06 Chapter 01
06 Chapter 01
06 Chapter 01
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
SECTION I
THE TRADITION AND ACHIEVEMENT OF INDIAN ENGLISH
DRAMA: A BRIEF SURVEY:
The present study makes an attempt to critically examine the way
Karnad makes use of myth and history in his plays. In other words, the
study analyzes in what way Karnad deploys some of the unnoticed
episodes from myths, legends and folk-tales in his plays and how he
makes use of history to show its relevance to the contemporary issues.
But before we proceed to analyze his plays from this perspective, it will
Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com)
be beneficial to take a brief survey of the tradition and achievement of
Indian English Drama.
India is an ancient country known for her variety of cultures,
customs, languages and literatures. It has a gigantic and rich dramatic
tradition of its own. However, it is difficult to trace the origin of the
Indian drama and determine the specific date of its inception. But one
thing is certain that the journey of Drama starts with the Classical
Sanskrit plays. Therefore, its origin can be traced back to the ancient
times. Over two thousand years ago, we had our own theory of drama
known as The Natyashastra by Bharatamuni. The two great epics of
India, The Ramayana and The Mahabharata have inspired many creative
writers for centuries together. At the very beginning, the Indian drama
relied on the epic and mythical literature and thus it was closely linked to
the Hindu religious and philosophical tradition. The Classical Sanskrit
Drama gave us a few renowned playwrights like Asvaghosa, Bhasa,
Kalidasa, Bhavabhuti, Sudraka, Visakhadatta and Harsha. The period in
which these playwrights produced their plays was regarded as the rich
and the golden age of Sanskrit Drama.
Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com)
The earliest Sanskrit plays were based on the Vedas and
Upanishads. In our ancient classical literature, drama has been regarded
as ‘the fifth Veda’ and it is pertinently termed as the ‘Drishya Kaayva.’
H.H. Anniah Gowda gives us an interesting account of the origin of
drama.
Taking recitation from the Rig Veda, imitation from Yajur
Veda, melody from Sama Veda, Siva contributed “tandava”
dance of violent emotion, Parvati contributed “Lasya” of
tender feeling, Vishnu contributed the four dramatic styles,
there was born “Naatyashyam Pancham Vedam”, the fifth
Veda called Nataka or Drishya Kaavya. (40)
In Appendix 1 to the Collected Plays Vol.2 in his note on The Fire
and the Rain, Karnad also gives the details of the birth of Drama. Indra
and the other gods requested Brahma to provide entertainment that could
restore the health of the society.
The Sanskrit plays like Abhijnana-Sakuntalam, Vikramorvasiyam
and Malavikagni - mitram of Kalidasa; Swapanavasavadattam of Bhasa;
Uttararamacharita of Bhavabhuti and Venisamhara and Mudrarakshasa
of Visakhadatta are some of the worth noting plays. In fact, they form an
imperishable part of our literary heritage. However, from the seventh
century onwards, there was noticeable decline in the quality and
originality in playwriting in Sanskrit. With the decline of the Sanskrit
drama, the folk theatre in regional languages started dominating the stage.
Later on it was Sri Sankara, a saint-philosopher tried to refresh the
Vedic religion and culture. He preached the importance of religion which
obviously gave rise to the Bhakti cult. Indians were known for their
cultural heritage and religious fervour; they held the religion and Vedas
in high esteem. Thereafter, the Indian saints like Tukaram, Ramadas,
Kabir, Chaitanya, Tulsidas and Basaveshwara also highlighted the
importance of Bhakti. The spread of the Bhakti cult was chiefly
responsible for various kinds of popular dramatic performances in various
regions of the country, namely, Ramlila, Raslila and Nautanki of North,
Tamasha of Maharashtra, Bhavai of Gujarat, Jatra of Bengal and
Yakshagana of Karnataka etc. Apart from the stories from the epics and
legends of the country, satires on men and morals also formed the theme
of these performances. In this way, according to S.K. Bhatta, in the
process of evolution of the Indian drama, the Classical Sanskrit Drama
and the folk theatre made a great impact upon each other. (4)
These dramatic performances were followed by translations of
Sanskrit plays into regional languages. With the establishment of British
regime in India, a search for a new theatre was strongly felt. Further, the
British education made its everlasting impact on the social structure of
the country. The most vital thing is that the war of Independence of 1857
gave rise to a new awakening among the people. As a result, a number of
twentieth century writers gave a new turn to the Indian writing and
thought expressing the contemporary urge for freedom. In this way the
drama served as an instrument for bringing about awareness among the
common people of the country.
Though it is difficult to classify Indian English plays and
playwrights into definite categories, for the convenience of our study,
they can be divided broadly into two phases- the Pre-Independence and
the Post-Independence.
THE PRE-INDEPENDENCE PHASE:
Initially drama as a genre of Indian English literature was not so
popular as compared to the other genres like poetry and fiction. In spite of
certain limitations and hindrances, Indian playwrights continued to write
plays in English. K.M. Banerji’s The Persecuted, published in 1831, is
perhaps the first Indian play in English. It is a social play dealing with a
crucial issue of traditional values and the new ideas brought in from the
west. M.K. Naik, an eminent scholar, rightly states that Indian English
drama saw the first light of the day when Krishna Mohan Banerji wrote
The Persecuted in 1831. (1982 97) However, the real journey of Indian
English drama started with the publication of Michael Madhusudan
Dutt’s Is this called Civilization? in 1871. He himself rendered some of
his plays into English viz Ratnavali (1859) and Sermista (1859). Since
then sporadic attempts were made to write plays in English. Later on in
the early twentieth century, under the impact of British Drama, Indian
English Drama became conspicuous in the literary world.
The playwrights of the Pre-Independence period were greatly
influenced by the Shakespearean tradition and classical dramatic
tradition. In this context M.N. Sundararaman aptly states:
Indeed, most of the dramatists of the Pre-Independence
period have been deeply influenced by the classical
traditions as also by the characteristics of the popular stage
of the folk art…and the western (traditions)…(3)
The Pre-Independence era witnessed eminent playwrights like
Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, T.P. Kailasam, Haridranath
Chattopadhyaya and Bharati Sarabhai who made substantial contribution
to the growth of Indian English Drama. In this phase we find plays and
playlets particularly dealing with the themes from legends and epics,
events from history and the problems of contemporary society.
Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo, the two renowned poets of
India, were the first Indian dramatists in English worth considering. It is
important to note the fact that Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, and
H.N. Chattopadhyaya are known as the ‘big three’ in the realm of Indian
English drama. That is why their contribution to the growth of Indian
English drama is to be taken into consideration.
Rabindranath Tagore is a prolific dramatist who himself translated
most of his Bengali plays into English. All these appeared in Collected
Poems and Plays (1936). His plays are mainly known for their originality
and for skilful blending of spiritualism, symbolism and lyrical quality.
Tagore’s widely acclaimed plays The Post Office (1914) and The
King of the Dark Chamber (1914) in Bengali were translated respectively
by Devabrata Mukhopadhyaya and K.C. Sen in to English.
Some of the earliest plays of Tagore are Sanyasi (The Asectic
1884), The King and the Queen (1889), Sacrifice (1890), Chitra (1892),
Karna and Kunti (1897) and Gandhari’s Prayer (1897). His later plays
such as The King of the Dark Chamber (1914), The Waterfall (Mukta-
Dhara 1922), The Red Oleanders (1925) and The Post Office (1914) are
written in the allegorical and symbolic mode, and are considered to be his
most vital contribution as a dramatist. He also wrote a number of
romantic playlets based on Buddhist themes. They are Malini (1912), The
Worship of the Dancing Girl (Natir Puja 1926), and The Untouchable
Girl (Chandalika, 1933).
Besides being a great poet and playwright, he was an actor and a
theatre artist well-versed in the great dramatic tradition. Greatly
influenced by Kalidasa, Shakespeare and Ibsen, he tried to bring
coordination between the East and the West.
Another significant contemporary of Tagore is Sri Aurobindo who
wrote plays directly in English and imitated the blank verse drama of the
Elizabethans. He was a versatile genius who was not only proficient in
the great classics of Greece, Rome, France, and Spain but was fully
acquainted with the rich Sanskrit Literature. He was a great creative artist
with abundant knowledge of Indian philosophy, culture, and society.
Perseus, the Deliverer (1942), Vasavadutta (1957), Rodogune (1958),
The Viziers of Bassora (1959) and Eric (1960) are complete plays which
underscore the need for love as love alone is the great remedy for all
forms of evil.
The last name of the ‘Big Three’ in the realm of Indian English
drama is Harindranath Chattopadhyaya. He is one of the multifaceted
playwrights of contemporary India. His dramatic output could be
classified as devotional plays, social plays, historical plays and
miscellaneous plays.
His seven plays entitled as Poems and Plays (1927) dealing with
the lives of some Maharashtrian saints, could be incorporated in the
category of devotional plays. They are - Raidas, Chokhamela, Eknath,
Pundalik, Saku Bai, Jayadeva and Tukaram. They are all written in verse,
and are playlets rather than full-length plays. The first play, Raidas deals
with the cobbler-saint of that name. And Tukaram, the last one in this
group is said to be the best in terms of characterization and plot
construction.
The most significant of Harindranath’s social plays are found in his
collection of Five Plays (1937). They are The Window, The Parrot, The
Sentry’s Lantern, The Coffin and The Evening Lamp. The Window and
the Parrot depict the playwright’s acute awareness of the social problems.
In The Sentry’s Lantern the dramatist symbolically expresses the hope of
the dawn of a new era for the poor. The Coffin satirizes the world of the
bourgeois artist, and The Evening Lamp is dedicated to “those who may
be able to light it towards the New Dawn of Realism”. (Iyengar,
1974:197)
Despite the remarkable and abiding contribution of Tagore, Sri
Aurobindo and Chattopadhyaya, Indian English Drama “has never
reached the high status of prose fiction or poetry….(the) dramatists have
not solved the problem of fusing dramatic stories with dialogue and sense
of good theatre, all of which are indispensable to the success of a play on
the stage.” (William 121)
A.S.P. Ayyar was also a notable playwright who wrote six plays on
social and reformist themes. Some of his famous plays are: In the Clutch
of the Devil (1926), Trial of Science for the Murder of Humanity (1943),
Sita’s Choice and Other Plays (1935), The Slaves of Ideas and Other
Plays (1941). Sita’s Choice deals with a social problem of the remarriage
of a widow. In Ayyar’s plays the purpose is more important than
craftsmanship and plot and characterizations are also driven into margin.
T.P. Kailasam is also a prominent playwright in the Indian English
Literature. He had an excellent knowledge of the English and Western
dramatic traditions. He wrote both in Kannada and English. His English
plays are The Burden (1933), Fulfilment (1933), The Purpose (1944),
Karna or The Brahmin’s Curse (1946), Keechaka (1949) and A
Monologue: Don’t Cry (1933). In his English plays, he employs classical
themes which deal with contemporary issues.
His subtle power of observation and deep understanding of human
nature enabled him to create convincing characters like Polee Kitti,
Ranganna, Nagatte, and Satu. As a playwright, he reveals an excellent
fusion of genius and intuitive vision. He had a great power of imagination
and a thorough knowledge of the theatre.
So far as the Pre-Independence era is concerned, among the few
women playwrights, only name that seems to be worth considering is that
of Bharati Sarabhai. She was profoundly influenced by the Gandhian
philosophy. So her first verse play The Well of the People (1943) clearly
reflects the impact of Gandhi. It deals basically with the theme of
untouchability. The protagonist is portrayed vaguely and her thoughts and
actions lack vigour and vitality. “The ideas are beautiful but the action
gets lost in the midst of verse and sentiment.” (Anniah Gowda 45) Her
second play Two Women (1952) written in prose realistically presents a
picture of Indian womanhood. There is a fine blending of the material and
the spiritual world in the play.
J.M. Lobo Prabhu seems to be the significant name in Pre-
Independence Indian English drama. He wrote a number of plays but only
two plays, Mother of New India: A Play of the Indian Village in Three
Acts (1944) and Death Abdicates (1945) appeared before Independence.
His Collected Plays was published in 1956. He is well-known for his
skilful dialogue writing and creating admirable situations. However, his
characters do not appear life-like and convincing.
Apart from the major playwrights of the Pre-Independence era, a
few more names of playwrights may be taken into consideration, though
they have made little contribution to Indian English Drama. Among them
are: S. Fyzee-Rahamin (Daughter of the Ind); Sudhindra N. Ghose
(Colours of a Great City : Two Playlets - The Defaulters and Pippa
Dances); R.K. Narayan (The Watchman of the Lake); K.R.S. Iyengar
(The Storm in a Teacup and The Battle of the Optionals); D.K. Roy (Life
of Chaitanya); Balwant Gargi (The Vultures and the Other Plays); and
Mrinalini Sarabhai (The Captive Soil).
While commenting on the contributions of the playwrights of Pre-
Independence phase, Dr.S.Krishna Bhatta concludes:
. . . the playwrights of the phase have not fully exploited the
abundant sources of our history, epics and legends….most of
the playwrights of the phase do not seem to write with a
distinct awareness of the question of the staging of their
plays. Their plays appear to be primarily meant to be read.
(1987 90-92)
POST-INDEPENDENCE INDIAN ENGLISH DRAMA:
During the early phase of the Post-Independence also there has
been no notable development in Indian English Drama. However, one
important thing about the plays written in this period is that they show a
greater impact of the West. It appears that the playwrights of this period
have made various types of experiment in handling the themes and
characters and also in employing new models and techniques. Initially
they did not get a chance for staging their plays. Most of theatres were
occupied by the plays written in regional languages. Indian English plays
were given only occasional performances. There was, in fact, no regular
school of Indian English Drama. However, during this period, the
westerners showed their keen interest in Indian literature in general and
Indian English Drama in particular. Some of the plays written by the
prominent playwrights like Asif Currimbhoy, Pratap Sharma, Gurucharan
Das received a good response in the West. A few plays like Das’ Mira,
Pratap Sharma’s A Touch of Brightness and Asif Currimbhoy’s The
Dumb Dancer were successfully staged in Europe and U.S.A. It was
really a remarkable achievement. In India, the Theatre Group in Mumbai
and other agencies also staged the plays of these playwrights.
It is to be noted that after Independence most of the plays were
written in prose. However, some playwrights like G.V. Desani, P.A.
Krishnaswamy, Manjeri Isvaran, Lakhan Deb and Pritish Nandy were
drawn to poetic drama. G.V. Desani’s Hali (1950) is the finest poetic play
of this period which received great appreciation for its rich imagery and
symbolism. It is an autobiographical play which depicts a serious love
affair. It was successfully staged in London and India. P.A.
Krishnaswamy’s The Flute of Krishna (1950) is another poetic play
which depicts devotee’s unflinching faith in God. Manjeri Isvaran’s
Yama and Yami (1948) written in poetic prose brings out the incestuous
love of
Yami for her brother. Lakhan Deb has written three verse plays: Tiger
Claw (1967), Vivekanand (1972) and Murder at the Prayer Meeting
(1976). Tiger Claw and Murder at the Prayer Meeting are historical
plays. The first one is about the killing of Afzal Khan by Shivaji and the
second one, showing great impact of T.S. Eliot, is concerned with the
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
If we look at the galaxy of Post-Independence playwright, we come
to know that the number of prose playwrights is larger than that of verse
playwrights. Asif Currimbhoy is one of the notable playwrights in Indian
Writing in English. He has published about thirty plays, the first of them
being The Tourist Mecca (1959). He is a prolific writer focusing the
various subjects like contemporary politics, social and economic
problems, the East-West encounter, psychological tension, Indian
philosophy, religion and art.
Currimbhoy’s social concerns are clearly reflected in his plays, The
Doldrummers (1962), Thorns On a Canvas (1968), The Hungry Ones
(1965) and The Miracle Seed (1973). The Doldrummers, a play in two-
acts was banned by the government soon after its publication but later on
the ban was lifted. It was presented on the stage in 1969 by the Little
Theatre Group in Delhi.
The major political events which attracted Currimbhoy’s attention
are the partition and its aftermath in The Captives (1968), the liberation of
Goa from Portuguese domination in Goa: A Tragedy in Two Acts (1964),
Indian freedom movement in An Experiment With Truth (1969), the
Naxalite movement in Inquilab (1970), the Bangla Desh war in The
Refugee (1971) and student unrest in Gujarat in The Dissident M.L.A.
(1974) and the birth of Bangla Desh in Sonar Bangala (1972). In short,
Currimbhoy incorporates all the contemporary issues in his plays.
Therefore, he is one of the most successful playwrights in Indian English
drama. He is said to be “India’s first authentic voice in the theatre.”
(Agrawal, 2002 40)
The contribution of Mahasweta Devi, renowned Bengali
playwright, should also be taken into consideration. She has written
several plays of which Mother of 1084, Urvashi O Johnny, Aajir, Bayen
and Water are worth noting. Mahasweta seeks to throw light on the
predicament of the individuals placed in different social situations. Her
plays show her commitment and concern for the downtrodden section of
the society who are deprived of their basic rights. She fights for the Dalits
and Tribals. “Her non-dramatic writing, especially activist writings also
reveal her concern for human rights ” (Dasan 137)
The other notable playwrights in the Post-Independence era are
Pratap Sharma, Girish Karnad, Nissim Ezekiel, Gurucharan Das, Gieve
Patel, Lakhan Deb, M.V. Rama Sarma, Santha Rama Rau. The most
outstanding playwrights of this period are Girish Karnad, Mahesh
Dattani. And even Manjula Padmnabhan and Dina Mehta are also
contemporary playwrights whose plays can be taken into consideration.
Pratap Sharma’s plays A Touch of Brightness (1968) and The
Professor Has a War Cry (1970) criticize social hypocrisy. His plays
become successful on the stage in the foreign land. Sex seems to be the
major theme of his plays. Nissim Ezekiel’s Three Plays: Nalini : A
Comedy, Marriage Poem : A Tragedy, The Sleep Walkers : An Indo-
American Farce (1969) are remarkable for bold thematic experiments and
masterly use of irony and fantasy. Son of Deprivation, a short play was
also published in 1969. The main feature of Ezekiel’s plays is a skilful
use of ironical fantasy.
Gurucharan Das’ Larins Sahib (1970) is a historical play which
deals with nineteenth century colonial India. Das’ Mira (1971) portrays
the saint Mira’s selfless love for Lord Krishna which was “successfully
produced as a ballet in New York, and as a play in Bombay.” (Iyengar,
1974:734) His another play, Jakhoo Villa which deals with the theme of
decadence in modern Hindu family in Simla.
There are other important Indian English playwrights in this phase
who have contributed in their own ways to the growth of Indian English
Drama. M.V. Rama Sarma’s Collected Plays (1982) is a group of eleven
plays on divergent subjects. Youth and Crabbed Age, Like to Like and
This Busy World are his playlets in which the impact of Bernard Shaw is
strongly felt. Shakuntala, Marpessa and Urvasi are plays dealing with the
theme of love. Towards Marriage (1954) and The Carnival are both
realistic and satirical. The Mahatma (1979) deals with the martyrdom of
Mahatma Gandhi.
Santha Rama Rau’s play, A Passage to India is modelled upon
E.M. Forster’s famous novel A Passage to India. M. Krishnamurti’s The
Cloth of Gold (1951) is a dance drama set in feudal times. K.S.R. Sastri’s
Droupadi is a very interesting retelling of the Mahabharata story. D.M.
Borgaonkar’s Image Breakers (1938) is a problem play on the marriage
institution.
The other plays worth considering are Manohar Malgonkar’s Line
of Mars (1971), V.K. Gokak’s The Goddess Speaks (1948), Nagarajan’s
Chidambaram : A Chronical Play (1955); Shiv K. Kumar’s The Last
Wedding Anniversary (1975), V.D. Trivedi’s My Forest (1963); Ahmed
Akhtar’s Anarkali (1978), Dina Mehta’s The Myth-Makers (1969); Arati
Nagarwalla’s The Bait (1969); Kamala Das’ A Mini-Trilogy (1971); K.S.
Rangappa’s Gandhiji’s Sadhana (1969); Murlidas Melwani’s Deep Roots
(1970); Dilip Hero’s To Anchor a Cloud (1972), P.S. Vasudev’s Lord
Ravan of Lanka (1974); Syed Amanuddin’s The King Who Sold His Wife
(1978); K.S. Duggal’s To Each a Window : Six Radio Plays (1981); and
Masti Venkatesa Iyengar’s Kalidasa (1980) etc. The efforts made by
these playwrights reveal the fact that “playwriting in English by Indian is
not impossible.” (Yadav 9) They speak volumes of the fact that the future
of Indian English Drama is certainly bright and optimistic.
GREAT EXPERIMENTORS AND INNOVATORS IN THE POST-
INDEPENDENCE ERA:
The plays discussed so far under the Pre-Independence and the
Post-Independence phases (except the plays of Tagore) were those
originally written in English. Among the plays translated into English,
there are a few which were first written in the regional languages and
subsequently translated into English by the authors themselves. It is
observed that dramas written in regional Indian languages and their
English translations have achieved a notable growth in the recent
decades. In this modern era, cultural interaction has become a significant
factor. In order to connect the two globes and make the foreign readers
familiar with Indian tradition and culture, there is a need for English
translation of literature in the Indian languages. R.K. Dhawan’s remark in
this regard seems to be pertinent. “The translations have forged a link
between the east and the west, north and south, and contributed to the
growing richness of contemporary creative consciousness.” (1994 185)
Playwrights like Vijay Tendulkar, Girish Karnad, Badal Sircar, Rakesh
Mohan and Mahesh Dattani have made bold innovations and
experiments. They have used themes related to the present social scenario
in order to bring about social change and make people aware of the need
to renovate the present social structure and usher in a renewed and better
social system. Broadly speaking a number of Twentieth Century writers
have given a new turn to Indian writing and thought. Contemporary
Indian writing is rich, complex and stimulating.
Among the regional playwrights, Girish Karnad is the one who
himself has translated his plays into English. He is widely appreciated for
his technical experiments as well as displaying a wide range of themes
and subjects. He merges myth and reality, past and present; he brings in
legendary and historical figures in an effort to carry his message of
restructuring the present society. Karnad came on the scene at the right
time, when Indian drama was at the threshold of a new era of innovation
and experimentation. The Progressive Theatre Movement which had
begun in 1920s, made advancement in 1940s and ultimately gave rise to
Indian People’s Theatre Association. This association known as IPTA
played a very important role in the regeneration of theatre and other arts.
If we look at the playwriting in the Post-Independence scenario, we
realize that the Post-Independence Indian Drama has made a fresh ground
both technically and thematically. The playwrights like Vijay Tendulkar,
Mohan Rakesh, Badal Sircar and Girish Karnad seem to be greatly
influenced by the dramatic style of Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Eliot, Sartre,
Camus and Brecht. These Indian playwrights, who truly, present the
modern Indian sensibility, have been acclaimed as pioneers of modern
Indian drama. Novelty in technique is one of the important traits of the
plays written during this period. The major focus here is on the feelings
and experiences of the ordinary men engaged in day-to-day struggle for
existence.
Vijay Tendulkar, a noted screen and television and short-story
writer is a famous contemporary Indian playwright. He has been the most
influential dramatist and theatre personality in Marathi. Initially working
as a journalist, he came across all kinds of violence and evil things in the
society. Tendulkar exposes various forms of violence in his plays like
Vultures (Gidhade, 1971), Ghashiram Kotwal (1972).
In his early plays, Tendulkar depicts the sufferings of the urban
middle class people. Later on the focus is shifted to ugliness of his
characters’ psyche. For instance, his later play Silence! The Court is in
Session (1967) shows how inhuman treatment is meted out to women in a
male-dominated world. Here, the technique of ‘play-within-the play’ is
deftly used to bring out the inner agonies of Miss Benare. In Sakharam
Binder (1972) the focus is on the ugliness of human nature. In this play,
Sakharam, the Binder, indulges in illegal sexual relations with several
women to satisfy his insatiable lust. For the first time, Tendulkar made a
bold attempt to bring neglected areas of our common life into the theatre.
Ghashiram Kotwal (1972) which was performed in the theatre thousand
times in India and abroad, is a political drama. It is an excellent
combination of Marathi folk performance and contemporary theatrical
techniques. It shows the abuses of power, corruption, sex and violence. In
short, he vehemently criticizes hypocrisy, promiscuity, dishonesty and
such vices existing in the society. He has introduced bold innovations,
made significant experiments and given new dimensions to Indian drama.
His play Silence! The Court is in Session bagged him a place among
leading Indian playwrights in late sixties while his Ghashiram Kotwal
brought him international fame in the mid-seventies.
Badal Sircar appeared in the Indian theatre at an appropriate time
when Indian drama was at the threshold of a new era of innovation and
experimentation. He is an eminent Bengali playwright who has written
more than forty five plays. He introduced a new dramatic idiom in
Bengal. His play, Evam Indrajit is a classic of contemporary Indian
theatre. He firmly believes that theatre is an instrument of social
transformation. His plays like Evam Indrajit (1962), That Other History
(Baki Itihas, 1964) and There’s No End (Shesh Nei, 1971) and Pagla
Ghoda (Mad Horse - 1967) deal with political, social, psychological and
existential problems. Evam Indrajit strongly reminds us of Beckett’s
Waiting for Godot.
Greatly influenced by the Russian playwright Grotowski’s concept
of ‘Poor Theatre’, Sircar formulated his ‘Third Theatre’ which surpasses
the confines of the urban commercial theatre and the indigenous folk
theatre.(Reddy 133) Putting aside all the stage props like sets, costumes,
lights, sound, etc. Sircar’s Third Theatre lays stress on the most important
tool that is the human body. Through his Third Theatre, Sircar wants to
focus on the nature of exploitation in the realm of industry and agriculture
and to establish equality by making people aware of their existence. He
wrote several plays after the formulation of the Third Theatre. Procession
(1972), Bhoma (1974) and Stale News (1979) are the plays in English
version based on the concept of the Third Theatre. Sircar has attempted to
revolutionize the Indian drama by introducing his concept of the Third
Theatre. The influence of Sartre and Camus is evident in the themes of
his plays. His plays offer a faithful representation of the contemporary
society. The meaninglessness of modern life is the major concern in his
plays.
Mahesh Dattani is another important and dynamic playwright in
Indian English Drama today. In 1998, he won the Sahitya Akademi
Award for his plays Final Solutions and Other Plays. He is a well-known
for his contribution as playwright, actor, director, dancer and teacher.
After the outstanding contribution of Badal Sircar, it is Mahesh Dattani
who has given a new direction and sense of purpose to Indian English
Drama. The first volume includes eight plays such as Seven Steps Around
the Fire, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, Final Solutions, Tara, Dance
Like a Man etc. and the second volume including two earlier plays
contains ten plays such as Thirty Days in September, Clearing the
Rubble, Mango Souffle, The Swami and Winston, Morning Raga, Uma
and The Fairy Queen, EK Alag Mausam and The Tale of a Mother
Feeding Her Child. His plays bring forth some of the important problems
of the modern society like sex, religion, communal tension, feminine
identity, hijra marriage, homosexuality and lesbian relationship and crime
and disease etc. Therefore, his plays appear to be revolting and
sometimes outrageous. Bijay Kumar Das calls him, “a playwright of
contemporary urban India.” (32) Apart from contemporary issues, he
shows his love of music and dance. The love of music and passion for
dance are depicted through the protagonists of Dance like a Man and
Morning Raga. Dattani, being himself a stage performer, lays stress on
theatre and the performance of the actor. In fact, the audience comes to
know the worth of a play only when it is performed on the stage.
Dattani raises the various issues like sexuality, criminality, and
focuses on the topical subjects like communal violence and horrible
diseases like Aids and makes the characters to express their views
unhesitatingly.
If we look at the growing success of the plays of Dattani and
Manjula Padmanabhan, we can certainly remark that the twenty first
century seems to be productive era for Indian English Drama. Dattani
focuses on the mean, ugly and unhappy sides of human life. Manjula
Padmanabhan’s pioneering play Harvest won Onassis Award and
achieved world wide popularity. It seriously portrays the mean and
inhuman world in the metropolitan city like Mumbai where mothers sell
their children in exchange for the handful of rice. She has also written
five monologues entitled Hidden Fires which brings out violence in its
various forms prevalent in the society. Both, Dattani and Padmanabhan
are dynamic and promising and will certainly contribute to the growth of
playwriting. Therefore R.K. Dhawan highly appreciates their dramatic
efforts. He writes: “Very recently Indian English drama has shot into
prominence. Younger writers like Mahesh Dattani and Manjula
Padmanabhan have infused life into this branch of writing.” (S. Shukla 7)
In conclusion, it can be said that it is mainly the drama in Indian
languages and the drama in English translations that have registered a
remarkable growth in recent times. They have contributed a lot to the
development of India English Drama. On the basis of the excellent plays
written by Girish Karnad, Badal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar, Mohan Rakesh,
Mahesh Dattani and Manjula Padmanabhan, we may say that the Indian
English Drama has achieved a considerable measure of success in the
recent times. However, “it is still struggling for its authenticity and
identity; it is making a faltering but steady march towards its destination.
It has, of course, survived the test of time and it has all the possibilities
and potentialities to carve a niche for itself in days to come.” (Yadav 13)
Now-a-days Indian theatre in English has started emerging with a
distinctive and vigorous identity. The plays of the leading playwrights of
contemporary Indian stage like Mohan Rakesh, Vijay Tendulkar, Badal
Sircar, Girish Karnad, Mahesh Dattani and the women playwrights like
Mahasweta Devi, Manjula Padmanabhan, Uma Parameswaran reveal the
fact that the Indian English Drama will surely flourish and prosper in the
near future.
SECTION II
THE CONCEPT OF MYTH AND HISTORY:
In the realm of Indian English Drama, Girish Karnad holds a
prominent place as a contemporary playwright. Earlier most of the Indian
English plays produced were meant to be read and far away from the
theatrical performances. But Karnad’s plays make good reading and they
also make excellent theatre. He deftly makes use of myths, legends and
history in his plays to present the contemporary issues. He firmly believes
that the roots of contemporary issues are deeply embedded in them. He
attempts to interpret myth and history in the modern context focusing on
“the presentation of complex cultural fabric of India. Karnad loves to
discover less known and obscure myths, tries to understand their
significance and relate them to the chosen story.” (Nigam 35) He is
master craftsman in whose writing we find a fine blending of genius and
intuitive vision, a fertile imagination and subtle sense of wit and humour.
The present study makes an attempt to critically examine the way
Karnad makes use of myth and history in his plays. To put it in other
words, the study attempts to analyze in what way he uses myths, legends
and folktales in his plays and how he deploys history to show its
relevance to the contemporary themes. Before we proceed to analyze
Karnad’s inclination behind using myth and history to present the
contemporary problems, it would be fruitful to know the basic concepts
of myth and history and their implications in the present context.
The present section incorporates a general view of myth and the
concept of myth is discussed briefly. The origin of myth, myth as an early
literary form, its function, its relevance to society and societal traditions
regulated by myth are considered here. The section also points out how a
playwright rewrites myth to suit his self as well as the sensibilities of his
times.
The term ‘myth’ has been interpreted variously. It is derived from
the Greek word mythos which means ‘fable’, ‘tale’, ‘talk’, or ‘speech’. In
fact, myth is a much disputed term which eludes exact definition and
precise categorization. At the outset, it is necessary to understand the
general nature and function of myth in some detail.
Myth is a vehicle of cultural transmission. It deals with the stories
and legends of kings, martyrs and historical figures of the society to
which it belongs. Sometimes, it decides the spiritual temper and the
morals of society. It is an informing structure through which the culture
of the community is explained.
Northrop Frye, the most influential among the myth critics, offers a
simple definition of myth in his essay ‘Literature and Myth’. He states:
“A myth, in its simplest and most normal significance, is a certain kind of
story, generally about a god or other divine being.” (Frye, 1967 27)
The New Gresham Encyclopedia explains the meaning of myth as
follows:
The word myth originally simply meant speech, then in a
narrower sense, a tale or tradition, particularly one handed
down from prehistoric times giving, in the form of a story
about a god or hero, some ancient belief regarding the
processes of nature, customs or problems of cosmogony.
(53)
While explaining myth and its character, Webster’s New World
College Dictionary states that myth is “a traditional story of unknown
authorship, ostensibly with a historical basis but serving usually to
explain some phenomenon of nature, the origin of man, or the customs,
institutions, religious rites, etc. of a people; myth usually involves the
exploits of gods and heroes.” (954) According to Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary, myth is “a story from ancient times, especially one
that was told to explain natural events or to describe the early history of a
people.” (842) And the Dictionary of Literary Terms states the
characteristic features of myth at some length:
Myth is an anonymous story, rooted in primitive folk beliefs,
presenting supernatural episodes to explain natural events
and phenomena. Myths attempt to interpret creation, divinity
and religion; to explain the meaning of existence and death;
to account for natural phenomena, and to chronicle the
adventures of racial heroes. Myths have less historical
background and more supernatural elements than
legends….and they are the product of a racial group, rather
than the creation of an individual. Every country and
literature has its mythology. (125)
According to Victor Turner myths inform us about how chaotic
things took proper shape and how human life began on the earth. He
states:
Myths relate how one state of affairs became another; how
an unpeopled world became populated; how chaos became
cosmos; how immortals became mortal; how the seasons
came to replace a climate without seasons; how the original
unity of mankind became a plurality of tribes or nations;
how androgynous beings became men and women; and so
on. (576)
In the opinion of M.H. Abrams, myth is actually a narrative of a
real experience in the past, what we call myth today is not an imaginary
tale, but a real life experience of the primordial society. In his book A
Glossary of Literary Terms, he says:
A myth is one story in a 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, and to establish the
rationale for social customs and observances and the
sanctions for the rules by which men conduct their lives.”
(Reprinted 2007 106)
In Abram’s definition of myth, three points are significant: First,
the hereditary character of myth, second, the belief of the particular
cultural group, and third, the importance of the super-human beings. He
further clarifies that the central figure or the protagonist in a myth is
always a super-human being. If the protagonist is a man rather than a
supernatural human being, the story is usually not called myth but legend.
Like M.H. Abrams, some other myth critics also believe that myth
is history that took place in some ancient eras. In other words it can be
understood as “idealized or exaggerated history.” (Rose 1) Thus, we can
say that it is a reality that happened in the ancient past presented with
literary exaggerations. While commenting on the reality in myth,
Malinowski rightly remarks:
Myth as it exists in a savage community, that is, in its living
primitive form is not merely a story told but a reality lived. It
is not of the nature of fiction such as we read today in a
novel, but it is a living reality, believed to have once
happened in primeval times, and continuing ever since to
influence the world and human destinies. (632)
Mark Schorer, in his book William Blake, The Politics of Vision
defines myth thus: “Myth is fundamental, the dramatic representation of
our deepest instinctual life, of a primary awareness of man in the
universe, capable of many configuration, upon which all particular
opinions and attitudes depend.” (qtd.in Guerin, Labour and et al 159)
Alan W.Watts states that: “Myth is to be defined as a complex of stories –
some no doubt a fact, and some fantasy – which, for various reasons,
human beings regard as demonstrations of the inner meaning of the
universe and of human life.” (Ibid 160) Watts’ definition of myth is
similar to that provided by C.G. Jung, the psychologist. His oft-quoted
definition is that myth is “a group dream, symptomatic of archetypal
urges within the depths of human psyche.” (Campbell 382) Therefore,
myth is related with the universal mind (the collective unconscious), and
not with the individual mind. As such, myths can be called the treasure of
the experiences of mankind.
With the help of myths and rituals, primitive thought establishes a
particular kind of relation between past and present. Levi-Strauss, a
French anthropologist emphatically affirms that the primitive mind is
linked with the present. He states:
Mythical history is paradoxically both separated from the
present and conjoined with it… Through ritual, the mythical
‘separate’ past is connected on the one hand with biological
and seasonal periodicity and the other with the ‘conjoint’
past which links, from one generation to another, the dead
with the living. (qtd.in Golf, 1992 7)
For Levi Strauss myth contains the structure of thought. He
clarifies that though certain symbols and particular relations differ from
culture to culture, there is an unbroken continuity in the human mind. In
his view, “the psychic unity of mankind is demonstrated,” in myth and his
“theory of structure varying from culture to culture is predicated by the
point at which differences are merged in sameness or correspondence.”
(qtd.in Lal, 1992 7) The Salient feature of myth is its flexibility by which
it maintains its relevance to the present perspective. Simultaneously, it
rotates on two planes of time that is the past and the present. Though it
takes birth in the past time yet it surpasses the spatio-temporal
dimensions. The mythical moment’s palpable presence can be perceived
even in future in its particular form. In reality, it is a creative because
from the primitive time to the present one, there is a continuous
reinterpretation and creation of new myths. And to consider myth as only
primitive seems to be a wrong concept. In the stage of evolution, its
relationship can be with the primitive mind (i.e. a part of the collective
unconscious) that interlinks the past with the present.
Myth is an inseparable part of the Collective Unconscious.
According to C.G. Jung the materials of myths lie in the Collective
Unconscious of the race; the wide spread similarity between myths results
from their common inheritance. In the cultural process, the mythical
experience is never hidden because every race tries to recognize its
collective ego through these myths. Through the chemistry of cultural
process, myth is transformed; carrying the individual and the collective
ego in the vehicle of novel perspective, and it gains a dignity and
dimension in literature and art. Owing to its flexible nature, the gap
between the past and the present is bridged, and it plays a significant role
in the creative writings of eternal value. Homer’s Iliad, Dante’s Divine
Comedy, Virgil’s Aeneid and Milton’s Paradise Lost and in the Indian
tradition Valmiki’s The Ramayana and Vyasa’s The Mahabharata are
such mythical creations which gain significance in one-dimensional
mobility of time in the past, the present and the future. That is what Jung
refers to when he says that the “primordial images” and “psychic residua”
are “the countless typical experiences of our ancestors” (617) which are
inherited in the collective unconscious, and are expressed in myths,
religion, dreams and private fantasies.
All these definitions of myth are possible because the term ‘myth’
has received a bewildering variety of interpretations. Therefore, Joseph
Campbell aptly points out: “There is no final system for the
interpretations of myths, and there will never be any such thing.
Mythology is like the god Proteus . . .” (381)
According to M.H. Abrams, there is a close association between
myth and ritual. He says, “Most myths involve rituals – prescribed forms
of sacred ceremonials – but social anthropologists disagree as to whether
rituals generated myths or myths generated rituals.” (2007 106) Arthur
Cotterell also refers to the origin of myths “as deriving from rituals.” (2)
Northrop Frye also expresses the same view when he says that “Myths
….. may arise in the first place to account for a ritual or a law” (1963 32)
Nand Kumar also endorses the same view : “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.” (3)
Lauri Honko also emphasizes a close relation between myth and
ritual. He clearly states that:
A myth expresses and confirms society’s religious values
and norms; it provides patterns of behaviour to be imitated,
testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and
establishes the sanctity of cult. The true milieu of myth is to
be found in religious rites and ceremonial. The ritual acting
out of myth implies the defence of the world order; by
imitating sacred exemplars the world is prevented from
being brought to chaos. The re-enactment of a creative, for
example, the healing wrought by a god in the beginning of
time, is the common aim of myth and ritual. (49)
Various thinkers have attempted to postulate theories of myth.
Hence a number of view-points regarding myth are available to us. James
Frazer in his Golden Bough stressed the idea of Northrop Frye that
actions, gestures and dances were the sources of primitive myths.
Abrams, Cotterell, and Frye trace the origin of myth in rituals and point
out that there is an inherent relationship between folklore and myth. In
the passage of time the ritual forms lost contact and they passed into
myths. However, folktales form a continuum with the literary fictions.
The most popular fictions of the past and present are based on folktales.
On the line with the folklore, myths have an abstract story pattern. The
things that happen in stories take place in myths also. Northrop Frye in
Fables of Identity writes: “Myth as compared with folktale….are usually
in a special category of seriousness: they have believed to have “really
happened”, or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain
features of life such as ritual.” (1963 32) Frazer sees ritual as mainly
arising from magic, which eventually lost its place of importance to
religion. Besides, it came to be believed that “gods themselves are adepts
in magic, guarding their persons by talismans and working their will by
spells and incantations.” (240)
Myth was, thus, in part a fiction which had been created to explain
hoary, old customs. It was, in fact, a later form of earlier custom or
customary belief. The ritualistic interpretation of the nature of myth by
Frazer was further elaborated by Jane Harrison. In her essay, From Ritual
to Art, she suggests that myth and drama arose from ritual related to a
demi-god of whom Dionysus is considered to be a manifestation.
According to Jane Harrison, “ritual does not always develop into art,
though in all probability drama as art has always to go through the stage
of ritual.” (323)
Another theory connects myth with archetypes. Maud Bodkin
emphasized archetypal literary criticism. In her Archetypal Patterns in
Poetry, she examines The Ancient Mariner and The Waste Land and
demonstrates the significance of archetypal patterns and imagery in the
personal unconscious and in social history. This same aspect can be
strengthened with the ramification of myth criticism and can be discerned
in the opinions of critics such as James Frazer, Carl Jung and Northrop
Frye. Frazer in The Golden Bough which shows the etiological or visual
functions of mythology strengthens this concept of argument saying that
the ritual actions, gestures and dances are the sources of myth. He
“identified elemental patterns of myth and ritual that….recur in the
legends and ceremonials of diverse and far-flung cultures and religions.”
(Abrams, 2009 23) Frazer is of the opinion that the actions of human
beings were transformed into myths with the passage of time. Northrop
Frye also expressing his view emphasizes the archetypal significance of
myth. He writes: “. . . it is the central informing power that gives
archetypal significance to the ritual and archetypal narrative to the oracle.
Hence the myth is the archetype, though it might be convenient to say
myth only when referring to narrative and archetype when speaking of
significance.” (1972 429)
However, these anthropologists applied their theories in relating
myth to literature; philosophers like Ernest Cassirer related myth to
metaphysics. To Cassirer, myth was not an explanation of primitive
man’s thoughts and beliefs, but an interpretation of his state of feeling. In
An Essay on Man, Cassirer says “the real substratum of myth is not a
substratum of thought but of feeling” (81). Myth arises from certain
feelings like fear of death. In either case, this much should be clear, that
pervasive and powerful yet more or less ineffable phenomena or their felt
experience tended to become myths.
The interpretation of myth as an expression of feelings or the inner
state of the people who participated in creation and perception of myth
led to the psychological study of myth. In The Cambridge Companion to
Freud, Neu Jerome observes that Sigmund Freud looked upon myth as
projection of the unconscious, which was the repository of sexual
fantasies. Myth was, according to Freud, analogous to dreams. He
illustrated his point through Sophocles’ rendering of the Oedipus myth.
To Freud, the myth was not a mere manifestation of the psychology of
Sophocles or an exclusive, specifically individual character called
Oedipus. He suggested that the rendering intended “rather to show how
the play serves as a collection, publicly constituted fantasy that
corresponds to the incestuous and rivalrous fantasies harboured by each
member of the audience as repressed residues of childhood.” (qtd. in
Jerome, 1992 268) Thus being essentially projections of the personal
unconscious, the myth prompted each member of the audience to read
into or superimpose upon Sophocles’ projections his or her own inner
complexes. The Sophoclean ‘telling’ was, of course, only one among
many tellings of this pattern. Such projections eventually consolidated
into a ‘collection’ or commonly held myth.
Carl Jung accepted Freud’s theory of myth as a projection of the
unconscious but refused to attribute the origin of myth solely to
concealed sexual desires or of sexual expression. In other words, Jung
departed from the Freudian argument based on instincts in the
Unconscious. He put forward the idea of the collective consciousness,
which he believed was a stratum of the unconscious that was deeper than
the personal unconscious. In the words of Carl Jung:
We mean by collective unconscious, a certain psychic
disposition shaped by the forces of heredity; from it
consciousness has developed. In the physical structure of the
body we find traces of earlier stages of evolution, and we
may expect the human psyche also to conform in its make-
up to the law of phylogeny. It is a fact that in eclipses of
consciousness – in dreams, narcotic states, and cases of
insanity – there came to the surface psychic products or
contents that show all the traits of primitive levels of psychic
development. The images themselves are sometimes of such
a primitive character that we might suppose them derived
from ancient, esoteric teaching. Mythological themes clothed
in modern dress also frequently appear. (1989 183)
This collective unconscious, according to him is a universal and
specifically human phenomenon. Its contents are almost the same
everywhere, in all human societies, among all individuals. The common
patterns among these are called archetypes. Myth and fairy tale are only
the more well-known expressions of these archetypes. They express the
deepest unconscious feelings of the human race. Myths especially are
“fundamental expression of human nature. When a myth is formed and
expressed in words, consciousness, it is true, has shaped it, but the spirit
of myth -- the creative urge it represents, the feelings it expresses and
evokes, and even in larger part its subject matter -- come from the
collective unconscious.” (Fordham 27)
In the light of the foregoing discussion, it can be said that Jung’s
theory that myth is an expression of the collective unconscious seems in
some way more acceptable than Freud’s attribution of it solely to hidden
sexual desires. But what is it that makes such an integral part of the
collective unconscious? It is probably the crises, choices, dilemmas and
moral struggles that it depicts which hold good for most societies in all
ages. For instance, the moral struggle which arises from the sexual
relationship between mother and son in Oedipus Rex seems to be basic to
most societies.
Joseph Campbell reduces Jung’s theory of archetypes to a single
archetype, the hero, who is “the perfect microcosmic mirror of the
macrocosm.” (347) In the course of his life the hero may attain the status
of a demi-god who sets an example to every human being to whom that
particular myth has become familiar. Such an aura is created around his
life. The mythologized version of his life becomes so strictly and
inviolably ritualized that questioning any particular incident or instance in
the complex shape of the myth becomes taboo to society. Even if the hero
happens to make a choice which is particularly unacceptable or even
reprehensible to the society at some stage of its subsequent history,
forceful moralizing arguments tend to quickly justify it.
The ‘agnipariksha’ of Sita in the Ramayana is a point to be
considered. After Rama rescues Sita, she is asked to enter the fire to
prove her purity. It has been always and immediately justified by the
explanation that Rama’s situation (his role and responsibility as king)
forced him to do so. In this way, to use Campbell’s words, the entire
Ramayana attempts to show how Rama is the “Perfect microcosmic
mirror of the macrocosm.” (Ibid) Campbell also accepts the Freudian idea
of similarity between myth and dream. He believes that like dream, myth
is a “spontaneous production of the psyche.” (Ibid 4) Thus Campbell
seems to arrive at an understanding of myth through both Jung and Freud
and consequently he provides us with a wider base for the consideration
of the history of a myth in its initial stages as well as during its
transmission in subsequent ages. Campbell’s comprehensive approach
allows us to look at myth in a more flexible way than most of the
individual theories we have surveyed so far.
II
So far we have briefly discussed the theories of the origin and
consolidation of myth as postulated by scholars and thinkers. Studies on
myth and mythology have broadened the scope of the subject. Myth is
studied in relation to subjects like theology, fine arts, astrology,
psychology, sociology, anthropology, and geography. Of these, the
relation between myth and literature is an important one because it is the
primary source through which myth reaches people. Let us consider the
way myth has been interpreted by some literary writers and critics. Let us
begin with Eliot’s review of “Ulysses, Order and Myth” which is a
defense of the mythical method adopted by James Joyce in his novel
Ulysses. In the review, Eliot strongly supports Joyce by stating that in
“using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between
contemporaneity and antiquity” Joyce “is pursuing a method which others
must pursue after him.” (1973 177) Eliot’s defense of Joyce’s mythical
method arises from the realization that myth is “a way of controlling, of
ordering, of giving a shape to the immense panorama of futility and
anarchy which is contemporary history.” (Ibid)
We can say that Eliot’s essay Tradition and the Individual Talent
seems to have, in principle and implicitly, anticipated this kind of demand
for a mythical method. In this essay, he strongly states that whenever one
praises a writer, one should praise him for those aspects of his work in
which he least resembles his predecessors. And for a writer to be praised
thus, he must have a historical sense which “involves a perception not
only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.” (1972 72) It is this
historical sense which makes a writer “traditional”. Eliot may not speak
explicitly of myth but his discourse on the past and the present and his
views of Joyce’s mythical method seem suitable to our discussion of
myth and its various interpretations. Myth, it would then appear, is in fact
one kind of manifestation of the past. And, according to Eliot, “the past
should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the
past” (Ibid). Eliot entrusts the responsibility of such alteration to tradition,
to writers who are aware that “the conscious present is an awareness of
the past in a way” (Ibid 73) and who also attempt to produce and develop
this consciousness throughout their literary career.
Eliot states that the creative and informing power operating on the
writer is tradition but he does not in this essay identify the factors of
tradition which make possible the creation of new works of literature out
of older ones. The task of identifying the factors of tradition has been
performed in the essay The Social Context of Literary Criticism by
Northrop Frye, who says that a society does not simply produce plays or
poems but develops an entire literature. Writers draw their themes,
genres, and technical skill specifically from this body of literature and not
only generally from their life. And the chief factor that contributes this
literature is myth which “recounts something that is (or at least has been
perceived as) centrally important for a society’s history, religion or social
structure.” (Frye, 1973 148) However, Frye points out that the function of
myth in literature is different from its function in society:
Myths…. enable members of a society to hold together, to
accept authority, to be loyal to each other and courageous
against attack. Such myths are verbal constructions designed
for specific purposes. In literature, myths are disinterested:
they are simply forms of human activity and as such they
communicate the joy that brings to pure creation. (Fry, 1973
156-157)
But one has to admit that there is more to myth in literature than
this “Joy” and one needs to advance Frye’s notion maintained in
examination of specific cases. Through an examination of Girish
Karnad’s plays in the present thesis, it is hoped that we shall see that in
literature myth has more roles to perform than providing “Joy” to writers
and entertainment to readers.
Coming back to Frye’s understanding of the function of myth, we
may note that Frye alludes to the primary meaning of myth as “a certain
type of story” (1963 30) which forms the “matrix of literature and major
poetry (among other forms of literature) keeps returning to it. In every
age poets who are thinkers…..and are deeply concerned with the origin or
destiny or desires of mankind…..with anything that belongs to the larger
outlines of what literature can express….can hardly find a literary theme
that does not coincide with myth.” (1963 33) the paradigm proposed by
Frye brings out the continuity and inevitability of the use of myth in
literature. Not only is it inevitable that literature will use myth thus in
every age in one way or the other but also that the readers will need this
means to sustain them amidst doubts, complexities, perplexities and in
the face of existential cruxes like death.
While our study relates to the presence of myth in literature, we
should remember that the role of myth is not restricted to literary people
only. Irrespective of one’s literary background, every individual
encounters myth in his/her life. The story of a myth may be narrated in
the form of tales by an elder, probably a grandmother. In later life, the
versions imbibed from these tales continue to influence a person. In
addition, revivals of contact by means of books, various parts of the
process of education like history lessons, mass-media including
traditional country theatre and ritual, political propaganda and so on,
continue a person’s exposure to mythology. In fact, the survival of
ancient myth even to the present day is marked by its elastic response to
change. Myth adapts itself according to the purpose and the situation in
which the narrator and the narratee find themselves in the process of
narration. The diverse tellings may be influenced, for instance, “by the
beliefs of individual communities, the literary conventions of regional
culture and the specific configurations of social reforms.” (Richman 8) A
study of such tellings leads us not only to oral and written literatures but
also to other forms of art besides literature, all of which manifest
themselves as probably the most intelligible links between myth and
society.
The myths of ancient civilizations reach us only by virtue of the
fact that they became a part of the written tradition. Oral tradition is the
earlier form through which myth was communicated to the people. But
unlike the written tradition, it reaches less number of people. In the
written tradition, myth gets recorded and can be preserved for future
generations as well. Myth, in the oral tradition, is however less static and
more versatile since it permits changes. David Buchan says, “Where high
literature relies primarily on the written word, folk literature relies
primarily on the performed word.” (977) Literature under the oral
tradition is referred to as folk literature or folklore. When it enters the
written tradition it is no longer called folklore. Thus, folklore is the origin
of the classical literatures of the world. They were translated into the
written tradition. In this process, folk literature would have undergone
transformations or alterations depending upon the translator. In the oral
tradition, myth manifests through human memory in various forms like
harikathas, puppet theatre, musical recitals, traditional dramas etc. Hence
the modifications myth undergoes are numerous. Such tellings, moreover,
often become local and personal experiences, being confined to a
particular group or a place. Moreover, as Wendy Doniger says in Fluid
and Fixed Texts in India, within the same group or place “the same event
happens over and over again, but it may not happen exactly in the same
way each time, and yet each happening is true.” (35) That is, the way it
comes to mean something to the reader is variable even as some essential
form of the myth is taken for granted by almost everyone. Indeed at such
times of narration, variation may take quite unexpected forms. For
instance, Ramanujan, in his essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five
examples and three thoughts on translation”, mentions a telling of the
Ramayana in Kannada sung by some traditional bards. In that telling,
“Sita is believed to be the daughter of Ravana (here called Ravulu).
Ravana is supposed to have himself delivered Sita through his nose.” (36)
Obviously such a detail is at variance with the ‘received’ versions of the
Ramayana.
With the growing dominance of written culture over the oral
tradition in India, the different tellings of the Rama story came to be
recorded and preserved in the written form which began to appropriate to
itself the status of authoritative version. Ramanujan’s essay “Three
Hundred Ramayanas” attempts to show that not merely the social location
but also the ideology of a particular place or group affects the telling of
any myth. Ramanujan provides surprising examples from the Jaina
tellings of the Rama myth like Vimalsuri’s Ramayana in which “the
Rama story no longer carries Hindu values.” (33) The sympathies of these
tellings are obviously with Ravana who is assumed to have been
“maligned” (Ibid) by the Brahmins who certainly seemed to have
privileged platforms for telling the story. Thus the Ramayana was
translated in many regional languages which became the tool for the
spreading of the Rama story among the people in many regions of India
and this change also worked changes in the shapes of myths.
Thus it is interesting to see how myth gets created and propagated
in the society through the medium of literature. Every nation tries to
glorify its culture, society and myth. It is through the Christian myth the
Westerners tried to ‘civilize’ the orient in the colonial context. During
colonization, the Westerners spread Christianity and the Christian myth
throughout the territories that they had colonized. They considered their
religion and myth as superior to all others. The colonized nations realized
the need to glorify their native myths and began glorifying them. In his
work, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, Otto Rank says:
The Prominent civilized nations such as the Babylonians,
Egyptians, Hebrews and Hindus, the inhabitants of Iran and
of Persia, the Greeks and the Romans as well as the Teutons
and others, all began at an early stage to glorify their heroes,
mythical princes and kings, founders of religions, dynasties,
empires or cities, in brief their national heroes in a number
of poetic tales and legends. (1)
Epic poetry is the earliest form of myth in the written tradition. In
the context of Greece, Robinson says, “The earliest literature in Greece
was poetry : for in a ruder age, when there was little or no writing, poetry
was a more natural form of composition than prose, as being easier to
remember. It was not until the historical times that a real prose literature
arose. The earliest known poetry was epic.” (356) The Greco-Roman and
the Indian epics are some of the oldest written sources of myth from the
West and the East respectively. Poets and writers of later generations
have relied on these sources for ideas and themes. Though it is hard to
explain the original function of myths in the literary tradition of a land,
scholars are able to understand the significance that the myths had for the
literary artist and the mythological factors that literature inherited.
In the light of the above discussion regarding the origin and
definitions of myth, and its relevance to society and societal traditions,
we can say that myths have become the identifying factors of culture and
assume a very important place in literature.
Today myth has become an encyclopedic term variously
interpreted by various scholars. In conclusion it can be said that myth is
an expression of man’s deepest concern about himself and his place in the
scheme of the universe, his relationship with man, nature and god. Man’s
nature and destiny, which are explored in literature, thus form a structure
of ideas, images, beliefs, hopes and fears, love and hate. As a matter of
fact, the major function of myth lies in reconciliation of an original event
to interpret and explain human nature in the modern context and between
the new meaning and the old event, there lies an ontological gap which
myth fills with an appropriate symbolic representation. Myths apparently
“derive their universal significance from the way in which they try to
reconstitute an original event or explain some fact about human nature
and its worldly or cosmic context.” (Gould 6) The ancient myths survive
in the modern times with all their problematic intensity as they deal with
the numinous and sacred. To quote Northrop Frye, “In literary criticism,
myth means ultimately mythos – a structural organizing principle of
literary form.” (1971 341) Therefore, the basic contents of the myth lie in
the modes that connect the ‘archetypes’ or the ‘Primordial images’ or the
Collective Unconscious’ with human experience. In other words, myths
interpret man’s place in the universe. They are like mirrors that reflect
man’s inner self; they explore the depths of the Unconscious. No doubt,
they are the products of creative fantasy, but, at the same time, they also
stimulate creative fantasy. Myths always interpret human life, and in the
contemporary context, they interpret the modern sensibility or the modern
consciousness. The modern man perceives truth of his own self in the
light of myths. It is a fact that literary work cannot be judged only on the
basis of the use of myth. But to some extent, archetypal criticism can be
very helpful in giving new insights into literature and into the human
condition.
In its contemporary and novel perspective the relevance of myth is
based on two parallel planes. One is the psychological/sociological
perspective, which collectively indicates the multi-dimensional
prevalence of myth. And the other is the essence of the myth which is
deeply rooted in the subconscious of the race. If a writer gives expression
to the in-built urges and beliefs of people clothing the myth in a novel
perspective without damaging its essence, he succeeds in transforming
the myth to the tick of the contemporary times. Just like that of the
primitive society, the collective unconscious of the present times not only
transforms the myths but gives them a novel orientation, helping the
myths fit into new shape. Myth is a key to the unity and identity of human
condition. The modern man rediscovers a new meaning and pattern in life
in the light of his experiencing the sundering of emotion and reason
during the past centuries. In this respect, what Carl Jung remarks, is quite
relevant and worth quoting:
Myths…have a vital meaning. Not merely do they represent,
they are the psychic life of the primitive tribe, which
immediately falls to pieces and decays when it loses its
mythological heritage, like a man who has his soul. A tribe’s
mythology is its living religion whose loss is always and
everywhere, even among the civilized, a moral catastrophe.
(1965 645)
The significance of myths in the study of literature could be
realized by the fact that the writers weave their material out of the fabric
of myths and legends. One of the important factors is that myths and
legends “affect eternity”, and owing to their quality of timelessness, the
writers draw on myths quite frequently. Another reason, which Northrop
Frye refers to, is that myths, along with folktales and legends, provide
abstract patterns. Writers are interested in them to bring out the similarity
between the life style of our ancestors and that of ours. Richard Chase has
laid stress on the literary nature of all myths. “Writers”, according to
Chase, “are attracted to myth primarily because it is literature itself.” (vi)
Now having discussed the nature and function of myth and its
relevance to the contemporary life, let us find out how Indian
mythologies are appropriated in literature to link the past with the present.
Indian myths from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas are
numerously exploited in the literary works produced in Sanskrit, regional
languages and English by Indian writers. In the realm of Indian literature
in English several poets, novelists and playwrights have exploited myths,
legends and history in their works. They have tried to search and nourish
their roots in their own Indian past, discover the mythical components
that facilitate communication in the realm of timelessness and connect it
with the experience of the immediate present. Even today people in India
listen to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and the other classical texts
with great interest. These texts exert a rich influence on the Indian mind.
In this context, Jawaharlal Nehru firmly believes: “I do not know of any
books anywhere which have exercised such a continuous and pervasive
influence on the mass mind as these two… (the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata). Dating back to a remote antiquity, they are still a living
force in the life of the Indian people.” (99)
Most of the Indian playwrights writing in English like Girish
Karnad have tried hard to explore deep into the realm of our past
experience and by connecting it with the present one; they have
succeeded in making the contemporary reality clearer and more
meaningful. Meenakshi Mukherjee pertinently underscores how the
Indian epics represent the collective unconscious of the entire nation. She
comments, “If a world-view is required to make literature meaningful in
terms of shared human experience, then the Indian epics offer a widely
accepted basis of such a common background which permeates the
collective conscious of the whole nation.” (M. Mukherjee 131) In the
field of fiction, notable names among the Indian English novelists who
have made significant use of myth are Sudhin N. Ghose, Raja Rao, Mulk
Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, B.Rajan etc. For them, myths are reflective of
Indian cultural tradition. The use of myth is discernible in Indian English
novel on two planes - the digressional and the structural. For instance,
Sudhir N. Ghose and Raja Rao have used myth in a digressional manner
in their novels. Mulk Raj Anand makes the structural use of myth in his
novels. Especially; the novels of Sudhin N. Ghose and Raja Rao are
replete with myths, legends and folklore. For them, the thread that divides
the mythical time from the historical time is very subtle. R.K. Narayan
speaks of the "inexhaustible vitality" (15) of our classical mythology.
Sudhin N. Ghose holds that the mind of any period is mirrored in the
mythology of those people. In his novel Cradle of the Clouds, the Panditji
categorically affirms that "Myths tell us more than bare facts. Men would
die for their favourite myths, but not for bare facts and imposing
statistics." (90) In the domain of poetry, a host of poets like Toru Dutt,
Sarojini Naidu, Sri. Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, Michael
Madhusudan Dutt have very skilfully exploited myths and legends in
their poetry.
Indian dramatists also have made use of Myths with a purpose to
critique the socio-ethical problems. Playwrights like Rabindranath
Tagore, Sri. Aurobindo, T.P. Kailasam, Asif Currimbhoy,
Chandrashekhar Kambhar, Girish Karnad, Badal Sircar, Rakesh Mohan
have made abundant use of myths and legends in their plays. Nand
Kumar says that:
In their works myth has been incorporated in various ways-
as a background, as theme, as a story, as a character, as a
moral symbol or as an instrument of projecting our glorious
past before the people of the West. ...Their sources and
approaches may be different but all of them aim at solving
material and moral problems through myths, acquainting the
West with our rich cultural heritage and traditions, and
popularizing Indian drama in India as well as abroad (208)
Tagore makes a symbolic use of myths in his plays. Sri Aurobindo
exploits myths very effectively for propagating his philosophical and
religious views. T.P. Kailasam's entire dramatic works are based on the
lives and adventures of the mythical heroes who appear to be the symbols
of moral values. Taking up a source material from the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata Kailasam constructs a play on a particular myth and
"ennobles the character to whom he feels justice has not been done in the
original epic. Ekalavya, Karna and Keechaka are such characters that
have been delineated with a difference. However, their mythical
authenticity and significance are fully maintained." (Nand Kumar 211)
In the post-Independence period playwrights like Vijay Tendulkar,
Girish Karnad, Badal Sircar, Rakesh Mohan and Mahesh Dattani have
made bold innovations and experiments. It is observed that dramas
written in regional Indian languages and their English translations have
achieved a notable growth in the recent decades. Among the regional
playwrights, Girish Karnad is the one who himself has translated his
plays into English. Bijay Kumar Das’ observation in this context needs to
be mentioned here. He states: "Vijay Tendulkar, Manoranjan Das, Badal
Sircar and a host of others have appeared in English translations. So also
Girish Karnad. But Girish Karnad transcreated his plays into English. He
qualifies to be called as Indian English dramatist." (31)
Karnad is one of the celebrated playwrights of the contemporary
Indian stage. He is greatly appreciated for his technical experiments as
well as displaying a wide range of themes and subjects. With his artistic
skill, he assimilates myth and reality, past and present and makes use of
legendary and historical figures. In doing so he carries his message of
restructuring the present society.
Every creative writer has a natural association with his cultural
myths and legends. Karnad is no exception to this. He never retells the
old myths and legends as they are. He adds a new dimension to the
original myth. His way of perceiving the past and present is a unique one.
To him, literature is an important part of historical process. This process
is not stable one but it is always in a flux. In this sense, Karnad seems to
be very close to T.S. Eliot who advocates adherence to history and
tradition. Karnad tries to challenge those ethical questions for which no
ready-made answers are available, neither in the past nor in the present.
He revises and changes myths and history to suit his dramatic
productions.
For the convenience of the study undertaken, his dramatic output
can be divided into two broad categories - myth-plays and history plays.
In a very masterly manner, he makes use of myth, legend and folktale in
the plays like Yayati, Hayavadana, Naga-Mandala, Bali-The Sacrifice
and The Fire and the Rain. And there is a predominance of history in
Tughlaq, Tale-Danda and The Dreams of Tipu Sultan which are termed
as historical plays. Besides these plays, he has written two monologues -
Flowers and Broken Images (2004). And his latest playlet is Wedding
Album (2008).
He has been brought up in the environment of the folk theatre
tradition and in a cultural atmosphere of the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata. By exploiting myths and legends, Karnad tries to show
how they are relevant to the modern times in presenting a modern man's
dilemma. In fact, myths and history are the endless sources of inspiration
and motivation for the creative writers. Therefore, "Karnad has found
myths as a powerful vehicle to carry the complex ideas of the modern
times. The use of myths enables him to link the continuity of emotions
from the beginning of the civilization to the present age." (Verma and
Swarnakar 51) To put it in other words, he tries to interpret the past
relating it to the present and examine the present in the light of the past.
In this regard, Karnad himself comments, "But in India, as has often been
pointed out, the past is never totally lost; it coexists with the present as a
parallel flow." (1997 12) It is really thrilling and interesting to look at the
past while you are in the present.
His first play Yayati emphasizes the theme of responsibility. It
throws light on the present state of the modern man who is engrossed in
the material pleasures by dramatizing the life and character of the
mythical king Yayati in the Mahabharata. Nand Kumar briefly sums up
its theme; "Through this play, Karnad glorifies the existentialist
philosophy related to the performance of duty and acceptance of
responsibilities." (208) As a reinterpretation of ancient myth, Yayati is a
great achievement.
His play Hayavadana is a successful experiment in the use of folk
motifs. In this play Karnad has used the ancient myth of transposed heads
to depict the theme of search for identity. The main plot in Hayavadana is
derived from the Kathasaritasagara, an ancient collection of stories in
Sanskrit and its adaptation in Thomas Mann's The Transposed Heads.
The play also depicts a search for completeness and human relationship.
On the surface level; it is the tale of three lovers, Devadatta-Padmini-
Kapila. Padmini marries Devadatta but is gradually attracted by Kapila's
strong body. Their relations get tangled. The friends kill themselves.
Padmini, of course, with the boon of the Goddess Kali, transposes the
heads, giving Devadatta, Kapila's body and vice-versa. The wrong
transposition of heads creates a complicated problem of human
relationship and that of identity. Thus the myth of transposed heads
portrays the human predicament in a contemporary social situation. The
play deals with different themes. Commenting on various themes of the
play, P.Dhanavel aptly remarks, "The themes of identity, incompleteness,
love, mind-body dichotomy, social system and social norms, poetic
influence, elements of performance have all been brought together by the
dramatist." (2008 170) In the end the perennial problems of identity and
search for completeness remain a riddle.
The plot of Bali: The Sacrifice is taken from the thirteenth century
Kannada epic, Yashodhara Charite by Janna, which in turn refers back
through an eleventh century Sanskrit epic by Vadiraja to the ninth century
epic, Yashastilaka by Somadeva Suri. The story of the play revolves
around the Jain myth of cock of Dough. It focuses on the rift between the
two ideologies-violence and non-violence.
It brings out the traditional mindset of Indian people who believe in
rites and rituals and superstitious beliefs. "The dramatist not only presents
the cracks in religion but also wants readers to realize the futility of
observing certain rites merely for the continuance of an old practice set
perhaps in ignorance." (Mishra 92)
The King, in the play, is a follower of Shakti-cult which permits
animal sacrifice. But when the king falls in love with a Jain girl, he
converts himself into Jainism which prohibits violence of any kind. Later
on his queen takes a false step and betrays her marriage vows. Therefore,
the King's mother asks him to sacrifice one hundred sheep. Now, being
the follower of Jainism, the King refuses to do so. Finally as a
compromise he agrees to sacrifice a batter-cock. The King compels his
wife to satisfy him in the presence of Mahout and in the temple. It is
outright violence against his wife's psyche and the body. Thematically the
play can be interpreted in a numerous ways. Sumita Roy rightly sums up
the different themes of the play. She explains that:
The play subsumes one dominant ideology - that of non-
violence, but the play abounds in numerous other beliefs,
principles and firmly rooted mental blocks whose
ramifications are explored with admirable dexterity by the
dramatist. Paradoxical implications of concepts such as
religion and spirituality, faith and belief, aesthetic and
functional attitudes, ritualistic performances and acts and
conviction, to name a few, all fit into the frame of
ideological gaps and spaces which are available for
negotiation. How this is achieved is the crux of the play.
(284)
In Naga-Mandala, Karnad has used an Indian folktale and the form
of story telling in a very fascinating way. It is a folk play like
Hayavadana based on the two oral tales from Karnataka, which he first
heard from A.K. Ramanujan, a noted poet in Indian Writing in English.
The central issue of the play is Rani’s fidelity to her husband, Appanna
who exercises complete supremacy over his wife. But the shocking thing
is that he himself is dishonest to her and spends his nights in the arms of
another woman. In order to win the heart of her husband she becomes
ready to try the love potion given to her by Kurudavva. The red colour of
potion makes her panic and in a moment of bewilderment she throws it
upon the anthill. Naga drinks it and immediately falls in love with Rani.
Now Naga takes the form of her husband and makes love to her. Appanna
accuses her of infidelity when he discovers her pregnancy. Naga suggests
a solution. She successfully goes through a snake-ordeal and wins the
respect of the entire village. Basically this play deals with the problem of
the unequal power relationship between husband and wife in the Indian
family. So the play raises the problem of a woman in a patriarchal
society. In this regard, in their perceptive analysis Anupam Bansal and
Satish Kumar appropriately remark that
the play questions the authenticity of traditional values and
conventions and in their place presents a new interpretation
and vision which harmonizes 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 materialized without the empowerment of women.
(158)
In The Fire and the Rain, Karnad exploits the myth of Yavakri
taken from the Vana parva of the Mahabharata. It is a highly complex
play and deserves special mention when we talk of regeneration of
classical myths in the contemporary English drama. The play reveals the
conflict between the Brahmin traditional community and the benevolent
tribal community. In other words, the play depicts the contrasting picture
of two cultures, two ways of life – the brahminical and the tribal. The
former is rigid and ritualistic whereas the latter is community oriented
and life giving. The title of the play is used suggestively. The Brahminic
culture is Fire which destroys everything and the tribal culture is Rain
which gives and sustains life. Commenting on the significance of the title
of this play, Ranjana Chanana says that:
Yavakri myth in The Fire and the Rain suggests more
meanings which are above the connotative and denotative
meanings. It mirrors the deeper structure of human
behaviour and leaves the psychological effects of the myth
on the social consciousness of human beings. (83)
Thus, with the help of the myth of Yavakri and the myth of Indra,
Karnad throws light on the universal themes of love, jealousy, revenge,
violence, futility of knowledge, weakness of human nature and loneliness.
By exploiting myths legends and folktales, the playwright tries to show
how they are quite relevant in portraying a modern man’s dilemma. The
use of myths and legends provides him ample scope to take up significant
issues like existentialism, problems of identity, patriarchy, man-woman
relationship, problem of caste-system, pervasive sense of alienation and
manifestations of human passions like love, hatred, anger, sex, sacrifice,
treachery etc.
It might be interesting to observe here that by interweaving myths
in his plays, Karnad attempts to create an impression that all human
feeling is the same feeling, all human experience is the same experience
and all human suffering is the same suffering. Cosmic truth, no doubt, is
in the state of flux but all observations and experiences cohere into the
same archetypal pattern. Therefore, his concept of myth seems to be very
close to that of Carl Jung, Frye, Malinowski. Karnad himself agrees that
“Myths express certain archetypal social relationships, these relationships
could be a Father and son, Husband and wife or of brothers… Secondly,
myths have the power to affect us even without our being aware of it.”
(qtd.in Ramachandran, 1999 23)
III
INTERFACING OF MYTH AND HISTORY:
After the brief discussion of Karnad’s mythical plays, let us turn
our attention to his historical plays. It might be again interesting to know
how he treats history as myth and with the help of his fertile imagination
how he presents the contemporary reality by using historical material.
History and myth, as it were, become inseparable parts in the depiction of
contemporary reality. In this connection Dixit rightly puts it: “Girish
Karnad treats history as myth and rather than writing a strictly factual
historical play he gives it symbolical reshaping to reinforce the
contemporary issues.” (86)
But before we discuss, in brief, Karnad’s historical plays, it is
beneficial to understand various definitions of history, its concept and
how the term history has wider implications.
History is not only the story of any individual but, in the words of
Tej Ram Sharma, it is “the story of mankind in all its aspects, how man
thought, lived and acted. Actually speaking history is a record of
participation of human will in the affairs of the world.” (1) Sharma
further states that “History as a scholarly discipline developed recently
and is barely two centuries old, becoming established in West European
and North American Universities only in the nineteenth century.” (Ibid 9)
The terms such as poetry, myth, criticism, and philosophy cannot
be defined in exact words. Likewise, it is hard to define history in exact
words. The term history is taken from the Greek term historia the
meaning of which is inquiry, interview, interrogation of an eye-witness
and also reports on the results of such actions.
Sharma gives some of the definitions of history both from the
Indian and Western Scholars to have an idea of their points of views. First
of all, Burckhardt defines history as “the record of what one age finds
worthy of note in another.” (Ibid 2) And according to Lucien Febvre, “It
is the need felt by every human group at each phase of its development to
seek out and emphasize those facts, trends of the past that prepare for the
present, that enable us to understand and live it.” (Ibid) Allan Nevins
relates history with truth when he says, “History is any integrated
narrative description or analysis of the past events or facts written in a
spirit of critical enquiry for the whole truth.” (Ibid 4) According to Radha
Kumud Mookherji, what has happened in the past is the subject of history
and in addition, it is valuable for the present and future. She writes:
….It does not deal with the ideals, with what ought to be, but
only with what has been, with actualities….But though
History deals with the dead past, it is not without its lesson
or value for the present and the future which are moulded on
the basis of the legacy of the past which history records.
History supplies the data and material which are utilized by
Social Sciences, like Economics or Politics. (Ibid)
Karl Marks offers completely different meaning of history
connecting it with the struggle of a man. He writes” “History does
nothing, it possesses no colossal riches, it fights no fights. It is rather man
real, living man who acts, possesses and fights…” (Ibid 5) S. Gopal links
historical happenings with the present ones. He comments:
The past is not all that has merely happened but what has
survived to a later age, and perhaps still influences situation.
It is by the incessant, rigorous but not rigid examination of
such a past that the historian can best hope to serve not only
his subject but also his contemporaries. (Ibid 6)
However, of all the definitions mentioned above Jawaharlal
Nehru’s definition of history seems to be appropriate in the context of
Karnad’s use of history in his historical plays. Nehru explains,
The past becomes something that leads up to the present, the
movement of action, the future something that flows from it,
and all these are inextricably intertwined and
interrelated….past history merged into contemporary
history, it became a living reality tied up with sensations of
pain and pleasure. It was this attempt to discover the past in
its relation to the present that led me twelve years ago to
write Glimpses of World History, in the form of letters to my
daughter. (Ibid 3)
In the Indian language, the similar word for history is Itihasa
which makes two things clear that first it deals with the past events,
second that it is careful about its examination. In the Indian context, the
term itihasa is also used for myth.
It is itihasa as a kind of collective historical conscience that
is conveyed through the oral traditions and the performative
traditions through which much of the teaching and
transmission of cultural values to the subsequent generations
takes place. (19)
According to Nietzsche:
History is necessary to the living man in three ways; in
relation to his action and struggle, his conservatism and
reverence, his suffering and his desire for deliverance. These
three relations answer to the three kinds of history – as far as
they can be distinguished – the monumental, the antiquarian
and the critical. (qtd.in Mukherjee, 2008 91)
Karnad, in his historical plays, uses history the third way, the
critical way that is reinterpreting the historical events in the contemporary
context.
Karnad’s treatment of history to understand the present and prepare
for the future is as Lukacs puts it:
The realm of history is where past and future, no longer and
not yet, come together in a single moment. What we usually
call the present in drama is self-appraisal; from the past is
born the future, which struggles free of the old and of all that
stands in opposition. (qtd.in Mukherjee, 2008 20)
There has been close association between myth and history; both
narrate the past events.
History may be as old as man himself. Some important
happenings, may be carried as ‘the tales of a grandfather’,
some of them in course of time being handed down from
generation to generation, may become legendary while
others may be organized by some mastermind into an epic
which might be associated with a combination of tribes. In
some ways the epic seems to have assorted the transition to
what we regard as “Genuine” history, stimulating an interest
in the past and providing a narrative technique. Thompson
calls it the oldest skill of historian’s craft. (Sharma 9)
In short, it can be stated that history is not a closed subject as there
is no finality in the narrative and conclusions. In every age new searching
add new dimensions to history.
It has been already stated that Karnad treats history as myth. The
social reformer Basavanna in Tale-Danda, the medieval king Tughlaq in
Tughlaq and the 18th century king of Mysore, Tipu Sultan in The Dreams
of Tipu Sultan are the historical personalities but they have gained a
mythological status with the passage of time. These personalities and the
historical events come alive and fresh with the artistic touch of Karnad.
As a matter of fact, myth and history are skilfully interfused in
literature. It is really surprising to note how gods, great heroes, great
personalities are mythicized with the passage of time. In this respect,
Nand Kumar says:
Gods and Gandharvas like Shiva, Ganesha, Rama, Bharata,
Indra, Krishna, Pururavas and others; heroes like Bhishma,
Bhima, Keechaka, Ekalaya, Balarama, Perseus and other
warriors, and personalities like Martin Luther King, Gandhi,
Mother Teresa, Meera are not only individuals, they have
been archetypes, symbols of certain virtues. This belief of
their worshippers and fans and followers makes them all
myths. In this way all great gods and human beings have
been mythicized. Their mythic personalities have always
been found to be more powerful than the historical or
biological ones. History relates to the conscious while myth
to the unconscious. Great individuals like the Christ, Buddha
and Gandhi assimilate both the types in themselves.
Therefore, they have dual personalities, one historical, the
other mythic. The mythical Christ and Gandhi prove to be
more powerful and important to human beings than the
historical Christ and Gandhi. Several Indian plays written in
English dramatize the life and character of these mythicized
gods, heroes and human beings. (6-7)
The point is that Karnad draws all the sources for his dramatic art
from the Indian mythology and history. His writing is invariably rooted in
the Indian consciousness though to some extent he adopts Western
techniques to reinterpret the modern life and times. He uses tradition to
question its appropriateness. Hence “the preservation of tradition while
breaking away from it is the principle involved in combining myth and
history in the recent Indian fiction in English. The underlying principle is
that a renewal of literary history demands the removal of the prejudices of
“historical objectivism on one hand the” aesthetic of production and
representation” on the other in an aesthetic of “reception and influence.”
The literary study is much more like an orchestration that strikes ever
new resonances among its readers and frees itself from the material of
words and brings its own being into a contemporary existence.” (Rao 1)
If we carefully examine the elements of his writing, we observe
that Karnad gives importance to the Indian mythology and history to
portray the Indian experience and character. The study attempts to
underscore the valuable contribution of myths, legends, folktales and
history to the enhancement of the plays of Karnad in particular and that of
Indian English drama in general. As a gifted playwright like Shakespeare
he discovers source materials from myth and history and employs them as
metaphors for contemporary situations. Unlike the leading contemporary
playwrights Badal Sircar and Vijay Tendulkar, Karnad goes back to the
past mythical, historical and oral tales for his themes as well as characters
and situations.
In the first part of this section, we have briefly examined his
mythical plays – Yayati, Hayavadana, The Fire and the Rain, Bali: The
Sacrifice and Naga-Mandala. Equally important are his historical plays
like Tughlaq, Tale-Danda and The Dreams of Tipu Sultan.
Karnad’s first historical play Tughlaq is undoubtedly one of the
greatest plays of Karnad which focuses on the dream qualities and
tyrannical nature of Tughlaq by giving exposure to his dual personality.
His play Tale-Danda is also termed as a historical play as the
protagonist Basavanna is taken from history. The events that constitute
the framework for the plot of the play are documented as historical
events. And yet it is more than a mere historical play. The historical
events are closely linked with social reformations. It recreates the twelfth
century socio-religious movement of Karnataka. It reveals Basavanna’s
crusade against inhuman caste-system upholding the values of work and
community living. Basavanna’s sincere attempts to bring equality in all
walks of life end in violence. Thus, Karnad exploits history to expose
intolerance and violence in the name of religion and throws light on the
present social and political crisis.
His play The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, like the earlier plays Tughlaq
and Tale-Danda, is a historical play. It is about the early days of
colonialism which centres round Tipu Sultan and his dreams in the last
phase of his life. Taking the facts of history, Karnad has vividly
dramatized Tipu’s struggle for emancipation. This play, like Tughlaq, is
full of symbols and images which encompass various mysteries regarding
the personality of Tipu Sultan.
To conclude, it can be said that Karnad deftly moulds the socio-
political milieu into the artistic form of his plays. His plays serve as a
critique on the vices, drawbacks and limitations of contemporary Indian
society. In addition, they express his dislike for hypocrisy, barbarism,
superficiality, narrow-mindedness, corruption, duplicity, treachery and
violence. While depicting the drawbacks and vices of both an individual
and society, the playwright’s humanitarian approach and his commitment
to human values are clearly perceptible.
In his perceptive analysis, M.K. Choudhury aptly sums up the
outstanding contribution of Karnad to the growth of Indian English
drama. He comments:
Karnad’s drama offers a spectacular view of the ills of the
self-divided orthodox and tradition bound Indian society at
different levels – social, political and metaphysical. History
and myth become contemporary of the modern times in his
celebratory and participatory theatre. He has helped to
change the direction of Indian drama from mimicking of the
Western dramatic themes and forms to the traditional Indian
folk theatre of which myth constitutes the major idiom.
Though based on myths and oral tales, his plays are relevant
to the contemporary times and expressive of the Indian ethos
and psyche. (234)
So, the purpose of this study is to show how myth and history are
exploited in the plays of Karnad. The next section III will deal with the
making of the playwright, his influences and inspirations.
SECTION III
GIRISH KARNAD: THE PLAYWRIGHT IN THE MAKING
Girish Karnad who was born in Matheran in the vicinity of
Mumbai on May 19, 1938 is said to be one of the most celebrated and
successful playwrights in the contemporary India. Besides being an
internationally acclaimed playwright, he is a highly talented actor,
successful director and filmmaker and a man of varied interests. To put it
in the words of Jaydipsinh Dodiya:
He is one of the most outstanding practitioners of performing
arts. He is among the foremost media persons of our time.
He has directed feature films, documentaries and television
serials in Kannada, Hindi and English. An actor-director, art-
critic and filmstar, Karnad is a man of many achievements.
He has represented our country in foreign lands as an
emissary of Indian art and culture. (2000 40)
His father, Mr. Raghunath Karnad was a doctor by profession. He
was very much interested in reading and watching the dramatic
performances. His mother was fond of Balgandharva. At times, she used
to imitate the acting of Balgandharva. In short, both of them loved
watching plays in the theatre. Karnad spent his childhood in a small town
called Sirsi in Karnataka. Right from his childhood, he listened to fairy
tales and stories from the Puranas. During his childhood, he liked
watching a Company Natak and Yakshagana at Sirsi. Karnad himself tells
us how these folk performances forged the playwright in him:
It may have something to do with the fact that in the small
town of Sirsi, where I grew up, strolling groups of players,
called Natak Mandalis or Natak Companies would come up,
set up a stage, present a few plays over a couple of months
and move on. I loved going to see them and the magic has
stayed with me. (Dharwadker, 1995 360)
In fact, the seeds of his ardent admiration for playwriting were
sown during his childhood. Childhood experiences play a dominant role
in forming the inner personality of a writer. In other words, it can be said
that his association with the natak companies at an early age left an
indelible impact on his mental horizon.
During his school days, he was especially fond of farcical plays,
and even acted in Kannada plays. In the early days of his youth, he
ardently desired to be a poet. So he tried his hand at writing poems in
Kannada and English. Karnad graduated from the Karnataka University,
Dharwad, in 1958. During his college life, Karnad came in contact with
A.K. Ramanujan, the celebrated Indian poet. He developed his intimacy
with Ramanujan who later on taught him the art of literary writing and
structure of poetry. Karnad’s literary career was, thus, influenced by A.K.
Ramanujan. That is why as a token of love, Karnad has dedicated his play
Naga-Mandala to Ramanujan.
After graduation, he moved to Mumbai for his postgraduate
studies. While in Mumbai, he got an opportunity of watching many
English, Marathi and Hindi plays. He was really surprised to see Miss
Julie, a play by Strindberg directed by Ebrahim Alkazi. At the end of his
stay in Mumbai, he received the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to go
abroad for further studies. He studied at Lincoln and Magdalene Colleges
in Oxford from 1960 to 1963 where he took interest in literature and
culture, playwriting and performing arts. After completing his post-
graduation, he came back to India in 1963 and joined Oxford University
Press, Chennai where he got an opportunity to read various kinds of
writings.
In 1970-72 Karnad obtained the Homi Bhabha Fellowship for his
creative work in folk theatre. After leaving his job at Oxford University
Press, he got himself busy with drama and films. He served as director of
Film and Television Institute of India, Pune during 1974-75. He was
awarded Padmashree in 1974 and Padmabhushan in 1992 by the
Government of India. He worked as the Chairman of Karnataka Natak
Academy during 1976-78. He was a visiting professor at the University of
Chicago in 1987-88. And from 1988-1993, he was the Chairman of the
Sangeet Natak Akademi (National Academy for Performing Arts), New
Delhi. In 1994, he was honoured with the Doctor of Letters by Karnataka
University, Dharwad for his valuable contribution to art, culture and
literature. He was the President of the Seventieth Marathi Sahitya
Sammelan in 1997 at Ahmednagar. He is the latest one among seven
recipients of Jnanpith Award for Kannada, the highest literary honour
conferred in India. He received this prestigious award in 1999 for his
outstanding contribution as a playwright. He also worked as the Director
of The Nehru Centre at the Indian High Commission in London. He is a
gifted writer and a man of exceptional intellectual abilities. His perfect
and excellent command over English is one of the major factors of his
commendable success as a playwright.
Karnad’s dramatic career was greatly influenced by William
Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, Brecht,
Annouilh, Jean Paul Sartre, Eugene O’Neill, Louis Pirandello, Harold
Pinter, Samuel Beckett and many others.
Some of the selected plays of Karnad are Yayati (1961), Tughlaq
(1964), Hayavadana (1971), Anjumallige (1977), Hittina Hunja (Bali -
the Sacrifice) (1980), Naga-Mandala (1988), Tale-Danda (1990), The
Fire and the Rain (1995) and The Dreams of Tipu Sultan (1997). Besides
these plays, he has written two monologues-Flowers and Broken Images.
At the beginning of his literary career soon after the completion of
Yayati, Karnad wrote a one – act play, Ma Nishada – a radio play. It is
much neglected play in the critical discussions and theatrical experiments.
Karnad also avoids talking about this play. All his plays that have become
successful on the stage are based on the folklore, mythology and history.
He minutely examines the challenges of contemporary life and tries
to establish relationship between the past and present. Karnad’s greatness
as a playwright has been recognized in the literary circle all over the
world. He has bagged many awards and rewards for his multifarious
creative abilities.
Karnad’s first play Yayati brought him the Mysore State Award in
1962, Government of Mysore Rajyotsva Award in 1970 and Sangeet
Natak Akademy Award in 1971. His second play, Tughlaq also received
Sangeet Natak Akademy Award. He became much-talked-about
playwright soon after the publication and successful staging of Tughlaq.
It has been rendered into Hungarian and German. It was also broadcast by
the B.B.C., London in 1979. It was performed in English in London
under the direction of Ebrahim Alkazi in 1982. His play Hayavadana
obtained Kamala Devi Chattopadhyaya Award of the Bharatiya Natya
Sangh for the Best Indian Play of the year 1972. This play was also
broadcast by the B.B.C., London in 1993. It was directed by B.V.
Karanth in Australia in 1986. It was performed in New York in 1993
under the title Divided Together. His play, Naga-Mandala received
Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award for the best play in 1989. A German
Version of Naga-Mandala was performed in 1992. The play was
presented at the University Theatre, Chicago by Guthri Theatre,
Minneapolis in 1993. His another play Tale-Danda won him Karnataka
Natak Akademy Award for the best play of the year 1990-91, and
Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award in 1994. Karnad was given a great
honour as the Best Writer of the year for the Play Tale-Danda in 1990 by
Granthloka, journal of the Book Trade. It also bagged him B.H. Shridhar
Award for the best play in 1992.
Apart from his achievements as a successful playwright, he has
revealed his multi-faceted creativity through his close association with
the world of television and film industry. He has shown his talent as a
screenplay writer of several successful Kannada films like Samskara,
Vansh-Vriksha, Kaadu, Ondanandu Kaaladalli and Cheluvi and also as a
famous writer of T.V. serials and dialogues. He has featured in many
Hindi and Kannada movies and received critical appreciation.
He has played the role of sutradhar (narrator) for several stories in
the popular audiobook series for kids “Karadi Tales.” He has also been
the voice of APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India in the
audiobook of Kalam’s autobiography The Wings of Fire.
He has received wide recognition for his outstanding contribution
to the world of movies. He won the President’s Gold Medal for script,
dialogue writing and lead role in Samskara (Kannada). It also brought
him the Best Indian Film Award in 1970. He received The National
Award for excellence in direction, script writing and acting in Vansh-
Vriksha (Kannada) which was shared with B.V. Karanth in 1972. His
movie Kaadu (Kannada) bagged the President’s Silver Medal for the
second best Indian film in 1974. It represented at the International Film
Festival, New Delhi in 1975. The same movie was selected for the
Festival of Indian Films at the National Film Theatre, London and for the
Sidney Film Festival in 1975. His Hindi film Godhuli received the Film
Fare Award for the best script and direction in 1978. His performances as
Director of Kannada films Kaadu (1973) and Ondanandu Kaaladalli
(1978) and Hindi film Utsava (1984) have been greatly appreciated. His
leading roles in Hindi art films like Mahatma (1976) and Swami (1978)
are also highly appreciated. Even he played the main roles in Oedipus
Rex and Jokumaraswamy directed by B.V. Karanth for the Open Air
Festival in Bangalore in 1972. Apart from the films mentioned above, he
performed roles in many Hindi feature films, television films and serials
of Mrinal Sen, Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal and many others. He was a
member at the jury of the International Film Festival, New Delhi and also
at the Festival of India in Britain and London. He represented India at the
Montreal Film Festival.
Such a long and colourful journey of Girish Karnad as a
playwright, director, actor and filmmaker culminated in winning the most
prestigious Jnanpith Award in 1999. He has thus enriched the Indian
cultural scene by his valuable contribution to art, literature, theatre and
the film world. While interviewed by Aparna Dharwadker, he plainly
admitted that of all these fields mentioned above he takes great interest
only in playwriting. He states: “I have been fairly lucky in having a multi-
pronged career. You know I have been an actor, a publisher, and a film-
maker. But in none of these I felt quite as much at home as in
playwriting.” (1995 362)
A Drama is not a self contained art like novel, epic and short story.
As a rule, drama cannot remain in isolation from the stage. It is, in fact,
designed for representation on the stage. As drama is a composite art, a
whole team is required to give drama the real meaning on the stage. He
knows well that the real success of a play can be seen only on the stage.
So “Karnad is a playwright whose work reveals a determined and self-
conscious effort towards a new Indian drama.” (Dharwadker, 2005 viii)
He has imparted real dramatic spirit to the technique of Indian English
drama. His dramatic art is a combination of the rich indigenous folk
tradition and the new techniques of western theatre. Karnad is a
progressive playwright. He is a pioneer in new drama and all his plays are
worthy to be staged. His predecessors believed that playwriting was “a
mere literary exercise, with no contact whatever with the living stage.”
(Kurtkoti 69) Kailasam and Adya Rangacharya rejected this trend but
they could not create an enduring substitute for it. The new dramatic
movement has given a new life to Kannada drama and consequently to
Indian English drama at large. In this context, Kirtinath Kurtkoti aptly
remarks:
With this new theatre going around them, new playwrights
like Girish Karnad have been able to bring to drama a first
hand knowledge of the practical demands of the stage and a
better understanding of dramatic style and technique. (Ibid)
Karnad is aware of the difficulties, hindrances, and obstacles
involved in the production of a play. That is why he offers a free hand to
artists, directors and the persons concerned with the theatre. It is
interesting to note that he has never directed any of his plays. Moreover,
he is of the view that once playwriting is over it is as good as finished for
him. So he gives full liberty to the director to edit his play without
damaging the central parts of the play. It is his firm conviction that each
performance is a re-creation and it is the right of every performer to
interpret and present it in his own way. If such free-hand is not offered to
the performer, then the characters are likely to become the mouthpiece of
the playwright. In this regard, while talking to Bhargavi Rao, Karnad
explicitly remarks:
. . . I carry a lot of goodwill with theatre groups and actors. I
read out my plays and make a few suitable changes from the
feedback I receive. But once I complete the writing, I don’t
go back. I leave it to the Director’s creativity. I don’t
interfere. (Rao, 2007 1-2)
This is the reason why the theatre goers get different presentations
of Karnad’s plays when they are directed by Alyque Padmsee, Ebrahim
Alkazi, Satydeo Dubey, Vijaya Mehta, B.V. Karanth and many others.
Karnad very often describes playwriting as the vocation that best
expresses his self-perceptions and abilities. While writing a play, he has
his audiences in mind. He visualises them in the theatre-hall. He listens to
their reactions. The audience in the theatre is a very important factor in
any performance. There must be something significant in the performance
to satisfy everyone present in the theatre. The success of the performance
is based on the reaction and appreciation of the spectators. We know that
drama is Pooja (a sacred rite) for Karnad. He rewrites his plays again and
again until they become perfect. He reads the script in the company of his
friends and then edits, cuts, changes the dialogues and episodes or adds
new characters, episodes and so on. He worked for nearly thirty seven
years on his play, The Fire and the Rain (1995). That is why he has to his
credit ten plays and two monologues so far.
Indian plays in various regional languages have gained rich
acclaim and status. Karnad has written some fourteen plays including his
two monologues Flowers and Broken Images and the latest play Wedding
Album recently written in 2008. Three of his plays The Dreams of Tipu
Sultan, Flowers and Broken Images were originally written in English
and later on translated into Kannada. As he writes in many languages, he
knows the limitations of translation. Karnad thinks that translating a play
from Kannada into English requires a great skill and care; it is a sort of
transcreation. According to Karnad translation is a search for appropriate
cultural equivalents which means that translation can’t be a direct re-
creation of an original work. However, he undertakes the risk of
translating his original Kannada plays into English because he feels that
without doing so, no writer can reach a wider living theatre at national
and international level. Translation connects the east and west, the north
and the south. His perfect and flawless command over English is one of
the major causes of his success as a playwright. Apart from the
translation of his own plays, he translated Badal Sircar’s Bengali play
Evam Indrajit into English and Mahesh Elkunchavar’s Marathi one-act
play Vasansi Jeernani into Kannada.
When we read Karnad’s plays carefully or watch them being
presented on stage, one basic question comes up in our mind. Instead of
writing plays with original plots based on contemporary reality, why has
he resorted to myths, legends and historical plots for his plays? The study
makes an attempt to trace Karnad’s sources for his plays. We have
already noted that childhood experiences, early impressions play a major
role in forming the inner personality of a writer. This seems to be true in
his case. He has been brought up in the environment of the folk theatre
tradition and in a cultural atmosphere of the Mahabharat, the Ramayan
and the Puranas. In his discussion with Anantha Murthy, Karnad talks
about the profound influence of ‘Company drama’ on his writing:
To me even now, drama means only ‘Company drama’ since
I have watched only company dramas from childhood days. I
have only that image. Even to write a modern play, I need to
start from the image of company drama. (1995 137)
To put it in other words, it can be said that since his childhood,
Karnad was an ardent admirer of Yakshagana and the theatre in his
village which influenced him considerably. It was then that he made up
his mind to explore its depth. It is a fact that Indian theatre derives its
sources from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Puranas. Even the
western Mystery Plays and Miracle Plays are also based on the stories
from the Bible. Besides, the Greek myths have also been exploited in
most of the western plays. By using myths, history and folk-tales, Karnad
makes an attempt to show how they are relevant to the modern times in
presenting a modern man’s dilemma.
Karnad is one of the best story tellers. But he never retells the old
myths and legends as they are. As India is a rich storehouse of myths and
legends, they form an integral part of our existence. Every creative writer
has a natural association with his cultural myths and legends. They make
an appeal to his imaginative faculty. They get a logical form and
sequence, the moment he tries to unfold them.
He revises and changes myths and history to suit his dramatic
productions. He connects the past with the present and maintains
continuity. He is not interested in presenting social realities as they are,
because in his conversation with Bhargavi Rao he says, “I am not a social
reformer. I don’t believe in messages. I am only a playwright and my
intention is to share my experience with my audience.” (2) He uses myths
and legends to discuss socio-cultural evil practices. Karnad thinks that
there is nothing wrong in presenting a particular character or situation in
history for the sake of saying something modern. Commenting on the use
of myths and legends in Karnad’s plays, D. Maya rightly states:
Karnad shows how myths can be reinterpreted to convey
contemporary reality. Issues of 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. (68)
Myths and legends are employed as metaphors for contemporary
situation in Karnad’s plays. He uses them skilfully to throw light on the
various socio-cultural and psychological problems. Firstly he brings out
different types of problems confronted by a modern Indian woman in the
patriarchal society. For instance, Chitralekha in Yayati, Padmini in
Hayavadana, Rani in Naga-Mandala, Vishaka and Nittilai in The Fire
and the Rain are the characters who stand for modern women. “He uses
the sources as tools for addressing his audience on vital issues related to
women. He questions the moral code for its gender discriminating nature.
He emphasizes a modern woman’s craving for love and recognition.”
(Kharat 66) Thus, Karnad shows how a woman’s existence is driven into
margin in the male-dominated social set-up.
In his plays, Karnad attempts to attach a new meaning to the past in
the light of the present. He is well aware of the fact that a creative artist
can make his society to know the complex issues of the time. Whenever
the issue of contemporaneity is raised, he invariably gives the example of
two plays: Tughlaq and Tendulkar’s Ghashiram Kotwal. In fact, Karnad
didn’t have the Nehru era in mind when he wrote Tughlaq and yet it
reminds us of Jawaharlal Nehru and his disillusionment after
independence. U.R. Anantha Murthy’s remark supports the fact that the
play Tughlaq is an allegory on the political situation in India in the
sixties. He says that it “reflects as no other play perhaps does the political
mood of disillusionment which followed the Nehru era of idealism in the
country.” (1994 143) Though the play doesn’t refer directly to the Nehru
era, Karnad himself writes about the contemporaneity of Tughlaq : “What
struck me absolutely about Tughlaq’s history was that it was
contemporary…..” (Ibid)
Tendulkar wrote Ghashiram Kotwal in 1974 and the Indira
Gandhi-Bhindranwala episode occurred in 1983. So the play is well
ahead of time and predicted what would happen in Punjab. In this context
Karnad writes:
In his Ghashiram Kotwal, Tendulkar uses Dashavatara, a
traditional semiclassical form, to investigate a contemporary
political problem, the emergence of ‘demons’ in public.
These demons are initially created by political leaders for the
purposes of their own power games, but ultimately go out of
control and threaten to destroy their own creators. It is a
theme recurrent in Indian mythology: the demon made
indestructible by the boon of gods and then turning on the
gods themselves. (A decade after the play was written in
Punjab, Sant Bhindranwale and Mrs. Indira Gandhi seemed
to be re-enacting the theme in real life in horrifying detail.)
(1997 15)
After Sanskrit drama there seems to be a wide gap of several years
when no outstanding play was written in India. Later on, the theatre, the
Indians created, emulated the British theatre of the times as presented by
the visiting troupes from England in the cities like Bombay, Calcutta and
Madras. Karnad considers Dharmavir Bharati’s Andha Yug (1954) as the
first remarkable Indian play.
Karnad preferred the folk-form since there had been no dramatic
structure in Indian tradition to which he could relate himself. That is why
he took the help of myth and history to look at the contemporary issues
with a new perspective. His handling of myths and legends throws light
on the mystery of the process of his artistic creation. He reflects on the
myths and legends that come across in his reading of ancient literature
and out of it he devises a suitable structure for his plays. Thus his plays
attain the excellence of artistry and craftsmanship. While commenting on
the use of the techniques of the classical and folk theatre of India, he
says: “The energy of folk theatre comes from the fact that although it
seems to uphold traditional values, it also has the means of questioning
these values, of making them literally stand on their head.” (1997 14)
Karnad has used various forms of the folk tradition in his plays like
Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala to reinforce the central problem. In this
respect he writes: “The various conventions - the chorus, the masks, the
seemingly unrelated comic episodes, the mixing of human and non
human worlds--permit the simultaneous presentation of alternative points
of view, of alternative attitudes to the central problem.” (Ibid) Like
Bertolt Brecht, he makes the audience to respond intellectually rather
than emotionally to the action of the play. One important aspect of his
writing is that there are no elaborate stage directions in his plays. This
gives full freedom to the actors and directors to exploit their creativity.
Karnad is a gifted craftsman. Though he doesn’t observe the
structure of three unities, he creates the unity of impression. He invents
sub-plots to heighten the dramatic effects of the central plot. It is his
characteristic feature to depict contemporary dilemmas by employing
myths and legends and history in his plays. Commenting on his
distinguishing style of writing, Anupam Shukla and Alka Saxena observe:
He consistently looks into the past in order to examine the
present. …He reflects on contemporary dilemmas. Mahash
Dattani a young playwright has said about Karnad’s Naga-
Mandala that he has a historic vision but a contemporary
voice, which makes his play universal. This vision is not
restricted to Naga-Mandala alone. It is the hallmark of
almost all the plays of Karnad. (48)
Karnad is a highly educated playwright. His education abroad has
made him to have an excellent command over the English language.
Being a poet, his language has a poetic quality which easily permeates in
his writing. He is a poet-playwright like Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Tagore,
Dharmaveer Bharati, Nissim Ezekiel, V.V. Shirwadkar and many others.
He writes lucid, crisp, precise and simple dialogues. He uses simple,
sonorous and appropriate words to convey his thoughts. There are not
very lengthy and tiresome dialogues in his plays. He has deep insight into
the human mind and very skilfully presents internal conflicts of his
characters. He reveals a complex and delicate emotional entanglement in
man-man and man-woman relationship.
Karnad’s plays are short, usually in two acts, except Tale-Danda.
There is, as he himself accepts, Brechtian influence on writing scene-wise
plays like Tughlaq and Tale-Danda. His plays have only limited number
of characters; for example, there are three major characters in
Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala. Though there are many characters in
Tughlaq and Tale-Danda, they revolve round the major characters only.
Thus in Tale-Danda, he attracts our attention to Basavanna and King
Bijjala and most prominently to Sovideva, Jagadeva and Damodar Bhatta.
In The Fire and the Rain, we remember the chief characters like Yavakri-
Vishakha-Paravasu, and Arvasu-Nittilai. And in Bali : The Sacrifice,
there are four major characters who hold our attention right from
beginning to the end.
Our curiosity is first excited exactly in the middle of his plays. For
instance, the intensely curious conspiracy against the Sultan is depicted in
Seene VI in Tughlaq. And in Hayavadana changes take place exactly at
the end of Act I. In Naga-Mandala, Naga, a lover enters Rani’s life
exactly at the end of Act I. In Tale-Danda the complicated inter-caste
marriage takes place exactly in the middle of Act I. His plot and structure
develop side by side in his mind. His plays hardly exceed ninety pages.
The fire and the Rain which contains a Prologue, an Epilogue, and three
Acts incorporates only seventy four pages.
Karnad tries to create Indianness in his dramatic works by skilfully
using Indian expressions in his plays. He has made abundant use of
Arabic and Indian Words for creating the atmosphere of fourteenth
century India; for instance, Jiziya, Sultan, Kazi-i-Mumalik, Dhobi,
Durbar-i-Khais, Dur-ul-Islam and the Muezzin’s call. In Hayavadana, he
has made ample use of Sanskrit and Hindi words as Nata, Riddhi and
Siddhi, Vighneshwara, Vakratunda Mahakaya, Punya, Gandharva, Fakirs,
Sadhus, Pandits, Kalpa Vriksha, Arti, Mangalmoorthy, Rishi, Pativrata,
Punyasthana, Makarndas and Jacarands, Darga of Khwaja, etc. One of the
characters called The Bhagavata has used typical Indian expressions: “In
her house, the very floor is swept by the Goddess of Wealth. In
Devadatta’s house, they’ve the Goddess of learning for a maid.” (1994
19) And in Naga-Mandala, Karnad uses the following Indian expressions
when Appanna exclaims: “I swear to you I am not my father’s son, if I
don’t abort that bastard! ….my name is not Appanna.” (2000 33) Such
Indian expressions abound in his plays.
To sum up, it can be said that Girish Karnad is one of the
celebrated playwrights of the contemporary Indian stage who
has earned national and international fame. He is widely
acclaimed for his technical experiments and displaying a
wide range of themes and subjects as well. He, along with
other modern playwrights like Vijay Tendulkar, Badal Sircar
and Rakesh Mohan has renewed the Indian theatre-tradition.
SECTION IV
RESEARCHER’S PERSPECTIVE:
The present study makes an attempt to critically examine the way
Karnad makes use of myth and history in his plays. In other words, the
study analyses in what way Karnad deploys some of the unnoticed
episodes from myths, legends and folk-tales in his plays and how he
exploits history to show its relevance to the contemporary issues.
Section IV of Chapter one deals with the researcher’s perspective.
In this section, the scope of the study is defined and in addition Karnad’s
dramatic strategies are also taken into account.
I
Karnad’s dramatic creations, so far, include the plays and playlets
given as under:
Plays:
Yayati (1961) English Translation (2008), Tughlaq (1964) English
Translation (1972), Hayavadana (1971) English Translation (1975), Anju
Mallige (1978) in English as Driven Snow (2000) unpublished, Hittina
Hunja (1980) in English as Bali : The Sacrifice (2002), Naga-Mandala:
A
Play with a Cobra (1988), Tale-Danda (1990) English Translation
(1993), Agni Mattu Male (1995) in English as The Fire and the Rain
(1998), The Dreams of Tipu Sultan (1997), Wedding Album (2008)
One-Act Plays:
Ma Nishada (1964) as Agasayana (1990), Mahabharata (T.V. Script –
2004)
Two Monologues:
Flowers, 2004, Broken Images, (2004)
Apart from his own dramatic writing, he has translated plays such
as Badal Sircar’s Evam Indrajit, Vijay Tendulkar’s Ghashiram Kotwal
and Mahesh Elkunchwar’s Wada Triology into English.
His play Ma Nishada published in 1964 is a one-act play.
Therefore it is not taken into account in the present study. Similarly his
another play Anju Mallige which was published in 1978 and translated
into English as Driven Snow (2000) is also not incorporated in the present
thesis because it is not a mythical play. It focuses on the émigré
experience of Indians in England and on the psychological complications
resulting from an incestuous relationship between a brother and a sister.
At this juncture it is to be made clear that the present thesis is confined to
the study of his eight plays right from Yayati (1961) to The Dreams of
Tipu Sultan (1997). It is needless to say that the plays published after
1997 are also not taken into consideration.
II
Before we proceed further, it will be worthwhile at this juncture to
make the researcher’s perspective clear. This thesis investigates eight
selected plays of Girish Karnad from mythical and historical point of
view.
Karnad is one of the major playwrights on the Indian literary
horizon with fourteen plays including playlets and two monologues. He
has successfully built on a rich literary platform of universal experiences
of the human beings. His works have drawn global critical attention and
applause because of his outstanding skill in moulding the socio-political
milieu into the artistic form of his plays. His plays serve as a critique on
the vices, drawbacks and limitations of contemporary Indian society.
Besides, they express his dislike for hypocrisy, barbarism, superficiality,
corruption, duplicity, treachery and violence. While depicting the
drawbacks and vices of both an individual and society, the playwright’s
humanitarian approach and his commitment to human values are clearly
perceptible.
It is observed that dramas written in regional languages and their
English translations have achieved a remarkable growth since 1970. In
order to connect the two globes and make the foreign readers familiar
with Indian tradition and culture, there is a need for English translation of
literature in the Indian languages. R.K. Dhawan’s remark in this regard
seems to be pertinent. “The translations have forged a link between the
east and the west, north and south, and contributed to the growing
richness of contemporary creative consciousness.” (1994 184)
Playwrights like Vijay Tendulkar, Girish Karnad, Mohan Rakesh
and Mahesh Dattani have made bold innovations and experiments. They
have used themes related to the present social scenario in order to bring
about social change and make people aware of the need to renovate the
present social structure and usher in a renewed and better social system.
Broadly speaking a number of twentieth century writers have given a new
turn to Indian writing and thought. Contemporary Indian writing is rich,
complex and stimulating. Hence, R.K. Dhawan aptly states that “Indian
writing in English including literature in translation has come of age.”
(1999 9)
In the 1970s, there seems to be a change in the dramatic scene with
the arrival of playwrights like Vijay Tendulkar, Girish Karnad and Badal
Sircar who breathe new life into the drama with contemporary themes
and bold experimentation. While Tendulkar and Sircar write in their
respective mother tongue, Marathi and Bengali, Karnad is a bilingual and
writes his plays in Kannada, later translates or transcreates them into
English. Undoubtedly, Karnad is one of the leading playwrights who have
made substantial contribution to Indian English Drama. He works within
a complex framework of myth and history.
The study attempts to explore how the playwright uses myth and
history in his plays to throw light on the contemporary issues like
existentialism, problem of identity, pervasive sense of alienation, man-
woman relationship, problem of caste-system, patriarchy and different
manifestation of human passions like love, hatred, anger, sex, lust,
sacrifice, treachery, evil, etc.
It is observed that the playwright makes an attempt to establish
modern man’s relationship with the past. “Even when Karnad takes up a
mythical or a historical figure, that character ceases to be just a historical
figure, and expresses the tension of the modern mind. Tughlaq’s anguish,
for example, may be interpreted in terms of existential dilemma.” (Haldar
97) Karnad views contemporary issues with a new perspective and
enables a reader of his play to explore his cultural roots. As he is greatly
influenced by Bertolt Brecht, a noted German playwright, he reveals his
modernity in the handling of themes and techniques in his plays.
III
The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one deals with
Introduction which is further divided into four sections. The first section
takes a brief survey of the tradition and achievement of Indian English
Drama. The second section briefly considers the concepts of myth and
history. The origin of myth, myth as an early literary form, its function,
its relevance to society and societal traditions regulated by myth are
considered here. This section also points out how Karnad rewrites myth
to suit his self as well as the sensibilities of his times. The third section
highlights the formation of Karnad’s multi-faceted personality and the
honours and distinctions that he won for his plays. It also takes a brief
survey of how the childhood experiences of Karnad made a lasting
impression on his mind and how he was drawn towards Drama and how
by exploiting myth and history, he throws light on contemporary reality.
The fourth section focuses on The Researcher’s Perspective. It defines
the scope of the study and in addition Karnad’s dramatic strategies are
also taken into account. An attempt is made to study his selected plays
keeping in mind the framework of the study given in the fourth section,
“The Researcher’s Perspective.”
Chapter two entitled The Early Phase: Plays from 1961 to 1971
comprises a discussion on the first three plays of Karnad, namely, Yayati,
Tughlaq and Hayavadana. His first play Yayati (1961) based on ancient
Indian mythology reinterprets an ancient myth from the Mahabharata in
the modern context. This play emphasizes the theme of responsibility.
Completely engrossed in the sensual pleasure, Yayati, the King of
Hastinapur disregards his responsibilities. Due to his moral violation, he
is cursed with old age. Being frustrated at losing his youth, he requests
his son Puru to lend his youth in exchange for his old age. He searches for
his identity in the material pleasure and doesn’t learn from his errors. It is
because of his wrong choice, he suffers in the end. After realizing his
folly, he gives Puru’s youth back to him. Thus by using the myth of
Yayati, Karnad portrays the present condition of the modern man who is
running after the material pleasures. Besides the use of myth and folktale,
he has also taken his thematic material from historical characters of the
country. His plays Tughlaq (1964) Tale-Danda (1990) and The Dreams
of Tipu Sultan (1997) belong to this genre. The second play Tughlaq
helped establish him as a dramatist par excellence. The play depicts the
historical character of Mohammad Bin Tughlaq who was the fourteenth
century emperor known for his craziness. It focuses on the dream
qualities and tyrannical nature of Tughlaq by giving exposure to his dual
personality. Here, an attempt is made to show how Karnad interprets
history in the light of current political situation in India and the modern
philosophy of power. In other words, the study intends to know how the
playwright uses history to throw light on the contemporary social
problems which are similar to those of the historical happenings.
Some of the plays of Karnad are based on folktales. They are
Hayavadana, Naga-Mandala and Flowers. His next play, Hayavadana
(1971) is a successful experiment in the use of folk motifs. It has been
appreciated by many scholars as Karnad’s most important and
representative work. P. Dhanavel thinks that “Hayavadana is to Indian
drama what James Joyce’s Ulysses is to the Western novel.” (2000 122)
The plot of Hayavadana comes from Thomas Mann’s The
Transposed Heads which in turn has its source in the ancient Sanskrit
collection of stories Brihatkathasaritasagara. While the Sanskrit tale
poses a moral riddle, Mann uses it to question the logic that holds the
head superior to the body. Karnad builds on Mann’s line to explore the
theme of identity in a world of confused relationships. The play aims at a
demystification of traditional values and concepts and presents multiple
view points that promote a dialogue on the basic tenets of life. This is
enhanced by the merging of three levels of experience – the divine,
human and animal and the bringing together of the animate and the
inanimate on a common plane.
It is noticed that Hayavadana incorporates various theatre
traditions and more than any other Indian play in English can be called
“total theatre.” The play brings out a synthesis of classical Sanskrit drama
and the Kannada Yakshagana while also revealing the influence of
Western playwright – Brecht and Shakespeare in particular. The use of
masks, painted curtains and the dolls add to the spectacle of the play
simultaneously distancing the audience and drawing focus on the main
issues of the play. Past and present, fiction and reality are uniquely
brought together with the help of the subplot which forms an important
link in both the dramatic action and thematic scheme. In short, the study
explores how Karnad makes use of myth and folktale to depict various
themes of contemporary society.
Chapter three entitled ‘The Middle Phase : Plays from 1980 to
1988’ incorporates the next two plays of Karnad. They are Hittina Hunja
(1980) i.e. – Bali-The Sacrifice and Naga-Mandala (1988). First, the
study analyses Bali : The Sacrifice (1980) from the mythical point of
view.
The plot of this play is derived from the thirteenth century Kannada
epic, Yashodhara Charite by Janna, which in turn refers back through an
eleventh century Sanskrit epic by Vadiraja to the ninth century epic,
Yashastilaka by Somadeva Suri. The story of the play focuses on the Jain
myth of Cock of Dough. It throws light on the rift between the two
ideologies – violence and non – violence and discussion on the dynamics
of sex. The message of the play implies that intended violence is no less
offensive than actual violence and adultery committed in the mind is
equivalent to actual adultery.
The study analyses how the playwright by exploiting the Jain myth
portrays the debate on violence and non – violence. Very skilfully this
debate is interlinked with man – woman relationship. Further the study
examines how the play exposes meaninglessness and hollowness of
courtly life and throws light on the futility of observing superstitious
beliefs and outdated practices which bring no solution to the problem
presented in the play.
The next play included in Chapter three is Naga-Mandala (1988)
in which Karnad exploits folk theatre techniques to present some of the
vital problems of contemporary life. Karnad brings fresh breath to Indian
English drama by boldly experimenting with folk traditions, Sanskrit
drama, Brechtian technique and strategies of avant-garde. Naga-Mandala
returns to the rich traditions of folk theatre and exploits the device of the
frame story which is made memorable in the Arabian Nights and the
ancient Sanskrit Vetalapanchavimsati. The form thus retains the oral
traditions from which the theme is derived, namely two Kannada oral
folktales which Karnad first heard from A.K. Ramanujan. The first
provides a commentary on the nature of oral tale itself, while the second
presents the story of Rani, a naïve and simple girl who finds the need to
build tales to fill the emptiness of her life. The original story tells of a
young man’s difficulty to trust women and experience love. However,
Karnad shifts the focus to dwell on the woman’s experience and presents
her growth into selfhood and maturity. A particularly female context is
created with the identification of the story as woman and the female
chorus. A unique feature of the play is the multiple endings provided by
the playwright. In short, the study wants to know how thematically the
play can be interpreted in numerous ways.
Chapter four entitled ‘The Later Phase : Plays from 1990 to 1997’
– consists of Tale-Danda (1990), The Fire and the Rain (1995) and The
Dreams of Tipu Sultan (1997).
Tale-Danda (1990) was widely acclaimed and very successful
play, being performed in various Indian languages. Once again Karnad
selects his theme from history, a movement that took place in Kalyan in
the twelfth century. The play reveals the protagonist, Basavanna’s
crusade against inhuman caste system, upholding the values of work,
community and devotion. In the twelfth century in Karnataka, a man
called Basavanna assembled a congregation of poets, mystics, social
revolutionaries and philosophers, who opposed idolatry, rejected temple
worship, upheld the equality of sexes and condemned the caste system.
The movement despite its high ideals ended in violence when theory
turned into practice and a Brahmin girl married a ‘low-caste’ boy.
The events that form the framework for the plot of the play are
documented as historical events. And yet it is more than a mere historical
play. The historical events are closely linked with social reformations.
Thus, Karnad exploits history to expose intolerance and violence in the
name of religion and throws light on the present social and political crisis.
Agni Mattu Male (1995), translated into English as The Fire and
the Rain (1998) is by far Karnad’s most complex play and deserves
special mention when we talk of regeneration of classical myths in the
contemporary English drama. The play, which Karnad worked on for
thirty seven years, is based on the myth of Yavakrita, taken from the
Mahabharata. Karnad has included certain modifications and brought in
a few additional characters like Nittilai, the tribals and the actors who
together with Arvasu make up the subplot. Characters like Vishakha who
remain in the periphery in the original myth, acquire a new dimension in
Karnad’s tale and are delineated with a human touch. The play-within-
the-play is reminiscent of the one in Shakespeare’s Hamlet but in The
Fire and the Rain, the impact and consequences are more immediate and
radical. The story of Arvasu and Nittilai which begins as a sub-plot grows
in significance and towards the climax takes centre stage.
The study attempts to explore how Karnad, by using the myth of
Yavakrita and that of Indra, throws light on the contemporary issues like
existentialism, problems of identity, patriarchy, man-woman relationship,
caste-system etc. The play is open to analysis at different levels. It can
also be viewed as a tale on the universal themes of love, treachery,
jealousy, violence and loneliness. It can be seen as a criticism of the
brahminical mode of life and established institutions of religion which
embrace power but lack genuineness of passion and devotion. Further, the
study attempts to know how the play The Fire and the Rain depicts the
contrasting picture of two cultures, two ways of life – the Brahminical
and the Tribal. The former is rigid and ritualistic whereas the latter is
community oriented and life – giving. The title of the play is used
suggestively. The Brahminic culture is Fire which destroys everything
and the tribal culture is Rain which gives and sustains life.
The next play of Karnad which is incorporated in Chapter four is
The Dreams of Tipu Sultan. It is also a historical play. It is interesting to
note that the social reformer, Basavanna in Tale-Danda, the medieval
king Tughlaq in Tughlaq and the eighteenth century king of Mysore, Tipu
Sultan in The Dreams of Tipu Sultan are the historical figures but they
have gained a mythological status with the passage of time. It is
interesting to know how these historical figures and the historical events
come alive and fresh with the artistic touch of Karnad. It seems that
Karnad treats history as myth.
This play deals with the early days of colonialism which centres
round Tipu Sultan and his dreams in the last phase of his life. Using the
facts of history, Karnad has vividly dramatized Tipu’s struggle for
emancipation. The play uses some of the dreams of the prince who
recorded them in a diary. The dreams actually form part of the dramatic
action which is a new feature in Karnad’s plays. (The dreams of Rani and
Padmini are related as reveries and songs.) This play like Tughlaq is full
of symbols and images which encompass various mysteries regarding the
personality of Tipu Sultan. In this play:
Karnad’s principal thematic argument is a familiar one: the
English succeeded in India not only (or even principally)
because of their superior weapons and warfare, but because
of their ability to play off members of the native ruling elite
against each other. (Dharwadker, 2006 XXV)
The play focuses on Tipu and his dreams. There is a contrast
between his dreams and the reality around him. The play reveals the
treacherous nature of each character except Tipu. It portrays Tipu as a
noble King interested in the welfare of his subjects whereas the British
are depicted as a treacherous and cunning. And finally chapter five
summarizes all the investigations and conclusions drawn from the study.
Karnad is well-known for his well-made plots, interesting
characters, authentic dialogue and visual impact. His plays make good
reading, they also make excellent theatre. It is the theatrical quality which
marks his importance in the Indian dramatic scene.
When we read Karnad’s plays carefully or watch them being
presented on stage, one basic question comes up in our mind. Instead of
writing plays with original plots based on contemporary reality, why has
he resorted to myths, legends and historical plots for his plays? Some
critics also argue that he has not created any successful play with original
plot based upon contemporary reality. Here we have to note that
childhood experiences and early impressions play a major role in forming
the inner personality of a writer. This seems to be true in his case. He has
been brought up in the environment of the folk theatre tradition and in a
cultural atmosphere of the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Puranas.
In this regard, Aparna Dharwadker says that “In Western theatre the
mythic-historical impulse has characterized playwriting since the period
of the ancient Greeks and continues to inform the modern theatre of
Ibsen, Shaw, O’Neill, Miller, Anouilh and Stoppard; indeed, it is
recognized as one of the important means by which a culture renews
itself.” (1999 86) That is why she defends Karnad stating that he “belongs
to the last generation of Indian writers who have encountered the “great”
and “little” traditions of myth, poetry, history, legend and folklore at first
hand in their earliest childhood, authorial selves shaped by those
traditions.” (Ibid)
Srinivas Iyengar also refers to the ‘modern’ approach of Karnad
when he says, “… be the theme historical, mythical or legendary …
Karnad’s approach is ‘modern’.” (1994 735) Commenting on the matter
of plot selection, C.N. Ramachandran, too, defends Karnad and points out
that “he follows the dictum of Bharatha that Nataka, the highest form
among the ten sub-genres of Drama is always built around a story
borrowed from well-known epics or myths.” (22)
It is interesting to note that by interweaving myths in his plays,
Karnad attempts to create an impression that all human feeling is the
same feeling, all human experience is the same experience and all human
suffering is the same suffering. Cosmic truth, no doubt, is in the state of
flux but all observations and experiences cohere into the same archetypal
pattern. So Karnad aptly says that “Myths express certain archetypal
social relationships, these relationships could be a Father and son,
Husband and wife or of brothers … secondly, myths have the power to
affect us even without our being aware of it.” (qtd. in Ramchandran 23)
IV
The study also takes a note of the dramatic strategies used by the
playwright to portray the contemporary reality. Karnad’s mindset and
attitude explain his success in producing plays for the stage. He is aware
of the difficulties, hindrances and obstacles involved in the production.
Therefore, he offers a free hand to artists, directors and the persons
concerned with the theatre. It is his firm conviction that each performance
is a re-creation and it is the right of every performer to interpret and
present it in his own way.
A close look at Karnad’s theatre shows a variety of influences. He
mainly uses a mixture of the Kannada Yakshagana and Indian classical
drama in his plays. However, he seems to be influenced by the West,
Brecht and Anouilh in particular.
Folk theatre strategies are accommodated into the framework of a
Karnad play for various purposes. Firstly it helps create a drama that is
essentially Indian – in story, character conception and form. Secondly
folk theatre enables a simultaneous presentation of widely different points
of view. Expressing his views on the use of the techniques of the classical
and folk theatre of India, Karnad says, “The energy of folk theatre comes
from the fact that although it seems to uphold traditional values, it also
has the means of questioning these values, of making them literally stand
on their head.” (1997 14)
The folk form ably exploited by Karnad is the Yakshagana
Bayalata of Karnataka. The form is modified by him to suit the modern
stage. The two plays that are seen to be influenced by Yakshagana are
Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala. Of the two, Hayavadana has all the
features of a typical Yakshagana play. Naga-Mandala uses a more
modified and considerably simplified form of the art but nevertheless
retains the folk atmosphere with songs and dances, colour and spectacle.
He also makes use of masks, puppets, folk humour etc. to present
different points of view. Tughlaq makes use of the comic pair called the
‘akara’ and ‘makara’ in its subplot.
The classical tradition, largely ignored by contemporary
playwrights is seen to have a major influence on Karnad who recognizes
the importance of Sanskrit drama in the Indian context. This is a
semblance between the classical Sutradhar and the Bhagavata of folk
theatre. The prologue and the play-within-the-play are features of
Sanskrit drama but the technique of the play-within-the-play has been
derived more from western theatre than the Indian model. The use of the
‘aside’ techniques of stylization, mime, music and songs have been made
very emphatically in his plays.
The use of myth is an important aspect of Karnad’s dramatic
scheme. The influence of the French playwright Jean Anouilh can be
noted in Karnad’s manner of reinterpretation of myth to reflect
contemporary concerns and anxieties.
Karnad has been labelled an existentialist. Such a guiding view
point can be seen to colour all his themes and area of thrust. Though
conceptually Karnad derives inspiration from the West, his treatment can
be considered essentially Indian. In short, we can say that Karnad’s
dramaturgy appears to be mixed with multiple factors drawn from varied
sources and traditions. He is widely acclaimed for his technical
experiments and displaying a wide range of themes and subjects as well.
He, along with other playwrights like Vijay Tendulkar, Badal Sircar and
Mohan Rakesh has renewed the Indian theatre-tradition. To sum up
Karnad’s contribution to Indian drama, it is better to quote Suresh
Awasthi. He says:
. . . Karnad followed the Natyashastra tradition rejecting
borrowed western methods and conventions. Following the
tradition, he chose legendary, folkloric and historical
thematic material, and with his ability in crafting his plays,
he created a new genre of indigenous drama.” (16)
Keeping this broad frame work in mind, the present study analyses
his selected plays in the succeeding chapters and shows how Karnad uses
some of the unnoticed episodes from myths, legends and folktales in his
plays and how he exploits history to show its relevance to the
contemporary issues.