“The Fire and The Rain” : Blending of Western and Indian Concepts of Theatre.

India got political freedom in 1947. But it took some more years for the Indian theatre to gain freedom from the Western Influence. The so called modern theatre in India was set up during the time of the British Rule. It had a purpose of its own. In anyway, it cannot be rightly called as “Indian” in its purpose and dramaturgy. Indian artists had to begin a new style of drama which is Indian from the beginning. Efforts in this direction started a few years after getting political freedom.

                                  Erin B. Mee comments that :

“What later became modern theatre in India began in the colonial cities set up by the British as commercial ports: Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. These cities had an urban middle-class audience with values and tastes shaped by the English-style education they received, and by the need to work with the British in administration and commerce. Much of the theatre in this era copied the British drama that toured the country, and therefore took on to some extent the

aesthetics, dramaturgical structures, and even the architecture of Western drama.Until the development of modern theatre in India, most performance did not takeplace on a proscenium stage, nor did it depend upon ticket sales, but upon patronage. The proscenium which was adopted for much of the modern theatreseparated the participants from the observers; ticket sales put an emphasis on theatreas a commodity, making it available to a smaller, and wealthier, group of people.”

                                            India had a dramatic tradition of its own. But that tradition was lost over the centuries. And in the modern age, we started a kind of dramatic culture which was more of a western one in nature. So after the independence people began to think of a theatre which adheres more to the Indian concepts of drama.  The British originated theatre was mainly urban. And our traditional art forms were the art of the villages. So the rural and urban  streams of art flew in different streams. Somehow it had to be put together.

                     This issue reminds us of the situation in, perhaps the best Indian drama witten ever - ‘Abhijnana Sakunthalam’ where we can see a contrast between the village and the city. And it ends in the triumph of the village over the city. The values of the village (ie.the Asram of Kanva) is pictured as far more superior than the culture of the city. The result of the contrast between the two traditions of performance in the modern context of drama was also the same. The dramatists of post colonial India tried to combine the two streams of performances. The result of which was predominantly a traditional one even though it had all the elements of a modern theatre.

                                    The eminent Malayalam playwright Kavalam Narayana Panickar along with some other playwrights like Habib Tanvir, Vijay Tendulkar, and Girish Karnad tried to invent a kind of new dramatic culture which is essentially ‘Indian’. The theatre evolved from their efforts came to be known as ‘Theatre of Roots.’  Dramatists like Kavalam and Karnad studied studied traditional Indian performance forms like ‘Kathakali’, ‘Yakshaganam’, ‘Chau’, etc. And they incorporated the elements of all these forms in their drama.

                               Vijay Tendulkar’s ‘Sari Ga Sari’ is a good example for the blending of the elements of Indian tradition with western theatrical elements. Karnad’s ‘Hayavadane’ employs traditional elements like ‘Yakshagana’, half curtain, Bhagavatha (narrator), etc. when it in all sense remind us of some of the modern dramas. Badal Sircar came up with another radical change which came to be known as  the ‘Third Theatre’ which was a synthesis of the rural and urban. However the master of blending the traditional performance ideas with the western concepts was none other than Girish Karnad.

                            So when one form of media is represented within another form of media, it is known as remediation. So from this point of view, Karnad’s pays should be studied within the context of ‘Remediation’. In ‘The Fire and The Rain’ Karnad reworks a myth which was included in the Forest Kanto of ‘Mahabharatha’. The myth is represented in a drama. And it is worth studying how the theater refashions the myth.

                                 Also the drama has a structure called the play within the lay. The playwright puts so many mediums together like, myth, drama, drama within the drama, song, dance, etc. also the stage is divided into two equal parts. The shift from one place to another happens when one part is darkened and the other is brightened. It is like two windows in a computer. At one time the spectator sees one part of the stage and then he will be watching the other part. The only difference is that he is not free to choose the part he wants. All these reminds us of the phenomenon which is called ‘hypermediacy’ in modern media studies.

                                   Another feature of this play is that its episodic structure. The play has a prologue and epilogue. So many incidents are sandwiched in three acts in between the Prologue and the Epilogue. One dialogue of Yavakri can be used to describe the structure of the play. And the dialogue is :

“The past isn’t gone. It’s here inside me.”

It seems that every character is saying the same dialogue throughout the play. The incidents are narrated more than they are happened. A good part of the story is uncoiled through the lips of the characters and not through the actions of the characters. For example, in the first scene, Arvasu, Nittilai and later Andhaka come to the stage. And the story is told to us by Nittilai and Andhaka. Arvasu seems to be a passive listener. Nittilai and Andhaka tells some past events and offer their comments on it. This is continued through out  the play. What is the effect produced by this structure. These are some of the subjects that I would like to study in this paper.

Bibliography

1)      Dharwadker Aparna “Historical Fictions and Postcolonial Representation: Reading Girish Karnad's Tughlaq”. PMLA. Modern Language Association. Vol.110, No.1, Special Topic : Colonialism and Post Colonial Condition. 1995. 27/10/2011.

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772157>

2)      Russel, Martin. Asian Theatre Journal. University of Hawai’ i Press. Vol. 19, No.2. 2002

27/11/2011.

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772157>

3)      Hansen, Kathryn. “Indian Folk Traditions and the Modern Theatre”. Asian Folklore Studies.  Nanzan University. Vol 42, No. 1. (1983). 27/10/2011.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772157>

4)      B, Erin Mee. “Contempporary Indian Theatre : Three Voices”. Performing Arts Journal.  Performing Arts Journal,Inc. Vol. 19, No. 1. 1997. 27/10/2011.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772157>

Text and Context

Usually by text, we mean anything in written form. In the modern contexts anything can be a text. Text need not be written. Stanley Fish in his epoch making work ‘Is There a Text in This Class?’ breaks all conventional notions about the ‘text’.  No one has raised more serious questions against the existing notions about text than Fish did.  Fish threw a stone into the water the waves of which has not yet stopped.

                                   For every idea there needs to be an inspiration. Here the ‘Newton’s apple’ came from a student. She was a former student of Fish. She asked one of his colleagues a simple question on the first day of a new semester. This was her question: “Is there a text in this class?” Suddenly the professor replied, “Yes it’s the Norton Anthology of Literature.” How innocent? The student then corrected the teacher. “No, no. I mean in this class do we believe in poems and things, or is it just us?”

                                    We don’t know whether any student had asked a question like this in reality or not. However the question itself proves really helpful to define Fish’s argument. According to Thimothy Bagwell, this is an “example of language’s inherent ambiguity.” I said the professor was innocent to answer like this. But how far is it true? From the professor’s perspective he said the correct answer. Because he took the word “text” in its ordinary sense. But the girl intended to ask the professor of his position in this issue. We can interpret the question in a different way and give a different answer.                                                         

                                                    So Fish says that this is what happens mostly in the case of texts. Texts produce multiple meanings. This is the same when it comes to defining the text also. We will be in the position of the professor who gave an innocent answer. And this is the danger of defining text. If a text can be interpreted in quite different ways, then it will be even more difficult to define what a text is. However the text has so many dimensions.

                                           Thus different scholars of different times interpreted ‘text’ in different ways. Socrates never wrote anything but his disciples like Plato wrote and kept his philosophy for future generations. Plato himself was not ready to attribute any truth to the ‘text’. Because he considered them to be unreal, twice removed from reality. Epicurus’s concept about knowledge was that “"if several theories are consistent with the observed data, retain them all". However he wrote 300 books but we have only three letters of him because all other works had been burnt by his opponents! But we often forget this simple fact about the ‘text’ that it can be burnt!

                                       Indians too had this tradition of orally transmitting the text to the next generation.  Most of our ancient literature was preserved and transmitted to the next generation orally. It was only later that they came to be written. The westerns had the tradition of dialectics in the field of philosophy. That is the conflict of concepts and formulation of new theories. This was done as a clash of thesis and anti-thesis. But then a new theory will be formulated from the synthesis of this thesis and anti- thesis.

                                  We too knew this dialectical method. But from Gupta dynasty onwards, we cannot see any progress in the field of philosophy. Instead of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis, we see thesis, interpretation(known as ‘Bhashya’), and interpretation of interpretation(known as ‘Teeka’). So we cannot see any new philosophies emerging here during the middle ages.  Our six systems of philosophies have been formed before the Gupta dynasty. But after that no new systems of philosophies emerged in India. (Here we do not consider the philosophies of the Bhakti poets and Renaissance leaders as totally new.)

                               And we know our ancient literature only through interpretations, especially that of Sankara and his desciples. This continued even in the modern age through Sri. Aurobindo and Dr.S.Radhakrishnan. Because of their interpretations, our land came to be known as a land of idealism and the East vs West was considered as a conflict between idealism and materialism. However recently there had been some changes in this notion. We don’t really know what Upanishads or Brahmasutra said but we know what Sankara said about Upanishads and Brahmasutra. The same is true with Gita also. So this shows us another aspect of text. The reader doesn’t have the freedom to interpret the text as he likes or he is unable to understand the text as it is. Because when we read Upanishads or Brahmasutra, we read it with the accompaniment of Sankara’s commentary. Then we understand it from the viewpoint of “Advaitha Vedanta”. So the reader doesn’t have any freedom to interpret the text in his own ways. This is in complete contrast with what Fish said. So I would like to state that ‘the text’ not ony produces different meanings, it sometimes restricts the readers from producing a different meaning.

                                    So it will be nice to look at the issue of conditioning of the text through interpretations. Also a study on some of the texts from Indian mythology will prove helpful in understanding how text changes over the ages.  We know how the meaning of the text changes depending on the viewpoint of the reader. So here I would like to state that not only the meaning, the text itself changes through the ages.  And I would like to illustrate this taking some examples from ‘Myth and Relity’ by D.D.Kosambi especially from his comments on the transformation of the myth of Lord Siva and ‘ Bhagavad Gita’. Because of the limitations of space I cannot write about ‘Bhagavad Gita’, so I have to conclude this showing some pictures from ‘Myth and Reality’ that shows how the image of Lord Siva changed from time to time and reached the present concept.

                                1

1)A three faced figure of Indus valley civilization which resembles Lord Siva.

                                         2                                                                                        3

2) Killer of Mahishasura (Idonesian Painting, A.D 8^th  Century)

3) Parvathi trampling the dead Siva! (Kalighat painting)

                                                                            4

4) Lord Siva with family and friends (‘Sivapanchayathana’)

                                  5                                                                                   6

5) Siva as Nataraja (A bronze statue from the South)

6) A dancer with mask (A French Ice-age painting)

                                            7                                                                            8

7) Dancing Ganesa (son of Lord Siva, A bronze statue from the South)

8) A monstrous dancer of France in the Ice Age

                                                              8

8) An emblem from the Indus Valley Civilization. It is a combination of a man and tiger.

 

                                                         9

9) Ardhanareeswara (Part of the body of this God is that of a woman. It is believed that this is a combination of Lord Siva and Parvathi)

All these pictures contributed to the making of the concept of Lord Siva. We can see how the image of Lord Siva(text) had changed during centuries and reached the present state.

I would like to conclude this by saying my concept of text.

1)      Text is something that represents a reality, concept, etc.

2)      It can be interpreted in different ways.

3)      Text reflects the ideas, views, beliefs, and concepts of the society in which it is produced. In short it has an ideology (or ideologies) in it.

4)      It can absorb new meanings when it passes through the ages.

5)      Thus it can have newer meanings.

6)      Ultimately it is not only the reader that determines the meaning of the text. Along with the triangle of text, reader, and author at least one more element should be added – ‘History’.

7)      Thus reader is not a God.

Bibliography

Kosamby,D.D. Myth and Reality. Trivandrum:Mythri Books,2006.print.

Bagwell, J.Timothy.  “Who’s Afraid of Stanley Fish?”. Poetics Today. Duke University Press, Vol.4,NO. 1 (1983). 27/10/2011.

 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772157>

Culler,Jonathen. “Stanley Fish & the Righting of the Reader”. Diacritics. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Vol. 5, No.1. (1975). 27/10/2011.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/464719

W, Edward Said. “Response to Stanley Fish”. Critical Inquiry. The University of Chicago Press, Vol. 10, No.2 (1983). 27/10/2011.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343356

How do I become part of electronic culture ?

                   We are living in a world which is dominated by electronic medias. Previously we had only one culture, that was agriculture. That is why Sardar Patel said that “I know only one culture that is agriculture.” The spirit of India lies in its pluralism. The one thing that is common to all these cultures was  Agriculture. Now the contribution of Agriculture to our national economy has decreased a lot. The same is true with its contribution to Indian culture. Now it seems that we have only one culture. That is e-culture. Electronic medias unite us more than Agriculture does. First we had telecommunication technology in the first half of the 20^th century. Then we had interactive communication technology in the latter half of the 20^th century. Both these had their impact on our culture more than one can figure out.

                              During  the time of Kalidasa, human imagination sent messages through cloud messengers. With the arrival of postal service and telegraph, human imagination was materialized. But when the electronic media came, our imagination was dematerialized  again (in the sense that messages in e-world don’t have material existence.) We no longer have cloud messengers now. Even post men are becoming an extincted species.  But we have the thing called the internet with which words reach the destination in the speed of thoughts. This is the essence of the change from cloud messages to short messages.

                            Everybody considers English as the Global Language. But the real Global Language is the Binary Language. Which has only two letters(digits) namely the ‘0’ and ‘1’. Samkhyas of ancient times believed that the world is created by the “Prakriti’ and the ‘Purusha’. Now the digital world is created by the ‘0’s and ‘1’s. Everything in this dualistic world is reduced into 0’s and 1’s.

                      Today it doesn’t matter what my name is. I will be an alpha numeric code or an even longer binary digit in my Election Identity Card or Pan Card. Men with meat and blood are reduced to lifeless digits for the convenience of machine! I am part of this digital world because I live in this world. I become part of electronic culture in the way I live in this world.

                 It will be nice to analyse the changes that happened in the atomic level also. Previously I used to watch festivals and programs on the spot. Now I can watch it in my local TV(even though I don’t prefer it). The essence of the electronic culture that I think is the dematerialization. Previously I used to browse the Library, take books and read. Now I sit at home, browse the web, find the soft copy and read. Previously, as a student, I used to submit assignments in A4 paper. Now I use ‘e’ for paper. But there is one major difference. Previously I wrote in my own handwriting, now I write  in the way any Tom, Dick,  and Harry writes! (There are fonts like ukij sulus Tom font, citizen Dick font, , Harry P font,etc!).

                                   

                                 Just like the digital world is divided by 0’s and 1’s, the citizens of the digital world are divided as 0’s – those who have no access to the internet, and the 1’s – those who have access to the internet. May be at a different level, between those who have high band width access and those who have slow connections as Dr.Rich pointed out in his essay. These are like the Haves and Have nots in the real world. This is what is called as ‘Digital Divide’ ! Now I get one hour’s internet access per day. I don’t know what my position is in this Digital World.  However I hope that things will be much better if the Language Lab is established. It will be best if we get Wi-Fi access in our hostels too. I hope for the best.