Gao Xingjian and "Soul Mountain" : Ambivalent Storytelling

Review by Robert Nagle , Houston, Texas, September 2002.

This review is a little special: it’s about a book I heard completely while driving around in my car. I recently returned to my home town, Houston, a city where people spend unbearable amounts of time in the solitude of their cars, driving from work to home and work again. In Houston waiting in traffic is synonymous with living. One passes through neighborhoods in air-conditioned comfort, cursing the red lights and slow-moving cars. The purpose of Houston life, it seems, is to wander around without having to feel the breeze or notice the trees, people or shops. The only interruption to the routine are the weekly visits to the gas station, where the traveler parks, inserts his debit card into the machine and pumps gas into his tank Then, if he is lucky, he can leave as quickly as he came, merging into the grumbling fog of traffic.

Gao Xingjian’s novel, Soul Mountain, is about a similar wandering. It is about a man, an intellectual, a writer, an anthropologist, whose mission is to collect folk culture all around him. In reality, he just wanders around, traveling wherever fate sends him. He is in search of something, some answer, some mythical place he calls “Soul Mountain.” In his heart he knows it does not really exist, but that does not make his pursuit any less worthwhile. His motivation is little more than pretext; he wants to find interesting people and learn about local legends. He wants to meet pretty women. But most of all, he wants the trip to help him make sense of his past tribulations.

The novel is not particularly thrilling or amazing, nor is the plot gripping. There are occasional poetic flourishes, a few self-conscious narrative interludes and several vivid characters. And, oh, yes, several sex scenes, some prurient, some detached. As I hear various tales in my car, I feel restless and uncertain about where the book (and I) are traveling. At a red light at Wilcrest and Richmond Avenue, I am listening to an intensely passionate description of sexual intercourse. On Bissonet and I-59, I am hearing several men debate the existence of the legendary “Wild Man.” While stuck in morning Westheimer traffic, I learn that our protagonist is about to die of lung cancer. But wait. It was a mistake, a misdiagnosis. But wait — I have arrived at the 51 story office building, location of my temp job for the day. I park in an underground garage, walking through a tunnel to the building elevator–never once being exposed to the searing Houston heat.

PURPOSEFUL FORMLESSNESS

After listening to the book-on-tape and flipping through the pages, I am still puzzled. It just doesn’t add up. It is formless. Parts are profound or poetic; parts seem like unfinished sketches or notes jotted to oneself. There is no progression, except perhaps an inward progression toward understanding. One Amazon critic reported being so frustrated by the aimlessness of the book that he went directly to the final chapter and started reading backwards, a motive that I certainly understand. If anything, this essayistic novel is thematically arranged. The novel flows in several random directions, hitting the occasional eddy (sex, Taoism, modernism), twirling about until the protagonist can grasp for the next character or incident to push the story forward again. The current is slow and steady, and the narrator is content to stay afloat, letting his unspecified and lackadaisical quest lead him where it may.

What is this novel anyway? It is not a typical Asian novel. What is it? Gao must have been influenced by the formal contrapuntal emphasis of his Parisian contemporary expatriate, Milan Kundera* . Kundera’s essayistic novels impose a rigorous strict structure on plot and characters. But Gao makes no attempt to organize the anecdotes, observations and encounters that populate the book, giving the whole enterprise the aimlessness of a travelogue. Gao is dealing with vague allegory (I am thinking of J.M. Coetzee’s “Waiting for the Barbarians” or maybe Kadare). But although Gao’s protagonist is obsessed with describing legends and examining their significance, in fact the novel dwells on the mundane. In one chapter, his quest to arrive at a city to learn about its legends and spiritual thought is derailed by a bus driver who has decided to stop at a cafe and not resume the journey until tomorrow. The protagonist/writer, eager to be on his way, is frustrated. Although he manages eventually to find a ride, this little episode provides a humorous and familiar example of how everyone abides by different schedules and priorities and how the narrator’s lofty ambitions have no more cosmic significance than a bus driver’s desire to have a good long meal.

The protagonist is clearly aware of contemporary society’s problems (the novel alludes obliquely at times to the building of the Three Gorges Dam or the Cultural Revolution), but his observations are not littered with references to pop culture or political events in the way that American novels or weblogs seem to be nowadays. Instead the narrator describes his novel through hearsay; he records what people say about themselves and their beliefs and mythologies. In one scene, a woman begs the narrator to write a description of her dead girlfriend to evoke her memory. She tells a sordid story about how her girlfriend was denounced and imprisoned and how she tried vainly to track people who knew her close friend. The protagonist half-listens, feeling nauseous from the seafood the woman had been feeding him. He absorbs these kinds of stories without necessarily feeling nourished by them.

Most of the characters are haunted by something, a memory, an old love, a father that died, a mother that disappeared. Because characters make brief appearances in the novel, there is only enough time to sketch one central overriding concern: getting a daughter into college, finding a key, selling one’s calligraphy. The protagonist leaves the people in the same condition in which he found them. That is, in fact, the one complaint I have of this unsettling novel. We have traveled (or driven) long enough with the novel, but by the end, we are left wondering whether we’ve even made any headway.

BEAUTY OR EVIL

Early on it becomes clear that the novel’s central concern was victimization and sexual brutality. The protagonist encountered (and slept with) a large number of females. Some chapters are sparse exchanges between lovers about love and self and surrender. Others recount legends about zhuhuapo, the word for certain beautiful tempting women who often bring misfortune. Most of the time the protagonist relates the sexual encounters with little enthusiasm, treating them as little more than obligatory episodes in his quest.

Throughout the novel the protagonist relates his history of sexual encounters, hinting at having witnessed some unspeakable sexual victimization. He doesn’t seek out female companionship, but he makes no special effort to fend it off either. He is jaded. He remembers the fires of passion, but now the endless conversation about such matters seem nothing more than the vanity of a species unwilling to acknowledge the passing of time. His participation in these unions seem to implicate him in an endless cycle of pain and victimization. His middle age sensibility warns him not to cause pain or harm. It seems he can no longer enjoy the company of a woman. Yet he longs to regain oneness with the natural world he so lovingly describes. Sex offers the opportunity to erase boundaries between self and another person. But it also is a power game in which someone always loses. In one town, the protagonist makes the acquaintance of an inexperienced girl who throws herself before him. He is attracted not by her beauty, but by her naivety and ardor. But in the middle of sexual embrace, he realizes that to continue with her would be absolutely cruel. He didn’t love her; he had no intention of marrying her. In a town with traditional views on marriage, a woman who had lost her virginity would lose any hope of getting married, and the potential for pregnancy would jeopardize this girl’ social standing. He refuses to consummate the act, hurting the girl’s feelings, but knowing in his heart that he is performing a supreme act of kindness. Or is he? In either case, the girl would be hurt; by denying her the sexual attention she craves, he deals a blow to her confidence. He presumes that his careful avoidance of heartbreak will be in the girl’s best interest. But isn’t this just a rationalization for indifference?

The only people who seem to play the game well are those who treat it as just that: a game. A promiscuous woman has a fling with him without any illusions about love or marriage. She does it because it is natural. Is there anything wrong with that? She says no, and after a night of passion, the protagonist recounts the lovemaking not with passion or a sense of the woman’s beauty. He merely recounts their conversation about how such a lifestyle could be justified. Clearly he is past the point of being able to enjoy such encounters. After meeting another young attractive woman, he finds the thought of passion to be more painful than pleasurable. He writes:

I would rather drift here and there without leaving traces. There are so many people in this big wide world and so many places to visit but there is nowhere for me to put down roots, to have a small refuge, to live a simple life. I always encounter the same sort of neighbors, say the same sort of things, good morning or hello and once again am embroiled in endless daily trivia. Even before this becomes solidly entrenched, I will already have tired of it all. I know there is no cure for me.”

In one of the book’s oddest chapters, the protagonist hears the story of a group of youngsters who had sex parties and a girl who was executed for the corrupting influence she had on other girls. The sentence is of course unjust, and the girl is deserving of pity. But the protagonist seems shocked less by the sentence than the fact that the girl organized these parties freely, without any background of victimization or exploitation. For him, it raises the question whether sexual activity was really a power game where one person always trumped another. Here was an individual who turned promiscuity into a personal choice and seemed not to have injured anyone, physically or psychologically. Yet, she is condemned and ultimately destroyed. In another episode with an attractive girl certainly too young for him, they have an innocent talk on a mountain trip, and he agrees to take a picture. The girl gives him her home address in another city and invites him for a friendly visit. But after the encounter, which the protagonist describes very objectively, he never develops the photos or bothers to keep the girl’s address. Later, when he wonders “whether or not one day I’ll have all this film made into print…(or) whether she will look as stunningly beautiful in the photo,” he reveals that his appreciation of beauty has not faded, even as he tries to suppress it. “I can only recoil when confronted by beauty or evil,” he says.

NATURE VS. BUREAUCRATS

Although Gao’s sensibility is far too cerebral to concern himself with political concerns, he laments the loss of privacy, spontaneity and freedom in a society controlled by bureaucrats and officials. Characters don’t rail against communism; they rail against the loss of spontaneity in life caused by their political system. In one scene, when townspeople cheer on a singer to perform some songs, an official breaks the show up because nobody had obtained the right permits. This official turned out to be the singer’s son. These officials are petty and bothersome, but certainly not worth fearing. Gao’s novel is truly apolitical, but he views regulation and officialism as encroaching on the natural world and even personal relationships. In one story, he tells of how elderly people with political blemishes in their past were banished to inferior retirement homes, “homes for the “solitary aged” while others stayed at “homes for the venerable aged.” Later on, after the Party admitted its excesses of the period, all retired people went to a “home for the aged,” leading one to wonder whether the current system was in fact an improvement over the old system. When a relative inquires about a parent who had died in a home for the “solitary aged,” he discovers that the paperwork had disappeared and that barely a record existed of her incarceration. The system is both impersonal and inefficient; the book is littered with incidents of people being harmed, either directly or indirectly by zealous officials. For Gao, officials are harmful because they try to impose artificial order on the world around them. Even when the governing bodies try to amend its impunities against the natural world or society, it fails. For a while he follows a band of biologists trying to study the panda’s natural habitat, a rather absurd undertaking, given that the pandas are practically extinct anyway and the habitat has changed so irrevocably. Why bother, the protagonist asks a skeptical old man. The man replies:

“it’s symbolic, it’s a sort of reassurance–people need to deceive themselves. We’re preoccupied with saving a species which no longer has the chance for survival and yet on the other hand we’re charging ahead and destroying the very environment for the survival of the human species itself. Look at the Min River you came along on your way in here, the forests on both sides have been stripped bare. The Min River has turned into a black muddy river but the Yangtze is much worse yet they are going to block off the river and construct a dam in the Three Gorges! Of course, it’s romantic to indulge in wild fantasy, but the place lies on a geological fault and has many documented records of landslides throughout history. Needless to say, blocking off the river and putting up a dam will destroy the entire ecology…when people assault nature like this nature inevitably takes revenge!”

The sexual violence alluded to throughout the book is another such assault on nature. It suggests disturbance, an inability to reconcile opposing forces in the natural world. According to one legend, young girls who had been raped or treated badly would dive suicidally into the river far below. This violent, eerie reunion with the natural world was alluring not only to the townspeople, but even the protagonist’s girlfriend, who liked to imagine jumping.

THE STORYTELLER’S DISCOMFORT

So where does the novelist come in? What should he do? The protagonist (and author) is not quite sure. His ostensible function is to collect cultural history from the regions. He was a storyteller, historian, photographer, social scientist, ecologist and anthropologist all wrapped up into one. Is he merely cataloging human experience? Or sifting through life for examples of beauty and epiphanies? His ostensible purpose is to collect legends and folk songs (and by the way, even the Communist Party couldn’t find fault with that). Behind this straightforward task lies uncertainty about what the writer should be doing with the half-truths that are called legends. If told and retold enough times, these legends attain the status of a “social truth.” The Wild Man (one of the legends retold in the novel) may be a myth, but hearing it so many times makes one no longer so sure. In a society where official versions of events are repeated over and over, to relegate the writer’s role to that of “legend collector” is essentially to render him irrelevant. Gao doesn’t seem interested in the political dimensions of this. The protagonist just wants to explore and take pictures and record. Still, the novel is more than that. Interspersed between descriptions of his travel, the reader will find stream-of-consciousness ruminations on the storytelling art, a sign that the writer is uncomfortable with just collecting the stories of other people. The novel records bedtime conversations with ex-lovers who are always questioning his motives, interpretations and attitudes. The feminine voice, often unnamed and unseen, is hypercritical, knowing, skeptical, needy and eager to unmask the narrator’s illusions. Indeed, quite often the stories are told in indirect discourse while the narrator is doing something else. He often, for example, tells stories about old lovers while in bed with another. In such a case, a story is a rude distraction for the current woman he is sleeping with. When stories of the past flow freely from the protagonist’s tongue during such private moments, it is a sign that the narrator is uncomfortable with how events are initially understood by people. Only after an event has faded into people’s memories can a storyteller find the discipline and structure and distance to shed light into what the episode was really about.

The legends, while artfully told, often reveal the narrator’s uncertainties about his role in capturing stories. He recounts a fascinating legend of a Grand Marshall from the Jin Dynasty who secretly watches a beautiful nun in the bathtub. As it turns out, the woman has cut open her stomach to expose her entrails and has begun scrubbing them in the same way she scrubbed the rest of her limbs. After she is finished, she sews up her stomach and proceeds with her routine tasks. After telling the story in a dramatic and convincing way, the narrator says:

This story is a political warning.

You say if the ending of the story is changed it could become a morality tale to warn people against lechery and lust. The story could also be turned into a religious tale to exhort people to convert to Buddhism. The story can also serve as a philosophy for getting on in society –to teach the morally superior man that each day he should investigate his own personal conduct, or that human life is suffering, or that suffering in life derives from the self. Or the story could be developed with numerous intricate and complex theories. It all depends on how the storyteller tells it. The Grand Marshall protagonist of the story has a name and surname so a great deal of textual research, examining historical texts and old books, could be carried out. But as you are not a historian, don’t have political aspirations, and certainly neither wish to become an expert in Buddhism, nor to preach religion, nor to become a paragon of virtue, what appeals to you is the superb purity of the story. Any explanation is irrelevant, you simply wanted to retell it in the spoken language.

So what is this bland pronouncement about? Is it just the usual complaint about interpretation? Is it warning people about the dangers of manipulating stories for other purposes? Is it merely professing neutrality about the storytelling art itself? No one could say for sure. In this passage, like many others, the author/protagonist is revealing his personal struggle about the nature of his art in the modern world. No one will deny that storytelling is good for its own sake, but a writer who writes with this belief will find his creative works littered with self-conscious musings, autobiographical ruminations and infusions of allegorical significance into the stories he retells. Does Gao decry this? Should the novelists instead be stripping away such personal touches just to focus on the story? Soul Mountain, as imperfect as it is, stands as an example of how easy it is for the author to become the story he tells and how difficult it is to separate the art of storytelling from the desire to explore ideas, personal emotions and metaphysical meditations.

Cultural Materialism

Cultural Materialism established itself permanently in the field of literary studies in the mid 1980s. Some imp books in this field are

1. Radical Tragedy: Jonathan Dollimore

2. The Subject of Tragedy: Catherine Belsey

3. Alternative Shakespeares

4. Political Shakespeare: Alan Sinfield

Clear Light of Day: Anita Desai

The Imagery of House in Anita Desai’s “Clear Light of Day”

As the novel begins, you’ll notice that the house of the Das family does not change except decays. Like Anita Desai’s other novels, the setting is Old Delhi. The interesting thing you’ll notice is she skillfully synthesizes the image of house with the lives of the Das family. The house is associated with sickness, dust, and disorder. And for that reason, the “grey” color is described again and again.

So, the house reflects the mentality and sickness of the entire Das family. In other words, nobody in the Das household enjoys life, all merely exists! The sickness and disorder pervade in the mind of the family members. This house is exactly in contrast with the house of Haider Ali and that is why Raja gets attracted towards it.

For this house of Das family, the symbol of “web” is described which is apt from every point of view. As I say the house does not change but decays, it is fair to remark that because of such sickness and dusty atmosphere of the house everybody feels “suffocated” and that is why they try to find escape in one thing or another. For that reason, Raja is attracted towards Haider Ali’s house. Tara often goes to Mira Mansi and finally, she succeeds in escaping completely by marrying off Bakul. Baba seeks escape in music and plays his gramophone all the time. Bimla becomes the professor of history. In this way, the house plays a vital role behind the escapist nature of the Das household.

Anita Desai beautifully describes the state of the Delhi city. Sometimes, the whole city seems to be dead and the houses are referred to in the novel as the “tombs”. The house of the Das family seems to be deserted and therefore, Bimla does not prevent Baba playing his gramophone loudly because she thinks that the silence of the house is more dreadful. For her, the noise produced by Baba’s gramophone gives peace to her. Even when Mr. Das and his wife were alive, they were just like the outsiders as Mr. Das was known for his entrance. The mother was either engrossed in the cards or confined to the bed. That is why Tara sometimes feels that even the ghost of her father could create the noise of papers and nothing else!

The decaying aspect of the house is felt on the Das family and this why the whole family gets scattered and only Bim remains with Baba in the “dead house”. This is how, the house has symbolic significance, which plays a major role in the actions and deeds of the Das household and becomes the central episode in the novel.

Development of Indian English Drama

Source: http://literaryindia.com/print/810.html

Drama in India has had a rich glorious tradition. It begins its journey with the Sanskrit plays. Indian tradition preserved in the "Natyasastra". The oldest of the texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin and a close connection with the sacred Vedas themselves. Origin of English drama can be traced to the ancient rules and seasonal festivities of the Vedic Aryans. The dramatic performances of those times mainly included depiction of events of daily life accompanied by music. Some members of the tribe acted as if they were wild animals and some others were the hunters. Those who acted as animals like goats, buffaloes, reindeers and monkeys were chased by those, playing the roles of hunters and a mock hunt was enacted. In such a crude and a simple way was drama performed during the age of the Vedic Aryans. Later, different episodes from The Ramayana, The Mahabharata and The Bhagvadgita were picked up and enacted out in front of the people. This kind of performance is still very popular in India especially during the time of Dussehra, when the episode of the killing of Ravana is enacted out in different parts of country.

There are refrences to drama in Patanjali's Vyakarna Mahabhashya, Jame's Aagam Of Raypaseni Sulta as well as Vatsyayam's Kamasutra, Kautilya's Arthasastra and Panini's Ashtabhyam. Thus the origin of Sanskrit drama dates back to 1000 B. C. All literature in Sanskrit is classified into Drishya (that can be seen on exhibited) and the sravya (that can be heard or recited). While poetry in all forms can be said to fall under the latter, drama falls under the formes. Drama in Sanskrit literature is coverded under the broad umbrella of rupaka' which means depiction of life in its various aspects represented in forms by actors who assumes various roles.

A `rupaka' has ten classifications of which `Nataka' (drama), the most important one, has come to mean all dramatic presentations. The Sanskrit drama grows around three primary constituents namely Vastu (plot), Neta (hero) and Rasa (sentiment). The plot could be either principal (adhikarika) or accessory (prasangika). The former concerns the primary characters of the theme and pervades the entire play. The latter serves to the further and supplement the main topic and relates to subordinate characters other than the chief ones. This is further divided into banner (pataka) and incident (parkari). The former is a small episode that presents, describes, improves or even hinders the primary plot to create added excitement. The latter involves, minor characters. The Neta or the hero, according to the definition prescribed by the Natyashastra, is always depicted as modest (Vineeta), sweet tempered (Madhura ) sacrificing (Tyagi), capable (daksha), civil in talks (priyamvada), belonging to a noble family (taptaloka), pure (suchi) articulate (vagmi), consistent (Sthera), young (yuva) endowed with intellect (buddhi) enthusiasm (utsaha), good memory (Smrthi) aesthetics (Kola), pride (maana) and is brave (Shura), strong (dridha) , energetic (tejaswi), learned (pandita) and pious (dharmika). The main category in which the hero of Sanskrit drama normally falls is the `Dheerodatta' that is he who is brave and sublime at the same time.

Bharata's Natyasastra is the most significant work on Indian dance and drama. Besides everything about composition, production and enjoyment of ancient drama, a wealth of information of types of drama, dren, stage equipment, production and music is also dealt with in detail. According to the legend, when the world passed from the golden age to the silver age and people became addicted to sensual pleasures and jealousy, anger, desire and greed filled their hearts. The world was then inhabited by gods, demons, yakshas, rakshasas, nagas and gandharvas. It was the gods among them who led them by Lord Indra, approached god Brahma and requested him thus Please give us something which would not only teach us but be pleasing both to eyes and ears'.

Bharata ascribed a divine origin to drama and considered it as the fifth Veda. Its origin seems to be from religious dancing. According to Bharata, poetry (kavya) dance (nritta), and mime (nritya) in life is play (lila) produce emotion (bhava) but only drama (natya) produces flavour (rasa). The drama uses the eight basic emotions of love, joy (humour), anger, sadness, pride, fear, aversion and wonder attempting to resolve them in the ninth holistic feeling of peace. Thus, when the dramatic art was well comprehended, the natyaveda was performed on the occassion of the celebration of Lord Indra's victory over the asuras and danavas. In the Natyashastra there is a verse in its sixth chapter which can be quoted as Bharat Muni's own summary of his dramatic theory.

"The combinition called natya is a mixture of rasa, bhavas, ,vrittis, pravrittis, siddhi, svaros, abhinayas, dharmis instruments, song and theatre - house'.

The most renowned and talented dramatists of the ancient era are Ashwaghosh, Bhasa, Shudraka, Kalidas, Harsha, Bhavabhuti, Visha-khadatta, Bhattanarayana, Murari and Rajeshkhora, who enriched Indian theatre with their words like Madhya-Mavyaayoda, Urubhangam, Karnabharan, Mrichkatikam, Abhigyana Shakuntalam, Malankagnimitram, Uttar Ramacharitam, Mudrarak, Shasa, Bhagavadajjukam, Mattavilasa etc. Till the 15th century, plays of Sanskrit tradition were performed on stage in Tamilnadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra, Utter Pradesh and Gujarat. Sanskrit dramas were staged approximately upto the 15th century, but thereafter, Indian drama activity almost ceased due to foreign invasions on India.

The beginnings of Loknatya (People' Theatre) are noticed in every state of India from the 17th century onwards. We see in Bengal "Yatrakirtaniya' "Paol' and "Gaan' in Madhya Pradesh "Mach' in Kashmir "bhandya thar' and in Gujarat the forms were "Bhavai' and "Ramleela' in Northen India. There were "Nautanki, Bhand, Ramleela and Rasleela' in Maharashtra "Tamasha' in Rajasthan "Raas' and "Jhoomer' in Punjab "Bhangra' and "Song' while in Aasam it was "Ahiyanat' and "Ankinatya' in Bihar it was " "Videshiya' and "Chhari' in West Bengal and Bihar.

The rise of the modern drama dates back to the 18th century when the British Empire consolidated its stable power in India. In 1765 one Russian drama lover Horasin Lebdef and Bengali drama lover Qulokhnath had staged two English comedies Disgaig and Love Is The Best Doctor. But the real beginning was in 1831 when Prasanna Kumar Thakur established "Hindu Rangmanch' at Calcutta and staged Wilson's English Translation Of Bhavabhuti's Sanskrit drama Uttar Ramacharitam. Social drama of Girish Chanda Ghosh, historical dramas of D.L. Roy and artistic dramas of Rabindernath Tagore (Muktadhara, Chandalika) continued to reach upto the stage of realistic dramas during the period of the Worst - ever famines of Bengal and the second World War.

In 1852-1853, the famous Parsi Theatre was launched in Bombay which influenced the whole country in no time. Postagi Pharmji was the pioneer in establishing the Parsi Theatre company in India. Many new theatre experiences were brought up on stage during Parsi Theatre' evolution in India. On the other hand, the amateur theatre also developed with the works of Bharatendu Harishchandra, acclaimed as the father of Hindi drama. Pre - Independance Indian English Drama Indian English drama was started when Krishna Mohan Banerji wrote "The Persecuted' in 1837.

The real journey of Indian English Drama begins with Michael Madhu Sudan Dutt's Is This Called Civilization. Which appeared on the literary horizon in 1871. Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo, the two great sage - poets of India, are the first Indian dramatists in English worth considering. R.N. Tagore wrote primarily in Bengali but almost all his Bengali plays are available to us in English renderings. His prominent plays are Chitra, The Post Office, Sacrifice, Red Obanders, Chandalika, Muktadhara, Natir Puja, The King of the Dark Chamber, The Cycle of Spring, Sanyasi and The Mother' Prayer. These plays are firmly rooted in the Indian ethos and ethics in their themes, characters and treatment. Sri Aurobindo is a major voice in Indian English Drama.

He wrote five complete blank verse plays besides his six incomplete plays. His complete plays are Perseus the Deliverer, Vasavadutta, Radoguna, The Viziers of Bassora and Eric and each of these plays is written in five acts. His incomplete plays are The Witch of Ilni, Achab and Esarhaddon, The Maid and the Mill, The House of Brut, The Birth of Sin and Prince of Edur. The length of these incomplete plays varies from one scene of fifty two lines to three acts.The most striking feature of Sri Aurobindo’s plays is that they deal with the different cultures and countries in different epochs, ringing with variety of characters, moods and sentiments. Perseus the Deliverer is grounded on the ancient Greek myth of Persues, Vasavadutta is a romantic tale of ancient India. Rodoguna is a Syrian romance, The Viziers of Bassora is a romantic comedy which takes us back to the days of the great Haroun al Rashid, while Eric is a romance of Scandinavia, a story of love and war between the children of Odin and Thor. Romance, heroic play, tragedy, comedy, farce, all find representation and thus the scale is large and the themes are diverse.

There is almost a global coverage in the total content of Sri Aurobindo’s dramatic literature. In matters of plot construction and characterisation Sri Aurobindo’s debt to Elizabethan drama is undeniable. The use of the English blank verse is flawless and in the right tune with the characters and situations. But at the same time we do not miss the impact of sanskrit playwrights like Bhasa, Kalidas and Bhavabhuti as Dr. K. R. S. Iyenger observes, “But all five plays are stepped in poetry and romance, recalling the spirit and flavour of the distinctive dramatic type exemplified in different ways by Bhasa, Kalidas and Bhavabhuti. Though, of course all have Aurobindonian undertones.”

Another prominent playwright who has made significant contribution in the growth of Indian English drama is Harindranath Chattopadhay. He started his career as playwright with Abu Hassan (1918). There are seven verse plays to his credit published under the title of Poems and Plays (1927) and all the seven plays are based on the lives of Indian saints. His Five Plays (1929) are written in prose where the writer’s socialist bent of mind is quite palpable. The Window and The Parrot deal with the lives of the poor. Whereas the Sentry’s Lantern is a symbolic display of the expectation of the advent of a new age for the downtrodden people. Sidhartha: Man of Peace is an adventurous effort to dramatise Budha’s life.The next great name we encounter is A.S.P. Ayyar who wrote six plays. In the Clutch of The Devil (1926) is his first play and the last one is The Trial of Science for the Murder of Humanity. Ayyar’s plot and characterisation are subordinated to the message and he uses the drama as a mode of apprehension of reality pertaining to contemporary life. P. A. Krishnaswamy is also a name in the history of Indian English drama whose fame rests chiefly on his unusual verse play The Flute of Krishna.

Another dramatic voice on the Indian literary scene that demands attention is that of T.P. Kailasam. He wrote both in English and Kannada. Though Kailasam is regarded as the father of modern Kannada drama, his genius finds its full expression in his English plays such as The Burden (1933), Fulfilment (1933), The Purpose (1944), Karna (1964) and Keechaka (1949). He has a real genius and love for the drama G. S. Amur holds a very high opinion about T.P. Kailasam. Amur rightly remarks------“A talented actor who appeared on the amateur as well as the professional stage, he brought to the writing of drama an intimate knowledge of the theatre. It is for this reason that his plays whether in Kannada or English , have a uniform technical excellence.”

Bharati Sarabhai is the modern woman playwright during the colonial era of Indian English drama. She has written two plays The Well of the People (1943) and Two Women with some considerable measure of success. Of these two plays, the former is symbolic, poetic and is besides a significant contribution to the Gandhian social order, while the letter is realistic, written in prose and probes the private world of a sensitive individual “The Well of the People’ is not of course a drama in the conventional sense. There are no formed changes of scene, and the stage witnesses continuous action.” It is based on a real story published in Gandhi’s Harijan in which an old Brahmin widow unable to achieve her ambition of going on a pilgrimage to Benaras and have a dip in the holy Gangas, decides to get a well dug for the untouchables in her village. She says “All men/ And women alike can come, drink and drink/ Here at my well with Harijans.”

J.M. Lobo Prabhu is the last great name in pre-Independence Indian English drama. He has written over a dozen plays but only Mother of New India: A Play of India Village in three Acts (1944) and Death Abdicates (1945) appear before Independence. His Collected Play was published in 1956. Lobo Prabhu is capable of writing dialogues with felicity, situation – creation is also admirable but his characters do not appear life like, soothing and convincing to the audience.The names of few more playwrights may be taken into account though they have made not substantial contribution to Indian English drama but they are great names in Indian English literature. Some of the important writers who have tried their hand at drama are Sudhindra Nath Ghose (Colours of a Great City).upto post – independence era, drama in English in Indian soil could not flourish as a major current of creative expression. The drmatists were not successful to evolve an independent dramatic convention to suit Indian climate. Although the pre–Independence Indian English drama is notable for its poetic excellence, thematic variety, technical virtuosity, symbolic significance and its commitment to human and moral values, it was by and large not geared for actual stage production. Post – Independence Indian English Drama.

In the post Indepedence era Indian English drama does not make a noteworthy presence unlike poetry and fiction. A prime factor for this is that “drama essentially a composite art involving the playwright, the actors and the audience in a shared experience on the stage has its own problems of which the other literary forms are free. However, the post- Independence Indian English drama was benefitted by the increasing interest of the foreign countries in Endian English literature in general and Indian English drama in particular. The climate slightly changed. A good number of plays by Indian playwrights Asif Currimbhoy, Pratap Sharma, Gurucharan Das was successfully staged in England and U.S.A. But the plight of Indian English drama is that no regular school of Indian English drama was established in our country. This was mainly because the encouragement drama received from several quarters immediately after India got freedom but it was monopolised by the theatre in the Indian regional languages while Indian English drama continued to feed on crumbs fallen from its rich cousins table.

The plays have been written in prose but at the same time poetic plays also survive in the post colonial era. M.K. Naik rightly opines “……. that Tagore-Aurobindo-Kailsam tradition of poetic drama continues, but which a difference in the hands of of poetic drama continues, but which a difference in the hands of Manjeri Isvaran, G.V. Desani, Lakhan Dev and Pretish Nandy.” Manjeri Isvaran’s Yama and Yami (1948) is a dialogue in poetic prose, with a prologue and an epitogue, dealing with the incestuous love of Yami for her brother. G.V.Desani’s Hali (1950), an entirely different kind of play, received high praise for its originality, symbolism and rich imagery. Lakhan Dev’s Tiger Claw (1976) is a historical play in three Acts on the controversial murder of Afzal Khan by Shivaji. His two plays are Vivekananda (1972) and Murder At The Prayer Meeting (1976).

The use of blank verse is flawless and the last play compels us to remind of T.S.Eliot’ s Murder In The Cathedral. Other verse plays of the period include P.A.Krishnaswami’s The Flute of Krishna (1950) M.Krishnamurti’s The Cloth Of Gold (1951). S.D.Rawoot’s Immortal Song. Karm and The Killers (1959) Satya Dev Jaggi’s The Point Of Light (1967) Pritish Nandy’s Rites for a Plebian Salute (1969). Hushmat Sozerekashme’s Vikramjeet (1970), Sree Devi Singh’s The Purple Braided People (1970), P.S. Vasudev’s The Sunflower (1972) and S.Raman’s Karme (1979). The number of prose playwrights is larger in comparison to verse playwrights. The most prolific playwright of The Post-Independence period is Asif Currimbhoy, who has written and published more then thirty plays.

Some important plays are The Tourist Meeca (1959), The Restaurant (1960) The Doldrumness (1960) The Coptives (1963) Goa (1964), Monsoon (1965) An Experiment With Truth (1969) Inquilab (1970) The Refugee (1971), Sonar Bangla (1972) Angkeer (1973) and The Dessident M L A (1974).

Pratap Sharma wrote two prose plays A Touch Of Brightness (1968) and The Professor Has A War Cry (1970). His plays were staged even abroad successfully but they failed to be staged in the country. Sex, moreover remains the prime theme of his plays but Pratap Sharma shows a keen sense of situation and his dialogue is often effective.

Nissim Ezekiel’s Three Plays (1969) including Nalini: A Comedy, Marriage Poem: A Tragi Comedy and The Sleep Walkers: An Indo-American farce are considered to be a welcome addition to the dramaturgy of Indian English drama. Songs Of Deprivation (1969) is also a short play by Ezekiel. Gurucharan’s Larins Sahib (1970) a historical play, deal with Henry Lawrence of Panjab. The play Marriage Poem, presents the conflict of a middle class husband caught in the conflict of commitments of married life and the desire of love. The Sleep Walkers is a diverting take off on national preconceptions and prejudices. In spite of strong sense of dramatic concept, Ezekiel could not transform his poetic talent into appropriate dramatic talent. His plays can be appreciated for symmetrical construction with abundance of irony. They unveil his sharp observation of the oddities of human life and behaviour. Ezekiel’s poetics self swayed his dramatic creed but his plays make a ‘pleasant reading’. It is attributed

“In his satire of current fashion, in his exposure of prose and presence, Ezekiel comes very close to the spirit of some English social satirist in theatre”.

Contemporary Indian drama, deviating from classical and European models, is experimental and innovative in terms of thematic and technical qualities. It is not an off spring of any specific tradition and it has laid the foundation of a distinctive tradition in the history of world drama by reinvestigating history, legend, myth, religion and folk love with context to contemporary socio-political issues. A cumulative theatrical tradition evolved by Mohan Rakesh, Badal Sirkar, Vijay Tendulkar and Girish Karnad, prepared the background of contemporary Indian English theatre.

Girish Karnad in the capacity of writer, director and actor substantially contributed to enrich the tradition of Indian English theatre. His dramatic sensibility was moulded under the influence of touring Natak Companies and especially Yakshagana which was in those days not accepted as the purified art form. His well known plays are Yayati (1961), Tughlaq (1962), Hayvadana (1970), Nagmandala (1972). He borrowed his plots from history, mythology and old legends but with intricate symbolism, he tried to establish their relevance in contemporary socio-political conditions. The play Yayati reinterprets an ancient myth from Mahabharata in modern concept. The plot of the play Hayvadana is adopted from Katha Saritsagar, an ancient collection of stories in Sanskrit. Tughlaq is Karnad’s best historical play where he mingles facts with fiction. Karnad projects the curious contradictions in the complex personality of Sultan Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq.

In the play Tale Dande, he discovers the vital relationship between contemporary society and literature. His use of myth as a structure and metaphor in his play gives “new meaning to the post from the vantage point of view of present”. In the play Nagmandala, the conflict is between patriarchal and matriarchal views of society. It is about the life of Rani, a typical Indian woman in male dominated society. She is married to Appanna, a wealthy village youth. The focus in the play is on sexual liberty of to sexes: male and female. In order to counter mail dominance, Karnad adopts a strange device in which King Cobre gets sexually involved with Rani and ultimately she becomes pregnant. Like his other female protagonist, she is encouraged to pass through chastity ordeal. Regarding the position of Rani, Smita Nirula holds,

“Rani is never free to express herself, to be herself. She is either daughter, wife, lover or mother. She is always playing a role imposed upon her, except in her dreams in the lonely nights that engulf her. She is a woman used, abused. She can either live as a whore or a Devi. There is no element of person for her”

Karnad’s dramatic art lacks stability still his success lies in technical experiment with an indigenous dramatic form. The collective efforts of Karnad and Karalam Narayana Pannikar are significant in their binding of the traditional forms of Indian theatre with the modern. Born in 1828, Vijay Tendulkar began his career as a journalist but from the very first play Grihasth in 1955 to Safar in 1992, his plays have given Indian theatre a rich and challenging reprtoire. Leading the Vanguard of the avant-garde Marathi Theatre, Vijay Tendulkar symbolizes the new awareness and attempts of Indian dramatists of the century to depict the agonies, suffocations and cries of man, focusing on the middle class society. In all his plays, he harps upon the theme of isolation of the individual and his confrontation with the hostile surroundings. Influenced by Artaud, Tendulkar, relates the problem of anguish to the theme of violence in most of his plays. He does not consider the occurrence of human violence as something loathsome or disgusting in as much as it is in note in human nature.He says,

“Unlike the communists I don’t think violence can be eliminated in a classless society, or for that matter, in any society. The spirit of aggression is something that human being is born with. Not that it is bad. Without violence man might have turned into a vegetable.”

While depicting violence on the stage, Tendulkar does not dress it up with any fancy trapping so as to make it palatable but rather keep it row and natural. The plays Chimanicha Ghor Hote Menache (1960) Kalojanchi Shalai (1968), Ek Holti Mugli (1967) reflect Tendulkar’s concern with authority and the idea of exploitation of individual. In the plays Silence! The Court Is In Session (1968) and Ghasiram Kotwal (1972), the theme of oppression dominates. Sakharam Binder (1972) is a study in human violence amounted to powerful dramatic statement. Kamala (1982) and Kanyadaan (1982) are written on the lines of naturalistic tradition. Kamala is a study of marital status as well as study in the theme of exploitation. Kanyadaan is a complex play about the cultural and emotional upheavals of a family. Tendulkar was associated with New Theatrical Movement in Maharashtra. He presents a fictional reality in which the reality of life acquires a sharp focused character having rare dramatic power.

Badal Sircar too is a prestigious name in the realm of contemporary theatre. He represents New Theatrical Movement in India. He has created an appropriate ‘puples’s theatre’ a theatre supported and created by people. His dramatic career began with humorous play like solution X. His earlier plays are Evan Inderjit (1962) That Other History (1964) and There Is No End (1971). All these plays are based on political, social, psychological and existential problems. Evan Inderjit, is a tale of a playwright who struggle in vain to write a play. In the play There’s No Need Sircar develops the thesis that “We are all accused” and share the burden of guilt. Afterwards, he wrote Pary Konodin, Jadi Aur Ek Baar, Palap and Pagla Ghoda. His later plays Procession, Bhoma and Stale News are based on the concept of Third Theatre. The play Procession is about the search for a ‘real home’ in new society based on equality. It suggests a ‘real way’ to new way in which man does not have to live exploiting man but should work according to his own needs. Bhoma is a dramatization of the life of oppressed peasants in sexual India. The analysis of these three plays suggest remarkable changes in Sircar’s concept of a ‘real home’ a new society based on equality and free from the horrors of exploitation. Tendulkar in 1967, established his theatre group called ‘ Satabdi .’

Sircar’s first contact with Grotowski’s ‘Poor Theatre’ influenced him greatly in formulating his Third Theatre. In Indian English drama the influence of Mohan Rakesh can not be ignored. Hr wrote in Hindi but for exceptional dramatic relevance, his plays have been translated in English and other regional languages. He published his first major play Ashadh Ka Ek Din in 1958, Leharon Ke Rajhansa appeared in 1963 and Adhe Adheere was first staged in 1969. The play Pair Tale Ki Zamin was completed by Kamleshwar after his death and published in 1974.

As a playwright, his main concern was to portray the crisis of contemporary man caught in the web of uncongenial surroundings and the persistent threat to human relationship. Mohan Rakesh perceived drama as a complex art involving the uniform contribution of actors, scenic effects, light and music and effective stage direction. Mohan Rakesh made extensive experiments in theatre. He used words and languages not as dialogues or direct statements but as the tools of suggestion to convey the meaning beyond the verbal connotation. In Ashadh Ka Ek Din, he highlights the dangers of sycophancy that whitess of his age face in desire of dignified official position. In Leharon Ka Rajhans, he reflects on the problem of relations between man and woman, ego clashes, divided self and on going illusion and nothingness. Adhe Adhure deals with the clash of ego between husband and wife, disintegration of family relationship, the prominence of individual interest against the commitments of the family. Besides, women dramatists also tried to enrichthe soil of Indian drama by projecting the inner world of feminine psyche in the theatre.

Women’s theatre coalesces with Street Theatre movement, using the same technique in performance and production. It can be attributed as a ‘Theatre Of Protest’ because women wuters expressed their resentment against the politics of exploitation on the basis of gender discrimination. They also revived the traditional myths of Sita and Savitri and tried to reinterpret the epics from women’s point of view. The dramatic work of Usha Ganguli and Mahasweta Devi can be placed in their category. MahasWeta Devi emerged as a dramatist having a quest to explore something challenging and new. His five plays are Mother of 1084, Aajer Urvashi O’ Johny, Byen and Water. The play Mother of 1084, is a moving account of the anguish of an apolitical mother who had witnessed the horrors of Naxalite Movement. In Aajir, Mahasweta Devi deals with the issue of the fast deterioration of values and their effects on society, particularly on illiterate people. Urvashi O’ Johnny is a play written for emergency through the love affair of Johnny with Urvashi, a talking doll. The play Bayen presents a moving account of harsh reality of a woman,s life in rural India. The play Water, is the story of a professional water-diviner, Maghai Done who is an untouchable boy. Her plays represent a profound concern for human predicament and sincere hope for the better future of mankind.

The Shadow Lines: Amitav Ghosh

Source: http://www.amitavghosh.com/shadowline_r.html

"The Shadow Lines," Ghosh's second novel, was published in 1988, four years after the sectarian violence that shook New Delhi in the aftermath of the Prime minister, Indira Gandhi's assassination. Written when the homes of the Sikhs were still smouldering, some of the most important questions the novel probes are the various faces of violence in Calcutta and in Dhaka which is valid even today. What has happened recently in Kosovo and in East Timor show that answers still evade the questions which Ghosh poses about freedom, about the very real yet non-existing lines which divide nations, people, and families.

The Shadow Lines is the story of the family and friends of the nameless narrator who for all his anonymity comes across as if he is the person looking at you quietly from across the table by the time the story telling is over and silence descends. The past, present and future combine and melt together erasing any kind of line of demarcation. Such lines are present mainly in the shadows they cast.

The way "violence" is brought into the pictures extraordinarily sensitive: The narrator says, talking of the day riots tore Calcutta apart in 1964, "I opened my mouth to answer and found I had nothing to say." The narrator is very much like the chronicler Pimen in Pushkin's drama Boris Godonow. The story starts about thirteen years before the birth of the narrator and ends on the night preceding his departure from London back to Delhi.

A wanderlust sets in which leaves him imagining that he is seeing the first pointed arch in Cairo or touching the stones of the great pyramids of Cheops. Ironic then, that for the woman he loves - his beautiful cousin Ila, who would always break his heart - has been all around the world and lived in many places but has not traveled at all. Out of an intricate web of memories, relationships and images Ghosh builds his narrative. And while it never quite takes the form of a story that a reader can recount, its greatest achievement is perhaps best bought out by the distinguished poet A.K Ramanujan, who says ``He evokes things Indian with an inwardness which is lit and darkened by an intimacy with Elsewhere.''

The story starts about thirteen years before the birth of the narrator and ends on the night preceding his departure from London back to Delhi. He spends less than a year in London, researching for his doctorate work, but it is a London he knew very well even before he puts a step on its pavements.

The tragedy is that though the narrator spends almost a year in London and thus has ample opportunity to come to terms with its role in his life, it is Dhaka which he never visits that affects him most by the violent drama that takes place on its roads, taking Tridib away as one of its most unfortunate victims.

There is no point of reference to hold on to. Thus the going away - the title of the first section of the novel - becomes coming home - the title of the second section. These two titles could easily have been exchanged.

The Shadow Lines is a book that captures perspective of time and events, of lines that bring people together and hold them apart, lines that are clearly visible on one perspective and nonexistent on another. Lines that exist in the memory of one, and therefore in another's imagination. A narrative built out of an intricate, constantly crisscrossing web of memories of many people, it never pretends to tell a story. The novel is set against the backdrop of historical events like Swadeshi movement, Second World War, Partition of India and Communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka and Calcutta. All in all, Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines presents a tension between the public and the private world.

Mahes Dattani

Social Issues in the plays of Mahesh Dattani

WHAT sets Mahesh Dattani apart from other contemporary Indian playwrights in English today? Could it be his perfect cuing into burning issues of social relevance, ones we have collectively stashed away in dusty closet niches for generations? Issues pertaining to sexual identity, including the hijra community. Or child sexual abuse (CSA). Or hypocrisy about HIV-positive people. Or religious intolerance. Or gender inequalities. Or social stereotyping. Or even what constitutes the contemporary Indian family.

Ever since he first penned Where There's A Will in 1986, Dattani has treated each subject with a deep-seated identification rooted in everyday angst. Such charged emotions spare no one — neither the players and the director, nor the audience. Deep within platitude-ridden Indian society, his characters seethe and reveal, probe and discern, scathing their families and neighbours, leaving each reader or watcher with a storm within as the aftermath. An essential storm for our evolution as socially sensitive individuals.

The plays of Mahesh Dattani emerged as ‘fresh arrival’ in the domain of Indian English drama in the last decade of the twentieth century. His plays deal with “contemporary issues”. According to John McRae “They are plays of today sometimes as actual as to cause controversy, but at the same time they embody many of the classic concerns of world drama.” Dattani makes an abundant use of Indian mythology, rituals and traditions and contemporary problems. India is beset with but he elevates these themes to a higher level: love, happiness, sexual fulfillment and problem of identity. 

Dattani takes issues that afflict societies the world over. He has chronicled the social victim and the follies, foibles and prejudices of Indian society. Some of Dattani’s plays are eloquent defenses of society’s out casts and would be rebels. These plays include ‘On a Muggy Night in Mumbai,’ a compassionate look at the life and tensions of a homosexual community tricked away in Mumbai. This play with ‘Do the Needful’ is probably the first Indian plays to boldly deal with the subject of homosexuality. The play ‘Final Solutions’ is about partition. It reveals how the engendered suspicion only deepens from generation to generation.

Seven Steps Around Fire dwells on the theme of eunuchs, their identity, their constitution and their connotation. It is heart rendering story about eunuch, a beautiful one, invited for marriage, and the final tragic death-all seem to be a mis construct. This is all about marriage of a beautiful hizra Kamla to a son of a wealthy government minister named Subbu. The society accepts a hizra for gracing the ceremonies of marriage and births but would not allow them to portrayed of such ceremonies.

Tara is a riveting play that questions the role of a society that treats the children of the same womb in two different ways. Dattani’s ‘Tara’ is a poignant play about a boy and a girl who are joined together at the hip and have to be separated surgically, which will mean the death of either of the two. The fact that the injustice perpetuated by the victim’s own mother whose preference is to the male child, makes the play more powerful suggesting that it is woman who continues the chain of injustice. Tara is not just the story of the protagonist of the play ‘Tara,’ but the story of every girl child born in Indian family whether urban or rural. 

The prominent theme of Mahesh Dattani’s later plays is homosexuality and Gender Identity. Dattani’s plays are revelatory in nature. If, in ‘Where There’s a will,’ it is the ghost not of Hasmukh Mehta but of his father that has to be recognized in ‘Dance like a Man’. In ‘Bravely Fought the Queen,’ it is a host of issues that have to be revealed and faced from the homosexuality of certain characters. Dattani shows us the hollowness of middle class lives. 

Dattani’s plays have contemporary values and his plays can be said to have been impaired by Ibsen, the Father of Realism. Dattani handles every problem from gender issues to sexuality very successfully. Dattani’s achievement as a playwright depends on the fact that his plays are a slice of social life. They present reality as it exists.