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'Belakillada daariyalli nadeyabahudu. Kanasillada daariyalli hege nadeyali? '(You can follow a path without light, how can I walk one without dreams?) – a replica of Girish Karnad's first piece, Yayati. A line that captures the entire existential dilemma of the millennium, written nearly 40 years before the appearance of the Millennials. And one that, in my mind, captures all the paradoxes of the playwright himself.
Girish Karnad himself called the urban Naxal and defended all causes that could be considered liberal. People thought it arrogant, neutral, lonely. He did not really care. He said all he had to do: his plays went through modern consciousness in all the languages of India and expressed a multidimensional understanding of human nature. They have opened several universes to anyone who would read, play, or watch the works of this man who was undoubtedly the greatest modern dramatist of Kannada and perhaps that of India.
By the time I write these words, I am questioning myself: my contemporaries in Kannada, Chandrashekara Kambara, P Lankesh and Prasanna, are great playwrights. Is it fair to say that Karnad was taller? The greatness of Kambara was recognized with the same Jnanpith that Karnad received, thus confirming Kannada's astonishing literary tradition. Lankesh has missed this honor (very strangely), but it is an oversight that can be corrected or not, since it has the same status in the Kannada literary world. Prasanna has never received the credit due.
Kambara's pieces are as beautiful in poetry as Lankesh / Prasanna. One might argue that Karnad has a greater body of work and a much wider scope in his writing than the other two. But it's a debate that can go on for several nights without finding an answer.
If asked, Karnad would himself be amused at the thought. How to weigh things as insignificant as words? Or what words are bigger? And this brings us to the following thought: How many words of his can we quote? How many words can we leave out? How to choose this quote that exceeds all others? It's a dilemma that every Shakespeare lover faces. And what I am facing now, as I struggle to encapsulate Karnad's writing. Is it really possible?
For me, his words have always been the lighthouse that shows the path of dreams that should be the reality. Through humor, self-deprecation, deep ideas, pathos. This line of Tipu Sultan's Dreams is distinguished by the depth of its agony and the price to be paid by a man defending his kingdom and his culture: "The danger is that they (the British) teach their language to my children. English. A language in which seven- and eight-year-old boys can be seen as hostages to war. "
In pictures: here is an overview of the remarkable achievements of kannada writer Girish Karnad
of the death of Girish Karnad
The famous writer and Kannada actor Girish Karnad died Monday after a long illness. The famous writer was 81 years old. He breathed his last in his Lavelle Road House in Bengaluru. Photo: S Eshwar / MMCL
A look at the life of Girish Karnad
Karnad is survived by his wife, son and daughter. With his dramatic writing that went beyond his time, Karnad quickly grew in importance, working in South Indian cinema and in Bollywood.
Education
Girish Karnad was born in Matheran and attended Karnatak Arts College in Dharwad. He later became a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy, Political Science, and Economics. In Oxford, the writer wrote his first piece titled "Yayati" in 1961.
First Sleeves
Three years later, Girish Karnad wrote his most successful piece to date, " Tughlaq. " Soon, he debuted as an actor and screenwriter with the film Kannada Samskara, released in 1970. A year later, he made his directorial debut with "Vamsha Vriksha".
No Language Barriers
Karnad's plays, written in Kannada, were also translated into English as well as into several other Indian languages. He was also director of FTII from 1974 to 1975.
Recipient of several awards
With a critically acclaimed portfolio of works, Girish Karnad has become the recipient of many awards, including Padma Shri (1974), Padma Bhushan (1992) and the Jnanpith Award, the highest literary distinction of India. He also played a role in the TV series "Malgudi Days".
Wings of Fire
In 1999, Karnad became a member of the autobiography of former APJ president Abdul Kalam, "Wings of Fire", lending his voice to the audio version. He then received critical acclaim for the 2005 film "Iqbal". He also played a key role in Bollywood's film "Ek Tha Tiger"
Farewell
The cremation will take place at the Kalpalli crematorium. Karnad's family members added that, according to the wishes of the writer, there would be no ultimate rituals. According to a report to ANI, a three-day state mourning declared by CM HD Kumaraswamy in Karnataka. The CM also declared a holiday. Photo: S Eshwar / MMCL
Think, for example, of each line of what I consider to be his greatest piece,
Tughlaq is a piece with the perfect structure, each character being an implicit failure piece – a fact that the theater and director M S Sathyu recognized by designing him a set with a chess board. Each character in the room, including the mother-in-law, is just another dimension of Tughlaq himself. He only needed genius to write it like that and he was just in his twenties when he wrote it.
He has the fascinating tints and battles of Tughlaq against the villain Aziz, who counteracts each of his plans by infallibly taking up the defect and causing his total failure, whether it is the sensible decision to replace pieces of art. gold by bronze (the original concept of the notional currency) or the need to have a central administrative capital for a large country, the pbadage from Delhi to Daulatabad. The scene that I love most (again, how much can I quote here?) Is the one where Aziz tells Tughlaq that he donned the disguise of a Brahmin so that the king could show his doctrine of "nishpakshapaata nyaya" (impartial justice). Tughlaq gets it totally and on one level, is even grateful for the duplicity!
However, Taledanda is arguably Karnad's most profoundly political and contemporary play, written in the context of the Mandal-Masjid India cultural-communal riots of the early 1990s. of the extremely idealistic Kalyana (twelfth-century Kannada poet and reformer) (a utopian idea that was actually a real kingdom in the history of Karnataka) and the power that King Bijjala (the reigning king at the time) had to treat with. Each line of the play, however, is a metaphor, a commentary on society, politics, and culture, written by a deeply sensitive man, who has always lifted the mirror so that everyone can examine it.
From Yayati to Wedding Album, Karnad's plays are whimsical and whimsical flights, which deal with profound human desires like Shakespeare and Greek dramatists. His mix of Western and Indian cultural traditions. Karnad wanted to be an "English poet," but his heart and mind were Kannada, deeply rooted in the stories of Indian mythology that he had listened to as a child in the isolated and flooded hills of Sirsi. His imagination and his social ideas, aided by a free – spirited mother and his study at Oxford, have flew over borders and worlds, where the modern Yamini of Anju Mallige is often interchangeable with Vishaka 's. Agni Mattu Maley (fire and rain), a myth built.
Speaking of legends like Karnad, the question that often has to be considered is: Should an artist be the person that his fans think he should be? In today's world, the personal life of each artist and celebrity often appears as important, if not more, than all of their works. But Karnad, like his contemporary counterpart and just as famous, U R Ananthamurthy (URA), comes from a time when their work speaks for them and where they should never say anything more. And although the URA is concerned about creating an at least friendly public figure, Karnad did not bother to please anyone. He expressed his views with a concern for diplomacy.
Girish Karnad. File Photo
The current world dominated by social media, where the story is just moving, where everyone is exactly what his last tweet was, is a world alien to both URA and Karnad . Both were targeted, hunted down, abused and vilified just to be themselves, thus perpetuating the critical introspective cultural tradition of Kannada literature, a tradition that took into account various points of view, allowed its writers and intellectuals to fight ideologically like dogs and cats. mutual respect of points of view and of space.
But the words of Karnad, like those of the URA, such as those of KP Poornachandra Tejaswi, those of Lankesh, the words of Devanur Mahadeva, remain, haunt us and teach us. They force us to think. They exist and can never be written off. Even if they are just words.
Karnad was an actor, a director, a filmmaker, an intellectual and many other things. Watching his Utsav was an experience I could never leave behind. He thought that he was not a poet. But each line of his works is pure poetry, tied with one of his "ideal" poets, TS Eliot, who said, "I see these things in a sunbeam."
The author is a journalist and a playwright who has starred in several plays of Girish Karnad, now based in the United States
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