This Life at Play - Girish Karnad

 

Finally, the much awaited moment, was here reading Girish Karnad’s This Life At Play, the English translation of his memoirs in Kannada, Aadaadta Aayushya (which translates as 'life moves on while playing’). The name was from one of Bendre's Poem in Kanada 'Nodnodta dinamaana, aadaadta aayushya',( 'The days go by in the blink of an eye, this lifetime at play.' ) That volume was published in 2011 by the Dharwad-based publishing outfit Manohara Grantha Mala.  While Karnad had translated some portions of the text himself, it is author Srinath Perur who has completed the work. Fifty years earlier (in 1961), Manohara Grantha Mala had brought out Karnad’s first full-length play, Yayati, when he was 25. This was my 91st of 2021.

It begins, with how blessed it was that he was alive, as his parents had plans to abort him. His father had repeatedly cautioned him 'Present pleasures need to be sacrificed for future comforts' . Interestingly it begins with his mother's autobiography, which she had written only until she got married, and when asked said, then life went on. So is this. It end when he gets married, he had plans to write the second part if time permitted, and if ever to name it 'Nodnodta Dinamaana' but seems got busy with other things and ill health.

He lived in Sirsi, moved to Dharwad lived in the 51 houses, went to Karnatak college and moved to Bombay, and then to oxford on Rodes scholarship at second attempt to  returned back to India and work at the Oxford press in Madras, direct his first play Sringeri: Samskara; first movie at Old Mysore, then spend sometime in Poona at the Film and Television Institute of India. Hema Malinis mother was keen on having her married to him, but finally he got married to his sweetheart Saraswathy for ten years. He married her at the age of 42.

Points that interested me in the book are:

His mother had written "Standing here on the brink of my seventy-ninth year and looking back, I see nothing but the mistakes I have made. I have been unsuccessful since my childhood (in everything). Nothing I desired has been achieved. Often when anger or immense sadness overwhelms my mind, I feel I should write down my thoughts. I could not fulfil any desire of mine in my life. I wanted to study a lot and become a BA or an MA, to learn to sing and to play the harmonium, to read a lot and so on. Except for the occupation of reading, nothing was achieved. " As Veena Das says while discussing the play Naga-Mandala, she drowns her individuality in her domesticity and becomes nothing. 

Indians are past masters at whitewashing history, and if you are to be influenced by considerations of what is the politically correct thing to say in the present context, today many construct history which is ideologically correct. 

The ability to instantly turn on a flood of bright, shadeless light, we have lost a certain delicate and ambiguous relationship we had with light and dark. When there is no evidence of light within the darkness surrounding us, the irises pick out floating silvers of light and weave them into changeable amorphous forms. That quality of total darkness, that takes us to the brink of blindness, also has a close relationship with complete silence. The lack of sound itself seems to shape the light one senses.

The other element we have lost along with the world of complete darkness is an abundance of stories. You could run into them everywhere - in side streets, deserted corners, in the thick of the bazaar. 

Going to library became a cause for anxiety. It was like stepping into a minefield: there was no telling where a new bud might sprout, when a lightning bolt might strike. 

Took Maths for BA as it helped to secure first class, which was necessary to get scholarship. Began to see in it patterns, arrangements, rhythm, elegance. Mathematics - how ripple upon ripple, branch growing from branch - led one to the uncanny and wonderful. While proving a theorem, it is important at the outset to identify its constituent parts, the relationship between those parts, and how they are held in balance. Mathematics taught that while working out an individual part, one has to be vigilant about the effect it had on the other parts, and how it changed the overall structure as well as the interrelationships between various parts. This is essential technical training for a playwright. 

Choose with great care the words used for analyzing ideas. The connection between language and philosophy was deep and delicate. Before using a word, it was important to examine how it was used in everyday speech, and to take utmost care that incongruous meanings were not foisted upon it. 

In oxford he studied in a tradition that equated linguistic analysis with philosophy. Shah cautioned him, that 'If we don't accept that, there are human experiences beyond the construct of language, then all philosophy is reduced to word play. '

The hallmark of a gentleman was his confidence, the belief that he could rule any place anywhere in the world. 

Indian's carried the halo of having achieved independence through non-violent means. 

Bombay peninsula used to be seven or eight islands which were joined into a single landmass in the nineteenth century by depositing earth into the sea.  

Thomas Mann's novel 'The Transposed Heads', original story is from 'The Kathasaritasagara' and is in the form f a riddle: "If two men's heads are interchanged, then who is who? Would a man be identified by his head or his body? Thomas Mann had taken the riddle and its traditional answer - 'the head is the superior part, the body inferior; the head identifies the person and worked it ironically into a novella.

Interesting story of  Balasaraswati who was an amazing dancer and her friend, famous singer Subhalakshmi, both were devdasi's and best friends. 

Bharata comes from the initial sounds of bhava, raga and tala. 

When in Pune and NID Appukuttan paid best compliment. 'If you had not acted quickly, kutityattam would have died out'.

His creative journey was linked to the electrification of Indian culture and entertainment. The wind under the wings of his exceptional career was always being the right age, in the right place, when a new industry lit up: modern theatre, then independent cinema, then television. 

His refusal to compromise with any lumpen politics meant he was frequently at risk of physical attack.His aim was to stop the poisoning of the well of secular coexistence.  There were glass thrown at home in early 1990 when daughter was doing homework, his name was first in the list of suspected assassin on Gauri's murder. 

So for one generation he was a prodigy, for another a heart-throb, for a third, a part of their intellectual upbringing, beamed into homes on Turning point. (TV serial)

At the base of his attitude was a simple lack of insecurity: about his standing as an artist, a Kannada writer, an Indian or a Hindu. He knew that none of the men who denounced him could ever match his authority on national culture or heritage, or his record as their steward. He put that unassailable position to use in two ways: to push creative and imaginative boundaries, and to lend courage to others to defy hate and ignorance. 

His children were raised at the confluence of five languages, and sixth finger on hand was Sanskrit. Only book he insisted his children to read was Mahabharata. He had read original Vyasa. 

One message after his death put was "Like a fruit - laden tree. Always giving. Always growing."

He and his son Ragu represented two halves of the city of Banglore. Girish the genteel and cultured world Raghu its rapid and well-capitalized life. They could guide each other across the line, and did. The last of the play was Boiled Beans on Toast.

This was released this May on his 83rd birth anniversary.