by Mariya Qadri
The folktale leaves this unanswered, yet perhaps in that very ambiguity lies its truth: a tale suspended between despair and the possibility of transcendence.
In the heart of Kashmir’s oral tradition lives a tale that echoes, with striking clarity, the existential absurdity Albert Camus famously explored through the Greek myth of Sisyphus. The story centres on a man who, through obscure and ancient incantations, learns to summon a powerful spirit—Muhmal—and bind it to his will. Muhmal, whose very name in Persian and Kashmiri etymology connotes meaninglessness, absurdity, or nonsense, becomes the man’s all-powerful servant, capable of bending nature to his master’s whims. With a mere command, he can construct palaces or reduce them to rubble, all within moments.
What appears at first as a gift soon reveals itself as a curse. The spirit, unrelenting in its need to be given tasks, drives the man to despair. There is no reprieve, no silence, no solitude, not even sleep. Every second of the man’s existence becomes a battleground between exhaustion and the spirit’s insatiable demand for instruction. The miraculous becomes mundane; the wondrous, maddening.
In desperation, the man seeks counsel from a revered saint. The holy man, with quiet wisdom, offers a solution both simple and profound. Upon returning home, the man commands Muhmal to fill his household water tank using a wicker basket. From that moment on, Muhmal is locked in a loop: he descends to the River Jhelum, fills the porous basket with water, and returns to pour it into the tank—only to find it empty once more. The task is futile, the goal unattainable, the labour endless. Muhmal, for all his power, is eternally trapped in a cycle that renders his strength meaningless. His struggle, like that of Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down, becomes a symbol of the absurd.
Herein lies the mythic and philosophical resonance. Muhmal is a native expression of what Camus described as the absurd hero. Unlike the man he serves, who eventually finds relief, Muhmal remains condemned to a meaningless task, a labour devoid of conclusion. His tragedy lies not only in the futility of the work but in the conscious awareness of its futility. Each journey to the river is not merely repetitive but laden with the knowledge that nothing will change. This knowledge—this self-awareness in the face of futility—is the essence of the absurd.
The Kashmiri folktale, rich in cultural and metaphysical nuance, becomes an indigenous mirror to Western existentialism. Muhmal, the spirit with a name that signifies “nonsense” or “without meaning,” emerges as more than a character—he is a concept, a metaphor, a symbol of the ceaseless human yearning to fill the emptiness with purpose, even when the tools are flawed and the vessel is broken.
Where Camus urges us to imagine Sisyphus happy, to accept the absurd and live in rebellion against it, the fate of Muhmal remains uncertain. Does he suffer eternally, or does he, too, find meaning in his meaningless task? The folktale leaves this unanswered, yet perhaps in that very ambiguity lies its truth: a tale suspended between despair and the possibility of transcendence. Intriguingly, when Muhmal was not bound in this vicious cycle, he was restless and unhappy; when he was bound, at least he was occupied. Therein lies the essence of existence—an idea echoed in the couplet of Mirza Ghalib:
Qaid-e-hayāt o band-e-gham asl mein donoñ ek haiñ
Maut se pehle aadmi gham se nijāt pāe kyun!
(The prison of life and the chains of sorrow — are they not the same?
Why should man hope for freedom from grief, before he meets his final relief?)
(The author is pursuing a Master’s in English at the University of Kashmir. Ideas are personal.)
