178. GirishKarnad(4/9): The River Has No Fear of Memories | The Art and Craft of Playwriting Part I

Girish was a Kannada playwright, but his knowledge of theatre came from all over the world and from many languages. We explore his relationship with English and other languages and literatures. Girish talks about his plays that he believes do not work, what he learned from them, and how he responded to their failure.

About the Series:

In June 2019, a few days before his death, Girish Karnad and Arshia Sattar had extensive conversations about his work, his life, and the concerns that had occupied him over almost sixty years as a writer and a public intellectual. This podcast is a distillation of those freewheeling conversations, a short intellectual biography to celebrate the life and work of one of India’s finest playwrights and thinkers. In this series, we hear Girish talk about Kannada literature, existentialism, making of modern Indian theatre, the art and craft of playwriting, and his life as a public intellectual.

The series is hosted by Arshia Sattar and Anmol Tikoo, with special guests such as Vivek Shanbhag, Shanta Gokhale, and Sunil Shanbag, who provide the context for Girish’s comments. Each episode also contains scenes from his plays read by members of Bangalore’s theatre community. The readings show us how closely his philosophical and political ideas were to what he wrote. They also provide an opportunity for audiences, particularly those who might not be already familiar with Girish’s works, to experience the power of his work.

The title for the series is taken from the song in Hayavadana (Kannada title), a song which has been musically recreated for us by Pallavi MD and Konarak Reddy. Apart from the fact that Neerina Mele Chitra remains one of Kannada’s most beloved ranga geethe, we found it to be particularly evocative as we remember a man who profoundly impacted India’s cultural arena in the last half of the 20th century. This podcast series, we hope, will bear witness to Girish Karnad, a man who gave us so much to remember, but also so much to take forward.

Show Notes

1. A discussion between UR Ananthamurthy, Prasanna, and Girish Karnad about Girish Karnad’s role as a playwright. (01:17)
2. Alyque Padamsee’s persuasion of Girish Karnad to translate Tughlaq to English, and more. (07:39)
3. Girish Karnad on how he always translates his own plays to English. (08:48)
4. An excerpt from Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq. 
5. An A K Ramanujan Memorial lecture, delivered by Girish Karnad. (24:48)

Other:

1. Girish Karnad interviewed by Arundhati Nag,  discuss theatre, translation and films. 
2. Girish Karnad on the traditional and the modern, in a 1989 publication of the Sahitya Akademi’s Indian Literature journal. 
3. A documentary on Girish Karnad’s life, directed by KM Chaitanya. 

Supported by the Nilekani Philanthropies