INDO-ENGLISH WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS
In
Indo-English writing, drama is a sparsely-cultivated field. Yet we find some
400 plays and playlets as shown in the latest
bibliography prepared under the auspices of
Yet,
here and there we can find some silverlining in the
clouded atmosphere of Indo-English drama. In spite of some glaring drawbacks,
major playwrights like Sri Aurobindo, Kailasam, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya
and Asif Currimbhoy and a
few minor playwrights have conducted some worthy experiments in the field.
Likewise, though less in number, there are women play-wrights that have contributed
their mite. Among them, mention may be made of Bharati
Sarabhai, Mrinalini Sarabhai, Swarnakumari Devi, Ghosal, Smt.
K. B Thakur, Shanta Rama
Rau and a few others. A brief study of some of their works (taken almost in the
chronological order of their publications) is attempted in this article.
The
foremost among these women playwrights is Bharati Sarabhai who has, to her credit, two plays: The Well of
the People and Two Women. In both the plays the author tries to give
a new meaning to age-old beliefs and customs. The Vedantic
concept that God is within, is presented in them in different ways; and the two
plays seem to be complementary in presenting the types of Indian womanhood.
While symbolism and poetry are the specialities of
the former, there is realism in the later and it is in prose.
In
the play The Well of the People, Sarabhai
projects a picture of synthesis of religion and social service. Moved by a
story appeared in Harijan, she wrote
the play, according to which, an old woman fails to achieve her ambition of
going on pilgrimage to Kashi and Haridwar,
and decides to please God by building a well for “the untouchables” in her
village with her savings. It is evident that the story is symbolically
charged with Gandhiji’s socio-political ideologies;
and as Dr. Prema Nandakumar
says, it is “a bold attempt on the part of Bharati Sarabhai to have taken up
the challenge to present a spiritual problem in terms of physical action”.2
A voice calls the individual soul to turn inward:
Why
do you go to Haridwar, to Kashi,
O
my Soul, when I am within?
Pilgrim,
pilgrim, why, what is it you seek outside? 3
The
same concept is presented in Two Women in another way. The westernised Kanakaraya faces
conflicts and temporarily compromises with his wife Anuradha
who is very much inclined to go to the
Mrs.
Swarnakumari Devi Ghosal resorts to allegory to illustrate the eternal
universal truths in the guise of a story of the demoralised
The
Freedom Movement in our country draws the attention of Mrinalini
Sarabhai a celebrated dancer and choreographer, and
her work Captive Soil is a powerful verse-play in two acts with a
Prologue and an Epilogue, presenting the actions and reactions found among
different sections of our country during the movement. The Prologue presents a
few policemen as the only substantial figures guarding a cemetery and the
voices of a few ghastly figures (of martyrs) giving the details of injuries
sustained on account of police firing; while the Epilogue projects silhouttes of some men and women in a march-past and a
figure representing freedom-fighters who move with renewed zeal and declare
with one voice their urge for freedom. In between the two, the playwright
effectively brings a series of sequences starting from the
arrested girl-rebels demanding resignation of the judge and ending with the
scene of a newly-wedded young man beaten up by the police and going back to
jail. But, while Mrinalini’s theme
and language deserve admiration, lack of an organic coherence in
plot-construction may mar the full success of the play on the stage. Dr. Balarama Gupta is not totally out of point when he
comments, “Notwithstanding the noble theme, the dramatist must be
reckoned to have failed to concretise her ideas in
dramatic form”. 5
The
life of the mystic princess Mira forms the theme of The Beggar Princess a
play in five acts written by Indira Devi in collaboration with Dilip
Kumar Roy. Fully devoted to Lord Krishna, Mira cannot accept anybody else as
her husband; and Bhojaraj, her married husband, takes
some time to understand her spiritual power. Meanwhile, wrongly interpreting
her peculiar behaviour in society, Bhojaraj’s sister Udayabai and
others give her all sorts of trouble; while her devotional singing becomes more
and more popular day by day. Her inner spiritual urge gradually accelerating,
she leaves Mewar in her middle age, wanders like a
beggar in many places and finally shakes off her mortal body at Brindavan. While handling historical-hagio-logical
theme, the playwrights develop their plot around the significant title The
Beggar Princess, which appearing a bit paradoxical, blends in the heroine
both the beggar and the princess–from the material as well as
the spiritual points of view. The conflict is there between the limited power
of man and the infinite Grace of the Lord as can be seen in the lives of saints
“who defy the weights and measures of the human superbazaar”.6 This
conflict and the consequent suspense are presented in the queen’s dealings with
her husband, Udayabai’s acts of villainy and the
robber’s episode. While the scene of the Emperor Akbar
and the gifted musician Tansen enhances the dramatic
effect, the most touching scene is that of Mira’s leaving Mewar
as she hears a “call from Krishna the Lord of Brindavan”.7 The
presentation of the theme would have been more natural if the playwrights had
adopted the mode of introduction of our classical Samskrit
drama and also the folk-songs to demonstrate the popularity of the saint
among the masses.
Drawing
from the history of the Rajputs, S. Janaki conceives some pictures of their fight with the Mughals, and her three-act play The Siege of Chitor (a Bhavan’s
Journal Prize-winner) deals with Akbar’s final
successful bid to conquer the formidable Chitor fort.
In handling the theme, it appears that the playwright has a faint design of
lessening the Indians’ apathy towards the foreign rule (here, that of Muslim)
and hence tries to ennoble the character of Akbar
even beyond the extent to which he is generally portrayed by historians. The
fact can often be noticed in his talk: for example, here are his instructions
to his General before leaving Chitor. “Temper
authority with lenience. Do all in your power to win the hearts of those who
remain here”; also “The valour of these Rajputs compels even my admiration.....Perhaps they deserve
to win”.8 But, in giving prominence to the Mughal
Emperor, the playwright does not relegate to background the staunch patriots
like Patta, Jaimal, Jaya and Padmini. There is
suspense, particularly in the scene where Padmini and
Jaya attempt to kill Akbar;
though the probability of two women engaging themselves in this risky job is
somewhat unthinkable.
In
a compendium of human knowledge and experience like The Mahabharata,
Mrs. K. B. Thakur’s motherly heart is attracted
towards the inseparable bondage between a mother and her son, and in the
three-act play. Mother and Child (a Bhavan’s
Journal Prize-winner), she deals with a few important events of Karna’s tragic life. As in Tagore’s
Karna and Kunti, it
is the mother and the child that pervade the entire play, and the playwright
brings out the occurrence of her child’s birth in a manner not sanctioned by
the rigid society. While the first act presents the maiden Kunti’s
curiosity to test the effect of the sage’s boon and the unfolding of her
motherly feelings in respect of her child Karna, her
motherly dimension is naturally broadened in the second act where, as the legitimate
mother of the Pandavas, she is compelled to hide
the birth of Karna. Here are the outpourings of her motherly
heart: “A mother’s heart trembles for the safety of her sons
who alone are her life”; 9 and they remind us of what Kailasam’s Radha says to her
foster-son:
“…….A
mother that doth bear
And
bring forth son...she may not, will not
See
or know a world beyond her son”. 10
In the last act, Mrs. Thakur enhances the conflict in her Kunti
who is helplessly swayed between her tender motherly heart and the artificially
created code of conduct, vis-a-vis the loyal and
outspoken Karna. Of course, as the natural attraction
between the mother and the child forms the nucleus of the playwright
judiciously chooses the events directly pertaining to the theme. But it is
rather an unbearable strain on the imagination of the audience regarding the
hero’s life in the big gap left between the first two acts, between Karna’s birth and the commencement of the war; where a
technique like the Pravesaka of our classical Samskrit drama could have been used with advantage.
Shanta Rama Rau sets an
example in converting a novel into a play, and her work A Passage to India is
a dramatised version of E. M. Forster’s novel bearing
the same title. The play presents a picture of mistrust and unjust treatment
shown to Indians by the British during their regime in India. The playwright
seems to have judiciously selected four scenes of dramatic and narrative
interest, and distributed them in her three-act structure as follows: I.
Tea-party at Mr. Fieldings; II. (i)
Picnic, Marabar Caves (ii) English Club of Chandra
pore and III. Magistrate’s Court. Thus, by dramatisation
of almost all the main events conceived by Forster, she does justice to the
novel. Further, though her sketch of characters of Dr. Aziz
and Mr. Fielding slightly disappoint us, she maintains the novelist’s general
design of characterisation: a cool-headed hospitable
Indian Dr. Aziz; Prof. Godbole
representing the ancient learning of India; Miss Adela
Quested who has eyes to see India and respect the country and whose integrity
cannot be easily shaken; Mr. Fielding who can be singled out as an Englishman
noble enough to understand an alien people; other Englishmen who have utter
contempt towards Indians and are ready to meet out any amount of injustice to
them. A reviewer rightly remarks, “....Her arrangement of his material is
skilful….Much of the original dialogue has been used, and his gift for making
his character talk intelligently and naturally at the same time appears to work
almost as well in the theatre as in the novel”. 11
In
this land of variety in many aspects of life like customs and languages,
occasional outbursts of fissiparous tendencies often necessitated a serious
thinking by cool-headed patriots about national integration; which forms the
theme of some plays. In her play My Sons, Mrs. J. M. Billimoria
thinks of such a situation of five students of Bombay University who, in spite
of sharp differences in their religion and language, live like real brothers
sharing both joys and sorrows of their life; and the group consists of two
Hindus, a Muslim, a Parsee and an Anglo-Indian. To project an image of their
permanent brotherhood the playwright imagines some relevant touching scenes
like their response to the call of the nation during the Indo-Pakistan war, the
moving spectacle of death of Rehman and his own
brother Abdul (now on Pakistan side) fighting each other in the battlefield,
the breaking out of communal riots and the working for peace by the remaining
four friends, their joint venture of running a co-operative stores, the death
of Rehman’s mother and their carrying of her corpse
to the burial ground even amidst the prevailing atmosphere of terror; and thus
the whole play is full of suspense and action. But the play suffers from the
playwright’s excessive idealism in the creation of her characters and
sequences, and her inclination for the use of written language in dialogue.
Further she unnecessarily fits the plot into a long five-act structure, that
too having an unwieldy number of scenes which render staging difficult.
Kamala
Subramanian’s Gandharee
and Kaikeyee is an example of a dramatic dialogue
wherein the author extends her imagination and brings together two queens
(probably in heaven) belonging to two different yugas
(ages). Each explains to the other her standpoint about the peculiar
situation which caused some mistaken notions among the people. Kaikeyee tells Gandharee how she
first rejoiced at the news of Srirama’s coronation
and then how Mandhara’s words forced her to demand Srirama’s exile and her son’s coronation. According to Gandharee, it is her extreme affection for her son Suyodhana that urged her to hark the tinkling laughter of Draupadi insulting Suyodhana, but
not her sobs when she was insulted by him at the royal court. Thus, within the
scope available, the author projects the image of two epic characters: Kaikeyee as the victim of circumstances and Gandharee as a mother whose blind affection towards her son
comes in the way of protecting another lady’s honour.
Though
it is very difficult to keep track of all such plays published from different
agencies, there are a few more plays worth-mentioning; Arati
Nagarwalla’s The Bait, Mrs. Dina Mehta’s The Myth-Makers and others. In spite of
deficiencies in the use of models and techniques and plot-construction found in
most of these plays, there is no denying of the fact
that the method of handling their themes by most of these women playwrights is unique;
and their angle of view is in consonance with their sensitive feminine nature.
As already studied, Bharati Sarabhai
extends the dimensions of age-old customs and beliefs deep-rooted particularly
in women; and the method is almost similar to what playwrights like Sri
Aurobindo, Mathuram Bhootalingam
and Giriah Karnad have done
while interpreting the myth from a contemporary angle of view. Mrinalini rises to the occasion and boldly gives a picture
of our Freedom Movement. Though at a later date, Shanta
Rama Rau brings out a similar picture about the British rule by way of
transforming a novel into drama form, Mrs. K. B. Thakur
and Kamala Subramanian are fascinated by the epic
themes; and, while the former highlights the inseparable bondage between the
mother and the child (for which a woman’s heart throbs), Kamala Subramanian questions herself as to why women like Gandharee and Kaikeyee could
disregard principles of justice. As regards historical themes, it is the valour and patriotism of the Rajput
men and women that could move the hearts of playwrights like Janaki, while Indira Devi focusses light on the
spiritual wealth of the princess-saint Mira. If Mrinalini
deals with the pre-Independence politics of the country, Mrs. Billimoria makes an attempt of national integration in the
post-Independence period. Anyway some of these playwrights go out of their
usual domestic sphere and probe the history as well as politics of the country.
Thus, though the women’s output in the field of Indo-English drama is small,
the hand of the sensitive woman can be discerned in the handling of themes.
1 Dr.
M. K. Naik. ‘The Achievement of Indian Drama in
English’. Perspectives of Indian Drama in English, ed. M. K. Naik and S. M. Punekar. (Oxford
University Press) P. 187.
2 Dr.
Prema Nandakumar, “Bharati Sarabhai’s English
Plays”, Critical Essays on Indian Writing in English. (Karnatak University, Dharwar) P. 283.
3
Bharati
Sarabhai, The Well of the People, p. 22.
4 Mrs.
Swarnakumari Devi Ghosal, Princess Kalyani, p.
2-3.
5 Dr.
G. S. Balarama Gupta, Essays on Indian Writing in
English, P. 73-74.
6 Dr.
K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Indian
Writing in English, P. 234.
7 Dilip Kumar Roy and Indira
Devi, The Beggar Princess.
8 S.
Janaki, The Siege of Chitor.
(Bhavan’s Journal, 21-2-1960)
9 Mrs.
K. B. Thakur, Mother and Child. (Bhavan’s Journal, 7-2-60)
10 Kailasam, The Curse, P.
92.
11 The
Times (London, 20-1-1960), Book Reviews.