GIRISH KARNAD’S DRAMATURGY WITH REFERENCE TO HIS PLAYS
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO
JIWAJI UNIVERSITY, GWALIOR (M.P.) FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN
ENGLISH 2014
SUPERVISED BY
SUBMITTED BY
DR. A.S. KUSHWAH
TARUNA ANEJA
HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT GOVT. S.L.P, P.G. COLLEGE MORAR, GWALIOR
MADHYA PRADESH
RESEARCH CENTRE
GOVT. K.R.G. AUTONOMOUS P.G. COLLEGE GWALIOR, MADHYA PRADESH
DECLARATION BY THE CANDIDATE
I declare that the thesis entitled Girish Karnad’s Dramaturgy with Reference to his Plays, is my own work, conducted under the supervision of Dr. A.S.Kushwah, Head
of English Department, Govt. S.L.P, P.G. College, Morar, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh; at Jiwaji University, Gwalior and Govt. K.R.G. Autonomous P.G. College, Gwalior
(Research Centre), approved by Research Degree Committee. I have put in more than 200 days of attendance with the supervisor at the centre.
I further declare that to the best of my knowledge the thesis does not contain any part
of any work which has been submitted for the award of any degree either in this University or in any other University / Deemed University without proper citation.
Signature of the Supervisor
Dr. A.S. KUSHWAH
Head of English Department,
Signature of the Candidate
TARUNA ANEJA
Govt. S.L.P, P.G. College.
Morar, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh
Signature and Seal of the Principal (Research Centre)
CERTIFICATE OF THE SUPERVISOR This is to certify that the work entitled Girish Karnad’s Dramaturgy with Reference
to his Plays, is a piece of research work done by Taruna Aneja under my guidance
and supervision for the degree of “Doctor of Philosophy” of Jiwaji University, Gwalior, (M.P.) India. That the candidate has put in an attendance of more than 200 days with me.
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis: 1. Embodies the work of the candidate herself; 2. Has duly been completed;
3. Fulfils the requirements of the Ordinance relating to the PhD degree of the University and
4. Is up to the standard, both in respect of contents and language for being referred to the examiners.
Signature of the Supervisor DR. A.S. KUSHWAH
Head of English Department Govt. S.L.P, P.G. College Morar, Gwalior
Madhya Pradesh
Forwarded Signature and Seal of the Principal (Research Centre)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. A.S. Kushwah, Head of English Department, Govt. S.L.P, P.G. College, Morar, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, for his help, support, and infinite patience. His pursuit of excellence spurred me on to put in my best always. Working with him was a pleasure.
My sincere and heartfelt thanks are due to Dr. Sonia Singh Kushwah, Department of English, Govt. K.R.G. Autonomous P.G. College, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, who
helped me whenever I approached her. I am deeply obliged to her for her valuable advice and suggestions.
I also thank staff and management of Central Library of Delhi University, Sahitya Akademi Library and Sangeet Natak Akademi for extended cooperation to procure study material relevant for my research work.
My husband, Mr. Yogesh Anand, deserves a special mention for his wholehearted
cooperation, for patient listening and gentle humour which kept me buoyed in my
research. He was a constant source of encouragement. My two children—Pushkal
and Punya—were my special motivators because they are the enlightened future for me. I joyfully acknowledge their contribution.
TARUNA ANEJA
PREFACE India has the longest and the richest tradition of Drama. Its origin can be traced back
to the Vedic Period, and as a manifestation of our national sensibility, it came into existence as such a means of exploring and communicating the Truth that it was popularly named as the ‘Fifth Veda.’ Bharata’s Natyashastra in Sanskrit is the most
pioneering work on ancient Indian dance and drama. It is a detailed treatise that deals with all aspects of the classical Indian concept of drama including dance, music, poetics and general aesthetics.
Contemporary Indian drama, deviating from classical and European models, is experimental and innovative in terms of thematic and technical qualities. It is not an
off spring of any specific tradition and it has laid the foundation of a distinctive tradition in the history of the world drama by reinvestigating history, legend, myth,
religion and folk lore with context to contemporary socio-political issues. Among the major dramatists who gave a distinctive shape to this enormous mass of creative
material are Vijay Tendulkar, Girish Karnad, Habib Tanvir, Indira Parthasarathy, Badal Sircar, Asif Currimbhoy, Mahasweta Devi and Mahesh Dattani.
The new phase of Indian theatrical development happily coincides with the personal development of Girish Karnad as a dramatist. His contribution goes beyond theatre:
he has directed feature films, documentaries, and television serials. He represented India in foreign lands as an emissary of art and culture. He has experimented with the
fusion of the traditional and the modern dramatic forms and content. The purpose of using traditional forms is to achieve a rare insight into the contemporary reality because Karnad believes that complexities of post colonialism are inherited from that
the colonial and precolonial times. Precolonial, colonial and postcolonial experiences in literature cannot be compartmentalised in true sense. They are not divorced from each other.
The present study is a sincere attempt to explore various aspects of Karnad’s
dramaturgy like myth, feminism, shamanism, aesthetics, duality and semiotics with respect to his plays translated in English by the playwright himself. The operation of
myth in his plays is developed in such a way as it brings forth the principles of dramaturgy and the motifs of drama that hold a mirror to the very evolution of a truly
Indian theatre which can be true to its traditions and at the same time responsive to
contemporary concerns. He meticulously uses folk tales, myths and legends giving them surprisingly modern dimensions in his plays. His plays abound with subalterns
especially women and lower caste people subjected since ancient time by patriarchy or upper hierarchy of the society. The women in his plays desire to achieve what they
lack, revolt against patriarchy and demolish culture and tradition anticipating
transformation in the outlook of the male dominated society. Elements of shamanism
are incorporated in Karnad’s dramaturgy as use of puppetry, masks, shape-shifting, symbolism, magic-rites and rituals in his plays. All the major characters appear to suffer from existential alienation by which they indulge in violence and cruelty. There is always a mood of revolt in his plays. This results in split-personality or duality
among characters of the play who are always suffering and struggling against the
hostilities around them. They give the message of conquest, which lies in their perpetual struggle against the human condition. Every play is the story of a new problem of the modern man. The versatile theatre of Karnad provide rich aesthetic experience by evoking various types of ‘rasa’ which is a complete state of enjoyment.
The play when enacted makes use of all aspects of dramatic effects. Semiotics of
theatre, a valuable tool for expression of meaning of the play by studying performance, has also been discussed. Karnad visualizes theatre as a composite art of
Indian drama that serves significant functions providing for instruction, entertainment, enlightenment, happiness, peace and moral upliftment.
TARUNA ANEJA
CONTENTS Chapter No.
Title
Page No.
I
INTRODUCTION
1-38
II
MYTH, FEMINISM AND SHAMANISM IN KARNAD'S DRAMATIC OEUVRE
III
AESTHETICS OF DRAMA IN GIRISH KARNAD'S PLAYS
115-148
IV
CONCEPT OF DUALITY – A RECURRENT MOTIF IN KARNAD'S DRAMATIC ART
149-190
V
WORDS AND SPACE BEYOND: AN APPROACH TO GIRISH KARNAD
191-233
VI
CONCLUSION
234-257
BIBLIOGRAPHY
258-268
39-114
CHAPTER - I INTRODUCTION
Introduction
Chapter- I
CHAPTER-I
INTRODUCTION The root of the theatre in India goes back to ancient times. In the beginning, for many
decades drama formed a part of the life of the common people as music, dance, storytelling and tableaux during festivals or on special occasions. Subsequently its
different forms were adopted by the upper stratum of society and continued as such for more than thousand years. The theatrical activity with elements of music, dance and acting had been in vogue in our country. According to O. P. Budholia,
The history of drama is as old as the existence of man on this earth. Indian drama has got its divine origin and hence it includes in its purview the cultural
signification and an inclusion of the various form of emotions for its performance, the realistic overtones and the distinguishing features such as the traditional heritage, folklore, the oral signs of literature, myth and mythopoeic vision, secular and religious approaches to life.1
Drama caters to a heterogeneous audience. It depends largely on popular taste and current fashion for its success and sustenance. But this argument does not hold good
in the case of drama in English by Indian writers for it is always meant for a select
elite audience. There is always a special audience, a category for plays in English in this country. We have considerable stage techniques and many other sophisticated devices for lighting and acoustic effects.
Our knowledge about the initial, primitive stage of theatrical activity is very meager. But we can safely assert that in India, as in other culture, the theatrical activity began with primitive magical, religious or social rites, ritualistic dances, festivals etc. Today,
many tribes in different parts of the country perform rituals related to birth, death,
puberty, marriage, food gathering, and hunting. Prayers are offered to goddesses and primordial forces, in which the dramatic or theatrical elements are prominent. In the
rites and ritualistic activity related to yajnas of the Vedic age, many situations and actions had pronounced theatrical aspects.
1
Introduction
Chapter- I
There are frequent references in Vedic literature to song, dance, and musical instruments and also to people connected with these activities like the Gandharva,
Suta, Shailush, Kari, Apsara, and also Veena player. Later a musical rendering of the
lives of the heroes and other eminent persons of the community originated. Most of the requirements of the early dramatic forms thus appeared in the form of ballads or mere story telling passed on through generations. In Valmiki’s Ramayana, of Suta and
Magadha dance and drama in the Mahabharata to dramatization of the Ramayana in
the Harivansha Purana, and about the actor and dance, drama and music in Bhagvata Purana and Markandeya Purana are standing examples.
Indian drama, with its long history of 2000 years, is a unique phenomenon in the literary world. Taking recitation from the Rig Veda, imitation from Yajur Veda, melody from Sama Veda, and aesthetic flavor from Atharva Veda, Indian drama came
in to being as a subtle means of communicating truth of things. Drama is the product of a civilized and cultural society. Drama in India originated out of the need for entertainment.
Since ages Sanskrit drama has remained the most beautiful and vital part of Indian literature. The Natyasastra is the most voluminous and comprehensive study on dramaturgy. Bharatmuni is the author of the Natyasastra, which has remained since long
the only text on dramaturgy. It elaborately discusses the ancient stage craft. All the
aspects of drama - stage setting, music, plot construction, characterization, dialogue and acting have borne the close critical scrutiny of the author and a set of rules to guide the
conduct of the stage has been elaborately laid down. Whatever be the origin of drama, the minute details present in the Natyasastra are evident of the long tradition of Sanskrit
drama. The title Natyasastra literally means “the science of drama” and Bharata has taken into account theatre organization, along with various aspects of drama. The task of a
dramatist is the most difficult one, since he has to present a piece of work, which is audible as well as visible. The function of drama is not merely entertainment but it also
serves the purpose of instruction. The purpose of Sanskrit drama is the preservation of moral values of the society and thereby raising them through dramatic activity. Bharata felt that the total impression left on the mind of spectators of a play should be one of
2
Introduction
Chapter- I
peace and not of vexation. He proclaimed that drama is not merely a source of entertainment, but a vehicle of instruction and illumination.
The surviving Sanskrit dramas are numerous and varied, ranging from short one-act
playlets to very long play in ten acts. The chief dramatists were Bhasa, Shudraka, Kalidasa, Harsha, Bhavabhuti, and Vishakahadatta .
The golden age of Sanskrit drama could give equal impetus to social comedies like
Mrichakatika and melodramas like Malathimadhava, romantic tragi-comedies like Shakuntala and heroic play like Venisamhara, historical play like Mudrarakshasa and romantic comedies like Ratnavali, allegorical plays like Prabodhachandrodaya and satirical farces like Mattavilasaprahasana.
All literature in Sanskrit is classified into Drishya (that can be seen or exhibited) and
the Sarvya (that can be heard or recited).While poetry in all forms can be said to fall
under the latter, drama falls under the former. Drama in Sanskrit literature is covered
under the broad umbrella of ‘rupaka’ which means depiction of life in its various aspects represented in ‘forms’ by actors, who assume various roles.
A ‘rupaka’ has ten classifications of which ‘Nataka’ (drama), the most important one
has come to mean all dramatic presentations. The Sanskrit drama grows around three
primary constituents, namely, Vastu (plot), Neta (hero) and Rasa (sentiment). The plot
could be either principal (adhikarika) or accessory (prasangika). The former concerns the primary characters of the theme and pervades the entire play. The latter serves to
further and supplement the main topic, and relates to subordinate characters other than
the chief ones. This is further divided into banner (pataka), and incident (parkari).
The former is a small episode that presents, describes, improves or even hinders the
primary plot to create added excitement. The latter involves minor incident represented by minor characters.
The Neta or the hero, according to the definition prescribed by the Natyashastra, is always depicted as modest (vineeta), sweet-tempered (madhura), sacrificing (tyagi),
capable (daksha), civil in talks (priyamvada), belonging to a noble family (taktaloka),
pure (suchi), articulate (vagmi), consistent (sthira), young (yuva), endowed with
intellect (buddhi), enthusiasm (utsaha), good memory (smriti), aesthetics (kala), pride
3
Introduction
Chapter- I
(maana), brave (shura), strong (dridha), energetic (tejaswi), learned (pandita) and
pious ( dharmika). The main category in which the hero of Sanskrit drama normally falls is the ‘Dheerodatta’ that is he who is brave and sublime at the same time.
The Rasa or sentiment is the lasting impression which appeals to poetic sensibility,
arising out of any emotion of pleasure or pain pervading the heart. The primary sentiment is nourished and excited by subordinate and related feelings. There are nine primary
emotions, namely rati (enjoyment), hasya (mirth), soka (grief), krodha (anger), utsaha (enthusiasm), bhaya (fear), jugupsa (disgust), vismaya (surprise) and sama (peace). On these emotions are based respectively the well-known navarasas (nine primary
sentiments) of sringara (erotic), hasya (comic) , karuna (pathos), rudra (fury), veera
(heroic), bhayanaka (fearsome), beebhatsa (loathsome), adbhuta (wonder) and santa (tranquil).
Sringara or the erotic is the chief rasa in plays like Abhijnana-Shakuntalam,
Vikramorvasiyam, and Malavikagni-mitram of Kalidas and Swapanavasavadattam of
Bhasa. Karuna or pathos is the chief sentiment in Uttararamacharita of Bhavabhuti, Veera
or the heroic is the pervading rasa in Venisamhara and Mudrarakshasa of Visakhadatta.
Each play consists structurally of a prologue introduced by an invocation and a formal ushering in of the plot and author, by the Sutradhara. This is followed by the theme presented in equally divided parts of five or ten acts. Every act is concluded by the
exit of all the characters and the stage is left empty. Incidents like journeys, killings, wars etc. are never enacted, but are only suggested.
As Subhalakshmi Narayan remarks, “Sanskrit drama never offers tragedy unlike many of the Shakespearean plays.”2 While all emotions including grief, terror and
disgust are depicted; the Sanskrit drama never allows a tragic catastrophe to cause a painful impression in the minds of the audience. As Sri Aurobindo argues in Hindu
Drama,
To the Hindu it would have seemed a savage and inhuman spirit that could take any aesthetic pleasure in the sufferings of an Oedipus or a Duchesse of Malfi or in the tragedy of Macbeth or an Othello.3
4
Introduction
Chapter- I
It is evident that a drama with a tragic end has never been popular in India. Sri Aurobindo exhibits the spirit of Indian drama in these words:
An atmosphere of romantic beauty, a high urbanity and a gracious equipoise of the feelings, a perpetual confidence, is the sunshine and the flower are the essential spirit of hindu play: pity and terror are used to awaken the feelings,
but not to lacerate them, and the drama must close on the note of joy and peace: the clouds are only admitted to make more beautiful the glad sunlight from which all come and into which all must away.4
It is obviously a matter that is closely related to the Indian attitudes and philosophy of
life. The difference between Western and Indian thinking and traditional belief has
been so great that the two artistic expressions could not but be different. A
comparison between the two traditions takes us deep into the hearts of the two cultures. In the West ‘evil’ has been a positive things, a force to be fought against or
reckoned with whereas in India ‘evil’ is not a positive force; it does not stand on its own. It is just absence of ‘good’. Darkness cannot exist unless there is light: rather, darkness is the sure proof of the existence of light. It can be called the temporary absence of light. The moment light flashes, darkness disappears.
Bhasa is the oldest known dramatist who might have flourished sometime between 500 BC and 50 BC, a period certainly earlier than that of the celebrated grammarian,
Panini. Of the thirty-five plays he is said to have written; only thirteen have come to
light. Interestingly enough, he has written not only seven-act and ten-act plays but
also one-act plays and one-scene plays. Many of these abound in soliloquies, thus blazing a trail for later playwrights. His masterpieces- Urubhanga and Dutavavakya
and Karna- are known for their tragic intensity and dramatic style.
Later playwrights like Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti distinctly bear the imprint of Bhasa’s dramatic style. The supreme achievement of Indian drama is undoubtedly in Kalidasa who is often called the Shakespeare of India. Though he does not have the range and
variety of Shakespeare, he has given the world a profounder spiritual vision of life.
His magnum opus, Abhijnana Shakuntala, is said to be the richest and most completely satisfying romantic drama. Bhavabhuti turned out dramatic poems rather 5
Introduction
Chapter- I
than stage plays. His Mahaviracharita, Malatimadhava and Uararamacharita, reveal
the “poet’s maturity of mind, a sense of workmanship, an acute understanding of human mind, and some of the deep values of life”5 opines G.K.Bhat.
The Sanskrit drama flourished in its glory under the patron-age of the court and the aristocracy till the 12th century when the Mohammedan intrusion shifted the Sanskrit
stage. The glory of Sanskrit drama became a thing of the past in the period of decline
when it was divorced gradually from the stage. Instead of poets, ‘pandits’ took to playwriting and produced works on the stock epic themes in a conventional way. The decadent drama distanced itself from life in its sophisticated setting, stereotyped
characters and artificial diction. Vidyanatha’s play, Prataparu-drakalyana, provides a patent example of the virtual death of the ancient Indian drama.
After the Sanskrit drama ceased to be acted and was read only as literature, the theatre of
the people flourished for many centuries and catered to the Indian massed. The old splendor and fullness of drama was gone, but people still needed relaxation and entertainment. As a result, music, dance and drama survived in varying forms in different
parts of India- Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Karnataka, Gujrat and also in North
India. The ‘jatras’ of Bengal, the folk plays of Tamil Nadu like Satharam, and
Nallathangal, the ‘yakshaganas’ of Andhra and Karnataka, the ‘Kathakali’ of Kerala, the ‘Kirtaniya’ of Mithila, the ‘Bhavni’ of Gujrat, and the ‘Ramlila’ plays of North India took
place instilling their meaning into the sub-conscious of the race, and penetrating to the very backbone of the people’s art and morality. These variegated forms of entertainment had but little merit as literature, but they conveyed to the people the essentials of Indian
culture. Above all, as K.S. Ramaswamy Sastri observes, “they formed a transition from
the classical Sanskrit drama to the modern Indian drama and had some influence on the evolution of the latter.”6
It was only after the British set up their regime in India that the crippled Indian drama
received new strength and witnessed a revival. As Krishna Kriplani points out, the modern Indian drama “owed its first flowering to foreign grafting.”7 With the impact
of Western civilization on Indian life, a new renaissance dawned on Indian arts
including drama. Furthermore, English education gave an impetus and a momentum
6
Introduction
Chapter- I
to the critical study of not only Western drama, but also classical Indian drama. English and Italian dramatic troupes toured India and performed many English plays,
mainly Shakespeare’s, in cities like Bombay and Madras. The Portuguese brought a
form of dance-drama to the west coast. A Russian music director, Rebedoff, is said to have produced the first modern drama in Calcutta towards the end of the 18th century. Thus, according to K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, the Western impact awakened “the dormant, critical impulse in the country to bring Indians face to face with new forms of life and literature, and to open the way for a fruitful cross-fertilization of ideas and forms of expression.”8
The newly awakened creative efforts first took the form of translation and adaptations
from Sanskrit and English drama. Kalidasa’s Shakuntala was translated into quite a
few regional languages. Mrichchakatika was translated into Maithili by Ishanatha Jha
and Ratnavali into Sindhi by Dewan Kauromal. Shakespeare was naturally the most
sought after, and among his plays the frequently translated or adopted were Comedy
of Errors, the Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Othello and Cymbeline. To cite but a few
examples Viresalingam Pantulu’s rendering of All is Well That Ends Well came out in 1897, a Tamil adaptation of Cymbeline in 1898, and a Bengali edition of Shakespeare’s plays in four volumes was issued between 1896 and 1902. K.S.
Ramaswami Sastri translated A Midsummer Night’s Dream into Sanskrit. Apart from
Shakespeare’s plays, Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer was a favorite play among
Indian translators.
The Western impact also quickened the drying roots of Indian native tradition with the sap of a new life, thereby opening the exciting chapter of modern Indian drama written originally in the vernaculars, and at times, translated into English. By the end
of 19th century there were pioneering efforts boldly employing the mother tongue for
creative dramatic expression. The earlier dramatists from different regions of the country tried their hand at different forms-romance, opera, comedy, farce, tragedy, melodrama, and historical play. As a result, the modern India drama was a product
and blend of many models and forces. When old puranic themes were handled,
various approaches—the reformist, the revivalist, the idealistic the iconoclastic, the
frivolous and the allegorical—were tried. Just to mention the most representative 7
Introduction
Chapter- I
plays written in regional languages, we have Khadilkar’s mythological play Keechaka
Vadha in Marathi, Lakshminath Bezbarua and Gohain Barua’s historical play Jaymati in Assamese, Amanat’s opera Inder Sabha in Hindi, Ram Shankar Ray’s KanchiKaveri in Oriya. Gurajada Apparao’s social play Kanyasulkam in Telugu,
T.P. Kailasam’s Tollu-Gatti in Kannada, Sundaram Pillai’s poetic drama
Manonmaniyam in Tamil and Tagore’s symbolic poetic plays like Chitra, Sacrifice, Mukta Dhara, Red Oleanders, and The Post Office in Bengali now quite familiar to us
in English renderings. Thus, by 1920 in almost all the Indian languages a new drama
was thriving, reflecting potent influences of Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the symbolist and surrealist movements.
While the theatre movement in the Indian languages had already gathered momentum
under the influence mainly of British drama, the theatre in English could not flourish on expected lines. Though the first Indian play in English, Is This Civilization? was
written by Michael Madhusudan Dutt as early as in 1871 it was not followed up by
any sustainable creative effort for decades together. There are plausible reasons for
the arrested growth of Indian English drama. Unlike poetry and novel, drama is a composite art involving the playwright, the actor, and the audience in a commonly
shared artistic experience, calling for total commitment of the persons concerned to
create a lasting impact. Moreover, since the normal medium of conversation in India
is the mother tongue, it is difficult to make a dialogue between Indians in English
sound natural and convincing. This difficulty, however, has been overcome to a considerable degree by some talented Indian English dramatists by carefully choosing
the situations and language that transcend time and place, and the characters that are plausible and convincing.
The pre-independence era saw some stalwarts—Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, T.P. Kailasam, A.S.P. Ayyar, Lobo-Prabhu, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya and
Bharathi Sarabhai—who contributed substantially to the growth and development of
Indian English drama. Rabindranath Tagore was the first major playwright who invested Indian drama in English with lyrical excellence, symbolic overtones and
allegorical significance. His best known plays- Sacrifice, Chitra, Mukta Dhara, The Post Office, The King of The Dark Chamber and Red Oleanders- display a unique 8
Introduction
Chapter- I
blend of simplicity and complexity as also conventionality and modernity. Though his
plays abound in great variety and richness they tend to be too suggestive and symbolic
thereby lacking in dramatic action. In the words of Thompson, they are “vehicles of
thought rather than expressions of action.”9 However, Tagore’s plays though rendered into English, often by the author himself, belong properly to Bengali drama.
Sri Aurobindo inherited and carried forward the tradition of Elizabethan poetic drama
of Marlowe and Shakespeare revived by Robert Bridges and Stephen Phillips in the Victorian era. His dramatic genius is amply revealed in his five complete plays-
Perseus, Vasavadutta, Rodogune, The Viziers of Bassara and Eric—which were
written originally in English. Modeled on a Greek legend, Perseus depicts the vision of a world moving through evil and anarchy towards the attainment of a blissful state. Based on Somadeva’s Kathasaritasagara, Vasavadutta is a romantic comedy dealing
with the love-story of Vuthsa Udayam, the young king of Cosambie, and Vasavadatta,
the princess of Avanti where Udayam is kept in prison. Taking sustenance from
Shakespeare’s and Jacobean tragedies, Rodogune shows how the suffering that comes
to man is designed not to crush him, but to raise him to a new consciousness and a
higher plane. Cast on the Elizabethan pattern. The Viziers of Bassara, takes its theme
from The Arabian Nights dealing with the love affairs of Nur-ul-Din Ali, the good-
natured son of Vizier, and Ania-al-Jalice, a slave-girl. Eric is a comedy of love and adventure showing various stages of love and establishing man’s kinship not only with his fellow human beings but with the universe at large. In its form, maintaining
as it does the dramatic unities of time, place and action like Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Eric is Sri Aurobindo’s nearest approach to the classical form of drama.
A study of the five plays of Sri Aurobindo reveals that he is a highly competent dramatist and an accomplished craftsman in verse. They are steeped in rich poetry and
romance recalling the spirit and flavor of the distinctive dramatic type exemplified in a different way by Bhasa, Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti. “All the same, they are often labeled ‘closed drama’ designed for reading in the study (closet) or to small groups rather than for performance on the public stage”10 remarks Alexer Preminger. Nevertheless, the plays reveal Aurobindo’s exquisite skill in the portrayal of characters. S.S. Kulkarni acclaims that Aurobindo has created “extremely interesting 9
Introduction
Chapter- I
men and women by developing psychological element which endows his plays with
inexhaustible human interest and significance.”11 What is more, Sri Aurobino opened up new vistas in Indian English drama displaying his robust optimism about the future of mankind.
Though T.P. Kailasam’s English plays are inspired by puranic themes taken from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, he renders them brilliantly in the ‘intellectual
idiom’ of his own day in such a way that they come home to men’s business and bosom. His first play, The Burden (1993), is derived from the Ramayana and deals with the predicament in which Bharata is placed at the death of his father, Dasaratha,
and the exile of his elder brother, Rama, driving home the point that one should not
shirk one’s duty. Fulfillment is a ‘terrible play’ recounting Ekalavya’s decision to join the Kauravas against the Pandavas. When he reverses his decision, he is slain stealthily by Krishna who kills his mother too, just to spare her from even a moment’s misery of losing a son. Representing as it does the crown of Kailasam’s dramatic art;
the play bears full testimony to the fertile imagination of the playwright. The Purpose (1944) dramatizes Ekalavya’s single-minded devotion to the art of archery in the
forest aimed at protecting the lives of fawns and the weak from the tyranny of the
strong. The passing reference to Ekalavya in the “Drona Parva” of the Mahabharata becomes a powerful play in the hands of Kailasam. The Curse or Karna (1946) deals
with idealization of Karna for whom it is intrinsic worth, not accidental birth that should count. The play demonstrates that it is the purpose of the killing, not the means
and the manner of the killing that decides the fairness. Keechaka (1949) dramatizes
the heroic character of Keechaka as he returns from war and falls in love with Sairandhri and is eventually killed by Valala. Kailasam’s exalted and idealized
Keechaka is entirely different from the mean-spirited Keechaka of the Mahabharata. Thus Kailasam’s English plays display his ‘quest for greatness’ and his bold, original
approach to characters in the epics. With many imperfections in the art of characterization and the use of dramatic style, most of the plays of Kailasam are a great success on the stage.
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya added a new dimension to Indian English drama with his
leftist leanings and revolutionary zeal. If his devotional plays-Raidas, Chokha Mela, 10
Introduction
Chapter- I
Pundalik, Saku Bai, Jayadeva and Tuka Ram—deal with the lives of saints in his own characteristic way, his social plays (1937), The Window, The Parrot, The Coffin, The
Evening Lamp and The Sentry’s Lantern—reveal the playwright’s acute awareness of
social problems and his innate sympathies for the suffering masses. If The Window works
like an explosive bomb on the hard-hearted capitalists, The Parrot raises a revolt against conventional morality that gets women caged constrained. While The Sentry’s Lantern
comes down heavily on the evils of imperialism, The Coffin takes cudgels against the snobbish living of those creative writers who live in cozy cocoon of safety that is entirely
cut off from the outside world and its problems. The play is a powerful plea for a purposeful writing. Thus, Harin’s plays are all products of an earnest commitment to certain values and ideas and according to K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, the “manifestoes of the new realism.”12
Bharati Sarabhai is the first, most distinguished woman dramatist, who gave a
Gandhian touch to Indian English drama. Her first play, The Well of the People (1949)
upholds Gandhi’s well-known doctrine ‘Daridra Narayana” (worship of the poor as god). An old widow, the protagonist of the play, who fails to go on a pilgrimage to Haridwar, decides to build a well with her savings for the untouchables of her village.
The lyrical play, in the view of S. Mokashi-Punekar, is “probably the only articulate work of literary art giving complete expression to the Gandhian age... flawlessly
executed with the fullest awareness of all the problems”13 of the age. Sarabhai’s
second play, Two Women (1952) dramatizes the conflict between tradition and modernity, the material and the spiritual, driving home the point that God is within.
After Harindranath, we have a few playwrights who proceeded on the lines suggested
in his social plays, thereby making Indian English drama more and more realistic and purposeful. Srinivasa lyengar was “a master of social comedy, delighting in the
incongruous ludicrous and droll elements in the lives of the sophisticated.”14 His plays
are published as Dramatic Divertissements in two volumes. However, with all their
interesting situations, convincing characters and vivacious, quick moving dialogue, they are yet to receive the critical attention they deserve.
11
Introduction
Chapter- I
A.S.P. Ayyar and Lobo-Prabhu are two other playwrights of distinction whose
contribution to Indian English drama cannot be ignored. The very titles of Ayyar’s plays—In The Clutches of the Devil (1926), Sita’s Choice (1935), The Slave of Ideas (1941) and The Trial of Science for the Murder of Humanity (1942), show that they
are written with reformist zeal. They all deal with contemporary problems like blind
beliefs and superstitions, widow-marriage, caste system and gross materialism. A vigorous critic of contemporary life, Aayar handles the prose medium effectively.
Lobo-Prabhu’s Collected Plays (1954) contain plausible drama. Apes in the Parlour is a trenchant critique of sophisticated life. The Family Cage presents the plight of a
widowed sister in a joint family. Flags of the Heart dwells on the importance of
sacrifice and service for the poor. Though his characters are not generally convincing, Lobo-Prabhu is good at dramatic situation and dialogue.
Although the pre-independence Indian English drama is notable for its poetic excellence, thematic variety, technical virtuosity, symbolic significance and its
commitment to human and moral values, it was by and large not geared for actual
stage production. Very few Indian dramatists so far had shown great interest in producing drama for the stage. One singular exception to this phenomenon was Asif Currimbhoy who is rightly hailed as “Indian’s first authentic voice in the theatre”15 by
Faubion Bowers. His plays are essentially pieces of theatre. By fusing the elements of pantomime, dance, and song, he succeeds brilliantly in creating powerful auditory and visual images that go a long way in making his plays vitally theatrical.
Currimbhoy is a playwright with a social purpose. He is a prolific dramatist who has thirty plays to his credit dealing with the social, political and religious problems of
contemporary society. In a Currimbhoy play , one can discern a definite philosophical basis that can be recognized in the very titles of his plays—The Hungry Ones, The
Captives, The Doldrummers, An Experiment with Truth, Goa, This Alien… Native
Land and Om Mane Padma Hun! The variety of his themes and techniques, the
topicality of his several plays; the social realism and implicit philosophy of his plays,
the opulence of his scenes, situations and characters, the bold experimentation in technique, the resourceful improvisation of his stagecraft, and the mastery of his
dialogue are some of the qualities that reveal Currimbhoy’s dramatic genius. Though 12
Introduction
Chapter- I
in his later plays, Currimbhoy subjects his dramatic art to a strain it cannot bear; his plays remain ‘colorful instruments of an intense theatricality.’
Quite a few contemporary playwrights have made a significant contribution to the
development of Indian English drama. The foremost among them is Nissim Ezekiel, a
well-established Indian English poet who has also enriched Indian English drama in
his own characteristic way. His Three Plays (1969) consisting of Nalini, A Marriage
Poem and The Sleep-Walkers, and another play, Song of Deprivation, expose the
hollowness of the urban middle-class life, fickleness of modern lovers, greedy fascination for American life and hypocrisy and inhibitive nature of contemporary
Indian society respectively. Ezekiel is an excellent craftsman. His plays are fine
examples of symmetric construction, abounding in irony, wit and humor. They reveal his sharp observation of the oddities in human life and behavior providing glimpses of
a cross-section of contemporary society. Though they do not meet the full requirements of the stage, but according to Prema Nanda kumar, they “make pleasant
reading” and are known for their “stage-worthiness.”16 And , in the words of Chetan
Karnani, “in his satire of current fashion, in his exposure of pose and pretence, Ezekiel comes very close to the spirit of some English social satirists in the theatre.”17
Some playwrights like Lakhan Deb’s and Gurucharan Das have made a significant to the development of historical play. Lakhan Deb’s Tiger’s Claw (1947) is a powerful
dramatization of Shivaji’s killing of Afzal Khan bringing out the heroic nature and nobility of Shivaji. His Murder at the Prayer Meeting (1976) deals with the murder of
Mahatma Gandhi echoing T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. Modeled on the technique of Greek tragedy, the play deftly employs the dramatic unities of time, place and action as well as the classical devices of prologue and chorus. Gurucharan
Das’s Larins Sahib (1970) is based on the events in Punjab during 1846-47, and is
reconstructed from the documents and letters exchanged by the principal characters. It is a remarkable achievement in historical drama in that the playwright has not only
recreated history faithfully, but also suitably captured the essential traits of the historical characters. What is more, he succeeds admirably in evoking the nineteenth century colonial Indian background.
13
Introduction
Chapter- I
Gieve Patel and Partap Sharma are two other contemporary dramatists who have distinguished themselves. Gieve Patel’s Princes (1970) is the first Parsi play, set in the semi-urban Parsi sub-culture of the Sanjan-Nargol area of South Gujarat, focusing on two Parsi families and their savage conflict for the possession of a sole male child. It is significant for its experiments with language and its brilliant success in handling
situation, character and dialogue. It creates a situation—the obsession with male
children—that most Indian can identify with, and creates a language of sub-cultures that characters can speak without straining our credulity. Patel succeeds in evolving
“a form of modified English which is not standard English, which has distinctively Indian rhythms, but none of the ‘cuteness’ or self-conscious phony “Indianness” of other experiments in this genre”18 remarks Eunice De Souza.
Partap Sharma has carved out a niche for himself among contemporary playwrights
by handling the theme of sex in his two plays-The Professor Has a Warcry (1970) and A Touch of Brightness (1970). The first play brings out the mental anguish of
Virendra who becomes aware of his illegitimacy and the second is a realistic portrayal
of the red light area in Bombay. Both the plays have been commended for their thematic boldness, character delineation and technical triumph.
In spite of the impressive record of Indian English drama, it has to be conceded that in terms of both quantity and quality, it lags a behind Indian English poetry and particularly Indian English novel. Various reasons have been attributed to the paucity
of Indian drama in English. It is generally felt that Indian playwrights in English have failed to draw upon the rich and varied Indian dramatic traditions, as also to make
creative use of the rich fund of Indian myth and Indian historical heritage. Yet another
important reason given for stunted growth of Indian drama in English is its unsuitability for production on the stage. No doubt, we have had highly talented and
enterprising Indians who seriously attempted drama in English, but “seldom actual
stage production”19 remarks K.R.Srinivasa Iyenger. Indian English drama has also
suffered for want of a real theatre and live audience in India. As M.K. Naik puts it,
14
Introduction
Chapter- I
A play, in order to communicate fully and become a living dramatic experience, needs a real theatre and a live audience…. It is precisely the lack of these essentials that has hamstrung Indian drama in English all along.20
Above all, the major hurdle for the flourishing of Indian English drama is said to be the lack of a viable language as suitable medium for its expression. It is generally
believed that we have very few actable plays mainly because a dialogue between Indians may not sound convincing except when the characters are drawn from an urban, sophisticated milieu. But it is not proper to take such a narrow and shortsighted
view of the problem. Rightly approached, this much-dreaded difficulty is more
apparent than real. For, confronted by a similar problem in fiction, Raja Rao could solve it by infusing the tempo of Indian life into his English expression. Similarly, M.K. Naik remarks,
When Shakespeare makes his Romans speak in Elizabethan English, we do not bat an eyelid; when Shaw’s St. Joan speaks English, no one asks whether the French girl held a certificate of proficiency in that language; and when
Breacht makes the good Woman of Setzuan express herself in German, we are not horrified.21
Samuel Johnson infers, 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, players.22
Therefore the Indian English playwrights need not have any qualms about making their Indian characters speak in English. If they can take sufficient care to create convincing characters in live situations, perhaps, the language would take care of itself.
On top of that, the Indian English dramatists should strive hard to turn their
professional and natural limitations into artistic assets in the manner of their ancient
forbears. They can, however, do so only if they succeed in overcoming the temptation to play to a foreign gallery and to blindly imitate the Western models. They must necessarily write with a sense of rootedness revealing a true Indian sensibility. 15
Introduction
Chapter- I
However, they should be grounded in contemporary problems while deriving inspiration and sustenance from their ancient culture. While drawing on Indian history
epics, legends, myths, folklore art and culture, they should not lose sight of the
innovative themes and techniques and current trends in the world drama today. Given these conditions, and given a living theatre and a live audience, there is no reason why
Indian drama in English should lag behind Indian English poetry and fiction any
longer, that too in a country in which drama was hailed as the ‘Fifth Veda’ and cherished as ‘Kavyesu naatakam ramyam.’
Contemporary Indian drama in English translation has made bold innovations and
fruitful experiments in terms of both thematic concerns and technical virtuosities. It has been increasingly turning to history, legend, myth and folklore, tapping their
springs of vitality and vocal cords of popularity with splendid results. Mohan Rakesh,
Badal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar and Girish Karnad have remained the most representative of the contemporary Indian drama not only in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada respectively but also on the pan-Indian level.
Greatly influenced by Marxism, Mohan Rakesh waged a relentless fight against the
traditional stranglehold of Hindi drama, and always endeavored to project something new and challenging. As Nirad Chaudhuri points out,
With Mohan Rakesh Hindi drama makes a departure from pseudo-modernism and traditional symbolism to the drama of ‘non-communication’- the modern man’s failure to understand him or to understand the other person and their
mutual failure to understand each other, which is the real tragedy of modern life.23
His plays dramatize the sufferings of men and women who fall victims to socioeconomic hierarchy and cultural hegemony, particularly, in his plays like One Day in Ashadha and The Great Swans of the Waves. Karnad makes use of history and legend
to throw light on the contemporary problems. His dialogues have a smooth flow, a meaningful depth, and elemental naturalness suitable to his characters.
16
Introduction
Chapter- I
While Rakesh uses historical characters to project the breakdown of communication in
contemporary life, Badal Sircar uses contemporary situations to project the existential
attitude of modern life. Popularly known as a ‘barefoot playwright,’ Badal Sircar stands
in the forefront of a new theatrical movement in India. He has created a genuine people’s
theatre, known as Third Theatre, a theatre supported and created by the people, and not
merely performed by the people. Transcending the limits and limitations of the traditional and folk theatres, the Third Theatre according to Karnad, is “a composite of a four way
flow of influences-actor to actor, audience to actor, actor to audience and audience to
audience.”24 It is essentially a flexible, portable and inexpensive Theatre, aiming at not simply enlightening the people on socio-economic and political problems, but leading them to constructive action with a view to bringing about a social change.
Sircar’s later plays, Procession, Bhoma and Stale News, are based on the concept of
the Third Theatre. Procession is certainly the most popular of the three plays. It is
about the search for “a real home”- a new society based on equality. The chief concern of the play is to show “real way” to a new society in which man does not have to live by exploiting man, and in which each works according to his/her ability
and gets according to his/her needs. The leitmotif of the play is symbolized in the characters of Old Man and Khoka who represent the old and new generations as well
as the past and the present. Bhoma is a dramatization of life of the oppressed peasants in rural India through a series of scenes in which he is socially and economically
exploited. Stale News deals with the theme of revolt, centering round a young man who is bombarded with biting bits of information full of contradictions and contrasts which come to him as stale news.
Leading the vanguard of the avant-garde Marthi Theatre, Vijay Tendulkar symbolizes the new awareness and attempts of Indian dramatists of the last quarter of the century,
to depict the agonies, suffocations and cries of man, focusing on the middleclass
society. In all his plays, he harps upon the theme of isolation of the individual and his confrontation with the hostile surroundings. Influenced by Artaud, Tendulkar relates
the problem of anguish to theme of violence in most of his plays. He does not consider the occurrence of human violence as something loathsome or disgusting in as much as it is innate in human nature. As K.M.George says: 17
Introduction
Chapter- I
Unlike the communists I don’t think violence can be eliminated in a classless society, or, for that matter, in any society. The spirit of aggression is something that human being is born with. Not that it is bad. Without violence man might have turned into a vegetable.25
While depicting violence on the stage, Tendulkar does not dress it up with any fancy trapping so as to make it palatable but rather keeps it raw and natural.
Small wonder then, if Tendulkar’s plays like Sakharam Binder, Ghashiram Kotwal, Silence! The Court is in Session created a storm in society. Tendulkar raises several questions about love, sex, marriage and moral values prevalent in Indian society, making ample use of irony, satire, pathos and mock-element to highlight the
hollowness of middle-class morality. He exposes the hypocrisy in the traditional
Indian Society. In his latest plays, To Hell with Destiny and The Tour, Tendulkar highlights the typical middle-class mentality and value system. In both the plays,
Tendulkar economizes on the number and range of characters, situations and episodes, giving wider scope to deeper interpretations and meaningful corollaries.
Vijay Tendulkar’s plays, along with those of playwrights like Girish Karnad, Badal
Sircar and Mohan Rakesh, have changed the face of Indian theatre. Tendulkar was
born in a Brahmin family on 7th January 1928. He wrote his first play while still in
school and later worked as an apprentice in a bookshop. He took up journalism and
was an assistant editor of Marathi dailies like Navbharat, Maratha and Laksatta. Tendulkar has written plays, short stories, features and television serials in Hindi.
Recipient of many prestigious awards like Kamladevi Chattopadhyaya award, Sangeet Natak Akademi award and Kalidas Samman award, he is fighter for cultural freedom, the freedom which is stifled at present by various forces.
Tendulkar has changed the form and pattern of Indian drama by demolishing the three-act play and creating new models. By developing the flexible as well as carefully crafted forms, modes of recitation and storytelling specific to his region, he
has managed to bridge the gulf between traditional and modern theatre by creating a vibrant new theatrical form, an example of which is the play Ghashiram Kotwal.
18
Introduction
Chapter- I
Unlike Badal Sircar and Vijay Tendulkar who delve into the problems of middle-class society, Girish Karnad, the well-known Kannada playwright, goes back to myths and
legends with a view to making them a vehicle of a new vision. By exploiting the various myths, he shows the absurdity of modern life with all its elemental passions
and conflicts, and man’s eternal struggle to achieve perfection. In his plays, Yayati, Tughlaq, Hayavadana, Tale Danda and Naga-Mandala, he tries to evolve a symbolic
form out of a tension between the archetypal and mythic experience and to a living
response to life and its values in his attempt to give new meanings to the past from the
vantage point of the present. In the reworking of myths creatively, Karnad reminds us
of T.P. Kailasam and Rangacharya. He has admirably succeeded in his attempt to show the Indian playwright as well as to the world theatre community at large how our past and present can coalesce to give present-day existence meaning and to theatre
activity a direction. Thus, the contemporary India drama in English translation has achieved a thorough synthesis of the three traditions-classical, folk and western-which lead to the discovery of a new form as well as a new style of production.
Girish Karnad has given the Indian theatre a richness that could probably be equated only with his talents as an actor-director. His contribution goes beyond theatre: he has
directed feature films, documentaries and television serials. He has represented India in foreign lands as an emissary of art and culture.
Recently Indian English drama has shot into prominence. Writers like Mahesh Dattani and Manjula Padmanabhan have infused new life into this branch of writing. The
Bangalore-based Dattani has published forceful plays like Where There is a Will, Final Solutions and Tara. Padamanabhan’s Onassis award-winning Harvest has
achieved worldwide acclaim. Incidentally, both
Dattani and Padmanabhan do not
write on the traditional subjects. Dattani writes about mean, ugly, unhappy things of
life; Padmanabhan projects a dehumanized, terrifying world in which mothers sell their sons for the price of rice. Her play Harvest is about an impoverished family living in a single room in a chawl of Bombay. Population explosion has rendered the
city dwellers into helpless, poor, dehumanized lot struggling for their survival. In this scenario, driven by hunger and unemployment, Om Prakash decides to become an
organ donor and mortgages his body to a white First World buyer. Padmanabhan 19
Introduction
Chapter- I
projects in her play, a more serious, grim and unpalatable world than Dattani. But her play is rather intellectual and not suited for stage, unlike the plays of Dattani which have been quite successful on the stage and have captured the imagination of the middle-class audience.
Having discussed the growth and development of Indian drama, it is desirable to sum up the entire argument and offer an over-all assessment of the contemporary scene in respect of the plays being written and staged. An appraisal of Indian drama shows that
while drama in various Indian languages has shown a marked development, it has not done so in Indian English. In this literature, drama is a plant of poor growth. The first and foremost reason is the lack of a living theatre. It is a well-known fact that the real
success of a play can be tested only on stage. A playwright needs a living theatre to put his work on acid test, evaluate its total effect on the audience and thereby get a
chance to improve upon his performance. This handicap has not allowed him to pursue playwriting in a systematic and comprehensive way.
However, English plays are occasionally staged, especially in big cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. Visits of foreign troupes are arranged from time to time by the
British Council and the American Center. In Delhi, Yatrik group has actively staged
several plays. Barry John, the renowned director, has made a significant contribution to the Delhi theatre. It is a matter of great satisfaction that some of the Indian English plays like Gurcharan Das’s Mira, Partap Sharma’s A Touch of Brightness and Asif Currimbhoy’s The Dumb Dancer have been staged in the West.
It is mainly then Indian drama in Indian languages and the drama in English translation which has registered a remarkable growth in the recent decades. During the last few years, several plays originally written in the regional languages have been
translated into English. Today, a sizable number of such plays exist, and it is possible for scholars to assess and evaluate Indian drama in its totality. Many academics have
felt the need for English translations of literature in the Indian Languages. English translations of classics in the Indian languages should form an important component
of Indian English literature. The translations have forged a link between the east and the west, the north and the south, and contributed to the growing richness of
20
Introduction
Chapter- I
contemporary creative consciousness. Thus regional drama in Indian is slowly paving
a way for a “national theatre” into which all streams of theatrical art seem to
converge. The major language theatres that were active during the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties that rejuvenated and consolidated are those of Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Kannada.
A study of Vijay Tendulkar, Badal Sircar and Girish Karnad clearly shows that they
are the symbols of the new resurgence in their own areas and have made bold innovations, fruitful experiments and given new directions which go in the history of Indian drama as a significant mark of achievement.
Jaydipsinh Dodiya observes that “Girish Karnad, perhaps the most renowned media personality in the contemporary India, is a leading playwright and adept practitioner
of performing arts.”26 He is a living legend in the field of Indian drama in English,
and has established his name and fame not only in India but all over the world for his
excellent treatment of new themes and creation of new characters in his plays. His plays are primarily written in Kannada and then translated into other languages. The English translations of his plays are his own. According to A.K. Chakraborty, they
have brought him international recognition as “the pre-eminent contemporary
playwright.”27 He has been widely acclaimed by both theatre and drama critics for certain aspects of his plays : plot construction, characterization, song, spectacle,
symbolism, use of myths and folktales, reinterpretation of history, projection of contemporary social and psychological problems-especially those of women and children, his sources, influences, technical innovations and so forth. He takes themes
from myth, legend, history and folktales, and shapes them to fit the modern
sensibility. His plays acquire universality with his careful employment of ultra
modern theatrical techniques. R.K. Dhawan estimates Girish Karnad’s position and contribution to theatre and drama as under:
Girish karnad is the foremost playwright of the contemporary Indian
stage. He has given the Indian theatre a richness that could probably be
equated only with his talents as an actor-director. His contributions go
beyond theatre. He has directed feature films, documentaries and
21
Introduction
Chapter- I
television serials in Kannada, Hindi and English, and has played leading
roles as an actor in Hindi and Kannada art films, commercial movies and television serials. He has represented India in foreign lands as an emissary of art and culture.28
As a dramatist Karnad is an existentialist which implies consciousness of the self in the world of lived experience. Existentialism is a modern philosophical thought which
is concerned with man’s struggle for existence. After the World Wars, it was born as philosophical-doctrines and ideas which found expression in the works of Sartre,
Heidegger, Marcel, Camus and Karl Jaspers. There is not a certain definition of existentialism but themes laden with different ideas and situations can be singled out
as its characteristics. Existentialists place man at the centre of universe where philosophical, sociological and psychological doctrines mask the individuality of
human being and emphasize as if they are governed by some abstract ‘human nature’ which are determined by certain general laws and principles that common humanity is
required to conform. Margaret Drabble, Editor of Oxford Companion to English Literature, discusses that in existentialism, each person is:
What he or she chooses to be or become and cannot escape responsibility for character or deeds by claiming that they are predetermined consequence of
factors beyond one’s power to control or resist; nor can we justify what we do in terms of external or objective standards imposed upon us from without29
The exponents of Existentialism are European philosophers like Dane Soren
Kierkegaard (1813-55), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Jean Paul Sartre (1905-80)
and Albert Camus (1913-1960). They have propounded existentialism as a comprehensive philosophy which includes the atheism of Sartre, the Protestantism of Kierkegaard, the Roman Catholicism of Marcel and Judaism of Buber. They also
highlight the freedom of individual and his faith in God in the context of his religion. Sartre declares that if God does not exist, there is at least one being “whose existence
precedes his essence”30 and a being which exists before it can be defined. Heidegger
calls man as ‘a being’ and relates it with ‘human reality’.
22
Introduction
Chapter- I
The general feature of existentialism can be traced as a protest against rationalism which treats man as an object or a thing which kills the naturalness and spontaneity of man as an individual. Democratic and capitalist society also generates the unnecessary
regimentation of totalitarian ordering of life. It cultivates a difference between
objective and subjective truth and treats man as an ambiguous and contradictory
creature where a man becomes an episode in the vast process of nature from the outside while man is really universe in himself from inside.
Modern age can be observed, according to Punam Pandey, “as ‘glorification of Scientism’ or ‘the aesthetic of the Machine’ which emerged as overpowering sense of
crisis and nothingness, alienation and ennui. As a result, we can witness Promethean
defiance and Sisyphian despair, Kurtizian horror and Kafkaesque ‘angst’. Existentialists in modern era display the predicament of man who feels the sense of protest, anger, hopelessness, loneliness, rootlessness, alienation, despair and anxiety
where he feels the loss of his self and that of loss of his world.”31 Camus in The
Stranger and Kafka in The Castle depict man as a stranger to his world. He feels the sense of rootlessness, powerlessness like an outsider to his society and world. His
world is full of tragic alienation, despair and pessimism. He feels himself as ‘absurd’ which is devoid of purpose, and becomes rootless and meaningless to his society. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is an example of absurd theatre.
We can witness the great existentialist writers as well as philosophers like Gabriel
Marcel, who expresses his philosophy through his plays; Sartre through his plays and
novels; Kafka, Dostoevsky and Camus through novels. We can also find existentialist themes in the plays of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Jean Anouilh and Pleneric Ibsen. Other existentialist writers are T.S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco,
Harold Pinter, Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Graham Greene, Thomas Hardy, Iris
Murdoch, Earnest Hemingway, Norman Mailer and Carson McCullers. In Indian English Literature, we can find the literary celebrities like R.N. Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, M.R. Anand, R.K. Narayan, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Nissim Ezekiel, K.N. Daruwalla, Asif Currimbhoy, Girish Karnad and O.P. Bhatnagar, who
have presented the struggle and predicament of man in their works and express their existential concerns.
23
Introduction
Chapter- I
Like Kierkegaard and other existentialists, Karnad seems to oppose existence of history and its superiority over human beings. He very often visits myths,
mythologies, folktales and proper history which is a record of events happened in the
past and their effects on human beings and society which manage the course of the present and the future, takes resources from them but recreates new history wherein a person struggles to build up a new identity in a newly constructed society and culture
that is built up against its past background. This he has done not by charting a plan and providing a design but by forcing the readers and spectators to apply intellect and
reasoning power, scrutinizing the past and its effects on the present and the lives of the people, and keeps writer in him at distance, and as a social human being expresses his views from different platform. As Parvati Memon remarks,
…it is Karnad’s ability to universalize the individual and social predicament through the medium of drama that has given his works wide appeal and easy entry into other languages.32
Karnad seems to be influenced by the dramatists both Indian and European, along
with his profound reading of different schools and theories. When he took to writing,
existentialism was a strong current both in India and Western countries and it tremendously influenced different literary genres, including drama. The nonAristotelian dramatic writing, the epic drama developed by Brecht also was very
popular and Karnad has used it in his plays so far the technique is concerned. ‘Camus’ ‘Caligula’ provided ‘absurd’ concept of human situation and Sartre’s idea of atheism
and existentialism profoundly influenced him, detaching from religious commitment in his plays.
Karnad has watched stage performances in England, the enactment of the plays of several
world known dramatists like Shakespeare, Shaw, Brecht Rattigan, Osborne, Wesker, Grotonshi, Becket, etc. with searching interest but found nothing interesting to his kind of
dramatic art as they were realists basically. According to Tutun Mukherjee, Karnad appreciates Coctean and Anouilh for “they rejected the realistic set and were rethinking
the use of myths to represent modern life.”33 He knows the great Indian dramatists, the
24
Introduction
Chapter- I
Natyashastra, the Parsi theatre and the folk theatre and inherits cultural aspects which
shaped his attitude.
In his plays Karnad has very significantly presented certain myths from Mahabharata and other Indian Classics of worldwide recognition. Yayati initially written in Kannada but had recently been translated into English by the author himself. It is a play of great mythical significance and its women characters are very forceful. The
story of Yayati runs in the epic: King Yayati was tenth in the line of Brahama’s
family. Once Devayani, the daughter of Shukracharya, the ‘guru’ of ‘asuras’; fell out with each other. Sharmistha pushed Devyani into a well and went away. Fortunately
King Yayati came by the well; he saw her into it and took her out of it by holding her
hand. Devayani was drawn towards Yayati since that moment. Shukracharya punished Sharmistha for the deed by making her (Devayani) a lifelong servant along with her
other maid. Devayani, later, offered to marry Yayati, who being a Kshatriya, showed
his inability to marry, because she was the daughter of a Brahmin, Shukracharya. But with the consent of Shukracharya the marriage was solemnized, and Sharmistha, as a
result of punishment, was also sent to king Yayati’s kingdom along with his bride
Devayani. With the passage of time Devayani had two sons Yadu and Turvasu. But one of her clandestine liaison with Yayati, Sharmistha also had three sons born to her, Druhya, Anu and Pooru. When Devayani came to know of this act of Sharmistha she complained to her father, who in turn, cursed Yayati to become old at the very
moment. Agonized by the curse Yayati then implored to relax the severity of the curse. Shukracharya then offered him to exchange his old age with anyone’s youth. Yayati then requested all his sons and subjects to give him youth and take away his
old age in return. None but Pooru, the youngest son of Sharmistha, agreed to do so. Pooru became old and Yayati young. He enjoyed sensual pleasures for thousand more years. In the end he realized the meaninglessness of physical pleasures and returned
the youth of his son Pooru and took old age from him ever and went to forest. B.
Yadava Raju observes, “Critics have commented upon the existential burden that must be borne by Yayati because he exercises his choice about his course of action.”34
In Tughlag, the king of the fourteenth century India, Karnad presents the indecisive
behavior of the ruler who is always divided in a state of idealism and realism. He 25
Introduction
Chapter- I
becomes a living figure of Hamlet, the king of Denmark, who appears like a man of
indecision and inaction. His ‘to be or not to be’ is a remarkable feature of existential suffering and predicament. He is not a maker of himself but he becomes as situations
and circumstances construct him. Tughlag decides to transfer his capital from Delhi to
Daulatabad and again from Daulatabad to Delhi which cultivates a hell to his countrymen, but he does so for his dedicated idealism of safety of his people from
foreign invaders and kills his relatives for the sake of equality and justice and that of Hindu-Muslim unity but finally he fails as a ruler and becomes a loner, outsider and
stranger to his world. He feels the sense of loss of his self and that of his world. His loneliness and suffering is remarkable in the play. Karnads refiguration of history and
his use of the doppelganger motif create complex verbal structural and psychological patterns. As Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker comments:
The twenty-two year period of Tughlag’s decline offered a ‘striking parallel’
to the first two decades of Indian independence under Nehru’s idealistic but troubled leadership, and that Nehru appeared remarkably like Tughlag in the propensity for failure despite an extraordinary intellect.35
Hayavadana depicts the Drama of tangled relationships where Devadutta a man of intellect and mind, and Kapila a man of steel like body, are friends and
lovers of Padmini, the wife of Devadatta. She loves the fabulous mind in the fabulous body and craves for a son who should be a mixture of healthy mind and healthy body.
It cultivates a peculiar complexity of relationships which trap the characters in a state
of agony and suffering. Ultimately, they become a pitiable figure. Padmini attempts to obtain the perfect man without self alienation, through the boon of Goddess Kali but her juxtaposition of brilliant head and a strong body is easily undone by the hegemony of Apollonian culture carried on in the head.
The play is named Hayavadana, a character with a horse’s head and a man’s body
who appears at the beginning and end of the play to frame the central plot. Hayavadana seeks completeness. He is the offspring of a princess and a divine being.
While his parents had found their society through transformation, his transformation was left incomplete. When he prays to the goddess, his prayer is granted hastily by the
26
Introduction
Chapter- I
exhausted goddess and instead of becoming human becomes a ‘complete horse’. As Krishna Gandhi writes:
The theme of the play is an old one…man’s yearning for completeness, for perfection. It’s this yearning which makes people restless in their ordinary
existence, and makes them reach out for extraordinary things…. But the ideal of perfection itself is ambiguous. This character of Hayavadana is invented as an example of this ambiguity.36
Naga-Mandala is another play of Karnad where his approach is like a male feminist
and a humanist. Rani is victim of loveless marriage as her husband Appanna, goes to concubine or harlot on the first night of her marriage. She is locked in a room like a caged bird, nobody talks to her and she is bored to death. The role of Naga makes her
pregnant and removes her frigidity. The snake ordeal reminds us of agnipariksha of Sita of the Ramayana era, and finally Rani becomes the goddess for Appanna, who admits that he is a sinner and he was blind. Rani forces social as well as self-
alienation that Karnad has beautifully constructed. Nagamandala is a feminist play
which questions patriarchal moral code which demands the faithfulness of a woman to her husband but not the faithfulness of a man to his wife. The play also raises the
issue of truth and illusion. Rani, Naga and Appanna see the truth differently because
each perceives truth from his or her perspective. With her hand on the anthill, Rani speaks the truths that she has been touched only by two, by her husband and now by
the cobra. That is her truth and so Naga cannot bite her. Nagas truth is different from that of Ranis. Appanna’s truth is that he has never slept with his wife. The miracle of
the cobra not biting her, surprises him. Mandala also means ‘triangle’ that is Rani, Naga and Appanna. Appanna also means ‘any man’. Naga is also symbol of fertility
in folk tradition. As M. Sarat Babu observes, “Naga-Mandala questions and exposes gender-biased values and morals of patriarchy which have oppressed women for ages.”37
The Fire and The Rain is another feat of Karnad’s creative playwright, where there is
conflict of jealousy, rivalry, ambition and treachery. The struggle is not between a friend and a friend, between father and son, between brother and brother but also between
27
Introduction
Chapter- I
husband and wife. The Fire and The Rain mocks at the chain of events leading to the arrival of Lord Indra and the rains. The King appoints Paravasu, the chief priest of yajna
of seven years for bringing rains to his famine affected kingdom. But Paravasu’s father Raibhya feels ignored and insulted. Similarly, Yavakri, Paravasu’s cousin, also nurses feeling of frustration due to neglect of his father. Hence, he does a rigorous tapasya for
ten years to get Universal Knowledge from Lord Indra directly. He gets the knowledge
but applies it for taking revenge on Paravasu. Therefore, he seduces Vaishakha, Paravasu’s wife, and throws the challenge which is answered immediately by Raibhya for
disturbing his son’s fire sacrifice. Consequently, Paravasu comes home during the night
against the established conventions and kills his father. The blame he throws on his own brother Arvasu. Finally Lord Indra arrives on the scene pleased with Arvasu’s
performance in the role of Vritya. As Arvasu releases the soul of Brahma Rakshasa created by Raibhya to kill Yavakri, the rains start pouring down. The goodness in Arvasu
is not nurtured by his family and tradition but the hunter girl Nittilai who by her dedicated love saves the Actor-Manager, his family members, and also Arvasu, but dies in the process.
For the sake of becoming the chief priest Raibhya and his son Parvasu are at war. Parvasu and Arvasu is a victim of jealousy and Parvasu and Vishakha as husband and wife are estranged and isolated. But Arvasu and Nittilai are the living idol of humaneness and love
which brings the rain and makes the world happy. It is a play of power-politics and sexintrigues where characters are at war and divided. But individually all characters, in some or other way, are the lonely, divided-self, split-personality, stranger and outsider to their
world, it is the pathetic, experiential as well as existential situations and predicaments of
characters which make the play interesting and thought provoking . The Fire and The
Rain with its symbolic and allegorical overtones is a dramatic representation of the
quintessential conflict between good and evil. In The Fire and The Rain, the myth of Yavakari is contemporized to communicate an aesthetic experience of salvation, myth
and ritual coherence to unfold the deeper meaning of life. The irony of life is woven into the moral fabric of the play. According to O. P. Budholia, “Girish Karnad in the text of
The Fire and The Rain links the motif of drama with the social, religious and cultural perspectives.”38
28
Introduction
Chapter- I
Summarizing the theme of Tale-Danda, M. Sarat Babu comments: Karnad’s Tale-Danda exposes the ugly deformity of the Hindu society by
depicting the twelfth century communal struggle in the city of Kalyan in North
Kanara, when Bijjala was the king. In his court there were great scholars and poets. Basavanna, the king’s officer and the great poet- philosopher, united
those brilliant people and fought for equality. They shed their castes and
became sharanas or devotees of Lord Shiva. They talked about God in the
language of common people. They considered their body the very abode of God and denounced idolatry. They condemned all the inhuman traditions and
believed in social and gender equality. Finally there noble movement ended in disaster when the marriage of a Brahmin girl to Panchama boy led to the fateful war between Sharanas and orthodox people.39
Girish Karnad deploys a unique dramatic technique in the The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, perhaps keeping in mind the requirements of a radio play, since that was how the play
was initially conceived. While one aspect of the mind strives to grasp a dream
emerging from the depths of unconscious and struggles to concretize it for explicit analysis, another aspect grapples with the deliberate action of external realm; and yet
another attempts to ratiocinate over the two. The play is thus a rare blend of dreams, thought processes and action. Indeed, it seems to constitute a mode of narration that
Abrams had found in the stream of consciousness, style to exhibit in its ability to
“capture the full spectrum and flow of characters mental processes, in which sense
perceptions mingle with conscious and half conscious thoughts, memories, feelings and random associations.”40 Karnad has selected only four dreams which are highly
expressive of Tipus main preoccupations. Karnad brings home the fact that a lifetime is not sufficient for the realization of high principles and ideals. Many heroes have to die before the journey’s end, but each hero paves a portion of the path towards
making of a nation. Tipu had sown the seeds of patriotism. In showing that the
fearless warrior was in fact a dreamer of peace and progress who yoked ethics with economics, Karnad adds human dimensions to the figure painted into the fading murals of history. Grace Sudhir pays ode to Tipu Sultan in these words:
29
Introduction
Chapter- I
In showing that the fearless warrior was in fact a dreamer of peace and
progress who yoked ethics with economics, Karnad adds human dimensions to the figure painted into the fading murals of history.41
Girish Karnad’s Flowers, a dramatic monologue, is both a continuity of his earlier themes and departure from them. It is of a mixed genre: a prose piece or a radio play, a single narrator, the absent unidentified listener, the conflict which never gets fully
developed. It is not a story, though it tells a story, not a play for the moment, there is enactment, small pockets of space which fragment the tension, and not a poem despite
the lyrical description which evokes an emotive response. And in its manuscript form
it does not have the usual preface which defines the moment of inspiration. It is
struggle between desire and tradition, between the eroticism of religion and discipline
demanded of the devotee and between patriarchal power and its limitations. Hindu myths have always juxtaposed eroticism and asceticism, especially in the worship of Shiva, who embodies within himself both creation and destruction. Traditional Hindu
philosophy is constant interplay of Apollonian and Dionysian currents where conflict is considered to be essential to fulfillment. Seduction, and surrender to seduction also form a major undercurrent in Hindu mythology with the meditation of sages being interrupted by beautiful apsaras and Goddesses. This places the female in the
category of the contrary force, a force which lures the male and which has to be
conquered or dismissed before a full realization can take place of the male principle. As Jasbir Jain remarks:
The essence of Flowers as presenting the drama of life, lies not merely in its structure or in the tempora-spatial conjunctions but in the compressed
narrative of transformation, change, questioning and the complexity of the
human mind as it fluctuates between desire and power, sacrifice and selffulfillment in order to hold on to some meaning in life.42
As acknowledged in its epigraph the title of the play Broken Images is inspired by
T.S. Eliot’s unforgettable line in the Waste Land: ----- for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats 30
Introduction
Chapter- I
and the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief. And the dry stones no sound of water…. 43 Modernist writing is permeated with a sense of isolation and the Waste Land in particular, is a deeply moving embodiment of grief, despair and the longing for
rebirth. Eliot’s poem offers a heap of broken images, shards of narrative, bits of
memory and snatches of in consequential conversations which seems to emphasize the breakdown in communication and meaningful relations between people, through
the title of his play, Karnad seems to be pointing towards a socio-psychological
breakdown in human communication and relationships in face of overpowering
ambition and greed. Unlike the Waste Land that ends with hope of harmonized human
sensibility and invokes universal order and peace. Karnad’s play ends in shock, the inexorable unraveling of the self and the cannibalization of identity by the machine.
Karnad’s use of the image on the plasma television screen (a subsequently the many
images reflected on the television screens arranged on the stage) in Broken Images is
not as a part of general theatre technology. According to Tutun Mukherjee, “Karnad makes the use of images an aesthetic and dramatic component integral to the plot and
characterization of the play, which totally determines and controls its texture and structure.”44 The image becomes a performing intelligence, a mediated metaphor of the protagonist’s mind.
In his play Bali: The Sacrifice, Karnad looks closely at the nature of the rite of
sacrifice when the Hindus under the pressure from the Jains and Buddhists, renounced
blood sacrifice and began to use dough figurines as a substitute for live sacrifice, violence was still not abdicated. Bali: The Sacrifice opens near the inner sanctum of a
ruined temple and amongst these ruins a love act is performed between a childless queen and an ugly mahout, whose voice is his sole attractive asset. When they are discovered by the rightful husband and his mother, the act of penance consist of a
substitute sacrifice, an act which Jain queen refuses to perform. Here as in Flowers, the male and the female principles stand in an antagonistic relationship. The queen
feels that the people who blame her for her barren wifehood were her torturers, ‘carrion crows’ and procreativity is seen as unnatural. The two parallel words of desire and convention, of individual need and accepted social practice are placed in a 31
Introduction
Chapter- I
relationship of opposition. The King is caught between his wife and his mother, and
between the image of devoted wife and that of a harlot. In the play the king is as much of the sacrifice as queen. When proof is demanded of her that she will never again
step out of line, in the temple, three things happen: the mahout goes away, the dough
cock comes alive and the queen impales herself on the sword. Each one of these happenings stresses the momentariness of desire and the permanence of punishment, the mahout’s exit implies exclusion, the cock coming alive makes meaningful the
sacrifice which penance demands of freedom and principles alike and the queen’s impaling, the price of belonging. As S. Subhash Chandran says:
What Karnad does in Bali: The Sacrifice is something of the above nature: he
introduces a discourse on ‘violence’ to unsettle the moral complacency of the
societal orthodoxies by dramatizing the case of a queen’s adultery and the subsequent chain of reactions. His plays always foreground human predicament and present different perspectives to it.45
Wedding Album is Karnad’s latest play gives a photographic presentation of the members of middle class family and their preparation for the marriage of their grown
up son and daughter and worries for suitable candidates. The play reveals the ins and outs of the middle class family members who have international outlook for marriage,
job sector and establishing relationship. The Nadkarnis are tradition-lovers. They like to preserve it in their continental travels. In their middle class status they crave for
money, wealth and prosperity. The parental authority does not like to allow their young children to enjoy sexual freedom in marriage going beyond the boundary of
caste and culture. While the young Nadkarni girl Vidula visits net café to chat with
her ‘pinning peacock’ for her emotional satisfaction her elder sister Hema, though married, prefers to stay at her parents’ home and flirts with their neighbour’s son as
her husband works for multinational company and stays out in Australia. Their son Rohit is quite late for marriage and flirts with Christian girl. He says he will not marry unless and until he becomes financially sound. The parents are liberal minded but they
do not like to see any cultural holocaust in the name of marriage. The culture-infected
Nadkarnis have modern outlooks and choice for prospective grooms from corporate sectors but they do not prefer inter-religious marriage for their son. They prefer to see 32
Introduction
Chapter- I
tradition and talent go side by side but they do not like to see talent to tread upon tradition. They prefer ethnic purity in postcolonial perspective. In marriage, austerity
of caste and culture is preferred but they do not like their caste diluted with the impact
of globalization and e-tech. Analyzing Girish Karnad’s dramatic art, O. P. Budholia writes,
Girish Karnad in his play, Wedding Album makes a subtle movement from the
earlier techniques in his dramatic art for showing an image of the
contemporary social issues and cultural configuration as the process of self discovery; he at the same time works out the deliberate departure of characters involved in the structure of this play from social and moral code to a free thinking in developing the various relationships.46
Karnad is a matured humanist. The social responsibility of writer/ dramatist has made him conscious of his role in the society. He admits,
My generation was the first to come of age after India became independent of
British rule. It therefore had to face a situation in which tension implicit until then it had come out in the open and demanded to be resolved with apologia or
self justification: tension between the cultural past of the country and its colonial past. Between the attraction of Western modes of thoughts and our
own traditions, and finally between the various visions of the future that opened up once the common cause of political freedom was achieved. This is the historical context that gave rise to my plays and those of my contemporaries.47
He again says, “…the subject of any play has to be the human spirit.”48 B. Seetha
points out that Karnad’s plays are not “mere imitation of life but are representation of
philosophical abstractions.”49 However it should be remembered that he goes beyond
the abstraction to social reality, travels to past, ancient history and culture and from
their back to the present and envisages the future of life and society where human
beings, men and women, cohabit in a just social environment and culture where choice and freedom dwell with concord.
33
Introduction
Chapter- I
As a connoisseur of Indian theatre, an icon of Indian English drama and a renovator of traditional proscenium Karnad had enjoyed the smell of the soil. His mother tongue is
Konkani but he writes in Kannada and renders them into English. All his major plays
are reworked in English by him with rich and vibrant contemporary milieu. The plays are critical, scholarly and performance related in post-independence theatre. His
writing of plays, working in theatre and film, and translation; project him as an
engaged intellectual to cohere and coordinate the volatile Indian public in multicultural, multi-lingual and multi-religious society. He has contributed to the field of art, culture, literature for the last five decades. All his plays show his originality in
language composition performance and dissemination of multidimensional socialcultural aspects in multiple locations, interpretation of texts and performance.
Karnad’s multifaceted personality and his contribution to Indian English literature and culture is marked with his education, fluency in Marathi, involvement in Marathi and
Kannada literature, devotion to Sanskrit and influence of Western drama. His evolution as a dramatist, involvement as an artist and profession as a script writer and director of films is realized by every Indian lover of performing art.
34
Introduction
Chapter- I
WORKS CITED 1.
Budholia, Om Prakash. “Introduction” Girish Karnad: Poetics and Aesthetics.
2.
Narayan, H. Subhalakshmi: The Hindu. Tuesday, January 28, 1997, Madras,
3.
Sri Aurobindo: Hindu Drama. Sri Aurobindo Circle, No.09, Bombay 1953,
4.
Ibid, p.60
5.
Bhat, G.K. Bhavabhuti. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy, 1979, p.34.
6.
Sastri, K.S. Ramaswamy. “Drama in Modern India with Special Reference to
Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.1.
p.22.
p.60.
Tamil Literature.” Drama in Modern India. New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1982, p.127.
7.
Kriplani, Krishna. Literature of Modern India. New Delhi: National Book
8.
Iyengar, K.R. Srinivasa. Drama in Modern India. Bombay: P.E.N. All India
9.
Thompson, Edward. Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist. London:
10.
Alexer Preminger, Frank J. Warnke and O.B. Handison, ed., Princeton
11.
Kulkarni S.S. “The Plays of Sri Aurobindo.” Perspectives on Indian Drama in
Trust, 1982, p.40.
Centre, 1961, p.4.
Oxford University Press, 1926, p.51.
Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton University Press, 1965, P.142.
English. Ed. M.K. Naik and S. Mokashi Punekar. Madras: Oxford University
Press, 1977, p.7. 12.
Iyengar, K.R. Srinivasa. Indian Writing in English. Bombay: Asia, 1977,
13.
Punekar, S. Mokashi. “The plays of Bharati Sarabhai.” Perspectives on Indian
14.
p.195.
Drama in English. Madras: Oxford University Press, 1977, p.129.
Iyengar, K.R. Srinivasa. “Drama in Modern English.” Drama in Modern India. Bombay: P.E.N. All India Centre, 1961, p.38. 35
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15. 16.
Chapter- I
Bowers, Faubion. “Introduction.” Asif Currrimbhoy’s Plays. New Delhi:
Oxford & IBH, n.d., p.xii.
Prema, Nanda Kumar. “Indian Writing in English Three Cheers.” Indian
Literature, vol. XIII, No. 4, December, 1970, p.36.
17.
Karnani, Chetan. Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi: Arnold- Heinemann, 1974, p.126
18.
De Souza, Eunice. “Some Recent Plays in English.” Perspectives on Indian
19.
Iyenger, K.R. Srinivasa. Indian writing in English. New Delhi: Sterling
20.
Naik, M.K. “The Achievement of Indian Drama in English.” Perspectives on
Drama in English. Madras: Oxford University Press, 1977, p.163. Publishers, 1985, p.226.
Indian Drama in English. Madras: Oxford University Press, 1977, p.181.
21.
Ibid. p.191.
22.
Johnson, Samuel. “Preface to Shakespeare.” Water Raleigh, Johnson on
23.
Nirad Chaudhuri as quoted by Sircar, Badal. Changing language of Theatre at
24.
Interview, India Today, December 16-31, 1985, p. 157.
25.
George, K.M. ed., “Hindi Drama.” Comparative Indian Literature. Madras:
26.
Dodiya, Jaydipsinh. “Preface.” The Plays of Girish Karnad: Critical
27.
Chakraborty, A.K. “Foreword.” to P. Dhanavel’s The Indian Imagination of
28.
Dhawan, R. K. “Girish Karnad: The Man and The Writer.” The Plays of
Shakespeare. London: 1940, p.27.
the Present Time. New Delhi: ICCR, 1982, p. 25-26.
Mac Millan India, 1984, p. 512-13.
Perspectives. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1999, page number is not given.
Girish Karnad. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2000, page number is not given.
Girish Karnad: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Jaydipsinh Dodiya, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1999, p.13.
29.
Drabble, Margaret. (Ed.) The Oxford Companion to English Literature. New
30.
Sartre, J.P. Existentialism and Humanism. trans. Philip Mairet, London:
York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 342.
Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1948. p.52.
36
Introduction
31.
Chapter- I
Pandey, Punam. “Existentialism: Text and Context.” The Plays of Girish
Karnad: A Study of Existentialism. New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2010, p.02.
32.
Memon, Parvati. “Frontline” The Hindu, Vol. 13, No.3 Jan 30-Feb 12, 1999.
33.
Mukherjee, Tutun. “In his Own Voice: A Conversation with Girish Karnad.”
Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.32.
34.
Raju, B. Yadava. “Race and Gender in Yayati.” Girish Karnad’s Plays:
Performance and Critical Perspective. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.81.
35.
Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava. “The Ironic History of the Nation.” Theatre of
Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India since 1947. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008, p.243.
36.
Gandhi, Krishna. “Hayavadana.” Enact. (Aug.-Sept. 1972), 68-69, n.p.
37.
Babu, M. Sarat. “Gender Deformity: Tendulkar’s Kamala, Karnad’s Naga-
Mandala and Rakesh’s Half-Way House.” Indian Drama Today. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1997, p.37.
38.
Budholia, Om Prakash. “Yajna As The Central Metaphor.” Girish Karnad:
39.
Babu, M. Sarat. “Social Deformity: Karnad’s Tale-Danda, Sircar’s Stale News
Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.136.
and Rakesh’s One Day in Ashadha.” Indian Drama Today. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1997, p.46.
40.
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Delhi: Macmillan India Limited,
41.
Sudhir, Grace. “On the Wings of his Dreams: Re-Viewing the Legend and
2008, p.307.
History of Tipu Sultan.” Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical
Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.317.
37
Introduction
42.
Chapter- I
Jain, Jasbir. “Flowers: A Dramatic Monologue.” Girish Karnad’s Plays:
Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.357.
43.
Karnad, Girish. “Broken Images.” Collected Plays, Volume Two. New Delhi:
44.
Mukherjee, Tutun. “The Unravelling of the Self: Broken Images: Karnad’s
Oxford University Press, 2010, p.261.
Postmodern Project.” Journal of the School of Languages, Literature and
Culture Studies, Autumn 2006, New Series 6. New Delhi: Pencraft International, p.94. 45.
Chandran, S. Subhash. “Bali: The Sacrifice and Dionysian Life Assertion.” Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.294.
46.
Budholia, Om Prakash. “Demystifying Values: Cultural Configuration.” Girish Karnad: History and Folklore. Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.169.
47. 48.
Karnad, Girish. “Author’s Introduction.” Three Plays. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1994, p.1.
Karnad, Girish. I am Trying to Create a Tradition of My Own. An Interview
with Chaman Ahuja, http: www.tribuneindia.com/1999/99 mar 21/Sunday/ view.htm, 3/30/2007.
49.
Seetha, B. “Quest for Completeness in Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala.”
Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2006, p.189.
38
CHAPTER - II MYTH, FEMINISM AND SHAMANISM IN KARNAD’S DRAMATIC OEUVRE
CHAPTER - II
MYTH, FEMINISM AND SHAMANISM IN KARNAD'S DRAMATIC OEUVRE In classical Greek, “mythos” signified any story or plot, whether true or false. In its central modern significance, a myth is a story in mythology—a system of hereditary
stories which were once believed to be true by a particular cultural group, and which served to explain (in terms of the intentions and actions of supernatural beings) why
the world is as it is and things happen as they do which had an etiological purpose and
to establish the rationale for social customs and observances and the sanctions for the rules by which men conduct their lives. So myth, in a broader sense, is not a story told
as history, but history told as story. It is essentially a story of a real experience in the past. What we call myth today is not a fancy tale, but a real life experience of the
primitive society. Like the opinions of other critics and scholars Northrop Frye's definition also associates myth with “story”, “gods” or “other beings larger in power”
and “prior to ordinary times”. Most scholars today would agree that in ancient societies there was considered an essential relationship between myth and ritual
practice: myth clarified the prescribed action of rites; and rites, in turn enacted mythical narrative in stylized dramatic form. According to Lillian Feder,
Myth is a story involving human limitation and superhuman strivings and accomplishment which suggests through action—usually
of a ritual,
ceremonial, or compulsive nature-man’s attempt to express and thus control his own anxiety about those features of his physiological and psychological
make-up and his external environment which he cannot comprehend, accept, or master. The characters of myth may be gods, men or monstrous creatures with the qualities both, but even in myths dealing exclusively with immortals,
the narrative materials, the portrayal of conflict and sorrow, and the resolution or revelation are all reflections of human concerns.1
Most myths involve rituals—prescribed forms of sacred ceremonials, but social anthropologists disagree as to whether rituals generated myths or myths generated 39
Myth, Feminism and Shamanism in Karnad's Dramatic Oeuvre
Chapter - II
rituals. Distinguishing between myth, legend and folk tale M.H. Abrams puts, "If the
protagonist is a man rather than a supernatural being, the story is usually not called
myth but legend: if the story concerns supernatural beings, but is not part of a systematic mythology, it is usually classified as a folk tale.”2 Myth, being a traditional
story of unknown origin handed down from earliest times, has close resemblance to legend. According to New Standard Encyclopedia, “Although the words frequently
are used interchangeably, a myth properly deals with gods and a legend with men. Myths and legends are types of folklore.”3 Abhishekh Kosta states:
There are four basic theories of myth. These theories are: The rational myth
theory, the functional myth theory, the structural myth theory, and the psychological myth theory.
The rational myth theory states that myths were made to better understand
natural events and forces that occurred in the everyday lives of people. This theory also explains that the gods and goddesses controlled all of these happenings of nature.
The functional myth theory consists of lessons on morality and social
behaviour. In these we are told about what should and shouldn’t be done, and the consequences for wrong doings. The theory also states that myths were
created for social control and served the function of insuring stability in a society.
The structural myths are said to be myths based on human emotions. These
myths show the two sides of the human mind; the good side and the bad side. They show the divided self and the duality of human nature.
The psychological myth theory states how myths are based on human emotions and that they come from the human subconscious mind. Cultures all around the world had similar fears, questions, and wishes which, to them, were
unexplainable. That is the reason that psychological myths were made; and that is why there are archetypes shared between cultures. Archetypes are
general forms and characters used by all cultures. Some archetypes found
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between cultures are having a sky god (Zeus and Oleron), Varun, a sea god
(Poseidon and Olokun), and an agricultural god (Orisha-Oko and Demeter).
These archetypes are examples of how people think alike when it comes to things that are to them mysteries and fears.4
Numerous Indian plays written in English dramatize the life and character of these
mythicized Gods, heroes and human beings. Roger Fowler defines, “Literature derives from myth, and literary history recapitulates the process, as it moves through a seasonal cycle in which appropriate modes and genres are dominant—comedy
belongs to summer, tragedy to autumn, and so on”5. All imaginative literature cannot be mythical, nor can all myths be literature. The appearance of myth in literature or
art should not be regarded as unauthentic or of secondary value. It is by virtue of myths that the literature created throughout the world for centuries has gained its permanent value and significance. The work of the great poets and playwrights like
Homer, Virgil, Milton, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, T.P. Kailasam, Girish Karnad and others are of immense importance to a great extent by virtue of their mythical themes and characters.
The four basic theories of myth are created for explaining the unknown, natural events
and forces and also to show the duality and pureness of human nature and the human mind so as to support societies in maintaining order and stability. Thus we can say that myths are permanent and integral part of human life and psyche.
Girish Karnad makes an extensive use of myths and folk tales not only to frame plot
in his plays which he more often than not, borrows from the great epics like- The
Mahabharata, The Ramayana, and Kathasaritasagara—but
he also skillfully
explores into them the human psychology and the relationship that exists between
them. He gives a new dimension to these old stories by skillfully turning them into fine plays. Girish Karnad, referring to Bharata’s Natyashastra, explains the birth of drama thus:
The first chapter of Bharata’s Natyashastra gives us the myth of the origin of
drama. The chapter itself has been attributed to 500 BC though the other chapters of the book may be of later date.
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It was a time when the moral fibre of society had weakened; irrational
passions held sway and people had surrendered themselves to their baser instincts. Knowledge of the Vedas (which presumably could have saved the
situation) being restricted to the upper strata of the society, a medium was required that entertained and could restore the health of the society by
reaching out to all the people, regardless of their position in the social hierarchy. On being implored by Indra and the other gods to provide such an
instrument, Brahma, the Father of the Universe, took the text from the Rigveda, the art of performance from the Yajurueda, the song from the
Samveda and rasa (aesthetic experience) from the Atharvaveda and created a fifth Veda called Natyaveda.6
Although Karnad had realized well that there was not much scope for drama in India
yet he patiently went on writing plays, and thus has achieved significantly in this
field. Today no study of Indian Drama in English can be complete without the inclusion of works of Girish Karnad. Unlike other contemporary dramatists like Vijay
Tendulkar and Badal Sircar, Karnad draws on the Indian mythology for his themes.
As R. K. Dhawan says, “Karnad was fascinated by the traditional plays; nonetheless
the Western playwright that he read during his college days opened up for him a new world of magical possibilities.”7 Significantly enough Karnad has always been very
close to art, culture, mythology, drama, film and television.
Myth is one of the principal roots of drama. The origin of myth is as old as that of the
human civilization. It embodies knowledge in the form of image that is more potent than statement. It is aptly described as the language of the primitive.
Myth is a great literary forte of the great writers, like Valmiki, Vyasa, Homer and Virgil who in their scriptural texts present the heroic exploits of their protagonists.
Through the ages writers have dealt with the stories of myths for the ethical and spiritual progress of people. They present the achievements of divine incarnations in
fictional way and the mystery of divine existence and the spiritual destiny of man. Myth symbolizes an incessant conflict between the forces of good and evil.
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Myths are taken for moral guidance and they act as social archetypes. The study of
myths makes people deeply inclined to philosophy, idealism and universalism. Myths are always pro-social; they enforce morality, discourage immorality and falsehood, and promote peace and prosperity in life.
In the Indian context myth is an integral part of human ethos and consciousness. The
Indians, particularly the Hindus believe, in myths and they have myth making
qualities. In India myths are called Puranas in Sanskrit which means Pura api navam (though old, ever new) or Pura navam bhavati iti (old becomes new).
Contextualizing myth as a serious subject in his plays Girish Karnad dramatizes a few mythical stories of his choice with contemporary relevance. He recreates them with universal overtones and operates them in almost all spheres of life.
In the
dramatization of myths he purposefully initiates virtues in life. Through myths he visions the welfare of the human beings and harmony in the society.
Karnad uses myths as archetypes in his plays to express meaning for the
contemporary life. He believes that the significance of myth never dies. For him myths are the part of the collective consciousness of the people. In the archetypal
myths he shows modern man’s predicament. In an age of postmodernism and
globalization he observes people’s craze for materialism and their crude imitation of Western civilization. He thinks that this nature of men makes them suffer from a
lamentable spectacle of cultural amnesia. As a conscious dramatist he valorizes
myths, parables, legends and folktales in his plays. He rewrites them in his plays as they provide immense scope for living. While he uses mythical episodes in his plays he significantly aims at using them for social, religious and philosophical purposes.
He presents certain episodes of myths from the Mahabharata and contextualizes them
in contemporary human situations. It is observed that his plays on myths are rooted in
the ancient Indian dramatic tradition as set in Bharata’s Natyashastra and
Abhinavagupta’s concept that the highest goal of drama is to realize the purusharthasnamely dharma (relating to the spiritual sphere), artha (political and economic
power), kama (sexual or aesthetic gratification) and moksha (release or final liberation
from human bondage). In the mythic imagination of his plays he revives this ancient
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dramatic tradition in the celebration of the human and humane. Presenting myths in human condition he links the present with the eternal, and the contemporary with the archetypal. D. Maya rightly remarks:
Karnad links the past and the present, the archetype and the real. Issues of the
present world find their parallels in the myths and fables of the past which lend new meanings and insights through analogy, reinforcing the theme. By
transcending the limits of time and space, myths provide flashes of insight into life and its mystery. They form an integral part of the culture consciousness of
the land with their associative layers of meaning, their timelessness and relevance to contemporary issues.8
Karnad deals with mythical episodes in his plays and interprets them in contemporary
reality. Linking the ancient and modern dramatic traditions in his plays he links the natural and supernatural phenomena in human conditions. Thus, following the Sanskrit dramatic tradition established by Bharatha and Kalidas, and the folk theatre
of Karnataka on the one hand, and sophisticated Western dramatic tradition established by Bretcht, Shaw, Strindberg, Anouilh, Sartre and Beckett on the other
hand he combines the Eastern and Western dramatic traditions with continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity.
Karnad does not take the myths in their entirety. He takes only parts of them that are useful to him and the rest he supplements with his imagination to make his plot clear.
He takes refuge in Indian myths and makes them a vehicle for new vision. In the use
of myths he presents the absurdity of life with all its elemental passions, conflicts and individual’s eternal struggle to achieve perfection. While dealing with ancient myths he aims at plunging us into the sentiment of devotion because he believes that the sole
reason of our suffering in this world is that we have forsaken our faith in gods. In
terms of form and content his plays focus on new discourses on Indian myths. Investing bits of myth Karnad introduces us with India’s ancient tradition and culture which provide us hope and consolation.
Yayati is Girish Karnad’s landmark contribution to Indian drama significant for its artistic maturity and a high consciousness of purpose. It is his first play written with 44
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an impulsive enthusiasm on the context of the persuasive philosophy of
Existentialism. Incorporating the myth of Yayati from the Mahabharata he has
projected the conflicting philosophies, physical, emotional and psychological repercussions of his characters in an attempt to integrate his creative enterprise on duty and responsibility, existence and essence, and ethics and aesthetics.
The play is an ‘exploration of Yayati’s and Pooru’s inner conflicts’. The play
resonates the original myth of Yayati but in dramatization Karnad rejects the
traditional glorification of Pooru’s self-sacrifice in the dictum of pitru devo bhava
(Father is God). He presents the psychological cannibalism of Yayati. He writes in the ‘Afterword’ to his play Yayati:
The story of King Yayati that I used occurs in the Mahabharata. The King, for
a moral transgression he has committed, is cursed to old age in the prime of
life. Distraught at losing his youth, he approaches his son, pleading with him to lend him his youth in exchange for old age. The son accepts the exchange
and the curse and thus become old... But the old age brings no knowledge, no self-realization, only the senselessness of a punishment meted out for an act in which he had not even participated. The father is left to face the consequences of shirking responsibility for his own actions.9
The play is based on the backdrop of lust, jealousy and racial tensions which
foreground the tragic intensity of the play. Among all, Karnad is interested more in Yayati’s sensual pleasures and craving for immortality. He presents how Yayati’s desires generate his inner struggle. In an interview with Rajinder Paul he says:
I was excited by the story of Yayati, this exchange of ages between the father
and the son, which seemed to me terribly powerful and terribly modern. At the same time, I was reading a lot of Sartre and the Existentialists. The consistent
harping on responsibility which the Existentialists indulge in suddenly seemed to link up with the story of Yayati.10
Karnad was very much impressed with the predictive behaviour of Yayati. For presenting Yayati's alienated self and stressful situation he has reworked myth with the Existentialist philosophy of Beckett, Sartre and Camus. He says in an interview: 45
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It is true that Existentialism was the persuasive philosophy of the time. My
attempt was to emphasize the calm acceptance of grief and anguish. Pooru’s old age is a sudden transformation and not the eventuality of life. It brings no wisdom and no self realization. It is a senseless punishment for an act he has
not committed. I was also intrigued by the idea that if Pooru had a wife, how would she react? So I introduced Chitralekha. Every character in the play tries
to evade the consequences to their actions, except Sharmistha and Chitralekha.11
However, in the play Karnad has presented individualistic and existentialist approaches to his characters. He was also influenced by the Marathi novelist, V. S.
Khandekar's novel, Yayati that had earned the State Sahitya Akademi Award in 1960 and the Jnanpith Award in 1964 for his fictional presentation of Yayati’s craving for materialism.
The play established Karnad’s reputation as a dramatist in Kannada. It helped him to launch a celebrated career in the Indian theatre. Although the play is translated in many Indian languages, the excellent translation in English was produced by Priya
Adarker and it was published in Enact in the mid-sixties. But for some reason Karnad
was not comfortable with the work .Secondly, for its non-availability in English he
decided to translate it into English. The text was originally written in Kannada when
he was 22 but when he got tempted to translate it at the age of 69 he rewrote it entirely. He writes about it in the ‘Preface’ of the play:
Confronting the play again, the temptation to tinker with it has been irresistible. But it would be not just silly but disastrous to tackle at the age of sixty nine a play I had written at twenty-two. I would have to write it entirely.
On the other hand, when I wrote it, I had no experience of theatre, and over
the years I have been fortunate to have received comments from the professionals who have staged it....It would have been unfair not to incorporate their insights into the text before making it available to a new public. But these suggested revisions, small as they were, scattered through the play. So...I decided to translate the revised text myself.12
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In the original myth Yayati is the tenth in the line of Brahma’s family. In Indian
mythology Brahma is the first ancestor. From Brahma came Daksha, from Daksha came Aditi, from Aditi came Surya, from Surya came Manu, from Manu came Ilanamani Kanya, from Ila came Pururava, from Pururava came Aayu, from Aayu came Nahusha and from Nahusha came Yayati. While selecting the traditional story
of mythological King Yayati for the play he has given some new interpretation to old age, youth and immortality. Delineating Yayati’s longing for eternal youth he
explores the complexities of life in King’s struggle for bearing responsibilities and
fulfilling his expectations. In the play Karnad dramatizes Yayati’s personal dilemma, inner conflicts, moral insensibility, desire for sensual pleasure and responsibility to his kingdom and family.
In the Mahabharata, Yayati, one of the six sons of King Nahusha, rules the whole
Aryavarta. In the one of the episodes of the epic he is presented as one of the most intriguing and fascinating characters. In Vyasa’s narration Yayati was a great scholar
and one of the noblest rulers of olden times. He followed the Shastras and was
devoted to the welfare of his subjects. Even the king of gods, Indra, held him in high esteem. Married to seductively beautiful Devayani, in love with her maid, Sharmishtha, and father of five sons from the two women, his lust for pleasure remains unsatisfied.
He is the young prince, highly sensuous, angry, energetic and ambitious. He has the ambition to enjoy youth eternally and desires to rule his kingdom with all privileges
and pleasures. In the storyline Yayati marries Devayani, the beautiful daughter of
Shukracharya, the guru and the preceptor of asuras, in an unexpected situation.
Before her marriage Devayani had fallen in love with her father’s disciple, Kacha, the
son of Brihaspati who in course of time rejected her. When Devayani cursed Kacha,
he in return cursed her to marry a kshatriya being a brahmin daughter, and went to heaven with Sanjeevani power from her father. After this Devayani became very close
to Sharmistha, the daughter of Vrishparva, the king of asuras. One day after their bath they were drying their undergarments under the sun. But god Vayu exchanged them.
When they discovered that they had worn each other’s undergarments they had a
quarrel. But Sharmishtha was under the impression that Devayani had done this 47
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deliberately. She told Devayani accusingly that a brahmin could not be a kshyatriya
by wearing her dresses. The ego conflict in the then class ridden society is revealed
from the quarrel of the daughters of two elite classes. In anger and jealousy
Sharmishtha not only insulted Devayani but also slapped her and pushed her into a dry well where she started crying for help. Meanwhile, King Yayati who was passing by that way heard Devayani’s cry and stretched his hand to lift her up. Of course for
this Sharmishtha was punished by her father and she was ordered to serve Devayani
as her dasi (maidservant) forever. After this incident Devayani’s unrequited love for Kacha had a shift for King Yayati. As per the prevailing custom of the time a kshtariya was unable to marry a brahmin girl. The consent of Shukracharya was
sought for the marriage of Devayani and Yayati. Yayati also agreed to this pratiloma (inter-caste / inter-class) marriage in the hope of achieving immortality as a blessing
from Shukracharya for his knowledge of ‘Sanjeevani vidya’. As per the tradition after
their marriage Sharmishtha was sent with Devayani with her other maidservants as dowry to her in- law’s house.
In course of time Devayani had two sons-Yadu and Turvasu. But due to Yayati’s
clandestine affair with Sharmishtha she had three sons from him-Druhya, Anu and
Pooru. When the two friends—one as mistress and other as maidservant—soon enjoyed their status as queens they had serious misunderstandings. Devayani could
not see the Yayati-Sharmishta relationship as a healthy sign for her future. She left the palace and went to her father to complain against Yayati. In anger and fury
Shukracharya cursed Yayati to become old. When Yayati implored him for a respite Shukracharya wished him that he could exchange his old age with other’s youth.
Yayati requested his subjects, soldiers and sons to exchange their youth with him. All the first four sons - Yadu, Turvasu, Druhya and Anu—refused to accept their father’s decrepitude. Yadu responds without hesitation that old age involves many
inconveniences to drinking and eating, and is accompanied by white hair, melancholy,
flaccid muscles, wrinkles all over the body, deformities, weakness, emaciation,
incapacity to work, and inspires aversion. Turvasu who is more sober but no less peremptory says, old age prohibits pleasures, destroys strength, beauty, intelligence, memory and finally life itself. Druhya remarks, an old man can no longer benefit from
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elephants, horses, or women, and that he stammers when speaking. Anu also declares his dislike for old age as people eat like infants, soil them constantly, and can no
longer even make liberation on the fire altar at the proper times. When nobody came
forward Pooru, the youngest son of Sharmishtha agreed to fulfill his father’s wish and accepted the burden of his father’s old age. When Pooru’s wife Chitralekha
committed suicide for her husband’s untimely old age Yayati surrendered his youth to Pooru and went into the forest for penance.
In Karnad’s version of the myth Pooru is not the son of Sharmishtha. He has also introduced Chitralekha as Pooru’s wife to philosophize her existentiality. Both Yayati
and Chitralekha crave for youth. But while Yayati aspires to live long in order to enjoy youth, Chitralekha takes her husband’s sacrifice, a curse when Pooru shares his
youth to his father. In the original myth Yayati’s implores Shukracharya to mitigate the effect of his curse but in Karnad’s play Yayati sends Pooru to implore Shukracharya to redeem the effect of his curse. The theme of Yayati’s attachment to life and pleasure—seeking nature lead him finally to renunciation. While reworking with the myth Karnad presents Yayati’s nature, desire and renunciation that comes through the horrors of life. Yayati’s sensuality and quest for immortality have many
symbolic encounters. While portraying the existential condition of Yayati, his inner and outer conflicts, moral morbidity and ethical numbness the playwright makes an attempt to subvert the male world. In his presentation the great King appears less cerebral but more institutional.
Karnad’s interpretation of a familiar myth on the exchange of youth with old age
between a father and a son baffles the modern readers. Pooru’s sacrifice of youth to his father is rare and exemplary in history, but this is a great injustice on the part of
Yayati who commits a crime by exploiting the ethics and loyalty of his son. Youth has
become the source of contention for all the characters. Those who crave for it are
crushed in the course of time. Yayati is anxious to live with Pooru’s youth. But without Pooru’s youth Chitralekha prefers to die. Pooru considers youth negligible
before his duty. Both Devayani and Sharmishtha are in warring nature for Yayati’s
youth. To enjoy the pleasures of youth the characters are in psychological conflicts and each one enjoys his/her position in existential dilemma. 49
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The sutradhara (the stage manager) introduces Yayati’s existentiality. The sutradhara tells about the play:
Our play has no gods. And it deals with death. A key element in is plot is the ‘Sanjeevani’ vidya - the art or reviving the dead, which promises release from the limitations of the fleeting life this self is trapped in. The gods and the
rakshasas have been killing each other from the beginning of time for the possession of this art. Humans have been struggling to master it. Sadly, we aspire to become immortal but cannot achieve the lucidity necessary to understand eternity. Death eludes definition. Time coils into a loop, reversing
the order the youth and old age. Our certainties crumble in front of the stark demands of the hearts.13
Thus influenced by existentialist drama, his first play Yayati explores the complexities
of responsibility and expectations within the Indian family. By introducing the character of Chitralekha, Pooru’s wife, which was absent in the original, Karand has
given a new twist in terms of responsibility. It is she who reveals the truth to her husband Pooru. Karnad through her explores that modern women have broken the
traditional norms set up by the patriarchal society and are now realizing the responsible behaviour of men towards them as unnatural and unjust.
In his other play Hayavadana Karnad has borrowed the plot from a collection of
ancient tales in Sanskrit called Kathasaritsagara. He later developed it further from Thomas Mann's (1875-1955) translation of the story titled in The Transposed Heads
(1940). In the ‘Authors' Introduction’ in his collection of three plays entitled-Three
Plays: Naga- Mandala, Hayavadana, Tughlaq—Karnad states unambiguously about
the source of the plot-“The play is based on a story from a collection of tales called
the Kathasaritsagara and the further development of this story by Thomas Mann in
The Transposed Heads.”14 Karnad further states in the ‘Note to Hayavadana’, “The central episode in the play -the story of Devadatta and Kapila—is based on a tale from Kathasaritsagara, but I have drawn heavily on Thomas Mann’s reworking of the tale in The Transposed Heads.”15 Writing about the sources of the plot in Hayavadana by
Karnad and the purpose for which Mann had handled in it his work, Kirtinath Kurtkoti in ‘Introduction’ to the collection of The Three Plays states thus : 50
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The plot of Hayavadana comes from Kathasaritsagara, an ancient collection
of stories in Sanskrit. But Karnad has borrowed it through Thomas Mann’s retelling of the story in The Transposed Head. The Sanskrit tale told by a
ghost to an adventurous king, gains a further mock-heroic dimension in
Mann’s version. The original poses a moral problem while Mann uses it to ridicule the mechanical conception of life which differentiates between body
and soul. He ridicules the philosophy which holds the head superior to the
body. The human body, Mann argues is a fit instrument for the fulfillment of
human destiny. Even the transposition of heads will not liberate the protagonists from the psychological limits imposed by nature.16
The brief story of The Transposed Heads (1940) by Thomas Mann as narrated by B.
S. Nimavat, runs as follows:
There is a Brahmin named Shridaman. He is Brahmin by birth but merchant by profession. Nanda was a cowherd and blacksmith. Both Shridaman and
Nanda are close friends. Shridaman falls in love with Sita when the two friends are travelling together. He sees Sita and falls in love at first sight.
Nanda laughs at the idea, but acts as a messenger for his friend. Sita accepts
the proposal of Shridaman. Later Nanda is also attracted by Sita. Some months later, the three are travelling in a cart to Sita’s parent house. On the way, they
lose track. They come across the temple of Kali. Shridaman visits the temple alone and offers himself as a sacrifice to Mother Kali. Nanda goes in search of
his friend. He finds his friend dead. He too kills himself. Sita realizes the tragic catastrophe and prepares to hang herself. Goddess Durga appears and grants life to both the dead friends. She asks her to fix their head on their
bodies. Sita in her excitement fixes the heads on wrong bodies. The heads and bodies are exchanged. Now the problem arises—who is her husband? The
hermit Kamdaman advises them the body with Shridaman’s head should be Sita’s husband. The body with Nanda’s head becomes a hermit and lives in the
forest. By and by, Shridaman’s head begins to control Nanda’s Body and it becomes delicate. Sita pines for Nanda’s body. At last, she goes to the forest carrying her son, Andhak. After a tiring journey, she finds a pleasant spot in 51
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the forest. They spend the night in heavenly bliss. Next morning, Shridaman comes there. He suggests that Sita should perform ‘sati’. At last both die in combat and Sita burns herself on the funeral pyre of her two husbands.17
The mythical tales of the other two sources, based on ‘Vetal Panchavimshati’ and Somdeva’s ‘Brihat Katha Sarit Sagara’ have basically the same outline with few alternations. In both these works the story according to Nand Kumar runs as follows:
Prince Dhavala marries Madansundari, the daughter of a king named Suddhapata. One day, Svetapata, the son of Suddhapata proceeds to his own country along with his sister and her husband. On the way they come across a
temple of Goddess Gauri, Dhavala goes into the temple to pay homage to the goddess. There he happens to see a sword, gets obsessed to offer his head to
the goddess, and does the same. When he does not return for long, Svetapata
enters the temple and is stunned to see Dhavala dead and his head presented to goddess Gauri. Through some irresistible urge he also cuts off his head and presents it to the goddess. After waiting for some time for her husband and her brother when Madansundari reaches the temple, she, seeing both of them dead,
loses control over herself and in a fit of sadness raises the same sword to cut
off her head. The goddess immediately appears before her and prevents her
from doing so. Also, she asks Madansundari to beg anything to her. She
requests the goddess to restore her husband and her brother. Hearing this goddess Gauri asks her to set their heads on their shoulders. But out of excitement Madansundari puts the head of her husband on the body of her
brother and that of her brother on the body of her husband. Both of them come
back to life as such. Madansundari then realizes her mistake, but the deed cannot be undone. At this stage Vetala asks Vikram, “who is Mandansundari’s husband?” The king’s reply is, “of course the person with Dhavala’s head on his shoulders.18
Karnad's Bali: The Sacrifice is the translated version of Girish Kannada play Hittina
Hunja. It is an ethical thesis of some philosophical hypotheses that questions the
validity of rigvedic practice of animal sacrifice in Hindu rituals. While dramatizing
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this in tragic rehearsals of animal sacrifice he presents India’s conflicting religious
and cultural ethos. In its mythological super structure Karnad projects myth as a support to the dimensions of social life. During the Vedic period animals were
slaughtered as offering to gods. This tradition was in vogue for many centuries. Later,
when Jainism and Buddhism got separate identities from Hinduism both the Jains and Buddhists found that slaughtering of animals as offerings to gods as repugnant. In
course of time Brahmin priests too renounced the practice of animal sacrifice. This
steadily promoted individual’s belief in non-violence which remained as a hidden motif in human psyche. Although the Brahmins and Jains renounced blood sacrifice
in order to propitiate their deities, miniature figurines made of dough were made as substitutes for live animals and sacrifice for the same purpose. This led to the conflict between two beliefs—violence and non-violence between Hinduism and Jainism.
Selecting an ancient Jain myth of the thirteenth century Kannada epic Yushodhara Charite by Janna which refers back to a ninth century Sanskrit epic Yashastilaka by
Somadeva Suri, Karnad offers a fresh perspective on rational, social, moral and religious structure of individual’s faith in his private involvements in love, sex and passion for the gratification of his public life. In an interview to Tutun Mukherjee the playwright says:
Bali worried and excited me. It is a discussion play that interrogates the notion
of "violence" and is based on a thirteenth century Kannada epic, Yashodhara
Charite, which refers to various other texts dating back to the ninth century. It
deals with the idea that violence is pervasive, laying just beneath the surface of
our everyday behaviour and is often masked by a conscious effort. It also posits that human thought, intention and action are all interlinked. It debates
the Jain notion that intended violence is as condemnable as the action itself.
The mere thought of bloodshed or brutality can condemn one as much as the deed would. The play debates the conflict of faith.19
In its social, moral and cultural ramifications the play presents a great philosophical thinking on the Indian tradition and ideological contents about values, moral conflicts and dilemmas.
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Dramatising this ritualistic practice of bali he presents human passion for love and perjury, and makes an attempt to wash away the sin in the demonstration of replacing
the “actual violence with the violence in intention”20. Putting the Hindu and Jain
faiths vis a vis in a hyphenated and debatable hypothesis he points out that if one
resorts violence to purify the soul from moral debauchery in Hindu conviction, the
Jain position condemns the actual violence to evade the effect of a sublimal act of moral crime. Karnad has drafted the tale version of the myth with niggling
alternations. He presents his debates over the conceptual merits of violence and nonviolence in a complex negotiation of ideologies of the characters. On the other hand a
discourse on the play reveals the conflicting religious beliefs in Jain and Hindu religious philosophies. It presents the gap between ideal and the moral. Infidelity is
forbidden and non-violence is promoted in every religion. The myth presents
infidelity at the centre of the plot. But dealing with infidelity the playwright expresses his concern how a religion that promotes violence to preserve the halo of its sanctity and the other favors non-violence at the cost of morality.
The play deals with the Queen’s adultery. The King, the Queen Mother, and the Queen are divided in their opinions over the related issues to adultery. The King stands in the middle of the battleground where his wife, a believer in non-violence,
and his mother, a compulsive perpetrator of violent sacrifice, are confronting each
other. The King stands in between as a sacred sacrificial beast with his ideas of tolerance just for affecting a balance between his mother and his wife. As a renouncer
of Hinduism and pronouncer of Jainism he maintains the hyphenated position between his distraction and attraction of two divergent ideologies. While negotiating
between religious philosophies the dramatist deals with the social cultural religious
and psychological aspects of the king in which he attempts to achieve his completeness. They are in their existential dilemmas in the Nietzschean sense, and struggle to their best ability to survive in love, honesty, truthfulness, faithfulness,
loyalty and sacrifice. The Queen compromises between her royal past and altruistic present in her hysteric pursuit of a less idealistic love which is necessary for her
family tree. The Queen Mother compromises between her own tradition and her son’s
talent of non-violence. The King negotiates between the ethics and ideology, faith and
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fanaticism, belief and beauty in the aesthetics of religion, tradition and talent, consciousness and supra-consciousness, and humiliation and humility.
Another play of Karnad Naga-Mandala, was written after a long gap of seventeen
years. Santosh Gupta observes, Naga-Mandala with its sub title ‘The Play with Cobra’ is a “powerful portrait of agony and anguish faced by both men and women in their development into adult roles and social adjustment in a society where the
individual is given little space for self-development, awareness and independence as a
being”.21 Karnad has borrowed the theme of the play form two Kannada folk tales
which he heard from his teacher Professor Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan (1929-
1993). Ramanujan was one of the most revered scholars and writers of his time. His famous work on a collection of some prevalent oral tales was published posthumously
under the title A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India (1997). Karnad has
made full use of Ramanujan’s skill as a translator, his graceful writing style, and his profound love and understanding of the subject. About the source material of the play Naga-Mandala, Karnad writes in his ‘Introduction’ to the Three Plays thus:
Naga-Mandala is based on two oral tales I heard from A.K. Ramanujan. These
tales are narrated by women—normally the older women in the family—while children are being fed in the evenings in the kitchen or being put to bed. The other adults present on the occasion are also women. Therefore these tales,
though directed at the children, often serve as a parallel system of communication among the women in the family.22
These folk tales, according to Karnad, express clearly woman’s understanding of the
reality around her a lived counterpoint to the patriarchal structure of classical texts and institutions. Though ruled by man it is the women who transmit culture in
society. Rani’s predicament in the story of Naga-Mandala can be understood as a metaphor for the situation of a young girl in the bosom of a combined family where
she sees her husband, Appanna, only in two unconnected roles: (i) As a stranger during the day, and (ii) As a lover at night.
Karnad heard some of these oral tales, collected in the book, directly from Ramanujan while he was studying in the college. And after musing over them for more than a decade, he turned them into his play Naga-Mandala. 55
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Karnad has basically knitted two Kannada folk takes together in his play; the first is the story of the flame. This story, he has is based on the first tale “A Story and Song” in Ramanujan’s collection. The folk tale “A Story and a Song” runs as follows:
A housewife knew a story. She also knew a song. But she kept them to herself, she never told anyone the story or sang the song.
Imprisoned within her, the story and the song were feeling choked. They
wanted release, wanted to run away. One day, when she was sleeping with her
mouth open, the story escaped, fell out of her, took the shape of a pair of shoes
and sat outside the house. The song also escaped, took the shape of something like a man’s coat, and hung on a peg.
The woman’s husband came home, looked at the coat and shoes, and asked her, “Who is visiting?”
“No one”, she said
“But whose coat and shoes are these?” “I don’t know”, she replied.
He was not satisfied with her answer. He was suspicious. Their conversation
was unpleasant. The unpleasantness led to a quarrel. The husband flew into a rage, picked up his blanket, and went to the Monkey God’s temple to sleep.
The woman didn’t understand what was happening. She lay down alone that night. She asked the same question over and over: “Whose coat and shoes are these?” Baffled and unhappy, she put out the lamp and went to sleep.
All the lamp flames of the town, once they were put out, used to come to the
Monkey God’s temple and spend the night there, gossiping. On this night, all
the lamps of all the houses were represented there—all except one, which came late.
The others asked the latecomer, “Why are you so late tonight?” “At our house, the couple quarreled late into the night”, said the flame, “Why did they quarrel?”
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“When the husband was not at home, a pair of shoes came onto the verandah, and a man’s coat somehow got onto a peg. The husband asked her whose they were. The wife said she did not know. So they quarreled.” “Where did the coat and shoes come from?” “The lady of our house knows a story and a song. She never tells the story, and
has never sung the song to anyone. The story and the song got suffocated inside; so they got out and have turned into a coat and a pair of shoes. They took revenge. The woman doesn’t even know.”
The husband, lying under his blanket in the temple, heard the lamp’s explanation. His suspicions were cleared. When he went home, it was dawn.
He asked his wife about her story and her song. But she had forgotten both of them. “What story, what song?” she said.23
The above tale comments on the paradoxical nature of oral tales in general. They have an existence of their own, independent of the teller, and yet live only when they are
passed on from one storyteller to another. The message is clear; if a woman is denied of freedom of expression the result would be disharmony and discord. Once denied the freedom they become silent forever. Associated with this is the story of Rani, the
second tale of the play Naga-Mandala. This second story of Rani in the play appears
in the folk tales narrated by Ramanujan in his collection under the title of the story – “The Serpent Lover” runs thus:
A young woman, let’s call her Kamakshi, was married to a husband who was no good. He went after a concubine. She was patient –she thought that the man
would mend his ways and return to her the next day, if not the same day. But he got more and more deeply infatuated with his harlot and took to staying with her night and day. His wife thought, “This is God’s will, it’s His game”, and held her tongue. Two or three years passed.
One day, an old woman who lived next door talked to her. “What is this, my
dear” How can you take it, when your husband never talks to you and lies in the pigsty of a harlot’s house? We must do something about it. I’ll give you
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some love medicine. Mix it with his food and serve it to him. Then your man will be your slave. He’ll live at your feet, do whatever you wish. Just watch.” The despairing young wife thought, “Why not?” She brought home the old woman’s potion and mixed it with sweet porridge.
But, to her horror, the porridge turned blood-red. She said to herself, “This stuff, whatever it is instead of making him love me, may make my husband crazy. It may even kill him. Let him be happy with anyone he wants’ If he is alive, by God’s grace, he’ll come back to me some day.” And she poured the blood-red porridge into a snake hole behind her house.
It so happened that there was a snake in that hole, and it drank up the sweet
porridge. The love potion acted on it and the snake fell madly in love with her. That night, it took the shape of her husband and knocked on her door. Her
husband, as usual, was out. She was startled by the knock. Who could it be? Should she let the person in? When she peeped through the chink in the door,
there was a man outside who looked exactly like her husband. When she talked to him, he talked exactly like her husband. He had the same voice and
manner. She took him in without asking too many questions and he made her
very happy that night. He came to her night after night, and in a few days she was pregnant.
When the snake came to know of it, he wanted to tell her the truth. He said, “Kamakshi, who do you think I am? Your husband? No, I’m the king of snakes. I fell in love with you and came to you in his shape.”
Then he shed her husband’s form and became a five headed serpent. She was terrified and shut her eyes. He changed back into her husband’s form again.
“You know now I’m the king of snakes. I live in that snake hole behind your
house. I drank your porridge, and I don’t know what you put in it, but I fell in
love with you. I couldn’t help coming to see you and making love to you.
You’re pregnant now, but there’s no need to panic about it. I’ll see to it that everything goes well. Your husband will come back to you and live happily 58
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with you. I’ll also arrange for that harlot of his to come and be your servant”, he said, and went back to his hole in the ground as a snake.
The place buzzed with the news of the woman’s pregnancy, and the errant husband heard about it too. He flew into a rage. “How could she do this to me?” he screamed. He went straight to his father-in-law and protested, “Father-in-law, I haven’t slept in the same bed with your daughter for three years now. She has taken a lover, the whore. How else did she get pregnant?”
The father-in-law summoned his daughter and asked her, “Your husband is saying these slanderous things. What do you say?”
She replied, “He has never been good to me. But I’ve done nothing wrong”. Her father was not convinced. That night she talked to the king of snakes, who said, “Ha, that’s very good.
Don’t you worry about it. Tomorrow the king’s court will be in session. Go there bravely, and say, ‘The child in my womb is my husband’s, no one else’s.’ If they don’t believe you, say then, ‘I’ll prove it to you by taking the
test of truth. In the Siva temple, there is a king cobra. I’ll hold it in my hand and prove to you the truth of what I say. If I’m false, I’ll die.”’
Next day, the raja’s court assembled. The raja said to the husband, who was there with his complaint, “Tell us what your suspicions are. The elders can clear the doubts.”
The husband got up and said, “Elders, I have not slept in the same bed with my wife for three years now. How did she get pregnant? You tell me what you think.”
She rose and expressed utter surprise. “O Elders, if my husband is not with me in this, where can I go for witnesses? He comes to me every night. That’s how I got pregnant. If you don’t believe me, I’ll handle the cobra in Siva’s temple. If I’ve done any wrong, may it bite me and kill me.” The elders agreed to the chastity test.
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The whole court adjourned to the Siva temple. There was an awesome five-
headed snake coiled round the Sivalinga. Kamakshi concentrated all her mind
and senses, and prayed aloud so that everyone could hear, “O Lord, the child in my womb is my husband’s. All other men are like brothers to me. If what I say is false, may you sting me to death.”
Then she put out her hand and took the cobra, who was none other than her
lover, the king of snakes. He hung around her neck like a garland, opened his hoods, and swayed gently. The onlookers were awestruck. They said, “Che,
che, there has never been such a chaste wife. There never will be another
better than her”, and saluted Kamakshi. They were ready to worship her as a paragon of wives, a pativrata. The husband was bewildered and felt like a fool.
Nine months passed. She gave birth to a divine-looking son. He glowed and was beautiful. Her husband forgot all his doubts when he saw his son. He took to playing with the child every day for a long time after dinner. The concubine became anxious about his coming more and more late each day, and so asked
a maid to investigate the matter. The maid reported, “He has a lovely son. Your man plays with him a lot after dinner. That’s why he comes late.”
The concubine too wanted to see the child. Through a discreet maid she sent a message to Kamakshi that she would love to see the child of the man they both
loved. Would she kindly send him with her maid for a short time? Kamakshi, coached by her serpent king, said she would send the child on one condition.
“I’ve put a lot of jewellery on my son. I’ll weigh him when I send him to you,
and I’ll weigh him again when he is returned. If anything is missing that concubine will have to become my servant and haul pitchers of water to my house.”
The confident concubine agreed and said,” Who wants her jewellery? She can
weight him all she wants.” Before Kamakshi sent the child, she took him to the king and weighed the child with all his ornaments in the king’s presence. The concubine was very much taken up with the child, took his home, played 60
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with him for half an hour, and sent him back carefully without tampering with any of his ornaments.
On his return, Kamakshi and her maids weighed the child again in front of the
king. The king of snakes had done his bit meanwhile. Several ornaments were
missing and the weight came up short. The king at once summoned the
astonished concubine and ordered her to become Kamakshi’s servant and haul water to Kamakshi’s house.
Her husband gave up the concubine’s company, favored his wife in all things, and was supremely happy with her. In the happiness of regaining her husband, Kamakshi forgot the king of snakes. She was wholly absorbed in her husband and son now.
One night, the king of snakes came to see how Kamakshi was doing. He saw
her lying next to her husband and child, fast asleep, contentment written on her face. He couldn’t bear this change. In a fit of jealous rage, he twisted himself into Kamakshi’s loose tresses, which hung down from the edge of the
cot, and hanged himself with them. In the morning, on waking, she felt that her hair was heavy. Wondering what was wrong with it, she shook it, and the dead snake fell to the floor. She was grief-stricken.
Her husband asked, “Why do you weep over the carcass of a snake? How did a snake get into our bedroom anyway?”
She replied, “This is no ordinary snake. I had made offerings to him so that I
might get my lost husband back. It’s because of him you’re with me now. He’s like a father to my son. As you know, a snake is like a Brahmin, twice born.
Therefore, we should have proper funeral rites done for this good snake, and our son should do it.”
The husband agreed, and the son performed all the proper funeral rites, as a son should for a father. Kamakshi felt she had repaid her debt and lived happily with her husband and her son.24
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The Fire and The Rain, is intellectually an ambitious play of Girish Karnad. It is one
of his best plays and one of the best of the plays based on myth in Indian English
drama for its consummate craftsmanship, displaying of powerful emotion and
exhibition of the sublimal and volatile passions of men. Karnad in his creative pursuit and artistic license likes to demolish the monolithic structure of patriarchy and
casteism in the version of the myth. Aparna Dharwadker remarks, “In the play he
constructs a story of passion, loss and sacrifice in the contexts of the Vedic ritual,
spiritual discipline (tapasya), social and ethical differences between human agents...25 In an elaboration of myth in the play he presents the conflict between Brahmins
versus shudra, ascetic versus actor-performer, god versus demon, yajna versus natya
and so on. But in celebration of cultic rituals he forges closer connections between his
principal characters, gives them rounded personalities and inserts an unambiguous intentionality into their actions. The play presents the celebration of fire with Vedic rituals for the appeasement of the divine, and peace and happiness of the mankind.
But just behind the screen of the art he associates the aesthetics of Brahmanism with the mind-games of egocentrism.
The play is the transcreation of his Kannada version of the play, Agni Mattu Male.
Although the theme of the play is an approximation to the original myth it appears
mindboggling as well as mind-blowing when it is cinematized as Agnivarsha with the direction of Arjun Sajnani. Defining the title in the ‘Notes’ of the play; Karnad counterpoints two physical elements which are normally seen antithetical. He writes in ‘Notes’:
‘Agni’ is the Sanskrit word for fire. And being a Sanskrit word, it carries, even
when used in Kannada, connotations of holiness, of ritual status, of ceremony,
which the Kannada word for fire (benki) does not possess. Agni is what burns
in sacrificial altars, acts as a witness at weddings and is lit at cremations. It is also the name of the god of fire...
‘Male’ is a Kannada word. It means rain, pure and simple. It has none of the aura of romance, mystery and grandeur that surrounds Sanskrit words of rain when used in Kannada. ‘Mattu’ means and. It is usually left out in spoken
Kannada.26
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In the play, fire sacrifice is taken as a central metaphor to underline any activity like
academic study, love-making reading of epics, marriage, etc. Fire in Indian mythology is a deity, and all Hindu rituals and rites are performed in the presence of
this deity. Karnad chooses the words ‘fire and rain’ deliberately in the context of the myth which suggest “the elevated and mundane” and “the sacred and the secular”.27
Fire sacrifice is the central theme of the play. In the celebration of it the playwright presents the myth to delineate its finer issues in human actions as rewarding and
regretting. He narrates his intention of incorporating myth in the play. He writes in the ‘Preface’ to the play:
The myth of Yavakri (or Yavkrita) occurs in Chapters 135-38 of the Vana
Parva (Forest Canto) of the Mahabharata. It is narrated by the ascetic Lomasha to the Pandavas as they wander across the land during their exile. I
have met Sanskrit scholars who were unaware of the existence of the myth: it is easy to lose track of a short narrative like this in the tangled undergrowth that covers the floor of that epic.
I first came across the story of Yavakri and Paravasu, while still in college, in
C. Rajagopalachari's abridgement of the Mahabharata. That Rajaji was confronted with the stupendous task of abridging the world’s longest epic to about four hundred pages, should not have discarded this seemingly peripheral tale is a tribute to his sensitivity and judgement.
It was fortunate for me that Rajaji did not do so, for the moment I read the tale, I knew it had to be turned into a play. For the next thirty-seven years, I
struggled with it, trying to fit all the ramifications of the myth within some sort of a manageable shape.28
The brief story of the myth of Yavakri as Karnad writes in the ‘Notes’ of the play runs as follows:
There were two sages, Bharadwaja and Raibhya, who were good friends. Raibhya was a learned man who lived with two sons while Bharadwaja
concentrated on his ascetic practices. Yavakri, Bharadwaja’s son, nursed a grievance against the world, particularly against Raibhya and his sons, for he
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felt his father did not receive the respect and recognition which was his due.
He, therefore, went off to the forest and did tapasaya (penance) so that he
could obtain the knowledge of the Vedas from the gods directly. The rigours
of his ascetic practice were such that Indra, the lord of gods appeared to him but only to persuade him that here were no such short cuts to knowledge.
Knowledge has to be obtained by studying at the feet of a guru. But Yavakri
was so adamant that Indra ultimately relented and let him have his wish. Bharadwaja, being a wise man, was anxious lest the triumph turn his son’s head and cautioned Yavakri against delusions of omnipotence. But his fears
unfortunately proved well—founded. For one of the first things Yavakri did was to corner Raibhya’s daughter-in-law in a lonely spot and molest her.
Yavakri’s misdemeanour incensed Raibhya. He invoked the ‘Kritya’ rakshasa,
and evil spirit. He tore a hair from his head and made an oblation of it to the fire. From it sprang a woman who looked exactly like his daughter-in-law.
From another hair he similarly brought forth a rakshasa (demon). Then he sent the two to kill Yavakri.
The spirit in the form of the daughter-in-law approached Yavakri seductively
and stole the urn which contained the water that makes him invulnerable to danger. The rakshasa then chased him with a trident.
Yavakri ran towards a lake in search of water, but the lake dried up. Every
spot with a bit of water in it dried up at his approach. Finally Yavakri tried to
enter his father’s hermitage. But a blind man of the Sudra caste, who was
guarding the gate, barred Yavakri’s entry. At that moment the rakshasa killed
Yavakri.
When Bharadwaja learnt from the Sudra how his son had died, he was
naturally distressed. Although he knew his son was to blame for all that had happened, he cursed Raibhya that he would die at the hand of his elder son. And then shocked at his own folly in cursing a friend, he entered fire and immolated himself.
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Raibhya’s two sons, Paravasu and Aravasu (spelt Arvasu in the play) were conducting a fire sacrifice for the king. One night, when Paravasu was visiting
his home, he mistook the black deerskin which his father was wearing for a wild animal and unintentionally killed him.
When he realized what he had done, he cremated him and returned to the sacrificial enclosure. There he said to his brother Aravasu, “Since you are not
capable of performing the sacrifice alone, go and perform the penitential rites prescribed for Brahminicide. I'll carry on with the sacrifice.”
Aravasu did his brother's bidding. But when he returned to the site of sacrifice,
Paravasu turned to the king and said, “This man is a Brahman-killer. He should not be allowed to enter the sacrificial enclosures.”
The king promptly ordered his servants to throw Aravasu out, although the latter kept protesting loudly that he was innocent.
Aravasu retired to the jungle and prayed to the Sun God. When the gods
appeared he asked them to restore Yavakri, Bharadwaja and Raibhya back to life and make Paravasu forget his evil act. The gods granted him the boon.
When Yavakri came back to life, the gods reprimanded him on his folly and asked him to pursue knowledge in the right manner.29
With certain deviations from the original myth of the epic, Karnad develops the myth of Yavakri into a three-act play, although it took him more than three decades to give a proper shape to his play.
Feminism is a concept Anglo-American in origin. Despite its Western origin, it’s highly relevant to the Indian context. Assumptions, methods and procedures of the feminists can be applied, dexterously, as a tool to evaluate the status, role, image, and socio-cultural recognition of women in Indian society represented through literary
texts - classical, regional, standard Hindi or Indian English literature. Whether it is the
work of Premchand, Sharat Chandra, Mahasweta Devi, Kamala Das, Girish Karnad or the Classical Indian literature—all can be evaluated from a new perspective, i.e., feminist which will definitely enlighten our understanding of feminine psyche. 65
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Patriarchal structure of Indian society, socio-cultural practices and conventions and
canonical writings still perpetuate the subordination of Indian women. Few women in India, often quoted to extol as model, is a fallacious proposition because that group of
women does not represent the spirit of average Indian women. To dismiss feminism as an imported concept is an eccentricity of Indian mind; failing to recognize its
validity in Indian context, whereas the condition of women is more or less the same globally. Hence the significance and application of the feminist approach is global.
Karnad championed the cause of silenced womenfolk in Indian orthodox society
through his plays. Karnad was well acquainted with feminist ideologies and the havoc
wrought by patriarchal ideologies in Indian society. His plays abound with subalterns especially women and lower caste people subjected since ancient time by patriarchy
or upper hierarchy of the society. Karnad has not only exposed their subalternity but
also fused energy in their lives so that they can speak; shifted their position from “margin” to “centre”. Yayati, Tughalaq, Hayavadana, Naga Mandala, Tale-Danda, The Fire and the Rain, Flowers, Broken Images and Wedding Album illustrate the
above proposition. The chapter endeavors to analyze the plays of Girish Karnad from a feminist perspective. Theme/motif, characterization, image and psychology of the
women have been targeted with the purpose to evaluate Karnad’s vision, attitude, concern and treatment of the feminine issue. His deep-rooted humanism and concern
for the upliftment of Indian women have produced two sets of characters—one the traditional representing the gendered subalternity; another progressive which mark the
evolution of womenfolk. Devayani, Sharmistha and Chitralekha in Yayati, Padmini in
Hayavadana, Rani and Kurudavva in Naga-mandala, Vishakha and Nittilai in The
Fire and The Rain, Mother and Queen Mother in Bali: The Sacrifice, Chandravati in
Flowers, Manjula Nayak and Malini in The Broken Images, Vidula Nadkarni,
Pratibha Khan and Hema, Radhabai, Mira, Vatsala and Yamuna in Wedding Album define the feminine world of Karnad which embodies several aspects possessing modern relevance.
All the plays of Karnad have strong feminist elements but his two plays: - Naga
Mandala and Hayavadana deserve special mention. Karnad discusses women’s
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sexuality and adultery with such honesty, treating them as normal human response and not something sinful.
In his play Naga-Mandala, Karnad offers an insight into the private lives of women. The protagonist of the play is Rani. Right from the beginning, the flames that appear
in the ‘Prologue’ of the play represent in metaphorical terms the different lives of the women of the village. The flames gather at mid-night to tells tales about the private
lives of couples and rejoice in their findings. The play opens with a man, in a ‘morose
stance’ sitting in the inner sanctum of a ruined temple. He is gloomy because a mendicant has told him, “you must keep awake at least one whole night this month. If
you can do that you’ll live. If not, you will die on the last night of the month.”30The
man has failed every night of the month. His guilt is that he has ‘written plays’ and
has thereby caused so many good people “to fall asleep twisted in miserable chairs”.31
Hence, there is a ‘curse of death’ on him. He swears that if he survives that night, he would “abjure all storytelling, all play acting”.32
At night the man hears female voices outside the temple. They are all flames. Several of them enter the temple, giggling talking to each other in female voices. Addressing
to the audience, the man says, “I had heard that when lamps are put out in the village,
the flames gather at some remote place and spend the night together, gossiping. So
this is where they gather!” 33 These flames stand for the female society. Each flame is a female, a storyteller, sharing with others, her new experiences and observations.
They are in fact women without any ambition without any desire for an honorable life, but are androgynous in nature. We can even say that they represent the collective subconscious of the female mind.
The identification of the flames with young and ‘vocal’ women and the stories that they tell each other is in fact a wonderful device used by Karnad. Especially for creating a particularly female context, and exposition of female content in the ‘man-
oriented’ folk tales which are going to be the bases of the play. He brings within the play the strong association between oral narrative tradition and women’s sub-culture
existing within the patriarchal societies. As Karnad points out in ‘Author’s Inroduction:
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The position of Rani in the story of Naga- Mandala, for instance, can be seen as metaphor for the situation of a young girl in the bosom of a joint family
where she sees her husband only in two unconnected roles—as a stranger
during the day and as a lover at night. Inevitably, the pattern of relationships she is forced to weave from these disjointed encounters must be something of a fiction.34
Rani is alienated in the house of her husband when he ignores her and she dwells in the imaginary world isolated from the parents and husband. When she implements the advice given by Kurvdavva the crisis takes its form and Rani starts arranging things to
save her from further complications. Metaphorically, she has to remain away from her
husband without a word used for communication with him. According to Aparna Dharwadker, she has to “accept willingly the brutish husband of the day turned into
an ardent lover at night because those are the conditions of her sexual initiation and emancipation.”35
The story in the play represents the life of a woman, a commodity to be passed on. Although having an existence of its own, she acquires fulfillment when passed on to her
husband. If kept as a secret, she is likely to become the mystery of life itself as in the case of Rani and then it is interpreted in various ways subject to supernatural forces.
In the main plot of the play, Karnad subtly acknowledges that gender is one of the reasons that prevent a woman from achieving identity and freedom in patriarchy.
The journey of Rani’s life, from complete innocence to liberated self assertion, indicates the history of the treatment meted out to women in the Hindu society and culture. She has broken the cells of misconception and blind faith by asserting her identity. As it has been pointed out by Aparna Dharwadkar, “the polarities of love and lovelessness, perplexity and fulfillment in the strained relationship between men and women within marriage makes a distinctive contribution to the ongoing dialogue on
gender.”36 In the name of marriage women are shackled, accorded marginalized space
in the society by imposing popular restriction made known to them through social consciences. The violation of them, in terms of faithlessness and loss of chastity, is
regarded as a social stigma brought onto husband, family and society. Contrary to 68
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their make believe concept, men are free to manage several women, at their will and
still are left unreprimanded. Rani tolerates without retarding, the insults and harassments deliberately prescribed by her man which is a common practice used for suppression of women in the society.
The play has male characters, the Man, Appanna and Elders but its action moves around the female characters Rani, Kurudavva, and the Flames who are the generative
forces for the action, the former being the protagonist. The magical and mythical stands are intertwined in the progress of the play, as Rangan remarks, “manipulating these conventional elements the centrality of the women has been reaffirmed.”37
Rani is devised naturally from the point of time, as another half, as she steps into the husband’s life and house. First she is slave in the house custody, separated from man
who is culturally bound to stay and distanced from the society where she is supposed
to have free play of mind and protection. Later when she is pregnant, her honesty is doubted both by man and society.
The Ahalya Myth, included in Valmiki’s Ramayana, has been remystified giving it a
modern touch to make it relevant to contemporary time. V. Rangan observes that “Ahalya commits adultery knowingly but the folk mind equates Ahalya with a chaste woman and therefore cannot allow her to sin deliberately. So Indra the Zeus like
profligate is shown to have perpetuated a fraud on her by impersonating her husband
Gautama.”38 Rani is innocent, as Aparna Dharwadker remarks, “it is Naga in the form of her husband Appanna who makes love to her. She thinks that she bears her husband’s child and does not suspect identity till the very end.”39
Rani, in Naga-Mandala, however, reconstructs her almost broken family as the
femininity overpowers man’s control and supervision, and establishes her supremacy,
as we find in myths, the matriarchal power in real life. It is an indication and warning given to people and society that those days of make-belief have been buried into the
history and if a woman commences her visionary quest she can achieve it without the support of a male companion, as her husband.
The theme of the play Hayavadana if analyzed from the socio-cultural and gender
level, we notice that there is a conflict between two polarities namely, Apollonian and 69
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Dionysian. To explain these terms: Apollonian is the ego state which causes self-
alienation and in which the soul leaves the body. All human suffering is due to this culture of self-alienation. In the play Hayavadana, Devadatta is the character around
whom the Apollonian order is created. He is least subject to passion and therefore, least impulsive of the other characters in the play. Whereas, Dionysian represents the mental state in which the ego wants to be natural or really human wherein the mind
and the body work together. There is no split between them. There is a perfect harmony between them. The mind feels the bodily experiences and body rocks with
feeling of the mind. This state is called undivided body-soul. Such an ego allows the undifferentiated, unified body-mind is called Dionysian ego, in which the soul returns to and resides in, the body. Kapila in the play is the best example of this. The play
hints that Apollonian always asserts itself and suppresses the Dionysian in our
socio—cultural life. Therefore the coexistence of both physically and morally is not possible. In this regard Shubhangi S. Raykar writes:
Human Society is made possible only through submission to Apollonian principle. The collective wisdom of society flouts passion (represented in the play by the judgment of Rishi and Padmini’s passion for Kapila respectively).
It will bring about the destruction of the individual who defy order in society.40
Raykar further remarks on Padmini’s predicament of Indian society thus: Padmini’s predicament is the predicament of modern, emancipated woman in
our society who is torn between the two polarities a woman who loves her husband as well as someone else for different aspects of their personalities. A civilized Apollonian society and its moral code will not accept such a woman.
The two men will not accept each other when it comes to sharing a woman and the three will destroy themselves in the process.41
The root of Padmini’s agony is the impact of patriarchal society that opposes legal
system or class conflict. It is due to this basic system of power of patriarchy Padmini
undergoes suffering and mental torture in her life. In this regard K. K. Sharma supports radical feminist’s view who advocates that “the root cause of women’s
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oppression lies in patriarchal gender relation, as opposed to legal system or class
conflict”.42 Men are socialized to have their desire fulfilled and women are socialized to meet those desires. Devadatta fulfills his desire after getting Padmini but Padmini does not feel complete satisfaction with her husband. But after the transformation of
heads she feels happy but only for a couple of days, i.e. one year. Even Goddess Kali
could not satisfy Padmini permanently. Shubhangi S. Raykar remarks, “Padmini knows that her illicit, extra marital relationship with Kapila will not be acceptable to the society as it threatens the ‘order’ in this patriarchal society.”43 As Jaganamohana
Chari says, she is “repressed by the power of patriarchal values of the ruling class
ideology. But she appears to be relatively freer and more capable of distancing herself from the hegemonic contexts. She may rest content in her consent to the hegemonic contexts, yet she adopts the more indirect mode of facing up to reality.”44
The relationship between the three major characters conforms to the present day
gender theories. Devadatta, because of his cultivated mind rules over both Padmini and Kapila.
Padmini is the major protagonist, always at the centre of action, and the whole action
of the play revolves around her. She is a dominating central force in that both
Devadatta and Kapila try to adjust them according to her plan. She keeps them under
the magnetic force by controlling their minds and body movements. She traps them into the knot of amorous splendid which they are unable to escape unhurt.
So lost is she in her personal desire that she ignores her motherly responsibility towards her own son, the piece of heart and hands him over to a third person for his nourishment. She gives the child to the hunters who live in this forest, beseeching them that the child is Kapila’s son, with a thought that as they loved Kapila, they
would bring him up in his interest; “Let the child grow up in the forest with the rivers and the trees. When he’s five take him to the Revered Brahmin Vidyasagara of
Dharampura. Tell him it’s Devadatta son” (Three Plays, 131). Here she adopts dualistic plan for the safety of the child and his future.
Padmini is a victim of the patriarchal order where woman are subjected to the patriarchal culture. The marriage between Devadatta and Padmini is settled by the 71
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parents without considering Padmini’s liking and disliking. Born in an affluent and rich family she has developed her personality, which searches for perfection. It is after
finding unsuitability and malelessness in Devadatta that Padmini turns to Kapila, to satisfy the demand of her body and her idea of man. But she could not go against the
concepts of fidelity and sacred concept of marriage so much respected in the culture.
Aparana Dharwadker says, the play “…gives primacy to women in the psychosexual relations of marriage, and creates a space for the expression of, even the fulfillment of amoral female desire within the constraints of patriarchy.”45
Padmini is a generic representative. M. K. Naik observes, “Her name indicates ‘lotus’
which is the abode of Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity as well as the paradigm of
feminine beauty made well known by Vatsayana's Kamasutra.”46 Padmini is a modern
woman, freed from the socio-cultural inhibition, who executes her desire of perfection, a perfect man in her personal life by overthrowing the patriarchal propriety
and male dominance. But according to Naik, it is “ironical that Padmini brings no
prosperity to the two friends with whom her lot is cast.”47 By making her
representative, Karnad has advocated the cause of women for freedom, for execution of desire as well choice they find reasonably proper.
The dolls watch the dramatic action enacted between Devadatta and Padmini and the role Padmini is performing in her quest for Kapila. Padmini’s assumption that she is alone, unwatched in her search of a perfect man is wrecked through the voices of the
dolls. The dolls, in their animated form, are individual members of the society as well as the part of the social conscience who interpret Padmini’s psyche and according to
Erin B. Mee they narrates her “dreams about Kapila as she sleeps, reveal the illicit
desire she feels but cannot, as a married women in Indian society articulate.”48 Padmini desires to send Devadatta to Ujjain after finding excuse in the torn out dolls, as a part of her plan so that she can find safe route to approach Kapila.
Doll I: (to Doll II): Did you hear that? She wants to throw us out.... Doll II: She wants new dolls Doll I: The whore
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Doll II: The bitch Doll I: May her house burn down Doll I: May her teeth fall out (Three Plays, 121) “the joys of married life”( Three Plays, 111). Devadutta (embracing Padmini) My Padmini.... My lovely Padmini.... Padmini: My King - My Master.... Devadatta: My little lightening Padmini: The light of my joy Devadatta: The flower of my palm.... Padmini: My celestial-bodied Gandharva.... My sun-faced Indra.... Devadutta: My Queen of Indra’s Court Padmini: (Caressing his shoulders). Come let’s go quickly. Where the earth is soft and the green grass plays the swing. (Three Plays, 111).
Padmini has now a strong hold on Kapila’s body in Devadatta and is quite radiant with self-fulfillment and has escaped from the institutional curbs.
Padmini’s quest for completeness and perfection brings downfall in her personal life and is alienated. Her performance of ‘Sati’ is a social demand for infidelity in married life. She tries to revolt against socio-cultural forces which engulfed her. These forces
alienated her from the worldly life she does not wish to compromise with and finally
she finds relief in death. The passionate Padmini cherishes the Dionysian aspect of
life by challenging the moral codes of the society, but the socio-cultural aspects are the apollonian which assert themselves and subdue the Dionysian in our socio-cultural
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life. Raykar views, “Padmini’s predicament is the predicament of a modern, emancipated woman in our society who is torn between two polarities.”49
Unlike other dramatists such as Mohan Rakesh, Vijay Tendulkar, Mahesh Elkunchwar, Jayawant Dalvi and Mahesh Dattani, who practice ‘urban-realistic’
drama which is more socio-realistic, Karnad finds potential expression in ‘urban-folk
form’ that according to Aparana Dharwadker, is “anti-modern, anti-realistic, charismatic realm of folk culture.”50 It is for this reason that women in his plays, who
flout the conventional notion of woman are radically different from women presented in urban realistic plays.
Women in Karnad’s plays are socio-realistic personae in their cast but they are not just minor in the subordinate clause or just helping hands in the domestic work. They
are beautiful and active but circumscribed by traditional cultural environment. There are women like Malini in Tagore’s Malini who are revolutionary and similar women
can be traced in Vijay Tendulkar’s plays. Women in Karnad’s plays are altogether
different eves of potential action and thoughts we do not find in any others’ plays. The centrality of the dramatic action emits from the presence of women in the plays which is electrified further by their action.
Family, society and culture, the ‘power centers’, and ‘prison houses’ are the agencies
that discipline women’s nature, thoughts and action in general and female sexuality in particular. If they violate the so called norms, they are punished in the traditional ways
in practice and ex-communicated. Girish Karnad has himself accepted, “...the woman
in my plays are complex. The plots often derive from their stories.”51 Similar views
have been expressed by a Satish Kumar, “Characterization and plot are correlated in the
plays of Karnad and only those points of characters are emphasized which develop the
plots.”52 This applies to all characters and women in particular. He goes to ancient myths, legends, folklores and history, borrows plots from these sources and makes them
contemporary by assimilating contemporary ‘drama of life’ to them. The characters are the part of his plots. Karnad does not focus attention on persons, as individuals; rather
they are types involved in the situations and acting. Some characters, based on myths
and folklores, according to Dharwadkar, “evoke a chronologically indeterminate... realms of Kings and queens, goddess and concubines, horses and elephants, bullock 74
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carts and country fairs. They create character-type rather than individual but give them
memorable voices, along with a local habitation and a name.”53The characters from
historical background are allegorized and some are dramatized from the contemporary literary world as in Broken Images.
Karnad has created female protagonists of flesh and blood, courageous, bold and sensitive in their approach towards life. They do not hide their mind from any other person, close relatives and even super natural being, which they consider as the
essential parts of their lives. If the opinion is accepted that Karnad’s work according to Rai, is “concerned with the exploration of duality and complexity of human
character”54 evidentially his female protagonists represent these elements in their
personalities and display real tendencies of the contemporary women, destructing the
cocoon of the traditional patriarchal society to reconstruct the images of new woman/woman types.
The female protagonists are caught between two immanent forces, the conventional worldly reality that is around them and inner reality that is within their personalities.
Unlike the traditional women, desire ‘trishna’, and strong possessive impulse make
Karnad’s women more dynamic and vibrant. Rai claims, their “action is determined
not by face and human nature but by social circumstances.”55 In order to accomplish the desire, with determination and commitment, in different circumstances, they
engineer their personal roads towards their destination, and act when the time offers
opportunity, taking decision on the spur of moment and execute what they have
contemplated. They ‘persuade’ others in their charted out frames but do no refrain, showing fear under the pressure of the social restrains, cultural confinement and
constrain of religions. There is no God or Goddess from whom they seek blessing or
yearn for objects they lack. They are in search of objects, each individual in her own ways. This principle applies to all women personae in the plays as these women negotiate space for them without reckoning the adverse effects whatever they may have in the course of their life. Mala Renganathan observes that:
Karnad locates, women protagonists in an Ibsenian complex that appears to challenge patriarchal tradition. He revises traditional folk tales and myths in 75
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order to create heroines enmeshed in the crossroads of tradition. But he tends to present women as ‘cardboard characters’, as persons torn between the ideal and the pragmatic or between the illusive and the real.56
Nimsarkar analyses the psychology of woman characters in Karnad’s plays: Each woman protagonist is very strong in her rational and psychological disposition. She executes her decisions ruthlessly once finalized and punishes
the person who has deceived her or proved unfaithful and traitorous.
Devayani asks her father to curse her husband with senility and decrepitude for dishonoring her advice and sheltering Sharmistha. Chitralekha drives her husband out from the chamber for not following the husband’s responsibility toward his wife.
His wizened face and look creates revulsion in her.
Sharmistha takes revenge on Devayani by intruding into the latter’s married life and snarling the King into her arms for the incisive insult meted out to her
by pointing out her caste, race and low hierarchy. When Padmini visualizes that Devedatta starts growing weak and feeble she contrives a plan, sends him to Ujjain and goes to the forest to meet Kapila, her former lover. Rani prevails upon the elders of the society for the unjust trial and the cultural norms by
following the Naga’s advice and finally with the force of femininity, persuades
her husband to allow her son to perform the last rites for the Naga, the real
father and also celebrating the death anniversary. Vishakha punishes Yavakri not only for seducing her for love making but for the trap he weaved by
intimating his plan to other persons before the act and his revengeful approach
towards her husband and father-in-law for the settling of scores by maligning
her character in the society. Nittilai does not marry Arvasu when she runs away from the husband’s life but teaches a lesson to her parents and tribal
patriarchy who do not give her freedom to accomplish her desire. The Queen
slaps her indecisive husband, the King, who disobeys the oath given before the marriage to follow non-violence, by having sexual intercourse with the
Mahout in the temple, for his mother’s attitude towards her and insults received from the subject in the palace. The women are not cruel or
intentionally indulgent in rash behaviour but are compelled to resist the 76
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psychological violence they receive in their lives. Malini exposes the selfish
behaviour of her sister, Manjula, who tries to exploit her absence and the situation. In such state of utter failures they grown angry and exasperated, take revenge on their oppressors.57
Love, chastity, sexuality and desire, reticulated in each person, occupy an important place in the creation of female protagonists in the plays. It is aptly remarked by V.
Rangan that “Sex seems to be the road to salvation in the Karnad’s canon...”58 Kama,
carnal desire is a strong and pulsating instinct in their personalities which make them impulsive when it dictates their unconscious minds to overpower the chances and satiate it.
Karnad’s women display courage in their expression of sexual emotions without paying any respect to traditional morality and patriarchal concept of fidelity and
chastity. In this regard Karnad’s own statement provides philosophical and realistic reason when he says, “If womanhood finds fulfillment in love that happens to be
outside marriage why should that be considered wrong? Radha’s love for Krishna was such.”59 Jasbir Jain says, “erotic pleasure, seductive femininity and violative sex
form strong currents in several of Karnad’s plays.”60 Women are vehicle of these trends; they consume these emotions using their bodies.
Family organization and marriage have been handled shrewdly by giving
contemporary touch to it but at the centre is woman. Her defeat breaks these social
institutions in all the plays except Naga-Mandala. The royal family of Yayati is
wilted and that of Pooru withers before it is consummated. Devadatta possesses a woman of his liking, lives in the ignorance of reality, lost in the romantic aspiration,
but as soon as he comes to know Padmini’s affection for Kapila and her flirtation with him, he dies in fighting with Kapila and finally with her suicide the family collapses.
Their child is put in the custody of the unknown persons. Vishakha lives in a figment of the imagination that after marriage she would have her children, learned husband
and happy family and respect in the high caste society. After a year of romantic
exuberance, mechanically generated, Paravasu leaves her alone alienated till his death
and family ruins. Nittilai is married to a boy from her tribal community but she runs
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away from her husband’s life to support her lover. The Queen, tired of obnoxious life within the palace, childless life, makes love with the Mahout, resists any bloodshed for adultery and commits suicide. The priest surrenders to his fate, without thinking about his wife, children and old parents for the sin he committed by keeping adulterous relationship with concubine-mistress. Manjula is left alone to suffer in life from social insult as her husband leaves the home and goes to US.
Most of the major women protagonists are alienated persons and lost into the destructive forces of existential crises. By taking decision, placing ‘inner reality’ as
their ultimate pursuits, these women work out their own means unmindful of what society offers. To exist, these women have to make choice. Choice derives from
desire and each of the women desires to possess what she lacks and struggles to accomplish the object of her desire through her involvement in the world. B. Yadava
Raju observes, “Karnad places the individual at the centre of his/her concept of the world and shows that each person is what he/she chooses to be through the choices
he/she makes in life.”61 According to Tutun Mukherjee, Freud mentions that it is the individual’s ‘the inner world’, “the ‘central reality’ that determines the person’s
choice and social, cultural and political systems have no independent existence but are
the collective responses to or defenses against the turbulence of the inner world.”62
Yayati according to Yadava, “exercises his choice, about his cause of action and Devayani, Sharmistha and Chitralekha, by denying freedom, are made pawns
relegated to the background.”63 Against the oppressive rules of Sultan, the Step-
mother decides to supervise politics in the palace. Padmini throws herself into the ambiguous human condition and relationship by making choices one after another and falls into existential dilemma.
In his play The Fire and The Rain, female characters like Vishakha and Nittilai are
alienated beings. Vishakha is left by her husband who joined the Yagnya leaving her
in the hermitage living alone and reduced to a skeleton. She is already alienated in the hermitage but when Yavakri molests her, her last hope also vanishes and is fumed
to take revenge. Her condition is like Draupadi in Mahabharata, a prototype woman
sculling her tortured mind knowing no direction to go and rest. She has been utilized
by Yavakri to take revenge leading to violence. In the play, Nittilai is the most 78
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alienated person. She cannot go back to her parents’ home and to her husband after
fleeing from her husband’s house. Being chased by her brother and husband, she has
to find a place in the dark forest to hide from the preying eyes. With Arvasu also she cannot make public appearance. She could not get chance to consume and enjoy the
material life she had dreamt in the company of Arvasu. Her being elevated to ascetic position reminds “non-brahminical ascetic literature that belongs to ancient India
preceding the Mahabharata and traced back to Valmiki's Ramayana.”64 says Vanashree Tripathi. The Queen in Bali: The Scarifice is never at rest in the company
of the King in the palace, always facing unfavorable condition in the opposition of her mother-in-law, first for differences in religious outlook and second for adultery. She has to live in the world of her imagination, far removed from the reality in her life as
she fails to attain her desire. Her death is an outcome of the disappointment she received at every step, alienated to her defined world of reverie and ideology, Manjula is thrown into the chaotic world of scruple and isolation.
Karnad’s women play lead roles in the discussion of several contemporary issues and problems: specifically women’s individuality, family, marriage, chastity, fidelity,
society, culture, politics, religion and rituals, mirroring contemporary life, a post colonial phenomenon. This can be observed in the women who belong to different
strata of society and social hierarchy-intellectual, royal families, religious priests, Dalit and tribal, etc. Each woman character is unique in her personality in creating
her world in her own ways and desires to live life as she finds fit and suitable in the present multi-dimensional, socio-cultural milieu.
Each woman presents different
aspects of the history of the Indian society and its culture and helps to evaluate them in the contemporary contexts.
It is quite interesting to point out that Karnad gauges both the internal and external world of woman’s life.
The inner world of woman involves desire for several
subjective needs and their fulfillment. Eros or accomplishment of carnal desire is the core aspect of Karnad’s woman’s personality in each play, in different situations. She
loves man of her taste if she is a virgin and after marriage another man and does not suppresses the passion under the ritualistic principles of society and its sanction. He
has shown that such suppression of natural instinct would result in turmoil and 79
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disorder in the normal life of a woman. Pure love does not recognize chastity, ethical
and moral values attached to it. Karnad is revolutionary and anti-moralist in this matter.
Elements of ‘shamanism’ are incorporated in Karnad’s dramaturgy as ‘Puppetry’ (in
the form of dolls in Hayavadana), ‘Masks’ (used in Hayavadana and The Fire and
The Rain), ‘Shape-shifting’ (as a technique in Naga-Mandala), ‘Sacrifice’ (as a
central metaphor in Bali: The Sacrifice and The Fire and The Rain), ‘Symbolism’ (as represented in Naga-Mandala and Flowers). ‘Magic-rites and rituals’ (as applied in Naga-Mandala, Flowers, The Fire and The Rain and Hayavadana). According to Britannica Encyclopedia, the concept of ‘shamanism’ is:
The theatre evolved from shamanistic rituals that manifested a supernatural
presence to the audience, as opposed to giving a symbolic representation of it.
In this case the shaman, as actor/priest, was able to fall into a trance and
become a medium with the other world. The shaman was believed to travel in the spirit world or to actually be possessed by spirits. One of the main activities of shamanism, which is still practiced today, is the exorcism of evil
spirits; this can often involve trance dances in which the shaman performs acrobatics, juggling, or vigorous dancing for long periods, demanding a
facility and stamina that seemingly would not normally be possible. Fire-
walking, fire-eating, and other acts of apparent self-torture, performed while in a trance, and are taken as further demonstrations of the supernatural. They
represent the opposite pole from illusionism, in which such acts are achieved
by trickery. Sometimes puppets are used by shamans as manifestations of supernatural forces in the giving of divinations or oracles. Masks also are an important part of shamanism: it is believed that by putting on a mask the dancer becomes possessed by the spirit represented and takes on the functions
of that spirit. The use of body paints and elaborate costumes helps further in the personification of the spirit or demon.
These ritual elements gave rise to an archetypal genre known as the demon play, a primitive dance drama in which the force of good exorcises the force of
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evil. The demon play is still performed in various guises in parts of Asia. An interesting component, which also occurs in later Western theatre, is the use of clowns—often deformed—to parody the more serious figures.
Shamanism emphasizes the special skills that actors have traditionally
developed and that set them apart from the rest of society. It also shows the
way the actor’s techniques can help to transport the audience’s imagination beyond the actual space where the performance takes place. The “nature worship” theory expresses the idea that disguise is one of the fundamental aspects of the actor’s art. Indeed, when an individual addressing a gathering
modifies the manner, voice, or appearance of an expression, the event becomes theatrical rather than actual. This also conforms to Aristotle’s definition of theatre as “an imitation of an action”; i.e., not the action itself. Shamanism, on the other hand, is not an imitation but a direct manifestation.
In cultures where the ritual elements of theatre have remained intact—in South
India and Bali, for example—the performances of plays and dance dramas have acquired an aura of deep respect and almost awesome power over their
audience. However, where the ritual has continued in empty form long after the full significance of its content has been lost, it becomes little more than a quaint entertainment.65
Tutun Mukherjee remarks, “Shamanism is closely connected with magic rites, ventriloquism, puppetry and other features of entertainment. For instance scholars like E.T. Kirby, Weston La Barre and Andreas Lommel see theatre as starting in shamanism with its faith in spiritual journey, symbolic combat and healing.”66
Shamanism is associated with ‘puppetry’. Puppetry is giving life-like characteristics to any inanimate object. According to a website:
In the world of theatre, puppetry continues to be influential, and despite its
'outsider' status acts as an invigorating and rejuvenating influence on its
mainstream relative, and feeds through object and physical theatre many of the most exciting developments in contemporary theatre.67
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In Hayavadana, Karnad effectively uses puppetry to explore Padmini’s inner psyche by using two dolls as puppets. Use of dolls or puppets is a typical feature of Indian classical drama and the role of dolls in this play is reminiscent of that. They not only
inform the audience of the gradual physical change in the body of Devadatta but also of the inner thought-process of Padmini. They also suggest the idea of meaninglessness and nothingness in human life. The dolls make fun of pregnant Padmini who is “swelling” (Three Plays, 115) day by day and is “blowing air” (Three
Plays, 115) into her. Their commentary on the characters and their action builds up
existential atmosphere in the play. Like Bhagavata, they are an authentic source of
information for the audience. They can see “behind the eye-lids” (Three Plays, 118) of Padmini and reveal that the man she is dreaming of is not her husband. He is “rougher” and “darker” (Three Plays, 119) like Kapila. The half-sentences they utter
are full of meaning, such as, “It was shameless…the way they…” (Three Plays, 120) etc. When Devadatta decides to bring new dolls and throw the old ones away, Doll II
comments, “cover your wife before you start worrying about our rags” (Three Plays, 121). They call the ‘perfect’ Devadatta a “villain, rascal, swine and bastard” (Three Plays, 121) giving ironic strokes to the play.
The dolls are humorous and represent the Freudian imagery. But the dolls have a dark side too-they are gossipy and judgmental, like neighbors. As staged, these neighbors are (like) bickering little children. Doll I :
As the doll-maker used to say, ‘What are things coming to!’
Doll II :
Especially last night - I mean - that dream ...
Doll I :
Tut-tut -- One shouldn't talk about such things!
Doll II :
It was so shameless...
Doll I :
I said be quiet...
Doll II :
Honestly! They way they... (Three Plays, 120)
As Erin B. Mee comments: The dolls allow Karnad to introduce the voice of “society” into an otherwise
three-character story. The dolls are not at all “necessary” to the plot, which
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can move forward without them, but they are important because they remind spectators of the presence of society - and of propriety. Their attitudes provide some of the motivating force for Padmini’s behaviour in that she does some of
what she does because of what society will say, and some of what she does in spite of what society will say.68
Playing the role of chorus, and delivering running commentary, the dancing and singing dolls/puppets add to the carnival/drama sharing with the audience knowledge of secrets of Padmini’s mind. Vanashree Tripathi views:
The dolls are also the doppelganger of Padmini. They report Devadatta’s transformation back to his basic self. Their bombastic laughter at Devadatta undermines the dignity of the character….The dolls point of view recklessly
continues to belittle male vanity and gives us ironic perspective on the feminine guiles (triya chritra) of Padmini.69
When Padmini finds the dolls torn, she has an excuse to send her husband Devadatta
to the fair in Ujjain insisting that it was unlucky to keep torn dolls at home. Padmini’s two-timing her husband cannot befool the dolls or the audience as they know what a
female mind could be up to. The dolls could be seen as palpably connecting the audience of the folk theatre with the characters on the stage in critical terms that make us see the mask that Padmini is wearing.
Doll I: (To Doll II) Did you hear that? She wants to throw us out. Doll II: She wants new dolls. Doll I: The whore. Doll II: The bitch. (Three Plays, 120-121) The folklore content of the play grows polyglot with the doll motif. We are inclined to
see them variously as: gossiping neighbors or jealous sister-in-law or spinster old maids in a parochial patriarchal set up. Their disparaging gaze undermines both
Padmini as two-timing whore and Devadatta as ridiculous villain and also more decisively anticipates the futility of Padmini’s quest.
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Karnad controls the emotions released through the play deftly through ‘masks’ which
is an alienation technique and important aspect of shamanism.
A mask can be both physical, as well as symbolic. Masks have been used throughout history for many different purposes, such as theatre, rituals, art, etc., and even in
everyday life. There are many reasons as to why masks are used in rituals, and what sort of role they play in that particular area.
Von Fürer-Haimendorf states that when one puts on a mask, they become a different person, and when in ritual can in some ways forge a crude sort of link to the spirits; such as used by shamanists.
The donning of a mask is believed to change a man’s identity and faculties, for
the assumed appearance are held to affect the wearer’s inner nature and to assimilate it to that of the being represented by the mask.70
According to Subhash Kak, the mask is intimately connected to the ritual in either hiding ones true face, or by adopting a ‘public face’.
The idea is that the mask makes the change from ordinary time, to the
workings of the ritual and its connection to the spiritual, so that it becomes
acceptable psychologically. Wearing a mask is a way of concealing ones
personality, and in ritual, this helps one to ‘connect’ with a spirit or the
supernatural.71
In regards to ritual, masks have many different forms of purpose. Some, such as the
masks of the shamans of the Eskimo, are representations of their guardian spirits, and
they believe that they can induce a state of trance by wearing these masks and establish a ‘link’ with the said guardian spirit. Masks can also be used as a form of
protection against supernatural dangers, such as to avoid recognition by the spirits of the dead at a funeral.
A mask can really be almost anything; a physical object to hide ones face and be used
as a sort of spiritual medium, or even the use of a specific attitude or persona in a certain setting. There is no doubt that a form of mask is used widely in many different
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forms of ritual around the world, and can be seen as a very important prop in those rituals; whether for their cosmetic use, or their ability to help one connect to the
spiritual, among other things. Whatever one’s opinion of masks in ritual, they have been highly helpful in theatre and rituals by Shamans throughout history.
In Karnad’s Hayavadana, the appearance on the stage of Devadatta and Kapila
wearing mask recalls several dramatic aims of convention. It reminds us first of all that we are in theatre, that the act is going on before our eyes is not real in the literal sense, but it is rather symbolic or an artistic presentation. For another thing, masks
allow the face to be frozen in one expression: a look of horror, a look of love; masks
can also make a persona larger than life. They can create stereotype, stand for stock characters and for the playwright’s spokesperson.
Bhagavata wants his audience to assume that the masked characters respectively
represent mind and heart. It is Padmini who has the status of a real human being— beyond nomenclature and whose actions provide stimuli to two male characters
The intervening presence of the eponymous horseman, Hayavadana, has a mask but is made to look like real head of this strange creature. He urges the onlookers off and on
the stage to suspend their disbelief. Bhagavata mistakes his horse-head for a mask and
is annoyed with Bhagavata for disturbing the play with his buffoonery. When he fails
to pull out the mask/head of Hayavadana, he realizes that the equine mask is real, but we as audience see it as unreal. As Mikhail Baktin states, “true to the nature of mask—it undetermines the notion of being as identical with itself, it both reveals and plays with contradiction”72
In Hayavadana, the focus on the body governs the characterization of the two male
characters. This is obvious from the beginning of the play because they have
inanimate, static faces (masks). This makes body language the signature of individuality and a pattern for the movement is essential in establishing existence on the stage. Then the playwright says, “Henceforth the person wearing the mask of Devadatta will be called Devadatta. Similarly with Kapila” (Three Plays, 34).
This, however, clashes with the theatrical logic of the performance and lets the mask gain importance, which was denied to it traditionally. Rather than getting scattered,
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the attention gets centralized around the body. The face and the head give way to a
hierarchy of verbal language above body language and of the literary above the theatrical.
The actors concerned may carefully construct distinct body language for Devadatta
and Kapila and interchange the patterns when their heads are transposed. The solution is also problematized by the gradual conformation of the bodies to the heads. Transformation of the bodies is impossible to show on the stage and the words are all that can be relied upon.
Interestingly, Bharat Gupta observes that Greek plays could make use of masks “because they depended upon broad exaggerated features to convey the images of
things larger than life.”73 Indian theatre on other hand, focused on “Sattvika
Abhinaya” based on bhavas and the movements of eyes and never considered the
mask as a dramatic device. Gupta argues that “there is no word in Natyasastra for a
mask other than ‘Pratisirsha’ which means ‘headgear’ and not mask.”74Thus, for the
Indian dominant culture and spectator habits, the focus becomes the living face of Padmini, the only one available during the course of the enactment of the main plot.
The centrality of the female gets reiterated through the unmasked face of Padmini. David Griffiths describes the function of mask in a performance as:
In general, a mask uplifted, lightens the state of the character, a mask lowered
darkens it. How it moves between and across these two extreme conditions
and at what pace, determines the multiple facets which make up the same personality. For these facets to work convincingly, each movement has to be
accorded by a complete physical adjustment. Each placed angle of mask is watched by a similar signal from head to leg, or all. In the same way, without mask, each human body seems to belong uniquely to the face set upon it, not always coordinated but recognizable. It is so recognizable and acceptable, in fact, we hardly notice it.75
In Hayavadana, Lord Ganesha is represented on stage by means of a mask kept on the
chair. The Bhagavata sings verse in praise of Ganesha accompanied by his musicians
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and then the mask is carried out. In the opening scene, Bhagavata communicates the keynote of the play:
May Vigneshwara, the destroyer of obstacles, who removes all hurdles and crowns all endeavors with success, bless our performance now. How indeed can one hope to describe his glory in our poor, disabled words? An elephant’s
head on a human body, a broken tusk and cracked belly—whichever way you look at him he seems the embodiment of imperfection, of incompleteness.
How indeed can one fathom the mystery that is very Vakratunda-Mahakaya,
with his crooked face and distorted body, is the Lord and master of success
and perfection? Could it be that this image of purity and Holiness, this Mangalmoorty, intends to signify by his very appearance that the
completeness of God is something no poor mortal can comprehend? Be that as it may. Be that as it may. It is not for us to understand this mystery or try to unravel it. Nor is it within our powers to do so. Our duty is merely to pay
homage to the Elephant-headed God and get on with our play. (Three Plays, 73)
The introductory prayer of Ganesha, in Hayavadana is a ritual. Ritualism is also a part
of shamanism. The prayer of Ganesha, or Nandi Puja is only a remnant of a longer
religious ceremony: the Purvaranga, which is described in Bharata’s Natyasastra. This Purvaranga preceded the production of every play and consisted of invocation of
the deities with music, singing and dancing. In the Hindu pantheon, the object of
oblation/worship, a mask of Vakratunda, Ganesha at the opening of the play however
serves the purpose of a repertoire and also enhances the magnitude of the central theme: the quest of perfection. In Yakshagana mode, Ganesha’s blessings are sought
in the beginning and the end of the drama.
In The Fire and The Rain, Karnad effectively uses the device of mask in depicting the
role of Vritra. In this creation of Karnad, The Epilogue approaches the final moments
of revelations and coincides with catastrophe. In motifs of ‘Play within the Play,’ the analogue between Indra-Vritra and Paravasu-Arvasu is made to appear tellingly.
When Arvasu makes an innocent remark, “This isn't the real thing?”76, little does he
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know that enacting the part of Vritra in the dramatic dressing, would transform him. Richard Schechner in his probing study that links the art of theatre with cultural practices comments on the significance of mask performance in the dance drama of aborigines:
It is thought that when a man wears a mask he is “animated by the spirits,
which are derived from myths.” The spirit moves only when a man is in the
mask. Conversely, a man dances well only when the spirit moves him. Two symbiotic existences support each other. Men freely exchange masks, animating and being animated by many spirits in one day.77
The masked performance, stylized gestures stir life in the in mythical story. Nietzsche had a vision of these mythic introjections in live performance. In this embodiment, the
myth finds its objectification not only in the spoken word but more vividly in the visible imagery of the drama.
Surrounded by atmosphere of beating drums, the excruciating and frenetic rhythm of
the dance drama, Kathak and Kathakali, Arvasu suddenly discovers in the prospect of
playing Vritra—imitating the humiliation and subsequent anger of Vritra, an objective
correlative of pain and grief inflicted by Paravasu. The memory of recent event flashes back to him when he was forbidden to, stand by the sacrificial precincts on the
patently false charge of patricide. Insults of the most brutal kind were hurled at him and he was thrashed to death, mercilessly at the injunctions of his own brother in spite
of his obedience and innocence. The treacherously trapped Vishwarupa—the victim of conspiracy represented the story of Arvasu. The Actor Manager instructs Arvasu on the rules of mask performance:
Here. It is the mask of Vritra the demon, now surrender to it. And pour life into it. But remember, once you have to keep a tight control over it, otherwise it’ll try to take over. It’ll begin to dictate terms to you and you must never let that happen. Prostrate before it. Pray to it. Enter it. Then control it.
(Arvasu opens the bundle of clothes and dresses almost in trance. The stage darkens. Nittilai’s brother and husband melt away in the darkness. The audience
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including Paravasu and the king occupy their places and watch.) (The Fire and
The Rain, 52)
Mortal and immortal must meet in the persona of the dancer—actors: Arvasu-Vritra and the actor manager-Indra. Arvasu puts on the mask. The interjection is likely to be
complete. He goes into ecstasy, the spirit of his ancestors seems revealed to himself. The play begins. In Vritra persona Arvasu being is ready to be animated by the spirit
of the mythic character. There is roar of drums and then a sudden silence. He roars
wildly and jumps up, dances violently. The audience responds with enthusiasm. The Actor Manager dressed as Indra enters the stage.
Shape-shifting is also an element of shamanism. It is also known as lycanthropy.
According to Wikipedia:
In mythology, folklore, and modern fantasy fiction, shape-shifting is the ability of a being to physically transform into another form or being, either as an inherent faculty of a mythological creature, or by means of magic.
The concept is of great antiquity, and may indeed be a human cultural universal, present in the oldest forms of totemism or shamanism, it is present
in the oldest extant literature and epic poems (such as the Gilgamesh Epic or the Iliad), where the shape-shifting is usually induced by the act of a deity; it persisted into the literature of the Middle Ages and the modern period (where
the agency causing shape-shifting is mostly a sorcerer or witch), and it remains a common trope in modern fantasy, children's literature and works of pop culture.
By far the most common form of shape-shifting is therianthropy, the
transformation of a human being into an animal (or conversely of an animal into human form). More rarely, the transformation may be into a plant or object, or into another human form (e.g. fair to ugly, or vice versa).78
The concept of shape-shifting is not same across cultures. In Judeo-Christian terminology is something distinctly pagan, even unchristian. In traditional Christian belief, only the Devil had this power and therefore shape shifters are usually evil, like
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werewolves, witches, or vampires. Legitimate and “good” shape-shifting was, of
course, reserved only for Christ, who became a man though he was Son of God, and who later came back to life after being crucified. Hindus, though, have no such
difficulties or squeamishness about shape-shifting. Thus shape-shifting is a universal motif which does not, however, have a uniform significance.
Shape-shifting only takes place in non-realistic fantasies, fables, myths, or folk tales. It is, moreover, associated with supernatural. The crossing of boundaries, after all, is a dangerous, even magical event. It needs special powers and might have unpleasant
consequences. That’s why, in Karnad’s plays, shape-shifting has disastrous consequences. It might end in death, destruction or unhappiness. It’s as if he who
transgresses must pay the price, like Naga in Naga-Mandala who must die once his shape-shifting is found out. Shape-shifting only takes place under unusual
circumstances and at the behest of a powerful person or spell. In Hayavadana,
Padmini seeks a boon from the Goddess on order to transpose the heads. And in Naga-Mandala the shape occurs only after Naga has been affected by the old woman’s magic potion. And in each of these cases, there is an unforeseen, unfortunate, even tragic outcome of shape-shifting. The artifice of shape-shifting is traditional, ritualistic, mythical, but the outcome is tragic in a modern sense. It reveals the characters’ loneliness, isolation, frustration, or self-knowledge—all achieved at a very heavy price.
Naga-Mandala has several examples of shape-shifting. The main one, of course, is the cobra assuming the form of Appanna to make love to Rani. But earlier, the flames
take on human shapes to gossip at the temple after they’ve been “put out” in the houses. In the New Flame’s story of the old woman who knew a story and a song, the
story becomes a young woman and the song, a house. Wearing the sari, the story walks out of the old woman’s house. The point is that stories mustn’t be stingily
confined to one-self as the old woman did, but shared. As Flame 1 puts it, “So if you try to gag one story, another happens.”79And later, the woman Rani, after her cobra
ordeal, is apotheosized into a living goddess, an extraordinary woman.
Shape-shifting is a central metaphor in Girish Karnad’s plays. It is both a structural
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practices. It also echoes, copies, and re-enacts within the play one of the primary
functions of drama itself, which is allowing a person to be someone else for a short
while in order to provide recreation to both audience and performer. Shape-shifting,
then, appeals to our deepest instincts for freedom and flexibility, giving vent to our
urge to escape the limiting confines of our physical and psychological beings. Shapeshifting is thematic in that Karnad uses it to work out certain theses and antitheses. It is the chief vehicle of his ideas in the plays. It is a convenient method of exploring
differences and similarities between characters, situations and ideas. It proves and underlying unity in the substratum of life while allowing multitudinous diversity on the surface.
In Naga-Mandala, the flames take on human shapes to gossip at the temple after they’ve been “put out” in the houses. The play begins in the inner sanctum of a ruined temple. The woman narrator, New Flame, tells the story to other flames. Inside
the sanctum a man sits and hears the female voices outside the temple. He hides himself behind a pillar and watches how several flames enter the temple giggling and
talking to one another in female voices. When the lamps are extinguished in the village houses the flames gather at this remote place in the outskirts of the village and
spend the night together and gossip in the temple. But the man who shelters here in
the night watches how the tiny flames enter the premises and talk to one another. All the flames have come her from different households and gather here to gossip for their
entertainment. Interestingly the Flame is a female storyteller sharing her observation and experiences with others. Pranav Joshipura says:
The story of the flames comments on the paradoxical nature of oral tales in general. They have an existence of their own; they are independent of the teller and yet live only when they are passed on from the possessor of the tale to the listener. Similarly the status of a tale becomes akin to that of a daughter,
for traditionally a daughter too is not meant to be kept at home too long but has to be passed on.80
The audience becomes sure of their identity as the New Flame tells in the ‘Prologue’: “At night when the old man had gone to sleep, the Story took the form of a young
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woman and the Song becomes a Sari. The young women wrapped herself in the sari and stepped out, just as the old lady was coming in.”81 The flames are the metaphors
for women in the village who come and gather at this place in the night to tell stories and sing song for their entertainment.
The identification of the flames with young, sprightly and ‘vocal’ women and the
stories that they tell each other are a brilliant device used by Karnad for creating a
particularly female context and content in the ‘man-oriented’ folk-tale. Santosh Gupta says:
He brings within the play, the strong association between the oral narrative
tradition and women’s sub-culture, existing within the patriarchal societies.
Woman tell many of these folktales, myths and legends, and in their telling
often reinvent and transform them... the female experiences expressed in female narratives and transform is woven within the folktale as the ‘flame’ tells her story to the professional, male playwright.82
Sacrifice is another important aspect of shamanism. In contemporary cultures with
living shamanism, animal sacrifices are common to ensure the spirits benevolent
attitude to the shaman or the community. Justifying animal sacrifices in modern western cultures in much more difficult due to the lack of cultural and moral
acceptance and background for such offerings. Animal sacrifices are among the most powerful forms of offerings to the spirits. The life-force of the sacrificed animal is
food and energy for the spirits and medium for grounding and even materialization. Of course the psychic effects of such sacrifices on client and shaman cannot be underestimated.
The origin of sacrifice was the idea that supernatural beings, having human wants and
human needs, might suffer privation and become feeble if offerings were not made to
them. With human wants, kind spirits may become feeble through hunger. With human weakness and fallibility, evil spirits will desert a person or country for
offerings of food and be decoyed by greed on to waste waters. The partaking of a sacrifice establishes communion. It is necessary therefore to eat off the offering to friendly spirits. Food offered to spirits of disease one should be chary of tasting. By a 92
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gift, as in the shaman's invocations a sacrifice is so often termed, spirits can be
conciliated. Finally, when a patient recovers there is the offering to the spirits for their beneficence, actuated no doubt by fear of punishment for omission but containing also the germ of the freewill sacrifice of gratitude.
In his play Bali: The Sacrifice, Karnad looks closely at the nature of the rite of
sacrifice. When the Hindus, under pressure from the Jains and the Buddhists,
renounced blood sacrifice and began to use dough figurines as a substitute for live sacrifice, violence was still not abdicated. Bali: The Sacrifice opens near the inner
sanctum of a ruined temple and amongst these ruins a love-act is performed between a
childless queen and an ugly mahout, whose voice is his sole attractive asset. When they are discovered by the rightful husband and his mother, the act of penance consists of a substitute sacrifice, an act which the Jain queen refuses to perform. The male and the female principles stand in an antagonistic relationship.
The two parallel worlds of desire and convention, of individual need and accepted
social practice are placed in a relationship of opposition. The King is caught between
his wife and his mother, and between the image of a devoted wife and that of a harlot. In the play, the King is as much of a sacrifice as the Queen. When proof is demanded
of her that she will never again step out of line, right in the temple, three things
happen: the mahout goes away, the dough cock comes alive and the Queen impales herself on the sword - each one of these happenings stresses the momentariness of
desire and the permanence of punishments; the mahout’s exit implies exclusion, the cock’s coming alive makes meaningful the sacrifice which penance demands of freedom and principles alike and the Queen’s impaling, the price of belonging.
Flowers, in some measure takes the same theme forward - the theme of sacrifice
which power (and devotion) demands. This is also the underlying theme of Ramayana where kingship entails the sacrifice of Sita. Sexual abstinence and procreation have all along been played against each other in Hindu mythology, philosophy and ideology.
There is also the need to look at the dramatic element, which is manifested through
division (the two women in his life), the unexpected (the failure of the Chieftain to arrive), reversal (the late arrival and the restoration of the used flowers to the lingam),
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through transformation of the male priest to the submissive, passive (female) devotee.
The dramatic tension works through oppositions and contrasts. In Flowers, the triangular love relationship fails. The priest is unable to live with either his wife or his
mistress. And this happens in a society, where the courtesan-mistress is accepted and men are privileged enough to have sexual relations outside matrimony. Therefore, the sacrifice the priest offers is not only his desire but also his wife’s desire.
In the play The Fire and The Rain, fire sacrifice is taken as a central metaphor to underline any activity like academic study, love-making, reading of epics, marriage, etc. Fire in Indian mythology is a deity, and all Hindu rituals and rites are performed
in the presence of this deity. Fire sacrifice is the central theme of the play. In the
celebration of it the playwright presents the myth to delineate its finer issues in human actions as rewarding and regretting. According to O. P. Budholia, the ancient Indian scriptures bring forth the inseparable relationship between Natya and Yajna.
Yajna as sacrifice teaches atmasamskrti (integration of self). Nätak, as the
performance of actors, too brings forth the integration of self. Etymologically, the terms “nata” and “nritya” are directly or indirectly linked with the origin of
Natya. Abhinaya (acting) is made of two words: the prefix “abhi” (towards) is linked with its root “ni” (carrying) of ideas and emotions. Thus the actor
through his actions creates the theory of emotion which results finally into the theory of rasa.83
Man Mohan Ghosh in his Abhinaya Darpanam brings forth the motifs that underlie the core of dramatic art in ancient India.
A Hindu play which is called a drsya or preksyakavya or natya or rüpaka in Sanskrit though it has some superficial resemblance to drama is not identical
with the same thing; rather there is a considerable difference between the two... A play is called rüpaka, i.e.; having a form on account of its visibility
(drsyata). And the term rupaka is applied to play on the analogy of a figure of
a speech of the same. i.e) rüpaka or metaphor, because in a play we assume a
non-distinction between characters (dramatis personae) and the actors representing them.84
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O.P. Budholia also observes: The ritual of Agni is called in Indian mythology Vahini; it is regarded as the
protector and guardian for all theatrical art. On the other hand, Agni (fire) is
directly related to the process of Yajna (sacrifice). Thus Yajna and the art of
theatre are directly or indirectly related to the ancient Indian myth of Agni. Abhinaya (acting) is meant for carrying the emotions of actors towards the audience and thus abhinaya stirs the internal mechanism of the audience by
arousing emotions in them. The deeper sensitibility or the internal threads of
varied bhãvas (emotions) work out the theoretic norms of purusarthas
(dharma, artha, kama and moksha). The ritual of sacrifice (Yajna) according
to the Vedas is meant for motion and dynamism of cosmic plan and the art of Natya has also been derived from the Vedas for realizing the highest norms of
life through arousing “Rasovaisah” (Rasa is God). The Vedas provide the self
existent and self referential wisdom and so does the art of Natya. Natya thus
becomes an image of the three worlds. The soul of drama in Indian Poeties does not lie in conflict alone but in the creation of rasa.
The art of dance (nritya) is directly linked with the concept of ancient Indian theatre. The art of dance in a dramatic performance becomes symbolic of the mental states of the character. This shows two things at a time: the higher state of mental satisfaction and the process of recreation. Drama at the instance of
Yajna becomes suggestive of two subtle things of cosmic vision: movement and dynamism. Yajna (sacrifice) as a ritual and as a mythical process brings
into being the adherence of Karma. The process of sacrifice thus becomes the archetype of all actions.85
Girish Karnad in his Notes appended to the text of The Fire and The Rain defines the process of fire for sacrifice at the instance of the Vedic philosophy:
In vedic thought as in the Iranian tradition, there was a conception of the
world as due not to a chance encounter of elements but as governed by an
objective order inherent in the nature of things of which the gods are only the guardians.... In essence the sacrifice can be regarded as a periodic ritual by 95
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which the universe is recreated, with the sacrificer like his prototype Prajapati incorporating the universe.86
Yajna is born out of the Vedas and a ritual brings forth two principles of higher realty: rest and motion. The art of drama too symbolizes the cosmic vision through action
and the dynamism of its performance. Both Yajna and Natya work out the metaphysical aspects of human life. Thus at the instance of the Vedic sacrifice, the
aim of Natya is to express in a popular and easy form the metaphysical sense of life
and of the cosmos. Karnad acknowledges that Yajna brings into being the inner and
outer motifs of human life and it finally shows even the sacrifice of the seeds of desire.
Thus, the theme of sacrifice which is closely associated with shamanism has been
deployed by Girish Karnad in his plays The Fire and The Rain, Flowers and Bali: The
Sacrifice.
Symbolism is also a major aspect of shamanism. Girish Karnad has used this art of symbolism in his plays Flowers and Naga-Mandala effectively.
In his play Flowers, Karnad has extensively used symbolism. The form of a dramatic
monologue, which is emphasized through the subtitle in Flowers, asks other questions
and compels one to move away from myth and power structures to explore the development of the narrative in purely textual terms. Is it a story, a plain narrative,
meant to be read aloud? Or is it mythical and symbolical? There is also the need to look at the dramatic element, which is manifested through division (the two women in
his life), the unexpected (the failure of the Chieftain to arrive), reversal (the late arrival and the restoration of the used flowers to the lingam), dislocation of the object
of worship (substitution of Ranganayaki for the lingam), and through transformation
of the male priest to the submissive, passive (female) devotee. The dramatic tension works through oppositions and contrasts.
Karnad uses astrological symbols in his play Flowers. The opening passage of
Flowers sends the reader into astronomy, geographical location and religion. It brings mystery and symbolism into the foreground. And it begins in the present, facilitating the movement into the past:
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In a few moments from now, Scorpio will start creeping into the water from the south-eastern corner of the temple tank. There is a hollow there in the third
step under the water, large enough to hold an unhusked coconut. (Collected Plays, Volume Two, 243)
This is followed by a detailed description of Scorpio and the speaker taking pride in
his accurate knowledge of his surroundings, of ‘every nook and cranny’, and of the movement in the skies. The Scorpio’s shadow in the water brings semblance into reality. One may as well ask why Scorpio? The eighth sign of the Zodiac, it according to J. E. Cirlot, corresponds to that “span of man's life which lies under the threat of
death .... It is also related with the sexual function.”87 Cirlot goes on to comment upon
its symbolic representation of the hangman. Komilla Sutton in her book Vedic Zone Signs divides the period from 23 October to 22 November into three sections - Swati,
Vishakha and Anuradha. The central influence is Vishakha while Swati and Anuradha falling into cusps. It is worthwhile to look at the symbols. Swati is ruled by Rahu and
represented by the male buffalo, Vishakha is ruled by Jupiter and symbolized by the male tiger, with only Anuradha being represented by the female deer and ruled by
Saturn. Sutton notes that in “Vedic Astrology female energy is passive.”88The Swati
personality forgets to feel and is ambition-driven, while Vishakha as it aspires to cross the threshold into heaven, stands for transformation. This change “does not take place
without a great churning of emotions. The price one pays is in relationships.”89 The animal sign of the male tiger represents virility and potency - the two characteristics
of the lingam. The male sexuality of the buffalo and the tiger is, by the end of the narrative, transformed into the passive female principle. The opening lines with the
sexual imagery of the unhusked coconut and the hollow foretells the transformation. There is a cyclical movement from the closed, settled world of the temple, which he
has tried to keep secure, where he has discouraged all friendly attentions, and out of which he has never wanted to step out, to the world outside, the house of the
courtesan, the sensual experience of the body and the act of concentrated attention on the sexual object, returning finally to the closed world. But the return is not to the same world and not of the same man. This new world is asexual, hierarchical and
97
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remote. It is a world of saintliness and not of the body. The act of loving had “emasculated” him; the act of faith further completes this transformation.
Jasbir Jain beautifully describes the symbolism of colors of flowers in the following passage:
The speaker describes everything graphically—the temple surroundings, the
flowers he uses to decorate the lingam “malligai, sevanti, chenduhoovu, sampigai and kanakambara.” Later, he refers to marigold, parijata and carnation, flowers of different colours—white, red and orange—colours which
not only frame each other but also carry their own symbolic meanings. The flowers—red, orange, yellow and white are generally considered advancing colours which are assimilative, active and intense. White flowers signify
purity and homage. It is a common practice in southern parts of the country for
women to wear them in their hair. Colours also relate to the elements. Red and orange are associated with fire, while yellow is identified with air. The use of flowers is often embedded in cultural practice; by their very nature they are
symbolic of transtoriness. They also symbolize the centre and constitute the
archetypal image of the soul. As such, when the flowers are carried to Ranganayaki’s home, the centre shifts along with the object of worship. It is
impossible to relate to two centres; hence the final pull in one direction and the forced elimination of the other.90
Jasbir Jain further points towards the symbolic incidents in Karnad’s Flowers in
following words:
Two other incidents become symbolically significant in Flowers. The first
incident is the brazen desire that he senses in his wife which, however, is not
articulated. This is contrasted with Ranganayaki’s playfulness, which is sans real understanding. (Ranganayaki’s character is not expanded upon but what
we learn of her - beauty, pride and carelessness, her falling asleep and then disappearing from the scene of the action, her inability to establish any
communication beyond sex - contrasts with Karanth’s courtesan protagonist in The Woman of Basrur. The second incident, which deserves to be well 98
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remembered, is the priest's journey to Ranganayaki house late at night on the fateful day when the Chieftain’s visit is delayed. She has fallen asleep and he has walked through “snakes and poisonous vermin” to make her his offering.
This is but the beginning of the ordeal for him. Rudely shaken out of his
enjoyment of her closeness, he rushes back to the temple to use the twice-used flowers for the third time and thus reverses the hierarchical order of his objects of worship. The reference to “snakes and poisonous vermin”, the journey
through the darkness of the night not only creates an atmosphere, it also
carries forth the earlier symbolism of the monologue which culminates this time in the blood drawn from the lingam - the injury that is visible.91
In Naga-Mandala, the title of the play itself is symbolic. A “mandala” consists of a
triangle and a square: a triangle within a square. The zeitgeist of the play is the
mandala. The three points of the triangle are Rani, Appanna and Naga, thus illustrating the external triangle of an adulterous situation presenting the wife, the husband and the lover. The four sides of the square provide the dramatic framing and
stand for the Flames (the tellers), the tale, the Man (the listener) and the audience (the
perpetuator). Dr. R. Radhiga Priyadharshini interprets the symbolism of Naga in Naga-Mandala in these words:
In Hindu tradition the metamorphosis of the serpent into a human or vice-
versa is not considered to be demonic. In Naga-Mandala, the hooded serpent on the heroine elevates her to the state of goddess, since in Hindu mythology
the serpent Adhishesha acts as an umbrella to Krishna the new born, while
being shifted from the prison. In yogic tradition, Kundalini, the coiled serpent
at the end of the spinal cord is roused to reach its partner Shiva after piercing
through sahasrara, the thousand petalled lotus-head of an awakened soul. The
first chakra or energy centre on the path through the energy centers is the
swathistana chakra. This chakra is the abode of Brahma the god of
procreation. His consort is Saraswati, the goddess of artistic creation. The sexual initiation takes place at first in Naga-Mandala, i.e, the creative energy
is activated. That happens secretly. But to the world, Rani is a goddess, as she has the privilege of having the hooded serpent on her head.92 99
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O. P. Budholia explores symbolism in Naga-Mandala as: Naga-Mandala interlaces the symbolic text of relationship between two
oppositional forces: the reptile and human being. In Indian mythology, the serpent is worshipped for its supernatural powers: it animates Shiva’s enchanted gyrations, and in them achieves its culminant expression. The power of serpent has become in Naga-Mandala as the metonymic metaphor.
The term metonym stands for a name and as a part of any event or situation
that encircles the whole of anything. Thus, the word Naga in the text of NagaMandala becomes a metaphoric representation amidst all events and
situations. Broadly speaking, the generic group of serpent and serpentine in Indian mythology may be likened to be associated with man’s “Id forces”.
This metaphor of snake contrives to in one’s mind the yearning and the desire
to be fulfilled. Naga thus become a significator for sexual desire and expression. Naga as an identification with female dynamism and with the metaphor of eternal regeneration, as is evident in the folklore of India, becomes an archetypal symbol.93
Curt Maury with his iconic rendition and with the reproductive process brings forth
the supernatural power of serpent that can be made applicable to the text of Naga-
Mandala:
Transformative power and erotic impulse thus involve as the Siamese twins of female dynamism in operation. Symbolizing the one, the serpent could not but
symbolize the other also, to emerge as the archetypal embodiment of that transcendent, life affirming urge which, on the mundane plane of physical
experience, manifests itself in the desire and quest for maithuna, the union of the sexual opposites.94
Magic is synonymous with shamanic practices. The shamanic ceremony is both a religious ceremony and an artistic performance. The fundamental purpose of the
dramatic displays seen during shamanic ceremonies is not to draw attention or to create a spectacle for the audience as many Westerners have come to believe, but to lead the tribe in a solemn ritualistic process. In general, all performances consist of 100
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four elements: dance, music, poetry and dramatic or mimetic action. The use of these
elements serves the purpose of outwardly expressing his mystical communion with nature and the spirits for the rest of the tribe. The true shaman can make the journey to
the spirit world at any time and any place, but shamanic ceremonies provide a way for the rest of the tribe to share in this religious experience. Magical rites accompany
religious rituals in shamanism.
Karnad has applied magic rites and rituals, a distinct feature of shamanism, in his plays. Yajna is a ritual in The Fire and The Rain. Rituals associated with Naga also
form the part of the play Naga-Mandala. In Hayavadana, he uses magic rites
extensively. In Naga-Mandala, magic rites and rituals are inter-linked. In Flowers,
Karnad describes the ritual of worship of lingam by priest in detail and introduces the element of magic by portraying the incidence of ‘hairs’ sprouting from lingam.
The ritual of yajna has been described in The Fire and The Rain. The opening scene
of The Fire and The Rain, Prologue presents the intricate details of the Yajna ceremony that is the principal setting where action starts and finally ends in the Epilogue.
It has not rained for nearly ten years. Drought grips the land. A seven year
long fire sacrifice (Yajna) is being held to propitiate Indra, the God of rains.
Fire burns at the centre of step-like brick altar. There are several altars, at all of which priests are offering oblation to the fire, while singing the prescribed
hymns in unison. The priests are all dressed in long flowing seamless piece of
cloth, and wear sacred threads. The King, who is the host, is similarly dressed but has his head covered. Paravasu is the conducting priest (adhvaryu).95
In this context it must be kept in mind that the construction of the altar has a symbolic
ritualistic significance. It is conceived as a creation of the world from the basic elements of earth and water. Vanashree Tripathi observes:
Karnad’s uniqueness lies in the revival of the ritualistic and symbolic aspects
of drama. Involved in role-playing, rituals in all cultures have a purpose: to ward off and purge the community from all evils. Dressing, singing, dancing,
all are aspects of rituals. Researchers in Anthropology and culture emphasize 101
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the intrinsic relation of drama with civilizational mores across cultures. Standing away from the sacrificial enclosure, in the opening scene.
The stylized Prologue presents on the stage a history/context from which further dramatic situations proceed and we come to know that in the state of
continuous drought of ten years, ‘a seven year long fire sacrifice (yajna) is being held to propitiate Indra, the god of rains.’ The Brahmanical legends
describe the Indian dharmic tradition as deeply ingrained in rituals. Several texts of history and archaeology acquaint us with the ritualistic routine of Vedic age.96
David Frawley says: Agni, the Vedic fire God is the lord of house. The house fire was not just for
cooking but had ritualistic function. Each city had a central communal fire, which was probably in a temple, along with a ritual bathing site for the Vedic water purification rituals.97 Winternitz comments: The King receives the benediction of the priest. Worship of fire (Agni puja) is recommended as protection against danger from fire, worship of rivers (Nadi Puja) as protection against flood, mountain worship to avert danger from
tigers. During droughts, Indra, Ganga (The sacred river), Parvata (the
mountain) and Maha Kaccha (the great tortoise) are to be worshiped. Against epidemics, Shanti and Prayashchitta (Atonement and Peace) are to be performed by Siddhas (ascetics) and Tapasas (hermits).98
In Hayavadana, Karnad describes magic rites. A. Vanitha calls it magic realism and
says:
This hybrid nature of human personality as brought forth by Girish Karnad in his play Hayavadana throws light on the play’s magic realist character. The
sardonic goddess, Kali, a pair of animate dolls, the swapping of heads and a man with a horse’s head—all these point towards the inevitable presence of
magic realism in the play. At the outset, the play seems to be a mockery of all 102
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the convictions and credos of the Hindu system of belief. But when delved deeply into the play, it can be perceived that Girish Karnad has questioned all the givens of the hegemony of the construction of Hindu mythological
framework. He has revised and rewritten myths and folk-tales to suit his
purpose of driving home the truth that the incomplete beings with their fractured selves, and the mocking Goddess are all magical and fantastic but what is real is the ongoing, cyclic pace of life which is represented in the play by the horse that is in motion with its rider on.
In sync with the magic realist convention, Karnad draws on a plethora of folk theatre devices like songs, puppets, masks, story-within-a-story, magical metamorphosis and an omniscient narrator or story teller. Just like Karnad has
blended the Indian and Western theatrical conventions, he has employed the fusion of the tangible and the intangible, the overt and the covert, the factual
and the fabulous and the magic and the real to reveal a much deeper truth—the
perennial issue of human identity in a topography of fractured loyalties and split selves.99
Naga-Mandala, a simple but magical tale, celebrates sensuality from a women’s point of view. In the play, Rani is innocent: it is Naga in the form of her husband Appanna
who makes love to her. She thinks that she bears her husbands’ child and does not
suspect Naga’s identity till the very end. How Naga comes to be her lover is based upon a fertility rite. A ritual is a sacred manifestation or an epiphany of a myth in action. In other words, myth rationalizes or explains a ritual by providing an authority
for it. For instance, it is a fairly common practice in India that on Fridays of a certain month of the year, women perform the ritual of pouring milk on anthills inhabited by
cobras. It is believed that married women propitiate the cobra to get over barrenness
and unmarried girls to get good husbands. A ritual performed according to the rites set down in the sacred texts or even inadvertently could bring the same value and effect.
The first intake of the root fails to lure Appanna. Rani finds that the paste of the second roots turns blood red in color. She is afraid to administer it to her husband and throws it upon the anthill, the abode of the cobra. The snake accepts the libation and decides to visit her. The folk rite is made to stand on its head and the gesture is 103
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mistaken for a fact. The love filter cannot be inefficacious and the snake falls in love with Rani. The help of sorceresses is often sought by village girls to lure the men they
desire. Kurudavva will not rest till she her ‘vasikaran gulika’ (tablets for
enslavement) take effect and Rani becomes a true ‘wife’.
Kurudavva makes Rani realize her sexuality by giving her magic roots to attract her husband. In this context V. Rangan observes:
By the root hangs a myth: the Kunti myth. In the earliest received versions and
also in its present’s version, a virgin, Kunti (Kurudavva) gets magical power
from a mendicant for serving him devotedly with mind and body. She shares
the power with another woman: Kunti shares it with sister Madri, the second wife of her husband; Kurudavva shares it with Rani. Kurudavva begets a
strong son, Kappanna. When she loses him mysteriously at the end of the story, she cries piteously at the loss of her son. Is she then also a Gandhari
who wails over Duryodhana’s death? Kurudavva tells Rani that she is
‘mother-like’ to Appanna. In short, she is the ‘mother’ of all males and it is her duty as the ‘mother-in-law’ to initiate Rani into family life (as Kunti does with Draupadi) and that is what she does.100
Kurudavva, the blind woman, plays a significant part in Naga Mandala, though the
only way she is connected with the plot of the play is that the Cobra falls in love with
Rani because of the magical influence of the root given by Kurudavva to Rani. We can easily identify similarities between Goddess Kali of Hayavadana and Kurudavva
in the sense that as Goddess Kali helps Padmini in relieving Devadatta and Kapila, in the same way, Kurudavva gives ‘solution’ to Rani’s problem. But an error of destiny
leads both of them, and subsequently, the entire story towards a literal disaster. Can we call this disaster a part of human destiny, or a result of human error, or owning to a thirst, is a matter of debate.
In Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala Karnad highlights the differences of ideologies
and philosophies through the performance of folk elements but in Flowers his
dramatic archetype is based on the magical event of the Shivalinga that sprouts hair. It
recasts the folk legend of Veeranna of Chitradurga region in Karnataka as a conflict 104
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between religious devotion and erotic love, undergirded by the priest’s guilt at his daily betrayal of his wife. The priest betrays his wife and devotion for the lingam, and
manipulates the sanctity of the temple by decorating the smooth and slippery surface
of the lingam and body contours of his courtesan-mistress Ranganayaki with the same
flowers. In the presentation of a triangulated desire between a man and two women,
the authoritarian power of the Chieftain and devotion for the lingam, the priest becomes a torn self. The priest’s home is a place where his wife, two children and
aged parents live. In a joint family system he is denied his privacy in love-making for which he furtively indulges himself in it with the courtesan. His worshipping the
lingam for spiritual bliss in personal philosophy differs from the worshipping of courtesan’s body for sensual pleasure. The countesan’s intrusion in the priest’s
spiritual life affects his ritualistic performances is worshipping the lingam.
Commenting on the magical event, Bhagabat Nayak says:
The mundane affects the spiritual and the spiritual revitalizes the mundane. In
Hindu traditional belief the sensual appears integral to the spiritual. The
sensual vitalizes the spiritual in the priest’s desperate search for peace, bliss
and security when the Chieftain finds a hair in the prasad and challenges the priest’s explanation that the lingam can have a hair for his devotee. Being
dragged between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane’ the priest violates the sacred and surrenders to the profane. When his duality is doubted by the Chieftain he
returns to the lingam in an absolute surrender, a vital spiritual force in folk belief. Denouncing the wrongs done in his life he returns to the lingam for his safety and spiritual satisfaction. In faith and faithlessness he falters wondering
whether God could help him or punish him. With the arrival of Chieftain the
priest offers his final payer before lingam in the darkness of the inner sanctum of the temple. The miracle generates faith and absolute faith generates magic.
This makes the priest find a long and thick hair that comes cascading from the
lingam. The Chieftain inspects the hair of the lingam by plucking it with the help of one of his brahmin courtiers. The Chieftain is convinced with the
priest’s devotion for the lingam. The Priest’s devotion and return from the sensual world to the spiritual world revitalizes his faith in the lingam.
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Faith in God establishes the strength in the psyche of the folk community. It
serves as a magic for them. In faith they enjoy divine mystery and symbolism. Faithlessness decapacitates them from the throes of life. The priest’s thought of desecration to the sanctity of the lingam, and cruelty to two women make
him feel guilty. His temporal and spatial suffering, religious and spiritual belief, dissatisfaction and devotion, life in priesthood and sainthood,
realization of human desecration and divine discretion, human inhibition and
divine intervention, archetypal image of lingam and aesthetic of self’s surrendering to the Almighty, struggle through consciousness and conscience
make him realize the atman. The ending of the monologue presents the
differences between the imagination and representation, sensual and celestial,
pure and polluted, sacred and profane, public humiliation and personal
salvation, and pleasure and penance in individual’s mundane reality and everyday spatiality.101
Today, myth is not a blatant tale of some fictitious characters belonging to fictitious
past, told in a fictitious way. They are now accepted as not only tales about gods and goddesses, but also a portrayal of culture, its abiding values, mores and philosophy
and explain the term tradition. Karnad also echoes similar views when he avers,
“Myth had enabled me to articulate to myself a set of values that I had been unable to
arrive at rationally…the myth had nailed me to my past.”102 Keeping this in view,
Karnad makes an extensive use of myths to frame the plots of his plays as also to skilfully weave the psychological, social and cultural understanding afforded by them. At the same time he has virtually breathed a new life into these ancient tales by
adapting them for the needs of his plays. These innocent plays based on folk tales also
reveal the powerful voice of women characters who led the courage to question the social customs justifying female subordination. Karnad has dexterously explored the lives of women caged by male hegemony. In this sense, he can be termed as iconoclastic because for him the ‘other sex’ is not inferior in any way.
106
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Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava. “Introduction.” Collected Plays, Volume One.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005, p. (xi).
Rai, R. N. “Brecht’s Non-Aristotelian Theory of Drama and Dramatic Art of
Girish Karnad.” Thunder on Stage: A Study of Girish Karnad’s Plays. Ed. C. L. Khatri and Sudhir K. Arora. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2008, p.29.
55.
Ibid, p.19.
56.
Renganathan, Mala. “Women Director—Re-Reading The Fire and The Rain.”
Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.265.
57.
Nimsarkar, P. D. “Critical Appraisal.” Women in Girish Karnad’s Plays: A
58.
Rangan, V. “Myth and Romance in Naga-Mandala.” Girish Karnad’s Plays:
Critical Perspective. New Delhi: Creative Books, 2009, p. 241.
Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.206.
110
Myth, Feminism and Shamanism in Karnad's Dramatic Oeuvre
59.
Chapter - II
Karnad, Girish. “In His Own Voice: A Conversation with Girish Karnad.”
Girish Karnad's Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.43.
60.
Jain, Jasbir. “Flowers: A Dramatic Monologue.” Girish Karnad's Plays:
Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.352.
61.
Raju, B. Yadava. “Race and Gender in Yayati.” Girish Karnad's Plays:
Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.81.
62.
Mukherjee, Tutun. “Of Text and Performance: Girish Karnad’s Plays.” Girish Karnad's Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.19.
63.
Raju, B.Yadava. “Race and Gender in Yayati.” Girish Karnad's Plays:
Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.81.
64.
Tripathi, Vanashree. “The Fire and the Rain: A Tragedy of Desires.” Three Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and Culture. New Delhi: Prestige
Books, 2004, p.152. 65.
“Shamanism.”
66.
Mukherjee, Tutun. “Notes.” to “Of Text and Performance.” Girish Karnad’s
Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. New Delhi: Pencraft
International, 2008, p.22. 67.
“Puppetry”
68.
Mee, B. Erin. “Hayavadana: Model of Complexity.” Girish Karnad’s Plays:
Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.151.
69.
Tripathi, Vanashree. “Hayavadana: Towards Forging an Indian Theatre.”
Three Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and Culture. New Delhi:
Prestige Books, 2004, p.54.
111
Myth, Feminism and Shamanism in Karnad's Dramatic Oeuvre
70. 71.
Chapter - II
Haimendorf, Von Furer. “Masks.” Man, Myth and Magic, Book 4. London:
BPC Publishing Ltd., 1971, p.1756.
Kak, Subhash. “Rituals, Masks and Sacrifice.” Studies in Humanities and Social Science, Vol. II, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, 2004.
72.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and his World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky.
73.
Gupta, Bharat. Dramatic Concepts in Greece and India. New Delhi:
74.
Ibid, p.131.
75.
Griffiths, David. Mask, A Release of Acting Resources: Acting Through Mask,
76.
Karnad, Girish. “Prologue.” The Fire and The rain. New Delhi: Oxford
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, p.30. Printworld, 1994, p.131.
Vol. I. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998, p.40. University Press, 1998, p.4.
77.
Schechner, Richard. Essays on Performance Theory. New York: Routledge,
78.
“Shape Shifting.” http://www.enwikipedia.org/wiki/shapeshifting
79.
Karnad, Girish. “Prologue.” Three Plays: Naga-Mandala, Hayavadana,
80.
Joshipura, Pranav. “Hayavadana and Interminable Quest for Perfection.” The
1988, p.46.
Tughlaq. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994, p.25.
Plays of Girish Karnad: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Jaydipsinh Dodiya. New
Delhi: Prestige Books, 1999, p.261. 81.
Karnad, Girish. “Prologue.” Three Plays: Naga-Mandala, Hayavadana,
82.
Gupta, Santosh. “Naga-Mandala: A Story of Marriage and Love.” The Plays
Tughlaq. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006, p.25.
of Girish Karnad: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Jaydipsinh Dodiya. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1999, p.251-252.
83.
Budholia, Om Prakash. “Yajna As The Central Metaphor.” Girish Karnad:
Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.137.
112
Myth, Feminism and Shamanism in Karnad's Dramatic Oeuvre
Manmohan.
Abhinaya
84.
Ghosh,
85.
Budholia, Om Prakash. “Yajna As The Central Metaphor.” Girish Karnad:
86.
Karnad, Girish. “Notes.” The Fire and The Rain. New Delhi: Oxford
87.
Cirlot, J. E. A Dictionary of Symbols. Trans. from the Spanish by Jack Sage
88.
Sutton, Komilla. Vedic Love Signs. London: Pan Macmillan Publishers, 2003,
89.
Ibid, p.205.
90.
Jain, Jasbir. “Flowers: A Dramatic Monologue.” Girish Karnad’s Plays:
Mukhopadhyay, 1957, p.6.
Darpanam.
Chapter - II
Calcutta:
Ferma
K.
L.
Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.138-139.
University Press, 1998, p.65.
(1962). London and New York: Routledge, 1988, p. 280-281. p.218.
Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.354-355.
91.
Ibid, p.355.
92.
Priyadharshini, R. Radhiga. “Girish Karnad’s Naga-Mandala: An Archetypal Perspective.” Thunder on Stage: A Study of Girish Karnad’s Plays. Ed. C. L. Khatri and Sudhir Arora. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2008, p.166.
93.
Budholia, Om Prakash. “Naga-Mandala: Serpent As Metonymic Metaphor.”
Girish Karnad: Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.66-67.
94.
Maury, Curt. Folk Origins of Indian Art. Calcutta: Oxford & I. B. Publishing
95.
Karnad, Girish. “Prologue.” The Fire and The Rain. New Delhi: Oxford
96.
Tripathi, Vanashree. “The Fire and The Rain: A Complete Theatre
Co., 1969, p.177.
University Press, 1998, p.1.
Experience.” Three Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and Culture. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2004, p.126.
97.
Frawley, David. Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization. Salt Lake City: Passage Press, 1991, p.235. 113
Myth, Feminism and Shamanism in Karnad's Dramatic Oeuvre
98. 99.
Chapter - II
Winternitz. Some Problems of Indian Literature. Delhi: Bharatiya Book
Prakashan, 1977, p.105.
Vanitha. A. “The Third Eye Vision in Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana.” Thunder on Stage: A Study of Girish Karnad’s Plays. Ed. C. L. Khatri and Sudhir Arora. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2008, p.78, 82.
100.
Rangan, V. “Myth and Romance in Naga-Mandala” Girish Karnad’s Plays:
Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.202-203.
101.
Nayak, Bhagabat. “Conclusion.” Girish Karnad’s Plays: Study in Archetypes
102.
Karnad, Girish. “Author’s Introduction.” Three Plays: Naga-Mandala,
and Aesthetics. Delhi: Authorspress, 2011, p.242-243.
Hayavadana, Tughlaq. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006, p.03.
114
CHAPTER - III AESTHETICS OF DRAMA IN GIRISH KARNAD’S PLAYS
CHAPTER - III
AESTHETICS OF DRAMA IN GIRISH KARNAD’S PLAYS
To achieve the highest aesthetic experience of literature one should see the
fundamental aspect of “Rasa” which is based on conditioned responses. But it is something higher in itself. It may be called unconditioned or cultivated response.
Karnad has a unique command over his dramatic material. He searched and
researched the contemporary realities for creating the aesthetic experience through
drama – the ancient medium of art. The dramatic genius of Karnad with reference to aesthetics would be explored in his plays. Vanashree Tripathi observes, “The dramatic construction of Karnad’s plays lets a range of Rasa experiences come into being. The
dialogues, gestures, dance steps, costumes, theatre architecture—all catalyse the
audience’s response.”1 The entire dramatic structure is stylized, so much so that the
stage becomes a world. The de-familiarized time and space of the stage draw the audience in rasa experience of varied kinds.
We observe that rasa is the product of activity of imagery of various visible objects
that contributes to the evocation response. The image is perhaps the most potent phenomenon because of its corporeality and its normally metamorphic structure and function.
Reception of rasa by the same logic presupposes a sensitive
reader/audience who has no difficulty in getting on the right wavelength to receive the
multiple bhavas (implications and overtones) of the word in its particular context and
its accumulated literary and cultural associations. Bhavas are the constitutive elements
of theatre. Rasa bhava is realized in relation between audience and stage. As Vanashree Tripathi says, “The audience makes sense of the semantic polyvalence
produced out of the dhvani of clusters and repetitions of images that operate below the
level of plot and characters. In the correspondence between audience and the stage,
the sense (artha) of the play is unfolded. At times it could be opaque or be at variance
with the stated meaning on the surface. To a competent reader/audience, a word, an
115
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image, a rhythm can acquire several layers of remembered meanings in association with his previous encounters with it in other contexts.”2
Shubha Tiwari is of the view that, “Max Muller and many others doubted the possibility of Indian Aesthetics, since, according to them, there is no equivalent of the term “beautiful” in Sanskrit, and our paintings, sculptures and creative Literature
considered as works of art are “simply worthless.” On the contrary, India has given to the world metaphysics of beauty in terms of rupa and rasa and a fully developed
psycho-aesthetics in Bharata.”3 There is perfect unity from the pre-Vedic through
Vedic to post-Vedic ages of art traditions and art treasures as well as aesthetics and speculation.
Vedic view is different from that of Bharata, though the term remains the same: rasa.
The vedic view is that man in his spiritual nature and in his truest being is rasa himself. Rasa is joy (ananda) and light (chit) and life’s innermost substance. This identification is bondage (bandhan). Art experience frees man (moksha) from the inner bondage caused by ego. So long as the bondage is there, no true experience of joy is possible. He is what he sees, listens to or experiences. His ego is transcended,
and in a state of freedom he stands face to face with his truth and totality. This experience is rasa.
Shubha Tiwari says, “Bharata, the Doctor of Rasa emerges in a concrete shape, fully
developed in all varied ramifications in Natyashastra. It deals with a variety of
kindred art and science and among them are poetry, literary criticism, dramaturgy
etc.”4 The theory of Rasa is an earnest attempt to indicate the character of emotional
effect of drama. It successfully explains the rise and nature of aesthetic pleasure that a
responsive audience experiences while witnessing the skillful enactment of a play. It was briefly stated by Bharata in his well known aphoristic style.
As to the number of Rasa, Bharata acknowledged eight kinds of Rasas (astaunatya rasah smrtah) in Natya Sastra. But there is a controversy, that whether there are eight
kinds of rasas or nine. His list of Rasas as translated into English by M.M. Ghose is as follows:
116
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1. Erotic (Sringara) 2. Comic (Hasya) 3. Pathetic (Karuna) 4. Furious (Raudra) 5. Heroic (Vira) 6. Terrible (Bhayanaka) 7. Odious (Bibhatsa) 8. Marvellous (Adbbuta) Now, we may illustrate each of them from the Western drama thus: 1. Erotic (Sringar) 2. Comic (Hasya) 3. Pathetic (Karuna) 4. Terrible (Raudra) 5. Heroic (Vira) 6. Horrible (Bhayanak) 7. Odious (Bibbatsa) 8. Sublime (Adbbuta) Kaudasa, Bhamaha and Dandin also recognize only eight rasas. Udbhata for the first time mentioned Santa Rasa, Rudrata added Preyas (the agreeable) to the number of
Rasas. Bhoja, in his Sarasvati- Kanthabharana, admitted the eight Rasas of Bharata
and added four more:
1. The Magnanimous (Udatta) 2. The Arrogant (Uddhata) 3. The Serene (Santa) 4. The Agreeable (Preyas) 117
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Not only Indian aesthetician has given his views about Indian aesthetics. Even
Western writer has also touched this area. I.A Richards’ discussions on various occasions recall the postulates of Bhattanayaka and Abhinavagupta, the two great
exponents of the rasa-dhvani school of Indian Poetics. Richards was convinced that an aesthetic psychology was essential for understanding appreciation and evaluation
of emotions in art. Indian aesthetician always approached the issue form a psychological point of view.
The process of aesthetic appreciation, according to Indian aestheticians, comprises three distinct but interrelated stages: The mind of the responsive reader first becomes attuned to the emotional situation portrayed through objective correlatives
(hrdyasamvada); it is then completely absorbed in its delineation (tanmayibhavana)
of the aesthetic emotion; and this absorption finally results in the enjoyment of an aesthetic emotion. In this regard Shubha Tiwari says:
Richards is an aesthetic theorist who tries to solve the problems of art and beauty with the detachment of a scientist. Aesthetics is reckoned as the ‘study
of beauty’. Aesthetics cannot create objects of artistic beauty; it can only
explain the norms of beauty in art-works already created by a poet or an artist.
Richards is a true aesthete because he has real love for the understanding of what is beautiful in literature. It is to be noted that the critical credo of I.A.
Richards has close correspondence with the Rasa theory.5
The importance of comparative aesthetics is self-evident. Tiwari further remarks, “We study foreign literature to enrich our own, to participate more fully in the true life of
the thinking world, and to strengthen the ties of common understanding.”6 India contributed a fully developed philosophy of aesthetics whereas in the West there have been aestheticians but no composite body of philosophy could evolve. There have
been no doubt individual viewpoints regarding aspects of aesthetic consideration. Therefore, we should hold the Indian principles of aesthetics as the standard and apply
them to works of art to assess their aesthetic merit. In the light of above discussion application of aesthetics to Karnad’s work will be dealt. We would also compare and contrast Western and Eastern concept of aesthetics. 118
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As mentioned earlier, to achieve the highest aesthetic experience of literature, one
should see the fundamental aspect of “Rasa” which is based on conditioned responses. But it is something higher in itself. It may be called unconditioned or cultivated response. Ranjana Chanana comments, “The unique taste of delicacy is achieved from coming together of many ingredients each of which has a particular
taste like conditioned responses—sour, salty, sweet (according to analogy with cooking, which combines heat and expertise) but the taste of dish is different and is of higher order rather unconditioned.”7 Dhvani theorists, Anandvardhana and
Abhinavgupta focused on the roles played by vacya (connotative meaning) and
vacaka (denotative meaning) for bharkatva or vyanjakatava (suggestive meaning) for
the highest aesthetic experience in literature. Dhvani finally arises from the analytical procedure of Dhvanyaloka.
K. Krishnamoorthy comments on Dhvani theory that “Dhvani is the quintessence of
poetry, and rasa is the quintessence of dhvani.”8 Thus dhvani is the essence of poetry
and rasa is its soul. Alankara and vakrokti also cannot serve independently. They
account for something higher, something major in poetry. Thus alankar, style, imagery and fable all contribute to ‘rasanubhuti’ (Experience of Literary Flavours).
To Anandvardhana, the real meaning of the words lies in the suggestive form. Thus
‘sanaketitartha’ (universal acceptance of meaning)—concept of rasa in association
with dhvani is the process of creation, recreation and appreciation in achieving
aesthetic experience. There is no rasa outside natya. If there is rasa in kavya, then it
arises only when kavya is dramatized. Ranjana Chanana expresses her opinion in this
context:
Kavye’ pe natyamaneva rasah. The role of different bhavas (emotions) such as vibhavas (universalized stimuli) anubhavas (universalized responses) and
vyabhicaribhavas (universal moods and feelings in the form of sorrow, fear,
disgust, love) in association formulate aesthetic experience but it is syntactic
peculiarities, imagery reference, denotation and connotation in combination with dhvani itself that the vyangyartha (the suggested meaning) is realized by sahrdaya or responsive reader for rasaswadan (for the taste of rasa).9 119
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One has to have an idea of components of Rasa. Everyone cannot experience rasa.
Only such sahrdayas whose emotions are refined can experience it. Refinement, here, refers to the refinement of the mind that instinctively enjoys emotional states. These states are not the ones that can be aroused at any moment. They remain in the mind of the sahrdaya like a germinated seed. The seed remains repressed and
dormant waiting for an opportunity to sprout.
This state is known as vasana
(propensity). The dormant condition of the propensities is an untainted state.
An event or an object or a person will be needed to stimulate the dormant propensity
present in the refined mind. Such a stimulus-an event, or an object or a person – is called vibhava. Just as in contact with water a germinated seed sprouts, even so, the
dormant propensities acquire strength and quality, aroused by vibhavas. The waking
up of the dormant propensity in the untainted mind is called bhava (feeling). The first
reaction or attitude which occupies the mind, based on vibhava, is the bhava. Thus,
vibhava is the cause and bhava is the effect.
Bhava must remain steady and constant till rasa is experienced. Such a steady bhava
is called the sthayibhava. Virtually, this is the finally transformed state. That state
which does not shake or change even when other feelings interrupt or that which can
turn such interrupting ones to advantage is called the sthayibhava (“deep rooted
feelings or permanent state”). The gist is: a state that wakes up in the mind of the
sahrdaya, being properly stimulated, grows to fullness and stays constant till the
attainment of rasa experience is called sthayibhava. These sthayibhavas, due to
constant interaction with the vibhavas, assume the form of strong feelings in the mind
of the sahrdaya, these are what we call emotions.
The stimulated sthayibhavas influence and affect the mind and body of the sahrdaya (who identifies himself with the characters) and subject him to go through various congenial attitudes.
These changing attitudes are experienced immediately, in
succession, and, therefore, are called anubhavas. The anubhavas are of two kinds. In
the first kind, a person voluntarily smiles, or raises his eye-brows, in reaction. These
are simple anubhavas. For this, the mind need not be filled with emotions. The
second kind of anubhavas are spontaneous and involuntary and effect the mind and 120
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the body. These are called sattvikabhavas. The sattvikabhavas cause temporary
palpitation, hair-raising, flow of tears and like reactions. These reactions are revealed when the mind is filled with emotions. The meaning of sattva is “that mental state
which reveals the feelings of the heart”. (Since sattvikabhavas is also anubhava, it is
not counted in the principle of rasa).
Under the influence of the sthayibhava not only these physical reactions take place
but also a series of minor, sympathetic emotions arise and vanish. The series of the
minor sympathetic emotions are called vyabhicaribhavas or sancaribhavas. These
are the nirveda and others. These emotions do not remain static but keep on varying
by rising and falling smoothly. This phenomenon is compared with the waves of the
sea. The vyabhicaribhavas tend to strengthen the sthayibhava and lead it towards rasa. When the vibhava, anubhava, sattvikabhava and vyabhicaribhavas bring the
sthayibhava to a relishable condition, the sahrdaya experiences a clean and self-
luminous bliss. Such bliss is found in a combined state with sthayibhava. The bliss
so enjoyed is called rasa. Rasa is said to be equal to the transcendental bliss. Dr. AppaRao observes:
According to Abhinavagupta’s theory, one has to pass through four stages
before attaining rasa and only in the fifth stage can one finally enjoy the bliss of rasa. The stages are as followings:
(1) An aesthetic object as vibhava, which inspires the heart, opens up the eyes and ears of the recipient. This is at the level of sense.
(2) On account of these perceptions, the recipient begins to imagine and perceive beyond the exterior limits of the vibhava, and also the interiors of
it, at the level of imagination. The visible vibhava on the stage and the
vibhava in descriptive form in poetry aid his imagination.
(3) As a result of the strength of imagination, his outlooks and attitudes change.
The vibhavas, though existing before him, do not any more
intervene, except varying and keeping alive the force of imagination. The inner and the deeper details of the product of imagination stand before his 121
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mind’s eye as reality. It is this image which Worsfold described as the basis of art. “Art is the representation of this reality in its mental aspect,”
said he. That is, the recipient lifts himself from the physical plane and
moves about in a certain imaginary world, a creation of his own mind. In
the same state, due to repeated association of the vibhava, he identifies himself with the vibhava, the primary cause of his present emotional state.
In other words, he experiences the pleasures and pains of the vibhavas, in
this case, the characters or objects or events of description. This state is
the sattva or the level of emotion. A performance or a poetry that helps
the recipient to reach this emotional state should be considered the best.
(4) By way of experiencing the feelings of the characters as his own, the recipient forgets himself. He loses the sense of his own individuality
which could, otherwise, tell the self from the other. Such other-worldly state is called, in its process, sadharanikarana or universalization. Only
on surmounting the seven obstructions like insequency and others, the recipient can achieve the state.
(5) At the time of sadharanikarana the recipient’s external senses, so to say,
cease to function. The mind in sthayi and the self-immersed in bliss, keep
functioning. This ultimate state is the state of rasa or brahmananda, the
transcendental pleasant state.10
In fact, atma, the essential self, is an embodiment of bliss.
But it is normally
enveloped by ignorance or sensual variances. As the cover of ignorance is removed, bliss opens up in its original glow. The cover of ignorance is removed by the constant
admixture and reactions of the vibhavas, anubhavas and vyabhicaribhavas. That is, the heart softens a little, as the first step; it widens a little, as the second step and,
finally grows fully, as the third step, regularly. Then, an inexplicable, miraculous
phenomenon takes place and that is rasa or bliss. Rasa is enjoyed in that state of
emotion which is directly related to that particular sthayi which is produced by the
concerned vibhavas and the rest. The reader of poetry or the viewer of a good
presentation of a good play enjoys rasa as long as the vibhavas and the remaining keep functioning. In this regard Ranjana Chanana says: 122
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In Longinus’ theory of Sublime which transports a reader out of himself. Longinus measures sublime move by its spirit than its form. Sublime always excites, moves, transports and elevates. Aristotle’s theory of catharsis and
sadharnikarana are identical as both the theories advance towards the level of
ecstacy which makes the reader forget everything and reach the state of objectivity it enables her/him to experience aesthetic joy.11 Dr. P.S.R. AppaRao opines: It would not be an overstatement to say that an exhaustive, standard theory
applicable to all literature, equivalent to the Indian theory of rasa, was not
available to the western world in the past. Yet, Aristotle evolved the theory equivalent to the theory of rasa in defining tragic drama.12
He further quotes Aristotle’s Poetics, “A tragedy is the imitation of an action…with
incidents arousing pity and fear wherewith to accomplish the catharsis of such emotions.”13
Plato, the teacher of Aristotle, in his ‘Republic’, presented his opinion that the purpose
of all arts is probably to give vent to suppressed emotions in a man. But Aristotle countered the opinion saying that arts do not hinder human nature. By supplying in a certain measure the emotions of pity and fear, externally, (which are in the nature of
man) art can throw out such emotions and bring relief. Thus arts do only good to humanity.
Concerning the above description, in ‘Poetics’, another work of Aristotle, he used the
term ‘catharsis’, but did not describe it anywhere in that work. As Simon Shepherd
and Mick Wallis observes, “The interests in catharsis that came from dramatic theory
was boosted and disseminated more widely with developments in the exploration of
human psychology. In the mid-nineteenth century German scholars assumed that the cathartic process was the expulsion of pathological emotion, something which has its own psychic history beyond the response to dramatic text.”14
As a religious connotation, the Greek word catharsis was taken for purification. Similarly, in a therapeutic sense, the same word meant purgation or cleansing. 123
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Interestingly, in homeopathic system of medicine, there is a prevalent principle, ‘Like cures like’. Even similar is the view in Greek medical science. Under this principle, a
substance having the potential of causing a certain disease is administered in a
specific manner and quantity as a medicine to cure the same disease. In catharsis the same principle is understood to be operative. Man suppressed by pity and fear in life
achieves a certain amount of peace by witnessing the same pity and fear in the form of tragic drama. The process in which the dramatic representation of pity and fear affect the real ones in reality is called catharsis.
Thus, by seeing pity and fear through the dramatic art of tragedy, there is a possibility of attaining bliss in the end. In witnessing such performance, the onlooker is forced to
be objective to his own innate emotions which, consequently, produce an intellectual
understanding of his own situation. Thus, peace shall prevail. Tragedy which quells the emotions of pity and fear does not cause pain. On the contrary, it causes pleasure.
Like a tragic play, even any other art form can help objectivize human experience,
especially of negative nature, and provide relief. This is the basic difference between the experience in real life and reality represented through art.
Some modern critics opine that any one of the two emotions of pity and fear could do
the purpose. Some others think that pity alone would suffice. But these opinions do
not seem to be in total agreement with Aristotle’s explanation, for he laid stress particularly on the two emotions, together pervading tragedy. Dr. AppaRao interrogates:
But a question of apparent relevance might arise, here. Is the process of
catharsis not needed for the purgation of other emotions? Why did Aristotle
mention, exclusively, the emotions of pity and fear alone? The answer could
probably be: since Aristotle wished to deal with tragedy alone wherein the
prominent emotions are of pity and fear he cared for two emotions only. Man’s soul is made of an element of divinity. In that case, man’s life should at all times remain happy. Yet, it is these two emotions that contaminate human
life. Relief from these emotions is, therefore, necessary in order to make human life happy. And this is the first step towards spiritual upliftment. In the
world of art, witnessing a tragic play hastens the process of attainment of 124
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spiritual elevation. Thus, dramatic art always help human endeavours for betterment.15
In the worldly life, the objectivised emotions like pity and fear are not impediments. In fact, no emotion other than pity and fear is as corruptive to the inner self of man. Purgation of these two emotions alone is the purpose of tragedy.
Character is the very soul of drama as it is the character through whom the dramatist can bring out different issues into focus. It involves care and ability on the part of
dramatist to create and depict a character so that it is perceived well by the readers and viewers.
In Aristotle’s Poetics as well as Bharata’s Natyasastra, characterization is discussed
in detail. Aristotle lays down four qualities that are essential for the characters of a tragedy. Bharata had devoted the whole chapter XXXIV to the explanation of the various types of characters and their qualities.
Aristotle says that ‘drama is an imitation of action’, but Bharata, never regards drama as a crude imitation. Aristotle interpreted that by ‘men in action’ means thing
happening in terms of human nature, events that are embodied in human lives, but Bharata has explained his views regarding drama ‘that a drama gives an account of acts and ideas.’ Imagination according to Bharata, is essential to drama.
The Indian concept of drama has rather been serious as compared to the Western
concept. As Shubha Tiwari says, “The Western dramatist aims at the presentation of a character manifesting itself in action. On the other hand, Indian dramatist aims at the
presentation of a basic mental state at a place where it is relishable. Thus in the presentation of drama, action occupies a central place in the Western concept. In the
Indian concept, the mental state is of prime concern.”16 Commenting on cross-cultural
perspectives in theatre studies, Christopher B. Blame observes:
Studies of acting are by no means a Western invention. The Indian and Japanese cultures have produced substantial treatises on acting as well as other aspects of theatre production. The Natyashastra, compiled between 200 BC
and 200 AD by Bharata Muni, is an important compendium on practice and 125
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aesthetics of Indian Sanskrit theatre combining drama, dance and music. The text has often been compared to Aristotle’s Poetics because it distinguishes
between the emotions produced by the text and actors (bhava) and the feelings
they elicit in the spectators (rasa).17
Rasa Pratiti (the experience of Rasa) in Karnad’s plays brings to the fore rasa as an integral design of Karnad’s theatre.
Some unique moments of kama-shringara erupt in Karnad’s Yayati, when King
Yayati’s confesses his secret passion for Sharmishtha. The curse of Shukracharya on
Yayati brings about a compound of feelings, raudra (terror), of his fate and raudra
(anger) of those who do not want to share his curse. Pooru’s ascetic equanimity
(santa) in sharp contrast with Yayati’s hysterical lament (raudra) draw obliquely in terms of dhvani the two distinct states: sattvik and rajasik respectively. As Vanashree
Tripathi observes, “The rasa experience that the partaker gains are based on the
Indian concept of art imitating states of mind. Pooru’s exchange of his youth with his father’s old age generates the awe of the spectators in the heroic valour and sacrifice of danavir and dayavir (compassionate and benevolent) hero. The suicide of
Chitralekha brings the play down to a climax in deep karuna (pathos) and the ending
of the drama in Yayati’s moments of reckoning establish calm of mind, all passion
spent. The accumulated mass of varied emotions surrender to shanta (repose).”18
Discussing rasanispatti (arousal of rasa) in Karnad’s Yayati, O.P. Budholia observes:
The emotions of desire and aversion produce the sorrow and rage. It is desire which is symbolic of awakening the latent bhavas. If the intensity of desire
remains unfulfilled because of the fault of realization of original emotion
(Rasa dosa), the emergence of krodha (anger) arises; and from anger comes the emotion of aversion with its aesthetic sthayin (jugupsa) disgust for the cherished object. As a matter of fact, the seed of all action lies in desire which
finally ends into the sentiments of attachment; and the excessive of attachment
begets in men / women the sense of delusion which causes to continue in him the cause of ignorance.
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Attachment is the desire to appropriate an object that afforded pleasure in the past. Aversion is the desire to avoid an object that caused pain on a previous
occasion. Delusion is the false knowledge (mithyajnana) of the body, the
sense organs and the like as the self which is distinct from them. Attachment and aversion are due to delusion. In the first scene of the play one sees King
Yayati with his carnal desire – desire that never meets its end. But the gradual growth of the plot structure provides an indication to the growth of emotion of
aversion. The desire as the latent emotion converts into jugupsa and finally it
becomes the central motif of the structure of the play. Desire if unfulfilled creates the emotion of anger (krodha) which makes one lose good sense or
lack of judgement.
Indian culture reveals the characteristics of woman and in Indian tradition woman is demanding and her demand should be fulfilled. Depressed as she is,
picks the vial of poison and puts it in her mouth. Dying she puts the question
before Yayati and she needs the answer of it: “What else is there for me to do? You have your youth. Prince Pooru has his old age. Where do I fit in” (Yayati,
66). Chitralekha as the wife of Pooru ignores the old age of Pooru and expand the contours of the myth when she demands her share from Yayati. Yayati
regards her “foolish” but before her death, she reverts the linguistic metaphor
of foolishness to Yayati himself, and this reversion of the epithet is symbolic of cultural dialectics with reference to Indian social system: “There you are;
You say I shouldn’t be foolish but you can’t even bring yourself to stop me”
(Yayati, 66). In response to Chitralekha, Yayati answers in the dotted lines and with the mark of exclamation and his answer becomes a wonderful example of
bibhatsarasa (the emotion of disgust) which also evinces the leitmotif of the myth of Yayati: “No, no! It is not that. Wait………..Listen” (Yayati, 67).
Thus, on the level of aesthetic experience, the Yayati myth arouses the dominant emotion of jugupsa (disgust) which becomes generative for
awakening the plurality of guilt and punishment. As a divided self between
Devayani (the desire for sanjivini vidya) and Sharmishtha (the fulfilment of
the carnal desire) Yayati represents the toxigenic effects on others. It is not for 127
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the sake of Devayani’s beauty, he marries her; but he marries her just for acquiring the knowledge of sanjivini vidya.19
The historical play, Tughlaq, a tragedy of attrition is drenched in gore and blood. A muffled tragedy that precludes the possibility of catharsis in overriding histrionics of
cruelty on the stage evokes in collective consciousness of the spectator the sensation
of bhayanak and vibhatsa (fear and disgust). Commenting on the motif of prayer in Tughlaq, O.P. Budholia says, “The universalization of the motifs of prayer is worked
out with the depersonalization of emotion or the realization of Santa rasa.”20
Budholia further observes that, “Tughlaq does not find the solution of his ever
burning problems of conflicting conditions, in sanity but finds their solution in his madness….the emotion of Sultan expresses pathos which is sthayin of Karuna rasa.”21
In Hayavadana, Kapila’s attraction and growing passion for Padmini, his friend Devadatta’s wife makes the love triangle resonate with sringara: sentiments of love, lust and pathos. Padmini invested with the attributes of a sexually desirable woman is
drawn the way Vatsyayana in Kamasutra portrays womanhood. Devadatta’s pinning
like that of an inveterate lover has its prototype in Kalidasa’s protagonists. Each moment of separation makes him grow desperate: “I can’t help wanting her—I can’t
help it. I swear, Kapila, with you as my witness, I swear, if I ever get her as my wife, I’ll sacrifice my two arms to the goddess Kali, I’ll sacrifice my head to Rudra” (Three
Plays, 85). Vanashree Tripathi in her indepth analysis of rasapratiti in Hayavadana expresses her opinion in these words:
Devadatta in his imagination sees Padmini spiritually and physically united
with Kapila and senses his own painful exclusion. In a rare conflation of
adbhuta (wonder), pathetic (karuna) and anger (raudra), Devadatta’s
psychological ambivalence and anguish is made to impact the audience. On the other hand, the silent feminine gaze of Padmini redolent with desire for Kapila’s masculine, energetic, youthful beauty creates a spectacle of Sringara.
The focus on Hayavadana on the idealistic male bonding/friendship
threatened by the desire of the men for the same woman is aesthetically 128
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manifested in their interpersonal relations. The vicissitudes of this relation
allow the emotions to range from shringara (erotic/love) and vira (valour) to
karuna (pathos). Padmini-Devadatta-Kapila situation finds solution in the violent clash between Devadatta and Kapila, enacted in fast paced Kathakali dance rhythm leading to Devadutta’s death and Kapila’s suicide, and finally to
Padmini’s decision to enter into fire. The irresolvable predicament of
Devadatta and Padmini and Kapila could only be dissolved by death/sacrifice of three characters. The juxtaposition of hasya and karuna in the end as Padmini prepares for her fire sacrifice reminds one of Brechtian design—a
carnivalesque mixture of farcical and serious and remotely recall the ending of Sudraka’s Mirchhakatikam (The Little Playcart). The play ends on the note of
hasya—Hayavadana,
the
horse
head
character
laughs/neighs,
gains
completeness and the mute child of Padmini also attains speech. A state of tranquillity purged of all vehement emotions marks the ending.22
Naga-Mandala suffused with karuna (pity), and adbhuta (wonder) conflates with the
moments of sringara (erotic). The supernatural in such ambivalent emotions is
naturalized. As O.P. Budholia observes:
The image and metaphor used in the text such as “tender bud” and the metaphor of “rotten husband” in relation to the temperament of Rani bring
forth some socio-psychological issues in the next scene of the play. The union
of Rani with an oppositional being awakens in her the latent sentiment of rati (erotic sense) which becomes hedonistic outfit in her behaviour. The arousal
of the sentiments of union and separation in Rani symbolizes the strong desire for eroticism. Even the text of Natyadarpana brings the fact in to force that
human being experiences the sense of rasa in both the sentiments of sorrow
and pleasure. According to Natyadarpana, the five rasas, Sringara, Hasya,
Vira, Adhbhut, Santa are pleasurable due to the desirable Vibhavas etc., while
Karuna, Rudra, Bibhatsa and Bhayanak are non-pleasurable due to undesirable Vibhavas etc. The dramatic art derived from the essentials of
folklore and the orality of literature, does not exhibit its monologic nature of
emotions, but reveals the interiorized emotions that lie dormant inside human 129
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psyche. Abhinavagupta regards the experience of rasa as the dominance of
pleasure (Sukhapradhana) and with this theory, the experience and the
realization of all rasas become camatkara (the state of inner fullness of the
being). The art of drama thus represents the earthly desires and the needs of
daily life and at the same time the higher norms of human life. Therefore, the
essence of rasa apart from the oneness of a yogin (raso-vaisah), gives to our
experience the pleasures of the world, too, (Samsaranand or the
transpersonalization of emotions) and tanmayibhava (oneness with the desired
object).23
This section will demonstrate how “Rasa Theory” can be applied to a reading of
Girish Karnad’s Tale-Danda, which describes the evil effects of the Indian Caste System. This demarcation of human beings into four “varnas” depending upon the job
they did led to the caste system. And gradually the caste system embedded itself into the Indian Psyche. The human being was personified by the job he did, he was a
tanner, a cobbler, a fighter, a teacher or a trader. “One’s caste is like the skin on one’s
body. You can peel it off top to toe, but when the new skin forms, there you are again a barber – a shepherd - a scavenger!” (Collected Plays, Volume Two, CPV 21). People of the lower caste, the shudras suffered the maximum. There is a strong feeling of “karuna” for King Bijjala in the play, when he tells his queen that, his majesty King
Bijjala is a barber by caste. “For ten generations my forefathers ravaged the land as robber barons. For another five they ruled as the trusted feudatories of the Emperor himself. They married into every royal family in sight. Bribed generations of Brahmins with millions of cows. All this so, they could have the caste of Kshatriyas branded on their foreheads” (CPV 21). And yet one learns that everyone in the
kingdom knew that King Bijjala was not a Kshatriya, the warrior class but a barber,
the lowly class. The only people, who had tried to do away with the caste-system during King Bijjala’s time in twelfth century Karnataka, were the “sharanas, a group of poets, mystics, social revolutionaries and philosophers” (CPV 21).
Their leader was Basavanna, a shivaite and a poet saint. He tried and wanted to
eradicate the caste structure and to do away with the varna system. Apart from the four varnas, in today’s India, the caste system also includes the Hindu, Muslim, Sikh 130
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and Christian divide. And there has been a lot of bloodshed in the name of religion.
Today we face social tension and fear, or the bhayanaka rasa, because of the caste system. Basvanna in Tale-Danda pleads to his people to stop bloodshed in the name
of religion and caste. “To resort to it because someone else started it first is even worse. And to do so in the name of a structure of brick and mortar is a monument to stupidity” (CPV 36). Basvanna’s words echo the pain, every right thinking Indian feels when one witnesses fanaticisms and unreasonableness in the name of caste and religion. The two issues caste and religion are so close that they are nearly
synonymous. Basvanna writes a very beautiful poem on the futility of fighting over
the issue of construction of a temple. The beauty of the play Tale-Danda reveals its
contemporariness, “Basvanna: The rich / will make temple for Shiva. / What shall I, /
a poor man, / do? / My legs are pillars, / the body the shrine, / the head a cupola, / of gold. / Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers, /things standing shall fall, / but the moving shall ever stay!” (CPV 36).
But when the “sharanas” actually take it on themselves to break the caste system, and
a shudra, a cobbler, decides to marry a Brahmin, hell lets loose. Basvanna’s, initial
reaction of, Hasya or joy to see the practical fruition of his philosophy is clouded by
the fear, Bhayanaka rasa at the consequences of such a marriage. He is worried about
the young couple, their safety. Basvanna tells his followers that, “we are not ready for
the kind of revolution this wedding is. We haven’t worked long enough or hard enough!” (CPV 51). One sharana asks him that how “many generations have to roll by
before a cobbler marries a Brahmin!” (CPV 51). The attempt of the two families
involved in finalizing this inter-caste marriage evokes the Vira rasa. It indeed was an
act of bravery in the twelfth century India. The marriage does take place but the young couple’s parents, have to pay with their life. The groom’s father and the bride’s father are arrested by the King’s soldiers and brought to the city square. There their
eyes are plucked out and they are dragged through the streets tied to elephant’s legs.
“Torn limbs along the lanes, torn entrails, flesh, bones they died screaming!” (CPV
90). The sight fills one with Bibhatsa, Karuna and Bhayanaka rasas. There is the fear
of death for all those who indulge in inter-caste marriages. Their leap forward, towards the abolishment of the caste-system by Haralayya and Madhuvarasa, the 131
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grooms and bride’s father respectively calls for Vira rasa. They are made to sacrifice their lives but their effort would not go in vain. The young couple, the Brahmin girl
and the shudra boy are taken to safety, symbolizing the birth of a casteless society.
The city of Kalyan, where Basavanna brought this revolution is full of corpses and firings, killings and gloom but the society has taken a plunge forward. Basvanna rightly hints that change is a Universal law and every society should renew itself by
doing away with the redundant customs. The play Tale-Danda is rife with the rasas of fear, compassion, pain and disgust at the caste system i.e. Karuna, and Bhayanaka
and Bibhatsa. As Vanashree Tripathi opines:
In Tale-Danda, a surfeit of terrible passion and fearful spectacle of human
bestiality forcefully disturb us with vibhatsa (disgust) and bhayanaka (fearful).
Jagdeva’s inner restlessness and Rajsic desire sharply contrasts with the sthai bhav of gunatita, Basavanna, who is equidistant from sukha and dukha. A
tatvadarshi—a seeker after truth—his Shanta bhav (quiescent mood) is the
result of satvik svabhava, the enlightened state and therefore his soka (piteous suffering) as a mute helpless onlooker to whom the perverse tragedy is reported rouses our karuna (pity) as well as fear.24
The Fire and The Rain presents the myth of Mahabharat symbolically and
psychologically. Karnad has already proved his dramatic excellence while dealing with myth and symbols. Karnad like a learned expert emphasizes the role of
unconscious process of human behaviour. Lacan—the post-structural critic finds a close connection between the text and the language used by the individual. Lacan’s
criticism throws light on the unconscious mind of a human being. Words are not limited to what is said, they express more than the words themselves.
According to Ranjana Chanana, “The split of emotions and the ambivalence bring the
negative chain of human ideas creating tension in the inner regions of Vishakha’s psyche. The complexities arising out of the process of repression and depression due to isolation and alienation fills Vishakha with dainya bhava—depressive mood.”25
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After Raibhya is convinced that Yavakri has cornered Vishakha to dishonour his
family, Raibhya’s anger—the emotion of krodh overpowers him and his Krodh bursts
like volcano:
Raibhya: You whore—you roving whore! I could reduce you to ashes—turn you into a fistful of dust—with a simple curse. But let that husband of yours
handle you. Paravasu, Chief Priest of the sacrifice! Let him clean up his own
shit! Yavakri—so this is what ten years of austerities amount to! So be it. So
Yavakri, now it’s between you and me. Where is that pot of water? Bring it here. (The Fire and the Rain, 20)
Raibhya invokes “Kritya” Bramha Rakshasa to challenge the spiritual powers of Yavakri. His passion represents Roudra Rasa. Jugupsa (disgust) is felt by Raibhya for his daughter-in-law, Vishakha.
Vyabhicaribhavas (universalized moods and feelings) are psychological in the sense that they are transformed through the sensory process. They are also helpful in intensifying the dominant emotions (sthayi-bhavas). The sthayibhava (permanent emotion) results into realization of rasa. For arousing the latent emotion of aesthetic
experience, Karnad has also worked out the theory of dream to display the unconscious mental forces. The metaphor of human psyche is symbolized through
dream which universalizes the theory of emotions—the process of sadharnikaran. The theory
of
emotion of
Indian aesthetics (vibhavas,
anubhavas, and
sancharibhavas) in showing the love of Nittilai and Arvasu is so skilfully worked out
as it exhibits the universal validity of human emotions. Ranjana Chanana further observes:
The Fire and The Rain displays complicated human relationships symbolically. It
abounds in its hard texture of the riches of psychology. It depicts the jealousy of
man against man, father against son, brother against brother, wife against husband, high caste against low caste human beings. Jealousy crosses the boundary of this earth, sometimes the heart and brain. In this play we discover
man against god, freedom against bondage, rituals against sacrifices, hate
against love, attraction against repulsion, illusion against reality, passion 133
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against the fact, knowledge against the ignorance, falsehood against truth, arrogance against generosity, and vijay against parajaya.
In the development of these opposite elements, many kinds of rasa are
experienced by the responsive reader—Sringar Rasa, Bibhatsa Rasa, Veer Rasa, Raudra Rasa. Rasa is the final goal of any art expression according to Indian aesthetics. The Fire and The Rain is the dynamic combination of
various art forms—music, dance, party etc.—the final vehicle of all rasas.26
Abhinaya (acting) is meant for carrying the emotions of actors towards the audience
and thus abhinaya stirs the internal mechanism of the audience by arousing emotions
in them. The deeper sensitibility or the internal threads of varied bhavas (emotions) work out the theoretic norms of purusarthas (dharma, artha, kama and moksha). The
ritual of sacrifice (Yajna) according to the Vedas is meant for motion and dynamism
of cosmic plan and the art of Natya has also been derived from the Vedas for realizing
the highest norms of life through arousing rasa—“Rasovaisah” (Rasa is God). The
Vedas provide the self-existent and self-referential wisdom and so does the art of
Natya. Natya thus becomes an image of three world. The soul of drama in Indian
Poetics does not lie in conflict alone but in creation of rasa.
M. Christopher Byrski observes, in the art of Natya, “We have music, dance, singing
and recitation mentioned. From those Natya was fashioned and rasa came as a
fulfilment resulting from it. Rasa does not occur without acting and acting is automatically followed by Rasa.”27
In context of The Fire and The Rain, O.P. Budholia elaborates on rasapratiti in Karnad’s play in following words:
Anandavardhan works on the grammaticality of sentence and its relation with
different words used inside it. He is meant to ascertaining the fact that particular words alone are suited for particular rasa. Thus, the inmost essence
of poetry or dramatic presence lies exclusively in the realization of rasa; and
this is done only by the concept of dhvani. Beginning from the bounds of
cultural consciousness, dhvani moves to a level wherein the higher 134
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consciousness or super consciousness or subda-Brahaman lies. In the play The Fire and The Rain, the instance of Vishakha becomes a wonderful example for the realization of rasadhvani theory. Vishakha with her lasciviousness beyond the moral frontiers of wifehood, tells Yavakri suggestively about the need for
physical union between man and woman. Both Vishakha and her husband Paravasu give up the dharma of domestic life and the duties of an ideal family.
Both husband and wife are engaged in their respective identities. Vishakha confesses the mystical experience that emanates by the association between husband and wife:
He used my body, and his own body, like an experimenter, an explorer. An instrument in a search. Search for what? I never knew. But I know he knew. Nothing was so shameful, too degrading, even too painful.
Shame died in me. And I yielded…I had a sense he was leading me to
something. Mystical? Spiritual? We never talked. Only the sense pervaded the air. (The Fire and the Rain, 16)
The linguistic essence of Vishakha’s words leads to the confession of rati, a sthayibhava of Sringar rasa; it also creates some suggestions that linger in the
mind of shrdaya (a responsive reader). The erotic sense dies after sometime; but
the anugunj (resonance) of the words persists. The confessional mode and the inner pangs of young lady becomes symbolic of the process of sadharnikarana or
the process of transpersonalisation of human emotions. Vishakha becomes symbolic and suggestive of a typical mental state of human being. Again the fire
becomes suggestive of passions. Raibhya, the father of Paravasu, in fit of his
anger (krodha) creates kritya (demon) that kills Yavakri and finally Paravasu kills his own father. Raibhya thus becomes an example for realization of Raudra rasa
with its sthayin, krodha (wrath). He breaks all barriers of good conduct and calls his daughter-in-law, Vishakha, “a roving whore.” Over-ridden with passions, he moves from light to complete darkness.28
“The spectator could sense a network of convoluted roots reaching down to the deeper
terrors and desires taking hold of the psyche of the characters. The rasas produced 135
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from the dark drama of The Fire and The Rain, bring us face to face with emotions
deeper and more obscure—involving us in the experience of jouissance”29 observes
Vanashree Tripathi.
The success of Karnad’s Flowers was the result of too many factors at work,
prominent among them is the rasanubhava. The rasa experience commences when
Karnad describes isolation and seclusion of the priest in the initial part of the monologue:
This temple, this tank, these rough, grey boulders towering over them, the
flowering shrubs and trees, the birds that come and go through the seasonsthey are my world, a private universe from which I have never for a moment
wanted to step out. (CPV 243)
The nameless Shaivite priest had spent all his life in the isolated temple and has
“discouraged all friendly attentions from the world outside” (CPV 243) spending his
time with the linga. The linga is his soul mate and he held all talks and discussions
with it. The linga is “essentially a phallic stump” (CPV 244) and the priest loved to decorate it with flowers, devising new ways always. His wife grumbled, “The linga is my step-wife” (CPV 244). His devotion to the lingam had fetched for him name, fame
and honour. The Chieftain appreciated and admired his “floral efforts” (CPV 244).
The attachment of the priest with the lingam is due to bhakti—his selfless devotion to it. The atmosphere of bhakti and pooja is evoked by the use of “jawsticks
and camphor and the placement of wicks in different silver plates for aarati,” “a deep
in the tank,” “wet dhoti,” “basket of flowers,” (CPV 244) etc. The description of all the objects used in pooja and the temple setting (uddipana vibhava) enhanced and
enriched his bhakti. Flowers of various hues, shapes, and fragrance like “malligai, sevanti, chendu, hoovu, sampigai, and kanakambara” (CPV 244) were the means of
manifestation of his bhakti. Bhakti is described as devotion, loyalty, faithfulness; engagement, commitment; dedication; reverence, service, and homage. It signifies the condition of the whole being of a Bhakta whose mind and body are totally absorbed in
the object of his worship and remain continually directed or oriented towards it; the object of such worship can be an anthropomorphic deity, a symbol, a name, an image, 136
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a concept, an abstraction, or the non-discursive or inconceivable whole being itself.
Bhakti Rasa would literally mean ‘the juice of Bhakti’ or ‘(the uninterrupted flow of) the feeling of devotion’. Worshipping God as a devotee, focused on a specific image
and a ‘name’, began with saint Jnanadev and his contemporaries; poetry and music, singing songs and chanting, were believed to produce a distinct bhakti rasa or ‘flow
of feeling’, of oneness with God; this is the rasa or ‘state of being in a continuous flow.’ The Chieftain always appreciated the priest's bhakti and efforts. He took a single flower as god's prasada daily and left.
Various vibhavas and anubhavas have been used effectively in this play to create an
atmosphere of bhakti. The cracked coconut halves with petals and sandal paste within
it were given as Prasad to the milling devotees. The priest's devotion for the lingam was beyond question and “People shake their heads in admiration at my passion for
the Lord and physical stamina” (CPV 245). While distributing the prasada, he became
aware of Ranganayaki and her physical beauty. The presence of the courtesan in the temple is vibhava and her bending, her glances, and other movements are anubhava suggestive of the shringaar rasa. It was this joy Rati that is felt by the
priest in the company of Ranganayaki. The priest confessed, “Ranganayaki is a courtesan, the only breach in the invisible defences I have built around my private
domain” (CPV 245). This awareness built up a tension in the inner and outer world of the priest. His objective, artistic pooja of the lingam, very aesthetically performed in a
detached manner, gave way to practicing the same art on the courtesan. Without realization, the detachment changed into attachment. Ranganayaki’s tucking of the shevanti flower in the priest's sacred thread was the violation of the socially approved
moral conduct of a priest. The priest tried to control his erring mind and emotions
with something akin to a chant, “She is a courtesan I kept saying to myself, she is a
courtesan ....” (CPV 245). The bending of the courtesan, her “holding the pallu of her sari spread out in front of her,” (CPV 245), “their catching of each other's eyes,”
“staring at her average height,” “her bright teeth set off by her dusky skin,” “her brilliant eyes which she quickly averted,” “the straight nose, her thick petal like lips,” (CPV 246) and her captivating smile, all produced the desired effect and culminated
into a relationship without any social sanction. Both were aware of their limitations. 137
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“I can't step into the inner sanctum,” said Ranganayaki, “And you cannot be seen in
my company in public” (CPV 247). The overstepping was a conscious action on part of the priest. The courtesan's loose and tumbled hair, her clutching of the saree close
to her body, her pushing back of her lush black hair from the forehead, and her
elaborate make-up had the most wanted result and the poor, repressed priest was
mesmerized and captivated. Many things used in the pooja like the sandal paste, turmeric, the flame of the oil lamp, and most important of all flowers, assumed
a newer never experienced before connotation. The malligai buds, shevanti, white
parijatak with its orange stems, hibiscus, and the curling flame of the forest were put to a different use for the first time. Flowers as symbols of bhakti and a symbol of worship turned into tokens of eroticism. The sensuousness of flowers merged with the
sensuousness of the lady. Yet all the while, even in her company, the thoughts of the linga and his betrayal kept passing through his mind and he was ashamed of himself:
But I was distressed by the pain I was causing my wife. I loved her. I knew I
had made her a target of vicious gossip. I sensed her anger, her humiliation and felt ashamed of myself. (CPV 251)
The priest was unable to control his instincts and “Each day I coaxed the flowers to
say something special to God and then, something entirely different to Ranga” (CPV 251). Ranganayaki too was aware of his preoccupation and confronted by asking,
“Why don't you just stay back, trying things on that stone linga?” (CPV 252). The elaborate ritual of the worship of the lingam and its decoration with flowers in an
elaborate aesthetic pattern were external objects in the eyes of the readers, but it’s true, ultimate inner meaning was understood in the act of adornment of the courtesan's
body with the same spirit and zeal. When the Chieftain, failed to arrive at the stipulated time, he had to do something:
So I went to the inner sanctorum and started to tie the garlands on the linga. I
felt better. It brought back the warm security of being in the company of an old friend. (CPV 252)
In the absence of the Chieftain, he performed the pooja perfunctorily and consoled himself with the fact that “the linga was Shiva and he was used to austerities” (CPV 138
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253). After the pooja, the tucking of the flower in hair, the look in his wife's eyes, the brazen desire in her eyes conveyed a different message to him. In his perplexed state of mind, he picked up a garland. Love and flowers possessed an intricate association
in his mind. Yet the magical moment between the husband and wife was lost as the wife had another loathsome association of flowers in her mind. She seemed to freeze.
The unperturbed priest went out and in the house of the courtesan (uddipana vibhava)
practiced the ritual of decking up the body. This moment of intense love, Rati, was spoiled by the sound of the cannon. At the temple, the wife was not ready for the worship and inquired about the flowers:
As I hurriedly opened the bundle and started decorating the linga, there was a sharp intake of breath. I felt buffeted by the revulsion I could sense welling up
inside her. We had already performed a pooja with these flowers. They were now the leavings, polluted discards. What further use they had been put to in
Ranganayaki's house she didn't need to try hard to imagine. To place them on the linga again was desecration. (CPV 256)
Karnad has made skilful use of the Vibhatsa rasa here. The pooja was performed. The Chieftain's comment resulted in a chill in the sanctum. The chieftain's dramatically
stretched out right hand, other stiff fingers, the dangling marigold in the air, his looks, his cold anger, conveyed volumes without words. The Chieftain respectfully put the
flower back into the plate and granted time to the priest to prove his point. The bhaya aroused by this incident and the challenge to prove his devotion to the God, impelled him to impose seclusion upon himself and to offer prayers. The priest prayed to the linga to save his face. He struggled constantly and detached himself to reach the Almighty. His complete surrender wrought in a miracle and on the new moon day, the
linga had sprouted jet black hair. The Cheiftain's faltering response, the Brahmins twisting and tugging at the hair, the tuft in his hand, the blood stained roots of hair,
and his stained fingers, the bleeding lingam evoke the adbhuta rasa. (Adbhuta is the
bhava, which anything marvellous evokes.) The sudden change in the situation had flummoxed the priest. The Chieftain begged for forgiveness and the crowd put the priest on the pedestal. His wife took charge of him and took him home. Drained he
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went off to sleep. On waking up, the wife informed him that the courtesan had left the town. The priest thought,
The courtesan was gone and had been replaced by Lord Shiva. I was among the chosen of the Lord and she could not possibly think of herself as a wife
now, only as a slave and guardian, all shades of the marital bond expunged in
favour of her devotion to me, her good fortune in having me for her husband.
(CPV 259)
The krodha of the Chieftain and the mockery of the Brahmin were transformed into reverence. The priest said, “I am the state saint now, to be prized, protected and
shown off to visiting envoys” (CPV 259). But the priest's mind is restive and he had a quarrel to pick with God. He knew he was “guilty of gross dereliction, of sacrilege”
(CPV 260). He failed to understand the logic of God. He wanted “courage to live in disgrace” (CPV 259) and yet God had cast His vote in the priest's favour. He felt,
Such Grace is condescension even if comes from God. Why am I worthy of this burden He has placed on my shoulders? I refuse to bear it. God must understand I simply cannot live on His terms. (CPV 260)
The realization of his mistake and God's unconditional forgiveness gave him the
courage and peace of mind to decide his course of action which results in the Shanta Rasa. The inner conflict was resolved, the cause of the outer conflict had ceased to
exist and he, thus, had reached a state of Madhura bhakti. In this stage, there is communion between the worshipped and worshipper. He committed suicide to “seek
in the narrow confines of that hollow the answers that God has denied him” (CPV 260).
Thus, in Girish Karnad's Flowers, there is a combination of rasas like Karuna (pathos, compassion), and its related bhavas, shoka and santapa—grief and remorse.
Helplessness, fear, despair, defeat, disgrace, and humiliation are incidental to, raudra, bhayanaka, and triumph. Freud considered sex to be the most decisive factor in his analysis of human beings. The ancient theory of Rasa (like the modern sciences)
found love, sex, eroticism as significant for life, as the sweetest bhava and perceived it as the foremost of all emotions. Yet shringara which is sacred, pure, placid and 140
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worthy for eye; in the Indian aesthetic tradition presumes a framework of values where the expression and communication of love must be based on a certain degree of
social acceptability. If it violates such norms, it is taken as a case of rasa-bhasa rather than rasa and this is the vyanjana Karnad has harped upon in the play.
A play being a performing art, while watching it, the spectators forget their self. In the dramatic monologue Flowers the objective worship of the lingam led to the ultimate aesthetic experience in the play and is thus, an integral part of it. A fear of being seen
by the elders in the family led to the bhakti for the lingam which, in turn, led him through flowers to another passion. This led to his downfall, a sense of repentance,
and self pity. A study of the vyanjana-vyapara of Flowers—‘a process of suggestion’
shows that the lingam, flowers, sandal, wet dhoti, etc. act as vibhavas, and the priest's
staring at the mole is anubhava. Thus, vibhavas and anubhavas are synthesized by the reader in his mind. These, in turn, give rise to akhanda-carvana (integral aesthetic experience) or rasa.
Girish Karnad deploys a unique dramatic technique in The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, perhaps keeping in mind the requirements of a radio play, since that was how the play
was initially conceived. While one aspect of the mind strives to grasp the dream
emerging from the depths of the unconscious and struggles to concretize it for explicit analysis, another aspect grapples with the deliberate action of the external realm; and
yet another attempts to ratiocinate over the two. The play is thus a rare blend of
dreams, thought processes and action. Indeed, it seems to constitute a mode of narration that Abrams had found the ‘stream of consciousness’ style to exhibit in its ability to “capture the full spectrum and flow of a character’s mental processes, in
which sense perception mingles with conscious and half-conscious thoughts, memories, feelings, and random associations”30
Karnad’s choice of the historical figure of Tipu Sultan, the “Tiger of Mysore” as his
subject for a play for BBC to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Indian Independence, is not without a touch of irony. Tipu fought till his death to prevent British takeover of the southern states and would not have lost had he not been betrayed by his own people. Karnad writes in the Preface to the text, “I immediately 141
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thought of Tipu Sultan, one of the most politically perceptive and tragic figures in Modern Indian History.”31 Tipu was politically perceptive because he was a visionary
who dreamt of a strong and united Mysore state and “his dream of a republic came through about one hundred and fifty years later when India ushered itself into a new
era of 26 January 1950”32 remarks Ali B. Shiek. The treachery and deceit of his own
nobles which led to the fall of Seringapattam Fort and Tipu’s subsequent death
certainly add to the element of tragedy that surrounds the legend of Tipu Sultan. As O.P. Budholia elaborates:
The chief purpose of dramatic art is to associate the rhetorics of literature with bare skeleton of history. The rhetorics and the aesthetics applied to the bare
facts of history transpersonalize the values of emotions. The contents of Tipu’s letter especially the text of his dreams exhibit the resources for the aesthetic experience, for the dreams represent the interiority of Tipu’s mind.
Apart from the historical facts, Girish Karnad makes an application of the
sense of historicity that appears in the text as the aesthetics of dramatic art. To deal with the bare facts of history is nothing but to prepare skeleton of events
and happenings. When Wellesly tells Mackenzie about the death of “the Tiger of Mysore”, Karnad at the instance of Sanskrit drama uses the technique of
chorus of voices, mainly female voices. The device of chorus is meant to eulogize the heroic acts of the protagonist and at the same time emotional
intensity as the direct impact of the protagonist on the common people. Moreover, the device of chorus induced in the text of this play brings forth the process of sadharnikarana or transpersonalization of emotions. The
objectiveization or universalization of human emotions is conveyed to the audience and they realize the emotional level of the actor and become sahrdaya (responsive reader) for realizing rasa in that particular text. The death of Tipu leaves Mysore in a helpless state. There was an “unprecedented
rapacity” (Two Plays, 16) under the control of the British army, “Every house
looted. Every available Woman raped. Soldiers throwing away precious jewellery because they could not carry any more” (Two Plays, 16).
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Freud in his theory of dreams analyses the cognition as memorable experience always remains the part of human psyche. Tipu’s father accuses him of taking
iniquitous judgements in his policies with the British and asserts the punishments of his sinful acts. The very word punishment makes him cognately
aware of his past memories. And he recollects the memories to severe punishment he met with his father as a child. Tipu now acquaints with the newly
developed situational realities wherein one cannot win a battle only by the military prowess or by the device of horseback, for the English. “are stronger
now” (Two Plays, 51) than ever. He again raises a question for his softness in dealing with his militaristic strategies which he has taken against the military
operations of the Europeans. Haidar holds the continuities of his questions, why
did he let Cornwallis escape when he was retreating from Seringapatam,
standing on the ramparts like an onlooker? Tipu in his answer becomes a strong dramatic figure than his father, for he emits an emotional outlet which becomes the source of aesthetic experience and the humanitarian concerns of the
dramatist. Tipu’s reply arouses the sentiments of pathos (Karuna). Like a saint, he replies the queries of his father related to the art of war:
I would have ordered slaughter. But, Father, often, suddenly, I see myself in them—I see these white skins swarming all over the land and
I wonder that makes them so relentless? Desperate? Most of them are not older than Fath Haidar. What drives these young lads to such distant lands through fever, dysentery, alcohol so—often to death— wave after wave? They don’t give up. Nor would I (Two Plays, 51).
If the art of drama is drshyakavya (representational poetry or a metaphor), it
accomplishes esprit de corps between the actor and the audience. Tipu as an
actor and a metaphor of the suggestive pattern of drama symbolizes the
national ideation and the associational values of nativistic sensibilities. Even
the departure of his sons reminds him the concerns of the land he belongs to. Here the concept of land does not signify the geographical bounds of a place,
but it brings to our notice an emotional attachment as the son of soil. The inherent emotional properties of the conscious and the unconscious mental 143
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forces are important in the sense that they make a continuous awareness in the
mind. The idea that survive the filtering process appeal to a special aesthetic
sensibility of beauty, harmony and elegance. The filtering process of bhavas (emotions) inside human mind creates the aesthetics concerns of literature. The stage realized after the filtering process can also be termed as the process
of bhavakatva (emotions being realized) which specifies the universal
elements of literature. The realization of various sentiments together for a
single cause has associated successfully the metaphoric speeches of Tipu with the theatrical motifs. Tipu represents both the sentiments of pathos (Karuna)
and disgust (jugupsa) in the structural plan of this play.33
The Dreams of Tipu Sultan primarily explores the secret inner world of a man whose public life was a continual war against British colonialism. It is only a creative writer,
with deep thought and high soaring imagination, who trans-personalises human emotions which can be termed as ‘sadharnikarana’ which again can be understood as
the objective representation of human emotions, as R.L. Singhal says:
‘Sadharnikarana’ means universalization and transpersonalization. The peak of rasa realization is attained when the spectator’s ties with their ego are snapped
and the find themselves lifted from the place of their sordid private lives to the plane of collective human existence.34
Paying rich tribute to Tipu’s patriotism Kausar says, “The torch was lit that desolate
night. He had fallen in a heap or so they thought, but in truth he leapt up astride the Pegasus of his dreams. In one final mighty push he had left behind the murky ground
of unawakened patriotism and burst into that eternal motherland.”35 In the similar
manner Grace Sudhir says, “Both as a soldier and king, he fought fearlessly like a
tiger, never crouching but couchant—stalking and facing the enemy head on.”36 Thus Karnad’s description of Tipu’s character evokes the sentiments of vira rasa.
An attempt has been made to analyze Karnad’s play on the basis of eastern and western concept of aesthetics. In a work of art experiences which lie between purpose
and meaning, and functions of those involved have been major preoccupation of this chapter, embodied in constant distinctions between percipients, participants, 144
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playwright, audience, actors etc. Aesthetic organisation in Karnad’s plays depicts rich
composition adept to rich performance and evokes applause from responsive audience. At one end of spectrum there are mythical plays like Yayati, Hayavadana,
Naga-Mandala and The Fire and The Rain on the other end there are social and
historical plays like Tughlaq, Taledanda, Flowers and The Dreams of Tipu Sultan.
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WORKS CITED 1)
Tripathi, Vanashree. “Rasa Pratiti (Experience) in Karnad’s Plays.” Three Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and Culture. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2004, p.84.
2)
Ibid, p.85.
3)
Tiwari, Shubha. “Western and Indian Concepts of Aesthetics.” Contemporary
Indian Dramatists. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd., 2007, p.16.
4)
Ibid, p.20.
5)
Ibid, p.31.
6)
Ibid, p.31.
7)
Chanana, Ranjana. “Myth as Aesthetic Experience in Girish Karnad’s The Fire and The Rain.” Ed. Shubha Tiwari. Contemporary Indian Dramatists. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd., 2007, p.82.
8) 9)
Krishnamoorthy, K. Introduction to Dhvanyaloka of Ananadavardhan.
Dharwar: Karnataka University Press, 1974, p.xxxi.
Chanana, Ranjana. “Myth as Aesthetic Experience in Girish Karnad’s The Fire and The Rain.” Ed. Shubha Tiwari. Contemporary Indian Dramatists. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd., 2007, p.83.
10) 11)
AppaRao, P.S. “rasas.” Special Aspects of NatyaSastra. New Delhi: National
School of Drama, 2001, p.109-110.
Chanana, Ranjana. “Myth as Aesthetic Experience in Girish Karnad’s The Fire and The Rain.” Ed. Shubha Tiwari. Contemporary Indian Dramatists. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd., 2007, p.83-84.
12)
AppaRao, P.S. “rasas.” Special Aspects of NatyaSastra. New Delhi: National
School of Drama, 2001, p.110.
13)
Ibid, p.111.
14)
Shepherd, Simon and Mick Wallis. “Catharsis.” Drama/Theatre/Performance. London and New York: Routledge, 2004, p.178. 146
Aesthetics of Drama in Girish Karnad’s Plays
15) 16)
Chapter - III
AppaRao, P.S. “rasas.” Special Aspects of NatyaSastra. New Delhi: National
School of Drama, 2001, p.112.
Tiwari, Shubha. “Bharata’s Viewpoint on Drama.” Contemporary Indian
Dramatists. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd., 2007,
p.10. 17) 18)
Blame, Christopher B. “Performers and actors.” The Cambridge Introduction
to Theatre Studies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008, p.28.
Tripathi, Vanashree. “Rasa Pratiti (Experience) in Karnad’s Plays.” Three Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and Culture. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2004, p.85-86.
19)
Budholia, Om Prakash. “Yayati: Myth As The Structure Of Meanings.” Girish Karnad: Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.33, 39, 45.
20)
Budholia, Om Prakash. “Tughlaq: Semantic Overtones: Prayer As Logocentric
Discourse.” Girish Karnad: History and Folklore. Delhi: B.R. Publishing
Corporation, 2011, p.47. 21)
Ibid, p.47-48.
22)
Tripathi, Vanashree. “Rasa Pratiti (Experience) in Karnad’s Plays.” Three Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and Culture. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2004, p.89-90.
23)
Budholia, Om Prakash. “Naga-Mandala: Serpent As Metonymic Metaphor.”
Girish Karnad: Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.73-74.
24)
Tripathi, Vanashree. “Rasa Pratiti (Experience) in Karnad’s Plays.” Three Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and Culture. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2004, p.86.
25)
Chanana, Ranjana. “Myth as Aesthetic Experience in Girish Karnad’s The Fire and The Rain.” Ed. Shubha Tiwari. Contemporary Indian Dramatists. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd., 2007, p.86-87.
26)
Ibid, p.91. 147
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27)
Byrski, M. Christopher. Concept of Ancient Indian Theatre. New Delhi:
28)
Budholia, Om Prakash. “The Fire and The Rain: Poetics and Aesthetics.”
Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1974, p.60.
Girish Karnad: Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.131.
29)
Tripathi, Vanashree. “Rasa Pratiti (Experience) in Karnad’s Plays.” Three
Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and Culture. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2004, p.87.
30)
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Delhi: Macmillan India
Limited, 1978, p.156-157.
31)
Karnad, Girish. “Preface.” Two Plays by Girish Karnad: The Dreams of Tipu
32)
Shiek, Ali.B. “Alliance against the English: Tipu’s dream of a Republic.”
33)
Budholia, Om Prakash. “The Dreams of Tipu Sultan: Frescoes of History and
Sultan, Bali the Sacrifice. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004. www.tipusultan.org/biog.htm.
Pschodynamic Refracions.” Girish Karnad: History and Folklore. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.111-135.
34) 35) 36)
Singhal, R. L. Aristotle and Bharata: A Comparative Study of their Theories
of Drama. Hoshiarpur: Sadhu Ashram, 1977, p.32.
Kausar, Kabir. Secret Correspondence of Tipu Sultan. Delhi: Light and Life
Publishers, 1980, p.337.
Grace, Sudhir. “On the Wings of his Dreams: Re-Viewing the Legend and
History of Tipu Sultan.” Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical
Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. Delhi: Pencraft International, 2006, p.308-317.
148
CHAPTER - IV CONCEPT OF DUALITY - A RECURRENT MOTIF IN KARNAD’S DRAMATIC ART
CHAPTER - IV
CONCEPT OF DUALITY – A RECURRENT MOTIF IN KARNAD’S DRAMATIC ART Karnad likes to split the persona, present a conflict and urge a confrontation between
dualities. He does this in all his plays. This creates the integrating dynamics of the
plot and builds a dramatic tension. The strategy works well in both the structuring of
the plot of plays and characterization of the protagonist. Conflict is defined as a
struggle between two or more individuals over perceived incompatible differences in
beliefs, values, and goals, or over differences in desires for esteem, control, and connectedness. These differences are a constant breeding ground for conflict. Duality arises out of conflict.
According to psychoanalysis, human mind is divided into three organs: the id, the ego and the superego. The id consists of instinctual drives and always seeks gratification irrespective of external reality and cultural values (Pleasure principle). The ego perceives and responds to external reality (Reality principle). It, being the leader, tries
to satisfy the id and superego within the limits of external reality. The superego irrespective of external reality and biological impulses (the id) contains ideals, values
and morals and urges the ego to lead an ideal life. When the ego wants to be ideal under the pressure of the superego, the mind start functioning independent of the body. This naturally leads to a split between the mind and the body. Consequently
they become strangers to each other. That is, the experiences of body do not reach the mind and feelings of the mind do not spread through the body.
Norman O. Brown, a psychoanalyst, uses the Greek myths of Apollo and Dionysian in interpreting the alienation of mind and body and their unification. He says:
The ego which causes this self-alienation is called Apollonian ego in which the soul leaves the body. On the other hand when the ego wants to be natural
or really human and when the superego accepts the biological reality (the id), the mind and body work together. There is no split between them. There is
perfect harmony between them. The mind feels the bodily experiences and the 149
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body rocks with the feelings of the mind. This is what Blakes describes as ‘the
undivided body-soul’. Such an ego as allows the undifferentiated, unified body-mind is called Dionysian ego in which the soul returns to, and resides in the body.
Human history is divided into three phases: primal unity, differentiation and
final unity. The primitive man enjoyed the primal unity of the body and the mind. As man civilizes himself through ages, the body and the mind are
differentiated, divided and finally alienated. All human sufferings is only due to this culture of self-alienation (Apollonian Culture). When the intense
sufferings bring about awareness, man stops feeling ashamed of being human. As human knowledge reaches its zenith, he evolves Dionysian culture through
which he retains the undifferentiated unified mind-body. This final unity is the salvation that the future human society attains according to the optimistic prediction of psychoanalysis.1
On the basis of review of literature, there are five belief domains of conflict as: superiority, injustice, vulnerability, distrust, and helplessness. Superiority is the belief
which revolves around a person’s enduring conviction that he or she is better than other people in important ways. Injustice is the perceived mistreatment by specific others or by world at large. This mindset can lead the individual to identify something
as unfair which is merely unfortunate, and thereby to inappropriately engage in retaliatory acts. Vulnerability belief revolves around a person’s conviction that he or
she is perpetually living in unsafe environment. It involves a person’s perception of
himself or herself as a subject to internal or external dangers over which control is
lacking, or is insufficient to afford him or her, a sense of safety. Fears about future are the most common cause of ethnic conflicts and often produce spiralling violence.
Distrust belief focuses on the presumed hostility and malign intent of others. The expectation that others will hurt, abuse, humiliate, cheat, lie, or take advantage usually
involves the perception that the harm is intentional or the result of unjustified and
extreme negligence. People who consistently assume the worst intentions of others prevent truly collaborative relationships from developing. Helplessness is the conviction that even carefully planned and executed actions will fail to produce 150
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desired outcomes. In some cases, the individual may perceive himself or herself as
lacking the ability necessary to attain a goal. This belief tends to be self-perpetuating because it diminishes motivation.
Conflict has been studied from multiple perspectives, including inter-personal conflict and intra-personal conflict. Inter-personal conflict refers to the disputes that arise
between individuals, societies and nation. Such clashes can be the cause of war in the society or the world at large. The four elements—struggle, interdependence, feelings
and differences—are critical ingredients of inter-personal conflict. Intra-personal
conflict refers to the discord that occurs within an individual. This conflict can develop out of our own thoughts, ideas, emotions, values and predispositions.
A society aspires to attain certain ideals and goals and imposes certain restrictions upon herself for maximum welfare of human being. Gradually, such ideals and goals are established as value system of that society. Values are such equipments of any
society which help in attaining spiritual and material betterment of its people
smoothly. While some people try to defend and nourish these values others pose challenge before them. They try to manipulate the situation for their personal cause.
So, the conflict begins. This conflict between these two groups goes on for generation
to generation. Those who fight for defending those values are considered to be heroes of the society. The story of their struggle, suffering and sacrifice for such values turn
into myth of that society or race. When writers depict the myths and legends of the
society in their works, the conflict between good and evil finds expression in them. Duality arises due to conflict. Punam Pandey expresses her views as:
Conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others. Being—for itself strives
for freedom from the hold of the other, the other also strives for a similar
freedom. Both seek to enslave one another. As being-for-itself exists by
means of the other’s freedom, he has no security, he is in danger in this freedom. Love is a mode of being-for-others. In its being-for-others, love holds the seed of its own destruction. The beloved, in fact, apprehends the
lover as one other as object among others. The other’s awakening is always possible at any moment he can make the lover appear as an object, hence there 151
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remains the lover’s perpetual insecurity. Love does not demand the abolition of the other’s freedom but rather his enslavement as freedom, which is freedom’s self-enslavement.2
Alienation is another feature which co-exists with conflict. The problem of ‘outsider’
springs from alienation which culminates into absurdity. Alienation is used in the sense of mental attitude and mental malady. It stands for the symbolic fall of man from divinity. It is known as self-alienation. It means that the alienated person loses
his selfhood. Perhaps, he tries to identify himself with his pristine form; and he feels alienated when he fails to do so.
His personality is divided and the feeling of
alienation ultimately precipitates mental malady and the external world appears hostile to him. P. Dhanvel says, “Karnad’s characters seek wholeness due to their divided self. Their fate, then is to meet with their own problems of identity, complicated relationships, and finally their own end.”3 L.S. Gill comments:
The conflict in the plays Karnad is not of traditional type, as between the good
and the evil, or vice and virtue or the individual and the society. It is more psychological than physical in nature. If Yayati has conflict between illusion and reality, conflict in Tughlaq is between the ideal and the real. The plot of
Hayavadana is of a different sort as the conflict is between the complete and the incomplete. In Naga-Mandala, the patriarchal and the matriarchal views
clash to settle score for the personae in the play. Similarly, in Tale-Danda the orthodoxy and the heterodoxy work havoc in the life of the characters that
represent wider social forces of the time. The Fire and The Rain also oscillates between the sacred and the secular.4
In Yayati, the story is taken form Mahabharat where king Yayati is cursed to be old
and he wants to remain young and to have successor of his kingdom. He wishes that someone should exchange his age and he was ready to give a lot of money and land in its exchange. Finally, Pooru, his son, agrees to take curse of his father upon him and
he becomes old. His wife Chitralekha, the newly married and youthful lady, is stunned to see the face of her husband as an old man. She takes poison and commits
suicide. The choice of the exchange of age leads Pooru and Chitralekha to endless 152
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agony and suffering. Pooru becomes loner and Yayati also repents in suffering. They
become divided-self and a split-personality. It is a sort of social alienation and selfalienation who are cut off from their society and world. U.R. Anantha Murthy
remarks, Karnad’s first play Yayati “was a self-consciously existentialist drama on the
theme of responsibility.”5
In Yayati, Pooru as a devoted son accepts the curse of his father and becomes old.
Chitralekha, his young wife, is frustrated and deserted. Yayati, transformed from old to young, could not relish youth out of frustration. Therefore, the personality of Yayati, Pooru and Chitralekha are fractured and divided. They are always in quest of
completeness and their cravings are full of existential situations and frustrations as well. Analyzing the relationship between Devayani and Sharmishtha, Bhagabat Nayak
comments:
In the myth it is presented as a conflict between two friends over love but in the play Karnad projects it as an ego conflict between races and classes. Yayati dislikes Sharmistha’s arrogance and asuric Kshatriya tendencies but he appreciates her intelligence. Even being a Kshatriya king of Arya race he visualizes the grand design of life through her.6
The myth is contemporanised in the play. When there is an attempt to cohere and compromise the racial and the caste consciousness there it becomes dangerous and
tragic. While the two queens, Devayani and Sharmishtha, are in conflict for their racial and caste consciousness, King Yayati attempts his best to compromise their
egos in his secular spirit. When the two are in conflicting philosophies he rationalizes his love and duty for the both. Devayani feels deprived of her due, Sharmishtha feels
subordinated in her restricted status. Commenting on the relationship between
Devayani and Sharmishtha, O.P. Budholia remarks, “the dramatist generally explores the hidden and latent human emotions by which he reveals the inner conflict between two women”7
Tughlaq by Girish Karnad is an abiding contribution to modern Indian English
Drama. It has been remarkably successful on the stage as it appeals to the audience
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most and that of its dramatic excellence. It is a play of a vital king who struggles too much to make his existence authentic and faces existential alienation.
Karnad examines the conflict between theology and monarchy in Tughlaq. Sadhna
Agarwal says, “where Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq, the central figure of the play, is
torn between religion and politics.”8 At the very outset of the play, the dramatist
exposes tension and precarious condition of the country through the discourse of subjects of Tughlaq and also his practice of sacred rites, the science of religion and his
statecraft and the science government for fulfilling his highly selfish political motives. The study also unravels how an idealist and visionary Tughlaq radically deviates from religious tenets in the matter of politics and administration and how this departure
from the holy tenets enrages the orthodox people and in what way they condemn
oppose and rebel against Tughlaq. O.P. Budholia comments, “the play focuses
entirely the socio-psychological and politico religious motifs of the Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq”9
As soon as the play opens it reveals the tension and political upheavals of the country,
“What’s this country coming to!” (Three Plays, 147). This sentence of the Old Man
introduces tension in the country. The old people who are staunch followers of Islam
think that country is not in the safe hands. They fail to understand Tughlaq’s idealism
and reformatory zeal, and condemn as enemy of Islam. In fact, he is a devout Muslim with full faith in the Holy Koran but his rationalist and ideal views are beyond the
comprehension of his subjects. But the young people admire and support the liberal
and secular policies of the Sultan, whose rationalist and modernized attitude appeals to the youth. The Young Man says, “The country’s in perfectly safe hands—safer than any of you’ve seen before” (Three Plays, 147). No other Sultan before Tughlaq
allowed “a subject within a mile’s distance” (Three Plays, 147). It is he who made
prayers five times a day compulsory for all Muslims as dictated in Koran. As the Young Man says:
Now you pray five times a day because that’s the law and if you break it, you’ll have the officers on your neck. Can you mention one earlier Sultan in whose time people read the Koran in the streets like now? (Three Plays, 147) 154
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The conflict between righteousness and statecraft, thus, begins in the very first scene
of the play. Karnad has successfully used this conflict in Tughlaq. When Tughlaq
ascended to the throne of India he found the circumstances not favourable to rule because the country was divided between the Hindus and the Muslims. There was much animosity between the Hindus and the Muslims. Tughlaq began to make efforts
to bring about harmony between the two communities, justice and equality for all for the welfare of his people. Tughlaq said:
May this moment burn bright and light up our path towards greater justice,
equality, progress and peace—not just peace but a more purposeful life. (Three Plays, 149)
The tensions deepened as soon as Tughlaq announced the policy to shift the capital.
By temperament Tughlaq was a rationalist and a philosopher and he wanted to build
up a powerful and united nation. The far-sighted Tughlaq realized that this could be achieved only when his “beloved people” would extend their “support and
cooperation” (Three plays, 149). He made himself clear by saying that “this is no mad whim of tyrant. My ministers and I took this decision after careful thought and
discussion” (Three Plays, 149). The decision to shift the capital from Delhi to
Daulatabad was taken because:
My empire is large now and embraces the South and I need the capital which
is its heart. Delhi is too near the border and as you well know its peace is never free from the fear of invaders. But for me the most important factor is
that Daulatabad is a city of the Hindus and as the capital it will symbolize the
bond between Muslims and Hindus which I wish to develop and strengthen in my Kingdom. I invite you all to accompany me to Daulatabad. This is only an
invitation and not an order. Only those who have faith in me may come with
me. With their help I shall build an empire which will be the envy of the world. (Three Plays, 149)
Tughlaq’s rash decision to change the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad is a turning
point in Tughlaq, which results in untold and inexpressible suffering to the common people.
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Religion, which aims at the fundamental unity of mankind, was dragged into dirty games of politics. The Sultan practiced the idea of brotherhood, which is very
important in Islam, but it annoyed the ecclesiastics because it undermined their political interests. The efforts of the Sultan to bridge the difference between Hindus
and Muslims invited anger and displeasure of the Mullahs and Maulavis. To unite them he, therefore abolished the jiziya tax and openly declared that both Hindus and
Muslims would be treated impartially and would be equal in the eyes of the law. But
this made him a suspect both in the eyes of the Hindus and the Muslims. Thus his policy to unite them miserably failed.
Hindus were treated as second-class citizens in their own country. By the power of sword the Muslim conquered India and Islam was imposed even on unwilling Hindus. Hindus constantly lived in fear of their lives. Religious bigotry prevailed on a large
scale. The Mullahs and Maulavis called the Hindus Kafirs or infidels. But the Sultan
treated the Hindus as equal. He also tried to bridge the gulf between them. He
believed in justice to all. The case of Brahmin Vishnu Prasad was considered just as the Kazi. He declared, “His Merciful Majesty is guilty of illegal appropriation of
land” (Three Plays, 148), and “The Kazi-Mumalik has further declared that in return
for the land and in compensation of the privation resulting from its loss the said Vishnu Prasad should receive a grant of five hundred silver dinars from the State Treasury…a post in the Civil Service to ensure him a regular and adequate income”
(Three Plays, 148). Nevertheless the Muslims wanted Muhammad to kick the infidels. As the Old Man says:
Beware of the Hindu who embraces you. Before you know what, he’ll turn
Islam into another caste and call the Prophet an incarnation of his god. (Three Plays, 148)
Even the court guard insulted the Brahmin in whose favour the Kazi had decided the case. He says:
Perhaps Your Highness will want an escort to see you safely home! Complaining against Sultan! Bloody Infidel! Get going, I’m already late. (Three Plays, 151)
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Even Hindus who were prospering and were exempted from jiziyia taxes never trusted on their counterparts. They bore with such insults silently. In Tughlaq a Hindu
expresses his anguish in the following words:
We didn’t want an exemption! Look, when a Sultan kicks me in the teeth and
says, “Pay up, you Hindu dog, I’m happy. I know I’m safe, But the moment a man comes along and says, ‘I know you are Hindu, but you are also a human being’ — well, that makes me nervous. (Three Plays, 147-148)
The young Muslim reacted sharply and violently to this statement of the Hindu and called him an “Ungrateful wretch.” (Three Plays, 148)
The irony is that the cheats, ruffians, cut throats and murderers always exploit religious sentiments and idealistic policies of the Government to suit their motives
just as a Muslim dhobi who was a cheat, disguised himself as a Brahmin whose claim was considered just by the Kazi.
Tughlaq makes prayer compulsory in his kingdom yet when the amirs try to murder him at prayer time; he bans prayer totally in the kingdom, to be resumed only when the Abbasid Khalif comes to visit. The Sultan had entrusted the care of the kingdom
to Shihabuddin, yet does not hesitate to stab him to death when he learns that the
latter had conspired against him. Later, when Aziz impersonates the holy Abbasid Khalif after murdering him, the Sultan is shrewd enough to pierce his disguise but
orders him to continue his pretence before the public and uses him as a tool for resumption of prayers.
Tughlaq, who pretends to be a true follower of religion, commits numberless murders to retain his monarchy. He commits patricide, fratricide and wipes off the religious
and political leaders like Imam-ud-din and Shihab-ud-din for his kingship. He tells the
cause of murdering to his Step-Mother in a simple way. “They couldn’t bear the weight of their crown. They couldn’t leave it aside. So they died senile in their youth or were murdered” (Three Plays, 156). When Step-Mother accepts that she has murdered Najib, Muhammad denies to accept the truth. But when she argues, “It was easier than killing one’s father or brother. It was better than killing Sheikh Imam-ud157
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din,” Muhammad replies, “I killed them for an ideal. Don’t know its results? Do you think I’ve suffered from the curse? My mother won’t speak to me—I can’t ever look into a mirror for fear of seeing their faces in it” (Three Plays, 204). Muhammad is
torn in finding peace in his own kingdom that “has become a kitchen of death” (Three
Plays, 204). There is only one punishment for treachery, he tells his Step-Mother, it is
death. And for killing Najab he orders even his Step-Mother whom he loves more
than anyone else to be stoned, dragged and killed. But these murders don’t bring him
peace. They tear him from within. He feels lonely and frustrated. In such torn and wretched state he seeks the shelter of God who alone can save him from misery and the ghosts of the murdered. Only He can help him to be a man.
Veena Noble Dass observes, “The most striking aspect of Tughlaq’s character is the
complexity that arises from the dualism of the man and the hero. He is once an idealist and a crafty politician, a humanist and a tyrant, a man who has murdered sleep
and is haunted by supernatural solicitations.”10 He says, “I can’t sleep. I can’t read.
Do you know, five years ago, I actually used to pray to God not to send me any sleep? I can’t believe it now!” (Three Plays, 195). Karnad projects these curious
contradictions in the complex personality of Tughlaq who is at once a dreamer and a man of action, benevolent and cruel, devout and godless. His two close associates, Barani the scholarly historian and Najib the politician, seem to actually represent the two opposing selves of Tughlaq:
Barani is a historian — he is only interested in playing chess with the shadows of
dead. And Najib is a politician — he wants pawns of the flesh and blood. He doesn’t have the patience to breathe life into these bones. (Three Plays, 156)
Tughlaq appears to be an intelligent person whose way of thinking is not understood by the average man and he is taken to be foolish and impulsive king by the people of
his kingdom. The problems in Tughlaq’s kingdom are caused as much by the
peculiarity of his personality as by the complex circumstances presented by the two seemingly contradictory religious beliefs and practices of his people. Thus two kinds of conflicts emerge and affect each other adversely. Basavaraj S. Naikar views,
“There is a conflict between Tughlaq the clever and ruthless administrator and 158
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Tughlaq the sensitive philosopher-poet.”11 While on one hand he is an idealist who is
influenced by the Greek philosopher Socrates and Plato and who seeks to balance
opposite principles, on the other hand, he suffers from delusions of grandeur and assumes the role of a Krishna or a Jesus without possessing the omnipotence or the
omniscience of a god. It is paradoxical that he is not able to achieve a balance within
himself, between his dreams and his practical duties as a ruler, though he declares that
it is his heartfelt desire to bring about a balance in all walks of life. Most of the problems encountered by Tughlaq are the result of his inability to reconcile the polarities of his own nature and of the tension between dream and reality.
In Tughlaq, the king as a protagonist, is a frustrated ruler who is an idealistic
visionary and a confused ruler who shifts his kingdom from Delhi to Daultabad and vice versa. He kills his relatives and loyalists for the sake of his crown. Neither he
becomes a complete ruler nor a complete human being. His divided-self mirrors his
split personality. As Punam Pandey observes, “Tughlaq chooses some ideals for himself and makes them as the part of his existence. In order to fulfil his ideals, he does something’s right and wrong. He also adopts a dual character and betrayal motif in order to retain his existence.”12
Karnad’s play Hayavadana has two aspects, a socio-cultural aspect and a metaphysical one. At both levels it shows the conflict between two polarities (namely
Apollonian and Dionysian) as the vital truth of human existence. How does one
define ‘completeness’ or ‘perfection? If perfection or completeness means fusion of the two extreme polarities (at the metaphysical level), the play suggests that such fusion is not possible and this is for the simple reason that if the cycle of nature must continue, it will do so only through a dialectical relationship between Apollonian and Dionysian aspects of life.
At the socio-cultural level the play suggests that the
Apollonian always asserts itself and subdues the Dionysian in our socio-cultural life. So the co-existence of the two is ruled out physically as well as morally. Human society is made possible only through submission to the Apollonian principle. The
collective wisdom of society flouts passion (represented in the play by the judgement
of the Rishi and Padmini’s passion for Kapila respectively). It will bring about the
destruction of the individuals who defy order in society. Shubhangi S. Raykar 159
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remarks, “Padmini’s predicament is the predicament of a modern, emancipated
woman in our society who is torn between two polarities, a woman who loves her
husband as well as someone else for two different aspects of their personalities.”13 A
civilized Apollonian society and its moral code will not accept such a woman. The
two men will not accept each other when it comes to sharing a woman and all the three will destroy themselves in the process. In context of character of Ganesha in Hayavadana, P. Dhanvel observes:
Strangely enough, Ganesha’s image that is brought to the stage seems to be a symbol of the real Lacanian subject- incomplete, incoherent, fragmented,
divided, and centreless. The only difference is that the human subject makes an incessant attempt to seek wholeness whereas the divine subject is not at all
bothered about the incongruous appearance. Lord Ganesha is in the form of a man’s body with an elephant’s head, a broken tusk and a cracked belly. The God is not complete but mysteriously He is the “destroyer of incompleteness” (Three Plays, 73).14
The name of Devadatta (given by gods) reveals the Apollonian aspect whereas Kapila
(dark and therefore earthy) reveals Kapila’s Dionysian tendencies. Padmini, like a lotus, seeks to be a delicate bridge between the earth and the sky. Also like a lotus she is more rooted in the earth and, therefore, has greater affinity for the Dionysian aspect of life manifest in Kapila. Anantha Murthy points out:
Devadatta is the least ‘individuated’ character. But this is explicable in terms
of the thematic design of the play. Devadatta is the character around whom the Apollionian order is created. He, therefore, is least subject to passion and,
therefore, least impulsive of the three. Even his offering his head to Kali appears to be the end product of a ratiocinative act.15
Duality in human beings is due to alienation. In this context M. Sarat Babu states,
“This is the reason which makes Hayavadana’s mother feel happy about being cursed
to become a mare by her husband and Kali makes Hayavadana a complete horse instead of a complete man. Therefore the juxtaposition of a brilliant head and a strong
body by Padmini fail to achieve the unification because the head always wins over the 160
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body.”16 Animals are free from self-alienation and enjoy life fully. So the mother of
Hayavadana feels very happy about her becoming a mare. Therefore, Kali grants the wish of Hayavadana to become a complete and he becomes a complete horse because
it is not possible for men with Apollonian ego to be free from self-alienation.
Padmini’s juxtaposition of Kapila’s strong body and Devadutta’s brilliant head miserably fails to achieve unification because their heads carry Apollonian ego in
themselves. For the same reason, Devadatta and Kapila become their old selves again. But Padmini does not give up her aim of achieving unification and tries to achieve it through her son posthumously as her oral will testifies it.
U. R. Anantha Murthy in his “A Note on Karnad’s Hayavadana” says about theme:
“The play exposes the audience to a significant theme like ‘incompleteness’ in a
comic mode.”17 A few paragraphs later he says, “The play tries to create an illusion in us that the head determines the being of man.”18 As Krishna Gandhi writes, “The
theme of the play is an old one … man’s yearning for completeness, for perfection. It’s this yearning which makes people restless in this ordinary existence, and makes
them reach out for extraordinary things….But the ideal of perfection itself is
ambiguous. The character of Hayavadana is invented as an example of this ambiguity.”19
In Karnad’s Naga-Mandala, the protagonist Rani is conditioned in traditional
thinking. The patriarchal decision imposed on her makes Rani accept elders decision without resisting in her father’s house but still worst is her condition in the husband’s
home. She is locked in the house as if it is a house arrest executed by the patriarchal authority on a criminal person, an agency of supremacy that empowers Appanna, the male-self, with power/authority to spend nights with a concubine in the village. As
Jaganamohana Chari writes, “vulgar disparity of power instead of love and treating
women as a disposable object accrues to him owing to the post colonist ethos and the mystique of tradition.”20 Rani perceives the difference between two persons, the Naga
in the shape of Appanna and her husband Appanna in her first night with her real
husband but this experience, Chari further says, “…hardly crosses the threshold of her consciousness because her experience or her head or her consciousness hardly matters in the world of patriarchal hegemony. In fact, it had already been decreed as a taboo 161
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by the dominant set up.”21 She suppresses reality by using the device of metaphysical
tradition in the Indian patriarchal culture where gods and goddesses have supreme
place in the hierarchy and sublimates her position above man who craves for higher
position in hierarchy, above women. Appanna’s approval to perform the last rites of
the Naga and celebration of death anniversary by his son indicates decentralization of power to matriarchy. By giving the status of goddess to Rani, the members of the Village Court and the society recognize the sublime position of woman in the family
set up and society. Another reason for concealing extra-marital relationship by Rani is to topple down the strategies adopted by the patriarchal culture in upholding the traditional concept of chastity. Santosh Gupta remarks, in Naga-Mandala “the story
takes a happy turn, both Rani and Appanna adjusting to the family and community in socially useful manner. But this is achieved after upsetting the male egoism and exaggerated sense of power over women.”22 Karnad employs the myth of Naga, a
supernatural element, to raise the status of women as goddess, of Rani, who, according to B.T. Seetha, is “assured of an acceptance and even reverence from
society.”23 Aparna Dharwadker observes that in both Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala “privacy is not given to women in the psycho-sexual relations of marriage and they
create a space for the expressions, even the fulfilment of amoral female desire within the constraints of patriarchy.”24
In Naga-Mandala, the story points out the duality of experience with Appanna and the
Naga in an indirect manner, when she spends the night for the first time with her husband. “No two men make love alike. And after that night of the Village Court,
when her true husband climbed into bed with her, how could she fail to realize it was someone new? Even if she hadn’t known earlier! When did the split take place? Every
night the conundrum must have spread its hood out at her. Don’t you think she must
have cried out in anguish to know the answer?” (Three Plays, 60). As B.T. Seetha
remarks, here Rani’s “anguish to know answer about her husband reveals a discord, a tension between self-preservation and self-abnegation.”25 According to O.P. Budholia:
As in tale of any romance, the structure of this play brings into being two heterogeneous and distinct features together. The central object of this chapter
is to show the presence and the absence of the patrilineal and matrilineal 162
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patterns of society. The metaphor of serpent with an oppositional power creates the elements of fractured consciousness in Rani. The phrase used by
Karnad in his Author’s Introduction such as “the two unconnected roles” and
“disjointed encounters” make explicitly the metaphor textualized for the ophidian power.26
The caste conflict is also highlighted in the Karnad’s play Tale-Danda. Tale-Danda,
meaning death by beheading describes the sacrifice/murder of some historic figures at the altar of casteism. Vanashree Tripathi views, “In performing the dynamics of castestruggle and the politics of riots, the play organizes a trenchant critique of higher caste
hegemony in Hindu society to whom the Varnashrama has assigned a deep, decisive psychological hold over the lower-castes and the Dalits.”27
In this play Karnad depicts the twelfth century communal struggle in the city of
Kalyan in North Kanara where Bijjala was the king. In his court, there were great scholars and poets. Basavanna, the king’s officer and the great poet-philosopher,
united those brilliant people and fought for equality. They shed their castes and
became sharanas or devotees of Lord Shiva. They talked about God in the language
of common people. They considered their body the very abode of God and denounced
idolatry. They condemned all inhuman traditions and believed in social and gender
equality. Finally their noble movement ended in a disaster when the marriage of a
Brahmin girl to a Panchama boy led to fateful war between sharanas and orthodox people. Exposing the ugly aspect of Hinduism M. Sarat Babu laments:
The social deformity in Hindu society took the form of ‘caste system.’ The
Hindu society consists of four recognized classes called Varnas and one unrecognized class called Avarnas. They are Brahmins (priests, poets, teachers
and ministers), Kshatriyas (Kings and Warriors), Vaishyas (tradesmen),
Shudras (craftmen) and Panchamas (menial workers). Shudras and Panchamas toil and produce wealth which people of higher classes enjoy. According to
Hindu myth, the four recognized classes emanated from the mouth, the arms, the thighs and the feet of Brahma, the God of Creation, respectively. Such
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myths and literature, created and perpetuated by Brahmins, seek to justify the social hierarchy and sanction their superiority.28
In Tale-Danda the centrifugal and centripetal forces of change and resistance are directed against caste-order in Hindu India. The perennial problem of caste
debilitating Indian Society is given an exclusive rendering in Tale-danda. Central to conflict is Basavanna, the protagonist of the play, for whom no barrier is true. He is modelled on the twelfth century legendary figure, saint-poet Basavanna. In the play
Basavanna makes a wager against dangerously intimidating caste hierarchy. He initiates a non-ritualistic religious sect called ‘Sharanas’ and infuses them with ‘bhakti’ or total surrender as a means of reform. The forces operating against his
mission are the orthodox and the conservative. They view his reform spirit as transgression of ordained social boundaries. In their ambition to preserve themselves
at the top echelons, the orthodox always resist and set to undo the effect of Basavanna’s preachings. While reform spirit is personified in Basavanna—the
orthodox are fragmentarily represented by two characters in the play—Damodara
Bhatta; the royal priest and Manchanna Kramita; the Brahmin adviser to the king. Between these two opposing forces vacillate the power seekers—King Bijjala and his son Sovideva, one against the other—seeking advantage out of the conflicts ensuing forth within the society.
In the context of caste contradiction, it is significant to learn that King Bijjala is not Kshatriya but a barber by caste. He shares the humiliation of the lower caste and hence has sympathy for the movement of Sharanas. But he owes his power to
intellectual upper caste through whose cunning manipulations he could seize the throne. He is caught in a difficult situation wherein his personal affinity and political allegiance are quite contrary.
It deals with caste and class politics infecting our body politic in the medieval period
of history. It was the strong sense of history, which has nurtured in Karnad a dominant will for social justice, a sincere compassion for the socially oppressed and subaltern.
The subaltern issue is strongly highlighted; they have been brought from margin to centre and put before higher section of the society. The subalterns are led by 164
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Basavanna. The caste distinction is so deep-rooted that even King Bijjala tried to ascend to higher Varna from barber to Kshatriya but failed:
For ten generations my forefathers ravaged the land as robber Barrons. For another five they ruled as the trusted feudatories of the Emperor himself. They
married into every royal family in sight. Bribed generations of Brahmins with millions of cows. All this so they could have the caste of Kshastriya branded on their foreheads. And yet you ask the most innocent child…what is Bijjala?...instant reply will be barber. One caste is like the skin on one’s body.
You can peel it off top to toe, but when the new skin forms, there you are again; a barber—a shepherd. (Collected Plays, Volume Two, CPV, 21)
Among subalterns tribal’s, shepherds, cowherds and low caste untouchables figures.
Resistance has two forms: ideological and physical. It was Lingayat faith in sharp
opposition to Brahminical faith; founded on humanitarian grounds, open to all groups, austerity in living, trying to crumble the wall of untouchability, exposing rigidity and
discrimination in traditional faith. As Karnad comments that they rejected anything
“static in favour of the principle of movement and progress in human enterprise.”29 They tried to come out of caste venom and religious fanaticism. The devotee of the
faith was called Sharana. Physical resistance of Sharanas comes to dismal end. It was
a conflict between deep-rooted orthodoxy and new innovative ideas. The movement was not matured enough. Even Basavanna doubts the success of marriage—i.e. hypergamous; movement went to young hands of Jagadeva—a violent revolutionary
who kills King Bijjala and finally commits suicide. Sharanas lost their drive, mutual differences and infights, prompt reaction from orthodox against Sharanas led by
young Sovideva; Basavanna’s resignation from the movement and power politics brings failure to the subalterns’ resistance. The violent reaction of Brahmins suggests
even now subalterns are no match to defy the exploitation and discriminating behaviour of the orthodox Hindu society. As Krishna Singh opines:
The abolition of caste, equality of sexes, rejection of idol worship, repudiation
of Brahaminisim, and of Sanskrit in favour of mother tongues i.e. Kannad;
were the main tenets of subaltern revolution. The resentment reaches its 165
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climax when Madhuvarsa, a Brahmin gives his daughter Kalavati in a
marriage to an untouchable—Sheelvanta. This last act opposing caste hierarchy, not just in theory but in practice also, brought down upon the wrath
of orthodox; the movement ended in terror and bloodshed. The playwright wants to suggest whenever such important issues are not considered seriously
and solutions offered by these thinkers go unheeded, disastrous results would follow again.30
Through conflict and confrontation which go side by side in the drama, Karnad deconstructs the meaning of caste and religion and shows a new community of
sharanas who condemn idolatry and temple worship, reject anything that is static, believe in equality of sexes and hard work and oppose caste system.
The Fire and The Rain is the Karnad’s play of jealousy, power-politics, sexualexploitation, humiliation and isolation of characters. As the title of the play The Fire
and The Rain suggests the play focusses on the negative and positive human
emotions—jealousy, betrayal, deceit as well as selfless love. Dr. Archana Rathore writes, “‘The Fire’ is the fire of revenge, lust, anger, envy, treachery, violence and
death. ‘The Rain’, on the other hand, symbolises self-sacrifice, compassion, divine grace, forgiveness, revival and regeneration.”31
As Punam Pandey says, “In the play there is a conflict of jealousy, rivalry, ambition
and treachery.”32 Expressing similar views Bhagabat Nayak observes, “Karnad presents the conflict between Brahmin versus shudra, ascetic versus actor-performer,
god versus demon and yajna versus natya.”33 The play presents the celebration of fire
with Vedic rituals for the appeasement of the divine, peace and happiness of the
mankind. But just behind the screen of the art he associates the aesthetics of Brahmanism with the mind games of egocentrism.
The play is the transcreation of his Kannada version of the play, Agni Mattu Male. Although the theme of the play is an approximation to the original myth it appears
mindboggling as well as mind-blowing when it is cinematised as Agnivarsha with the
direction of Arjun Sajnani. Defining the title in the ‘Notes’ of the play, Karnad counterpoints two physical elements which are normally seen antithetical. He writes in ‘Notes’:
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‘Agni’ is the Sanskrit word for fire. And being a Sanskrit word, it carries, even when used in Kannada, connotations of holiness, of ritual status, of ceremony, which the Kannada word of fire (benki) does not possess. ‘Agni’ is what burns
in sacrificial altars, acts as witness at the weddings and is lit at cremations. It is also the name of god of fire…
‘Male’ is a Kannada word. It means rain, pure and simple. It has none of the
aura of romance, mystery and grandeur that surrounds Sanskrit words of rain when used in Kannada. ‘Mattu’ means ‘and’. It is usually left out in spoken Kannada.34
In the play Raibhya and Bharadwaja belong to a priestly family. Their sons have
spoilt their relationship in a feud for knowledge, superiority and power. Raibhya’s sons Paravasu and Arvasu gain position in society but their cousin Yavakri is engaged
in acquiring knowledge for ten years without proper learning. As he remarks, “I want knowledge so I can be vicious, destructive!” (The Fire and The Rain, 23). Yavakri is vengeful because his father is neglected and not invited to the King’s fire sacrifice as
the chief priest where his cousin Paravasu acts as a chief priest. Secondly, Paravasu
had married Vishakha with whom Yavakri had his youthful love. Time is the great
factor that plays important role in the play. Knowledge does not help Yavakri as it is overpowered by passion.
Soon after his arrival from tapasya he molests Vishakha to satisfy his senses and to
take revenge on Raibhya’s family. Yavakri’s molesting to Vishaka may be due to his previous love for her or revenge for insults inflicted on his father but in return Raibhaya creates a demon, a spirit in form who destroys Yavakri. This makes Bharadwaja remorseful with his son’s death. He curses Raibhya to suffer death in the
hands of his own son and then kills himself in remorse. Paravasu’s return from the king’s fire sacrifice for his sensual gratification with Vishaka breaks the sanctity of
fire sacrifice. He mistakes his father as a wild animal due to his wearing of the
deerskin and accidently kills him. Although, Paravasu orders Arvasu to perform his
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and sin. There is the cycle of evil in the play which leads to conflict among the
characters of the play. Virtue wins in the play. But it is too late. The death of virtuous ones makes it a tragedy.
Yavakri’s tapasya for knowledge without an insight into the human nature is ‘selfimmolation’. Paravasu’s patricide and betrayal
to his younger brother, is
denunciation of human values, and Arvasu’s performing his father’s penitential rite and love for low caste girl Nittilai is ‘self-effacement’ and ‘self-mortification’.
Conflict is an inevitable part of the play The Fire and The Rain. Arvasu, who is so badly treated by the society that he doubts his own existence:
I am dying of thirst. But there’s no water. Then I peer into a huge well.
There’s water there, but it has my reflection in it. I stare at it. And the
reflection snarls: “Why are you staring wretch? Go away.” So I say: ‘You exist because I stare. You wouldn’t be there if I went away.’ It says: ‘You think so, do you, you swollen headed doll of flesh? I’ll show you.’ And the
reflection leaps out of water. Gouges my eyes out. Chews up my face in its jaws. I scream, but I have no face….It keeps on returning, that nightmare, so
that now I’m not at all sure it’s me standing here and not my reflection. (The Fire and The Rain, 51)
Even Paravasu has to face tremendous conflict when, in the play, he sees Indra murdering Vishwarupa treacherously. He jumps to his feet and cries:
No. No. Wrong! That’s wrong!....He saw a face by the altar. Whose face was it? The face of my dead father? Or of my brother, who is a simpleton, yet knows everything? Or was it my own face? (The Fire and The Rain, 55)
While Yavakri is not sure enough that even after ten years of rigorous penance when he has acquired Universal Knowledge, he says:
One would expect the appearance of a God to be a shattering experience.
Concrete. Indubitable. Almost physical. But though I think Indra came to me several times, I was never certain….And when the God disappeared; nothing was left behind to prove he had ever been there. (The Fire and The Rain, 13) 168
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When he was asked how he decided that he has acquired Universal Knowledge, he replies:
I have no clear recollection how I arrived at the conclusion—some knowledge, but probably little wisdom. I know now what can’t be achieved. That itself is
wisdom….I think I have some mystical powers I hadn’t before. Mastered a few secret arts. Got a few mantras at my fingertips. (The Fire and The Rain, 14)
Even Raibhya curses himself, for fathering such sons. He, instead of getting pride of
fathering a son who is invited and honoured to be the Chief Priest of the Royal Fire
Sacrifice, was himself ambitious of getting the invitation from the king to become the
chief priest. But the king thinks of his old age and invites Paravasu. At this, Raibhya is furious and says:
So you measured my life-span, did you-you and your king? Tested the
strength of my lifeline? Well, the sacrifice is almost over and I’m still here.
Still here. Alive and kicking. (The Fire and The Rain, 29)
This outburst is obvious when Vishakha, her daughter-in-law, utters: Something died inside your father the day the King invited you to be the Chief
Priest. He has been dying up like a dead tree since then….There’s his sense of
being humiliated by you. (The Fire and The Rain, 32)
As P. Jayalakshmi views, “Gender and caste become the dominant factors.”35
Vishakha is surrounded by learned men but leads the life of an oppressed woman. She
is a woman abandoned twice by her youthful lover Yavakri for sake of knowledge
before her marriage and her husband Paravasu for the fire sacrifice. Paravasu is ambitious to the extent of using his wife’s body for his means. As Vishakha says:
Nothing was too shameful, too degrading, even too painful. Shame died in me. And I yielded. I let my body be turned inside out as he did his own. I had a
sense he was leading me to something. Mystical? Spiritual? We never talked.
Only the sense pervaded in the air…Then one day he received the invitation from the king. To be the chief priest of the fire sacrifice. And he left. (The Fire and The Rain, 16)
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Paravasu accepts the invitation of becoming the chief priest of the royal fire sacrifice
not because he wants to use his divine knowledge in bringing rain and helping common people. But he treats Yajna as an instrument of his gratification.
I went because fire sacrifice is a formal rite: Structured. It involves no
emotional acrobatics from the participants. The process itself will bring Indra to me. And if anything goes wrong, there’s nothing the gods can do about it. It
has to be set right by a man. By me. That’s why when the moment comes I
shall confront Indra in silence. As an equal. (The Fire and The Rain, 32)
This proves that Paravasu is ambitious and wants to challenge Indra and to be equal with God. Moreover, Paravasu comes to his father’s hermitage, and thus “deliberately
defying gods” (The Fire and The Rain, 28) by “Wilful transgression of rules” (The
Fire and The Rain, 29). At which Raibhya explodes:
The Chief Priest of the royal sacrifice sneaks out at night, crawls home, his face covered like a leper, and you think the god won’t know? They won’t retaliate (The Fire and The Rain, 29)
Thus, the protagonist of the Fire Sacrifice, i.e., the Chief Priest, Paravasu, doesn’t have faith in Yagna. He considers it as a formal structured ritual. So he doesn’t involve emotionally and spiritually.
Competition and jealousy are the results of ambition. When Yavakri seduces
Vishakha, Raibhya, in an extempore reaction, tells Vishkaha to, “Go and tell your lover I accepted this challenge” (The Fire and The Rain, 20). He invokes a Brahma
Rakshasa, a demon soul, to kill Yavakri. Incidently events crop up and, as a result, Yavakri dies.
Paravasu kills Raibhya, his father knowingly before his wife, Vishakha, as he says: He deserved to die. He killed Yavakri to disturb me in the last stages of the
sacrifice. Not to punish Yavakri, but to be even with me” (The Fire and The
Rain, 33).
Yet he speaks untruth to Arvasu, “I mistook him for wild animal.” (The Fire and The Rain, 34)
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Nittilai plays a very crucial role in the play. It is she who exposes the caste consciousness of high caste people in the society and as a hunter girl; she is loud in commenting on the selfish and lustful behaviour of high caste men, “These high-caste
men are glad enough to bed our women but not to wed them” (The Fire and The Rain, 8). She does not leave even God of high caste people when she says, “Why are
Brahmins so secretive about everything?” (The Fire and The Rain, 10). She further supports her argument by saying, “Then how does everyone know what happened in
the remote corner of the jungle—miles away from the nearest prying eye?” (The Fire
and The Rain, 9). When she knows that Indra has pleased and granted him the boon of the Universal Knowledge, she questions at Yavakri’s integrity, “Actually, I want to
ask Yavakri two questions. Can he make it rain? And then, can he tell when he is going to die?...Just two. What is the point of any knowledge, if you can’t save dying
children and if you can’t predict your moment of death?” (The Fire and The Rain, 11).
In spite of everything her immortal and casteless love for Arvasu wins. Nittilai is killed by her own tribe and family men for her inter-caste and inter-religious
affiliation in filial bonds with Arvasu. Arvasu, who is pure and acts without selfinterest, remains alive in the end that brings rain. He, in the real sense, has acquired the true knowledge of humanity.
The play presents the fine analysis of human psyche in the depiction of jealousy of
man against man, father against son, brother against brother, wife against husband, and high caste against low caste. In deeper level the play presents man against god,
freedom against bondage, rituals against sacrifices, hate against love, attraction against repulsion, illusion against reality, passion against knowledge, ignorance and
falsehood against truth, arrogance against generosity and victory of truth against viciousness of life.
In Karnad’s play Bali: The Sacrifice there is conflict of ideologies of Brahmanism
versus Buddhism and Jainism. The struggle between two ideologies might also be
interpreted as the primeval confrontation of the Apollonian and Dionysian forces. The
play registers a Dionysian victory over the Apollonian life principles. One can describe it as the confrontation between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Even words 171
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spoken and every action of the characters in the play are highly metaphorical, including metaphorical adultery and the final crowing of the cock.
The play has four human characters and two deities symbolizing opposing belief
systems. The play dramatizes the perpetual battle that has been going on between the
two polarized forces from the beginning of civilization. In their book on Drama of
Social Reality, Stanford M. Lyman and Marwin B. Scott explain:
The Apollonian principle is characterized by the tendency to impose form and
order upon the world. The order and form is effected by the device of
individuation, that is, the rational and calculable separation of the elements
into units and categories and the ordering of them in some and consistent
relationship to one another. In its most general and ultimate sense, Apollonianism is realized in … the social forms in which restless life is encompassed. … The Dionysian principle is that of life unfettered by forms or boundaries. In its most unlimited expression it burst out from and beyond the
limits of the senses to experience sense and sensuality themselves. Dionysian expresses the life force independent of the forms of life.36
The Apollonian-Dionysian principles are shown above are akin to the forces
represented by the non-violent saviour and the bloodthirsty Goddess respectively and also vie for dominance over each other, as is dramatized in Karnad’s play.
In such a thesis play as Bali: the Sacrifice, all the human forms that speak and act are
personified abstractions or symbols. More obviously, the Queen-Mother and the Mahout are the personifications of the Apollonian and Dionysian principles. The Queen-Mother has an uncanny way of realizing the truth while the divine music of the
Mahout can mesmerize the listeners. The two seem to be earthly deputies of the two deities and their mission is to continue waging war in the human heart and mind.
Their impact is seen on the King and the Queen who are aligned to the two differing forces. The battle that culminates in the adultery and its aftermath has actually begun
fifteen years ago when the King and the Queen met as children and married despite their fundamental incompatibility.
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It may seem ironical that the opposition between the two principles of life is represented in the play as the marriage of the King and the Queen. But then, what else is marriage but a battle of sorts in most cases? A married co-existence involves two probably dissimilar personalities competing with each other for dominance. In the
play, no character is separate from his/her religious faith. The marriage of the King
and the Queen followed an apparent truce. Hoping to please his beloved bride, the King embraces Jainism because his wife abhors the violence of the Kshatriyas. The
agony of their mismatch is symbolically revealed by the story of their crushed hopes
for an offspring. For the King, it seems a matter of shame since it raises questions about his virility, even his mother spits at him in anger, “What kind of a man are you? You have lost your manhood. You, you impotent…” (Two Plays, 108). Life of the
Queen is that of a caged spirit. She yearns for freedom and exultantly yields to call of
the Mahout’s song. She goes to the temple with the empty altar and surrenders herself
to the ‘divine’ source of the liberating song in a Dionysian act—as Nietzsche describes it in The Birth of Tragedy, “the shattering of the individual and his fusion with the primal being.”37
The struggle in the play comes full circle and the conflicting forces again resume their
polar pulls. The power of the Apollonian forces as represented by the Queen-Mother
cannot rest. She professes moral outrage at the action of the Queen and begins to whet her human tool for vengeance, her son the King. Being a Jain by avowal, the King does not agree to her suggestion of the sacrifice of a hundred sheep, but agrees reluctantly to perform a symbolic act of purification by sacrificing a ‘cock of dough’
that his mother brings, “Amidst the ritual materials of flowers, saffron, myrrh and camphor stands a life-size replica of a cock with its head raised and beak open, as though it was crowing.” (Two Plays, 110)
The Queen is baffled at the King’s request to join him in performing the ritual sacrifice of the ‘cock of dough’ but remains adamant about not participating in any ritual involving
killing—even of an inanimate object. For her, the very intention to kill is sinful and in this instance, the cock of dough would merely be the totem. Seeing the Queen’s attitude, the
Queen-Mother changes her tactics. With an ulterior purpose in mind, she describes on one hand the blood and gore that even the delivery of a child necessitates, on the other hand 173
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advises the Queen against succumbing to the King’s plea to perform the symbolic sacrifice. She gives a twist to the whole act. She says, “Don’t agree to the sacrifice.
Don’t yield to his entreaties. The more you refuse, the more will my son suffer. Let
him” (Two Plays, 115). She seems to get a wicked pleasure from the painful dilemma of the young couple. It is her revenge for her son’s denial of his own religion and for isolating her.
These four characters clearly exhibit the varieties of human passions and hence
become personified abstractions. The Mahout and the Queen Mother, according to
Subhash Chandaran are, “the personification of Apollonian and Dionysian
principles.”38 Girish Karnad has laid bare the inner psyche of these characters and they display the conflict—inner and outer—leading to the final conclusion. He has delved deep into them to display the hidden colours making the inner landscape more dramatic and exciting.
In Bali: The Sacrifice, duality is highlighted by the apparent difference in religious
beliefs. The whole conflict between violence and non-violence can be interpreted in many ways. The play acquires myriad levels of meaning as it projects divergent ideological points of view. To begin with the title itself is paradoxical. The playwright takes the stance of praising the ideology of non-violence, but depicts many aspects of
violent religious practices. The title and the actual play do not limit themselves in presenting just this ideology. Both violence and non-violence as religious practices
are discussed. Bali, as sacrifice to appease Gods is a common practice among different religions. Different ideologies and motives support these sacrifices. Shubha Mishra remarks, “If one was to use Foculdian parameters and regard religion as an institution like he suggests the army, education etc. religion also has its underlying power structure, which to a great extent, revolves in a panoptical manner of power
and knowledge.”39 Viewing it in a dispassionate manner it was so designed to keep watch on its group of followers, though it was not visible by the group. Gradually, the
surveillance became so thoroughly inbred into them, that man’s own consciousness became his prison.
In Flowers, Karnad recasts the legend as a conflict between religious devotion and
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worshipping and beautifying of linga which is transferred to the body of Ranganayaki.
Karnad mingles the spiritual with the carnal which is short lived in the miracle of the
Shivalinga and confirms the power of the priest’s worship. In the portrayal of the priest’s act of involvement in sensual and spiritual affairs he establishes his direct
contact with actuality, passion for love and sex, the linga’s mysterious quality and his religious experience that communes with God. Narrating triangulated conflict
between the priest, the courtesan and the chieftain as the undercurrent of oppositional strands both within the psyche and outside it the playwright sets a landscape of emotive response. As Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker finds:
In Flowers the priest’s sexual awakening in the home of a courtesan Ranganayaki turns his world of ossified routine upside down, and begins the
cycle of falsehood and concealment that culminates in the lie about the lingam sprouting hair.40
Janhavi Acharekar remarks: A dramatic monologue by a priest torn between his erotic love for God on the one hand and that for the courtesan Ranganayaki on the other; caught between love for his wife and that for his mistress; between passion and duty.41
In ‘A Heap of Broken Images’ according to Tutun Mukherjee, Karnad focuses on
“Socio-psychological breakdown in human communication and relationship in the face of overpowering ambition and greed.”42 The protagonist, Manjula Nayak, is the
dramatist’s altered ego, expressing concern, taking into critical purview of those who have given up their mother tongue and switched over to the foreign language for its creative use.
The announcer appears on the plasma screen against the logo of TV channel with the
globe in the starry sky to introduce the special guest whose first novel has stunned the
world. Manjula’s image appears on the screen and she smiles and bows to the viewers. It is announced that her speech will be followed by a Kannad film based on her remarkable English novel. The light turns green; the announcer disappears;
Manjula appears on the screen, ready to address the “invisible audience” (CPV, 262) in front of her.
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Manjula used to teach English in a college and write short stories in Kannada till her
first English novel The River Has No Memories surprises the world by winning her
the Best Women Writer of the Year award. The fabulous amount of advance that she
receives from the British publishers brings her instant fame and also induces her to resign her job. But she has stolen the literature and published in her name. She could
not produce literature of any substantial quality and her claim that her writing in
Kannad could not receive attention and bring honour and money is worthless. It shows her poor quality as an English teacher and story writer. As Dharwadker says,
“The switch to English…turns out in reality to be an act of dishonesty, desperation,
and cowardice, the implication being that the material lure of English as medium can only lead the Indian-language author to prostitute herself.”43
The talk to TV audience has provided Manjula a chance to answer questions that would have been put to her by the critics to evaluate her mind and art. The monologue turns into self-revelation of authenticity and artificiality, duplicity and originality,
common self and individual self which are the glaring aspects of writers and their works of arts, but so deceptively received and appreciated by the readers who have no time at their disposal to go for genuineness and finding out roots of fidelity.
The novel “The River Has No Memories” for which the novelist has been invited to talk deals with the “emotional world and life of a disabled person”, Malini, recreating
“the inner life of a person confined to bed all her life” (CPV, 265). Malini is the youngest sister of the protagonist, the girl suffered from a paralytic stroke, meningomyelocele, which damaged her body below the waist, leaving the upper part
of her body normal at the birth. In order to cure, she was operated upon in vein and she eternally remained confined to wheel chair. Soon after the death of her parents,
Manjula brings her to her house for care and shelter and adopts her as her child. She died “just a few months before the book came out” (CPV, 265). Manjula says, by
writing it in the memory of the life of Malini, she has “tried to relive what I learnt about her emotional life as I nursed her, tended her, watched helplessly as she floated
into death” (CPV, 266). The novelist received enthusiastic support from her husband, Pramod Murthy, she argues.
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Contrary to the abiding announcement, the novel was written by the ailing girl, her
sister Malini, as she had wonderful command over English. Malini puts into words,
giving an account of her life, her sordid feeling and her relationship with Pramod Murthy, her sister’s husband and prepared the manuscript of the novel, before her death. Pramod Murthy must have been aware of her writing which consisted of actual dialogue between them who took away the typed script to his office and “hidden away
in the drawer” Manjula “filched away the typescript until the agent’s email arrived” (CPV, 284). Malini had signed the script of the novel as M. Nayak. After her sad demise Manjula grabs the novel, and by putting her full name as Manjula Nayak, she manages to get it published through an English agent.
When the reality is brought to the fore through relentless questioning, Manjula’s consciousness is disturbed, her courage is shaken and the built up crescendo of self ego
is hurt. The presence of the image on the Plasma screen, talking to her, creates fright in
her mind and she is perplexed. The remark of the Image, “What are you screaming for? What are you afraid of? It is only me” (CPV, 268) reflects Manjula’s state of mind and
psychological fear. Again, when the Image enquires about the release of the novel,
departure of her husband and actual period during which she wrote the novel, she
explodes. When the Image wants to know the type of jokes they shared, she feels exasperated. Moreover, when it is proved that such a huge size of novel could not be
written within two weeks, again she explodes, “Who are you, for god’s sake? What gives you the right to interrogate me like this—about my private life? Either you are me
in which case you know everything. Or you are an electronic image, externally prying. In which case, you can just…just…f…switch off” (CPV, 273).
The frail mind of Manjula and her feeble confidence is tattered as she fails to uphold her authority over the novel and is compelled by the grilling argument to accept her
mistake in the falsity of assertion. The discussion between them is full of expressive overtones:
Manjula: All right. I didn’t write the novel. She did. She wrote it. Every word of it. …after her death, I found the typescript in her drawer. I read it.
(Pause) 177
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Image: It was brilliant. A masterpiece. You know that as a writer you could never dream of such height. The passion. The clarity. The insight. The total control. A work of genius. (CPV, 282-283).
Here, as Tutun Mukherjee comments, Manjula’s edifice of “righteousness
crumbles”44, her confidence as a writer is lost and the pyramid of praise and eulogy is cracked. As she could not tolerate inquisitive hammering her guilt, ‘fraud’, she rushes to the screen and looks for the cable connecting it so that it could be plucked away. She could not escape the pain of humiliation and guilt-ridden consciousness.
The interpretative analysis of her mind brings out the traumatic state of her puzzled psyche. She is a frustrated woman though she is working as lecturer-in-English. She
has the Master’s degree in her hand but her self-confidence in handling English is lowered and weak. Her creative writing in Kannada has not brought fame and
recognition as she has expected. In such circumstances her adventure to materialise the dream living in her unconscious mind finds achievement in moral degradation.
Manjula surrenders to brain teasing procedure or lie test conducted by Malini. The TV
studio is a chamber psychologists use for brain mapping; the Image is a test conducting agent, probing duality in Manjula’s psyche to lay bare her two-facedness.
As Mukherjee writes, “The Image becomes a performing intelligence, a mediated metaphor of the protagonist’s mind.”45 The adroit skill that machine used to penetrate
into her mind can be observed in the following conversation:
Image: But one hundred and fifty thousand words in two weeks? Ten thousand
words a day! It wasn’t inspiration. It was a cataract—of words. A deluge not matched since Noah’s Ark!
Manjula (Explodes): All right! I didn’t write the novel. She did. She wrote it. Every word of it. ….. ….. ….After her death, I found the typescript in her drawer. I read it. (Pause) 178
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I was decimated. (CPV, 282) The final trial succeeds in disseminate Manjula’s ego and her sense of confidence
when the Image directly attacks on her manipulation and exposes her hunger for false publicity and financial enterprise.
Image: Wait a bit. Perhaps…she did win in the end. …… Manjula: I had enough of you. I want to unplug you. I want to wipe you out.
(CPV, 286).
Against the backdrop of this plot, the monologue presents a split consciousness of the
novelist, Manjula, caught in a dialogic battle. The image of herself is a rational woman in her personality interacting with her selfish self, the self committed to her private motif aspiring for self welfare and name sake.
The joyous celebration of instantaneous success vanishes slowly and steadily when Manjula is grabbed by her split image and forced to confess her guilt of plagiarism
through self revelation. It is through the conversation with the Image that Manjula makes her private life public, so far invisible life opened to the world through
arguments in self defence, resistance and finally acceptance. O.P. Budholia holds similar views:
The image indeed becomes the dual personality of Manjula. It compares itself
with the dual personality of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray and to some extents, Dostoyevsky’s The Double. Even Lacan thinks of the effective role of the unconscious mental forces in the organic
creation of the text. The Image itself refers to the critical principles of Lacan when it says to Manjula, “Jacques Lacan would have embraced me if he were
here. I would be quite happy to be a central transcendental signified. You could deconstruct me out of existence” (CPV, 274). The Image as the central
signified remains in need to be deconstructed for its real sign (tattvartha).
Here the process of exploring one’s existence becomes symbolic of conflict between the physical and the spiritual self of an individual. The image thus 179
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becomes the dissociation of sensibility according to the Freudian theory of unconscious mental forces.46
Dramatic conflict that occurs inwardly is successfully displayed on the screen through
the confrontation between Manjula and her image. Finally her conscience in guise of
electronic image proves to be an iconoclast when it displays her innate image after
breaking her sophisticated image. Manjula becomes one with the image and the
image introduces herself as Malini Nayak. Manjula realises that English is the language that will give her what she cannot achieve from writing in Kannada. She exhibits her practical approach in taking out honesty and authenticity from her
dictionary and adopts duplicity in order to become popular. Dr. Sudhir K. Arora observes:
Karnad delves deep into the pscyhe of Manjula and reveals the unrevealed. She is the only character but the magic of his art makes the reader ever feel the
presence not only of Manjula but also of her husband, her sister and her friend
Lucy. She is shown as split personality- as a rival of her sister, as a defeated wife who could not win her husband’s soul, as a fraud, as an opportunist and as a woman who feels guilty inwardly. The conversation between the image
and Manjula keeps the reader spellbound and stopping the breath, they wait for the exposure. The dramatist has maintained the suspense till the last line is spoken.47
Karnad wrote the play Wedding Album to articulate and re-introduce the theme of marital discord. In this play conflict due to duality results in marital discord. The conflict is depicted through the comparison between traditional marriage and modern
marriage. The title of the play is suggestive of the marital relation that changes one’s life. The playwright presents society that has hitherto remained passive, perplexed and rather a helpless witness to the recent evolution of marriages and their breakdown.
Marriage being the universal social knot is presented in the play in its forms of
dissonance and disturbance as in the play the Father deciphers the concept as—
‘Marriage is a gamble. No escaping the fact – marriage is a gamble’ (Wedding Album, 89). Similar views are expressed by O.P. Budholia as he says, “In comparison of the 180
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traditional values of marriage, which is a gamble, the pattern of contemporary marriage is based on mutual acceptance and the relational comprehension.”48
It is the separation of home and work that had provided them with the idea of stereotyped behaviour of a man and a woman in a society. The modern society,
however, has been exposed to a workplace where women are also seen to engage
themselves outside home at the workplace. The play presents this conflicting idea of working women through the apprehensions held by Vidula as she says at the onset of the play:
VIDULA. I am Vidula. Vidula Nadkarni. I am twenty-two. Twenty-two and a half, actually. I have done my BA in Geography. Passed my exams last year. I
am not doing anything at the moment. Worked for a travel agency for six months. I got bored. If I come to the US, will I need to work? I am really not very good at it. (Wedding Album, 5)
The social changes presented in the play have directly or indirectly coincided with the breakdown of patriarchal system which invested overwhelming power and authority
in the hands of the male head of the family. However, Hema’s views reflect upon
dissatisfaction of Indian women with their lives. The ideological control of the family,
especially over women as individual even in the present day world remains in the bondages as women are to follow norms and standards of being a housewife:
HEMA. …the white wife refuses to go trailing after the husband. We Indian women, on the other hand, are obedient Sati Savitris, ever willing to follow in
our husbands’ footsteps. Look at me— Melbourne, Johannesberg, Singapore,
and now Sydney. Our men may get all the top jobs. But I am in no better position than Ma. (Wedding Album, 17)
The play brings out the stark contrast between times gone by and the present by
reflecting upon the social customs that have changed considerably. The warning influence of parents and relatives is evident in the patterns of meeting, dating and courting of the suitable matches throughout the play.
The playwright focuses on the elements that bring a particular man and woman together in marital relations through several complex pair of characters like Vidula 181
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Nadkarni and Ashwin Panje, Rohit and Tapasya, Pratibha and Irfan, Hema and Chandrakant, Mother and Father. The different relations demonstrate intensely
different choices made by people having different opinions, personality and temperament. The very choice of dialogues given to Vidula who is to get married to a
man she has never seen before questions the credibility of the concept of marriage as she says – ‘Look, I don’t know if this wedding will actually take place…’ (Wedding Album, 14). The concept of modern marriage is consequently shown to have changed with time as it is now a mere institution regulated by a legal contract:
ROHIT. He has already said he doesn’t want all that. No rituals, no wasteful tamasha, nothing. If he and Vidula like each other, they’ll go to the Registrar
and sign. If they don’t, they’ll shake hands and part. He proceeds to Malaysia.
Catches up with his badminton team. (Wedding Album, 25)
The play presents the pattern of expectations which are seldom fulfilled. There are
marriages which are shown in the play with a domination—submission relationship. The recurrent criticism towards such marital relations is portrayed through the times of frustration and anger that leads to infliction of physical violence when all control is lost.
ROHIT. …Don’t you know, Appa had a bad temper. And he was not averse to using his hand on Ma. Apparently Ramdas Uncle couldn’t stand that. He never let Appa hit Ma when he was around. (Wedding Albun, 55)
The hostility followed by many years of bickering and quarrelling makes the two partners realize that even after many years of apparent harmony their relation has failed to endure the test of time. The marital relationship of the characters as a result is not observed to have been based on understanding; rather it is shown to depend on the authority and power.
VIDULA. But it gives you a sense of power, doesn’t it? To have a girl waiting for you – her parents kneeling before you—begging and pleading… It really must make you feel grand. (Wedding Album, 42)
The play Wedding Album presents relations in marital disorder leading to marital breakdown. The play presents recognizable tensions of the relation which have to be 182
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evaluated recognizing the challenges that might be faced with psychological and social means. The play helps the reader elicit information about the stability of the
marriage and the mechanisms that might alleviate anxiety and mood disturbance
through the comprehensive evaluation done through reading of the play. Karnad bears in mind the situation of the modern world where ‘people use Internet Café to find life partners’ and where people “live in a modern world. A divorce is okay. It’s no shame” (Wedding Album, 86). The allocation of priorities for modern day
individuals has made them confront arising out of their ever-widening professional
involvement affecting their family needs. The playwright, therefore, emphasizes on
the need of spouses to be more conversant which would also be useful in marital reconciliation. Jack Dominian says in his book Marital Breakdown:
Marital disharmony is a responsibility that cannot be dealt with either through
the rigours or the permissiveness of the law, because human happiness cannot be legislated for. Help for those who cannot find it for themselves has to come
through the appropriate organizations and through men and women who are willing to help their neighbour in his plight.49
Karnad chooses to become that man who willingly presents the marital discord in his
writing which further helps readers to interpret their lives with caution. His play rather
provides with ideology that becomes imperative command to his readers through Mother, “Don’t do the same thing with your life” (Wedding Album, 90). His writing initiates and
contributes to the society by providing an understanding of the meaning of marriage through representation of various social problems confronted in the present day world. Each character is divided within himself or herself, torn apart by the restless compulsion of society to create a new life and to meet the new needs of the family.
Conflict is an ingredient of all drama but Karnad is more prone to it. In each play the
dramatic plot shows a tussle between two forces reflecting the playwright’s complex thinking. Karnad’s major concern is with the psychological crisis of modern man. His protagonists always suffer and the root cause of their suffering is the complexity of
human relationships. The socio-religious institutions further add to this complexity.
Caught in these intricate relationships, Karnad’s characters suffer from alienation: they are alienated from themselves and the people around them. They are always 183
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engaged in putting an end to their inner isolation but they fail to do so most of the time. In their mutual relationships, love and sex are of the seminal importance. These
basic passions transcend all types of barriers and hindrances raised in the form of religious beliefs, social conventions and emotional blockages.
The image of shifting marks almost every play. In Yayati, the shift is witnessed
through Yayati’s change into his son’s youth and return to his old self. In Tughlaq,
Muhammad physically makes this shift by changing his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad and vice versa. Padmini in Hayavadana goes from Devadatta to Kapila,
from Kapila to Devadatta and from Devadatta to Kapila again. Naga-Mandala too has
this shift in double role of Appanna. Rani moves from one Appanna at night to the other Appanna during day. In Tale-Danda, the king shifts his stand towards Sharanas
and their ideology. The head priest in The Fire and The Rain first leaves the Yajna at night, then comes back to join it. This sort of shift symbolizes the inherent duality in the mind of the playwright.
In India people are divided into various castes and classes which are hierarchized. This results in the inhuman exploitation and oppression of one by another, thereby
causing inter-conflict. The division and hierarchization of the society brings about the alienation of mind from body in individuals, resulting in intra-conflict. These conflicts form a kind of cultural labyrinth in which modern men and women are trapped. In
Yayati, the concern of class and gender illumine the characters of the play in fascinating ways resulting in conflict. In Tughlaq, king as a protagonist, is a frustrated
ruler, who is an idealist visionary and a confused ruler. His divided-self mirrors his split-personality. Hayavadana is essentially a play on the search of identity in a world of tangled relationships. In Naga-Mandala, the doppelganger theme or double self-
symbols has been employed strategically to exhibit conflict. The play Tale-danda
endeavours to highlight the subjection, role, upsurge and revolution of the subalterns (i.e. lower caste). The Fire and The Rain, a mythical play, reflects the drama of God
and heaven on the earth. The characters display the crisis of faith, act of jealousy,
ambition and rivalry which results in conflict. In Bali: The Sacrifice, Karnad takes the
issue of violence and non-violence, the ideologies in conflict. Flowers displays the
struggle between desire and tradition, between eroticism of religion and the discipline 184
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demanded of the devotee and between patriarchal power and its limitations. In Broken Images, the protagonist Manjula Nayak, is a split-personality. The play reveals the
essential ambiguity of human personality which is apparently shaped or shattered by
the human environment. Wedding Album, deals primarily with the conflicting
conditions between the marriageable ideologies of the East and the West. Thus we see
duality gives rise to conflict. Conflict is an inevitable part of drama, either it is internal or external. No conflict no drama.
185
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WORKS CITED 1)
Brown, Norman. “Apollo and Dionysus.” Life against Death. London:
2)
Pandey, Punam. “Existentialism: Text and Context.” The Plays of Girish
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959, p.155-76.
Karnad: A Study in Existentialism. New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2010, p.12.
3)
Dhanvel, P. “The Desire for Recognition: A Lacanian Reading of
4)
Gill, L.S. “Introduction.” Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana: A Critical Study.
Hayavadana.” Girish Karnad. New Delhi: Perstige Books, 2009, p.84. New Delhi: Asia Book Club, 2005, p.22.
5)
Anantha Murthy, U.R. “Introduction” Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq. New Delhi:
6)
Nayak, Bhagabat. “Archetypes of Ancient Myths.” Girish Karnad’s Plays:
7)
Budholia, O.P. “Yayati: Myth As The Structure Of Meanings.” Girish
Oxford University Press, 1975, p.vii.
Archetypal and Aesthetical Presentations. Delhi: Authorspress, 2011, p.40.
Karnad: Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.24.
8)
Agarwal, Sadhana. “A De Novo Vision on Theology and Monarchy in Tughlaq.” Contemporary Indian Dramatists. Ed. Shubha Tiwari. Atlantic
Publishers and Distributors (P) Ltd., 2007, p.96. 9)
Budholia, O.P. “The Dramatic Art of Girish Karnad.” Studies in
Contemporary Indian English Drama. Ed. A.N. Dwivedi. Ludhiana: Kalyani Publishers, 1999, p.96.
10)
Dass, Veena Noble. “Use and Abuse of History in ‘Tughlaq’.” Girish
Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.93. 186
Concept of Duality – A Recurrent Motif in Karnad's Dramatic Art
11)
Chapter - IV
Naikar, Basavaraj S. “Tughlaq as an Experimenter.” Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.88.
12)
Pandey, Punam. “Search for Identity in the Plays of Karnad.” The Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Existentialism. New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2010, p.94.
13)
Raykar, Shubhangi S. “The Development of Girish Karnad as a Dramatist: Hayavadana.” The Plays of Girish Karnad: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Jaydipsinh Dodiya. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2009, p.177.
14)
Dhanvel, P. “The Desire for Recognition: A Lacanian Reading of
15)
U.R. Anantha Murthy as quoted by Raykar, Shubhangi. “The Development of
Hayavadana.” Girish Karnad. New Delhi: Perstige Books, 2009, p.85.
Girish Karnad as a Dramatist: Hayavadana.” The Plays of Girish Karnad: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Jaydipsinh Dodiya. New Delhi: Prestige Books,
2009, p.181. 16)
Babu, M. Sarat. “A Psycho-Cultural Study of Karnad’s Plays.” The Plays of Girish Karnad: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Jaydipsinh Dodiya. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2009, p.75.
17)
U.R. Anantha Murthy as quoted by Raykar, Shubhangi. “The Development of Girish Karnad as a Dramatist: Hayavadana.” The Plays of Girish Karnad: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Jaydipsinh Dodiya. New Delhi: Prestige Books,
2009, p.177. 18)
Ibid, p.177.
19)
Gandhi, Krishna. “Hayavadana.” Enact. Aug-Sept. 1972, p.68-69.
20)
Chari, A. Jaganamohana. “Hayavadana and Nagamandala: A Study in
Postcolonial Dialectics.” The Plays of Girish Karnad: Critical Perspectives.
Ed. Jaydipsinh Dodiya. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2009, p.235. 187
Concept of Duality – A Recurrent Motif in Karnad's Dramatic Art
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21)
Ibid, p.236.
22)
Gupta, Santosh. “Naga-Mandala: A Story of Marriage and Love.” The Plays of
Girish Karnad: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Jaydipsinh Dodiya. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2009, p.252.
23)
Seetha, B.T. “Quest in Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala.” Girish Karnad’s
Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.196.
24) 25)
Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava. “Introduction.” Collected Plays, Volume One.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005, p.xxviii.
Seetha, B.T. “Quest in Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala.” Girish Karnad’s
Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.198.
26)
Budholia, O.P. “Naga-Mandala: Serpent As Metonymic Metaphor” Girish
Karnad: Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.69.
27)
Tripathi, Vanashree. “Tale-Danda: A Thesis Play on the Evils of
Varnashrama (Caste System).” Three Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and Culture. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2004, p.102.
28)
Babu, M. Sarat. “Social Deformity: Karnad’s Tale-Danda, Sircar’s Stale News and Rakesh’s One Day in Ashadha.” India Drama Today. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1997, p.45.
29) 30)
Karnad, Girish. “Preface.” Tale-Danda. New Delhi: Ravi Dayal Publishers,
1993.
Singh, Krishna. “Subaltern Issues.” The Plays of Girish Karnad: De-
Colonisation of Language and Techniques. New Delhi: Authorspress, 2013, p.107.
188
Concept of Duality – A Recurrent Motif in Karnad's Dramatic Art
31)
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Rathore, Archana. “Vivifying the Classical Myths: A Note on Girish Karnad’s
The Fire and the Rain.” Thunder on Stage: A Study of Girish Karnad’s Plays. Ed. C.L. Khatri and Sudhir K. Arora. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2008, p.192.
32)
Pandey, Punam. “Conclusion.” The Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in
33)
Nayak, Bhagabat. “Archetypes of Ancient Myths.” Girish Karnad’s Plays:
34)
Karnad, Girish. “Notes.” The Fire and The Rain. New Delhi: Oxford
35)
Jayalakshmi, P. “Politics of Power: A Study of Gender and Caste in The Fire
Existentialism. New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2010, p.152.
Archetypal and Aesthetical Presentations. Delhi: Authorspress, 2011, p.48.
University Press, 2009, p.63.
and the Rain.” Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives.
Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.250. 36)
Lyman, Stanford M. and Marvin B. Scot. The Drama of Social Reality. New
37)
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music. Trans.
38)
York: Appeton-Century Croft, 1989, p.55.
Walter Kaufman. New York: Vintage, 1967, p.151.
Chandran, S. Subhash. “Bali: The Sacrifice and Dionysian Life Assertion.”
Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008, p.294-302.
39)
Mishra, Shubha. “Reading and (Mis)reading Girish Karnad’s Bali: The
Sacrifice, in the light of Foucault’s Panopticism.” Thunder on Stage: A Study of Girish Karnad’s Plays. Ed. C.L. Khatri and Sudhir K. Arora. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2008, p.148.
40) 41)
Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava. “Introduction.” Collected Plays, Volume
Two. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005, p.xxxii.
Acharekar, Janhavi. “Of Love and Conflict.” The Hindu Magazine. April 15,
2007, p.5.
189
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42)
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Mukherjee, Tutun. “The Splintered Self: A Heap of Broken Images at Rangashankara.”
Girish
Karnad’s
Plays:
Performance
and
Critical
Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008,
p.333. 43) 44)
Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava. “Introduction.” Collected Plays, Volume
Two. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005, p.xxvii.
Mukherjee, Tutun. “The Splintered Self: A Heap of Broken Images at Rangashankara.”
Girish
Karnad’s
Plays:
Performance
and
Critical
Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008,
p.341. 45)
Ibid, p.339.
46)
Budholia, O.P. “Broken Images: Image As Catalytic Converter.” Girish
Karnad: History and Folklore. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.165.
47)
Arora, Sudhir K. “Spiritualising the Aesthetics (of Flowers) versus Breaking
the Ethics (of Image): A Critical Study of Karnad’s Two Monologues:
Flowers and Broken Images.” Thunder on Stage: A Study of Girish Karnad’s
Plays. Ed. C.L. Khatri and Sudhir K. Arora. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2008,
p.231. 48)
Budholia,
O.P.
“Wedding
Album:
Demystifying
Values:
Cultural
Configuration.” Girish Karnad: History and Folklore. Delhi: B.R. Publishing
Corporation, 2011, p.176. 49)
Dominian, Jack. Marital Breakdown. USA: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968, p.162.
190
CHAPTER - V WORDS AND SPACE BEYOND: AN APPROACH TO GIRISH KARNAD
CHAPTER - V
WORDS AND SPACE BEYOND: AN APPROACH TO GIRISH KARNAD The play is produced with the interpretation of the script. The script, in fact, is a mere scattering of words, sounds and visuals. It has certain patterns, but no preconceived
design. In the script, the identity of sound and words could be separated from that of the visuals. The words could be released from their responsibility of sitting on the lips
that are primary to a performance; they could be exploited as an endless source of fragmentation. Sound, which is already used in fragmentation as an effect, could also be elevated to the role of a principle entity standing almost parallel to the words and visuals. The sound, words and visuals as parallel entities, all independent yet very
much interdependent. While they exist and grow in separation, they are not at all meaningful separately. Whatever meaning can be discovered in them is only in their collaborative totality. With any shift of emphasis the meaning can, will and should change. To quote Mohan Rakesh:
For evolving a different concept of theatre one has to go deep into the study of
words today, just because they happen to be so very treacherous...Like
perpetual nomads words often exult the defying all efforts at harnessing them.
Even to repudiate words one is led to find more words….Since there can be no escape from the words in theatre, how could a way be found of steering them
effectively towards one’s dramatic purpose rather being steered by them towards the yawning abyss of purposeless articulation.1
Words written in the script occupy space on ‘Page’ but when they are on ‘Stage’ they occupy a space beyond. Echoing John Whiting’s views on language, Rakesh writes:
Words are highly treacherous medium. They are quite often likely to connote
much more or much less than the intended meaning. Sometimes even the
contrary of it. Invoking varied associations at different centres of perception in different individuals, they can easily defy, or even belie, the intentions of one who may have wanted to use them as instruments of precise communication.2 191
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Similar views are expressed by O.P. Budholia, as he points out: With the related aspects of contextualization, a word brings the manifold
meanings of its usage. The association between the cognition and perception
gives rise to the imaginative intuition and this unified process unfolds yet the cognized meanings of words explicitly before the readers. On the basis of the
norms of Indian poetics, the suggestive meaning or vyanjnartha can be realized through the following components: (a) the speaker, (b) the person spoken to, (c) intonation, (d) the sentence, (e) the expressed meaning, (f) the presence of another, (g) context, (h) place, (i) time and space. Thus the word power through its connotative and indicative meanings leads finally to an awareness of cognized meaning or dhvnyartha (suggestive meaning).
The grammarians of Indian poetics have divided the linguistic properties of the words into following constituents: Abidha (the expressive), Laksna (the
indicative) and Vyanjna (the suggestive). The traditional meaning of any word lies in its expressive form. The grammarians do not accept the isolated
meaning of the word. Apart from the traditional meaning, every word carries
its indicative meaning too. The third meaning of the word is the suggested meaning (vynjanartha). However, the total properties of the word
(connotative, indicative and suggestive) can be called the total essence of the
word properties. The different meanings of word become causative to the finality of the higher concept of human thought.3
According to Elam Keir, “Every aspect of performance is governed by the denotationconnotation dialect: the set, the actor’s body, his movement and speech determine and are determined by a constantly shifting network of primary and secondary meanings.”4
The unique success that Girish Karnad enjoys today owes a lot to the fact that he
started his experiment in Indian theatre after acquiring a thorough knowledge of what
was happening in the West. This way, he was able to reach a successful proportion of the techniques of both Western and Indian traditions. From the beginning itself he has
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taken his themes from Indian mythology and history. He was probably the first to feel the necessity of visualizing theatre on the basis of indigenous Indian traditions.
Karnad saw in the use of sound as an independent entity in a theatrical performance
was the extension of limited stage space. He felt that due to indeterminate nature of
sound, it may be possible to create greater illusion of space through the words and sound scattered beyond the visible space.
Karnad looked upon drama as a multiple art which involved, apart from words, a successful commingling of contribution of the actors, scenic effects, light and music and, finally, the directorial attempt to accord all these ingredients the shape of an organic whole. He maintained that there was essential dichotomy between theatre and drama.
The word ‘drama’ comes from a word related to the Greek verb ‘to do’; ‘theatre’, on the other hand, comes from a word related to the verb ‘to see’. Drama, as words on a page, and theatre, as enactment on stage. Drama is most often written language, the
words ascribed to the characters which in the theatre are spoken by actors. As a written form, drama is easily appropriated by literary theory; it is understandable in
the same general terms as fiction, poetry or any other form of letters. Unlike drama, theatre is not words on a page. Theatre is performance, though often the performance
of a drama text, and entails not only words but space, actors, props, audience and the complex relations among these elements. Literary theory has often ignored in theatre.
Theatre becomes a system of non-verbal signs, non-verbal languages, non-verbal writing, yet dominated still by the hegemony of language and letters as masterpatterns for the workings of the non-verbal. Theatre too is a literature.
In everyday conversation, we often use ‘drama’ and ‘theatre’ interchangeably. But sometimes we also use these terms to mean two different things. In such usage, the term ‘drama’ is reserved for a printed work while ‘theatre’ denotes activity. This distinction is perfectly valid, for drama is read while theatre is watched; drama has
readers while theatre has spectators. Drama’s mode of existence is literary and it takes
the form of a written text. The theatre’s mode of existence, on the other hand, is
predominantly visual and auditory. It takes the form of a live public event. As Dr. 193
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Mayank Ranjan writes, “Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.”5
Drama is written to be staged, hence, apart from compositional accomplishments;
technical requirements of the stage and the understanding of the psychology of the
audience deserve equal attention and incorporation in its performance. Playtext,
according to Kenneth Pickering is “the blueprint for performance.”6 George Whitfield explains drama as “a social art. No one can produce a play by himself. The words of the text are not the play, nor is the theatre in which it will eventually be produced.
Even a dress rehearsal can hardly be called performance. A play is cumulative of many relationships.”7 Both the text and performance contribute to create a cathartic
effect, i.e., entertainment, instruction, enlightenment, happiness, peace and moral upliftment. The success of the play is to be tested only on the stage, as M.K. Naik comments, “drama is a composite art in which the written word of the playwright attains complete artistic realisation only when it becomes spoken word of the actor on the stage and through that medium reacts on the mind of the audience.”8
Theatre is a live show. The events of theatre does not take place unless two parties of
human beings, the performers and the spectators, gather at the same place on the same
day at the same time, and stay together for some time. The performance is here and now, although the story or the theme of the play may be there and then.
A writer writes the play—that is the beginning. As such, it is the piece of literature written in particular language which is to be read by others knowing that language.
But then comes the director who transforms the written play into audio-visual scenes with the help of several performers. These audio-visual scenes can be called as score.
When the performers project the score to other people, it is no longer a piece of literature to be read and enjoyed privately and severally, but an event to be audiovisually experienced by a group of people assembled for that purpose—the spectators. This event is the performance. If the play is the beginning, the performance is the end and the score is the connecting link. And all these three elements taken together—the play, the score and the performance—constitute theatre.
The playwright therefore has to think of the final event, the performance, right from the beginning. He has to deal with two media simultaneously—literature and theatre. 194
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His language has to be a special language, different from that in other branches of literature, for it must be translatable into audio-visual scenes which can be projected
by a group of performers to a group of spectators. These two groups assemble and stay together for a span of time by mutual agreement, and the play in its entirety must
be expressed in audio-visual terms within that span of time. The playwright can do this through a story.
In order to be translated into theatre language, the story has to be expressed through the interaction of a number of inter-related people—the characters of the play—mostly by
means of dialogue. Here, the language of the playwright is the language used by
different persons in the story. The playwright is actually copying from life. The characters of his play are most believable when they speak, behave and react in exactly
the same way as the spectator would expect them to under the circumstances created by
the story of the play. Those circumstances must also be believable, that is, something
that can happen in real life. The settings of the events of the story should also be as close to real-life situation as possible. But just a copy of real life does not make theatre;
the playwright has to screen out those inevitable details with which life is encumbered,
which are not relevant to his story, which are not interesting. He may decide to omit two hours, three days, several months or years from the life of the people in his play. This time lapse is indicated by a gap between two consecutive parts or ‘scenes’ of the
play, usually created by closing the curtain or by making the stage dark. The change in the locales of different events is also indicated in the same way.
The performers’ task in theatre is to speak and behave in the manner of the characters of the play, and the director’s prepares the score accordingly. The idea is to make the spectator believe that the people on the stage are not performers, but the actual people
of the story; that the stage is not just the raised platform, but the actual places where the events of the story occur. In short, an illusion of reality is to be created in the mind of the spectator, so that he can identify the characters in the play in terms of his own experiences in real life, feel for them, be moved by the events in their lives.
Theatre is live. In theatre, direct communication is possible. That is the strength of theatre. Theatre is the meeting place of two sets of human beings; something happens between them—a human act. Theatre is human event. 195
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It is said that the source of theatre is ritual. Ritual is a theatre in which whole
community participates. The play is not written but is known by the whole community; the score is also known; the roles are distributed according to convention. In ritual, everybody participates, but there are some performers who have special
roles—‘shamans’, guides and initiators, trance dancers, high priests, chosen seniors.
They are allotted special action and speech, special costume, special make-up. It is true that ritual is mainly result-orientated—warding off calamity, bringing rain,
increasing fertility, initiating a child into adulthood, transforming single status into married status, etc., but ritual is also entertainment. The elements of fun and fiesta are there for the entire community. Theatre can also be result-orientated, as theatre committed to a particular cause. Such theatre desires to change the thoughts and
beliefs of the spectators, lead them to some action. In this respect, theatre is moving closer to ritual, inter-weaving efficacy and entertainment. According to Badal Sircar:
In theatre, communication can occur in four ways: performer to spectator, performer to performer, spectator to performer, spectator to spectator. The
performers always project to spectators that is what theatre is for. The performers communicate to one another, for they are inter-related in their roles
in the play; even when there is no story and characters, they work as a team,
complementing one another in action and speech. The attention of the
spectator, concentration, the reaction to the performance reflected in his facial
expression or the tension in his body—all these can be a form of feedback to
the performer or to another spectator. And once the performers recognize the presence of the spectators by coming nearer, by putting them in light, other opportunities of voluntary and spontaneous participation on the part of spectators can be included in the theatre.9
This process of exploration, of asking questions and finding possible answers, does
not remain limited in his mind simply as a thought process. Being actively involved in theatre all through, he tries out many of the answers in his practice.
Any event that involves the interplay of time, space, performers, action and spectators
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visual embodiment to ideas with its distinctive language/semiotics awards theatre a
unique system of intelligibility. Artaud, as is well known, takes this as the major achievement for theatre and explains that “theatre’s non-verbal language might
incorporate but would not finally need the language of written text.”10 Hence, he argues, theatre provides an independent way of understanding the meaning of the
play. This confers a special status upon theatre. The norms of verisimilitude, notions of ‘theatricality’; which have been major pre-occupation of all theatre practitioners
through the past history and adherence to the viewpoint that theatre existed only for and by itself would evidently make that very world of theatre ephemeral.
The point to note here is that these views deepen the gap between literature and performance as separate domains and rare are the occasions when the twain is allowed to meet.
It is obvious that while the ‘literary approach’ would insist on a ‘written’ text and confine itself to the thematic explorations of that text, the ‘theatrical approach’ would
take theatre productions as interpretations of drama script even though they might or might not do justice to the script or the possibilities of the text. For the ‘literary
approach’, the dramatist ‘controls the meaning’; for the ‘theatrical approach’, the
director and the performers have the ability to ‘manipulate the meaning.’ The theatre
and drama researcher is expected to deal with apparently dissimilar—although intimately correlated—types of textual material: one that is produced for theatre and another that is produced in theatre.
To settle this contentious matter therefore, the ideal would be to reconcile the two ‘types of texts’ as being complimentary to each other and insist upon an accompanying theatre environment to give life to a dramatic text. This would mean
that if indeed performance is to be accommodated within the concept of ‘genre’, it would entail the acceptance that each new performance is capable of carrying within it the potential of a fresh interpretation and the possibility of a new ‘genre’.
As for the ‘unique language’ of theatre that is distinctive from that of drama, the role of the ‘director’ becomes essential here as the expert in language of the theatre to
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manner of –thought not exactly as –a reader/critic of the drama interacting with the play-text in the literary domain. It should not be thought that a reader of drama will construct the dramatic world in the same way as a spectator. Not only will the latter have to deal with more varied and specific kinds of information conveyed through the
stage properties, but the perceptual and temporal conditions in which the spectator
operates are also different. Elam Keir views that the reader is able to imagine the dramatic context in a leisurely and “pseudo-narrative” fashion, while the spectator
must “process simultaneous and successive acoustic and visual signs within strictly
defined time limits.”11 Despite the given differences in reception, one could still propose that the activity of ‘application/interpretation’ could constitute the performance itself—of encountering the audience/readership whose response would identify and establish the ‘text for contemporary times.’ Discussing the function of the
text in performance, Patrice Pavis sees the text in synchronic confrontation with other elements that constitute the performance. He says, “it is the interaction of various
elements that is offered to the spectator and not their history, suggesting that the text emerges in performance and is not something located prior to performance.”12
Semiotics is a methodology for studying the production of meaning through analysis
of the signs that cumulatively form the messages and texts that that we understand as having meaning. As a methodology for analysis it is particularly useful for studying performance, which is a written text that is communicated physically, vocally and
emotionally. There is a set, an actual performance venue, there are lights, props etc.
There is also time and place in the world around us that resonates with the time and place of the world of the performance. Within all these elements there are innumerable separate signs that combine in relation to each other to contribute to how we interpret and understand the meaning of any particular performance.
Almost all semiological work in the twentieth century borrows basic tenets from
Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics. Saussure defines the sign as having two parts: the signifier, which is the material phenomenon we are able to perceive (an object, a sound of a word), and the signified, which is the mental concept
invoked by the signifier. A sign is anything that has cultural meaning. These signs
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signs from a paradigm of possibilities of all signs that are combined together syntagmatically (in a sequence) to form a pattern that is easily recognised and has a relatively stable meaning. The central relationship in semiotics is the relation between
the sign and its object. Words do not take their meanings from their relationship to ideas or things, but from their relationships with other words, and these relationships are relationships of difference - ‘tree’ is tree because it isn’t ‘free’ or ‘thee’ or ‘tray’.
Saussure is interested in language not only as a closed semiotic system but also as an
abstract system rather than as a system used by people in a changing world. He is more interested in langue, a particular language system, than in parole, the individual
use of language in spoken expression. Saussure is also more interested in the synchronic than in the diachronic aspects of language: in the abstract pattern of language as a system frozen in a moment of time rather than in history, change and event.
The second founding figure of twentieth-century sign theory is Charles Peirce.
According to Peirce there are three ways in which the sign can stand for its object: as icon, index or symbol. An icon is a sign that stands for an object by resembling it, not merely visually, but by any means. Included in this category of sign are obvious
examples like pictures, maps and diagrams and some not so obvious ones like
algebraic expressions and metaphors. The essential aspect of the relation of an icon to its object is one of similarity, broadly defined.
Indexes refer to their objects, not by virtue of any similarity relation, but rather via an actual causal link between the sign and its object: smoke is an index of fire, a weather vane is an index of wind direction, a mark on a fever thermometer is an index of body
temperature, and so forth. The relation between the sign and its object is actual in that the sign and object have something in common; that is, the object “really” affects the sign.
Finally, symbols refer to their objects by virtue of a law, rule or convention. Words, propositions and texts are obvious examples in that no similarity or causal link is suggested in the relation between, for example, the word “horse” and the object to which it refers. In this category especially the potential arbitrary character of signs
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object, then the sign user can consider the signs in unlimited ways, independent of any
physical relationship to the sign user. This point is of crucial importance and, in fact lays the foundation for the semiotic view of cognition in humans. In theatre there are
added layers of complexity. A chair is not just a chair, but a chair within a theatricalised event and as such has added meaning. If a curtain pulls back and reveals
a single kitchen chair we will run through a range of possible meanings for that chair
before the performance even begins. As the performance progresses that chair will take on new levels of meaning that have been generated within the performance.
Theatre is a polysemic text, that is, there are many possible meanings. In theatre there
are a number of source people transmitting signals to receivers. These signals are encoded by the senders (actors, writers, directors, designers) and then decoded by the
receivers (audience) but with the possibility of changes in the meaning that is understood. Theatre has two main channels of communication, visual and aural. To
analyse the complex signals being received drama theory attempts to formulate a taxonomy (list of categories) of the elements of performance using the concepts of
semiotics. A basic taxonomy would include a range of elements: linguistic, paralinguistic, proxemics, kinesics, vestimentary, cosmetic, pictorial, musical and
many others. These elements operate within a series of frames, the extra-textual, what we bring as receivers; a circumtextual frame, pre and post-performance experiences and messages; an inter-textual frame, the relationship between this performance and
others; and an intra-textual frame, the relationship between the elements within the
play. These frames contribute to the ways in which we structure or understand the meaning and significance of the signs and codes of performance.
Each element can be broken down into a range of subsystems. For example, proxemics is the study of the use of space to generate meaning. It can be divided into
three sub systems. Fixed features, any element in the theatre that is fixed in position such as a proscenium arch stage. These fixed features contribute to the type of space
that is environment of the performance. Some spaces are organised to maximise communal space between the audience and the stage and each other, this called sociopetal space. Other venues can be organised in a way that maximising the sense of being an individual in a space only really connecting with the performance, this is a 200
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sociofugal space. There are also the semi-fixed features, the set, the lights etc. Then there are the informal features such as the actors, props and any aspect that moves or changes in the course of the performance. The meaning of informal features changes
depending on the interstitial distances between objects/people. Interstitial distances can be divided into four subcategories. They are: intimate (e.g. touching or near
touching), personal (two person conversation), social (small group conversation), and public (large group meeting). These then intersect with theatrical and cultural codes in adding and generating meaning within the performance. Through analysis of these types of elements it is possible to examine the ways in which a performance generates meaning and the types of meanings it is generating.
Semiological studies of theatre have been undertaken by a number of theorists. A
systematic work of theatre semiotics is Elam Keir’s The Semiotics of Theatre and
Drama. Elam displays the strong structuralist bent of much semiological analysis,
attempting to provide a coherent system capable of accounting for all significant
activity of theatre and drama: smiles, gestures, tones of voice, blocking, music, light,
character development and so forth. Elam quotes the Eastern European semiotician
Jiri Veltrusky, ‘All that is on the stage is a sign.’13 He presents elaborate charts to
account for signification in the theatre and for the structures of signification in dramatic discourse: human affects, for instance, can be reduced to a complex system
of gestures and tones. Theatre becomes eminently analysable, understandable and readable.
In his short collection of essays, Theatre Semiotics, Marvin Carlson adds three
concerns to the semiotic theory of theatre which he claims have been generally
underdeveloped, “the semiotic contributions of the audience to the meaning of a
theatrical performance - in Peirce’s terms, how the audience receives and interprets
signs; the semiotics of the entire theatre experience - the ‘appearance of the auditorium, the displays in the lobby, the information in the program, and countless other parts of the event as a whole’; and the iconic relationship of theatre to the life it
represents.”14 Thus theatrical performance is potentially one of the richest and most rewarding areas in the arts for exploring the interplay of society and culture.
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All playwrights—in fact all writers—make use of figurative language. Similes and metaphors are at the heart of figurative expression and most dramatists employ them
freely and profusely in the speeches of most of their characters. They are used to make language more colourful and dramatic. Other figure of speeches commonly
employed by the dramatists are: allegory, alliteration, antithesis, cacophony, epithet,
euphemism, euphony, imagery, paradox, periphrasis and personification. According to Prabhajan Mane:
In many plays characters speak in plain, straightforward terms, while in others they speak in longwinded baroque or ornate terms. Most plays lean on one
way or the other and within most plays there are usually some characters who use figurative language a great deal while there are others who hardly use it at
all. The language of play is after all no more than the language of the characters—and they are often characterized merely by the extent to which they make use of figurative language.15
Though drama can be enjoyed in isolation, in our private reading, its real spirit and
degree of perfection can be enjoyed and understood when it is performed on the stage.
Hence textual perfection and technical innovations collectively work to make it a successful one. Theatrical techniques or conventions include the devices which are used by the playwright to transform play text into performing art.
Karnad’s skilfully employs words and technique to enhance the meaning of words in context they have been written. His dramatic technique is superb and flawless. His
plays have the tone and expression of great drama. The plots in his plays are well knit, the devices of parallelism and contrast, suspense and surprise help in the logical development of the plot. His characters are vivid. Both the plot and characters are
correlated and promote the unity of effect or impression. His English is simple, his vocabulary from different stocks, imagery, symbols, irony and metaphors heighten the
dramatic effects. His language is situation modified and vehicle to express typical
Indian ethos. Karnad is a progressive dramatist-a pioneer in neo-drama, and all his plays are actable. Earlier it was a mere literary exercise; the new dramatic movement has given a new lease of life to Kannada theatre. Vanashree Tripathi has rightly commented:
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Karnad has discovered and reinvented diverse pattern of drama from Indian and the world literature and his drawing on myths, folktales and histories have rejuvenated, expanded and energized the poetics of contemporary drama….Both tradition-seeking and intercultural in innovative acumen, his eclectic adaptation of
Western mode makes it relevant to the Indian experience…the desire to repossess an Indian form of theatre is more apparent.16
Karnad’s plays from Yayati to Wedding Album are the testimony of the above features, thematic as well as theatre techniques. His experiments with folk and classical techniques
are highly fruitful to create an effective and successful stage production: the use of
Sutradhara, announcer or song, the supernatural elements, play within the play, masks,
mime, songs, half curtains, dolls blend with modern devices such as sound, light, flash-
forward, flashback, rigging, conscience corridor, sound-scaping, role-on-the-wall,
physical theatre, split focus, cross-cutting, tableaux, and teichoscophy (viewing from the wall). We notice the evolution of themes, techniques and language in his plays. He
chooses apt and suitable words from a rich treasury of vocabulary. His words are suggestive and reveal both character and situation. He writes dialogues in lucid, pointed and precise language which possess decency and decorum.
Karnad’s characters use language which suit their status and temperament. Frequent use of Indian vocabulary, idioms and phrases, symbols, images, metaphors and irony
facilitate to create an Indian atmosphere and lend his style the charm of familiarity.
Grace in his style is hardly sacrificed for social cause or idea. His style is, however, straightforward and idiomatic. There is typical Indianness about his style in his plays.
His style is not loose but periodic-a complete whole or a part of a bigger whole. It has a specific form that cannot be easily tempered.
Aristotle has laid down two essentials of good writing, clearness and propriety. Clarity or intelligibility and propriety or suitability, are necessary to convey the
writer’s meaning to the audience; and these can be attained by the use of current words. Unfamiliar words-archaic words, foreign words, dialect words, newly-coined words, metaphors and all kinds of words-are used in a judicious combination to make
the work a dignified composition. Karnad has dexterously handled all these rhetorical 203
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techniques. Karnad makes use of traditional as well as personal symbols which are employed to highlight his concern for the psychological problems of the protagonists and their revolutionary outlook towards old values.
Even the titles of Karnad’s play are apt and suggestive, they epitomise the Indian subjects and sensibility, and rooted in the cultural past of the country go beyond the
limits of time and space. They connect one world, i.e., of myth, legend, history or folklore to another world, i.e., modern with its own characteristics and problems. They are well chosen to correlate past with the present continuous. Titles are named after a mythical legendry historical or folklore character or a socio-political issue of
the contemporary India. They instantly connote the proposition of the play, though the treatment often reverses the traditional message, yet elaboration, exemplification and conclusion (without offering any clear cut solution) make his plays more suggestive and thought provoking which leads to public discourse regarding problems raised
through his plays. His plays are real problems plays in which contemporary socio-
cultural and political problems are dealt with dramatic action, and the final solution is left to the audience.
Karnad is well aware of the limitations of the problem play, and he pays close attention to the art of characterization. It’s Karnad skill that both incident and
situation are correlated with characters. Karnad employs the devices of dialogue,
contrast, parallelism and irony for characterization. Only those points of the characters are emphasized, which develop the plot. Plot and characters are closely
interwoven. Chitralekha, Padmini, Tughlaq, Rani, Manjula Nayak and Vidula Nadkarni have been portrayed with great psychological depth. Often Karnad himself provides a brief biography of the characters which subsequently figure in the play.
This facilitates the audience to understand the entire personality of the characters.
There are two sets of characters, i.e., major and minor. Major characters through
dialogue, mental and emotional reactions, and contrasting features with the rest of the characters highlight the central concern and the problems the playwright intends to
raise. Minor characters are supportive, and their actions help to develop the personality of the protagonist. Karnad, like Aristotle, gives the second highest place to
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character next only to the plot. It is the character who is the source of action-physical, mental and spiritual.
Karnad’s plays from Yayati to Wedding Album present variety of themes, characters,
techniques and situations which require specific language to suit the context.
Yayati, the first play of Karnad, gets its title from the myth of Yayati which figures in
Adiparva of Mahabharata. Karnad has reinterpreted the myth of Yayati to give it
modern meaning and significance. It is self-consciously existentialist drama on the
theme of responsibility and human relationship. Yayati, unheroic hero stands for modern man inhabited by worldly desires, sensual pleasures, and irresponsible exercise of power and utter forgetfulness of the imperishable values of life. The play
also deals with the question of women’s struggle for emancipation and identity in an orthodox Indian society.
Different status of characters cannot be presented in a natural way without congenial
vocabulary, structure of sentences, idioms and phrases, symbols and metaphorical
representation of certain aspects of life, compound words, poetic expression to yield charm and beauty to the dialogues suiting the personality and status of the speaker.
Above all the air of ancient mythical culture would flow due to the corresponding
language. Even the names of characters of the play immediately take us to the nostalgic cultural past of India – Yayati, Pooru, Devayani, Chitralekha, Sharmishtha.
The play begins with a Prologue and Sutradhara like Greek Chorus, introduces the
content and characters of the play in a very lucid and pointed language and lets the audience know the backdrop of the play.
Our play this evening deals with an ancient myth....We turn to ancient tale not
because it provides fleeting glimpses of the fears and desires sleepless within us....What is represented here on the stage is an inner chamber on the first
floor of King Yayati’s palace. The king’s son, Prince Pooru, is returning home today after many years of absence. He has successfully completed his
education in the hermitage under renowned gurus, and is bringing home with him his bride, Chitralekha, the Princess of Anga. The crowds have started collecting in the grounds around the palace, eager to see the royal couple. The 205
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two must enter this space and on this bed they must create themselves the
magic kingdom of love, ambition, and power. He must sow his seed here and
then launch forth on a campaign of victory and death....But we must trust the narrative we have chosen for ourselves. Invent bits if necessary, but go on. We must relieve, not a saga embedded in books, but a tale orally handed down by our grandmothers in lamplit corners.17
Thereafter the mythical story of Yayati develops into four acts. King Yayati, Prince
Pooru and his wife Chitralekha, the Princess of Anga, Queen Devayani, Sharmishtha, the slave to the Queen, and Swaranlata, all are portrayed as mythical characters and
speak a language that suits their temperament and character. For instance, Swaranlata
reacts against Sharmistha who has bewitched King Yayati, and talks to Devayani, “That spiteful whore- I would have torn her hair out if you hadn’t stopped me. Taught
that fiend a proper lesson. A proper lesson. The rakshasi. You heard us, madam...She didn’t even spare His Majesty. I...I can’t bear it” (Yayati, 7). Even Devayani
condemnation is very sharp and penetrating, “Bitch, I’ll kill you. I’ll feed you the...” (Yayati, 13). It’s ironical that due to moral transgression Yayati is cursed with old age.
He is planning to exchange it with his own son Pooru so as to indulge in filthy sexual
gratification knowing the way of immunity, “the curse will not have its effect on you if a young man agrees to take it upon himself and offers his youth to you in exchange”
(Yayati, 45). The protest of Chirtralekha is well founded and it imbibes its force and meaning from a very stunning and aggressive language:
CHITRALEKHA (Flaring up): I did not push him to the edge of pyre, Sir.
You did. You hold forth of my wifely duties. What about your duty to your son? Did you think twice before foisting your troubles on a plaint son? YAYATI (shouts): Chitra! Take care... CHITRALEKHA: Sir! This is my chamber. Only my husband has right to come in here without my permission or to shout my name when he pleases. I am not aware I have allowed anyone else that freedom. YAYATI: I apologize... 206
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CHITRALEKHA: Yes, I was keen to become your daughter-in-law. But so were you to accept me as one. Even apart from my family, because of my accomplishments, because of what I am. And now you want me to meekly yield to your demand? (Yayati, 62)
Yayati, Pooru, Devayani, Chitralekha and Sharmishtha all are symbolic representation of lust, obedience, woman’s protest, and jealousy. Chitralekha, is developed to the
stature of New Woman who doesn’t yield but protests against male-chauvinism and succeeds in subverting the male world through an assertion of her rights and
privileges. The metaphors used to denote certain peculiar traits of Sharmishtha are:
“treacherous Hyena” (Yayati, 27), “Satanic” (Yayati, 8), “spiteful whore” (Yayati, 7),
“Bitch” (Yayati, 13), “reptile” (Yayati, 30), and “fiend” (Yayati, 7). Words like—
Rakshasi (Yayati, 7), guru (Yayati, 5), Arya (Yayati, 70), namaskara (Yayati, 70), Devi
(Yayati, 28) etc. lend indigenous pulse to the story.
Karnad’s mythical characters embody human depth. Sutradhara reappears at the end of the play and consoles the audience that conventions of Sanskrit drama require that
the play have a happy ending. He bids “Namaskara” (Yayati, 70) to mark a formal end
to the play. The tone and temperament of Sutradhara in the second appearance is that of an epilogue – that concludes the play and expresses gratitude to the audience.
Tughlaq is one of the best plays of Karnad due to his art and technique. It is the
judicious mixture of fact and fiction. Karnad has used Natak Company Convention skilfully in the play in which all scenes are divided and alternated between deep and shallow scenes. The shallow scenes are usually played in the foreground of the stage
with painted curtain – depicting a street – as a backdrop. These scenes are reserved for
‘lower class’ characters and kept for comedy. They served as a link scenes in the development of the plot, but the main purpose is to keep the audience engaged with deep scenes, which showed interiors of palaces, royal parks, and other such visually
opulent sets, were being changed or decorated. The major characters rarely appeared
in the street scenes, and in the deep scenes the lower classes strictly kept their places. Characters of the play were clearly divided into those which came into shallow scenes
and those which came into deep scenes. The plot of the play developed into thirteen 207
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scenes – deep as well as shallow. Karnad had chosen the historical figure, Muhammad Tughlaq as a protagonist that constitutes the main plot.
The plot of the play is based on history, and most of the characters and events are close to history but there are certain additions, i.e., Aziz and Aazam are invented by the playwright suited for shallow and comical portrayal. Thus Karnad has added comic sub-
plot to the play. The story of Aziz and Aazam parodies the story of Tughlaq. The play is wanting, according to Tilak, “in catharsis in the true Aristolean sense. The denouement is
weak and in the end Tughlaq has not been murdered but is seen sleeping confused and
bewildered on his throne.”18 The announcer has been used as a chorus figure who beats the drum and make announcement. Use of contraries, symbols (chess game, prayer, and python), metaphors, idioms and phrases, irony, cryptic, sketchy as well as long sonorous poetic sentences and words from Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi and Kannada, interesting story, complex plot, make the play highly innovative in technique. Karnad has succeeded
in creating a proper Indian atmosphere in the play, i.e., fourteenth century India when
Tughlaq reigned by the use of words and idioms and phrases from different sources. Sultan, Jiziya, Kaji-i-Mumalik, dhobi, dar-ul-Islam, Darbar-i-Khas, Allah, Islam and the
Muezzin’s call for prayer have been wisely given in Arabic, “Alla-Ho-Akbar...La Elaha
Illiah” (Three Plays, 183). Idioms and phrases used in Tughlaq: light up our path, went
wild, hold your tongue, the end of my tether, to breathe life into, play the game, torn into pieces, backbone of rebels, an incompetent fool, get rid of, an honest scoundrel, crush into
dust, get to ooze out spittle, mug’s game, etc. “roads lined with skeletons” (Three Plays, 208) are an imagery that create an unpleasant and dismal experience. OLD MAN’s
speech, “I survived. But my family was more fortunate. They all died on the way” (Three Plays, 192) and the FIRST MAN’s reaction, “We starve and they want us to pray. They
want to save our souls” (Three Plays, 208) are finest instances of irony and satire.
Tughlaq has been introduced in a traditional fashion, the language full of adjective,
conceits and pomp, “Attention! Attention! The warrior in the path of God, the Defender of the Word of the Prophet, the friend of Khalif, the Just, His Merciful Majesty, Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq” (Three Plays, 148-149). At the onset, Tughlaq
unlocks his plan of shifting his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad. His speech is full of
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humility, the sentence structure is periodic, the lines are run-on and the continuity is maintained artistically:
MUHAMMAD: My Empire is large now and embraces the South and I need a capital which is at its heart. Delhi is too near the border and as you well know
its peace is never free from the fear of invaders. But for me the most important
factor is that Daulatabad is a city of Hindus and as a capital it will symbolize the bond between Muslims and Hindus which I wish to develop and strengthen in my kingdom. I invite you all to accompany me to Daulatabad. This is only
an invitation and not an order. Only those who have faith in me may come with me. With their help I shall build an empire which will be the envy of the
world. (Three Plays, 149)
In later scenes when Tughlaq is disillusioned and frustrated his language expresses his tortured soul:
MUHAMMAD: God, God in Heaven, please help me. Please don’t let go of
my hand. My skin drips with blood and I don’t know how much of it is mine and how much of others. I started in Your path, Lord, why am I wandering
naked in this desert now? I started in search of You. Why am I become a pig
rolling in this gory mud? Raise me, clean me. Cover me with Your infinite
Mercy. I can only clutch at the hem of Your cloak with my bloody Fingers and plead. I can only beg – have pity on me. I have no one but You now. Only
You...You...You...You... (Three Plays, 205)
Symbols in the play enlarge the expressive range of the language due to emotional
and associative significance attached to it. The whole play is a symbol of the political situation of India of the sixties, as Murthy states, “...reflects as no other play perhaps
does the political mood of disillusionment which followed the Nehru era of idealism in the country.”19 This mood is revealed even in the very first line of the play, “God,
what’s the country coming to!” (Three Plays, 147). It conveys the anguish of an Old
Man of Delhi Sultnate who is generic. Aziz and Aazam symbolize opportunistic and
unprincipled people who exploit the liberal ideals and welfare schemes of the
government meant for the poor. Chess symbol has unique significance as it runs 209
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through the play. The chess suggests the intrigue in Tughlaq’s nature. A skilled chess
player, he uses his political opponents as pawn on the chessboard of politics. The
Python in the Scene Eight symbolizes Tughlaq’s barbarity and inhumanity. It is a symbolic of the complete degeneration of his personality from a human being to a
wild beast, a huge snake. Daulatabad is the symbol of Hindu – Muslim unity which
Tughlaq wants to foster. The vulture and other birds of prey that thrust their beaks into the flesh of Muhammad, so that he knows no peace either by day or night, are
also symbolic. They symbolize the frustration of an idealist and visionary, and his
spiritual agony. The prayer symbol which has been used as a leitmotif (theme associated with a person or a thought) is highly significant. The Muslim chieftains
along with Sheikh Sham-ud-din, a pacifist priest, conspire to murder Tughlaq at prayer time. The use of prayer for murder is reminiscent of what Tughlaq adopted to kill his father. The prayer is symbolic of the fact that his life is corrupted at its very
source. Rattan Singh also tries to exploit prayer to murder Tughlaq. Tughlaq is fanatic
about prayer, and when disillusioned about the futility of prayer he prohibits it in his kingdom. The word ‘prayer’ has been used in the ironical way in the play. It is introduced after an interval of five years. Tughlaq falls into a sound sleep and gets up
when Muezzin’s call to prayer fades away; so he fails to offer prayer. The prayer symbol is the very basis of the play.
Hayavadana is developed on Yakshagana and other folk forms. The conventions of
the folk-tales and motifs of folk theatre are dexterously fused together: masks, curtains, mime songs, the commentator-narrator, dolls, horse-man, the story-within-a-
story, world of human and the non-human create a grotesque world. It is a world of incomplete individuals, indifferent gods, dolls that speak and children who cannot, a
world indifferent to the desires and frustrations, joys and sorrows of human beings. Karnad employs poetry, music, a sense of gaiety and celebration linked with theatrical event in the play.
The plot is based on Thomas Mann’s Transposed Heads which is rooted in
Somdeva’s Brihadkatha Saritasagar and Vetal Panchavimshati. Through these
borrowings, Karnad has developed the themes of existential dilemma and theme of
incompleteness. The play is structured into two acts: the main plot deals with 210
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Devadatta, Kapil and Padmini while the sub-plot deals with Hayavadana. Both the plots advance the concern of the play – the mad dance of incompleteness and search
for completeness. Karnad introduces the mask of Lord Ganesha, the presiding deity of traditional theatre on the stage, and pooja is done in his praise like a typical
Yakshagana play. Soon Bhagavatta introduces the theme of the play through Ganesha
possessing the head of an elephant and human body signifying incompleteness; thereafter Bhagavatta narrates the story with formalistic expression in the manner of
folk-tale. Savita Goel finds consummate excellence in this technique, “There is a superb technical achievement in the way in which Karnad uses Brechtian type of
narrator figure in the role of Bhagavatta. He is primarily intended to draw the audience into the play. He is able to step out of the play, talk to the audience, explaining the action with his insightful comments.”20
Bhagavatta in Hayavadana goes on supplying background information and comments on the development of the story. The use of verse and use of prose that is balanced,
uniform, precise and pointed, suits the context. The invocation to Ganesha in the opening of the Act One is worth quoting: O Elephant-headed Herambha whose flag is victory, and who shines like a thousand suns, O husband of Ridhi and Sidhi, seated on a mouse and decorated with a snake, O single-tusked destroyer of incompleteness, we pay homage to you and start our play. (Three Plays, 73) Thereafter Bhagavatta introduces the scene and characters of the play in a very lucid and straightforward manner:
This is the city of Dharampura, ruled by King Dharamsheela...Two youths who dwell in this city are our heroes. One is Devadatta. Comely in appearance, fair in colour, unrivalled in intelligence...Having felled the mightiest pundits of the kingdom in debates on logic and love, having blinded 211
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the greatest poets of the world with his poetry and wit, Devadatta is as it were the apple of every eye in Dharampura.
The other youth is Kapila. He is the only son of iron-smith Lohita...He is dark and plain to look at, yet in deeds which requires drive and daring, in dancing, in strength and in physical skills he has no equal. [sings] Two friends there were -one mind, one heart- (Three Plays, 74). Two friends ironically develop into deadly enemies due to an entangled relationship after transposition, and kill each other. Whenever Karnad has to emphasize anything,
he creates space with dashes between the words, “KAPILA: I mean—who—is—it— this--time” (Three Plays, 83). The fear of the Actor has been expressed in a very
natural way by the use of broken, cryptic and incomplete structure of sentences,
“ACTOR: Sir...oh my God!—God!--/ I—I—I—Oh God!” (Three Plays, 74). After transposition Devadatta, Kapila and Padmini make a circle and sing a song. Though
simple in diction and clear in expression it carries a deeper psychological dilemma they all are facing:
ALL THREE: (together) What a good mix! No more tricks! Is this one that or that one this? Ho! Ho! (Three Plays, 105). In nature and landscape description Karnad is purely Wordsworthian; he goes beyond
physical charm and fascination, and suggests the inner conflict that runs parallel. His language is simple and highly poetic with a touch of emotion:
Long before the sun rises, the shadow of the twigs draw alpanas on the floor.
The stars raise arti and go. Then the day dawns and the fun begin. The circus
in the tree-tops and the cock-fights in the shower of feathers. And the dances!
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with silver anklets on the river. In the heart of the forest stands the stately
chariot of the shield-bearer. It is made of pure gold—rows of birds pull it down and our poor baby is tired—so we blow gently and out goes the moon. (Three Plays, 121-122).
The image of Ganesha symbolizes perfection and victory; Kali symbolizes power; and river and scare crows in the chorus song, the mental crisis of Padmini; Hayavadana
stand for incompleteness; Devadatta’ Apollonian tendency and Kapila’s Dionysian tendency; Padmini symbolizing erotic urge; horse, energy; and Doll I, II, III symbolizing Padmini’s psychic reactions and reverie.
Use of mask is a popular feature of Yakshagana to highlight personalities of dramatis
personae. In the beginning of the play, Devadatta enters on the stage putting on a pale-
coloured mask and Kapila a dark mask. After transposition, their masks also change to signify change of heads. Lord Ganesha is presented with an elephant-headed mask and
Kali, a terrible mask. Hayavadana appears with a mask of a man in the beginning, later
with mask of a horse. Curtains – half-curtains, painted curtains, carried by two stage
hands – sort of curtain used in Yakshagana or Kathakali – are used to carry specific
meaning. The curtain marks the entry of Hayavadana and the scene of Padmani
performing Sati is marked by a curtain that has a blazing fire painted on it and as it is lifted, the flames seem to leap up. Kali is also represented by the picture of Kali on the curtain. There is no front curtain nor any elaborate stage set up.
Use of dolls is another feature of popular theatre. They are used to satisfy the
emotional appetite of the audience and comment on the psyche of Padmini. While Devadatta, Kapila and Padmini are going to Ujjain in a bullock cart, the action is
mimed. Here is no cart on the stage, rather Kapila is followed by Padmini and Devadatta, enter miming a cart ride. Kapila is driving the cart. An image of Kali in the
play creates the world of mystery and wonder with frightening image animated. “Behind the curtain one sees the uplifted blood-red palms of the goddess. The curtain
is lowered and taken away and one sees a terrifying figure, her arms stretched out, her
mouth wide open with the tongue lolling out. The drum stops and as the goddess
drops her arms and shuts her mouth; it becomes clear she has been yawning” (Three 213
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Plays, 101-102). These theatrical techniques are suitable, to deal with the thematic concerns and entertain the audience.
Naga-Mandala which is a richly textured dramatic transmutation of two folk-tales of Karnataka deals with gender-bias, subalternization of women and prospect for their
emergence in orthodox Indian society in which patriarchy dominates all the domains
of life, i.e., religion, culture, social conventions, beliefs, man-woman relationship.
The Prologue introduces a man who is sitting lonely in the ruined temple; moonlit night is there, he is anxious of his life and death; the first sentence he uses is, “I may
be dead within next few hours.”21 Thereafter he narrates that he was a playwright and
was cursed to death for not writing play to entertain the audience properly. A
mendicant advised, if he could keep awake one whole night, he would succeed in warding off the curse. Flames join him. They are the symbolic representation of women’s pitiable condition and they report the subjugation of their mistress. The Story in the form of a woman, dressed in a new sari, joins their company and agrees to narrate the story to please the audience. Thus whatever the Story narrates develops
the plot of the play, characters and suggestions for woman’s emancipation. Plot,
character and thought have been developed due to dignified composition— consummate excellence in language. Indianized similes and metaphors, i.e., “juicy as
a tender cucumber” (Three Plays, 24), “wife locked up like a caged bird” (Three
Plays, 30), “Ears like hibiscus. Skin like young mango leaves. Lips like rolls of silk”
(Three Plays, 32), “change like chameleon” (Three Plays, 51), “spreads hood like an
umbrella” (Three Plays, 58), and epithet—“tender bud like you”; and the image of
Cobra (Three Plays, 58), haunted well (Three Plays, 48), Flames floating in air (Three
Plays, 23), ruined temple (Three Plays, Prologue) and symbols extend innovativeness
and novelty in expression. The introduction of Rani, the protagonist, is very graphic, informative and complete:
A young girl...an only daughter, so her parents called her Rani. Queen. Queen
of the whole world. Queen of the long tresses. For when her hair was tied up in a knot, it was though a black King Cobra lay curled on the nape of her neck,
coil upon glistening coil. When it hung loose, the tresses flowed, a torrent black, along her young limbs, and got entangled in her silver anklets. Her fond 214
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father found her a suitable husband. The young man was rich and his parents were both dead. Rani continued to live with her parents until she reached
womanhood. Soon, her husband came and took her with him to his village. (Three Plays, 27).
Rani is surrounded by the hostile and social milieu, and her husband is the cruellest among all the tools of her subjections. She is imprisoned like a caged bird; locked
from outside restricting her meeting with anybody. She is haunted by alienation, develops insomnia, restlessness and hallucination. Rani’s suffering and cruelty of her
husband Appanna, an epitome of patriarchy in the orthodox society, her loneliness and frustration make her hysteric. Karnad has expressed it pointedly:
RANI: I am so frightened at night. I can’t sleep a wink. At home, I sleep
between Father and Mother. But here, alone—Kurudeva, can you help me,
please? Will you please send word to my parents that I am, like this, here? Will you ask them to free me and take me home? I would jump into well—if only I could. (Three Plays, 32)
The Cobra by the magical paste becomes crazy for Rani and a cobra “can assume”, the Story narrates “any form it likes” (Three Plays, 38). The Cobra takes the shape of
Appanna, and introduced as Naga that enters the house during night through the
bathroom drain, makes love to Rani. In Act II, the Story reports the killing of dog and mongoose, and the operation of the Cobra that is also wounded. For next fifteen days
he doesn’t visits Rani. Rani spends her nights, “crying, wailing, and pinning for him” (Three Plays, 49).
The evolution of Rani is noticeable, and Karnad dexterously correlates language with
character. The last Act proves her revolutionary, who symbolizes the quest for women’s liberty and Karnad has worked it with the help of folk-tale. The protest and latent frustration is let loose emphatically to convey it to the audience, “I was a stupid,
ignorant girl when you brought me here. But now I am woman, a wife, and I am going
to be a mother, I am not a parrot. Not a cat or a sparrow. Why don’t you take it on trust that I have a mind and explain this charade to me? Why do you play these
games? Why do you change like a chameleon from day to night?” (Three Plays, 51). 215
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Appanna’s anger over Rani’s infidelity is expressed by sharp and piercing abuses: “harlot, slut and whore” (Three Plays, 52-53). The imagery of Cobra is highly
thrilling and awesome during the ordeal, “the Cobra slides up her shoulder and
spreads its hood like an umbrella over her head. The crowd gasps. The Cobra sways
its hood gently for a while, then becomes docile and moves over her shoulder like a
garland” (Three Plays, 58). After Naga Ordeal Rani is raised to the status of a Goddess—“a Divine Being” (Three Plays, 59) and her husband is instructed by the
Elders to serve her. Once again the Story comments:
So Rani got everything she wished for, a devoted husband, a happy life...life-
long servant...For Appanna Concubine was present at the trial...she felt ashamed of her sinful life and volunteered to do menial work in Rani’s house.
In due course, Rani gave birth to a beautiful child. A son. Rani lived happily ever after with her husband, child and servant. (Three Plays, 59)
The Story further elaborates the agony of Rani when she meets with her husband
during the night for the first time, “No two men make love alike. And that night of the
Village Court, when her true husband climbed into bed with her, how could she fail to
realize it was someone new? ...Don’t you think she must have cried in anguish to know the answer?” (Three Plays, 60).
Naga’s jealousy and sense of loss haunts it with reminiscences that morbidity is
poetically drafted by the playwright, “Rani! My queen! The fragrance of my nights!
The blossom of my dreams! In another man’s arms? In another Man’s bed? Does she
curl around him as passionately every night now? And dig her nails into his back?
Bite his lips? ...if I bury my teeth into her breast now, she will be mine—mine
forever” (Three Plays, 61). The Cobra is also haunted by the old memories, visits Rani and dies in her tresses. Rani’s eyes are filled with tears as she picks up the dead
snake and presses it to her cheeks. The Story disappears from the play. Rani, once
again finds Cobra and she allows it to live in her “hair...the symbol of...wedded bliss. Live in there happily, forever” (Three Plays, 64).
Ruined temple symbolizes seclusion and desperation, Flames represent the sociopsychological condition of woman, Naga as a romantic lover or poetic imagination, Rani
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stands for woman status, role and emergence, Appanna—male-chauvinism, Kappanna filial obligation, tools of subjection of women and Rani’s tresses—wedded bliss.
Naga-Mandala is remarkable play for the use of light, miming, freezing, music, and
shape-shifting techniques. The Prologue begins with the image of a dilapidated temple; it is night and “Moonlight seeps in through the cracks in the roof and the
walls.”22 The play ends as “Sunlight pours in through the cracks in the temple roof”
(Three Plays, 65). The time of dramatic action is confined to a single night. Appanna leaves Rani when it is daytime and she is left alone for night, her “words become
distinct as the lights dim” (Three Plays, 27) on the stage. It is in the dark that Cobra assumes human form identified as Naga who enters her room and makes love; the
Flames emerge on the stage. When Rani is declared a Divine Being, “Music fills the skies. The lights change into a soft luminous glow” (Three Plays, 58). When Naga decides to withdraw from the happy life of Rani and enters her room, “A beam of light on him. The rest is plunged into darkness. Long dark hair appears to descend and
cover him. He covers himself and dances. Finally ties a tress into a noose and places it around his neck, the stage slowly becomes dark. Long silence” (Three Plays, 62). On the death of the Cobra “music” is played out and Rani picks up the Cobra and presses to her cheeks; it gets “brighter” (Three Plays, 63) and the Flames disappear. Appanna taking bath is shown through miming.
The role of Story is highly useful to develop the plot, and the characters and make-up
limitations of the stage. M.K. Naik has rightly commented, “The play moves at a brisk pace, and the dialogue, which is clear, simple every day English without any
conscious straining after ‘Indian-ness’, suits the rustic folk-tale it presents as a structure, without causing harm to the deep structure of symbolism beneath.”23
Tale-Danda is a historical play that deals with the problem of caste which has poisoned the Indian life and its institutions. The medieval history of Karnataka, its socio-political milieu, characters rooted in the medieval past of South India, conflict
between traditional sanatana dharma and Lingayat faith, ideals of new faith—static
versus progressive, royal priests, deserve a kind of language that can be natural vehicle of conveying the vision and thoughts of the playwright and suit the characters 217
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and their personalities. Religious fanaticism and its consequences occupy the central position of the play; the character of Basavanna posed a threat to the religious
fanaticism and the result is awesome. The words and expression of various stocks enrich the text and correspond to the issues, deeds, actions and reactions of characters:
King Bijjala, Sambashiva Shastri, Savitri, Jagadeva, Mallibomma, Sovideva, Damodara Bhatta, Manchanna, Kallaya, Gangambika, Haralayya, Sheelavanta,
Madhuvarasa, Kalavati, Kalyan, “jungle of Uluvi” (Collected Plays, Volume Two,
CPV, 101), “Ayyo, Thoo! Thoo! Thoo!” (CPV, 91), “laughing stock” (CPV, 92), “heap
of shit” (CPV, 92), “ocean of saffron” (CPV, 84), Sharanas (CPV, 10) Shiva, Jain,
“Om namah Shivaya” (CPV, 39), aryavarta (CPV, 71), “Yuvareja Kalanjara-
Puadhishwara Suvarna-Vrishabha-dhwaja Someshawara Rajendra Bho parak! Bho parak” (CPV, 65). Even the full-length expression in Sanskrit takes us to the twelfth
century Karnataka dominated by Hindu rituals, and marks an instance of Indian imagination:
Maharaja
dhiraja
Kalanjara-puradhishwara
Varnasharma-dharma-Rakshaka
Dusta-shasana
Go-Bramana-Pratipalaka
Suvarna-Virshabhadhwaja
Damaru-turya-nrigho shana Kalchuryavamsha-Kamala-Bhaskara Triambaka-
pada-padamamadhupa Parama-maheswara Pratapa-lankeshyawara Giridurgamalla
Ripu-kari-sandoha-simha
Nisshanka-malla
Someshvara-Rajendra Bho parak—Bho parak. (CPV, 102)
Bhujabalachakravarti
‘Human body’ has been presented as a symbol of holy temple which facilitates our
spiritual advancement and the well-being of the whole society. ‘Fire’ stands for anger—the anger of Sovideva and the entire Sanatana Dharmi against Basavanna and
the forces of change. Killing of Bijjala in the sanctum symbolizes the degeneration of
human values similar to the prayer in Tughlaq. Mariappa sitting on the shoulder of
King Bijjala symbolizes the harmony between low and high castes. Basavanna represents revolution for change, progressive ideas and establishment of egalitarian
society. Damodara Bhatt, Manchanna and Sambashiva Shatsri stand for traditional values of Hindu religion. Jagadeva and Sovideva symbolize players in power politics.
Lingya (power and generation) and Kappadi (a meeting place of rivers) symbolize
peace and spiritual introspection.
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The similes and metaphors used in the play heighten Indianness: “a woman in just a ripe mango on a roadside tree” (CPV, 50), “Brahmin like a jackal” (CPV, 63), “snake”
(CPV, 69)—a metaphor of Sovideva who traps his own father King Bijjala, “city is dead—like a cemetery” (CPV, 91); the inter-caste marriage of Sheelavanta and
Kalavati—“cursed wedding” (CPV, 56), “absurd wedding” (CPV, 56), “unnatural alliance” (CPV, 62) etc. The fear after a violent reaction from brahmins led by
Sivideva is exquisitely presented, “GUNDANNA: Ayyo... Ayyao...Kala! Malli! I can’t bear it. I can’t...Mother!” (CPV, 90). The disgusting and frightening scene has been
given melodramatic presentation that makes the performance live and very natural:
GUNDANNA: It’s harrowing! A while ago—the King’s soldiers arrested Haralaya and took him to the city square. They also brought Madhuvarasa there—And then—as the city watched—they plucked their eyes out— A reaction of horror from those parents Plucked out their eyes with iron rods—bound them hand and foot and had them dragged through the streets—tied to elephant’s legs—Ayyo! How can I
tell you? Torn limbs along the lanes, torn entrails, flesh, bones—They died
screaming! (CPV, 90)
Uses of capitals, space, italics and dash between the words have been the technique
Karnad has used to emphasize the meaning or make the expression forceful
throughout the play.
The Fire and The Rain with its solid thematic richness has proved a great success. It
draws the story from the myth of Yavakri who figures in the Mahabharata. Karnad gives modern meaning to the myth which stresses on the dangers of knowledge without wisdom, power and integrity. Karnad uses words and expressions like: “jack
fruit grove” (The Fire and The Rain, 121), “wheel of time” (The Fire and The Rain, 173), “Hell-hole” (The Fire and The Rain, 176), dhoti, “dogs sniffing around my
daughter-in-law’s bottom” (The Fire and The Rain, 138), council of Elders (tribal),
“tamarind hill” (The Fire and The Rain, 143), etc. fill life in dry-bones of the age-old myth and vindicate Karnad’s interest to revitalize Indian imagination. 219
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The language used in the play has various levels. “Sick of silence” (The Fire and The
Rain, 32) refers to Vishakha’s sense of alienation; Yavakri’s penance is described in
such a way that a complete picture is drawn and we are transported to the world of
romance, magic and super-mundane, “Ten years of rigorous penance. And still Lord
Indra would not oblige. Finally, Yavakri stood in the middle of a circle of fire and
started offering his limbs to the fire—first his fingers, then his eyes, then his entrails, his tongue, and at last, his heart—that’s when the God appeared to him. Restored his limbs, and granted him the boon” (The Fire and The Rain, 115). Simple and stately
diction is noticeable in the play. Use of similes and metaphors make the expression
more lively and meaningful: “dry like tinder” (The Fire and The Rain, 103), “dying
like a sacrificial animal” (The Fire and The Rain, 172), “like a bandicoot” (The Fire and The Rain, 131), “drying up like a dead tree” (The Fire and The Rain, 142), “a
soul locked in nothingness like a foetus stitched up inside the mother’s sac” (The Fire
and The Rain, 146), “let’s be together like brother and sister” (The Fire and The Rain,
153), “bodies drenched in blood like rats that pur out during the plague” (The Fire and The Rain, 154), “like a eunuch” (The Fire and The Rain, 155), “dance like a
celestial being” (The Fire and The Rain, 161-62), “wave of blood breaking out of the
sacrificial enclosures like a flock of fear-crazed jungle fowl” (The Fire and The Rain, 170), “bitch of yours” (The Fire and The Rain, 138) refers to Vishakha and “trees
loaded with fruits” (The Fire and The Rain, 121) and “savage” (The Fire and The Rain, 126) metaphorically represent Vishakha and Nittilai tribal society condemned by Brahmins.
The words ‘bitch’ and ‘whore’ symbolize condemnation of the fair sex by male-
chauvinists. The ‘fire’ symbolizes lust, anger, vengeance, envy, treachery, violence and death. The ‘rain’ symbolizes self-sacrifice, compassion, Divine Grace,
forgiveness, revival and life. The image of Brahma Rakshasa (The Fire and The Rain, 128), Raibhya in meditation (The Fire and The Rain, 128), big banyan tree (The Fire and The Rain, 110) and Nittilai’s killing (The Fire and The Rain, 172) are marvellously employed to create a cathartic effect.
Music, light and sound effect technique have been effectively used by Karnad in the
play. It is presented as a parallel contradiction to the fire sacrifice to bring rain. In the 220
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Epilogue, among “roar of drums” and “sudden silence” (The Fire and The Rain, 166),
the myth if Vritri is performed that has deeper connotations. Darkness is used to mark the end of an Act as well as night. Act III begins with “Night” (The Fire and The
Rain, 149). Oblations to fire is mimed, the image of Brahma Raksha compels all to
“freeze” (The Fire and The Rain, 169); Raibhya pulls out a “strand of hair from his
head and throws it on the ground. The Brahma Rakshasa appears” (The Fire and The Rain, 128). This is highly spectacular; at the end “lightning. Thunder” (The Fire and The Rain, 176) brings rainfall.
The Dreams of Tipu Sultan provided an opportunity to Karnad to deal with Tipu Sultan, “one of the most politically perceptive and tragic figures in modern Indian
history”24 and explore his inner world which was recorded by him in his diary. The
technique of flashback and flashforward is perfectly used to highlight the exploits of Tipu Sultan. Kirmani and Mackenzie, while discussing about the writing the history
of Tipu Sultan, focuses on his dreams he has recorded in his diary. The play is divided
into two acts. There is, R.B.Changule observes, “constant flux in between dream and
reality. Though technically Karnad has not divided the play into scenes there are
various scenes in the play. The scenes shift from one place to other and from one time to another. The time moves from the present to past and vice-versa.”25 Through
flashback he takes us to the night of the fourth of May 1799, “Ramparts of the
Seringapatana fort. Midnight. There has been savage fighting and the ground is thick with the bodies of the dead and the dying. British soldiers are searching through the
piles of bodies for Tipu’s corpse” (Two Plays, 9). The stage darkens, the scenes in
quick succession change. Tipu enters, accompanied by Poornaiya, and lively talks go
on, “roar of tigers is heard in the background” (Two Plays, 23). There is use of dark and light to bring quick shift of scenes in the play.
Tipu’s valour, political acumen, struggle against British colonialism, antagonistic forces
within the country, innovation in trade and agriculture, familial love and affection, conspiracy, failures etc. widen the canvas of the play. It is a world of various cultures and practices. People with numerous traits of their personality, political ambitions, wars, psychic reactions, dreams, and the fall of the protagonist—all have been treated
by the playwright in a language which unhesitatingly embraces the words, phrases, 221
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idioms, similes, metaphors, irony, symbols, imagery from Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi,
Sanskrit, Kannada, Marathi etc. They help to develop the proper context and to communicate the ideas implanted in his mind: Nizam, Arthshastra, Diwan-i-Aam, Diwan-i-Khas, kebab, Imam, Caliph, caravanserai, Rajah, Quilledar, Sarkar, Goddess
Sharda, “Arre suno—Tum nahin—Han! Tum!” (Two Plays, 10), “Jee Huzoor” (Two
Plays, 10), “aao dekho. Inko pehchante ho” (Two Plays, 12), “Han! Han! Yahee hai
hamare badshah! Yehi hai—Allah ab kya hoga?” (Two Plays, 12), “Yeh murdah kya
yeh tumhare Sultan ka hai?” (Two Plays, 10), “Yahan aao...dikhai nahi de
rahaa....Andhera” (Two Plays, 10), “jaldi jaldi” (Two Plays, 13), “Thehro!Yeh hain” (Two Plays, 13), “Jee han” (Two Plays, 14), exclamations of horror in Urdu and
Kannada: “Arre—Roko—Ayyo! Ayyo! Yeh kya kiya?” (Two Plays, 15), “Sarkar-e-
Khudadad” (Two Plays, 36), “I’m never not serious” (Two Plays, 59), Inshallah, Sufi Zikr, zenana, Kaharajas, etc. and the host of dramatic personae soiled in Indian multicultural milieu. Use of similes and metaphors is also very apt and they heighten
the dramatic effect: “so delicate like a woman’s cheeks” (Two Plays, 21), “Persian
sword” (Two Plays, 49), “The English generals squabbling like women in the market” (Two Plays, 63), “White Plague” (Two Plays, 64). The image of “temple-dilapidated”
(Two Plays, 18), “White Elephant” (Two Plays, 20), “English withdrawing” (Two Plays, 63), and the dream image artistically fused with the plot: HAIDAR: I’m maimed, Tipu. I have no limbs. TIPU: But you never lost any limb. HAIDAR: You have maimed me, Tipu. You have cut off my limbs and handed them over to the enemy.
TIPU (low): Yes, father. I’ve done that. Have you come to punish me? (Two Plays, 50)
The above dream image also throws light on the psychic disturbances and frustration of Tipu Sultan. “Roar of tigers” (Two Plays, 23) symbolizes the ferocity of Tipu
Sultan; “fair-skinned and light eyed-young man” (Two Plays, 28) represents the
nature of the Marathas in disguise; “white elephant” (Two Plays, 20) symbolizes
peace and power. The Postscript is full of irony, i.e. how we treat our legendry heroes, 222
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“When India became independent in 1947, the families of maharajas who had bowed
and scraped before the British masters were granted sumptuous privy purses by the
Government of India while the descendants of Tipu Sultan were left to rot in the slums of Calcutta” (Two Plays, 65).
Bali: The Sacrifice deals with the instinct of violence and morality of substitution. Inspired by Sanskrit and Kannada epics, Karnad delves deep into the problem and treats it in a dramatic manner to expose the ways of violence and hypocrisy involved
in it. The Queen, the Mother Queen and the King contribute to advance this central point in the play. At the centre it’s Bali, i.e. the sacrifice of animals for material gains.
The Queen and Mother represent two opposite standpoints due to their ideological differences and socio-cultural practices regarding animal sacrifices. The Queen is a
Jain while Mother Queen is a Hindu. Both of them represent two different cultural backgrounds. The relationship between Queen and the Mother Queen is based on hatred; it’s because of polarity in their vision of life. When the Queen becomes
pregnant, the Mother Queen plans to celebrate according to the family tradition which implies animal sacrifice, “QUEEN: The animals are graded according to the occasion. Poultry is offered at daily rites. Sheep, goats for the important rituals. Then buffalo”
(Two Plays, 96). The Queen strongly condemns this practice, “I don’t want it. Not in
the name of our child” (Two Plays, 97). The King adopts her faith because he finds
truth in it and compassion for the world in pain. The Queen Mother knowing the
Queen’s company with the Mahout infuriates her, “Has she fallen so low? The whore—And you. How can you stand here like this? I should cut her to pieces...feed
her to wolves and vultures Do it, son, now!” (Two Plays, 107). The King also
supports the cause of non-violence. He is meek and friendly.
The Mahout symbolizes the subalternity of the lower class. He is a womanizer and a
drunkard. He is haunted by his low birth and ugly appearance but he is a melodious singer that fetches the Queen to the ruined temple.
The instinct of violence, character development and dialogue has been given artistic expression by the use of verse as well as prose that suit the above. Brilliant use of select
words, phrases, similes and metaphors add beauty and power to the play like: Bali, Saviour, Jain, pallu, dhoti, “black and blue” (Two Plays, 78), “bazaar woman” (Two 223
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Plays, 78), namaskara, “World is divided into two orbs...so also the human soul” (Two Plays, 73),“ugly as a bandicoot” (Two Plays, 75), “ruby lips” (Two Plays, 77), “Shunned
and starved like outcastes” (Two Plays, 98) , “naked like Saviours” (Two Plays, 120),
“rainy nights” (Two Plays, 125), “Death yields to life like monsoons piled on monsoons so the life follows” (Two Plays, 125). The abusing terms like ‘harlot’ and ‘whore’ have been used to denote the subalternity of the fair sex.
The imagery supports the meaning and creates a proper background to the context,
“inner sanctum of ruined temple” (Two Plays, 73) which also figures in Naga-
Mandala and Hayavadana stands for haunted place, seclusion and lifelessness, “four
armed deity” (Two Plays, 74), “replica of a cock” (Two Plays, 110) etc. The Mahout symbolizes “low-born” (Two Plays, 80) and its subalternity, protest and masculinity.
Mother Queen has been used as a symbol of traditional practices prevalent in orthodox Hindu society, especially concerned with animal sacrifice. The Queen is quite antithetical to her and symbolizes Jain beliefs. The cock symbolizes hypocrisy involved in rituals.
Certain expressions deserve close scrutiny to endorse Karnad’s skill of craftsmanship in language. Night has got a poetic expression, “Nice, The mist cleared. Nice breeze. It’s
beautiful night. Full moon. You can see every leaf in the tree. It’s such a bright night; you won’t know when it dawns. It’ll flow from one into the other, seamlessly” (Two
Plays, 76). The erotic experience nowhere got such power of words, “Good. Oh God, you are good! uh...uh...uh....You’re like no one I know....Oh! you are good—good...”
(Two Plays, 85). The old belief is treated in the following words, “My maid says that if
a boy pees on a bush and then if a girl smells the flowers from that bush, that’s how
babies are made” (Two Plays, 91). The Mahout is ugly because he was born on “full moon. There was an eclipse. As you know, the worst thing you can do to yourself is to
born during an eclipse. The sun or the moon—god whose eclipse it is—is already in the
grips of demons” (Two Plays, 80). The protest of the Queen is remarkable. The
language used is quite potent to convey the cinder latent in her mind, “I’ll not agree to
sacrifice. I’ll never” (Two Plays, 114). The acknowledgement of the Mahout’s love, the
Queen’s frankness and courage is expresses in a spontaneous manner, “I do not regret
anything that has happened. I will not disown him or anything he gave me....Because it 224
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just happened. Without my willing it. It just happened. That’s all....And what happened
was beautiful” (Two Plays, 118-119). The use of verse is highly contextual and throws light on the action of the play. The singer works as a Greek Chorus, and goes on
commenting on the development of the story. Dialogues are crisp, precise and argumentative, sometimes broken and cryptic to suit the personality of the characters and situation. The language used is simple and stately: SINGER: Memories slide, meld and fuse. Discrete moments get flung together strung in a single moment. Then the moment distends, spreads Into years. (The King and the Queen are older) (Two Plays, 93) The two monologues, Flowers and Broken Images, mark a significant change in
subject and form.
Flowers which based on the legend of Veeranna of Chitradurga region was successfully
used by T.R. Subanna in his novel Hamsageete. It is a narrative in which Karnad has
highlighted the conflict between religious devotion and erotic love, finally by the
miracle of Shivalinga, the power of the priest’s worship is recognized and he is the chosen priest. It is the only work of Karnad that studies male rather than female desire,
and develops a triangle unlike that of Hayavadana, Bali: The Sacrifice and Naga-
Mandala. Here, it is a man and two women. The unnamed priest of the temple is the protagonist who is known for his devotion to linga. It discusses the language of Indian
literary culture, particularly in relation of several regions of India. Linga, pooja, aarti,
dhoti, (Collected Plays, Volume Two, CPV, 244) flowers common in India—malligai,
sevanti, chandu, hooru, sampigai, kanakambara (CPV, 244); and Prasad (CPV, 244), pallu (CPV, 245), neem (CPV, 248), Parijata (CPV, 249), tritiya (CPV, 255), shivratri 225
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(CPV, 245) have been incorporated in the play to accentuate the folklore atmosphere and the obsession with linga and Prasad, The photographic transcription of the erotic
excitement reads like pornographic video clip, skilfully handled:
I watched the mole, poised on the inward plunge of her right breast, peering
precariously into the darkness of her cleft. I was longing to kiss it, but didn’t dare move for fear of disturbing her. Finally when she had fallen into drugged
sleep, I laid her back gently on the carpet, still moaning in defiance and
resisting sleep like a child, I bent down and kissed the mole. (CPV, 255)
The priest is a symbol of religious devotion, Ranganayaki sensuality and linga stands for power and divine blessings. Describing Ranganayaki’s beauty, “lips which like thick petals” (CPV, 246) is an apt simile.
Broken Images discusses the politics of language in Indian literary culture, particularly in relation to literatures of several regions of India i.e. Indian writings in
English versus Bhasha Literatures. The genre in literary writing is another issue that has been highlighted. The announcer appears on the big plasma screen, a modern
avtar of Sutradhara, and introduces the only character of the play, Manjula Nayak, and disappears. Thereafter she addresses the audience through television image. Her
address is self-exploratory—how she became a bestseller writer in English and earned
wide recognition and money. When the address is over still the image of Manjula is there on the screen and “From now on, throughout the play, Manjula and her image react to each other exactly as though they were both live characters” (CPV, 267). The
image is Manjula’s inner self and Karnad has explored her psycho-biography in an
entirely new way on the stage. Finally, “all the screens start speaking loudly, some in Kannada, the others in English. The cacophony is deafening. The revolving stage
moves out into the dark. Then one by one, the sets switch off, leaving the studio, dark and empty” (CPV, 287).
In the play, Karnad has adopted terms used in modern technology; expressions, creative
image; self-exploratory reactions used in modern psychology are quite supportive to advance the conflict and focus on the theme of the play. The electronic items like: Lapel
mike, plasma screen, elephantine lights, headphones, cameras, sound studio, 226
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broadcasting studio echo the modern world. The words and expressions like:
Arthapoorna (CPV, 265), artha (CPV, 265), Prayaschitta (CPV, 266), namaskara (CPV, 263), Literary Agent, hypocrisy of the speaker on the screen; use of paradox,
“And this time I had one advantage. She was dead and I was not.” (CPV, 286) and self-
disclosure are blended together to justify technological innovation and the dilemma of the protagonist, Manjula Nayak. One instance of self-exploration deserves mention:
Namaskara. I am Manjula Nayak. I must mention that officially I am Mrs. Manjula Murty, but my creative self continues to be Manjula Nayak....The first question—you have probably guessed it already. After having written in
Kannada all your life, why did you choose—suddenly—to write in English? Do you see yourself as a Kannada writer or an English writer? What audiences
do you write for...Intellectuals whom I respected, writers who were gurus to me, friends who I thought would pat me on back and share my delight—they
are all suddenly breathing fire. How dare I write in English and betray Kannada. (CPV, 263)
On the contrary, she betrays Kannada and justifies it. The choice of words and the beauty of the expression are noticeable, “But my response to the charge that I write in
English for money would be: Why not? Isn’t that a good enough reason? Would you like to see what royalties I earned when I wrote in Kannada?” (CPV, 264).
The self-image symbolizes the inner self of the protagonist, i.e. Manjula Nayak who
broadly represents the crisis the writers of Bhasa literatures are confronting; Broken
Images, the title itself stands for split-personality; Malini—young talents exploited by kiths and kins for market profitability.
Karnad’s Wedding Album is structured into nine scenes and “Scene One and Five take
place about three years after rest of the play” (Wedding Album, 5). The forwardbackward movement technique is highly effective to develop the plot. The action of
the play is confined to Nandkarni’s living room, Software Production Office of Pratibha Khan, Internet Cafe and Restaurant. Modern technology and gadgets have
been used to dramatize the most important issue of the play: marriage, a moment of celebration and anxiety. The story-within-the-story is another characteristic feature. 227
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Rohit and Pratibha Khan are busy making story in video cassette for the twenty-first century young viewers.
Scene One starts with a screen on which we see Vidula in close-up, speaking directly to the camera. She is extremely self-conscious and ill at ease and introduces herself like Manjula Nayak of Broken Images, “I am Vidula. Vidula Nandkarni. I am twenty-
two and a half, actually. I have done my BA Geography. Passed my exams last year. I
am not doing anything at the moment. Worked for travel agency for six months” (Wedding Album, 5). Vidula’s self-introduction is modern version of Sutradhara. Plenty of humour and satire have been used to expose traditional Indian marriage culture. The play ends with the darkening of the stage.
The play is the dramatic version of marriage in urban middle class family in India which depicts the culture and practices involved in it. The use of self-explanatory,
argumentative and reflective style; use of words, phrases, similes, metaphors, symbols, irony and specific expressions, augment the atmosphere requisite for the play. The words and phrases from different stocks of Indian languages are dexterously
linked with the plot, characters and their mental and emotional make-up like: dupatta,
hafta, namaskar, kameez, salwar, pandal, gunas, Amma, bendi, muhurta, Appa,
Kanjeevaram Sari, Ma, dhoti, arzee, triphala, vagar, tamasha, Ayyo, avatara, Sati,
Savitri, Shastri; “Oh, god! No. Shiva-Shiva” (Wedding Album, 48), “God broke this forehead” (Wedding Album, 21), “cool your top” (Wedding Album, 22), “make a mountain out of a molehill” (Wedding Album, 82), “fire altar and seven steps round it”
(Wedding Album, 15), the blend of humour, satire is characteristic of Indian culture
and creates strong feel of our society: “This is India, you know. Not Australia. We have solution for everything” (Wedding Album, 49), “they reserve their harassment
for Saturday mornings” (Wedding Album, 28), “hasn’t your weekly despatch arrived?”
(Wedding Album, 33), “That’s all that remains to me to do now. Sit down, place a
beetle leaf on my head, and do penance under the jackfruit tree” (Wedding Album, 22). The following expression, very obviously expresses the psychic disturbance, “Radhabai, tea, please. Three cups. (To Vidula) It’s disaster. Call mother. No actually don’t call her. Not yet. Where is she?” (Wedding Album, 46).
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The play deals with twenty first century marriage — both traditional as well as modern. Hence vocabulary and expressions used in modern society are also given due
space, “fuck off” (Wedding Album, 71). The modern technology like video tapes, SMS, mobile phones, video games, dating, tele-serial, ad, laptop, video chatting, camera, screen etc. have been frequently used to suit the subject and young cyber
generations. Similes and metaphors used are appropriate: “a smile like a toothpaste
ad” (Wedding Album, 11), “Indian women... obedient Sati Savitri” (Wedding Album, 17), “marriage is a gamble” (Wedding Album, 27).
Mother symbolizes traditional housewife with progressive ideas, Ashwin—modern young man who believes in “simple registration” (Wedding Album, 16) for marriage,
and “spiritual crisis” (Wedding Album, 79), Vivan stands for teenage fantasies and
sexual urge, Internet Cafe symbolizes twenty first century culture to find out life partners, the family of Nandkarni—urban middle class family with multicultural and
cosmopolitan ideology, Vidula symbolizes modern youth, Hema opposite to Vidula, Gopal touching the feet of Rohit represents culture of marriage and compulsions of bride’s family in marriage.
Ralph Yarrow explains performance as: The whole syntax of performance, from language of the text to the verbal and non-verbal sign systems and inflections of its transmission, and the whole
context of the presentation, is a temporal phenomenon whose complex and multi-faceted causality is traceable to a variety of historically determined
frameworks: including that of the original composition, that of the contemporary audience’s horizon of expectation, and that of the performers’ individual and collective responsiveness and level of performance skill; many
languages or dialects embedded within each other, many strands of social, aesthetic and political attitudes, many varieties of protectiveness and availability. A performance puts all of that in play in dialogue with the
meanings of the text and their physical enactment. Any performance is thus both a direct example of intertextuality and an extremely complex event, and
just as there are many codes and sign-systems by which that event is 229
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articulated, so it is appropriate to employ different frameworks to locate and understand its diaspora of meaning. Meanings are made, they are the work of the moment, and they always have to be remade.26
Aparna Dharwadker opines, “the drama of the printed page and the staged performance should retain its primacy in relation to all other forms of dramatic
representation reinforces Karnad’s commitment to literary identity.”27 To interpret
Karnad’s theatrical motifs, one has to appreciate the use of words by the playwright on ‘page’ and their depiction on ‘stage’.
230
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WORKS CITED 1)
Rakesh, Mohan as quoted by G.R. Taneja. “Mohan Rakesh on Page and Stage.” Flowering of Indian Drama. Ed. K.Venkata Reddy and R.K. Dhawan. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2004, p.103.
2)
Ibid, p.104.
3)
Budholia, Om Prakash. “The Fire and the Rain: Poetics and Aesthetics.”
Girish Karnad: Poetics and Aesthetics. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2011, p.123.
4)
Keir, Elam. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London: Routledge, 1980,
p.9.
5)
Ranjan, Mayank. “Introduction.” A Critical Handbook of English Drama.
6)
Pickering, Kenneth. Studying Modern Drama. (Second Edition). New York:
7)
Whitfield, George. An Introduction to Drama. Oxford: Oxford University
8)
Naik, M.K. as quoted by S.K. Bhatt. “Indo-Anglian Drama: A Critical Study”
9)
Sircar, Badal. “The Changing Language of Theatre.” On Theatre. Calcutta:
10) 11) 12)
Delhi: Globus Press, 2014, p.1.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, p.10. Press, 2001, p.4.
12.02.2011. Seagull Books, 2009, p.81.
Artaud, Antonin. The Theatre and its Double. trans. Mary Caroline Richards.
New York: Grove Press, 1958, p.68.
Keir, Elam. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London & New York:
Routledge, 1980, p.89.
Pavis, Patrice. Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture. London and New York:
Routledge, 1992, p.24-26.
231
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13) 14) 15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20) 21)
Chapter- V
Veltrusky, Jiri as quoted by Elam Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama.
London: Routledge, 1980, p.7.
Marvin, Carlson. Theatre Semiotics: Signs of Life. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1990, p.xi-xviii.
Mane, Prabhanjan. “Language and Rhetoric.” Interpreting Drama. New
Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd., 2010, p.70.
Tripathi, Vanashree. Three Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Poetics and
Culture. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2004, p.9-11.
Karnad, Girish. “Prologue.” Yayati. New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2008, p.5-6.
Tilak, Raghukul. Tughlaq: A Critical Study. (Third Edition) New Delhi:
Rama Brothers, 1998, p.12.
Murthy, A.R. Ananth. “Introduction.” Tughlaq. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1998, p. vii-viii.
Goel, Savita. “Folk Theatre Strategies in Hayavadana.” The Plays of Girish
Karnad. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2009, p.211.
Karnad, Girish. “Prologue.” Girish Karnad: Three Plays. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2006, p.22.
22)
Ibid.
23)
Naik, M.K. “Cinderella Still: Recent Indian English Drama.” Litterit. Volume
24) 25)
27. Number 1&2, June-Dec, 2001, p.46.
Karnad, Girish. “Preface.” Two Plays by Girish Karnad: The Dreams of Tipu
Sultan, Bali: The Sacrifice. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Changule, R.B. “Girish Karnad’s The Dream of Tipu Sultan: A Critical
Introduction.” 18.01.2011.
232
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26)
Yarrow, Ralph. “The Changing Nature of Theory.” Indian Theatre: Theatre of
27)
Dharwadker, Aparna. “Playwriting and Criticism: Another Look at Girish
Origin, Theatre of Freedom. London: Curzon Press, 2001, p.99.
Karnad.” Theatre India, Vol. Number 1, May 1999. New Delhi: National School of Drama, p.85.
233
CHAPTER - VI CONCLUSION
CHAPTER - VI
CONCLUSION In the scenario of modern Indian theatre, Girish Karnad belongs to the formative
generation of Indian playwrights who came to maturity in the 1960s and 1970s, and
collectively endeavoured to reshape Indian theatre as a major national institution. Though Girish Karnad exemplifies the transformative practices of his generation, he,
at the same time, has created a distinctive place for himself with respect to subject matter, dramatic style and technique, and authorial identity. It can well be justified
when we look at the creative corpus of him. The majority of his plays employ the narratives of myth (Yayati, The Fire and The Rain, and Bali: The Sacrifice), history
(Tughlaq, Tale-Danda, and The Dreams of Tipu Sultan), folktales (Hayavadana,
Naga-Mandala, and Flowers: A Monologue) to enkindle an ancient and pre-modern world that vibrates in contemporary contexts because of his contemporary
consciousness which help him remake the past in the image of present. In his mammoth attempt to forge a theatre of our own, Karnad has discovered and re-
invented the diverse patterns of Indian and world theatre by drawing on myths, histories, and folktales, and thus have rejuvenated, expanded and energized the
poetics of contemporary Indian drama. Apart from myth, history, and folktales
Karnad has also shown interest in contemporary settings in the plays like Broken Images, and Wedding Album.
Most of Karnad’s plays are based on Existentialism. Existentialism is a modern philosophical thought, according to which, a man is at the centre of universe. He is free to
choose and act but he becomes victim of circumstances. He is held responsible for the consequences of his action. He is projected in a state of fix, the state of ‘to be or not to be’
like Hamlet of William Shakespeare or like the divided self of Arjuna during the battlefield of Kurukshetra. According to the Western thinkers the situations or
predicaments project man to the state of absurd. ‘Absurd’ means sometimes ‘ridiculous’ but it means ‘purposelessness’. He becomes lonely, estranged, rootless, homelessness,
purposelessness, outsider and stranger to his world. He is always in search of his ‘self’ and he feels the sense of loss to his world. His individual alienation keeps him away from 234
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his ‘self’ and ‘loss’ of his world. He is always in search of identity and quest for completeness. Therefore, Karnad’s characters who are victim of existential sufferings and predicaments appear like a lonely figure, a divided self and split-personality. It generates
the state of helplessness, purposelessness and meaninglessness of man and such condition is extremely painful, crucial, experiential as well as existential.
In Yayati, the story is taken form Mahabharat where King Yayati is cursed to be old
and he wants to remain young and to have successor of his kingdom. He wishes that someone should exchange his age and he was ready to give a lot of money and land in its exchange. Finally, Pooru, his son, agrees to take curse of his father upon him and
he becomes old. His wife Chitralekha, the newly married and youthful lady, is stunned to see the face of her husband as an old man. Pooru compels Chitralekha to
leave this world. She failed to compromise with opposite situations. She suffers and becomes a victim of alienation and loneliness. She feels cut off and isolated from her husband. Her neurotic impulses drive her to violent outbursts, in the state of anguish.
She talks with her father-in-law shamelessly. She says, “I did not know Prince Pooru when I married him. I had married him for his youth…. He doesn’t possess any of the
qualities for which I married him. But you do” (Yayati, 66). Although Chitralekha
does not wish to cut the chord of her life, willingly, she has to die, because of her
failure. In anguish, despair and frustration she does not find any other option. Under hard circumstances, she takes poison, as Pooru has lost his power of sex to produce child because he has lost his youth, as well as identity for existence. After exchange
of youth, Pooru becomes Yayati and Yayati becomes Pooru. Neither of them takes care for Chitralekha, the youthful lady. Their responsibility as a husband and wife is
questioned who becomes a victim of society. They do not bear any familial values.
According to Sartre, “Man is both the recognizer of value and bearer of value.”1 On one hand, Pooru does his duty to father while on the other, he neglects his duty as a
husband to his wife. Yayati also did not feel for Chitralekha. On the death of
Chitralekha, Sharmistha ironically, says to Yayati, “The first martyr to His Majesty’s glorious vision” (Yayati, 69). Chitralekha’s suicide makes Yayati alienated and
isolated. It brings him to senses and realises his responsibilities for actions. Yayati
says, “Take back your youth Pooru. Rule well. Let me go and face my destiny in 235
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wilds” (Yayati, 69). The responsibility becomes the essence of existence. Without any
authentic existence, no one can survive in this world. So, both realize their predicament which emerges out of their decision or freedom of choice.
In Tughlaq, Muhammad endeavours to build a heavenly kingdom of equality and communal harmony for his people. To fulfil his desire or will he becomes a split personality or a divided self. He turns a victim from the rescuer while the people, his victims, become his persecutors. As a result, he becomes a helpless creature. Therefore,
“Muhammad keeps changing roles”2 says P. Ramamoorthy. In order to end up the causing monstrous sufferings of his persecutors, most of the decisions are taken by him. As per his call of conscience, he fights against all unfavourable circumstances but finds
himself an outsider, stranger and isolated from himself. He also takes shelter of bad
faith in his helpless condition. He looks at the Supreme Rescuer, God, for mercy and help. By accepting the power of God, man feels relaxed by the burden his wrong doings. Man is free to choose but not to control the overpowering and compelling
conditions. If results are favourable, man feels he is the maker of destiny but if it is
opposite, he leaves it to God who comes as a mentor to man. As a helpless creature, he has no authority to change and he becomes how things are shaped up. In the end, he is
full of despair and dread, and by wrong choice of means for realising his high ideals, Tughlaq comes to grief. He represents alienated humanity in predicament of despair. In
Tughlaq, Karnad suggests that man’s concern is not the problem of contemplation or sterile abstraction, but the problem of action. It is an existential problem.
In Hayavadana, Padmini attempts to obtain the perfect man without self-alienation, through the boon of Goddess Kali but her juxtaposition of a brilliant head and a strong
body is easily done by the hegemony of Apollonian culture carried on in the head.
Padmini who does not undergo change, finds herself in an existential crisis which results from a confusion of identities, revealing the ambiguous nature of human
personality. She says, “What are you afraid of, Devadatta? What does it matter that
you are going soft again, that you are losing your muscles? I’m not going to be stupid
again. Kapila’s gone out of my life forever. I won’t let him come back again. Kapila?
What could he be doing now? Where could he be? Could his body be fair still and his face dark? Devadatta changes. Kapila changes. And me?” (Three Plays, 118-119). 236
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Padmini again falls in love with Kapila whose Brahmin’s body changes and becomes
virile. She is bewildered. She is not able to think how to solve the tangled web of existence as she comments, “Yes, you won Kapila. Devadatta won too, But I—the
better half of two bodies—neither win nor loose. No, don’t say anything” (Three Plays, 126).
Kapila did his best to forget the faceless memories of the past but her appearance
revives them. Kaplia’s desperation, anguish and dread in this existential situation is revealed in the following lines:
The river only feels the pull of waterfall. She giggles, and trickles the rushes on the banks, then turns a top of dry leaves in the navel of whirlpool, weaves a
water-snake in the wet of silver strends in the green depths frightens the frog
on the rug of moss, sticks and bamboo leaves, sings, tosses, leaps and sweeps
on in rush—while the scarecrow on the bank has a face fading on its mudpod head and a body torn with memories (Three Plays, 127).
When Devadatta comes, both Kapila and Devadatta fight and kill each other and Padmini performs Sati. None of them attains completeness. Neither the death of the lovers nor the subsequent Sati of Padmini is presented as tragic; the deaths serve only
to emphasize the logic behind the absurdity of situation. In Hayavadana, Karnad has
highlighted the absurd, in the accepted norms of social behaviour, and his approach to human life in that play which is existential.
The sub-plot of Hayavadana, the horse-man, deepens the significance of the main
theme of incompleteness by treating it on a different plane. The horse-man’s search
for completeness ends comically, with his becoming a complete horse. The animal
body triumphs over the human head. Hayavadana is the embodiment of meaninglessness in human life. His absurd appearance suggests the absurdity of human life. The idea of irrationality initiated with the image of Ganesha is carried
forward to the end of the play with the help of Hayavadana. From his parental
background to his personal life, nothing happens in any logical order. His figure, bodily movements, his encounter with life, everything is marked by absurdity. Kirtinath Kurtkoti judiciously remarked:
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Karnad uses the conventions and motifs of folks tales and folk theatre—
masks, curtains, dolls, the story-within-a story to create a bizarre world. It is a world of incomplete individuals, indifferent gods, dolls that speak and children
who cannot, a world indifferent to the desires and frustrations, joys and sorrows of human beings. What is real is only the tremendous, irrational energy of the horse and its rider who move round the stage symbolizing the powerful but monotonous rhythm of life.3
Hayavadana thus presents a typical existentialist despair. The play suggests a strategy
for the achievement of integrity in the world inevitably cursed with absurdity and irrationality.
Naga-Mandala is not only a feminist play but also an existentialist play. Karnad has depicted the female character Rani who faces existential isolation, loneliness and helplessness, when her husband beats her, keeps her in the locked room, and always
goes to prostitutes. She feels alienated and stranger to her world. It questions the patriarchal moral code which demands the faithfulness of a woman to her husband but not the faithfulness of a man to his wife. Appanna, openly and unashamedly, commits
adultery but nobody objects it, the village Elders who sit in the chair of judgement, do not find fault with him. Nobody believes the innocence of Rani. In her article “Why do Women Oppress Women?” Srilatha Batliwala writes:
Since the beginning of civilization every society has lived by certain values
and beliefs which are cleverly transformed into immutable truths. In reality,
these ideologies are specifically created and disseminated to justify the inequalities and injustices of prevailing social structure, and thus protect the rights and privileges of the powerful.4
She sleeps with Naga without knowing the secret identity of Naga, who transforms Appanna’s form by using his magical power. If she knew the real identity of Naga,
she would never have allowed him to enter her bedroom. She is a typical woman, who is frigid and despises sex. But she craves for affection that Naga provides her in
plenty by acting as a surrogate parent for a while. By using his erotic art, Naga cures her frigidity and, later on, Appanna and Rani are able to enjoy marital life. 238
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The Fire and The Rain is another feat of Karnad’s existentialism play where there is conflict of jealousy, ambition and treachery. Vishakha is a victim of social order and has lost her zeal of life in her family as well in society. She lives a monotonous and
bored life. Monotony and boredom lead to loneliness and rootlessness which bring the
existential concerns. It is the social order that chains Vishakha to bear the abuses of her father-in-law, Raibhya, who calls her a whore, “You whore—you roving whore! I
could reduce you to ashes—turn you into a fistful of dust—with a simple curse” (The
Fire and The Rain, 20). He says to Arvasu, “I want the truth and I’ll kill her if
necessary. Let me go! I know how to handle her” (The Fire and The Rain, 20). “Her problems are existential which is beyond her control in society. She cannot open her
mouth against anybody in the family”5 says Punam Pandey. The statement of
Vishakha reflects her pangs, “But in all these seven years he has not come back. I
know he can’t. But look forward to having him home once the seven years are over.
Alone, I have become dry like tinder. Ready to burst into flames at a breath. To burn things around me down at the slightest chance” (The Fire and The Rain, 16). The statement mirrors inner agonies, problems, conflict and psychological pains of Vishakha. All her desires to love are shattered. She exists without any existence.
Paravasu wishes to be the supreme priest appears as a hurdle in achieving his goal. He
doesn’t care for his brother, Arvasu and wife, Vishakha and kills his own father, Raibhya. The quest for competition, rivalry and jealousy is crucial and existential in approach. It is a play of power-politics and sex-intrigues where characters are at war
and divided. But individually, all characters, in some or other way, are lonely, divided-self, split-personality, stranger and outsider to their world. It is pathetic, experimental as well as existential situations and predicaments of characters which make the play interesting and thought provoking.
In Tale-Danda, Karnad has shown that it is not too easy to break well-established
social system in short time. The protagonist, in the play Tale-Danda, Basavanna, is in the favour of mingling all castes. But as a foresighted person, he knows the result of
breaking the caste system. Therefore, he floats his ideas of wedding proposal of Sheelavanta, a cobbler by birth with Kalavati, a Brahmin girl. Basavanna aptly says to
Madhuvarsa and Haralayya in serious way, “The orthodox will see this mingling of 239
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caste as a blow at the very roots of Varnashrama Dharma. Bigotry has not faced such
a challenge in two thousand years. I need hardly to describe Venom will gush out
what hatred will erupt once the news spreads” (Collected Plays, Volume Two, CPV, 45). He believes that within a passage of time, the change in society will sprout and
says, “Someday this entire edifice of caste and creed, this poison-house of
Varnashrama, will come tumbling down. Every person will see himself only as a
human being” (CPV, 46). Basavanna wants to abolish such caste-system for which he
has to suffer a lot. His predicaments are existential in design. Consequently, his mission is unfulfilled and the great bloodshed takes place in the play.
In brief, we can say that Karnad as a playwright constructs the master design of existentialism in his plays. But he is different from the Western existential as his characters live in another milieu of culture and background. In the western countries,
existentialism is born out of frustrations, despair and fear of war, materialism and industrialism. But in the Indian setup where characters are born, it is full of chain of tradition, caste-discrimination, gender inequality, social justice where they dream of
the windows of freedom. Their sufferings, problems and predicaments of the western characters of the existential plays are different. But one thing is common between the
Western and Eastern outlook of existentialism i.e. the crisis of man and that of his
state of dilemma. As a result, they appeal like the lonely, estranged, isolated, frustrated, tired and chained characters. As a result, the dilemma of the Eastern Tughlaq and the Western Hamlet can be compared, who are constantly in the state of
‘to be or not to be’ in their relevant world. But the predicaments of Rani in NagaMandala, Padmini in Hayavadana and Vishakha in The Fire and The Rain are purely Indian context but their pains and sufferings are certainly existential in colour. These
characterisations and the extent of their sufferings and ironies certainly make Girish Karnad an outstanding existentialist playwright who can be ranked in the great
tradition of the Western existentialist philosophers like Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Kafka, Bertrolt Brecht and others.
In Karnad’s playwriting, orality and print are carefully balanced. All his plays, from
Yayati to Wedding Album, originate in remembered stories but depend extensively on
printed sources for their textual complexity and weight. He comes uncannily close, 240
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therefore, to the kind of modern writer T.S. Eliot imagined in Tradition and the Individual Talent, a founding critical text of twentieth-century modernism:
[Tradition] involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which may we call
nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves perception, not only of the
pastness of the past, but of its present; ... This historical sense, which is a sense of timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal
together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what
makes the writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his own contemporaneity.6
Keeping in view the role of the dramatist/writer, Karnad expresses the responsibility
and purpose of writing in a positive way. It is a kind of manifestation and self-
commitment:
I think if one gets involved with one’s characters or one’s play, then it should develop into some kind of a true statement about oneself. 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. You cannot be fashionably committed or fashionably involved. If you are involved, the issues will come: what are not involved don’t emerge.7
Karnad plays present multiple points of view and it depends on the readers/spectators
which they accept, or derive and get involved into it, at intellectual level. One point is clear in his ways of dramatization of myths, folklore and legends which make it acceptable to modern consciousness and sensibility. The problems and issues he has
dealt with, have direct relevance to contemporary world. As Aparna Dharwadker
observes, “Karnad has shown how the matter of myth and legend resonates in modern
experience, and how the past history of nation prefigures its present. The intuitive intensity of such method should be reason for appreciation, not devaluation.”8
Girish Karnad has given the traditional tale a new meaning and significance highly
relevant in the context of life today. In Yayati, the symbolic theme of Yayati’s 241
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attachment to life and its pleasures as also final renunciation are retained. In an
interview Karnad says, “I was excited by the story of Yayati, this exchange of ages between the father and the son, which seemed to me terribly powerful and terribly
modern. At the same time, I was reading lot of Satre and the Existentialists. This consistent harping on responsibility which the Existentialists indulge is suddenly seemed to link up with the story Yayati.”9
Yayati is a representative of modern common man who in spite of receiving much
happiness in life remains restless and discontented. The play is the story of a new problem of the modern man. Yayati and Pooru in Yayati picturise the relationship between every father and son where father expects his son to make sacrifice for him and the younger generation suffers because of the fixations of the old one.
In Tughlaq, Karnad realizes the rotten condition of Tughlaq’s time to be synonymous with Nehru’s vision of modern India in his attempt to europeanise her socially and politically during his era of idealism in the country. As Aparana Dharwadker rightly remarks:
The twenty-year period of Tughlaq’s decline as a ruler also offered a ‘striking
parallel’ to the first two decades of Indian independence under Jawaharlal Nehru’s idealistic but troubled leadership, and Nehru appeared remarkably like Tughlaq in his propensity for failure despite an extraordinary intellect. Yet the
play was not meant either as an ‘obvious comment on Nehru’ or an ‘exact parallel’ of the present: rather, it addressed the emerging ambivalence of power
relations in the political and public spheres which were based, for the first time in Indian history, on the principles of mass representation and enfranchisement.10
Karnad examines history in the contemporary context raising the fundamental social and political issues prevalent in Indian society and polity for a better future. The play
presents his disillusionment that his generation felt with the new politics of independent India and some understanding of its socio-political conditions. The historicity of the text in its understanding and analysis presents Tughlaq as a man of
striking paradoxes who ascended the throne of Delhi as “a dreamer and a man of action, benevolent and cruel, devout and godless”11 remarks M.K. Naik. 242
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Karnad’s interpretation of history in contemporary paradigms reveals the fact that
there are many leaders akin to Tughlaq who failed to sustain their own visions in
politics in spite of their honesty, integrity and model ideals. Tughlaq, by virtue of his kinship, feels it is his duty to protect and govern his country and people. But he fails
utterly in both. His failure is partly due to his characteristic limitations that prompts
him to commit murders, cause upheavals, upset the economy and violates moral codes. The other part proves him to be villainous for taking odd decisions, lacking
practical knowledge about his contemporary reality and knowledge on human character. The outside factor is that the circumstances were not in his favour. Karnad
develops Tughlaq as a parallel to Nehru, and his abortive ventures are quite similar to Nehru’s favourite dream-plan which were not only futile but aggravated the existing maladies. He makes Tughlaq a caricature of the post-colonial monster who preys upon his own people under the guise of a saviour. Karnad converts the history of Tughlaq into myth to enumerate the idealistic personality of the great Indian leader
whose vision became fatal to the society in postcolonial reality. Historicity of the text confirms that honest and clean politicians become disastrous for a nation. Keeping this in mind Karnad shows how the ever-increasing criminalisation of politics today is indicative of the failure of ideal role models to govern the country.
In Hayavadana, Padmini is a modern woman, freed from socio-cultural inhibition, who executes her desire of perfection, a perfect man in her personal life by overthrowing the patriarchal propriety and male dominance.
Padmini’s son, who survived his mother’s fate and has the power to complete himself, the horse and the play, acquire the symbolic role as ancestor of a future generation.
Hayavadana, almost complete, struggles to lose his ‘cursed’ human voice by singing
national anthem. Ultimately, the interdependence of these two ‘incompletes’ is made obvious when the comic exhibition of Hayavadana provokes the boy’s socialization, the child now laughing and riding on the horse’s back, and the shared laughter turns
the horse’s human moan into whinny. As Crow and Banfield remarks, “Hayavadana, perhaps, takes on the metaphorical significance of nationhood itself, the unity of
which depends not on the empty singing of the words of a national anthem, but on the liberation and integration of a people through laughter and joy in the acceptance of 243
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human weakness and incompleteness, and in the celebration of the pairing of horse and rider, nation and people.”12
In Naga-Mandala, the play questions the authenticity of traditional values and
conventions and in their place presents a new interpretation and vision which
harmonises with changing social reality. In it Karnad exposes male chauvinism, the exploitation and operation of women and injustice done to them in patriarchal society.
The playwright suggests that social transformation cannot be materialised without the empowerment of women. It is a play on the emancipation and empowerment of the women who have to play a pivotal role for the regeneration of a degenerate and
fossilized social order. Rani, the heroine of the play, who is humiliated and derided as a ‘harlot’ before the village elders, undertakes the ‘snake ordeal’, like Sita who
undergoes the fire ordeal, and like Sita, she comes out unscathed. She is elevated to divinity and is hailed by all as a goddess. Her husband Appanna realises his mistakes, accepts her with all humility and feelings of sincere remorse and repentance. The story says, “So Rani got everything she wished for, a devoted husband, a happy life…. In due course Rani gave birth to a beautiful child, a son. Rani lived happily
even after with her husband, child and servant” (Three Plays, 59). Thus, “Rani was
able to decide her own fate,”13 comments V.R. Devika.
According to John Rickman, Karnad has used “the folk tale in its feminized form to present the problems faced by both men and women in marriage and the process of transformation of the immature and emotionally underdeveloped person into a mature
and fully grown adult.”14 Rani is a symbolic persona who stands for many women
caught in the tangled martial life and strained relationship between husband and wife.
Married family life is never a smooth and easy affair, rather it is filled with anxieties, difficulties, tensions, doubts and discrepancy but their problem can be solved
amicably if both the member are considerate, faithful to each other and understand the circumstances responsible for disharmony.
The play Tale-Danda, projects a socio-religious movement during the time of Kalachurya dynasty. Bhagabat Nayak observes, “Karnad has analysed his
contemporary ‘Mandir’ and ‘Mandal’ movements as an objective chronicler in the 244
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‘historical givens’ of the past carnivalising the sharana movement of to 1168 A.D. He
has projected this sharana movement as a socio-religious one in its spirit and action that opposes idolatry, temple worship, and caste system in Hinduism which are the historical materials of the play.”15
Dealing with the ugly aspect of caste and religious intolerance during the social and
political crisis created out of Mandir-Mandal issues Karnad says, “When people all around us are slaughtered in the name of temple, I hear echoes from those times long past.”16 Retrospecting the history in its sordid prospect he projects the mystery of caste and religion in Indian social dynamics. The play is written on the backdrop of
growing fundamentalism and communal frenzy in India. But contextualising the
contemporary in history he presents an individual’s endeavour towards communal integration during an epoch of violence. The play responds to a later movement in the
political evolution of Indian-as-nation—the decisive shift in the late 1980s from secular to religious (specifically Hindu) nationalism.
History is the repository of knowledge. The pity is that mankind fails to learn this in
its ignorance. Projecting the truth and universality that history conveys in its texts
Karnad hyphenates the past and present in his study of the sharana movement in
Indian history of 800 years ago. Bringing the historical evidence into the contemporary reality Karnad has analysed the contemporary events in heteroglossia for which makes M.K. Naik and S.A. Narayan to say that, “The putative parallel
between Basavanna’s radicalism and V.P. Singh’s “Mandalism” is not projected effectively enough.”17 But Karnad writes in the ‘Preface’ to the play:
I wrote Tale-danda in 1989 when ‘Mandir’ and the ‘Mandal’ movements were
beginning to show again how relevant the questions posed by these thinkers
were for our age. The horror of subsequent events and the religious fanaticism that has gripped our national life today have only proved how dangerous it is to ignore the solutions they offered.18
Projecting the caste dynamics of the twelfth century Karnad regrets its effect on the
Indian society even today that causes social deformity. In the Introduction of the Collected Plays, Aparna Dharwadker writes, the Brahmin-untouchable marriage as a 245
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“classic example of the right deed done for the wrong reason, and the ensuing bloodbath destroys the very movement the union was meant to celebrate.”19 Regretting the
caste effect on the contemporary Indian society, Karnad in an interview says, “It
seems 800 years have solved no problems. We are back exactly where we started.”20 It seems that Karnad has denounced caste as a social stigma, and believes in Basavanna’s words—Guna (aptitude) and Karma (function) in greater and better
cause of Indian nationhood. In this context Dhanvel observes, “In changed context of post-independent India, such perception of Karnad is highly relevant because many
people of ‘low caste’ origin are in responsible position today. The implied suggestion is that they ought not to forget their social obligations to create a more equitable society, though it may require real self-sacrifice.”21
Karnad is of the view that Indian society is full of rulers like Bijiala, philosopher reformers like Basavanna, and conservatists and radicals like Sovideva and Jagadeva.
If ‘Mandir’ and ‘Mandal’ movements of late twentieth century India is similar to twelfth century sharana movement we have nothing to celebrate and appreciate our
civilisation. There are still many Damodaras who glorify the high castes and traditions superstitiously:
But civilization has been made possible because our Vedic tradition controls and directs that self-destructive energy. How large-hearted is our dharma! To
each person it says you don’t have to be anyone but yourself. One’s caste is like one’s home meant for one’s self and one’s family. It is shaped to one’s
needs, one’s comforts, one’s traditions. And that is why the Vedic tradition can absorb and accommodate all the differences, from Kashmir to Kanya
Kumari. And even those said to be its victims have embraced its logic of inequality. (CPV, 63)
There are many Manchannas among the high castes who poison the administration to get rid of this low caste nuisance reminding the authority of it. Manchanna prompts
Sovideva to get rid of sharanas like King Mihirakula of Kashmir who got rid of
Buddhist menace, and Pandya King got rid of Jain scoundrels. Singing the glory of high caste and tradition Damodara says:
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The marriage arranged by the sharanas was no trifle matter. On one hand
stands the Vedic Dharma, which has branched out in strength over the centuries and now shades the whole of Aryavarta. On the other, there is sharana movement—a pestilence—but of a virulence not seen since the days of the Buddha. (CPV, 71)
The play is a tragedy based on caste and religious conflicts which predict the horror of
death for imagined India. In the post-modern pan-Indian context Karnad forecasts the
horrors of caste that creates communal hatred and a great havoc in our society and
nationalism. It seems that Karnad conveys the message to his communal and superstitious countrymen persuading them to relinquish this avenging and revenging
tactics, failing which the contemporary society will experience the horrors of the twelfth century society of Bijiala’s reign. Thus by dramatizing the particular incident
and historical personalities Karnad has performed his duty as a social activist in the zeal of a reformist. Karnad feels that Tale-Danda is relevant even today as religious
fundamentalism is strong enough to destroy Babri Masjid and claim the lives of thousands of people.
The Fire and The Rain takes up complex issues and situations. The play is webbed around a seven year long fire sacrifice conducted to propitiate the rain god, Indra, to end the chain of drought. In the background a complex story of hurt egos is woven.
Jealousy and ego—the two important human aspects dominate the play. Filled with grief of his son’s death Bharadwaja cursed Raibhya that he would be killed by his
own son; and then he immolated himself. Paravasu mistook his father for a wild animal and shot him dead. Paravasu intentionally killed his father to get rid of him. He disclosed the death of his father to Arvasu and asked him to perform penitential
rites. Arvasu, who had worshipped his brother as a father-figure for his great scholarship, was deeply hurt by his brother’s rude behaviour in public, when he went
to sacrificial sites for patricide on behalf of Paravasu. Paravasu asked the others to
throw his brother as a demon encroaching into the sacred site. After performing the task when Arvasu returned to the sacrifice, Paravasu asked the king not to allow his
brother to enter the sacrificial enclosures because he was a Brahmin killer. The tussle 247
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of supremacy between the two brothers, shows the brother-hatred theme in The Fire
and The Rain. Karnad has presented Paravasu as a symbol of supreme egotism.
Paravasu through the fire sacrifice was trying not to seek blessings from Lord Indra
but to equal him. Paravasu lost all human sentiments in his effort “to shed all human weaknesses” and to become “a diamond unscratchable” (The Fire and The Rain, 32). There is a great difference in the attitude and sentiments of Paravasu and Arvasu. What Paravasu lacks, Arvasu has full to the brim—a zest for life and love for others.
Arvasu with his artistic talents, his sincere human passions, whole-hearted devotion and essential human-kindness is a refreshing contrast to Paravasu, who doles out love to his wife according to a meticulously formulated programme.
Karnad plays are deeply rooted in the Indian dramatic tradition. He revives the ancient
tradition by the use of archetypal myths, for their significance never dies. Through the
interpretation of myth, Karnad advocates that knowledge without love, compassion,
understanding and humanity can lead to inflated egos, jealousy and complete destruction. As Ghanshyam and Rekha observes:
In the play The Fire and The Rain, Karnad has tried to focus the egotism
prevailing in the contemporary society by associating it with the mythological
stories of the past. The play is a superb example, in which Karnad has succeeded in surmounting the cultural barrier post by English. This play
inscribed the human condition linking the present with the eternal and the contemporary with archetypal, projecting new meaning in every generation.22
The entire play deals with much violence like bloodshed, betrayals, jealousy, pride, false-knowledge and anger. Ascetic Lomasha, in the myth imparts knowledge to the
Pandavas and Karnad imparts it to the world by re-writing it. He finds the myth very
relevant to the contemporary society. Misuse of knowledge which is rampant nowadays is leading the world towards destruction. Writer has adopted the myth to make it a medium to warn the society.
The Dreams of Tipu Sultan is a complex poetic rehabilitation of Tipu. In the portrayal
of this legendary Sultan, Karnad presents India’s first anticolonial resistance and crisis 248
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in polity due to his internal dissensions and presence of powerful alien adversary. In the presentation of a major transitional moment in Indian history, politics and culture
he estimates Tipu’s dreams and modernising impulses to shape Mysore in the ‘new
ideas’ of Europe. Bhagabat Nayak remarks, “The play carries the same potential like that of Tale-Danda and Tughlaq in dealing with contemporary problems that make
history relevant even in the twenty-first century.”23
Bali: The Sacrifice is based on an ancient myth but it incorporates new concepts of
psychology and relationships. Karnad’s enduring interests in myth and history is
reflected in almost all his plays. His plays are innovative and use folk techniques and folk philosophy to speak to a contemporary audience. He focuses on selected
moments of cultural and historical crisis, which individuals have to confront as the ‘burden of culture.’ His creativity lies in exploring new aspects of life and philosophy,
while his plays constantly depict social drama of the world and the aesthetic drama in the character’s conscience.
The play Bali: The Sacrifice interrogates the notion of violence. Wars, bombing, violence, terrorism and blood baths are just regular features of postmodern world,
which all of us read, see and hear with just half our minds to them, unless we are directly affected. As Shubha Mishra opines:
The play takes up the issue of non-violence in a unique but controversial way.
The play is a tribute to the sensitivity of Mahatma Gandhi and it comes as a
‘comic’ relief, after all the blood and slaughter in Karnad’s other plays. In his note on Bali, Karnad admits that violence has been an issue not only steeped in historical context, but also in our mass culture. Vedic sacrifices, all kinds of offerings to God, from fruits to animals, even human beings have been part of
our religion since centuries immemorial. Its paradoxical philosophy can be
seen in Buddhism and Jainism, where any kind of violence, even a minor one or an accidental one, is regarded as dehumanizing. Karnad’s play is
foregrounded in human predicament and can be deconstructed in the framework of post-structuralism.24
A heap of Broken Images and Wedding Album can be included in modern theatre for
their theme and technique. Presenting the middle class Indian life in metropolitan 249
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cities he dramatizes how the members of middle class families talk, behave and lead
their life like English people and try to gain access in trade and administration and
establish their prominence in the international scenario. In dramatization of contemporary realities Karnad presents their existential problems, struggle for survival, and modern day principles which are void of spirituality due to the effect of
materialistic life, corruption in high places, influence of science and technology, loss
of moral values in family and social life, and gradual collapse of certain norms and values in society. While the older generation has cultural austerity the younger generation suffers from a cultural amnesia in urban setting, technology adjusted family life, materialistic culture, east-west conflict and impact of macro-economy. In
both the plays Karnad has presented his characters who suffer from physical and psychological exile due to their desire to control the global economy. Presenting them
as outsiders within and insiders without he reveals incongruity in parent-child relationship, and spiritual essence and material essentialism. Both the plays deal with postcolonial elements like individual’s psychological and physical exile, parents’ liberal doctrine, children’s disloyalty to their parents for their idealistic supremacy
which challenge parent-child intimacy. Parents are portrayed as preservers of culture but their children become culture vultures in their notion of self-determination and
desire for autonomy. Presenting the Indian family life and society in a flux Karnad focuses on the incongruous process of adjustment, interpretation, incorporation and
dilution of values, morals and interests in tradition. The young children in their
oppositional ideologies believe that their parents are myopically liberal in their global trajectory and cultural uprootedness. As Bhagabat Nayak comments:
Broken Images presents a debate on language conundrums in India that has
grown steadily edgier since independence. Politics of language is a postcolonial issue. It highlights the subalternism of native languages and
imperialism of foreign language, i.e., English that dominates the psyche of
Indian intellectuals, their thought process and energises their interest to compete and coordinate in the global market. Through the protagonist Karnad expresses his authorial voice against a creative writer’s dishonesty, desperation, cowardliness and opportunism. In the self of a bilingual author he 250
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propounds that writing in English other than mother tongue is not the violation of authorial ethics. An author’s swaying away from mother-tongue to other tongue is not a betrayal rather it is an attempt for new identity. When Manjula’s pseudo-authorial self asserts her logic in bilingual creativity her Image on plasma screen interrogates her inner self whether she is materially
lured for English. In language dichotomy she does not believe that writing in
English is a tenacity in her creative self nor a deliberate attempt to establish identity suppressing her mother tongue in an act of inferiorization. However
for her coalescing with the mother tongue and being contaminated by the foreign tongue she is believed for establishing the identity without integrity by non-participating audience.25
The play dramatizes the logics on integrity and corruption, wholeness and
fragmentation, rootedness and rootlessness, decolonization and re-colonization. The protagonist’s arguments before her Image can be hypothised differently for her sudden transition from mother tongue to foreign tongue that steadily leads her to an emotional breakdown. After the language conundrums the non-participatory audience
observe how she is haunted by the spirit of her dead sister. Replying to the investigative questions of her Image on the plasma screen she gets dissolved and her
false vanities vaporise. In a sudden burst she discloses the secret of her success that goes to her dead sister who in reality had drafted the masterpiece.
Manjula admits that she has earned name, fame, money and fortune for her novel that was really written by Malini, her younger sister. She breaks down emotionally before
the public when the Image delves deep into her psyche. She reveals how she has committed the crime of plagiarism being overpowered by ambition, greed, selfishness, quest for identity and vulgarized milieu of her family.
Electronic media is almost a character in the play. The plasma screen on the stage has
become a truth telling apparatus that explores the psychological dimension of the protagonist steadily peeling off her hidden urges, private afflictions and subterranean
desires. The protagonist’s Image on the plasma screen is a mediated metaphor that
intelligently extracts the truth from her mind. The plasma screen that acts like a 251
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polygraph justifies as a persona by slowly fragmenting and splintering the false identity and the ego of the protagonist.
Wedding Album is Karnad’s latest play gives a photographic presentation of the
members of a middle class family and their preparation for the marriage of their grown up son and daughter and worries for suitable candidates. In the play the
playwright presents the ‘anxiety of Indianness’ of the parents in a middle class south Indian Saraswat Brahmin family for marriage of their son and daughter.
Encompassing their psychology, Indian sociology, philosophical and religious beliefs, social and scientific transformations the parents, according to V.K. Gokak, believe
that “An Indian, then, is a person who owns up the entire Indian heritage and not merely a portion of it. This integral cultural awareness is an indispensable feature of Indianness.”26
The play reveals the ins and outs of a middle class family who have international outlook for marriage, job sector and establishing relationship. The Nandkarnis are
generally traditional in their way of living and outlook. As in Broken Images electronic media plays an important role in Wedding Album the thinking, perception
and style of living of younger generation is greatly affected by tech-medias. The Nandkarnis are tradition lovers. They like to preserve it in their continental travels. In
their middle class status they crave for money, wealth and prosperity. The parental authority does not like to allow their young children to enjoy sexual freedom in
marriage going beyond the boundary of caste and culture. While the young Nandkarni
girl Vidula visits the net café to chat with her “pinning peacock” (Wedding Album, 64) for her emotional satisfaction her elder sister Hema, though married, prefers to stay at her parent’s home and flirts with their neighbour’s son as her husband works in a multinational company and stays out in Australia. Their son Rohit is quite late for
marriage and flirts with a Christian girl. He says he will not marry unless and until he becomes financially sound. The parents are liberal minded but they do not like to see any cultural holocaust in the name of marriage. The culture-infected Nandkarnis have
modern outlook and choice for prospective grooms from corporate sectors but they do not prefer inter-religious marriage for their son. They prefer to see tradition and talent
go side by side but they do not like to see talent to tread upon tradition. They prefer 252
Conclusion
Chapter - VI
ethnic purity in postcolonial perspective. In marriage, austerity of caste and culture is
preferred but they do not like their caste diluted with the impact of globalization and e-tech. Through the wedding of their son and daughter they like to see marriage as a
kind of mission and spiritual odyssey. The play focuses on some of the cultural blind spots in love, marriage and sexuality of younger generation; and asceticism and austerity in the older generation. Mapping the emotional and sexual zones of the
younger ones Karnad projects his intellectual exploration of irreverent, subversive and radical facts of a middle-class family as never seen before.
Girish Karnad’s dramaturgy is an important means of expression. Although he is preoccupied with tradition, history, mythology and storytelling, he is not a romantic idealist. They provide an appropriate space for him to tackle the miseries of
contemporary life. He explores identity of individuals and wishes to combine national identity with cultural sensibility. This cannot exist save in the expression of rich forms of culture like myth and romance. An oral and written language that enriched by
folkloric and mythic bedrock and his passion for exploring dramatic languages offered by classical and folk traditions have placed him among the front-runners of contemporary Indian dramatists.
He incorporates aspects of traditional productions in his plays and creatively makes
use of the Indian oral tradition in its dramatic works. Problematizing the received
history, he urges the reader to examine the pre-modern and colonial institutions that have recorded, transmitted and appropriated the history of the nation. He draws inspiration from an Indian story, retold by a Western writer, to examine serious issues concerning identity and completeness. Karnad provides a critique of both traditional Indian and modern Western discourses, which want to establish, each in special ways,
the dominance of the head over the body, masculinity over femininity, and national unity over cultural polyphony.
Karnad’s dramaturgy is the quality of his imagination as a playwright. From the beginning he has stressed that the living texture of myth, history, and legend in
contemporary culture constitutes a bond between author and audience, and his objective as a playwright is to share his own interest and excitement in these narrative 253
Conclusion
Chapter - VI
with the audience at large. All playwrights have to invent their plots—what they may
borrow from the storehouse of culture are myths, legends, tales, historical narratives,
or even earlier plays which they remake in accordance with their own sensibilities, for their own times; indeed it is recognized as one of the important means by which a culture renews itself.
254
Conclusion
Chapter - VI
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