Unit 04

Paper 02
Indian writing in English
Nagamadala by girish karnad
01 Introduction to the Author
Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019)[1] was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada
writer,[2] playwright

worked in Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi films.

His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting in
Kannada, just as Badal Sarkar did in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in
Hind

He was active in the world of Indian cinema working as an actor, director and screenwriter, in
Hindi and Kannada cinema, and has earned awards.i.

He was a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary honour conferred in India.[4]

He was conferred Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan by the Government of India and won
four Filmfare Awards, of which three are Filmfare Award for Best Director – Kannada and the
fourth a Filmfare Best Screenplay Award. He was a presenter for a weekly science magazine
programme called "Turning Point" that aired on Doordarshan in 1991.

 ‛Aadaadtha Aayushya’, published by Manohara Grantha Mala, 2011.

02.Theatre of india and age of modern Indian

playwriting
Theatre of India is one of the most ancient forms of theatre and it features a detailed textual,
sculptural, and dramatic effects

Like in the areas of music and dance, the Indian theatre is also defined by the
dramatic performance based on the concept of Nritya, which is a Sanskrit word for drama

From the last half of the 19th century, theatres in India experienced a boost in numbers and
practice. After Indian independence in 1947, theatres spread throughout India as one of the
means of entertainment. As a diverse, multi-cultural nation
e. Drama in other Indian languages however has developed over a period of time unlike drama in
English. This implies that in India, the theatre movement did produce plays but it could find itself
only in the regional languages and the movement as such did not embrace English as the medium,
with the exception of a few dramatists like Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar and Mahesh Dattani who
wrote in Kannada and Marathi respectively besides English. In order to appreci

In the beginning of the second century, a new kind of theatre called Sanskrit existed in India. It lost
its popularity during seventeenth century and by the eighteenth century it had evolved into a new
form known as ‘Indian Classical Dance’ which later became the India’s Traditional Theatre officially.

Puppetry is the most prominent division of theatre in India. It started in the cradles of civilization as
an entire village event which is popular even today. The most popular form of puppetry which is an
age-old art has

been practiced for thousand years are a part of Indian culture. Most of the shadow puppet plays are
based on the two Indian epic poems The Ramayana and The Mahabharata.

After independence, the Indian theatre was further reshaped by other personalities. The haphazard
form Indian Natya was made rather contemporary. The seed of modern drama was sown during the
time of British rule and therefore quite ideally the typical theatre form right after the independence
became more modish to befit the existing political and economic scenario of independent India.

Kavalam Narayana Pannikkar along with Habid Tanvir, Vijay Tendulkar and Girish Karnad, members of
what is referred to as The Theatre of Roots movement began to study Kathkali, Yakshagana, Chhau,
and other traditional Indian performance forms to see what could be used in the creation of a
modern Indian drama

03 themes’
01 a feminist play
sh.Naga-Mandala is a feminist play which not only exposes male chauvinism, the oppression of
women, the great injustice done to them by men and the patriarchal culture, but also stealthily
deflates the concept of chastity. The purport of the folk tale is seemingly to uphold the institution of
marriage—it turns the unhappy married life of Rani into a happy one; however, at the same time,
owing to its inherent quality of subversion, the same folktale deconstructs the idea that fulfillment of
love and desires is found within the sacred predicts of married life. Is fulfillment achievable within
marriage or outside it, is the question concealed within the very framework of Hayavadana as well as
Naga-Mandala

Identity crisis

in Nagamandala: Here the patriarchal hierarchy is explicit in expressionistic terms. For Appanna, the
fact that his wife has committed adultery is more acceptable to conscious mind than the fact himself
is Naga. For outsiders, the snake ordeal is test to prove the chastity of Rani. However, in reality, the
rest is for Appanna to ascertain whether he himself is Naga, When the test ultimately does prove
positive, the truth dawns … Appanna = Naga. Therefore he had submitted to Rani. Therefore, she has
triumphed over him… and therefore is elevated to the status of goddesses. Hence, a more
domesticated, humble Naga.
The play deals with a ‘self-involved’ hero

, who undergoes a test put to him by his wife in order to survive. The psychological inadequacy he is
trapped in causes acute lack of understanding and communication between him and his wife. It is a
threat to family and society. Every man through adolescence faces this existential problem and so he
must learn to overcome and this becomes more comprehensive in Karnad’s plays. NagaMandala is
not only about the male difficulty to trust and love women, it seems to be about the socialization
process of both men and women, particularly in the Indian society, where marriages is more often
than not the first experience of sex and love for most people. The transition from childhood into
adolescence and then into adult roles has, in India, very different stages and psychological and
cultural relationships are totally different from other less tradition-bound societies

04 ancient theme in a modern context

The play seems a re-mythification of the Ahalya myth. In Valmiki’s Ramayana,
Ahalya commits adultery knowingly but the folk mind equates Ahalya with the
chaste women and therefore cannot allow her to sin deliberately. So Indra is shown
to have perpetrated a fraud on her by impersonating her husband Rishi Gautam. In
Naga- Mandala too, Rani is innocent. It is Naga in the form of her husband
Appanna who makes love to her. She thinks that she bears her husband’s child and
does not suspect Naga’s identity until the very end.

Girish Karnad is quite adept at amalgamating ideas from traditional folk theater, mythology,

history and contemporary literature in his creations with results that leave aficionados of

literature in his creations with results that leave aficionados of literature and performing arts

enraptured

The play Nagamandala is labeled as „Story Theatre‟ as its actions are based on folk stories.

Karnad asserts that these types of stories are told by women in the kitchen while they feed

children or sometimes it becomes the mode of communication among the women in the

family. Such stories as Nagamandala show how the protagonist of the story reveals the

perception of woman that a woman can have her own reality and that it counter balances

classical text and serve as means of escaping the orthodoxy of Indian epic stories.
The graphic representation of this play Nagamandals which comprises of the geometrical

figures such as a square, the circles and the triangles complement each other and lead to the

required balance of the centrifugal and centripetal forces of a mandala. According to Natya

Shastra, written by Bharatha Muni, a drama consists of three worlds, the celestial, the

terrestrial and the infernal and thus integrates the supernatural, human and sub-human.

Hence, the mandala of this play evokes the complexity of the cosmos and interweaves of

three world.

In the words of SatyaDevDubey,

“Girish Karnad is the only playwright in the history of Indian Theatre to have treated adultery

as normal and treated adulterous woman sympathetically.

As a playwright, Karnad was highly influenced by Bharat Muni’s

Natyashastra. At the same time Brechtian technique of drama also influenced
him. But as a dramatist Karnad is original. He does not copy any definite
pattern. His plays depict the crisis of human identity and the complexity and
duality of human character. His dramas analyse and interpret contemporary
social problems. Selfhood, search for identity, isolation, alienation and
frustration are the major themes of Karnad’s plays. The undercurrent of
existentialism can also be seen in those plays.

Plots in Karnad’s plays are precise and well-constructed. The devices like
parallelism and contrast, suspense and surprise help in the logical
development of the play. The events and incidents are organised into an
artistic whole. Settings in Karnad’s plays are in keeping with the plots. The
art of characterization of Karnad is also appreciable. His characters are well-
delineated. Those characters promote the unity of effect. In Karnad’s plays
both incident and situation are correlated with characters. The playwright
observes economy, precision and realism in portraying his characters. He
emphasises those qualities that are essential for the development of the plot.
All his characters have been portrayed with great psychological insight. The
characters of Karnad speak a language that suits their temperament.

Karnad’s English is lucid and simple. He successfully moulded this language

to express typical Indian ethos in his plays. He used rich and apt words. His
words were highly suggestive. His dialogues were crisp, precise and pointed.
Karnad frequently used symbols. His style was simple, straightforward and
idiomatic.
Karnad’s plays are known for stageability. His plays are universal in their

appeal. He is a crusader against all those evils that are prevalent in the

society. Karnad has used various theatrical devices for developing the plot

and for creating the desired dramatic effect. The dramatic technique evolved

by him is appreciated in the entire world of theatre. His plot, characters,

setting, style and language contribute a lot to the creation of unity of effect

in his plays.

Conclusion:
To conclude that Girish Karnad’s play ‘Nagamandala as a split personality and Identity Crisis
‘interprets the ancient theme in modern context. Like Yayati, the common man of today is grouped in
the darkness of material and sensual pleasures. He finds himself in a world in which old spiritual
values have been entirely swept away and the new spiritual values are yet to be discovered. Karnad’s
interpretation of the old myth on the exchange of ages between father and son puzzled and angered
conventional critics, but the enlightened readers and critics appreciated it for its modernity. It was
originally written in Kannada and now it has been translated into English. Mrs. P. Krishnaveni in her
paper “A Comparative Study of Myth and Folk Elements in Girish Karnad’s Nagamandla and
Hayavadana” has examined his two plays and concludes that these two plays are Karnad’s own
imagination. Both plays are love stories. In Naga Mandala, the snake changes into a man where as in
Hayavadana, the horse changes into a man. Both plays show the relationship of man and woman.
The theme also reveals the Upanishad principle that visualizes the human body as a symbol of the
organic relationship of the parts to the whole. Sacrifices also form a part of such religious practice as
seen in the obliteration of the self physically in Hayavadana, the snake ordeal that Rani undergoes in
Naga Mandala. Spiritual thought and wisdom inherent in religion are also incorporated into the
themes of the plays.