He will be remembered as an exceptionally versatile genius who straddled across several fields of creativity—theatre, drama, publishing, film-direction and acting. He also will be seen as a perpetual outsider—a Konakni speaker writing in Kannada, a mathematician breaking into theatre, a dramatist entering the silver screen and an experimental cinema artist patronising commercial films. He did all of this with ease, grace and elegance which became synonymous with Karnad’s name over the last half century.
He was a master of narratives. When Tughlaq was first presented, it was immediately read as a comment on Nehru’s India. Hayavadana, like URA’s Samskara, was instantly interpreted as an incisive reading of the post-colonial Indian modernity. Neither had anything in their plots that explicitly spoke of the contemporary; yet, he became the master story-teller who could make us sit up and think about the ‘here and now’ without sliding down to any simple ‘thesis’. Karnad knew his theatre with as much clarity as he knew his mathematical theorems.
All of his magic with words and stagecraft, his charm with the camera lens, his grace and sharp intellect were more than enough to make him a class by himself. But added to them, he had in him a courage and a conscience that normally elude many greats in cinema and literature. He spoke out when it was most necessary. He did not get caught in petty literary politics and cinema gossip. While he was around, it was almost impossible for the world to associate him with any ‘group’. He remained himself, a free spirit, unfettered, indomitable and with an unfailing compassion. Since Rabindranath Tagore, he was the only Indian whose creativity knew no boundaries of genres and whose work– because it was written in his native tongue–and attracted a world-wide audience. He is no more. All that we have with us is the plays he produced and the institutions he created and, yes, the message of being courageous in the face of dire threats.
The author is Cutural Activist and Literary Critic. He is best known for the People’s Linguistic Survey of India and the Adivasi Academy created by him.
