Modern Indian Drama

MODERN INDIAN DRAMA As RECENTLY AS SIX YEARS AGO, New Delhi, the capital of the Indian Republic, lacked a theater with adequate facilities for staging modern productions. When, in 1953, the Central Executive of the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, of which the writer happens to be the Secretary, considered the question of taking a loan from the Government for building a theater, there were many who felt that it would be a suicidal venture, as the returns would not meet the four and a half per cent interest on the loan, not to say anything of the refund of the capital. Today, however, fifty dramatic groups are operating in the capital alone and the Fine Arts Theater is booked months in advance by these and others from the various regions. This phenomenal-almost hystcrical-activity is due basically to the energy generated by the political emancipation. The scene is one of baffling variety of approaches and styles and without some knowledge of the historical background, it would be impossible to make a coherent appraisal of contemporary dramatic effort in India. We cannot afford to dwell too long on a retrospect of the classical tradition. But it is necessary to remember that, beginning in romantic stories sketched in verse dialogues in the Rig-Veda and in bardic recitals, Sanskrit drama had yielded a rich variety of plays during the early centuries of the Christian era. Contrary to the common assumption that the Indian tradition shied away from tragedies, Bhasa in the third century had produced genuine tragedies in which really greathearted men fell due to a tragic flaw in their character and the tragic catharsis was achieved by the insight these heroes acquired regarding themselves in confronting their sombre destiny. Romantic comedy -with plenty of vitality and humor was created by Sundraka and was given fincr psychological overtones by Kalidasa in the fourth and Bhavabhuti in the seventh centuries. Visakhadatta, about 800 A.D. pcrfected the comedy of intricate plots, based on espionage and political intrigues which Chanakya, the great Maurya statesman and India's Machiavelli, had perfected into a regular science. Bharata provided the theoretical framework for the aesthetics as well as the production techniques of this classical achievement. With the decline of Sanskrit, this tradition lost its creative momentum. If it had not prolonged itself in transformations, it would have been irrelevant even to mention classical drama in this article. But what really happened was that the dramaturgy of Bharata and the Sanskrit plays inspired new forms in the modern Indian languages 403 404 MODERN DRAMA February when these began to get stabilized. The Yatms of Bengal, the Yakshaganas of Andhra Pradesh and the Kathakali of Kerala are the products of this cyclical regeneration after the classical decay. Some writers have classed them as folk drama. I am afraid that this is misleading taxonomy. The rich Sanskrit tissue of the language of these forms and their very close adherence to Bharata's dramaturgic canons, which recent research has established beyond doubt, prove that they are as integrally related to the culture of the elites as Kalidasa was to the aristocratic stratum of the Gupta empire. Let us, therefore, call them forms of traditional drama, since they really evolved by creative mutations in the classical heredity. A very important difference between classical and traditional drama is the fact that the latter are verse dramas. Kalidasa, the greatest poet in the Sanskrit tradition, had avoided verse as the normal medium for his dramas. Verse stanzas were indeed used for descriptive purposes as well as for expressing emotional intensity. The dialogues, however, were mostIy in prose. But traditional drama accepted verse as its sole medium. This paved the way for another transformation. In Sanskrit plays, the verse stanzas were not sung; they were only recited. There were songs in Sanskrit plays, but they were in Prakrit. When traditional drama went over wholly to verse and the layered distinction between aristocratic Sanskrit and colloquial Prakrit was obliterated by the use of the homogeneous modern Indian languages, music began to dominate the presentation. Traditional drama thus became opera which gave enormous importance to music and dance. Now comes a rather bizarre...