Sacrifice In Nitya

Confession, Sacrifice, and Obedience in “Nitya””: The Language which never Forgives the God There is proliferation of scenes of repentance. (Derrida 42). But why was the need for such a repetition of some vow or any vow, for that matter, compulsory? Is repetition compulsory, compulsory without self-accusation? Why only the hair form the symbol of crown (as we have in Buddhist semiotics) and grow its meaning to the sign of puberty, pubic in “Nitya”? Why the question of hair is raised in “Nitya, which is merely senseless and a cluster of dead cells? Why the hair which lives and grows inside but dies outside, in plenty is actually raised in “Nitya”? Hair for which there is no plural as it is itself plural and singular. Hair: A place of self

For Nitya the real problem was that this entire episode was against his narcissistic call for the adolescence. Thus Nitya was obediently disobedient and coming of his age. But obedience keeps no space for age, negotiation, mercy.
The sacrifice which was conditional but whose condition has been fulfilled had a language. Otherwise also sacrifice is the language for the mute given by the other. This voice must be given to the mute so that he speaks louder. But to whom the parents assured of the sacrifice, in a mnemonic diary or in a piece of cloth? And when they forgot this promise whom were they forgiving?
But what are the inherent dangers if there is disobedience of god on the part of parents? What then god will and can do is not said in the text, no justification of his punishment, if he/she punishes anyone. ( If there is a danger of punishment then forgiveness and an appeal of mercy must be there).
Derrida in his famed book Cosmopolitan and Forgiveness drew forgiving the unforgivable, the impossible within one ambit. Here, in “Nitya,” forgiveness takes a different turn. His parents are already forgiven by themselves, for this forgetfulness, conditionally but not secretly. Can one term the repetition of mother (or parents in Nitya) as confession?

However, Nitya forgave himself for being ill, the curse of illness, but he and his final disobedience does not let his Father and Mother release the spring of forgiveness for themselves, for their Is.
In the same way, the language is punished because it was created to describe punishment. As in the Garden of Eden the god punished Adam/Eve and in return they punished God. This is the guilt we have given to god or even author; we punish him with our obedience of disobedience, disobedience of disobedience. The language in “Nitya,” though mundane and having the essence of the middle class families of rural India, truly shows as to how ‘the language’ is the tool of disobedience to the God.

Works Cited

Narayan, R K. Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories. Indian Thought Pub: Maysore,
1994. Print.
Derrida, Jacques. Ed Tom Kohan. Jacques Derrida and the Humanities: A Critical Reader. Cambridge UP: London, 1997. Print.

Derrida, Jacques. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. Translated by Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes. Routledge: London, 2005. Print

Heidegger, M. Trans. J. Macquarrie, E. Robinson. Being and time New York: Harper & Row, 1962.