DSE-3

Group-F

1)
The contemporary Indian drama has developed in leaps and bounds. Our modern Indian
dramatists have made bold innovations and fruitful experiments which go into the history of
Indian drama as the most significant mark of achievement. Indian drama written by Indian
playwrights makes immense use of tradition, myths, legends and folklore. Girish Karnad’s
plays vividly epitomize this trend. Hayavadana on the other hand is influenced by Thomas
Mann’s The Transposed Heads, which in turn is borrowed from one of the Sanskrit
Kathasaritasagara stories. Culture defines society and Karnad’s play reflects the culture in our
society. Focusing on our folk culture, he takes inspiration from mythology and folklore.
As all great playwrights of the century have done before him, Karnad has undertaken a
journey through his plays in search of novel forms to embody his multi-perspectival approach
to complex themes. From the use of Ithihasa and oral tradition to technology. Karnad’s rich
repertoire showcases thematic configuration through the performance of techniques. Karnad’s
plays exemplify his ideal of total theatre that combines drama, dance and music. He also
exploits elements of Yakshagana and folk theatre in Hayavadana. Though he does not want
to use this folk theatre anymore, he cannot give it up completely. So, in his Naga-Mandala
the story plays the role of Bhagavata while the Man and the Flames are very much like the
Hayavadana and the Dolls of Hayavadana. Rangan‟s characterization of folk imagination and
folk play and their interplay with magic is easily applicable to Karnad’s plays: “Folk
imagination is at once mythopoeic and magical. In the folk mind, one subsumes the other.
Folk belief, besides being naïve, has a touch of poetry about it which works towards a
psychic adjustment. All folklore is religious, often based on animism because the primitive
imagination extends its vision from the natural, in which it is steeped and with which it is
saturated, to the supernatural, which to the folk mind is only an extension of the former.”
(Rangan 199) Karnad’s plays are based on ancient folk stories and historical figures. The
main plot of Hayavadana is based on “THE STORY OF THE TRANSPOSED HEADS” in
the Sanskrit Vetala Panchavimsathi, 25 stories about king Vikrama and Vetala, the Goblin,
which forms part of Kshemendra’s Brihat Katha Manjari and Somadeva’s Kathasarit Sagara.
These stories were written about in the eleventh century. The Vetala concludes his telling of a
tale with a question that demands an answer. He creates in each tale a situation that rises a
question, poses a problem or riddle. Karnad’s Hayavadana is based on number six story of
Vetala Panchavimsati. A modern source of plot of Hayavadana is Thomas Mann’s narrative
The Transposed Heads. Karnad combines the transposed heads plot with Hayavadana’s story
which is entirely his own. This added part is important because the play gets the title from it.
Hayavadana story tells the story of a man with the head of a horse (Haya = Horse, Vadana=
Face). He is the son of a Princess who had fallen in love with a horse. Karnad’s A Gandharva
is cursed to be a horse for some mis-behaviour. Hayavadana’s problem is how to get rid of
the horses head. He goes to Kali temple and threatens to chop of his head. Then he picks the
sword lying there and is about to chop off his head when Kali appears. He falls at her feet and
says ‘Mother, make me complete’. She says, ‘so be it’ and disappears. This motif establishes
a strong link between the Hayavadana story and the transposed head plot. Once again as in
the main plot the goddess’ boon creates another problem while solving one. In response to
Hayavadana’s prayer, make me complete, the goddess makes him a complete horse not a
complete man. And in addition to this Hayavadana still retains his human voice. When a five
year old son in transposed head plot asks him to laugh the laughter turns into proper neigh.
Now Hayavadana becomes a complete horse. It also brings a tremendous transformation in
the boy who is very abnormal who has forgotten how to laugh. It is Hayavadana’s laughter
that has resorted the boy to normality.
The anachronism of folk elements of Hayavadana, the macabre nature of Kaddess like and
the talking dolls, and the transpositions of heads bring about dissimilitude. The Bhagavata
now and then comes and comments and there are songs here and there in the play and they
constantly disturb the continuity of the play. The dissimilitude and the disturbance of the
continuity through Bhagavata’s frequent intrusions spoil the identification of the audience
with the characters and make them look at the play objectively and understand the
significance of the theme. Karnad is thus able to provide the Indian model of Brechtian epic-
theatre and achieve that Alienation effect. Moreover, this treatment averts the danger of the
plays becoming a melodrama on account of the deaths of Devadatta, Kapila and Padmini. The
economy and the fluidity in the play already discussed are due to the influence of the third
theatre.
3)
Postcolonialism defines the freedom and political emancipation of the colonized people from
colonizers, who imposed imperial power on the colonized to overpower their head and mind.
Postcolonialism is a continuous process of resistance and deconstruction and it is existed in
the issues of power, subordination, race, gender, equality and class welfare. In Hayavadana,
all characters suffer from identity crisis. Devadatta, Kapila and Padmini all are in quest for
identity, completeness and craving for fulfilment. Girish Karnad presents ‘identity crisis’ in
three levels – divine level, human level and animal level. Lord Ganesha is presented
‘incomplete’ as he has elephant’s head and human body. Hayavadana, a son of the Princess
of Karnataka, who was married to a white stallion and he was born with a horse head and
human body and suffers from identity crisis. In the temple of Kali, Padmini mixes up heads
of Devadatta and Kapila i.e. Devadatta’s head with Kapila’s body and vice versa. After
mixing up heads these two men suffer from identity crisis and they become like the natives of
the colonized country with western knowledge, who are neither natives nor colonizers but in
between. Hybridity is a disputed and widely employed word of Postcolonialism, commonly
refers to any mixing of East- West and the creation of new transcultural forms. And Hybridity
is existed in every character in Hayavadana.
Hayavadana, a son of the Princess of Karnataka, who was married to a white Stallion and he
was born with a horse head and human body. Hayavadana suffers from identity crisis and
craving for completeness. He regrets for his incompleteness to Bhagavata –“ But what a
forehead! What a forehead! If it was a forehead like yours, I would have accepted anything.”
Bhagavata suggests Hayavadana to go to the Kali of Mount Chitrakoor. He goes to the Kali
and begs for completeness in front of the Kali. But instead of a complete human being, he
becomes a complete horse, but he still remains human voice. Padmini’s son lacks childish
behaviour i.e. joy, laughter, communication etc. He remains silence all the time, but he breaks
his silence after seeing the laughing horse, Hayavadana. The tragic song of the boy does a
miracle and Hayavadana attains completeness by getting the horse voice i.e. – ‘neighing’.
The three main characters Devadatta, Kapila and Padmini all are presented as incomplete in
some ways. Kapila who has a strong Physique lacks intellectuality. Devadatta who is a poet;
comely in appearance, fear in colour; an intellect lacks physical strength. Padmini who is
married to Devadatta wants the best of them and suffers of unfulfilled. She wants Devadatta’s
head and Kapila’s body and alienated himself from both of them. In the temple of Kali,
Padmini mixes up the heads of Devadatta and Kapila i.e. Devadatta’s head with Kapila’s
body and vice versa. After mixing up the heads Kapila and Devadatta suffer from identity
crisis. They become like the natives of colonized country with western knowledge who are
neither natives nor colonizers but in between. Although Padmini becomes satisfied for getting
Devadatta’s head and Kapila’s body, but she is disillusioned after sometimes. As time goes
by, Devadatta’s body starts distorting and he loses his strong body which was borrowed and
returns to his original forms. On the other hand, Kapila tortures his body to shape in earlier
form to alive in the jungle and never accepts Devadatta’s body. Padmini loses her interest in
Devadatta and again starts thinking of Kapila. This time Padmini’s lust leads them to a dual
and they chop off one another’s head. Padmini’s son also suffers from identity crisis, in the
words of Padmini – “My son is sleeping in the hut. Take him under your care. Give him to
the hunters who live in the forest and tell them it’s Kapila’s son. They loved Kapila and will
bring the child up. Let the child grow up in the forest with the rivers and the trees. When he’s
five take him to the Revered Brahmin Vidyasagara of Dharmapura. Tell him it’s Devadatta’s
son.” (Lines – 2225-2232) Hybridity is a disputed and widely employed word of
Postcolonialism, commonly refers to any mixing of East and West and the creation of new
transcultural forms. In Hayavadana, Hybridity is presented in all the characters. Hayavadana,
the main character in the subplot, longs for completeness as he got a human body with horse
head. He goes to the temple of Kali to become a complete human being. But Kali makes him
a complete horse instead a complete human being and he is disappointed when he finds that
the human voice still remains. In the main plot, mixing up of heads, Devadatta’s head with
Kapila’s body and vice versa, make them hybrid. This Hybridity makes Padmini fulfilled just
for a while as she starts thinking that she gets the best of two men, Devadatta’s head with
Kapila’s body. Day by day Devadatta loses his hybrid body and distorted to earlier form as he
is subordinated to his mental activities. Kapila, on the other hand, to survive in the jungle
whips his body to be shaped like earlier. Like the colonized people who borrowed western
intellect to become superior and lose their native identity and become hybrid instead of
western.

4)
A writer, desiring to refute the subjugation of women in literature, observes Sandra Gilbert
and Susan Gubar, “must replace the copy by the individuality.” Set against the backdrop of
the climactic phase of the urban Naxalite Movement and its aftermath, the play Mother of
1084 depicts the development of the mother figure of Sujata, from an apolitical stereotype, a
copy of passive bearer of sweet orderings of domesticity, into a politically aware entity – a
woman who has become conscious of significant action. Her self-discovery makes her self-
conscious. Consciousness evolves the passive sufferer into an active critique of the
hegemonic society. The action transforms her from an ignorant up bringer (biological
mother), and marginalized female entity into a universal mother, a dignified woman and a
politically conscious citizen.
Brati’s involvement in Naksalite Movement is so deeply embarrassing to Dibyanath – her
husband - that his only reaction is his concern to hush up the case and he refuses to take out
the car. {Though utterly bewildered, Sujata goes to morgue rejecting the selfish and hollow
sentiment of her family. In manner of Kinglier she goes on repeating “No, no, no, no…” as if
she could change the horrible sight.” She tears off the sheet only to be terrified further. To her
shocking surprise, she is denied even the right on her dead son’s body.
Sujata’s physical identification of Brati stimulates a process of awakening in her.} It is only
through her dead son that she realizes how “the living dies, only to leave the world to the
dead to enjoy.” She refuses to enjoy the death-in-life. All her near ones compromised with
the way of the world. Self-realization through a release from all kinds of subjugation is men’s
highest and absolute value which is also central here as in Aajir.
Sujata’s meeting with the bereaved mother of Samu, one of the fellow-activist of Brati,
brings her face to face with the baffling reality. Wallowed in her illusionary all-quiet-now
world, her complacency receives a jolt when she is informed that even now thousand of
young men are homeless and the refugee family is warned against meeting her. “Quiet sister?
How can there be quiet with the mother’s heart, burning like bodies on fire?” The former
informs Sujata of the daily struggle she and her daughter have to undergo for their survival:
“They won’t let me work to earn for my stomach!” Sujata wonders at the ease with which she
has gone on with her job. She gradually learns to draw a poignant contrast between the
behaviour of her husband with that of the poor father of Samu, frantically trying to save his
son. Ironically enough, Sujata’s isolated self can form a link with the socially inferior Samu’s
mother with whom only Brati could communicate: “Grief had brought me and Samu’s
mother together….”
Sujata, however, slowly acquires the word to express her long buried self. She hesitates, but
finally breaks the silence: “Brati, Brati, the day Brati died, it was his birthday.” {Sujata “was
almost dying” when Brati was born. Brati’s death in his very birthday leaves behind a hope of
resurrection of the society, family and even the medium the mother into a fully liberated self.
Unlike the mother figure in Maxim Gorky’s The Mother, Sujata learns to forge a connection
with Brati or with what he strove or died for with gradual stages of evolution. From a
political indifference emerges a newer social conscious self as she comes into contact with
Nandini, Brati’s beloved and co-insurgent which brings her in confrontation with some secret
areas of understanding and awareness reality: “But it’s all quiet now Nandini?” The young
lady screams out repeating “no” in the same way as Sujata uttered the word before Brati’s
corpse.
Sujata thus finally resolves to chalk her journey out of her existentialist “solitary cell” to the
places where Brati exists. As Sujata’s identification with Brati becomes complete, the
distance between her and her family members becomes wider. The claustrophobic ambiance
of the superficial people like Dhimans and Kapadias serves as antitheses to her new-found
liberty. Her husband’s accusation that she is responsible for her son’s death before an
outsider like Mrs. Kapadia accelerates the process of Sujata’s recognition of her ideological
moorings as well as reminds us of the anguished cry of Nora accused in similar way of
poisoning of her own children. {Rejecting the unuttered language of negligence she starts to
deploy dialogue to convey disgust: “I don’t have the right to question you about your affairs,
you too don’t have the right to ask me anything.”
However, before collapse, Sujata succeeds in raising her voice against the repressive
machineries and the corrupt life of affluence both of which were the cause of the premature
death of her son Brati. The police officer still “on duty” to attend the mass action at
Baranagar and Kashipur, now makes the universal mother cry out: “Where will bullets pierce
the wind? Where again? Where will Brati run to?” Sujata’s appeal links her with Karl
Popper:”We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the
intolerant” (The Open Society and its Enemy).

6)
The peasant revolt that took in March 1967 at Naxalbari of West Bengal expanded into a
mass revolution against the neo colonial capitalist come bureaucratic government. The rebels
came out of the political party of CPM to form a new party CPML to work as per the ideals
of Marxian and Leninian class struggle and follow the procedure shown by the chairman Mao
Tse Tung of China in establishing socialism. Naturally, a socially committed writer like
Mahasweta Devi, takes it upon it upon herself to expose the real socio economic scenario that
has given birth to this movement. She wrote in her introduction to Agnigarbha: “All the
factors that led to the eruption of movement remained unchanged…This movement has been
one of the most significant and inspiring incident for a number of decades in this country…
The economic gains that the country has achieved since independence have not benefited the
middle classes, the workers and the agriculture labourer … The rich had become richer, a
brutally complacent and ignorant richer class had come into being. Nero fiddled while Rome
burnt for he obviously preferred the strains of fiddle to the logic that lay behind a city
burning, but history didn’t spare him. Bengali literature had too long had been a field for a
refraction from objectivity and an atrophy for conscience….Responsible writer, standing at a
turning point of history, should take a stand in defense of the exploited Otherwise history
would never forgive him.” Charu Majumder pleaded that the young generation of student
should stand by the peasants; the urban political action should become complementary to the
rural uprising: “… in extremist revolutionary movement, the educated youth’s association is
necessary Students are not only educated but they have immense potentiality and courage for
sacrifice and power of adaptability.”” (Deshabrati 24th August, 1969). Brati and his fellow
activists in The Mother of 1084 represent the revolutionary young generation who had
responded to this call for involvement.
Brati, whose name at once reminds us of the journal Deshabrati (The National Emissary), is
a revolutionary missionary aiming at social transformation. Though he cane from an elite
family, the ideological bond and fellow feeling made him almost a member of the poor
refugee family of Samu. Nandini, Dipu, Sanchayan and Samiran came from a high smug
middle class family, Mani and Kushal had parents involved in leftwing politics, while Samu,
Laltu and Bijit belonged to apolitical poor refugee family. The group was self sufficient
enough to show how the Naxalite Movement spread out its route irrespective of all the social
hierarchies of urban life.
During Nandini’s interrogation by Saroj Paul, with her hands and feet tied with the chair, we
get some information about their activities. Nandini and Mani completing the course of inter
collegiate rifle shooting gives us some glimpses of the process of preparation of these young
to counter attack the oppressive machinery. Their programme of training up the villagers,
spread of extended network and other activities are also referred to, The allusion to arms and
ammunitions seems to have a provocative historical basis as referring to the appeal of the
central organizing comity of CPML in 15th January: “…kill as many enemies of the poor
class possible to take the revenge of our dead comrades….” The date of 17th January itself is
pregnant with historical association. As Samik Bandopadhay observes, “References to the
Barashat killing in November 1970 … and the Baranagar on killing on 12th August 1971 …
connect the killing of Brati and his group to the organized massacre of the Naxalites in 1970
and 71, perpetrated by the police … the hired assassins and even parties in left establishment
acting in unholy collusion. The disruptive action of the Naxalites was a threat to the process
of general election. Sumanta Banerjee analysis shows, “A bloody cycle of assaults and
counter assaults, murders and vendetta was initiated … It was … misplaced fury, sadistic
tortures, acted with the vicious norms of underworld and dictated by the decadent and
cunning values of the petty bourgeois leaders.” Nandini sharply reacts against these “cunning
bales” and points that “worst reactionary” lamenting for them. Writers like Dhiman encashed
the movement by making the death of Bratis capital to project themselves as rebel poets and
paid homage from the safe terrain of posterity. Political parties remained it was convenient to
benefit out of the tortured time. Gayetri Spivak Chakroborti points out: “Taking advantage of
the general atmosphere jubilating at the defeat of West Pakistan … the Indian prime minister
was able to crack down with exceptional severity on the Naxalites the destroying the
rebellious section of the population…” (In Other World).
Mahasweta Devi along side documenting the political movement has also analyzed it
critically. Her capacity of documentation is evident in the photographic description of Brati’s
activity after he is informed of Aninda’s betrayal. On the other hand, she exposes the
communication gap between parent and children, and warm blood’s disgust with the “all’s
right with the world” outlook of the predecessor The evolution of Sujata from an apolitical
mother stereotype to a critic of this hegemonic society Mahasweta has given voice in her play
to thousands of mothers who have in reality pledged to carry on the struggle for the
fulfillment of the dreams the children dreamt off.