The man who was himself

By Gopalkrishna Gandhi

The tube of light that ran through his nose was a shock when I saw him in Bengaluru, his home town, two months ago in December. Girish Karnad needed help to breathe.

But he wore it without self-awareness, not to mention zero for himself. One could even say that he carried it with plumb. It could have been a real mustache or a sticky whiskey. But now, part of his face dresses up like any other artist on stage.

He was, in a sense, on stage. In fact, every time he made a public appearance, his eyes and phone cameras turned to him. It probably irritated him, but he caught his attention. And so, at the event where he and I were at once, he was the star. The occasion was a lecture on behalf of his elder and decades-old friend, the late U R Ananthamurthy. Esther, the great Kannada thinker and writer, was present in the front row, next to Girish.

Utsav

And when the time comes, as it should, on all occasions – the traditional lamp lighting ceremonial. The locks are usually too short or too big and, in any case, not enough oiled. The burning candle is still missing. And a "pehle aap" follows, to the slightly bored fun of the rally. On this occasion, the lamp was perfectly ready and Girish was asked to bring the candle to the first wick.

"No," he said firmly, waving his hand, "Esther, first. This is his privilege. He did not participate in the lighting either. And that was it.

Ananthamurthy and he were contemporaries of thought and writing like Shyam Benegal and he was in the movies.

And they were close friends, the kind to understand each other and understand each other's regrets. failures no less than their satisfactions. He was present at the event because he wished to be present, out of respect for the great writer and critic, but he was not going to play the role of a scenario regarding Ananthamurthy.

Girish was himself. Himself, when he joined the tradition, himself when he joined partially, himself when he refused. Likewise, he was himself at the time of the rebellion. He was not going to rebel in fashion or score points with the avant-garde. He would rebel if the situation required it. It was not an badembly line.

Girish Karnad nested in his roots in Karnataka, adored his native language, the kannada, which he obviously used in a masterly manner, understood the people who spoke it as well when they spoke extraordinary things adored his art to both when it was called 'folk' and when it was adorned with more sonorous titles.

He knew and understood his architecture, small samples little known in the countryside and "biggies" like National Geographic Hampi.

And above all he considered that his culture was not limited to the sandalwood of Hindu piety. The Muslim, Christian and tribal Karnataka was as much a subject and object of his pbadionate interest as the traditional Hindu Karnataka.

Manthan

This came from a simple reason: its connection with the human condition. I turned to him last year for literary advice, we could call it. I read in Harijan on God an often quoted article of Mohandas Gandhi, in God, in which he said that for him, "The truth is God". There is another line less known in this article, located in the Girish curve in the forest.

Gandhi quotes a conversation he had with "poor peasants" in Mysore during which he asked them "Who is leading Mysore?" And got the laconic answer "One God". I wanted to visualize this conversation and was curious to know it. exactly how farmers could say. So I asked Girish what was the original phrase in Kannada used by "the poor peasants" in Mysore from 1927-1928 for "a god".

The playwright took over. "" Yaavdo devru "", he replied, "or" yaaro devru "would be the correct translation", but added that his attempt at rendering was "too literary and not familiar enough for a farmer". I could see that he wanted everything to be perfect, linguistically, acoustically and dialogically, and then we went back to this: "It could just be" devru "or at most" aa devru ", which would foreshadow all despair, despair. "

That was all." Girish, the playwright, understood that the farmers Gandhi had met in Mysore were pale, exhausted.

The artist in him understood all the feelings, from sad to laughter, through sensuality, going far beyond her beloved Province, into the world of other languages, genres, Girish Karnad has become a global badet, and her friends and fans have traveled the world. films, read his words with fear.Karnad, his very name, denounces no nonsense in the name of chauvinism, cultural or political.No feint.The tube was Karnataka, oxygen Karnad.

(The author is a former governor of West Bengal and author of the play, Dara Shukoh)