IRAAVATI

 

IRAAVATI

Iraavati was a queen of the king Agnimitra (the hero)in the play Malavika-Agnimitram in Sanskrit written by the great poet Kalidasa.

Kalidasa’s skill in characterisation comes out best in the female characters of this play.  He presents two opposite types of womanly character, the magnanimous Dhaarini (the queen and the first wife of Agnimitra) and the jealous Iraavati (the queen and the second wife of Agnimitra) whose traits are gradually revealed with the progress of the plot.

          Iraavati presents a strange contrast to Dhaarini.  She is very particular about her personal charms and asks her servant-maid Nipunikaa whether she appears attractive in her drunkenness.  She is a matter-of-fact lady that is legitimately jealous of a rival participant in the king’s love.  The superior personality of Malavika (the heroine of this play) strikes her with terror and envy.

          Her jealousy leads her to constant eaves-dropping at many an interview between the king and his new love (Malavika).  An undignified coquette, she loses her temper at the infidelity of the king.  She bluntly interrupts the interview of the king and the heroine with her angry words “Pooraya, pooraya.  Ayamasokah kusumam na dharsayati.  Ayam punah pushyathi phalathi cha” means Fructify, fructify.  The tree Asoka does not put forth flowers.  But this one does put forth flowers and also bears fruit.

          Iraavati addresses sarcastic remarks to Malavika and threatens her accomplice Bakulaavalikaa.  She taunts her husband with the word “Sata” means rogue and beats him with her girdle and refuses to be reconciled even by his prostration, knowing as she did that his apologies were in-sincere. 

          Exasperated by the king’s courtship to his new love, she induces queen Dhaarini to put Malavika and her maid in prison.  At the second interview too, already enraged that she is at the mutter of Vidhushaka in dream for Malavika, Iraavati is further incensed at the release of Malavika, and though she suspects the queen Dhaarini’s partiality at the outset, accuses the Vidhushaka in strong terms when she comes to know that it was the trick of Vidhushaka.

          The queen Dhaarini’s tolerance leaves Iraavati no alternative except to submit to the inevitable, but it is the character of Iraavati round which the whole plot of the play Malavikagnimitram turns and but for her this paly would have lost much of its interest.

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