2019/07/02 by Shilpaa Anand · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Medicine · #Disability Rights and Representation #Dietary Effects on Health
paper · doi:10.4324/9780429295980-9
openalex publication_date 2019/07/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Taking as its primary sources different renditions of the story of Madurai Veeran, the warrior-hero of Madurai in the nontinatakam tradition as well as in the oral form of the Madurai Veeran Kathai , this chapter explores how caste-in-action, disablement, and intimacy intersect to conceptualise bodily difference within a specific Tamil historical geography. The Madurai Veeran story, retold variously in the nontinatakams , narrates the adventures of a young man, usually identified as a member of the Kallar caste, as he burgles rich households and romances temple dancers only to be punished by the local king with amputations of his alternate arm and leg ( marukal-marukai ). In the nontinatakam tradition, a satiric form recorded on palm-leaf manuscripts, he appeals to the local deity who restores his limbs, of whom he then becomes an ardent devotee. The Madurai Veeran Kathai , a balladic form, focuses on the ‘untouchable’ hero’s romantic relations with women of higher castes which earns him the punishment of similar limb amputations. Examining different aspects of the Madurai Veeran story, the chapter critiques the ‘moral model of disability’ as an inadequate theoretical framework and argues for a contextual understanding of the corporeal at the intersections of multiple overlapping bio-social hierarchies.