The Blue Donkey

by Suniti Namjoshi

Suniti Namjoshi Born in Mumbai, India in 1941

A poet and fabulist, her best know work is,

perhaps, Tales of the Blue Donkey (1986).

An important writer in contemporary Indian

literature in English. She has several books of

verse and fable to her credit.

Now lives in the UK where she works as a

full-time writer. Her poetry, fables, articles and

reviews have been featured in various

anthologies and journals in India, Canada, the

US, Australia and Britain. A deep engagement

with issues of gender, sexual orientation,

cultural identity and human rights infuses her

work.

Inspired by Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall’s Paintings in an art book

Once Upon a time a blue donkey

lived by a red bridge.

The councilors of the town was not satisfied by the blueness of the donkey. They wanted the donkey to become the purest and silkiest white. The matter soon turned into a political issue. One party said that the donkey do not and will never change color. Another said that the donkey is required to be a nondescript grey.

OR

‘Just because donkeys have never been known to be white, it does not follow that a donkey is incapable of achieving whiteness. Your argument imposes arbitrary limitation on the creature’s potential.’

‘Good heavens! Are you suggesting that the donkey’s blueness may be a matter of culpable willfulness rather than a mere genetic mischance?’

So they all approached the donkey, who happened to be munching a bright pink carrot.

O Donkey we’d like you to turn inoffensive grey

or else move onCan’t and won’t

I ‘m a perfectly good donkey. What

exactly is the matter with you?

Look again

Your blueness troubles us. It clashes with our bridge,

as does the pinkness of your carrots. Oh what shall

we do? We cannot agree among ourselves.

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3

4

They looked and argued and after a while most of

them got used to the blueness of the donkey and

didn’t notice it anymore. But a few remained

strongly that blueness was inherent, and a few

protested that it was essentially intentional. The

last occasionally brought her a bunch of blue

flowers which she put in a vase.

APOTHEOSIS

In the middle of her years the Blue Donkey acquires a certain fame. The townsfolk grew quite proud of her. She attracted tourist. Blue Donkey bars and bistro sprouted, and there was a brisk trade in T-shirts and Blue Donkey Toys. She herself was installed in a stable and in order to see her it became necessary to by tickets.

At first the Blue Donkey enjoyed the attention, then she grew bored, and then she took to questioning the tourists. But the tourist would just say that they admire her so much and his fame reached all over the world. And she felt pleased.

Soon she began to look scruffy. They shut down the stable

and begged her to grow her fur quickly. Then they

discovered that her fur turned into a beautiful grey. They

were horrified.

But what about us?

What can we possibly tell the tourists?

I am retiring

Tell them the truth. Tell them

that I have become a legend. But will it

work?

Of course, Truth is dazzling.

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THE END

LITERARY ANALYSIS

Blue Donkey Fables The character, The Blue Donkey, is already a feminist sense as it was depicted

as a female by “She”.

The Blue Donkey can be considered as a variation on the trickster figure but

Blue Donkey does not play tricks on people, rather she maneuvers them into a

logical feedback loop.

The first example of this, in the first of the Blue Donkey Stories, is rather crude.

A blue donkey lives by a red bridge. The local councilors decide this is inartistic

and demand the donkey change color, although there is a division between

those who want to demand the donkey change to the purest white, and those

who demand reasonableness, and that the donkey become grey. Buried here is

a sly dig that if one compromises, one can lose sight of the unreasonableness of

the original demand. But the donkey refuses anyway.

Blue Donkey Fables Her refusal to engage in the debate leads them to argue around her,

which is what they were doing anyway. The blue donkey’s resistance

is philosophical judo, forcing the prejudiced to argue with themselves.

Then as the Blue Donkey tales expand, the donkey becomes The

Blue Donkey. She becomes such a crowd pleaser that in order to get

some peace she retires, only to find there are rumors she has died.

Relevance Of ColorsWhite & Grey

Considered to be the color of PERFECTION

Masculinity

Blue

• It

symbolizes

trust, loyalty,

wisdom,

confidence,

intelligence,

faith, truth,

and heaven.

Red

•Red is the

color of fire and

blood, so it is

associated with

energy, war,

danger,

strength, power,

determination

as well as

passion, desire,

and love.

Pink

•Femininity, grace

and gentility

Namjoshi’s Pattern in The Blue Donkey

Pattern A : challenging hegemony

the Donkey is confronted by a challenge to her identity,

the Donkey argues or does not

Pattern B: The narratology of prejudice and Pattern C: the trickster

• the Donkey is confronted by unexpected support

• the Donkey discovers this support to be based on “orientalism”

• the Donkey finds a solution which forces the supporter and ourselves to consider the nature of the support we offer.

Pattern D:

• Blue Donkey is patronized by the hegemony.

• Blue Donkey tricks the hegemony into agreeing with her in order to gain the “sexiness” that association with the outsider can gift.

• Blue Donkey shows us how to make the hegemony look ridiculous when it substitutes cultural appropriation for genuine respect.

Pañcatantra

Namjoshi builds her feminist and resistance strategies within the narrative patterns of traditional Indian/Hindu story telling.

The Hindu tradition has a number of allegorical sequences, the most widely known of which is the Pañcatantra.

This is a collection of stories arranged in five groups, each one of which is intended to illustrate the application of one major rule of wisdom.

In these parables animals and birds act as cartoon figures which highlight the outstanding characteristics to be examined.

All of the Pañcatantra parables are set within a frame narrative of stories devised for the teaching of a king’s children by the scholar Visnu Sarma. Sarma classified his lessons under five headings; Mitrabheda (Estrangement of Friends), Mitrasamprapti (Winning of Friends), Kakolukiyam (Of Crows and Owls), Labdhapranasa(Loss of Gains) and Apariksitakaraka (Rash Deeds).

Pañcatantra

There is rarely an external narrator, except that all

these stories figure as “stories the Blue Donkey told”

and we already know that she has decided to

become legend. Like the stories told in the

Pancatranta there is the sense that they might well

be “true” within the borders of the tale.

As the tales develop, the Blue Donkey is herself

increasingly figured as sage, and many of the

stories become dialogue between her and

audience.

Blue Donkey Fables Pranik, a literary critique argues that “The plasticity of the legend or myth which makes

for the lovely interplay of the imagination has encouraged the dominance of fantasy in

the Indian narrative mould…The author fantasizes, so does the reader, so that fantasy

becomes an interface that the reader’s imagination shares with the author. The reader

is allowed to be as creative as the author… “

Fantasization is thus a privileged enterprise in the Indian narrative.

Namjoshi’s work construct new feminist and resistance narratologies, but these are

clearly sited within the Indian traditions of fantasation .

Namjoshi’s tales construct is of recognition of wrongness, recognition of self and

resistance

References

Suniti Namjoshi, Tales of the Blue Donkey (London:

Women’s Press, 1986)

Dwivedi, N. A., Studies in Contemporary Verse: A

Collection of Critical Essays on Female Poets,

Allahabad:

Prakash Book Depot, 1984. Paniker, K. Ayyappa,

Indian Narratology, Indira Ghandi National Centre

for the Arts (no date provided).

Namjoshi_Mendlesohn.pdf