CHAPTER TWO
GIRISH KARNAD: MODERN YET TRADITIONAL
Chapter One located Karnad in the history of Indian drama in general and in
Indian drama in English in particular. Giving a brief biographical account of
Karnad it listed his plays in Kannada and English. The chapter also presented
the justification for choosing Karnad for the present study. After explaining a
few important terms it moved on to explain the thesis, the approach to it and
constructed a working paradigm. Finally it presented the survey of literature
and the structure of the thesis. The present chapter will trace the history of
Indian drama and the history of Indian drama in English. Then it will focus
on Karnad’s contribution, vision and mission.
Indian Drama: The history of Indian drama, as literature and
performance, goes back to the ancient times. Dramaturgy in India has been well
established for more than 2000 years. In the absence of other literary documents,
scholars have tried to trace the development of Indian drama in Sanskrit back to
the Vedas because the Vedas form the fons et origio (fountain and origin) of
Indian literature. “Bharata’s Natyasastra, a treatise on dramaturgy . . . was given
the status of a Veda” (S. Krishna Bhatta, Indian English Drama: A Critical
Study 1-2). Thus drama was considered the fifth Veda with a divine origin, and
it came under the category of the Drusya Kavyas. Bharata’s Nātyashāstra
codified the rules of drama and became the theoretical basis for Indian classical
drama. M.N.Sundararaman, in “Tradition and Modernity in Indian English
Drama,” explains, “The Sanskrit word for drama ‘Nataka’ has its roots in the
word ‘nrt’ which means ‘to dance’ and hence drama should have developed as
an art of studied gestures and expressions from the basic arts of dance and
music” (1-2).
When the Aryan and the non-Aryan elements in the Indian population
got mixed up, they fitted in with a scheme of mythology, religion and
philosophy. Puppetry, which seems to have developed in India a few centuries
before the Christian Era, and the dialogues by the performers controlling the
puppets (sutradhara), gave an impetus to the emergence of drama in ancient
India (Suniti Kumar Chatterji, “Introduction,” Indian Drama 6). Bhatta posits a
similar opinion when he observes, “we may guess that the Classical Sanskrit
Drama probably originated from the folk theatre of the country as a
sophisticated form and, in course of time, both went on borrowing from each
other and developed” (1).
The earliest specimen of the drama of ancient India, the fragments of
some Buddhist dramas attributed to Asvaghosha of the first-second century
C.E., indicates the beginning of Indian drama. Before Kalidasa, who lived about
400 C.E., there were many dramatic poets whose names Kalidasa himself has
recorded. Among these was the great Bhasa. Prior to Kalidasa, Sudraka authored
a comedy titled Mrichchhakatika or Little Clay-Cart, depicting the Indian
society of the first to third centuries in a vivid and telling manner. The most
important Sanskrit drama and one of the most famous in world literature is the
Sakuntala of Kalidasa. The plays of Bhasa, Sudraka, Kalidasa, Visakhadata,
Harsha and Bhavabhuti, besides a few others, are among the representative
productions of ancient Indian literature (Chatterji 9-10). They represent the
golden age of Sanskrit drama. However, from the seventh century onwards, a
marked decline in quality, especially with reference to originality, is found in the
Sanskrit plays.
After the conquest of India, the Turks suppressed the native Indian ruling
houses and obstructed any further development and even continuance of the
traditions of Sanskrit drama. But all over India there were isolated instances of
scholars continuing the tradition more or less as a literary exercise. Since
Independence, attempts have been made to revive Sanskrit drama and V.
Raghavan’s Anarkali is an example of this trend.
Though Sanskrit drama ceased to be a living form, attempts at literary
self-expression were made after 1200 C.E. A new tradition in drama gradually
became popular. For example, in Eastern India a kind of drama with dialogues
by two or more actors accompanied by songs, made its appearance perhaps first
in Bengal and Northern Bihar (Mithila), and then it must have spread to Assam,
Orissa and Nepal. The seeds of this new type are perhaps found in the GitaGovinda of Jayadeva at the end of the twelfth century of the Christian Era
(Chatterji 11). While the Sanskrit theatre declined, the popular folk theatre
continued to grow in both quality and quantity. It used local languages, dealt
with well-known themes, and adopted the Sutradhara, the Vidusaka and some
other classical conventions. Meanwhile, the tradition of dramatic recitation of
epic stories continued. It was further developed by the professional charanas
who may be said to have founded the Modern Indian Theatre (Bhatta 3).
In reviving the Vedic religion and culture, saint-philosophers like Sri
Sankara and the resultant religious resurgence gave rise to the bhakti cult. The
spread of the bhakti cult induced the kings to build many temples, which also
became popular playhouses. This gave rise to many popular dramatic forms
across the country such as Ramlila, Raslila, and Nautanki of North, Bhavai of
Gujarat, Yakshagana of Karnataka, Veethi-natakamu and Burra-katha of Andhra
and Terukoothu of Tamilnadu. As Indian drama evolved, both classical Sanskrit
drama and the folk theatre interacted with and influenced each other (Bhatta
3-4).
Various dramatic expressions evolved in different parts of India due to
the influence of religion. The Bengali pala-gan is an example of one such
dramatic expressions. The fatras, which means “a religious procession,”
developed out of the pala-gan. The mediaeval Bengali jatra grew out of a
combination of the pala-gan and the fatra. It was a primitive drama without
scenes and while the actors performed the audience sat around them in a circle.
In them there was more singing than acting. Skits of a social or satirical
character preceded and followed such dramas. Other parts of India also had
similar performances. The Sanskrit tradition continued in South India, and the
creative artists were drawn to dance rather than drama proper. Thus in Kerala
there is Kathakali, a classical dance drama that is not drama in the strict sense of
the term (Chatterji 13).
Another important influence on Indian drama came from the West during
the British rule, especially the Elizabethan variety. The influence of modern
English and other Western drama made the Indian playwrights aware of a wide
variety of techniques. Thus contemporary Indian drama has become a meeting
point of three traditions: the Sanskrit classical drama, the Indian folk theatre and
the Western drama. “It is clear that modern drama in India is a composite art, the
result of diverse literary influences. It has, however, developed far from
uniformly in the country” (Chatterji 14).
Indian Drama in English: The history of Indian drama in English is a
relatively recent phenomenon and a gradually developing literary form in Indian
writing in English. Indian Writing in English is steadily gaining popularity and
acceptance among literary circles today the world over and it has become an
important branch of Literature in English. Its poetry and fiction have achieved a
greater creative output and received better critical attention. But its drama has
been a relatively poor performer. In Indian English Literature 1980-2000 by
Naik and Narayan, Naik comments, “The sad Cinderella of Indian English
literature from the beginning, drama remains its Cinderella still, waiting for her
prince” (201).
While discussing the present status of Indian drama in English, certain
points need to be clarified at the very outset. There are three varieties of Indian
plays in English that one can identify. They are: plays in the vernacular that
have been translated into English by Indians who are not the authors of the
originals, plays in the vernacular that have been translated into English by the
authors themselves and plays written originally in English by Indians. This
section investigates the second and third varieties only. There are not less than
700 plays written in English by Indian authors since 1831. The present
investigation will look only at the major authors and their outstanding works in
English. This study takes into consideration one-act plays and mini-plays in
English also along with other plays in English by Indian authors. However it
does not include radio and TV plays in English, as they are not written for the
stage.
The first Indian drama in English appeared in 1831 when Krishna Mohan
Banerji wrote The Persecuted or Dramatic Scenes Illustrative of the Present
State of Hindoo Society in Calcutta. This presents in a crude way the conflict in
the mind of a Bengali youth between orthodoxy and the new ideas introduced by
Western education. This remained the only dramatic output in the whole of India
for more than a generation. However, a more consistent attempt to write plays in
English began with Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s translation of his own Bengali
plays into English: Ratnavali (1858), Sermista (1859) and Is This Called
Civilization? (1871). His Nation Builders was published posthumously in 1922.
Ramkinoo Dutt’s Manipura Tragedy (1893) is the last Indian drama in English
that was published in Bengal in the nineteenth century. Even Bengal that gave a
lead to different forms of Indian literature in English failed to establish a firm
ground for drama in English. Due to the absence of a firm live theatre tradition
for drama in English, early Indian drama in English in Bengal and elsewhere in
India could develop only sporadically, mostly as closet drama.
The first theatre in Bombay, the Bombay Amateur Theatre, was built in
1776. But by 1835, crippled by financial difficulties, this theatre was sold by
public auction. Later the Grant Road Theatre opened in 1846. During the latter
half of the nineteenth century many visiting European companies performed in
Bombay. Many amateur dramatic groups and clubs also flourished during the
1860s and the 1870s. But when modern Marathi drama was successfully
launched in 1880, drama in English began to decline, unable to face the
challenge of the vernacular theatre.
The history of modern drama in Madras is much briefer. The Madras
Dramatic Society was established in 1875, enabling amateur Europeans to
perform in English. The Oriental Drama Club was founded in 1882.
Krishnammachary of Bellary founded the Sarasa Vinodini Sabha, the first
Indian amateur dramatic society in South India, in 1890.
By the early twentieth century, the theatre movement in the Indian
languages had already gathered momentum under the influence of the British
drama. But the theatre in English received little impetus to develop. Several
dramatic organizations were launched from 1940 but none exclusively for drama
in English. The National School of Drama was established after Independence.
Institutions for training in dramatics such as Rukminidevi Arundale’s
Kalakhestra at Adayar in Madras and Mrinalini Sarabhai’s Darpana in
Ahmedabad were founded. Several universities like Baroda, Calcutta, Punjab,
Annamalai and Mysore started drama departments. The Sangit Natak Akademi
in New Delhi started the annual National Drama Festival in 1954. The British
Council and the U.S. Information Service arranged visits of foreign troupes from
time to time. With all these initiatives it was drama in the Indian languages that
did well, but drama in English remained impoverished. Gopal Sharman’s
Akshara Little Theatre in New Delhi was an exception, putting up one or two
performances occasionally. Although some plays like Gurcharan Das’s Mira,
Pratap Sharma’s A Touch of Brightness and Asif Currimbhoy’s The Dumb
Dancer have been successfully staged in the West they did not fare well in
India.
Pre-Independence
Scenario:
Pre-Independence
India
saw
the
emergence of many playwrights in English, but only a few among them were
prominent. Sri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya,
A. S. Panchapakesa Ayyar, Bharati Sarabhai, the first woman playwright during
the colonial period, J. M. Lobo Prabhu, T. P. Kailasam and V. V. S. Ayengar
were the notable names.
Sri Aurobindo, a multi-faceted personality, wrote five complete and six
incomplete verse plays. His important and complete plays are The Viziers of
Bassora-A Dramatic Romance, Perseus the Deliverer, Rodogune (1958),
Vasavadutta (1957) and Eric. These plays were written in English as original
dramatic creations in five acts and in blank verse. Of these only Perseus was
published during his lifetime. These five plays are steeped in poetry and
romance. They underline the need for love, for love alone is the great solvent of
all varieties of evil. “Though the ‘power of love’ can be considered as the
common message of all the plays of Sri Aurobindo, each play presents this
theme in its own way, often in conjunction with some other themes,” observes
Sundararaman (5). His incomplete plays are The Witch of Ilni: A Dream of the
Woodlands (1891), Achab and Esarhaddon, The Maid in the Mill: Love Shuffles
the Cards, The House of Brute, The Birth of Sin (1942) and Prince of Edur
(1907). We find high seriousness and artistic beauty in Aurobindo’s works. As
for Tagore, for Aurobindo drama was an artistic medium to highlight moral
values and truths.
Perseus is based on an ancient Greek myth and is located in Syria.
Andromeda, the heroine, actively fights evil and faces the consequences. She
leads the evolutionary urge to reach higher realms of consciousness. In Perseus
there is a clash between the old ethic and the new ethic, and the latter prevails.
Vasavadutta is a tale of ancient India and is more of a romance. The outlines of
the story are traceable to Somadeva’s Kathasaritsagara. Rodogune, Aurobindo’s
only tragedy, is a Syrian romance, a Syria not of history and geography but of
his imagination. The play represents a fratricidal conflict arising out of a lovetriangle. The women characters are the major attractions of this play. The Viziers
goes back to the days of Haroun al Rasheed, Caliph of Bagdad. It shows a pair
of young lovers who are reunited after a series of trials. The play’s imagery is
rich and sensuous. It is based on a story from The Arabian Nights. Eric is a
Scandinavian tale of war and love.
Aurobindo’s plays are about different cultures and countries of different
epochs and deal with a variety of characters, moods and sentiments. Romance,
heroic play, tragedy, comedy and farce find representation in his plays. “The
two characteristic Aurobindoean themes in the plays are the idea of human
evolution in Perseus the Deliverer and love as a benevolent force destroying evil
and making for harmony and peace in The Viziers of Bassora, Prince of Edur,
Eric and Vasavadutta” (M.K.Naik, A History of Indian English Literature 100).
In Aurobindo’s plot-construction and characterisation the influence of
Elizabethan drama is clear. His use of blank verse is superb and in tune with the
characters and situations. The influence of Sanskrit drama is also evident in his
plays.
Rabindranath Tagore, one of the major Indian dramatists in English,
wrote all his plays first in Bengali and then translated a few into English. A
versatile, multi-dimensional personality, Tagore used the dramatic medium to
convey moral values and philosophical ideas. While his dramas have artistic
richness they are also dramas of ideas. He made prolific use of imagery and
symbolism and “saw the universals behind the particulars” comments
K.R.Srinivasa Iyengar in Indian Writing in English (122). Iyengar further
observes that Tagore created his dramas out of “certain traditional national
attitudes . . . unshakable obscure racial memories . . . [and] perennially recurrent
archetypal memories . . .” (122). Commenting on Tagore’s style, Iyengar
observes that in the handling of his themes Tagore could take for granted Indian
epics, cultural and religious traditions such as idolatry, asceticism, casteism,
family relationships, fanaticism, pettiness and magnanimity (122-23). “Not the
logic of careful plotting but the music of ideas and symbols is the ‘soul’ of this
drama. Not the apparent meaning but its echoing cadence of suggestion—
dhwani . . . is what matters, for this alone kindles the sluggish soul to a new
awareness of life’s ‘deep magics’” (Iyengar 123).
Naik, in A History of Indian English Literature pointing to the “compact
and neat structure” of Tagore’s plays in English, observes that “much
complexity and richness have been lost in the process” (103). Discussing
Tagore’s main characters, Naik observes that they “tend to be symbolic and
allegorical in the thesis plays and archetypal in the psychological dramas, and
often attain a certain universality (103). Tagore’s setting is “non-realistic” and
“symbolic” and the dialogue often “attain a true poetic flavour” (Iyengar 103).
In A History of Indian English Literature Naik classifies Tagore’s plays
under two broad categories (101). Thematically Sanyasi, Malini, Chitra (1913),
The Cycle of Spring (1917), Sacrifice (1917), Red Oleanders (1924) and Natir
Puja (1927) are thesis plays. The King and the Queen, Kacha and Devayani,
Karna and Kunti and The Mother’s Prayer are psychological dramas. Mukta
Dhara (1922) is another important play of Tagore.
Celebration of life is the theme of Sanyasi and The Cycle of Spring.
Sanyasi deals with the refusal of an ascetic to accept the world and the negative
virtue he develops. Salvation comes not from negation, but from wise
acceptance, purification and inner transformation. The Cycle of Spring portrays a
king who is afraid of old age but is convinced by the fact that the secret of
happiness is to accept the inevitable fact of change in life. The King and the
Queen and Sacrifice are of the same category as Sanyasi. The King is spiritually
and morally blind in Sanyasi but in The King and the Queen and Sacrifice it is
the Queen who is blind. In both, blindness is the result of their self-centredness
and their inability to make love a liberating force. Replacement of the old
inhuman ethic with a new humane ethic is the theme of both the plays.
Malini, Sacrifice and Natir Puja expose religious fanaticism. In Malini a
new ethic of forgiveness challenges an old ethic of punishment. Both Natir Puja
and Chandalika are plays that “testify to Tagore’s attraction to Buddhism as an
ethic and the Buddha as a spiritual power and personality” (Iyengar 130). In
Natir Puja the issue is between the temporal power, the King, and the spiritual
power, the Buddha. Chandalika deals with Prakriti, the untouchable girl’s love
for Ananda, the Buddha’s youngest and best-loved disciple, her realisation of
the wrong committed and her spiritual rebirth.
In Red Oleanders the action is confused and the characters are abstract.
“Red Oleanders is a symbolic presentation of the triumph of humanistic values
over soul-killing Mammonism” (A History of Indian English Literature 102).
Mukta-Dhara is Tagore’s greatest and most powerful play, rich in suggestion. It
is a play with a political slant. The exploiter, who is arrogant in spirit, and the
exploited, who is brave in spirit, are symbolised by Uttarakut and Shivtarai
respectively. Dhananjaya, the ascetic, and Abhijit, the Prince, who symbolise
man’s immortal spirit, give Mukta-Dhara its spiritual and symbolic overtones.
The play stresses human values as supreme and asserts that to ignore this is to
move towards self-destruction.
Chitra was inspired by the Mahabharata and is a succinct Tagorian
version of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala. In Chitra Tagore depicts the evolution of
human love from the physical to the spiritual. Gandhari’s Prayer is a study of a
mother and her son. Karna and Kunti is about another mother and son who have
greatly suffered in life.
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya wrote his first play Abu Hassan in 1918.
He wrote seven verse plays which he published under the title Poems and Plays
(1927), and these plays are based on the lives of Indian saints. His Five Plays is
written in prose and reveals his social consciousness and displays a touch of
realism. It contains his characteristic plays, The Window, The Parrot, The
Sentry’s Lantern, The Coffin and The Evening Lamp. The Window and The
Parrot deal with the lives of the poor. The Window gives a disturbing account of
the workers’ life in a Bombay slum. The Coffin and The Evening Lamp are
ironical presentations of two young romantics. The Coffin is another satire on
the bourgeois artist and his make-believe world. ”Although these plays are too
heavily coated with purpose, they have a tautness and intensity that are seldom
found in our dramatic writing. These plays were indeed manifestoes of the new
realism” (Iyengar 234). The Sentry’s Lantern is a symbolic presentation of the
hope of the dawn of a new era for the poor.
The Sleeper Awakened is an allegorical satire on the evils of modern
civilization. The Saint: A Farce (1946) is a cynical play wherein a drug addict is
mistaken for a holy sage. Kannappan or the Hunter of Kalahasti (1950) is a
lyrical play that deals with the right of a poor hunter to enter the temple.
Siddhartha: Man of Peace (1956) is a play in verse and prose, and is a
biographical piece on the life of the Buddha. Harindranath’s plays on social
themes are dramatically more effective than his plays and playlets on the lives of
saints but the latter have their individuality too. The “Prologue” in the play is a
symbolic presentation of the crisis in civilization resulting from the discovery of
nuclear power.
A. S. Panchapakesa Ayyar’s first play In the Clutch of the Devil (1926)
has as its central motif the superstitious practices of witchcraft and ritualistic
murder that were prevalent in the rural South India of his time. Sita’s Choice
and Other Plays (1935) contains the title play, Brahma’s Way and The Slave of
Ideas. The Slave of Ideas and Other Plays (1941) is another collection of his
plays wherein he uses the prose medium effectively and is seen to be a vigorous
critic of contemporary life. His plot and characterisation are subordinated to the
message. His last play The Trial of Science for the Murder of Humanity (1942)
is allegorical.
Bharati Sarabhai is the first and the most distinguished of the women
playwrights of Indian drama in English during the colonial era. She wrote two
plays, namely, The Well of the People (1943) and Two Women (1952). The first
is symbolic and poetic and follows the Gandhian social order while the second is
realistic and is written in prose and investigates the private world of a sensitive
individual. The Well of the People has no conventional change of scenes but has
a continuous action. It is based on a real story published in Gandhi’s Harijan
and is a poetic pageant more than a play and uses symbolic characters. Two
Women is full of poetic feeling and is packed with thought. The key elements of
the play are the tension of Hindustan, “the opposing pulls of tradition and revolt,
the paralysis that makes the impulse to move forward. . . . The great merit of the
drama is that although it reaches some sort of conclusion, we are left with the
impression that the real conclusion is yet to come . . . ” (Iyengar 240).
Joseph Mathias Lobo Prabhu has written more than a dozen plays. But
only Mother of New India: A Play of the Indian Village in Three Acts (1944) and
Death Abdicates (1945) appeared before Independence. His Collected Plays
which contained six of his works was published in 1956. His long skit Apes in
the Parlour deals with affluent life. An actress steals a precious stone from a
temple and is murdered at the end. The Family Cage is an attempt to present the
plight of a widow in a joint family, but in the style of melodrama. Flags of the
Heart is an emotional piece with a sentimental conclusion. Winding Ways deals
with the Christian ethic of love and the Hindu ethic of detachment, but in an
unconvincing manner. Love Becomes Light is also a melodramatic play. Dog’s
Ghost: A Play for Non-Vegetarians sounds like a play on non-violence.
Thyagaraja Paramasiva Kailasam wrote both in English and Kannada
and is considered the father of modern Kannada drama. His genius finds its full
expression in his English plays such as The Burden, Fulfilment and A
Monologue: Don’t Cry— all three published in one volume called Little Lays
and Plays (1933). His other plays are Karna or The Brahmin’s Curse (1946) and
Keechaka (1949). He has a uniform technical excellence in both Kannada and
English. Sundararaman remarks, “Kailasam’s plays show a combination of
tradition and modernity. While on the one hand the plots and events are based
on the epics, the presentation and the interpretation of the events reveal a bold
and new approach” (6). His English plays are inspired by Puranic themes, but he
renders them brilliantly in the intellectual idiom of the present day. In The
Burden, Kailasam has shown that he can make prose a fit vehicle for the
expression of tragic emotion. This play deals with Bharata’s reaction to the
sudden news of his father’s death, Rama’s banishment and his own elevation to
kingship. Fulfilment is a longer and a more cutting play in prose with an element
of horror in it. It is also the best of Kailasam’s plays. In it Krishna fails to
persuade Ekalavya from joining the Kauravas, and so stabs him. This raises
questions about life and death, good and evil, and means and ends. Both these
plays are one-act plays in prose. A Monologue: Don’t Cry is allegorical and
shows the suffering and loss of woman from childhood to widowhood. Karna or
The Brahmin’s Curse is a full-length play and has something of an Oedipusfatality. It is written in a mixture of prose and verse. Its language often rises to
poetic heights. “Kailasam’s rendering of Puranic characters like Bharata,
Krishna, Ekalavya, Karna, Droupadi, Kunti and others has a touch of
iconoclasm, but actually the idealism is deeper than the iconoclasm” (Iyengar
238). Keechaka is a poetic tragedy. Kailasam transforms Keechaka into a hero in
his own right, whose driving force is love rather than lust. Kailasam wrote only
a few plays but these are enough to establish him as an original talent.
V. V. Srinivasa Iyengar was a master of social comedy. He delighted in
the incongruous, ludicrous and droll elements in the lives of the sophisticated
middle-class people in the cities. His plays are collected in two volumes of his
Dramatic Divertissements (1921). Some of his plays are Blessed in a Wife
(1911), The Point of View (1915), Wait for the Stroke (1915), The Bricks
Between (1918) and Rama Rajya (1952). At Any Cost is an attempt at historical
drama and The Bricks Between is a serious drama. Both The Surgeon-General’s
Prescription and Vichu’s Wife are pure fun. Srinivasa Iyengar was not capable
of creating the illusion of historic truth. He could not transcend intellectual
analysis and enter high realism where the lie becomes the truth, and the
impossible appears probable. But he had the ability to concoct enjoyable farces
and comedies. His plays are commendable for their humour, dialogue and their
facile style.
The Upanishads, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and popular Puranas
like the Bhagavata have been a perennial source of themes for Indian writers.
The pre-Independence phase presents plays and playlets whose themes are from
legends, epics, events from history and politics. There have been many plays
with the following social themes: widow marriage, evils of caste and dowry
systems, superstition and witchcraft, domestic problems, corrupt practices of
doctors, lawyers, and religious personalities. Other themes are scholarly
discussion about conflicting opinions on social customs and the consequence of
wielding excessive authority over youngsters. Bhatta observes:
But, in dealing with these themes, most of them show greater
enthusiasm in composing dialogue on these topics than in
creating appropriate situations and dramatising them. However,
except for a few playwrights like V. V. S. Aiyangar . . . others
like Narayanan and A. S. P. Ayyar show some seriousness in
exposing the evils of the contemporary society. (81)
While many of the playwrights of this phase wrote short plays only a few
wrote full-length plays. Barring a few exceptions, the playwrights of the preIndependence phase did not fully exploit the abundant sources of our history,
epics and legends. Similarly most of the playwrights of this phase have not
availed themselves of the rich tradition of our Classical Sanskrit Drama and the
folk theatre for models and techniques. Many of them followed neither the
Western nor the Indian tradition. They showed little sense of dramatic strategy
as their main interest appeared to lie in composing dialogue for discussing their
pet topics. Language was a big problem to almost all the playwrights of this
phase. They wrote in literary or poetic or symbolic language rather than in the
idiom of the characters and their times and situations. On the whole, most of the
playwrights of this phase did not seem to write with an intention of staging their
plays. Their plays were primarily meant to be read.
Post-Independence Scenario: Highlighting the post-Independence
scenario of Indian drama in English, Naik, in A History of Indian English
Literature, remarks, “As in the earlier periods, the number of playwrights with
sustained dramatic activity remains very small, though stray contributions are
quite numerous” (255-56). Therefore many do not feature in this study because
their contribution to Indian drama in English is neither numerically large nor
qualitatively significant. The difficulties and problems of the pre-Independence
stage continue to affect the playwrights of this period too. “However,”
comments Saryug Yadav, “the post-Independence Indian English drama was
benefitted [sic] by the increasing interest of the foreign countries in Indian
English literature in general and Indian English drama in particular” (“Indian
English Drama: Tradition and Achievement” 7). Although many plays by Indian
playwrights like Asif Currimbhoy, Pratab Sharma, Gurucharan Das, Girish
Karnad and Mahesh Dattani have been successfully staged abroad, a regular
school of Indian drama in English is yet to be established in India.
Most of the plays in this period have been written in prose though poetic
plays are also written. Naik observes, “The Tagore-Aurobindo-Kailasam
tradition of poetic drama continues, but with a difference, in the hands of
Manjeri Isvaran, G. V. Desani, Lakhan Deb and Pritish Nandy” (A History of
Indian English Literature 256). Isvaran’s Yama and Yami (1948) is based on the
Rig Veda Samhita. It does not treat the old legend in a new perspective. It is a
dialogue in poetic prose between a brother and a sister who has an incestuous
love for her brother. The play has a prologue and an epilogue. G. V. Desani’s
only play Hali (1950) is a complex work. It is a drama in poetic prose. Hali
stands for humanity and, as an allegorical play, Hali represents everyman’s
quest for fulfilment. Lakhan Deb has three blank verse plays. Tiger Claw (1967)
is a historical drama that deals with the encounter between Shivaji and Afzal
Khan, the Bijapur general. Vivekanand (1972) and Murder at the Prayer
Meeting (1976) are chronicle plays. The latter deals with the assassination of
Mahatma Gandhi.
Asif Currimbhoy is an important and the most prolific playwright in
English in India, who has written and published more than thirty plays. The
Clock (1959) and The Dumb Dancer (1961) are studies in abnormal psychology.
The East-West encounter is the main theme of The Tourist Mecca (1959), The
Hungry Ones (1965) and Darjeeling Tea? (1971). The Restaurant (1960) deals
with the partition and its aftermath. The Doldrummers (1960) deals with a group
of young Christian dropouts on a Bombay beach. OM (1961) is a philosophical
play. It tries to dramatise the diverse attitudes in India to the issue of the quest of
the ‘self’. Thorns on a Canvas (1962) is a protest against censorship and the
censors in Bombay, who refused permission for The Doldrummers to be staged.
The Captives (1963) deals with the Sino-Indian conflict against the background
of the Chinese invasion. Goa (1964) deals with the liberation of Goa from the
Portuguese occupation. Monsoon (1965) deals with the freedom of an island in
the Malaysian archipelago. An Experiment With Truth (1969) deals with the
Indian freedom struggle and the assassination of Gandhi. Inquilab (1970) deals
with the naxalite movement.
Currimbhoy handles a range and variety of subject matters like history,
contemporary politics, social and economical problems, the East-West
encounter, psychological conflicts, religion, philosophy and art. Iyengar, in
Indian Writing in English, notes that Currimbhoy
“with his feeling for variety
and talent for versatility” is “the most prolific and the most successful of our
dramatists. Farce, comedy, melodrama, tragedy, history, fantasy: Currimbhoy
handles them all with commendable ease” (732). But Naik, in A History of
Indian English Literature, levels several criticisms against Currimbhoy’s plays.
Though he admits that “isolated scenes in his plays do give evidence of a
genuine dramatic talent” (260), his plays have not been successful in general
because of “a woefully superficial treatment of promising themes and
pasteboard characters” and the “extreme poverty of invention” in his dialogue
(260). He observes further that Currimbhoy’s “symbols are often crude” and in
his later plays “Currimbhoy appears to confuse dramatic technique with
theatrical trickery, and stage gimmicks with dramatic experience” (260).
Partap Sharma’s works are Bars Invisible (1961), A Touch of Brightness
(1968) which presents a picture of the red-light district of Bombay, The Word
(1966), The Professor Has a Warcry (1970) which has sex as its theme, and
Bangla Desh (1971). His more recent plays include Echoes from Auntie’s
Booze-Joint, Power Play (1980) and Queen Bee (1981). Power Play is a threeact satirical farce on the years following the Emergency.
Nissim Ezekiel was a poet, scholar, dramatist, critic and Professor of
English in Mumbai University. He limits his themes to the urban, middle and
upper middle classes of Bombay in particular. His Three Plays (1969) includes
Nalini: A Comedy, Marriage Poem: A Tragic-Comedy, and The Sleepwalkers:
An Indo-American Farce. These plays exhibit a skilful use of ironical fantasy.
Nalini is a comedy in three acts. It exposes corruption in the field of advertising
and the alienation of some educated Indians. Marriage Poem presents a husband
caught between marital duty and love. The Sleepwalkers is a one-act farce and
satire that deals with the Indo-American encounter of the 1960s. It attacks the
“absurd vulgarism” of the Americans and the Indians fawning on the Americans.
Ezekiel’s fourth play is Songs of Deprivation (1969).
Ezekiel’s plays focus on conflicts within families and the plight of the
individuals in a conventional society. He has largely succeeded in creating the
right idiom for his characters because he knows the life situations and lifestyles
of his characters. His other plays include The Wonders of Vivek, a comedy in
three scenes, and Don’t Call It Suicide (1989), a tragedy in two acts. Both these
plays are “well-written, stageable and remain focussed on those themes that
Ezekiel understands best, the English-speaking urban middle and upper-middle
classes of Bombay” (Karen Smith, “India” 124-25).
Gieve Patel is a doctor, playwright, painter and poet. His Princes
(produced in 1970 but unpublished) is remarkable for its experimentation with
language, successful handling of characters, dialogue and dramatic situation.
The play is set in Southern Gujarat immediately after Independence. It deals
with the death of a landed, rural Parsi family. The family loses its male heir in
its internal problems and loses its patrimony due to its ineffective response to
external changes. His second play is Savaksha (completed in 1981, produced in
1982 but unpublished). This play also is set in Southern Gujarat. It depicts “the
collapse of an intended marriage, . . . [and] the fragile state of traditional
patronage-based authority within the family and a rural community” (Smith
120). Mister Behram (1988) is set in Southern Gujarat in the late nineteenth
century. It deals with problems within families that arise from jealousy,
ambition, and patriarchal control that create tension across gender, generation
and class. It is a psychological play that explores a complex relationship
between an old Parsi landowner and his adopted tribal son-in-law. Ethnicism,
class-consciousness and Behram’s hidden homosexual attraction towards his
adopted son-in-law are some of the themes dealt with in this play. These “three
plays are intense portrayals of family relationships. His main characters are
Parsi, the community Gieve Patel belongs to and understands intimately, but his
plays’ concerns are pertinent to Indian society more generally” (Smith 119-20).
Prithipal S. Vasudev’s early works include The Forbidden Fruit (1967),
The Sunflower (1971), Escapes and Adventures of Citizen H, The Outcastes, and
How President Huckleburger Nearly Won the War in Vietnam (1973). His The
Government of Avadh Wajid Ali Shah is an attempt “to redress the common
depiction of the last king of Oudh as an ineffectual sybarite” (Smith 126). It also
presents the British colonisation of India and its politics. The Limb (1979) is
about power mongering, Vasudev’s favourite theme. The Celestial Empire and
M/s. Jardine, Matheson and Co. (1974) depicts British imperialism and its role
in the opium trade in China. Jagat Seth and Lord Ravan of Shri Lanka (1977)
are two of his other plays. Lord Ravan of Shri Lanka reinterprets the legend
from a contemporary viewpoint to make the nature of power more universal. In
it and other plays Vasudev deals with political manipulation and empire
building. His characters “reflect sexism, racism, imperialism, greed, lust,
megalomania, and personal spite” (Smith 127). They are complex and are
portrayed as individuals who are products of their culture, environment and
social position.
R. Raj Rao’s The English Professor (1985) and White Spaces, which is a
sequel to The English Professor, deal with the absurdities of higher education,
including nepotism within departments, professional incompetence, falling class
attendance and academic standards. “‘Deadlines’ [1984] is an effective comment
on the callousness of investigative journalism” (Naik and Narayan 215). His
important one-act plays are found in The Wisest Fool on Earth and Other Plays
(1996). The Wisest Fool On Earth deals with homosexuality and is a
monologue.
Girish Karnad shall be mentioned here only in passing in order to include
him in the survey of playwrights. In an interview to Kalidas in India Today U.
R. Anantha Murthy remarks, “Karnad is the poet of drama. The use of history
and mythology to tackle contemporary themes gives him the psychological
distance to comment on our times” (69). This “psychological distance” has
enabled Karnad to view life as a continuum of cyclic movement in which
symbols and myths are born and reborn. In a discussion involving Anantha
Murthy, Girish Karnad and himself, Prasanna, the well-known theatre director,
reiterates this point saying, “The credit for bringing in modern sensibility firmly
to this genre should go to Girish” (“Girish Karnad, the Playwright: A
Discussion” 127).
Playwrights like Tagore, Aurobindo and A.S.Panchapakesa Ayyar who
have dealt with religious and moral themes have done so mostly to reaffirm the
place and importance of religious and moral values in human life. But Karnad
has been radical in critiquing religion and religious beliefs and practices. He is
perhaps the boldest of the Indian playwrights in English to experiment with the
stage techniques of Sanskrit drama, folk theatre and Western drama. He has
experimented with the English language by introducing slang, Indian English
idioms and expressions, and vernacular and Sanskrit words. He has used Indian
myths, folk tales and history to interpret contemporary socio-cultural, political
and religious realities of modern India. Such interpretations combine disciplines
such as psychology, philosophy and ethics. Karnad has thus demonstrated that
there is a truly Indian theatre, which can be true to the Indian tradition and at the
same time responsive to modern and contemporary concerns. Such bridging of
the past and the present, the traditional and the modern highlights the continuity
and evolution of human sensibilities.
Saryug Yadav describes Karnad as “a living legend in the arena of
contemporary Indian English drama” and remarks that Karnad “represents a
synthesis of cultures and his formal experiments have been far more rigorously
conceived and have certainly been far more successful than those of some of his
contemporaries” (9). Karnad has succeeded in creating an Indian theatre which
is true to its long tradition and at the same time sensitive to contemporary
concerns. He has been successful in employing various techniques of Indian
classical and folk theatres in his English plays. Thus he has paved the way for a
smooth take off for Indian drama in English. Commenting on Karnad’s
Hayavadana, Naik observes, “his [Karnad’s] technical experiment with an
indigenous dramatic form here is a triumph which has opened up fresh lines of
fruitful exploration for the Indian English playwright” (A History of Indian
English Literature 263).
Regarding Karnad’s translations of his own plays from Kannada to
English, Naik remarks, “According to those qualified to judge, the English
versions are far superior to the Kannada ones” (Naik and Narayan 202).
Karnad’s importance in Indian drama is also due to his interventions in the
cultural and religious discourses in India. He has upheld the freedom of
expression and plurality of cultures and religions. He has opposed the
fundamentalist forces in their attempt to impose a monolithic structure upon
people.
Mahesh Dattani is a young playwright of great potential. “Karnad seems
to have a worthy successor in Mahesh Dattani, who enjoys the distinction of
being the first Indian English playwright to win a Sahitya Akademi award,”
writes Naik (Naik and Narayan 205). His Final Solutions and Other Plays
appeared in 1994 and the Collected Plays in 2000. The first volume contains
four full-length plays: Where There’s a Will, Dance Like a Man, Bravely Fought
the Queen and Final Solutions. The second volume has six full-length plays and
two radio plays. The full-length plays are: the four plays mentioned in the first
volume, Tara, and On a Muggy Night in Mumbai. The two radio plays are: Do
the Needful and Seven Steps Around the Fire. Underscoring the complementary
nature of Dattani’s themes, Naik writes:
In a sense, Dattani’s drama complements Karnad’s, in that
mythology and history are Karnad’s favourite subjects, while
Dattani is preoccupied with social and political realities in India
today. His themes are the Indian joint family and its impact on
the individual; the plight of women in Indian society; and
homosexuality–an explosive subject (for an Indian). Dattani is
the first Indian English playwright of note to deal with this
theme. (206)
In Where There’s a Will, the main theme is the negative influence a
father has on his son whom he loves dearly. At the end the son realises the truth
but it is too late to change himself. His wife, Sonal, is also in a similar situation,
for she lived under the influence of her elder sister. But Sonal realises it early
enough to change herself. In Dance Like a Man the protagonist takes up dancing
and marries a dancer against the wishes of his father. Besides the clash of
generations, social prejudice against dance and the plight of the temple dancers
are the other themes. Both these plays portray modern women who are bold and
self-confident. In Tara, the protagonist is a woman, but this time she is a victim
of gender discrimination. In Bravely Fought the Queen the queen is the Rani of
Jhansi. But her name is brought in “as an ironic parallel to the women in the
play who are passive, helpless victims of male tyranny” (Naik and Narayan
207). This play also touches upon homosexuality as its theme. Homosexuality is
at the centre of A Muggy Night in Mumbai. Final Solutions is a political play and
deals with communal clashes. It also deals with family relationship. Both the
radio plays deal with homosexuality. Do the Needful also has family relationship
as its theme. Seven Steps Around the Fire is partly a detective play in which the
mystery of the murder of a hijra (eunuch) is solved. The play offers many
insights into the lives of the hijras, their beliefs and customs.
Dattani’s stage technique is important. He makes optimum use of the
stage space to create maximum dramatic effect. In Where There’s a Will “there
are three stage spaces” (Naik and Narayan 209). Another device of his is the use
of double dialogue, as in Do the Needful. First the character’s reaction is given
as a thought and then what he/she says is presented as speech. Dattani also uses
the Chorus and masks in Final Solutions. His dialogues are short and functional,
and he employs monologues only wherever necessary. He mixes modern
English colloquialism, Indianism, and words and expressions from Indian
languages such as Hindi, Gujarati and Kannada. “Contemporary in tone, and
spirit, alive to the pressures of the present, and eminently stage-worthy,
Dattani’s plays squarely give the lie to the popular notion that Indian English
drama is at best only a hothouse plant” (Naik and Narayan 210).
Indian drama in English has finally come out of its cocoon. It has learnt
to deal with the problems which prevent it from coming out into the open. It has
begun to traverse foreign soils and cultures. In “Indian Drama in English: A
Tentative Reflection,” S. Ramaswamy comments, “Dattani’s plays have brought
new life to Indian Drama in English . . . [and] Indian plays in English have
surely come of age when they are produced in the English speaking countries as
well” (279-80). Apart from Karnad and Dattani, there are very few
contemporary playwrights with a substantial output and significant contribution
to Indian English dramaturgy.
Vera Sharma’s Life is Like That (1997) is about the plight of a middle
class woman without much education. It is an exercise in social realism. Her
Reminiscences (1997) is also about a middle-aged and childless woman who is
abandoned by her husband. Her The Early Birds (1983) contains five one-act
plays, mostly about middle class life. The Chameleon (1991) is a collection of
Sharma’s radio plays. Sharma is good at light social comedy as in The Early
Bird than at tragedy.
Uma Parameswaran’s collection of plays Sons Must Die and Other Plays
(1998) contains plays which were written over many years and they are on
different topics. Sita’s Promise is a dance drama which provides different kinds
of Indian classical dances. Meera is another dance drama. “Sons Must Die is a
war play against the background of the Kashmir conflict in 1948” (Naik and
Narayan 212). Dear Deedi is a stylised play that features ten women from ten
countries and is set in Canada. Her most successful play Rootless but Green Are
the Boulevard Trees is a social play with a modern setting and presents the
problems of the immigrants in Canada.
Manjula Padmanabhan is a novelist, playwright, cartoonist, illustrator
and artist. She is an upcoming playwright in Indian drama in English. Her play
Harvest (1998), which won the Onassis Prize in 1997, portrays a world of
poverty and its shocking effect on mothers who sell their children. It is a
“futuristic play, a frightening vision of a cannibalistic future, in which the sale
of human organs has become all to common” (Naik and Narayan 213). The
leitmotif of her play Lights Out (2000) is the victimization of women in Indian
society. It deals with the rape of women that goes on everyday, watched by
middle class men who remain passive to it.
During the post-Independence period there have been plays with
historical, political, religious, psychological and social themes as well as on
East-West relations. Compared to the plays of the pre-Independence phase,
those published during the post-Independence period show a greater influence of
the West. We also see different kinds of experiments in employing new models
and techniques, including those of mini-play.
Most playwrights of this phase seem to have ignored the models and
techniques of the classical Sanskrit drama and the folk theatre. The postIndependence drama has experimented with typical Indian expressions and
idioms in English translation. In certain cases Indian words in their regional
languages have been used, for which there are no English equivalents. Some
playwrights reveal their keen sense of Indian culture and customs, and coin
some phrases accordingly. Using realistic language suited to the level and status
of the character dealt with in the play is a noteworthy experiment made in this
phase. However, in the case of some playwrights like Currimbhoy, Ezekiel and
Sharma a more literary style continues. Others like V. V. S. Aiyangar use a
rather stylised prose for their dialogue.
The playwrights of the post-Independence phase also have failed to use
the rich repository of our ancient literature, scriptures, myths, legends, folk tales
and history for their themes. However, we find a few exceptions such as Rama
Rajya and Alone in Ayodhya drawing from the Ramayana; Mother and Child,
Acharya Drona and Uttara Geetha using the Mahabharata; The Flute of
Krishan from legends and a few hagiological plays like Sri Chaitanya and The
Beggar Princess. The playwrights of this phase have also tried to tackle
contemporary social problems like inter-caste marriage, untouchability, sex,
power and wealth.
Although there are many Indians who have written plays in English,
Naik laments their lack of success: “About three quarters of a century of plays,
and yet only a dozen of them which can honestly be called successful. –how
[sic] long will Indian English drama remain a sad Cinderella? When will her
Prince arrive?” (Naik and Narayan 215). Although Indian drama in English is
far from being a grand success on the national or the international stage there are
indications of a growing number of playwrights on the horizon that point to the
arrival of the prince. Playwrights like Girish Karnad and Mahesh Dattani have
proved that Indian drama in English is possible and it can claim its rightful place
both in the national and the international arena. Shyam M. Asnani, in “Indian
English Drama,” is optimistic about Indian drama in English by pointing to the
fact that “the Indian English playwrights have recently produced reasonably
good and worthwhile plays. What they need is the facility of a living theatre to
try out their plays for their viability on the stage” (107). Ramaswamy is highly
encouraging in his remark: “In spite of the meagre achievement of the Indian
Drama in English, it is heartening to know that just as English plays from
England were produced in India, now English plays written by Indians are
gaining ground in England and the United States” (179-80).
Reasons for the Slow Growth of Indian Drama in English: The
factors responsible for the slow growth of Indian Drama in English are to be
taken note of in any future attempt to develop the stage for Indian plays in
English. There are four important factors that explain the slow growth of Indian
drama in English. There is the fundamental relationship between drama and the
theatre, which demands at once a coming together of three key factors. In
Dimensions of Indian English Literature Naik explains:
Drama is a composite art in which the written word of the
playwright attains complete artistic realization only when it
becomes the spoken word of the actor on the stage, and through
that medium reacts on the mind of the audience. A play, in order
to communicate fully and become a living dramatic experience,
thus needs a real theatre and a live audience. (151)
The three key factors here are the text of the play, the actors and the audience.
These are so interdependent that without any one of these factors the play will
not be a “composite art” and will not attain its full maturity. And it is this that
has hindered the growth of the Indian drama in English all along.
Language is a fundamental factor that has impeded the growth of plays
in English in India. For Indians English is a language learnt and acquired in
academic circles and at best it is a second language, if not a foreign language.
This has affected both the playwrights and the audience. Playwrights have
written in verse or stylised speech which is different from the socio-cultural
idiom and sensibility of the common masses. The great exuberance of thought
and language, which Aurobindo exhibits in his plays, may have an appeal to the
scholar but they cannot fulfil the demands of the stage. Similarly Kailasam’s
language in his English plays cannot equal the natural, easy-flowing spoken
language of his Kannada plays.
Some hold the opinion that there are very few “actable” plays in English
because Indian characters speaking in English will not sound convincing unless
the characters are drawn from an English speaking milieu of the urban society or
are Anglo-Indians, whose mother tongue is supposed to be English. Some
playwrights, therefore, have confined themselves to the urban milieu. It is
absurd to expect all characters in Indian drama to have English as their mother
tongue or imagine that they normally use it in their everyday conversation. As
Samuel Johnson pointed out in his “Preface to Shakespeare,” “The truth is that
the spectators are always in their senses, and know from the first Act to the last,
that the stage is only a stage and that the players are only players.” (2415).
Hence this argument cannot be sustained. In short the English language for the
stage has been a big barrier for both the playwrights and the audience. This has
impeded the growth and development of Indian drama in English. However this
situation is gradually changing and the prospects are getting better on the
language front.
The lack of a living theatre in India for plays in English may be
attributed chiefly to the language factor. Although Indian plays in English have
been staged abroad, the success or failure of those plays cannot be measured in
those terms because the “foreign” context is very different from the one in India.
A foreign audience may not always understand the Indian and local idiom and
sensibilities expressed in those plays. In the absence of a living theatre in India
for Indian drama in English the Indian playwrights in English have had little
chance to test their plays on stage in India. This lack of opportunity has
prevented the experimentation, growth and development of the Indian drama in
English. Hence most Indian playwrights in English tend to forget the vital
distinction between a play as literature and as theatre.
The failure of most Indian playwrights in English to recognise and use
Indian models for techniques found in Indian classical drama and folk theatre is
another important reason for the stagnation of Indian plays in English. Naik, in
Dimensions of Indian English Literature, levels a sharp criticism against the
Indian playwrights in English:
It is a shocking fact that he [the Indian playwright in English] has
mostly written as if he belonged to a race which had never had
any dramatic traditions worth the name, and must therefore solely
ape the West. Actually what a rich and varied dramatic tradition
he can draw upon! Drama was the ‘fifth Veda’ for the ancient
Hindus, and Indian classical drama which flourished for ten
centuries and more can safely challenge comparison with its
counterparts anywhere in the world. And even when this tradition
was broken after the Muslim invasion, it did not die but was
absorbed into folk forms in several Indian languages actually
gaining fresh vitality in the process, by drawing closer to the
common man. (157-58)
Many of the Indian playwrights in English came under the powerful
influence of the West. But in recent years Indian drama in the vernacular has
been increasingly turning to folk forms and has been using their techniques with
splendid results. While the playwrights in English have failed to use the folk
forms, those in Indian languages such as Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar, Diana
Gandhi, Bakul Tripathi, Utpal Dutt, Badal Sarcar, Mohan Rakesh, Dharmaveer
Bharti and Habib Tanvir are prominent examples of those who have successfully
employed folk forms in their plays in regional languages and secured vital
artistic leverage.
Not making creative use of Indian myths, legends, folklore and history
for plays has been another important setback for Indian playwrights in English.
There are of course isolated exceptions like Gurcharan Das’ Larins Sahib,
Lakhan Deb’s Tiger Claw, and Dilip Hiro’s To Anchor A Cloud and a good
number of the plays of Girish Karnad. But there has been no consistent effort to
make use of this vast pool of resources. Even the older playwrights, from
Aurobindo onward, have used foreign locales and western themes in their plays.
The Indian playwright in English can learn much from the playwrights in
Indian languages and can also contribute something distinctly his/her own.
He/she can, however, do so only if he/she overcomes the temptation to attract a
foreign audience or blindly imitate the Western playwrights.
Karnad’s Contribution: Karnad’s contribution to Indian drama,
especially Indian drama in English, is significant. Although preparing an
exhaustive list of Karnad’s contribution to Indian drama in English is not the
intention of the present researcher, he would like to mention a few important
ones. In “Girish Karnad, the Playwright,” a discussion between Murthy,
Prasanna and Karnad, Prasanna highlights the “splitting of self” as one of the
interesting facets of Karnad’s plays which “gives rise to binary opposites”
(Murthy 129). By presenting the “splitting of self” and the “binary opposites” or
a “dichotomous pattern,” Karnad underscores the alienation of the human person
at different levels. In Tughlaq the “splitting of self” is presented in Tughlaq and
Aziz on the one hand and Tughlaq’s vision of religious unity and the Muslim
fundamentalists’ vision separating the Muslims and the people of other religions
on the other; in Hayavadana between Devadatta (head) and Kapila (body); in
Nāga-Mandala between Appanna and Naga; in Tālé-Danda between
Basavanna’s movement and the orthodoxy of the Brahmins; in The Fire and the
Rain between human frailty and divine grace; in Bali between the Queen and the
Queen Mother. Such a portrayal presents both the brighter and the darker sides
of the human person. Prasanna in “Girish Karnad, the Playwright” attributes the
success of Karnad’s plays to this factor. “This bifurcation into two characters, or
splitting of one character through an internal conflict,” he writes “is the basis for
the success of his [Karnad’s] plays. New Kannada playwrights have failed to
make this need of the play the need of characters as well” (129).
The “splitting of self” leads to different kinds of binary opposites.
Although many binary opposites may be identified in each play of Karnad, only
a few relevant for the present study are mentioned below. Such binary opposites
include politics and religion on the one hand and the ideal and the real on the
other as in Tughlaq and Talé-Danda; in Hayavadana, the split itself becomes the
theme of the play—“one mind and one heart” (Hayavadana 2) represented by
Devadatta and Kapila respectively. Lord Ganesha’s elephant head and human
body is the main symbol in the play, which, together with Hayavadana’s horsehead and human body in the sub-plot, reinforce the theme of imperfection and
incompletion in the main plot. The binary opposites in Nāga-Mandala and The
Dreams of Tipu Sultan are dream and reality in the life of Rani and Tipu
respectively and in Talé-Danda it is orthodoxy (static) and revolution
(dynamic). Listing the several binary opposites in The Fire and the Rain,
Karnad, in the notes to the play, highlights the following: Fire and rain are “two
physical elements normally seen as antagonistic, . . . an Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit)
and a Dravidian (Kannada) language, between the pan-Indic and the regional
points of view, between the classical ‘marga’ and the less exalted ‘desi’
traditions, between the elevated and the mundane, and even perhaps between . . .
the sacred and the secular” (The Fire and the Rain 63). In Bali it is violence and
non-violence on the one hand and faith and reason on the other.
The binary opposites of the Sacred and the Secular run through all the
plays. In each of the above binary opposites, there are elements of the Sacred
and the Secular in different hues and proportions. Discussing Tughlaq, Karnad
admits: “Relationship between God and man has been one of my preoccupations
in my plays” (“Girish Karnad, the Playwright” 128). Karnad depicts the split in
the characters and the corresponding binary opposites in order to draw our
attention to the truth about human beings and human life, and to reclaim the lost
“unified pattern” in them. It is a vision, therefore, that tries to combine the
binary opposites such as faith and reason or the Sacred and the Secular in the
same mould, and portray them as complementary and inter-related rather than
perceiving them as irreconcilable.
There is also the fusion of time and space in Karnad’s plays indicating
continuity and flow of life. In Nāga-Mandala Naga and Appanna fuse into one
reality in Act II where Naga gets up to leave Rani’s room and both Naga and
Rani freeze and with a sudden change in the lighting Naga becomes Appanna.
Bali has no Act or Scene divisions. It is a continuous flow of action with the
change of scene indicated by the Singer, or a flashback or a change of place on
the stage and changes in lighting. In this play different “scenes” blend into one
another to form one unit.
Karnad has handled stage space in a creative way and has experimented
with it. The classical division of the stage into shallow and deep scenes, meant
for the commoners and the royalty respectively, were gradually brought together
in Tughlaq. This bringing together of the two scenes was necessitated by and
reflected the changed political situation in India. “This violation of traditionally
sacred special hierarchy” observes Karnad in the author’s introduction to Three
Plays, “was the result of the anarchy which climaxed Tughlaq’s times and
seemed poised to engulf my own” (8). Similarly, a change of location on the
stage, as in The Dreams of Tipu Sultan and Bali, indicates a shift in the locale. A
character going around the stage indicates a journey. Thus the economy of space
is achieved in Karnad’s plays.
Karnad experimented with language successfully by combining words
and expressions from Sanskrit, Hindi, Kannada and English. The language
spoken by the different characters suits their status. More importantly, the
language is in the socio-cultural idiom of the people reflecting their sensibility
and sensitivity. In his notes to The Fire and the Rain Karnad acknowledges the
loss of the fine nuances of meaning in his translations: “Nothing of this can
come through in English—a despair not confined to the title” (63). Though
much has been lost in his English translations the sensibility has been preserved
to a large extent.
Karnad wrote his first play Yayati in Kannada based on the myth of King
Yayati in the Mahabharata. Since then Karnad has based his plays on Indian
mythology, folk tales, and history. Although he has drawn his material from
such traditional sources he has given them a modern interpretation to suit the
needs and challenges of modern times. Describing this side of Karnad, Dattani
in his interview to Kalidas in India Today remarks: “He [Karnad] has a historic
vision but a contemporary voice, which makes his play very universal” (69).
Karnad’s use of myths, folk tale and history achieves a multi-level meaning
structure which, according to Adya Rangacharya in “Classical Indian Drama and
Modern Indian Theatre”, “is one of the distinctive features of Indian Classical
Drama, viz. Communication simultaneously at more than one level” (37). In the
author’s introduction to Three Plays, Karnad himself acknowledges the potential
of the folk theatre thus:
The energy of folk theatre comes from the fact that although, it
seems to uphold traditional values, it also has the means of
questioning these values, of making them literally stand on their
head. The various conventions . . . permit the simultaneous
presentation of alternative attitudes to the central problem. (14)
Karnad in his childhood was influenced by two theatrical traditions,
namely, the natak companies and the yakshagana performances. He has
combined the drama traditions of the Sanskrit plays, the folk tradition, especially
the yakshagana and the Western techniques. Thus he combines the traditional
and the modern techniques in his plays. Hayavadana perhaps is the best
example for the employment of these techniques.
Karnad’s vision may be explained through Kappen’s expression “secular
religiosity” (57) or Radhakrishnan’s phrase “rational faith”. These expressions
are in keeping with Karnad’s attempt to bring together the binary opposites of
reason and faith to project a unified picture of Reality with its different segments
and facets as complementary aspects of the same Reality. Karnad is a professed
atheist and his ideological stance would hold human beings responsible for
shaping their own lives and charting their histories and destinies. But his
atheism is one that makes an allowance for a transcendental dimension. Karnad
himself admits, “I was an atheist and am still one. But my atheism stemmed
from a resolute ideological stance. . . . His [Tughlaq’s] faith and involvement in
God and religion fascinated me and this brought about a transformative change
in me. . . . But if you are asking me about my personal conviction, then I don’t
have a definite answer (“Girish Karnad, the Playwright” 128).
Karnad’s “ideological stance” is based on reason, which is the hallmark of
scientific enquiry, but it does not exclude the transcendent dimension. Karnad
may be called an intellectual according to his own definition of the term
“intellectual”, namely, one for whom “equality and secularism” are key
concepts to be lived in life (“Citizen as Soldier” 524). However, reason itself
would dictate that reality is more than what reason or science can
comprehend and explain for there is the meta-rational dimension to life. And
so Karnad’s “personal conviction” seems to suggest an openness to the
spiritual and psychic world. Thus his atheism is one that permits belief, faith
and mystery to co-exist in a person’s life. This admittance of the metarational, metaphysical and, to use a religious terminology, the mystical
dimension to life may be interpreted as religiosity or spirituality which gives
the depth dimension, meaningfulness, sense of purpose and direction to a
person’s life. Thus Karnad combines the secular, rational intelligence with
the spiritual, mystical faith dimensions of the human person and life.
Being a cultural activist and architect, Karnad sees his mission as
bringing about a “transformative change” in his readers and audience. For him,
the success of a play depends on “not merely ‘stating’ [a truth] but ‘persuading’”
( “Girish Karnad, the Playwright” 129) the reader and the audience to the truth
of the matter stated. He is convinced that “What a playwright does is a kind of
persuasion” (“Girish Karnad, the Playwright” 128-29). And he expects the
audience to exercise their responsibility by their active response to the play. His
hope is that “The more plays a person sees the more he is likely to look beyond
entertainment, and think of relating theatre to the larger issues that dominate his
life” (Aparna Dharwadker, “Performance, Meaning, and the Materials of
Modern Indian Theatre” 368). The many maladies that affect the society are the
results of an unrelated perception of the key influencing factors of life such as
religion and culture. To turn people’s attention to such larger issues of life
Karnad tries to awaken the reader and the audience, especially the intelligentsia,
from “cultural amnesia” (“Author’s Introduction,” Three Plays 4) by bringing
together the binary opposites.
In his conversation with Dattani, Karnad highlights the duty of a
playwright, “Theatre can’t change society but you can make society aware of
issues and the complexities of issues . . .” (Dattani, “Two Faces of Indian
Drama” 6). Thus Karnad in his plays explores various complex issues such as
the relationship between religion and politics, religion and culture, complexities
of the human make-up and human relationships, dreams and desires, and truth
and reality. He himself asserts that a playwright has to be committed to the
changing times and experiences and change himself and his ideologies to remain
relevant to modern times. In his talk on “Acrobating Between the Traditional
and the Modern” Karnad says, “I think a play can be only as contemporary as
the playwright is. If the writer does not have contemporary convictions or is not
committed, the play will not be contemporary” (98).
When religions become institutionalised, fossilisation of doctrines, rites,
rituals and practices sets in. Consequently they become static and resist change
and degenerate into an oppressive and exploitative force. But Karnad’s
ideological stance implies that human experiences and perceptions change as
reason and scientific knowledge develops. This brings about a corresponding
change in the way people perceive and experience the Sacred. In a world where
“everything is now imbued with a sense of rationality” (Melloni 6) the
traditional notion of religion and the Sacred has undergone changes. For more
and more people, their faith and belief have shifted from gods and goddesses,
the “extra-cosmic deity” (Vivekananda 372) who belongs to another realm, to
values such as sanctity of human life, human rights, human dignity, strong
community ties, celebration of life and its diversity and so on, which are an
assertion of the sense of the Sacred in the human.
Karnad’s plays illustrate the changes in the present day human
sensibilities and project a life where religious experiences are valued and
retained, while rejecting carefully at the same time any attempt to fossilise such
experiences in empty religious rites, rituals, doctrines and practices. The
paradigm shift, therefore, is in seeking divinity in humanity and in this world
rather than in a distant world outside of this universe that remains largely
speculative. Kappen, in Tradition Modernity Counterculture, explains this way
of life thus:
If so the challenge today as the second millennium draws to a
close is to look for the Divine not so much in the myths and
symbols and rituals and doctrines handed down from some
remote past as in the lived universe of this our aging earth and
fragmented humanity. Here we shall meet the Divine either as a
presence or as an absence: as a presence in every experience of
love and friendship and togetherness and beauty, that transports
us to the ultimate possibilities of our being; as an absence in the
void and the vulnerability of our humanness, individual and
collective. (57)
Secular religiosity and rational faith are modern in outlook. As Kappen
observes, “Modernity subverts not only the caste system but also traditional
religion which rests on the belief that human existence is determined by
cosmic processes presided over by gods and goddesses” (18). In each of the
plays taken for our study there are characters and initiatives that subvert
degenerated religion and culture of a given society in which they appear.
Karnad not only critiques the religious and cultural traditions of the past, and
reinterprets them for the present times but also projects a need to chart a
future course of action. As Kappen predicts, the one key change that secular
religiosity and rational faith bring about is that “with the spread of education
and scientific knowledge, men and women awaken to the realisation that
human destiny is governed not only by the laws of nature but also by their
own free decision, [and as a result] superstitious beliefs and practices will
wither away” (18).
This chapter began with a brief account of the history of Indian drama in
general. It traced the origin and development of Sanskrit drama along with
folk theatre and observed that the British rule in India brought in the Western
influence. Thus Indian drama evolved into a composite art consisting of the
classical, folk and Western theatrical traditions. Then the chapter dwelt on the
history of Indian drama in English, highlighting the major playwrights in
English and some of their works. This section discussed briefly the salient
features of the plays in English in both the pre- and post-Independence
periods. Then the factors responsible for the slow development of Indian
drama in English were pointed out. This chapter highlighted Karnad’s major
contributions to Indian drama. It also shed some light on his vision. Karnad
being an atheist has an ideological vision which accommodates secular
religiosity and rational faith, and this sets him on a mission of bringing about
a transformative change in his audience and readers.