Bhartendu Harish Chandra

The early development of modern Indian theatre can be traced to the work of Bhartendu Harish Chandra (1850–1885), a theatre actor, director, manager, and playwright based in Varanasi (Banaras), who is also the father of modern Hindi literature as, in his short life of 35 years, he wrote eighteen plays. He always tried to represent India’s poverty, sufferings of the people, human need and dependency, cruel exploitation and the middle class conflictions through his great writings such as the journalism, several dramas, essays, poetry and short stories. Well-versed in folk theatre styles and oral literary traditions of the region, however his principle influence was the ancient Sanskrit drama, many of which he translated and established a stream of dramaturgy which has run parallel to the development of the Western drama, though he even translated a Shakespearean play. Rooted in the rising tide of Indian nationalism, he is most noted for his politically charged plays like, Andheri Nagari (City of Darkness) written in 1881, a clear satire on the British Raj, as it implied that a society, which tolerates a lawless state is doomed to fail, and Neel Darpan (Indigo Mirror) on the plight of indigo-plantation workers under the British Raj, which used the Dramatic Performances Act of 1876 to ban many such subversive plays.Bhartendu Harish Chandra

The early development of modern Indian theatre can be traced to the work of Bhartendu Harish Chandra (1850–1885), a theatre actor, director, manager, and playwright based in Varanasi (Banaras), who is also the father of modern Hindi literature as, in his short life of 35 years, he wrote eighteen plays. He always tried to represent India’s poverty, sufferings of the people, human need and dependency, cruel exploitation and the middle class conflictions through his great writings such as the journalism, several dramas, essays, poetry and short stories. Well-versed in folk theatre styles and oral literary traditions of the region, however his principle influence was the ancient Sanskrit drama, many of which he translated and established a stream of dramaturgy which has run parallel to the development of the Western drama, though he even translated a Shakespearean play. Rooted in the rising tide of Indian nationalism, he is most noted for his politically charged plays like, Andheri Nagari (City of Darkness) written in 1881, a clear satire on the British Raj, as it implied that a society, which tolerates a lawless state is doomed to fail, and Neel Darpan (Indigo Mirror) on the plight of indigo-plantation workers under the British Raj, which used the Dramatic Performances Act of 1876 to ban many such subversive plays.

Andheri Nagari Chaupat Raja

A boy once seeks the advice of his guru about going to a certain country to seek his living. The guru tells him not to go there by saying one line about that country "Andheri Nagri Chaupat Raja; TakehSerBhaji, TakehSerKhaja". He tells the boy that there is a fixed price for spinach and dates and everything. The citizens lack intelligence and it is an undesirable place to live. The young and unwise boy goes away.

In this strange land, one night, four brothers plan a theft and try to breach the wall of the house of a rich family. The thieves bring the wall down, and in the process are killed by the falling bricks. The mother of the thieves is angry and files a lawsuit in the court. In arguing her case before the judge, she claims that her sons were merely following their profession and the wrongly constructed wall caused their death, for which the homeowner is liable. The judge following the strange code of justice asks the homeowner why he should not be sentenced to death for the loss of the thieves' lives. The frightened homeowner uses the defense that, those who constructed the wall are the guilty party and thus the court frees him. The bricklayer is then summoned to the court and he says it is not his fault as he done his job well and the cement must have been of poor quality. The wrath of the judge and his distorted justice then descends on the cement mixer. He is accused of pouring too much water during the mixing. The cement manufacturer admits that it happened, but attributes it to his talk with and greeting of a passing mullah. While greeting the mullah, he forgot the mixing ratio of the cement and thus diluted it into a weak cement mixture. The judge calls the mullah. The honest man has no excuse and the judge pronounces death by hanging for the convicted mullah. The country’s legally fixed size noose is brought to hang the guilty offender. Whatever the fault of the mullah, he is a god-fearing man who has no committed any sin. He is quite lean. His neck is thin and his head on the small side. The noose kept slipping off his head and neck. The irritated judge then gives a decision that since the circumference of the noose is unalterable by the national code, the only way for justice to be done, is to hang the first person whom the noose fits.

The newly arrived fat boy, feasting on the cheap dates is watching the show. His stout neck fits the noose. He is to be hanged in the public square the next morning. The desperate disciple boy sent an urgent message to his guru. The guru quickly arrives early morning at the public square and causes uproar by insisting that he be hanged instead of his disciple. The judge was taken aback at this strange demand, and, even the mullah suspected something mystery. They kept asking the guru for the reason and he refused. The judge then threatened him that if he refused he would be beheaded. The guru pleaded that he must be hanged. The guru confessed that on this day of the new moon, anyone who is hanged goes straight to heaven.The judge, then insisted since he is the judge, he has to decide who should be hanged. The judge decides ‘he’ (judge) be hanged himself. In the meantime, the news reaches the king. He changes the scene and directs that his monkey be hanged. The relieved guru and disciple promptly cross the border of the strange kingdom, vowing never to return. The play was translated in English by S S Misri.

Rabindranath Tagore

At twenty, he wrote his first drama-opera: Valmiki Pratibha (The Genius of Valmiki). In it, the sage Valmiki overcomes his sins, is blessed, and compiles the epic ‘Ramayana.’ Through it, Tagore explores a wide range of dramatic styles and emotions, including usage of revamped kirtans and adaptation of traditional English and Irish folk melodies as drinking songs. Another play, ‘Dak Ghar’ (The Post Office), describes the child, Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately ‘fall asleep’, hinting at his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds".

Tagore’s other works fuse lyrical flow and emotional rhythm into a tight focus on a core idea, a break from prior Bengali drama. Tagore sought "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he released what is regarded as his finest drama: Visarjan (Sacrifice). It is an adaptation of Rajarshi, an earlier novella of his. "A forthright denunciation of a meaningless and cruel superstitious rite", the Bengali originals feature intricate subplots and prolonged monologues that give way to historical events in seventeenth-century Udaipur. The devout Maharaja of Tripura is pitted against the wicked head priest, Raghupati. His latter dramas were more philosophical and allegorical in nature; these include Dak Ghar. Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for some water to drink. 

In Rakta Karabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders"), a kleptocrat rules over the residents of Yakshapuri. He and his retainers exploit his subjects—who are benumbed by alcohol and numbered like inventory—by forcing them to mine gold for him. The naive maiden-heroine, Nandini, rallies her subject-compatriots to defeat the greed of the realm's upper class—with the morally roused king's belated help. Skirting the "good-vs-evil" trope, the work pits a vital and joyous lesemajeste against the monotonous fealty of the king's varletry, giving rise to an allegorical struggle akin to that found in Animal Farm or Gulliver's Travels. The original, though prized in Bengal, long failed to spawn a ‘free and comprehensible’ translation, and its archaic and sonorous didacticism failed to attract interest from abroad. Chitrangada, Chandalika, and ‘Shyama’ are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, are known as Nritya Natya.

Dak Ghar

The story is about Amal, an eight year old boy who is terminally ill but confined indoors by the family physician. His only contact with the outside world is through his window. From there he watches village life, engages papers-by in eager conversation from the vantage of his open window and, fascinated by a new post office visible in the distance, gives his toys to some boys so that he may see them playing from his window, and is promised by the flower-seller's daughter, Sudha, that she will bring him some flowers. From the watchman, he learns that the big building with the flag is His Majesty's new Post Office, and, the watchman suggests, the King himself may send Amal a letter. He develops a fancy that he will receive a letter from the King, an obviously allegorical personage; He makes a new world for himself, by his imagination and insatiable curiosity. The village headman hands Amal a blank sheet of paper, which he claims to be a letter from His Majesty. Amal dreams of being a royal postman himself, delivering the King's messages all around. While he awaits a visit from the King, another doctor comes and orders doors and windows to be opened, so that the stars may shine in. As Amal slowly falls asleep, perhaps to die, Sudha keeps her promise, and brings him some flowers. Amal represents the soul that has received the call of the open road. The play is a poignant tribute to the human spirit that gathers hope, even where there seems to be none. It symbolizes the whole human experience of the uncorrupted soul with its yearning and flights of imagination being trapped in the limitations of the body.

Vijay Tendulkar

Vijay Tendulkar was born on 6 January 1928 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, where his father held a clerical job and ran a small publishing business. The literary environment at home prompted young Vijay to take up writing. He wrote his first story at age 6. He grew up watching western plays and felt inspired to write plays himself. At age 11, he wrote, directed, and acted in his first play. At age 14, he participated in the 1942 Indian freedom movement, leaving his studies.

The latter alienated him from his family and friends. Writing then became his outlet, though most of his early writings were of a personal nature, and not intended for publication.

In 1972, Tendulkar wrote the acclaimed play, Ghasiram Kotwal, which dealt with political violence. The play is a political satire created as a musical drama set in 18th century Pune. It combined traditional Marathi folk music and drama with contemporary theatre techniques, creating a new paradigm for Marathi theatre. The play demonstrates Tendulkar's deep study of group psychology. ‘Ghasiram Kotwal’ remains one of the longest-running plays in the history of Indian theatre.

Ghashiram Kotwal

Ghashiram Kotwal a play by Tendulkar showcased the corruption in the society during the Peshwa regime. His character of Ghashiram is a depiction of the working class in Pune and how the Brahmin supremacy prevalent then lead to the oppression of the lower classes.Tendulkar has subtly shown what power does to men and how they become inhuman and greedy just to achieve it. The play has a historic context. The story begins with Ghashiram, a Kanauji coming to the city of Pune to try his luck and gain some money from the then rich city. His first appearance is in Bavankhanni, Pune, where he is dancing as a foil to Gulabi, a Lavani dancer. Beginning as gulabi’s servant, he graduates to becoming the servant of Nana Phadavnis, the antagonist who is the Chancellor of the Peshwa. Initially, Ghashiram is portrayed as an obedient servant to Nana but as time goes by, due to the ill treatment he gets from Nana, he becomes power hungry. He goes to the extent of sacrificing his teen daughter, Lalitagouri, to the old Nana only to secure the respectable post of the Kotwal.

Ghashiram who is oppressed initially now becomes the oppressor as power evokes a need for the dominance in him. Tendulkar portrays the evils in the society during the Peshwa rule, corruption, power structure and the ignorance of the masses.

All in all, Ghashiram Kotwal is a timeless piece of writing. The issues that are primarily dealt with in the play still remain the same even after so many years. Women still continue to be the ruled ones and the caste conflict has now become the class conflict, where the rich dominate the poor and the cycle continues. It highlights the harsh reality that even when times change, human nature remains the same. Greed for money was, is and will always a part of human nature.

In 2004, he wrote a single-act play, ‘His Fifth Woman’his first play in the English language as a sequel to his earlier exploration of the plight of women in ‘Sakharam Binder’. In his writing career spanning more than five decades, Tendulkar has written 27 full-length plays and 25 one-act plays. Several of his plays have proven to be Marathi theatre classics. His plays have been translated and performed in many Indian languages.

By providing insight into major social events and political upheavals during his adult life, Tendulkar became one of the strongest radical political voices in Maharashtra in recent times. While contemporary writers were cautiously exploring the limits of social realism, he jumped into the cauldron of political radicalism and courageously exposed political hegemony of the powerful and the hypocrisies in the Indian social mindset. His powerful expression of human angst has resulted in his simultaneously receiving wide public acclaim and high censure from the orthodox and the politically powerful. Many of Tendulkar's plays derived inspiration from real-life incidents or social upheavals.

PLAY - Silence! The Court is in Session. (Shantata! Court chalu aahe – Marathi) 

The play has since been translated into 16 languages in India and abroad. The BBC showed its English version, filmed by Satyadev Dubey. Actor-director, Om Shivpuri, directed the Hindi translation of the play as Khamosh! Adaalat Jaari Hai. The play had his wife Sudha Shivpuri in the lead role and is considered an important production in the theatre history of India. 

Mohan Rakesh

Mohan Rakesh was born as Madan Mohan Guglani on January 8, 1925, in Amritsar, Punjab. His father, a lawyer, died when he was sixteen.

M.A. in English and Hindi from Punjab University, Lahore.

He started his career as a teacher, and he taught in two colleges and a school, edited a short story magazine before deciding to write full-time. His play, Ashadh Ka Ek Din (One Day in Aashad) (1958), play a major role in reviving Hindi theatre in 1960s and AdheAdhure (The Incomplete Ones or Halfway House 1959) are highly regarded. His debut play Ashadh Ka Ek Din was first performed by a Kolkata-based Hindi theatre group Anamika, under director, ShyamanandJalan 1960) and subsequently by Ebrahim Alkazi at National School of Drama, Delhi in 1962, which established Mohan Rakesh as the first modern Hindi playwright. His plays continue to be performed and receive acclaim worldwide.

"Leheron Ke Raj Hans' (The Swans of the Waves), the most noted play of Mohan Rakesh,an ancient Buddhist tale on the renunciation of the Buddha, and its after effects on his close family.His struggle over different versions of the play lasted for nearly 20 years, before creating his masterpiece. Prominent Indian directors Om Shivpuri, Shyamanand Jalan, Arvind Gaur and Ram Gopal Bajaj directed this play.

Mohan Rakesh's three plays Ashad Ka Ek Din, Laharon Ke Rajhans and Adhe Adhure are famous; they were a rage in the world of theatre. His plays were the first choice of the directors of that time.

Play – Adhe Adhure:

Mohan Rakesh's Adhe Adhure is probably one of the most significant plays to have been written in the Hindi language. Its appearance on the theatre scene in 1968 not only caused a minor sensation, but also gave rise to a new trend in playwriting.

The play is about a five-member family caught in the vicious net of destitution. Unable to come to terms with the situation, they become tearing, ranting sub-humans almost living off each other's misery.

While the treatment of the situation is dramatically powerful, it is the searing language, the use of poignant silences pierced by verbal whip-lashes that is Rakesh's creative contribution. The play has been enacted in many languages besides Hindi. But so overpowering has been the form, that no director has ever attempted a reinterpretation of the content for fear of sacrilege. Adhe Adhure are a tragic comedy on the life of middle class people.

Dharmveer Bharati

Dr. Dharamvir Bharati was born in Allahabad on 25 December 1926 was a renowned Hindi poet, author, playwright and a social thinker of India. He did his MA in Hindi from Allahabad University in 1946 and won the Chintamani Ghosh Award for securing the highest marks in Hindi.

He was the Chief-Editor of the popular Hindi weekly magazine Dharmayug 1960 till his death in 1997. Dr. Dharamvir Bharati made a deep impact on Hindi literature and is considered as one of the most renowned Hindi poets and writers of India.

Bharati was awarded the Padma Shree for literature in 1972 by the Government of India. His novel Gunaho Ka Devta became a classic. Bharati’s Suraj ka Satwan Ghoda is considered a unique experiment in story-telling. Andha Yug, a play set in the time immediately after the Mahabharata war, is another classic that is enacted very often by drama groups.He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in playwriting (Hindi) in 1988

Play in Poetry “Andha yug”: Andha Yug (The Age of Blindness): Poetic play, structured on the events in the Mahabharata, Andha Yug focuses on the last day of the Mahabharata war. It is a powerful metaphorical theatrical work, performed by Ebrahim Alkazi, M.K. Raina, Ratan Thiyam, Arvind Gaur, Ram Gopal Bajaj, Mohan Maharishi, Bhanu Bharti and many other Indian theatre directors.

Andha Yug, the play begins on the eighteenth and last day of the Great Mahabharata War, which devastated the kingdom of the Kauravas, the feuding cousins of the Pandavas. Their capital, the once magnificent city of Hastinapur lay burning, in ruins, the battlefield of Kurukshetra was strewn with corpses, and skies filled with vultures and death lament. Fatalities were on both sides as the cousins killed each other. The survivors were left grieving and enraged as they continued to blameeach other for the destruction even divine will, yet no one was willing to view it as a consequence of their own moral choices.

Just the Ashwat thama, son of guru Dronacharya, in one last act of revenge against the Pandavas, releases the ultimate weapon of destruction, the Brahmastra, which promises to annihilate the world, yet no one comes forward to condemn it. Ethics and humanity have been the first casualties of the war. Krishna, who acted to mediate between the cousins prior to war, remains the moral centre of the play. Even in his failure he presents options that are both ethical and just and reminds that the higher or sacred way is always accessible to human beings even in the worst of times. The play ends with the death of Krishna.

Andha Yug highlights the perils of self-enchantment in his anti-war allegory. It explores human capacity for moral action, reconciliation, and goodness in times of atrocity and reveals what happens when individuals succumb to the cruelty and cynicism of a blind, dispirited age. When a ruler, epitomized by a blind Dhritarashtra, both physically and also by his ambition for his son Duryodhana, along with an equally blinded society, fail to recognise its own shadow side and that of their loved ones. It also elaborates on the consequences, when a society fails to step out of the cycle of revenge and instead chooses a redemptive path, which is always available even in worst of scenarios, as shown by Krishna’s presence amidst the mindlessness of fellow human beings. It was only when they collectively reject the voice of wisdom that denigration of war step upon them, leading to a large scale bloodshed, hinting at the perils that await a society that turns away from its wisdom and instead succumbs to the logic of the moment that can be easily swayed by emotions. Bharati uses the war of Mahabharat to make an anti-war statement but also raises questions regarding moral uprightness in the wake of Partition-related atrocities, loss of faith and national identity. Some directors have even used it to bring out contemporary issues like the role of diplomacy in the present world.