Sunday, 8 September 2019

Best Dramatist: Ravindranath Tagore and T.P Kailasam


-         Rabindranath Tagore as a poet, dramatist, and Novelist



About Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was born on 7th May 1861 in Calcutta and died on 7th August 1941. He was short story writer, song-composer, playwright, essayist and painter. He has also introduced new prose and verse forms. He has introduced Indian culture to the west. Therefore he was regarded as the outstanding creative artist of 20th century, India.  He has received Nobel Prize for literature. The name of his father was Devendranath tagore who was a religious reformer.
Tagore has completed “Manasi” in 1890. It is a collection of poems as well as social and political satire. In 1891 Tagore went to East Bengal (now in Bangladesh) to manage his family’s estates for 10 years. There he often stayed in a houseboat on the Padma River in close contact with village life and later on he has wrote much about Village.
His love for Bengali countryside was reflected in his work “humble lives and small miseries”. During 1890s Tagore has published several poetry collections like “Sonar tari” means the Golden boat in 1894,.

Founder of Shantiniketan

In 1901 Tagore founded an experimental school in rural west Bengal at Shantiniketan.  He settled permanently at the school, which became Vishva Bharati University in 1921. His later poetry was affected by his personal life because he has faced the death of his wife and two children. Therefore sadness can easily identify in his poetry. This was introduced in “Gitanjali” (1912) which contains English translations of religious Bengali poems. Tagore won nobel prize for for “Gitanjali” in the year 1913.  He was also awarded with Knighthood in 1915 but he has given it back as a protest against Jallianwala bagh Massacre.

Tagore as a Dramatist

Tagore’s experience  with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotindranath. His first dramatic piece is “Valmiki Pratibha”. He wrote this work when he was just twenty year old. Tagore stated that his work focuses on “ the play of feeling and not of action”. In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. Such works includes subplots and extended monologues. Later on Tagore’s dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes.

-Dak Ghar
His one of the best play “Dak Ghar” (The post office; 1912) describes the child “Amal” who lives in his adoptive uncle’s home. He has an incurable disease. Therefore Dak ghar deals with death as, in Tagore’s words “spiritual freedom” from the worls of wealth.

-Chandalika
Another important play is Chandalika. It is a story of an untouchable girl. It is based on ancient Buddisht story in which the disciple of Buddha, Anand asks a tribal girl for water.

-Raktakarabi
This play is an allegorical struggle against a king who rules over the residence of Yaksha Puri.

-Rabindra Nritya Natya
Chitrangada, Chandalika and Shyama are the key plays that have dance drama adaptation, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.

Tagore as a short story writer

Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877 when he was only sixteen. His first short story is “ Bhikharini” (The beggar Woman). The four years from 1891 to 1895 are  known as Tagore’s “Sadhana” period. It means in these four years he has contributed a lot for his magazine “Sadhana”. In “Galpaguchchha” there is collection of 84 stories. Such stories usually showcase Tgaore’s reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas and on interesting mind puzzles.
Other short stories
-Kabuliwala, 1892 (The fruitseller from Kabul)
-Kshudita Pashan, 1895 (The Hungry stones)
- Atithi, 1895 (The Runaway)
These stories focuses on downtrodden life or poor people.

Tagore as a novelist

Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas. The names of some of his works are:-
-Chaturanga
-Shesher Kobita
-Char Odhay
-Naukadubi
- Ghare Baire
-Gora
-Jagojag

-Ghare Baire ( The Home and the world)- is written through the lens of idealistic Zamindar Nikhil. He is the protagonist of this story. It deals with the theme of Indian Nationalism, terrorism, and religious Zeal in the Swadeshi movement. This novel ends with Hindu-Muslim Violence.

-Gora, is the fifth in order of writing and the longest of Tagore’s twelve novels. In is about debate on politics and religion. Gora (Whitey) is an Irish boy and he is raised by Hindu.  He falls in love for a Brahmo girl.  It consist of two parallel love stories. One is Gora with Sucharita and other is Binoy with Lolita. Their emotional development is shown in the background of the social and political problems.

-In Jagojag (Relationship), The heroine Kumidini is influenced by the ideals of Shiva and Sati. Tagore deals with feminist reading and theplight of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour. The story revolves around  the two rival families- The Chatterjees( Biprodas) and The Ghosals (Madhusudan). Kumidini is the sister of Biprodas, belonging to aristocrat family. She is caught between the two as she married to Madhusudan.

Tagore as a Poet

Internationally, Gitanjali is Tagore’s best known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1913.

Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include:-

-Manasi
-Sonar Tori (Golden Boat)
- Balaka (wild geese)(the title is metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore’s poetic style proceeds from classical to comic, visionary. He was influenced by Vyasa, author of Upanishad, the Bhakti-sufi sant Kabir and Ramprasad sen.

Later on with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal- many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore’s style. But Tagore absorbed new ideas which allowed him to develop unique identity. Example of this includes “Africa” and “Camalia”, which are among the better known of his latter poems.


Q2- T.P kailasam’s plays

Introduction

Thanjavur Paramsiva Kailasam was a playwright and prominent writer of Kannada literature. His contribution to Kannada theatrical comedy earned him the title of ‘Prahasana Prapitamaha’, the father of humorous plays and later on he was also called ‘Kannadakke Obbane Kailasam’ meaning ‘one and only Kailasam for kannada.
He was born in Tamil family in southern Karnataka, India. His father T. Paramsiva Iyer was the chief Justice of the Mysore High Court. Kailasam had a good education and was supported by maharaja of Mysore to study geology in London.  He spent six years in school in England and participatinf in theatre whenever possible.
After returning from abroad he has joined government job but soon quit to write plays. His father plan for him is different who wanted him to become the Director General of the Geology Departmenht. Therefore Kailasam stop talking to him.
Plays
Kailasam had written many plays in both Kannada and English. His books in Kannada Language are:-
-Makala school mana alawa
-Sikarni
-Savitri
-Sathavana santhapra
-Haninabal Kanirranu

English Plays:-
-Fulfillment
-Purpose
- The Brahmin’s curse

T.P Kailasam has written seventeen social Dramas. All of tehm deal with the common man’s every day life. His style of writing is different, some readers find difficult to read the titles of the plays because of kannada language. He uses Telugu, Tamil, Urdu with kannada and Enflish in his plays. In is known as “Kanglish”. According to him he uses real language of the common man. So his style of writing is realistic.

Kailasam uses realistic characters in all his plays. All his characters are the middle class men and women of south Indian society. Kailasam’s popularity lies in humour Brilliant conversation with rhyming. The dialogues make the audience laugh. Because of the unique theme of Drama, Kailasam becomes the great writer of India.
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-The play “Purpose’ is based on the famous Mahabharata story focusing on the incident of Eklavya, Arjun and their partial mentor Draunacharya. Kailasam puts the minor character Eklavya in center and Arjun at periphery. He gives voice to a low caste Nishada Boy Eklavya.

-The play “Fulfilment” is based on the character of Mahabharata. Eklavya, the Nishad boy and Krishna, the chief of Vrishnis.  It is a sequel to “Purpose”. The play full fledged with three acts. In the last act eklavya meets his end by Krishna’s hands.

-The play Brahmin’s curse is again based on the story of Mahabharata. It is about the tragic prince “Karna”. It is not very difficult for Kailasam to turn Karna’s life into tragic dram because the life of Karna is already full of tragedy in Mahabharata.






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