www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal Research Chronicler A Peer-Reviewed Refereed and Indexed International Multidisciplinary Research Journal Volume III Issue V: May 2015

CONTENTS Sr. No. Author Title of the Paper Page No. 1 Shailendra P. Singh Imparting Idea Generation Skills for 1 Effective Writing 2 Dr. Dhanesh Mohan Depiction of Pain and Misery of a Dalit in 6 Bartwal Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan: A Dalit’s Life 3 M. Sraddhanandam Women Empowerment through Education in 17 Mahabub Nagar District of Telangaana State: Some Observations 4 Talluri Mathew Bhaskar ’s : a Mythical Play 22 5 Dr. Patil Vijaykumar Blanche: A Barren 37 Ambadasrao 6 B. Niraimathi From Self- adjustment to Self- alienation in 43 Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain 7 Mrs. Aphale Jayashri Ajay Use of Literature in Language Teaching 47 8 Anisha Rajan The Gendered Other in the Forty Rules of 53 Love 9 Mr. Dnyaneshwar Shrawan Dramatic Techniques in Vijay Tendulkar’s 58 Bhandare Ghashiram Kotwal 10 ¯ÖÏÖ. ›üÖò. •ÖµÖÓŸÖ ¿Öê¾ÖŸÖêú¸ü †Ö¿ÖµÖÖ­Öã¹ý¯Ö ÃÖÓ¾ÖÖ¤ü ¾Ö ÃÖӯ֍úÖԍú׸üŸÖÖ 62 ÓúšüÃÖÖ¬Ö­Öê“Öß †×­Ö¾ÖÖµÖÔŸÖÖ 11 kaMbaLo ema. ema. jaagaitkIkrNaacaa marazI kivatovar Jaalaolaa pirNaama 67 12 izk-fparke.k f/kanGs vkfnoklh dforsr meVysys tkxfrdhdj.kkps 72 fp=.k

Volume III Issue V: May 2015 Editor-In-Chief: Prof. K.N. Shelke www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal Girish Karnad’s Yayati: a Mythical Play Talluri Mathew Bhaskar Lecturer in English, Andhra Pradesh Residential Junior College, Vijayapuri South, Guntur, (A.P.) India

Abstract Girish Karnad’s three plays, Yayati, Tughlaq, and Hayavadana are existential plays. They are related with the search of identity. His plays have been translated into several languages in India and abroad. His first play was translated into English in 2008. He used the myth of king Yayati from The and made it the vehicle of a new vision. The myth of Yayati has been taken from The Adiparva of The Mahabharata. The play, Yayati is a self-consciously existential drama on the theme of responsibility. Karnad, under the influence of Sartre and Camus, wrote the play to acquaint people that Camus and Sartre were his mentors who inspired him to write a play on existential lines. Karnad’s Yayati retells the age-old story of the mythological king who in his longing for eternal youth sought to borrow the vitality of his own son. Puru, ’s son offers to exchange his youth for the decrepitude of his father. After that, at the end of the play Yayati gives up the throne and retires to forests to lead a life of renunciation with and Sharmishtha. The playwright has given this traditional tale a new meaning and significance highly relevant in the context of life today. King Yayati recognises the horror of his own life and assumes his moral responsibility after a series of symbolic encounters. Key Words: Yayati, Decrepitude, Vitality, Renunciation, Existential.

contemporary issues. In Yayati, Karnad Girish Karnad took legend, history and has taken traditional puranic theme but has myth for the plots of his three plays – given a fresh interpretation to it. He Yayati, Tughlaq and Hayavadana employs myth structure to synchronize the respectively. His first play Yayati reinterprets an ancient myth from The past and the present to blend appearance Mahabharata in modern context. It would and reality, to put contemporaneity side by not be an exaggeration to say that side with history. Myths come from racial thematically Karnad’s whole corpus can collective unconscious and there may be a easily be divided into two categories: real meaning concealed beneath its Myth- plays and History-plays. In apparent meaning. Mythology is a cultural Nagamandala, Yayati, Hayavadana and document. It can also be created for The Fire and the Rain we find the ulterior motives. Girish Karnad’s Yayati predominance of mythical element and retells the age-old story of the structure. In Tale-Danda and Tughlaq, we mythological king who in his longing for find a predominant historical structure. eternal youth sought to borrow the vitality However, Karnad also treats history as a of his own son. Karnad has borrowed the myth and rather than writing a strictly myth from The Mahabharata and other factual historical play he gives it . Mythology has been Karnad’s symbolical reshaping to reinforce the most favourite muse. He has probably

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal promised the most genuine platform for an girl, as his wife, as required Indian mythology by transposing folk-tales under certain niceties of . His and legends from epics like The marriage to Sharmishtha infuriates Mahabharata into a modern context. The Devayani who in her seething anger and play Yayati was written and produced in jealousy goads her father to bring a curse Kannada, and it was an instant success. of senility and decrepitude upon Yayati. The presentation of the myth no doubt There is saving class, however, if Yayati is irritated the orthodox viewers, but the able to persuade someone else to bear the more enlightened critics appreciated the curse on his behalf, then he would enjoy new approach in the play. What impressed everlasting youth. As a remedy, he is the modern spectators was the re- allowed to escape from the curse if any interpretation of the ancient myth in a youth is ready to exchange his youth with contemporary context. The Mahabharata is his old-age. Yayati is susceptible to the most systematic inquiry into the human sensual pleasures. He promptly asks the condition. Its principal concern is the people of his kingdom and then in relationship of the self with the self and desperation, his sons to exchange their with the other. This great epic provides us youth with him. Only Puru, the youngest with a method to understand the human son, willingly offers his youth in filial condition itself. Every story in The devotion. Disappointed by each of his Mahabharata is an answer to a personal subjects and relatives, he finally turns to question. A question which troubles men his youngest son Puru, who agrees to do so and women everywhere arises from the out of his love for his father. Yayati apparent conflict between the truth of promptly accepts Puru’s offer. Yayati desire and the truth of what is right. And remains young while his son Puru turns the epic reflects honestly upon this into a weak and senile man. Yayati question. Karnad has used the myth of forsakes his life of sensual delights only king Yayati found in the Adi parva of The after indulging in it for a thousand years. Mahabharata. A unique distinction of the This story is recounted in the first chapter play is that a juvenile enterprise of a of The Mahabharata. Yayati returns Puru twenty-two year old inexperienced Karnad his youth and leaves for forest to lead a life in Kannada has got translated by the sixty- of renunciation with Devayani and nine year old mature and theatre-screen Sharmishtha. Karnad has given this thespian Karnad ( as he himself translated traditional tale a new meaning and the play in 2008). Another important thing significance highly relevant in the context about this play is that its first performance of life today. He used the myth of king in Hindi in the seventies with Amrish Puri Yayati and made it the vehicle of a new in its eponymous role established Satya vision. His treatment of the myth Dev Dubey as a theatre director with a inaugurated an affirmed conviction of the distinct vision. It has been translated into playwright, in the words of Dharwadkar: various modern Indian languages, it has Yayati establishes at the outset of been one of the favourite plays of the Karnad’s career that myth is not performers. In The Mahabharata Yayati merely a narrative to be bent to marries Devayani, the daughter of the sage present purpose, but a structure of Sukracharya, and also takes Sharmishtha,

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal meanings worth exploring in itself Government Award, the Sahitya Akademi because it offers opportunities for Award (1960) and The Jnanapith Award philosophical reflection without the (1964). In his novel Khandekar made constraints of realism or the Yayati, a representative of modern necessity of contemporary setting 1 common man who inspite of receiving much happiness in life remains restless and Karnad weaves a complex dimension into discontented. The mythical Yayati ran a pre-existing narrative or plot. Karnad after sensual pleasures but Khandekar’s adds new characters to deepen connotative richness of his play and gives it a Yayati runs after all kinds of materialistic contemporary appeal. The play shows pleasures--- cars, bungalows, fat bank Yayati as already married to Devayani. He account, beautiful clothes, dances, music accepts Sharmishtha during the gradual etc. Khandekar’s Yayati is a modern man. unfolding of the dramatic events. Karnad Rabindranath Tagore wrote his famous introduces two new characters to the plot: play on and Devayani on the same Puru’s wife Chitralekha and the maid theme. The myth of Yayati has been confidante Swarnalatha. Karnad’s reported time and again. It traverses the originality lies in working out the generations, it has liberated itself from motivations behind Yayati’s ultimate time frames and spatial constraints. But choice. In the epic, Yayati recognises the Karnad is the first person to use this myth nature of desire itself and realises that in theatre within the three unities of time, fulfilment does not diminish or finish space and action. Karnad explains the desire. In Yayati, however, king Yayati modernity of the play to Kirtinath recognises the horror of his own life and Kurtkoti: assumes his moral responsibility after a In fact you are responsible for this series of symbolic encounters. The play is opinion. You called it in your on the theme of human relationship which preface “a play with a new outlook” has suffered a serious jolt in modern age. and this statement provoked many The mind of modern man disturbed by senior writers like Adya various sensuous and worldly passions has Rangacharya. But I never considered been gradually turning into a veritable it a modernist play, nor had I any zoo.... inhabited by ravenous wild animals sympathy with the kind of modernity of worldly pleasures, sensual desires, which was being propagated by irresponsible exercise of power and utter Gopalkrishna Adiga and his forgetfulness of the imperishable values of followers like Ananthamurthy and life. Modern man, who has failed to others. I did who influenced me were establish his identity, is drifting like a from Dharwad, Dr. Bendre and rudderless boat on the pathless sea of life. yourself. Whatever modernity the Modern man is no better than the Yayati of play has might have been due to my the epic The Mahabharata. V.S. young age and the influence of the Khandekar, the eminent Marathi novelist European modernists whom I had also used the Yayati myth in his novel read. 2 Yayati, published in 1959, the novel As the play opens, the Sutradhara informs received several awards such as State the audience that it is a mythical play. The

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal purpose and theme of the play are revealed We turn to ancient lore not because it through the character of the Sutradhara. offers any blinding revelation or He says: hope of consolation, but because it provides fleeting glimpses of the Our play this evening deals with an fears and desires sleepless within us. ancient myth. But, let me rush to It is a good way to get introduced to explain, it is not ‘mythological’. ourselves.(pp.5-6) Heaven forbid! A mythological aims to plunge us into the sentiment of The drama opens with the sutradhara’s hint devotion. It sets out to prove that the to the spectators that though the characters sole reason for our suffering in this and the incidents of the play relate to world is that we have forsaken our earlier times, they could as well be gods. The mythological is fiercely applicable to contemporary times. The convinced that all suffering is merely play is planned in four compact acts. It a calculated test, devised by the opens to show the anticipation of Puru’s gods, to check out our willingness to return home with his newly-wedded bride submit to their will. If we crush our Chitralekha. The palace is being decorated egos and give ourselves up in for the prince’s arrival. On Puru’s request, surrender, divine grace will descend the special chamber where his mother used upon us and redeem us. There are no to stay has been opened and is being deaths in mythological, for no matter prepared for the new couple. The play how hard you try, death cannot give starts on a quiet note, with Swarnalatha meaning to anything that has gone complaining to Devayani against before. It merely empties life of Sharmishtha. Though Devayani defends meaning. Sharmishtha we soon learn of the on-going Our play has no gods. And it deals conflict between the two. Sharmishtha with death. A key element in its plot does not accord proper respect to Devayani is the ‘Sanjeevani’ vidya – the art of because she knows too well that Yayati reviving the dead, which promises married the latter as she was the daughter release from the limitations of the of Shukracharya who could bless him with fleecing life this self is trapped in. immortality. The play Yayati has the The gods and the have maximum number of women characters. been killing each other from the There is the queen Devayani with her beginning of time for the possession maid-cum-friend, Sharmishtha, one more of this art. Humans have been maid Swarnalatha. Chitralekha arrives as struggling to master it. Sadly, we daughter-in-law of the dynasty. aspire to become immortal but Two male characters are Yayati and Puru. cannot achieve the lucidity necessary B.V. Karanth says: to understand eternity. Death eludes In Yayati every character seems to definition. Time coils into a loop, carry his/her own complexity. reversing the order of youth and old Women in The Mahabharata are age. Our certainties crumble in front always a subversive voice, they are of stark demands of the heart. dumb. Women were not permitted to decide for themselves. This thing has

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal been beautifully expressed through (They both stand frozen. the character of Sutradhara. He Sharmishtha drops the vial, which comes on the stage followed by falls on the bed.) female Sutradhara with her hand and SHARMISHTHA (without any tied with a rope. She does not speak. emotion): Sir, you are holding my It is only the male Sutradhara who right hand. And I am a princess. narrates. A clue has been given about (Yayati instantly lets go of her hand the theme of the play. 3 and withdraws. Sharmishtha sits The presence of dumb female Sutradhara, down on the bed.) the poetic rendering of the male Sutradhara Forgive me, sir. I did not mean to gives an idea of Devayani’s position in the trap you in my words. I know I have palace. Karanth’s opinion about Devayani no life but of a slave. But please, sir. is that she wanted to be wife of Yayati I can’t go on living, floundering only. She succeeds and Sharmishtha is around in this hell hole. envious of this success. The point is clear. (Swarnalata enters.) Women in The Mahabharata era SWARNALATA: Your Majesty, the endeavour to be related to men of status floral decorators are outside awaiting only. Everything was to be understood in orders. male terms. Devayani is the wife of Yayati YAYATI: Send them away. I shall and Chitralekha is the wife of Puru. ask for them. And listen, I don’t Sharmishtha has no male support so she want anyone to be admitted until I strove for one. The childhood friendship of say so. Devayani and Sharmishtha has been turned (Swarnalatha exits, expressionless.) So you see, Sharmishtha, I too am into intense enmity because they try to be joining in. (The stage darkens.) well positioned in the male dominated (Pp.21-22) world. Sharmishtha brings turmoil in the life of Yayati. It is because of her that The play is a tale of racial tensions, female Devayani falls into the well and Yayati jealousy, the royal lust and existential appears on the scene and saves her. That is escape. In addition to the mythical what Yayati intends. The conversation characters of king Yayati, Sharmishtha, between Yayati and sharmishtha goes on: Devayani and Puru, Karnad has added two YAYATI: Don’t be stupid, new characters -- Chitralekha, the newly- Sharmishtha. You pushed Devayani wedded wife of Puru, and Swarnalatha, the into a well. And now you are royal maid. While portraying the character plunging down a crueller abyss. of king Yayati, the playwright has not only SHARMISHTHA: But you turned retained major traits of Yayati’s character up in time to pull her out. I am a but also portrayed him more lecherous than he is found in the myth. The barbarian. My arms have thorns. (She is about to drink the contents of playwright does not spare any opportunities to mark Yayati’s lechery and the vial when Yayati jumps forward makes not only the other characters speak and grabs her right hand.) about his lechery but also makes Yayati YAYATI: Drop it, Sharmishtha. himself confess of his fascination for Instantly.

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal women. The significance he attaches to moments now, Sharmishtha? Why sex is obvious in his speech. do moments of tears and torture and blood seem priceless? (pp 42-43) YAYATI: No, no, you cannot possibly imagine the horror of it. Sharmishtha was the daughter of the Asura You will always be an outsider. An king, while Devayani was the daughter of outsider to my anguish, to my grief, the Brahmin sage Shukracharya, the royal to my nightmare. You can only priest of the . Both of them are watch. With such care, with such proud of their lineages though for several pride, I had gathered the rarest years such matters had no bearing on their moments of my life in my palm like deepening friendship. Karnad’s play opens precious stones. So I could play with to show Devayani married to Yayati and them. Relive them. Juggle them. And Sharmishtha has her slave. The atmosphere suddenly, they explode, each of the palace is vitiated by bitterness moment hurtling through my muscle between the two erstwhile friends and and bones like a meteorite. everyone around them is tense, seen in this SHARMISHTHA: Everything has light, the conversation between Devayani been a game for you so far. An and Sharmishtha is understandably loaded object of diversion, to be used and with mutual distrust and anger. By peeling discarded. But there are things far off layers of behavioural traits gradually, important. Let us go and seek them Karnad lays bare the class-caste-race in solitude. conflict in the play. The first episode YAYATI: Solitude? What are you brings Swarnalatha to Devayani carrying a talking about? I don’t want solitude. complaint against Sharmishtha. It becomes I can’t bear it. I want people around apparent that a sort of undeclared war is me. Queens, ministers, armies, raging between Devayani and Sharmishtha enemies, the populace. I love them who were once the best of friends. all. Solitude? The very thought is Whoever is caught in this tension is repulsive. If I have to know myself, inevitably dragged into the whirlpool of Sharmishtha, I have to be young. I volatile emotions. The point to note is that must have my youth. the cause of this war was the issue of ( He sits down on the bed and starts class/caste. All the major characters in the feeling the mattress, like a blind man play Devayani, Yayati, Puru, Sharmishtha searching for a lost object,) belong to different castes, classes and SHARMISHTHA: Sir, what are you races namely Kshatriya, Aryan Brahmins, doing? respectively. Yayati is a YAYATI: I am trying to recapture kshatriya warrior and Puru is the product my youth. Moments when I handed of the Rakshasa and the Kshatriya race. out pain, moments when I Devayani belongs to Aryan Brahmins, slaughtered enemies, razed hostile Sharmishtha is of Rakshasa stock. Her cities to ground, made my queens world is uncivilized, chaotic, plain, robust writhe in pain and demanded that and revengeful, while Devayani’s is the they laugh and make love to me in world of pre-planned shrewdness craving gratitude. Why do I think of those for power. Both are unconsciously

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal conscious of their races. Sharmishtha Danda. In her answer to Yayati, who is narrates to king Yayati her friendship with curious to know why Sharmishtha had Devayani: been so cruel as to push Devayani into a well, Sharmishtha explains how she had in SHARMISHTHA: Of course I don’t. fact worshiped Devayani during the days I accept the responsibility for every of their shared childhood. Devayani had act, including the first, which was, made her feel comfortable in her company actually, to love Devayani. Until she and had manifested no discrimination on stepped into my life, I was a perfect rakshasa princess. Spoilt. Proud. But the matter of Sura-Asura differences. not too much. I liked being with Gradually Sharmishtha had forgotten the other rakshasa girls and boys. Go differences of class and caste and had singing and dancing with them under become close to Devayani in friendship. the bright moon. Weave garlands of They had become inseparable companions. wild flowers for our festive games. Sharmishtha guarded her friendship Prance around in the river naked on zealously and did not allow any other dark nights, aware of the naked boys Asura girl to come close to Devayani. One sensing us from the distance. But day, the two of them had gone to the lake outside that world, conscious every for a swim. They frolicked around in the moment that we were rakshasas, held water till they were exhausted and lay on in contempt. the bank to dry their hair. Sharmishtha felt Then Devayani came into my life. utterly blissful as she lay with her eyes Devayani. She was unlike any closed; contemplating their perfect women I had met. She seemed friendship. Sharmishtha was very disturbed and told Devayani that the completely unconscious of the fact beautiful dream of eternal friendship was that she belonged to a superior race. spoilt. Perhaps Devayani misunderstood Actually let me confess, sir. She was Sharmishtha’s disappointment because she equally affectionate to everyone in immediately retorted. The insult contained our tribe. It was I, as the princess, in her remark was intolerable to who claimed her for myself. I Sharmishtha. Unable to control her wallowed in the privilege her anguish and anger, Sharmishtha dragged equality endowed me with. I gloated. Devayani by the hair and pushed her into a I flaunted her company in the face of dry well. This incident is the root cause of other rakshasa girls. And she their feud and it generated bitterness and accepted all that with such easy gall between them. Devayani was grace. If she had mocked me as a subsequently rescued from the well by rakshasi even by suggestion, we Yayati who married her and to satisfy her might have been happier today. (pp.18-19) demand for revenge, her father, sage Shukracharya, forced Sharmishtha to Girish Karnad renders this epic episode of become Devayani’s slave. By such an act, The Mahabharata into a play of racial Devayani wanted to prove her superiority tensions caused by the racial to the daughter of the Asura race. This consciousness of the characters; like the issue led to a humongous one. Thus began caste consciousness as portrayed in Tale- a war of race, class and caste. Even after

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal being the Kshatriya queen, Devayani’s SHARMISHTHA: Let go of me. Let consciousness of being a Brahmin girl is go. Please. not diminished. It is obvious in the DEVAYANI: Let go of her, sir. conversation among them. Does my being here mean nothing to you? DEVAYANI: Let her go! Don’t you YAYATI: What is the point of all have enough concubines to keep you these theatrics, Sharmishtha? occupied? (Lets go of her.) SHARMISHTHA: Me his concubine? You must be joking. , what are you upset about? She Yes, I got him into bed with me. will be lodged in a separate That was my revenge on you. After residence. I shall ensure that she all, as a slave, what weapon did I does not impinge on your life for one have but my body? Well, I am even fleeting moment.(p.29) with you now. And I am free. I shall King Yayati knows that his problems are go where I please. due to Sharmishtha’s presence in the YAYATI (to Sharmishtha): You are palace but he does not want to ask her to not fooling anyone. (To Devayani) I go away. Even Devayani does not do so am not out to make her my and Yayati is conscious of this. The crisis concubine. She will be my queen. in Yayati’s life is precipitated by his DEVAYANI (horrified): Your refusal to part with Sharmishtha. Devayani queen? Your royal consort? does not want Sharmishtha in the palace YAYATI: Yes, but you don’t need to and bluntly asks her to leave the palace. worry, Devi. Your position will not Shukracharya has cursed him with old-age. be touched. You will remain the He does not accept the responsibility of Senior Queen. You will share my what he had done. He accused throne. You will be at my side in all Sharmishtha for this. In the drama, Karnad public celebrations. That goes makes Yayati confront the horrifying without saying. She can never be a consequences of not being able to threat to your position, you know relinquish desire. And through the other that, because of her race. characters Karnad highlights the issues of DEVAYANI: Oh god! This slave of class, caste and gender coiled within a web mine is to be... No. That is not of desire. Yayati, thus suddenly stricken possible. with age in the very prime of his manhood, YAYATI: She is not a slave begged so humbly for forgiveness that anymore; you have just freed her. Shukracharya who had not forgotten SHARMISHTHA: So I am free to Devayani’s rescue from the well, at last spurn your proposition. relented. The curse of Yayati cannot be YAYATI: Very nice. Exquisite. recalled, but if Yayati could persuade (Grabs her by her arm.) anyone to exchange his youth for Yayati’s Now speak the truth. Aren’t you age the exchange would take effect. But as desperate to be my queen? Aren’t has already been told, Yayati became you? prematurely old by the curse of Shukracharya for having wronged his wife

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal Devayani. It is needless to describe the Swarnalatha gives Chitralekha the news misery of youth suddenly blighted into that Puru has accepted his father’s old age, age, where the horrors of loss are she is absolutely stunned but takes courage accentuated by pangs of recollection. Now, to say: Yayati, who found himself suddenly an old Chitralekha: Cry? Why should I cry? man, was still haunted by the desire for I should laugh. I should cheer... sexual enjoyment. Yayati is fully except that I have been so unfair to frightened at the thought of decrepitude him. So cruelly unjust. I thought he though in the beginning he tries to show to was an ordinary man. What a fool I be unmoved by Shukracharya’s curse. But have been! How utterly blind! I am when he realized its seriousness, he loses the chosen one and I... Which other his patience and begins to shout at woman has been so blessed? Why Sharmishtha, Devayani, Shukracharya and should I shed tears? (pp. 55-56) Puru. But the moment he comes to know that the curse will not have its effect on Chitralekha is not a modern woman but him if any young man agrees to take it she is endowed with energy which she upon himself and offers his youth to him tries to use for a place in a male-dominated in exchange, he is overjoyed like a child. world. She acts that old age as a curse has Sharmistha tries to pacify him by asking come to him at the right time, otherwise him to accept what has come his way. she would have cursed her husband and Yayati gets violent and refuses to accept her luck like a mad person. Now she can old age. Puru is not Sharmistha’s son. He curse her foolishness. Puru wants the is the son of another woman in the myth. support of Chitralekha for the Prince Puru and his young wife responsibility he has undertaken. She Chitralekha become victims to Yayati’s gladly extends her support. But when she uncontrollable desire for youth and viger sees the face of old Puru, she realises what as attributes of his sensuality. The has befallen her. She gets frightened. She character of Chitralekha is Karnad’s curses herself for not being as great as her creation. B.V.Karanth’s words deserve husband, for turning her husband out. She mention: requests Puru to reconsider his decision but to no avail. The conversation between The character of Chitralekha is a Chitralekha and Swarnalatha deserves very remarkable one. There are only mention: two suicides in The Mahabharata. Both the suicides are to bring some CHITRALEKHA: I don’t know point to light. The one is of anything. Don’t ask me. Forgive me, and other of Chitralekha. Chitralekha but please... please, get out of here. prefers to kill herself because she has At once, Swaru... been denied the right of conceiving (Swarnalatha comes in running. Puru the would-be prince of the Bharata gets up slowly.) dynasty. SWARNALATA: Madam... CHITRALEKHA: Take him out. Chitralekha is the most rebellious character Right now. Please. in the play. She is even greater than ( Swarnalatha leads Puru out. Puru Sharmishtha in her revolt when lets her, without a word. Chitralekha

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal collapses on to the bed and bursts not consulted when her husband took a into a crying fit. Swarnalatha comes, decision that would change their lives sits by her and gently pats her on her forever. She rebels against impositions head: Chitralekha reacts. ) forced on her and holds Yayati responsible CHITRALEKHA: Don’t touch me. I am a sinner. Kill me please. But for her plight she says: leave me alone. Go out and... CHITRALEKHA (flaring up): I did SWARNALATHA: Now, now. not push him to the edge of the pyre, Don’t blame yourself. sir. You did. You hold forth on my CHITRALEKHA: I don’t deserve the Prince. I am unworthy of him. wifely duties. What about your duty But... but what am I to do, Swaru? I to your son? Did you think twice couldn’t help myself. I can’t take it. I before foisting your troubles on a can’t. pliant son? (p.62) SWARNALATHA: Go on. Cry. The existentialist version of reality and Don’t stop yourself now. It’s all reality of man-woman relationship is right. Don’t blame yourself. Just let beautifully presented in the play. In go... Yayati’s pre-mature old age, which is the (Chitralekha bursts into renewed result of a curse by Shukracharya, is sobs as Swarnalatha goes and shuts expressed in the problem of the existence the window and comes and sits next and seems to be closer to Camus and to her. Takes Chitralekha in her arms Sartre: and caresses her like a child.) (CHITRALEKHA: Please, say Puru, do not ridicule me, I beg you, something. Scold me. Punish me. do not talk like this. It seems you Say anything. I can’t bear the cannot imagine the extent of my silence. (Pp.58) suffering. Do not laugh inhumanly. If old age had come to me in its Yayati tries to console Chitralekha. He normal course of time I would have even advises to behave in a way befitting had the patience to bear it .... This is the daughter-in-law of the Bharata family. a curse.... If somebody accepts my He asks her to accept Puru as he was and curse I would free him in five or six that her sacrifice would be remembered years ... He should not feel with gratitude by the dynasty and be disheartened for that. If I accept his recorded in golden letters in the annals of curse, think ... Puru, I would be left history. When Chitralekha refuses to be with just one thing ... To go on and consoled or accept what Yayati has on. To return from such a path would imposed on them as her faith, he tries to be impossible. It is possible to take exercise his authority as her father-in-law path that is without light, Puru, but and the king of the realm, and orders her to how to go on a dreamless path? 5 do as told. But Chitralekha remains adamant in her refusal to accept the Puru never thought of the plight of his circumstances forced on her and is ready young wife Chitralekha, nor did the king to leave the kingdom. She declares that no Yayati think if his act was socially as well one understood her predicament as a as morally justified. When Chitralekha woman and a newly-wedded wife. She was faces her husband, now feeble, emaciated

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal old looking man, she is shocked and the the state, as he is the crown-prince. woman in her breaks the social barriers. Sacrificing youth for his father appears as She categorically challenges the very an easy and honourable excuse for him. authority of the king. She doesn’t yield to Yayati is aware of this trait of Puru’s the arguments of Yayati but retorts. To being. As the play shows, no knowledge, make the man’s ego more miserable, no self realisation is gained by anyone: Chitralekha puts a proposal before Yayati. What persists is only the senselessness of a She would like him to take the place of punishment meted out to the king and the Puru in her life so that she can bear a child guilt of having forced the burden for a of the family: young to carry. Having failed as both king CHITRALEKHA: I did not know and father, Yayati is left to face the Prince Puru when I married him. I consequences of shirking responsibility for married him for his youth. For his his own actions. However the play ends on potential to plant the seed of the a note of peace. Yayati asks Chitralekha to Bharatas in my womb. He has lost rise above petty consideration and become that potency now. He doesn’t a great woman. He is shocked and accuses possess any of the qualities for Chitralekha of harbouring low thoughts. which I married him. But you do. Chitralekha could think of only one path (pp.65-66) left open to her. She commits suicide to end her misery. Chitralekha’s end is In Chitralekha, the dramatist has initiated described beautifully: the very concept of a conscious woman CHITRALEKHA: Foolish? What who struggles to her space and voice else is there for me to do? You have heard. Karnard’s Puru does not give his youth out of his love for his father but to your youth. Prince Puru has his old escape from the royal responsibilities to age. Where do I fit in? which he considers himself unworthy. All (She lifts the vial to her lips.) the time a mysterious consciousness fills YAYATI: Chitralekha, wait. Listen him with the feeling of inferiority that he is to me. a misfit among the Bharata dynasty. He (He rushes forward and grabs her admits it to his father Yayati: hand. Then recoils in horror.) CHITRALEKHA: There you are. PURU: I did. I agreed with them. I You say I shouldn’t be foolish but had not the slightest inclination to you can’t even bring yourself to follow in the steps of my illustrious stop me. forefathers. I found their deeds YAYATI: No, no! It is not that. Wait pompous. I was bored by the ... Listen ... (calls out.) hermitage, unembarrassedly. I Sharmishtha, maid ... wanted to run away from all that it (Chitralekha smiles defiantly and represented: that history, those swallows the poison. Suddenly she triumphs, those glorious ideals. crumbles up with pain. Sharmishtha (p.35) and Swarnalatha rush in. Chitralekha It becomes obvious that he wants an collapses, writhing, in their arms. ) escape from the possible responsibility of

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal SWARNALATHA: Devi, devi ... I started to tell you about myself, but CHITRALEKHA (screaming): Help didn’t. Couldn’t bring myself to. But me. Please. Don’t let me die. I don’t even my story is not as terrifying as want to die. Swaru, Swaru, help. ... as your situation. (Dies.) I was my father’s only child. He was SWARNALATHA: No, oh my god, not very well-to-do. Didn’t have no... (Falls on her and weeps.) enough money to engage a proper (Pp.66-67) teacher for me. So he persuaded a Sharmishtha accuses Yayati for this: poor Brahmin to teach me in return for a free meal a day. My teacher SHARMISHTHA (erupting): What was naturally anxious that the news does it matter who she was. You of this arrangement should not get destroyed her life. I pleaded with you around. So he would come to our but you were drunk with your house after dark, teach me, stay the future... (p.67) night with us, and leave early next Yayati proposes to Sharmistha to morning. I was a keen student. I accompany him to the forest before the learnt well and when I came of age, I night fell. When Chitralekha dies, Puru is was married off. stunned but doesn’t cry. It is only when he I couldn’t have prayed for a nicer regains his youth that he repents for what husband. All he wanted was for me he has done. In Khadekar’s novel, Puru’s to be happy. He showered me with sacrifice brings a new liberating awareness endearments, with love, with gifts. It to Yayathi. Carnal desires blind Yayati was ‘My Swaru-’, ‘My darling temporarily but his ‘Dharma’ brings him Swaru-’ every minute. to his senses. A very significant portion of Then, one day, he came to know the play is devoted to the study of the about my teacher. Misgivings decisions of the patriarchal-social setup sprouted in his mind. I told him there that expects women to surrender to the will was no basis for his doubts. I begged of the male decision-makers without and pleaded. If there was the protest. This fact is further illustrated slightest evidence for his through another relationship that forms the apprehension, he would have sub plot of the play: the Swarnalatha forgiven me. But there was none. episode. The character of Swarnalatha, the Doubt grew into suspicion and then maid, is also Karnad’s creation. She is slowly twisted itself into an Devayani’s servant in the play. She also obsession, a laceration he had no has a sad story of her past to share with the means of controlling. audience: As months passed and the disease spread, I could see him tossing and CHITRALEKHA: Please. Say turning in his bed. And yet there was something. Scold me. Punish me. not the slightest abatement in his Say anything. I can’t bear the love for me. There was also his silence. conviction that I was innocent. He SWARNALATHA: I know. I know began to look for solution to his the terror of silence.(pause.) torment. To revenge himself on me

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal by indulging in women, in drinks, in suddenly seemed to link up with the the campaigns. And he hated himself story of Yayati. 6 for inflicting this torture on me. And The play ends with the entry of the more I loved him, the Sutradhara once again. venomously he hated me and himself. SUTRADHARA: So perhaps Pooru At last I decided I had to help him at last found the courage to ask a out. I still shudder when I think of it. question. But was it really a One night as he was moaning in his meaningful question or was it a cry sleep, I woke him up and admitted of despair that he could hope for no that my teacher seduced me. meaning? Well, conventions of SWARNALATHA: I described the drama require that a play scene in convincing detail. My have a happy ending. So let us husband smiled at me, turned on his assume that this question led to side and for the first time in many many more and that finally Pooru years, fell into deep sleep. With that, found the question he was seeking. Swarnalatha’s story too ended. But For we have it on the authority of the now Swaru’s private hell. He epics that Pooru ruled long and disappeared next morning. I haven’t wisely and was hailed as a seen him since. I still deck myself up philosopher king. (p.70) as a married woman. Our house Karnad’s first play, a retelling of a myth awaits his return: every one of his from The Mahabharata won critical possessions in its place, exactly as he acclaim. He has given the Indian theatre a left it. But if he doesn’t return, I richness that could probably be equated hope he at least found peace in only with his talents as an actor-director. death. That is the great thing about His contribution goes beyond theatre. death, isn’t it? The assurance of When Karnad was preparing to go to peace, the deliverance from England, amidist the intense emotional uncertainty? (pp.58-60) turmoil, he found himself writing a play. Yayati has been written under the One day he was reading The Mahabharata influence of the existentialists like Sartre just for fun, he read the story of Yayati. It and Camus. In an interview Karnad clicked in his mind. He started writing. It expresses: came as a play. He suddenly found he was a playwright and a Kannada playwright. I was excited by the story of Yayati. This was so sudden and so natural. While This exchange of ages between the the theme and language was typically father and son which seems to me native, the play owed its form, not to terribly powerful and terribly numerous mythological plays he watched, modern. At the same time I was but to western playwrights whom he had reading a lot of Sartre and the read. While the subject matter was purely existentialists. This consistent native and traditional, the form and the harping on the responsibility which structure were essentially western. His the existentialist indulges in writing of the play without any

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal premeditation set things straight. He was also a part of the divine conspiracy against to write plays, not poetry which he aspired the Rakshasas. Karnad is perhaps the last to write, and that the source of his generation of urban-Indian playwright who information was native stuff, mythology heard narrative from the native myth, and folklore. Even at the age of twenty- legends, folklore and history. The fact two he realised that he could not be a poet, confirmed his belief that these narratives but only a playwright. Until he wrote this formed a significant link of an author with play, Karnad fancied himself a poet. The his audience, and shaped his dramatic self. publication of Yayati in 1961 and Tuglaq This made him draw on these narratives in 1964 established Karnad as a master for the plots of his plays. Karnad has dramatist. He has enriched the Indian Indianised English by using Indian literary scene by his contribution to art, metaphors, translating Indian idioms and culture, theatre and drama. His Yayati proverbs and transliterating the Indian reinterprets an ancient Hindu myth on the expression. His use of English theme of responsibility and emerges authentically constructs Indian social almost like a self-consciously existential reality. Every aspect of these plays-- dream. Regarding this play, Karnad setting, theme, characters, dialogues and frankly confessed in an interview that he techniques, is Indian. His plays are the wanted to tell people that he had read fitting examples of Indianness as V. K. Sartre, Camus and others. In all his plays-- Gokak observes it: be the theme mythical, historical, An Indian is a person who owns up legendary, Karnad’s approach is modern. the entire Indian heritage and not He uses the conventions and motives of merely a portion of it. This integral folk art, like masks and curtains to project cultural awareness is an a word of intensities, uncertainties, indispensable feature of Indianness. unpredictable denouements. Karnad’s The Indianness consists in the reinterpretation of the familiar old myth on writer’s intense awareness has to be the exchange of ages between father and vertical as well as horizontal. The son seems to have baffled and even continuity of this culture for three to angered many of the conventional critics. five thousand years has to form part But to others, Karnad’s unheroic Puru is a of the warp and woof of his challenging experience. Karnad’s plays consciousness as well as a vivid with the mythical and the folk tale setting awareness of the panorama of Indian have wider appeal as they describe the life from Kashmir to Cape Comorin. universal instincts of the human beings. The consciousness cannot be The myth of Yayati is linked back to the subordinate to any philosophic wars between Gods and Rakshasas. The system. Nor can any metaphysical Rakshasa king accepting the Brahmin sage creed iron it out. The greater the co- Shukracharya as their for the substation in the writer’s Sanjeevani vidya (art of reviving dead consciousness, the more inclusive back to life) is also a part of the same and many faceted will be his racial tensions. Kacha’s entering the expression of it. hermitage of sage Shukracharya and his love affair with his daughter Devayani is

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www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X International Multidisciplinary Research journal Works Cited: 1. Dharwadkar, Aparna. Introduction, Collected Plays by Girish Karnad. Vol. Two. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, xiii-xxxvii. 2. Kurtkoti, Kirtinath, Girish Karnad interviewed: Contemporary Indian Theatre, Interviews with playwrights and Directors, Nehru Satabdi Natya Samaroh, New Delhi, Sangeet Natak Academi, Aug.23, 1989. 3. B.V. Karanth interviewed (second session) by Manoj Kumar Pandey, Allahabad, Sept.19, 2002. 4. Ibid 5. Karnad, Girish. Yayati, translated into Hindi by B.R. Narayana. (New Delhi: Vihar, 1979.) 6. Rajinder Paul, “Girish Karnad Interviewed” (No.54, June, 1971). 7. Gokak V.K. “The Modern Kannada Theatre.” Drama in Modern India and writers’ responsibility in a rapidly changing world. Ed. K. R. S. Iyengar. Bombay : PEN, 1961. (Pp.24-25).

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