Write a note on the contemporary relevance of Tughlaq.
The contemporary relevance
of Tughlaq. Tughlaq, which was published in Kannada in 1964, is Girish Karnad’s
second play. His first play, Yayati, was a self-consciously existentialist
drama on the theme of responsibility. And those of us writing in the Kannada
Navya movement of the time can still remember the excitement when we first read
it in 1961. His interpretation of the familiar old myth on the exchange of ages
between father and son baffled and angered many conventional critic but, for
others, who were trying to root their contemporary concerns in old myths,
Karnad’s unheroic hero, Puru, was a great experience. The contemporary
relevance of Tughlaq.
Tughlaq was an immediate
success on the stage. The contemporary relevance of Tughlaq. It was first
produced in Kannada in 1965 and was also done, about the same time, in Hindi by
the National School of Drama. Bengali and Marathi productions followed, and in
1970 there was an English production in Bombay which was a major success. The
contemporary relevance of Tughlaq.
The contemporary relevance
of Tughlaq. It is not hard to account for the immediate response the play has
received from Kannada as well as other audiences. One can enjoy the play on the
stage without paying much attention to its rich and complex symbolism and the
subtle weaving of its different motifs.The play has an interesting story, an
intricate plot, scope for spectacle, and uses dramatic conventions like the
cronic pair, Aziz and Aazam (the Akara and Makara of Natak performances), to
which theatre audiences respond readily.Another reason for Tughlaq’s appeal to
Indian audiences is that it is a play of the 1960s, and reflects as no other
play perhaps does the political mood of disillusionment which followed the
Nehru era of idealism in the country. Karnad himself has commented (Enact, June
1971) on this: The contemporary relevance of Tughlaq.
“What struck me absolutely
about Tughlaq’s history was that it was contemporary. The fact that here was
the most idealistic, the most intelligent king ever to come on the throne of
Delhi … and one of the greatest failures also.And within a span of twenty years
this tremendously capable man had gone to pieces.This seemed to be both due to
his idealism as well as the shortcomings within him, such as his impatiences,
his cruelty, his feeling that he had the only correct answer. And I felt in the
early sixties India had also come very far in the same direction—the
twenty-year period seemed to me very much a striking parallel.”
The contemporary relevance of Tughlaq.
But the play is more than a
political allegory. It has an irreducible, puzzling quality which comes from
the ambiguities of Tughlaq’s character, the dominating figure in the play. All
the other characters are dramatised aspects of his complex personality, yet
they also exist in their own right. Kannada critics have made detailed analyses
of the play, paying special attention to the symbolism of the game of chess,
the theme of disguise, the ironic success of Aziz whose amazing story runs
parallel to Tughlaq’s, and the dualism of the man and the hero in Tughlaq,
which is the source of the entire tragedy.
Yet no critical examination
of the play can easily exhaust its total meaning for the reader, because the
play has, finally, an elusive and haunting quality which it gets from the
character of Tughlaq who has been realised in great psychological depth. But it
would be unjust to say that the play is about an ‘interesting’ character, for
the play relates the character of Tughlaq to philosophical questions on the
nature of man and the destiny of a whole kingdom which a dreamer like him
controls.
The contemporary relevance
of Tughlaq. Although the theme of the play is from history – there are many
such plays in Kannada – Karnad’s treatment of the theme is not historical.
Take, for instance, the use Karnad makes of the leitmotif of the play,‘prayer’,
in the scene where the Muslim chieftains along with Sheik Shams-ud-din, a
pacifist priest, conspire to murder Tughlaq while at prayer. The use of prayer
for murder is reminiscent of what Tughlaq himself did to kill his father. That
prayer, which is most dear to Tughlaq, is vitiated by him as well as his
enemies, is symbolic of the fact that his life is corrupted at its very source.
The whole episode is ironic. It involves Shihab-ud-din, an idealist who has put
great trust in Tughlaq’s rule, and is himself ultimately betrayed by Ratansingh
who masterminds the entire plan of murder for his own ends. The contemporary
relevance of Tughlaq.
The intrigue here not only
enhances the theatrical interest of the play, but is a dramatised projection of
Tughlaq’s tortured, divided self. Thus, the external action throughout enacts
the inner drama of Tughlaq. Both Tughlaq and his enemies initially appear to be
idealists; yet, in the pursuit of the ideal, they perpetrate its opposite. The
whole play is structured on these opposities: the ideal and the real; the
divine aspiration and the deft intrigue. Tughlaq is what he is in spite of his
self-knowledge and an intense desire for divine grace. He is aware of the irony
of his life when Aziz, the only character in the play who has skilfully used
all the scheme of Tughlaq for his own designs, kills Ghiyas-ud-din and comes in
his guise as a holy messenger of peace to purify the land and revive the banned
prayer. The irony is deeply tragic. In the end Tughlaq and his kingdom are one
in their chaos, and he knows it.There are some good single plays in Kannada
like Masti’s Kakana Kote and the plays of Adya Rangacharya who has kept the
tradition of serious play-writing in Kannada alive; yet there is, perhaps, no
play in Kannada comparable to Tughlaq in its depth and range. It is likely to
become a classic in Kannada literature. The present translation, which has been
ably done by Karnad himself, will be warmly welcomed by readers eager to know
what is happening in the Indian languages.
It may not be out of place
to mention here that many teachers of English in India have felt and still feel
the need for English translations of literature in the Indian languages.
Teachers like myself have often wished that along with Indian writing in
English which we prescribe to our students, we should also be able to teach English
translations of classics in the Indian languages which will engage our
students’ attention fully and meaningfully. Karnad’s Tughlaq should be as
rewarding an experience to teach and to study, as it has been to see on the
stage all over India. The contemporary relevance of Tughlaq.