
This book is going to be a big gambit because it’s a completely new idea. Today, India is completely obsessed with money. The book also tries to clear once and for all the cliché about our culture — that Indians have always been spiritual. No, we are not, and we have never been. Ancient Indians celebrated money like no other. I have taken stories from various ancient texts to remind us that we always enjoyed money. That’s why gambling was so important and institutionalised in Indian culture. In the opening section of the Mricchakatika, Charudatta is crying because she is poor. Interestingly, she is a Brahmin. This is quite fascinating. The book exposes the colonial stereotype that Indians were spiritual, something which we happily accepted.
Women in your stories come out as very strong characters, but nobody talks about that.
Yes, nobody talks about that. I talked a bit about this in the Kathasaritsagara introduction. One of the things that I love about secular literature is that women here are human. They are good, they are bad; they are slimy, they are noble; they are helping, they are jealous. They are what they are; they are just normal people.
Why did money become such a bad word in post-Independence IndiaIJ
It was more because of the influence of socialism. I like the socialist idea — of sharing money with the poor. look around, there’s so much money confined with very few people. However, making money a bad word wasn’t right. Earning money is equally important. And this you can’t do by vilifying money or the trading classes. I agree there’s a not-so charming side to capitalism, but then it also bringing in people like Azim Premji and his kind philanthropy which is going beyond building hospitals.