Old allegories to explain new times
Farida Shaikh spots meaning in drama
Bali, The Sacrifice, has a unique place in the field of Indian drama. The play projects belief in God, in Hinduism, and Jainism --- one belief whose rituals revolve round blood and the other that abhors killing and blood. Beyond the literal lies the more profound meaning, that violence is an integral part of human existence and that the moral dilemma encountered on account of violence is part of everyday life. The story line is beautiful, like a fairy-tale! The king and the queen both love each other very much. The king, out of love for his queen, has become a believer in Jainism. Jains are against all kinds of bloodshed and violence. However, the king discovers that his queen has betrayed him. So to ward off the evil consequences of the queen's unfaithfulness, the king and the queen together have to make a sacrifice, Bali, to the blood thirsty Hindu gods. The queen, nevertheless, is innocent. She is not sorry for or ashamed of her action, for what happened was without her will and it was beautiful! Moreover, the king and the queen are 'coupled in the eyes of God…fire as the witness…bound together in vow.'p.113. By performing the sacrifice together, the queen, as wife, becomes guilty of adultery. This is a moral dilemma for the queen. To counter the wrath of the gods the king resorts to substituting a cockerel made of dough to serve as a mock ritual for the Bali. There is no blood, but the purpose of sacrifice, killing a living bird with real red blood, is there. This gives rise to a Catch 22-like situation. The inanimate substitution does not cancel the intent of the action and is just a cover up for the guilty person and the invisible blood. Wiping away of religious rites creates a social vacuum, and mere substitution may not necessarily be the moral solution. Just as during his birth the king, while still connected to his mother's placenta, was drowned in blood, now his wife, by substituting the cockerel made of dough is 'drowning him in guilt' . So notes the king's mother. She continues, emphatically, that 'the only relationship in the world which does not wither and fade away is that of hate.' P.115 The low caste ugly mahout, who is supposedly involved with the queen, suggests his own punishment to the king --- hang a dough image of him by the tree. And the crass humour is that if dough cockerel is fit for the gods, then why not dough man fit for the king? However, would a dough man satisfy the queen? The man is innocent; he is doing his work regarding the animal, in this case an elephant. The queen desires the company of his voice. The unlettered ugly mahout had asked the queen, 'Who do you talk to when you are lonely---when you are in trouble?' The Jains have twenty four saviours. God is there, and the mahout talks to God when he is upset over his being ugly. And this is what follows, 'Would you exchange your voice for good looks?' To this the mahout answers '…No, I wouldn't,' and then God says, 'Why not leave it at that?' Girish Karnad is internationally known as a playwright and filmmaker. Most of his works are based on explorations into folklore, mythology and history as means of tackling contemporary scenes. His works are anchored in history , marked by great plots, consistent characters, precise speeches combined with lyrics and witty dialogue. An instance '…But do you know you can love a city like a woman?' When Yudhishthira tells Draupadi in the Mahabharata that he has lost her in the game of dice, she asks: 'Whom did you lose first, yourself or me?' it is a continuation of the queen's story in Bali when she questions performing sacrifice together and to be regarded as being guilty of adultery. Karnad, when just twenty three years' old, wrote his first play, Yayati in 1961, in his adopted language Kannada. Yayati is a king who in the prime of his life is cursed to old age and goes around asking people, 'Will you take my old age?'No one accepts him except his son Puru. This is a play dealing with personal responsibility and has been compared by some critics to Sophocles' Antigone and after the Image of an Alienated Modern Man. 3. Tughlaq, 1964, is the second Kannada play, translated into English by Karnad. It is now recognized as a classic. The tale is about the dreams and aspirations of an over-ambitious, virtuous king. Karnad engages history and mythology to tackle contemporary themes. The play is an allegory on the Nehruvian era. In contemporary political situations, Tughlaqi is a Hindi proverb. The Dreams of Tipu Sultan is a play on the great Mysore warrior. He represents the best of Karnataka, the only one who perceived a threat to the country from the East India Company. The play is based on a secret record of Tipu Sultan which was made public after his death. The play rescues Tipu Sultan from colonial perceptions and presents him in the context of independent India. More importantly, the play is, in a collective sense, a reclamation of history, 'a truth too close to our heart for it to ever fail as a play.' It was produced for BBC in 1997. A Heap of Broken Images, Bikhre Bimb, 2004, is about identity crisis. It highlights the Indian literary scene, the desire for fame and conflict in writing in one's own and in a foreign, English, language. Ananthamurthy, the Kannada writer, says: 'English writers were like prostitutes since they wrote with an eye for the money and global reach the language offers.' Girish Karnad is an icon of contemporary Indian drama, similar to Vijay Tendulkar and Babul Sirkar. His dream was to write in English like Shakespeare, like T.S.Eliot. He is an outstanding film director and actor; connected to Television Institute of India; Sangeet Natak Akademi and Director, the Nehru Centre, London. He has been much honoured --- with the Padma Bhushan and the prestigious Jnanpith Award. Karnad is a versatile genius. His latest, Wedding Album, 2008, compares the past and the present bridal couples. Previously, couples met for the first time on their wedding day. That has now been substituted by many, many e-mails, SMSes, phone calls, tapes and scanned images. Yet, as he notes, one element of the plot remains unchanged: the couple agree to step into unknown, uncharted territory--- each other. And this is revealing of contemporary India and beyond--- Bangladesh too! (The review is a reprint).
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