HUMOUR IN INDO-ENGLISH PLAYS
Humour, as an essential
ingredient of human life, has a place of its own in our world. In effectively
expressing thought-provoking ideas and in easing the tension of a situation, it
is really a boon to a writer or a conversationalist. Literature, which is the
mirror of life, fully reflects the splendour of this
important element. This fact can be observed even in Indian drama in English
(or Indo-English plays) though the field is rather poor–both in quality and
quantity–when compared to poetry and fiction.
In Indo-English drama, we come across a few major playwrights like Sri Aurobindo, Kailasam, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, Bharati Sarabhai and Asif Currimbhoy and a host of minor playwrights. It is difficult to find humour in dramatists like Sri Aurobindo, Chattopadhyaya and Currimbhoy as they exhibit their serious-mindedness in their works. Even Kailasam, who like Shaw is known for his ready wit and subtle humour in his Kannada plays, shows seriousness throughout in his English plays. An attempt is now made to highlight the element of humuur found in some of the playwrights in the field.
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya,
though essentially a poet, has, to his credit, a number of plays–social and
hagiological. In his playlet
The Sentry’s Lantern, three persons are going to be hanged–a merchant, a
bourgeois poet and a worker. At that time, each of them expresses his own
feelings and thoughts. The pragmatic worker appears to be the mouthpiece of the
progressive playwright. Correcting the poet who scars in the sky of
imagination, he remarks:
“The
poet should be born as something more honest than a comfortable bourgeois
poet….at least as an earthen pot in a worker’s kitchen which will be of some
service…..”
Giving
some relief to the audience in a play with serious theme might be the intention
of Bharati Sarabhai. In her
play Two Women, the sharp-tongued Sudha is
described as “a convent-product of Anglo-India painted all over her;” further,
seeing her dressed in slacks, Shastriji puts a
humorous question to Kanakaraya: “Diwan
Saheb, can you tell me the unique function of this
substitute for a sari?”
Evocation
of laughter seems to be the main intention of some playwrights; and they can
create fun among the audience, though at thought-provoking humour.
V. V. Srinivasa Aiyangar’s
farces belong to this category. To illustrate, his playlet Vichu’s Wife gives
us a description of an ideal wife:
Well...She
must not be under sixteen……
She
must be tall…..
She
must have bright and loving eyes…..
She
must be very handsome…a sort of Greek beauty...
She
must be a painter and a poet…..
She
must be highly cultured, soft, tender, and
delicate in manners, with high
ideals noble...
great...
Aiyangar’s The
Surgeon-General’s Prescription gives a light entertainment in another way. Sitapati Mudaliyar’s daughter
Kamala is upset as her marriage is settled with a landlord and not with Manmohan of her choice. At last, much to the surprise of
her parents, the Surgeon-General prescribes a simple remedy with his proposal
to change the alliance settled from the Zamindar to
Mr. Manmohan.
A.
S. P. Ayyar’s humorous way of provoking serious
thought in the audience reminds us of playwrights like Shaw and Kailasam. Here are sequences from his mock-trial The
Trial of Science for the Murder of Humanity. Since the accused is tried
before a Full Bench of three judges, namely, Philosophy, Culture and Intuition,
on many charges including that of threatening the entire humanity with
destruction by 2000 A. D. Some of the examples of humour
are: the expert’s examination of the “unsound mind” of the Juror Research, the
reading from an almanac forecasting the destruction of Humanity by 2000 A. D.,
and also witty exchanges of words as follows:
Defence
Counsel (about God): Nothing we cannot see exists.
Religion
: So, since I cannot see your brains Sir,
may I take it that you have none?
Next,
Electricity deposes that, with the help of Science, corpses can be preserved
for 30 to 40 years; then
Public Prosecutor: What
good is it keeping corpses for 30 years? Is it not better to bury or burn them
and be finished with them?
Electricity
: Corpses like yours, of course. had better be disposed of at once.
Sarcastic
talk also can create humour. In his play Larins Sahib. Gurucharan
Das deals with the political career of a British Resident in Punjab whose
self-respect and faith in the principle of natural justice gradually give place
to his madness for power and glory finally leading to his downfall. Here is an
occasion for us to enjoy the Indian style of dialogue:
Lawrence: “Fear
is only human”, said the jackal.
Rani:
“But the brave ale not afraid”. said the lion.
Lawrence: “Even
the brave are afraid of beautiful women”, said the fox.
The
play He Never Slept so Long by Shivkumar Joshi
is a good example of interpretation of a myth from a contemporary angle of
view. The playwright extends the myth of The Bhagavata
so as to include the political career of Gandhiji
and imagines one more incarnation for Jaya and Vijaya who assassinate Gandhiji.
The People’s Court holds a posthumous trial of the Mahatma with Mahakal as the Judge. When Martin Luther, a staunch
supporter of the Mahatma, is examined as a witness, he says “Non-violence is a
desperate battle.” Unable to comprehend his speech, someone from the crowd
shouts, “Hey, he wants a battle! Why not oblige him?” This humorous remark
brings some relief to the tense atmosphere.
There
is a humorous situation even in a tragedy like Borgaonkar’s
Bhasmasura. Interpreting the Indian
myth of Bhasmasura, the playwright tries to expose
the dehumanising effect of Science on man. Actively
engaged in inventing a destructive weapon, Professor Buddhisagar
gets highly excited at an accidental invention and starts shouting to his wife Shanti: “Eureka! Eureka!….Greater than Newton, greater than
Marconi, greater than Einstein, the world will salute
you as the greatest among the scientists….” Then, thinking that he has gone
mad, Shanti calls for the help of her daughter and
her son-in-law.
Partap Sharma portrays the
life in a brothel of Bombay in his play A Touch of Brightness Rukmini, a beggar-girl becomes a victim of the
brothel-keeper, and because of her idealism, she behaves there in a peculiar
way. It is no wonder that she becomes a target of attack by her co-inhabitants Basanti and others; and, as Basanti
remarks, “The boy who loves her, she turns into a brother, and the man who
wants to marry her, she keeps as a lover.”
Hypocrisy
in our society is exposed in the play Deep Roots by Murli
Das Melwani. There we can find some witty
conversations, and to illustrate, here is a prayer to God by some friends:
Ahmed:
O Lord of the world, Whose Name may be Money...
Arvind:
Increase the natural resources of this country...
Ahmed:
so that we may have more stones to break heads
Arvind:
and wreck public property.
Ahmed:
Bless our creative faculties...
Arvind:
so that we may think up new hypocrisies and lies, and the
Government new stupid laws and taxes, and people’s means how to evade them…..
Ahmed:
and ways and means to cheat everyone around us...
These
are their demands, and surely their God must be double hypocrite to grant them.
P.
S. Vasudev’s mini-play The Forbidden Fruit is
a farce highlighting the red-tapism in the official
machinery even in urgent matters like the family planning programme.
A Gramsevak seeks urgent help from the Central Govt.
to take precautions about the local lovers because, according to his report,
“the Love-God has gone on war path;” but an officer replies that he will hear
from them “in due course”. Twenty years later, a man and a woman (both doctors
attached to the Ministry of Health) go to the village; but, influenced by
Nature there, they too forget to do their duty. (Here the playwright extends the
myth of Adam and Eve, and makes the forbidden fruit the symbol of sexual
passion.) The play reaches the climax when a few young men (born twenty years
ago as a result of belated family planning programme)
shout slogans and attempt to destroy the van donated by the Ford Foundation.
Can such a thought-provoking theme be presented in a more effective way?
These
are some of the sweet dishes offered to the audience by Indo-English
playwrights. In a complicated world like that of ours, the only gift of Nature
that can sustain us is humour, and humour alone.