The metaphor of exclusion: A sociological reading of Badri Narayan's 'Duḥkha-Purāṇa'

By Ravi Ranjan* 

Badri Narayan's Hindi poem "Duḥkha-Purāṇa" (The Sorrowful Chronicle) achieves something rare in contemporary poetry: it transforms the seemingly simple experience of "being left behind" into a profound meditation on human exclusion. Through images of birds breaking from their flock, a calf separated from the herd, a deer failing to rejoin its group, and finally a person stranded on a shore as a boat disappears into deepening dusk, the poem builds what scholar Ravi Ranjan calls a "multilayered metaphor for exclusion." Unlike traditional puranas that celebrate gods, kings, and victors, Narayan proposes a counter-narrative—a chronicle of those continuously dispossessed from community, association, and development.

The Poetic Structure of Exclusion

The poem's genius lies in its progressive expansion. Beginning with natural images—birds in a "necklace" across blue sky, grazing cattle, sheep responding to a shepherd's call—it gradually moves toward human experience. The sequence is not merely accumulation but artistic ascent, each image intensifying the last. The shepherd episode is particularly significant: the system is present, guidance exists, yet someone remains left behind. Exclusion, the poem suggests, is not simply the absence of order but can occur within order itself.

The decisive turn comes with the deer that "again and again tries to stay included" yet fails. Here, being left behind ceases to be accidental or fated; it becomes defeat after intense struggle. The poet refutes the prevalent myth that marginalization results from passivity, establishing instead that it can be the tragic outcome of tireless but unsuccessful activity. This challenges modern society's moral discourse that links failure to personal inadequacy.

Sociological Frameworks of Exclusion

When read sociologically, "Duḥkha-Purāṇa" reveals structural conditions beneath individual misfortune. Émile Durkheim's concept of "collective consciousness" illuminates how those "left behind" fall outside shared moral frameworks that integrate society. Michel Foucault's disciplinary power helps explain the shepherd episode: modern power develops subtle mechanisms to control bodies and actions, yet this control is never complete. Exclusion persists even within active systems.

Pierre Bourdieu's ideas of cultural capital and habitus fit precisely here. The deer's separation is not merely about physical speed but the lack of symbolic resources essential for remaining within the system. Society views this as personal inadequacy, whereas it reflects the absence of invisible capital that power structures have already declared as "norm." Bourdieu's "symbolic violence" operates when the victim accepts failure as personal weakness rather than systemic injustice.

Max Weber's rationalized society—the "iron cage" of efficiency, calculation, and instrumental rationality—appears in the boat that sails away without stopping. Modernity's relentless pace leaves calls unheard. Amartya Sen's capability approach shows how development itself can reproduce inequality when people remain deprived of basic capabilities. Karl Marx's alienation resonates in the poem's twin refrains: "the one who breaks" (internal fragmentation) and "the one who fails" (external structural defeat).

The Indian Context: Caste and Humiliation

In India, the poem gains sharpened edge. The words "sangat" (sociability) and "pangat" (collective community feasting) directly invoke caste-based exclusion. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's "Annihilation of Caste" described the caste system as "graded inequality"—not merely division of labor but division of laborers. The deer that fails despite repeated attempts is, from Ambedkar's perspective, victim of a social hierarchy where paths forward have already been closed for some communities.

Louis Dumont's "Homo Hierarchicus" explains discrimination in pangat through purity-impurity distinctions. Gopal Guru's work on humiliation shows that Dalit experience is not merely material deprivation but structural humiliation—being kept outside pangat or denied equality in sangat. The poem's "man who is left behind from association, community participation, and development" points to this humiliated existence, deprived not only of resources but of respect.

Aesthetic Power Through Simplicity

The poem's greatest creative strength is transforming thought into art without making art merely a vehicle for thought. Anandavardhana's dhvani theory applies profoundly here: the literal meaning (vacyartha) is simply a deer left behind, but the suggested meaning (vyangyartha) reveals cruel modern structures and subtle exclusion processes. The deer's struggle expresses the "unsuccessful activity" of marginalized humans whom systemic rationality has made irrelevant.

Language remains transparent, almost ordinary—"all go away and the one who is left behind"—yet this simplicity creates what Kuntaka called vakrokti (oblique expression): extremely ordinary sentences carrying deep and unsettling meaning. The principal rasa is karuna (compassion), but following Abhinavagupta, this compassion becomes universal rather than personal. The left-behind person becomes representative of a universal human condition.

Multiple Perspectives: Existential, Feminist, Ecological

From an existentialist perspective, "being left behind" becomes fundamental ontological condition. Jean-Paul Sartre's "condemned to be free" appears in the deer's repeated attempts—freedom without guaranteed outcome. Albert Camus's absurd condition emerges when calls remain unheard, the world offering no definite meaning. Martin Heidegger's "being-towards-death" resonates in the deepening dusk where possibilities shrink.

A feminist reading, though the poem never mentions women directly, finds its impersonality—"someone," "the one who"—precisely the space where women's experience of otherness resides. Simone de Beauvoir's construction of woman as "the second" or "other" becomes central. The left-behind person is that "other" kept outside the centre, historically familiar to women who are part of society yet never at its centre.

Ecologically, the poem refuses the artificial nature-culture division. Aldo Leopold's "land ethic" positions humans not as masters but members of a biotic community. The deer's failure is not one being's failure but a crack in the entire system. Vandana Shiva's argument about modern development destroying local ecological balance fits the poem's critique of "development" that produces environmental marginalisation alongside socioeconomic exclusion.

Poetry as Moral Insistence

"Duḥkha-Purāṇa" ultimately appears as moral insistence—not compelling us merely to understand but to see, feel, and reorganise our vision. It asks uncomfortable questions: When all go away and some are left behind, what is our responsibility? Will we only keep moving forward, or will we sometimes stop and listen to those left behind?

The poem gives no easy answers. It only expresses the aspiration to write a new purana, breaking the meaning of traditional puranas—an aspiration that is simultaneously literary, moral, and political. In an era of rapid development, urban expansion, and digital economy creating new beneficiary groups while leaving millions behind, "Duḥkha-Purāṇa" remains urgently relevant. The deepening dusk and the sailing boat have become symbols of today's fast-paced time, when opportunities do not stop and calls remain unheard. This poem testifies to literature's power to raise large human questions through small images and simple language—a power that will remain necessary as long as any person keeps being left behind from association, community participation, and development.

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*Professor & former Head (Retd.), Department of Hindi, University of Hyderabad. This is the abridged version of the author's original paper