A Ghashiram Kotwal for our time

Tendulkar was certainly not alone. He had peers. Girish Karnad, Badal Sarkar, Mohan Rakesh and not to forget the grand old man of Kannada theatre, Adya Rangacharya — they were all writing meaningful plays in new, innovative forms, which immediately captivated the imagination of young actors and directors and, through them the audiences. And thus a theatre was created, which creatively responded to the melancholic mood of the disillusioned India of the sixties. These individuals formed the peaks in the landscape, but there were others too, though much less known, creating little gems of theatrical writings of their own.

In seminar after seminar, theatrepersons bemoan the complete absence of new and original plays in Indian languages and the golden sixties are remembered with nostalgia. The reasons for the decline, they say, are many. Lack of financial resources, absence of professional and semi-professional theatre groups devoted to good theatre, bad unusable theatre spaces and irrational theatre education, are some of the reasons commonly cited. Those who wish to make a more profound statement blame the shifting trends in post-modern theatre.

Undeniably, these laments are valid. Haphazard policies, combined with an acute lack of awareness have resulted in dilution and dissipation of energy in the Indian theatre movement. On an even more serious note, there is a complete absence of vision at various levels.

Does it mean that after the stalwarts, there has been no meaningful play-writing in post-Independence India? No. That should not be the inference. Satish Alekar’s Begum Barve has a remarkable sweep and complexity. (Oddly, nothing of substance has come from this talented playwright subsequently.) Girish Karnad continues to write very good plays. His latest, Broken Images, has an odd, intriguing intensity about it. In this one-actor play, the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual’ interact to create levels of tension rarely experienced in a theatre hall. Recently I saw young Asif Hyder’s magnificent play Kafka, a wholly indigenous effort of the NSD Repertory Company.

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