Deepa Mehta's _Fire_

[Michael Rabe]

Belated thanks to Subrahmanya for this citation:
>Prof. Rabe might be interested in this article by the well known(?)
>Ashok Row Kavi.
>http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/dec/16fire.htm
>
>IMHO, discussion of Fire or for that matter politics is nor mentioned
>in this list's charter.  If current day Indian issues/politics are
>ok for this list, then I guess it should be mentioned as such.
...
>Selective picking of topics in my opinion is not correct.
>
>Subrahmanya.

With respect I beg to differ whenever current events appear to shed light
on [or conversely, call for some from] Indological source texts and images.
As a related [firey] example, from this week's news:

From: India Network Editor <editor at indnet.org>
Subject:      India Network News Digest - Jan 21, 1999

>#1. Allies pressure Centre for action against Shiv Sena
> Pressure mounted on the Vajpayee Government, from including its allies, to
>deal with Shiv Sena firmly in the wake of its opposition to Pakistan's
>cricket tour of India even as Shiv Sainiks in Tamil Nadu tonight threatened
>to turn themselves into `suicide squads' in their attempt to disrupt the
>Indo-Pak match in Chennai. ...
>...Reiterating the seriousness of their intentions, three
>Sena volunteers were arrested for throwing pig-heads in front of the M A
>Chidambaram stadium today, while a Hindu Munnani volunteer, an
>auto-rickshaw driver, set himself on fire as an act of protest against
>staging the match and was admitted to a city hospital with extensive burns.

Obviously, this is reminiscent of the numerous SELF-immolations that
transpired [plus a few of the aided-and-abetted variety] during the
anti-Mandal protests of 1990-91.  If anyone is interested I could scan and
post a poignant IndiaToday cover showing a Delhi university student's
Levi's going up in flames before his box of matches hits the pavement.

So here's my serious Indological query to Thiru Ganesan [whom I had the
pleasure of meeting for the first time this week] and others:  "what's with
this fire thing?"  To the extent that there ARE deep indological roots that
reach back through Sita's  Agni Pariksha and beyond, might they be traced
further back or more significantly to Vedic sources, or the
Tamilian/Dravida/IVC side of the genetic ledger?  Ie., are we better able
to understand these horrific contemporary events as reflections, however
distorted, of a Fire god as priest/intermediary twixt god and man, or more
akin to Dravidian fire-walking praxis?  Can anyone cite an early Tamil, or
Sanskritic textual reference to the latter practice. Or is it only noted in
print first, along with hook-swining, etc.,  by Abbe DeBois in the 16th c?

Michael Rabe
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Saint Xavier University