Paper 14; Module 16; E Text (A) Personal Details Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof. Tutun University of Hyderabad Mukherjee Paper Coordinator Prof. Asha Kuthari Guwahati University Chaudhuri, Content Writer/Author Dr. Saurabhi Guwahati University (CW) Sarmah, . Content Reviewer (CR) Dr. Lalan Kishore Dept. of English, Guwahati Singh University Language Editor (LE) Dr. Dolikajyoti Assistant Professor, Guwahati Sharma, University (B) Description of Module Item Description of module Subject Name English Paper name Indian Writing in English Module title Recreating the Past: Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq Module ID MODULE 16 Module -16 Recreating the Past: Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq Introducing the playwright: A playwright, director, screen writer and an actor, Girish Karnad has made a remarkable contribution to the world of Indian theatre by writing plays in Kannada and translating them into English. Born in 1938 in Maharashtra, Karnad had his schooling in Marathi. Later on, when he was 14 years old, his family moved to Dharward in Karnataka where he grew up. He did his graduation from Dharwad University and then went to England to pursue his higher studies in philosophy, politics and Economics. After coming back to India, he worked with the Oxford University press; but finally he left his job to pursue writing as his full time career. During his tenure at the University of Chicago, his play Nagamandala had its world premiere at the Guthrie theatre in Minneapolis. The performance was based on Karnad’s translation of Nagamandala into English. Karnad is one of the leading figures of what is known as the Theatre of the Roots movement in India. This movement is an attempt by a group of playwrights to represent the contemporary Indian society by going back to the root. Karnad uses myth and history to represent the contemporary issues in his plays. History, myth, folklore and the native things attract him most which he incorporates into his plays with a modernist point of view. He stands as one of the most important figures of post-independence Indian English literature whose plays have been translated not only into English but into various regional languages like Assamese, Hindi and Bengali etc. All his plays have received both global and countrywide acclaim. He himself has translated all his major plays into English which is another outstanding talent this playwright possesses. Karnad is also the pioneer of modern drama in Kannada just as Tendulkar did it for Marathi and Mohan Rakesh for Hindi theatre. Karnad has been awarded with Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. He was awarded with The Jnanpith award for Kannada literature. He also received Sahitya Academy, Kalidas Samman, Rajyotsava Award and Film fare awards for Best director to name a few. In the year 2011, Karnad was conferred honorary doctorate degree by the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. In his modern plays, Karnad makes an attempt to recreate the past in the present. Herein Karnad’s move resembles what T.S. Eliot said in his famous essay “Tradition and Individual Talent (1919)”. According to Eliot, neither a poet and nor an artist of any art has his complete meaning alone. His significance lies in his relation to the dead poets. In order to value him, one has to set him in the past for contrast and comparison. Eliot also said that the difference between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past (1963: 141-142). Girish Karnad has chosen to write in a language which is neither English nor his mother tongue Konkani; but in Kannada. During the time when Karnad started writing, Kannada literature was highly under the influence of Western renaissance and its literature. But, Karnad keeps himself away from such influence and goes back to his past and tries to revive it in the present. He collects the historical and mythological sources and tries to represent the contemporary issues in relation to them. Thus, he writes his first play Yayati (1961) which represents the ironies of life through the characters in Mahabharata. The play receives much popularity and soon gets translated into various languages. Tughlaq (1964) is another play which establishes Karnad as one of the most promising playwrights of the contemporary India. The play has been translated into German and Hungarian, apart from English and other regional languages. His plays include – Hayavadana, Yayati, Tughlaq, The Fire and the Rain, Nagamandala, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan to name a few. Apart from writing plays, he has also worked as director, actor and screenwriter for many Kannada movies such as Kadu, Kanooru Heggadithi, Samskara, Vamsha Vriksha etc. In this module, we discuss Tughlaq - a historical play written by Girish Karnad. Originally written in Kannada, Tughlaq has been translated into English by Girish Karnad himself. Hence, we can put Tughlaq in the genre of Indian writing in English. Understanding Historical Plays: A historical play is based on historical narratives. It may be set in any period of the past. The trend of writing historical plays was set by William Shakespeare with his plays like Henry VI, Henry V, King John, Richard II, Richard III etc. His plays still define the genre in the West. History is one of the three main genres in Western theatre along with tragedy and comedy In India, the emergence of historical plays is a 19th century development. The growth of historical plays coincided with the growth of people's interest in the Indian past and history in general. The Indian dramatist realised the importance of using the past as a means for social and political change and betterment. Simultaneously, the Western influence also impacted a lot by influencing Indian writers take interest in European historical romances and theatre. Thematically, the historical plays deal with widely diversified themes and characters compared to the social realist plays and mythological plays which exhibit a unity in terms of themes. In Assam, the trend of writing historical plays was initiated by Lakshminath Bezbaroa who chose to write a play on the life of Jaymati Kuwari. Simultaneously, several Marathi writers chose to write on the life of historical characters like Shivaji with great pride; the Bengali writers chose to write on the lives of Pratapadiya and Sirajuddaula. Thus, the celebration of regional and leaders and heroines made a substantial contribution to the growth of historical plays. The playwrights found enough source of information to write plays based on history and the genre of writing historical plays came be established as a part of Indian literature. The genre played a major role in the rebirth of political theatre in India. Girish Chandra Ghosh, known as the father of Bengali theatre wrote Sirajuddaula in 1905, Chhatrapati in 1908 and Mirkasim in 1906 inspired by the partition movement in India. Apart from Girishchandra, there were other playwrights like D.L. Roy who wrote historical plays such as Mewar Patan (the downfall of the Mewar), Chandragupta, Rana Pratapsinha, and Nurjahan to name a few. These are some of the examples of historical plays written during the pre-independence period. And these plays were mostly written in the regional languages. However, when we talk about Indian drama in English and especially historical plays written in the contemporary period, the numbers are very less. Among the post independent dramatist, it is only Girish Karnad who has made a serious attempt to write plays on historical themes. Tughlaq is Girish Karnad’s second play after Yayati. Tughlaq was first published in 1964 in Kannada. Later on, the play has been translated into Urdu, English and many other Indian languages. The English translation of Tughlaq has been done by Karnad himself after being requested by Alyque Padamsee. The first production of Tughlaq took place in Kannada in 1965. At the same time it was also performed in Hindi by the National School of drama. The performance of Tughlaq was a great success on the stage which encouraged many theatre enthusiasts to translate the play and perform it in other languages. Apart from Kannada, Tughlaq has been performed in the languages like Marathi, Bengali and Assamese. The English production of Tughlaq appeared in 1970 in Mumbai. Produced by Alyque Padamsee at Bhulabhai Desai Auditorium, this English production helps the play to get a good amount publicity and popularity which it deserves. About Mohammad-bin- Tughlaq: Mohammad -bin-tughlaq was one of Mughal emperors who ruled India in the 14th century. He was the eldest son of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq. He ruled for 26 years in India, from 1325 to 1351. Popularly known as the ‘man of ideas’, Tughlaq was one of the most brilliant kings to come to the throne of Delhi. Despite his great and innovative ideas, his reign was marked by great failures. His impatience and haste in executing his ideas into reality are considered to be the major reasons of those failures. History behind the creation of Tughlaq: The history behind the creation of Tughlaq by Karnad is the criticism of Kritinath Kurtkoti on Kannada drama that no Kannada writer has made the effort to take up the historical events and explore the new layers of truth that may arise out of them; no attempt has been made in Kannada literature to explore the Indian past in the present. Karnad found it a point to be contemplated and started reading Indian history extensively. Finally, the history of 14th century India drew his attention, particularly the period of Mohammad-bin-Tughlaq as Karnad could find my resemblances between that period and the India of his time. So, Karnad decides to explore this episode further in his writing.