Girish Karnad

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Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – ten June 2019) was an Indian actor, film producer, Kannada writer, playwright, and a Rhodes Scholar who mainly worked in South Indian cinema and Bollywood.

His rise as a playwright in Kannada marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting, just as Badal Sarkar did in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in Hindi.

He was a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award, India's highest literary award, for four decades, Karnad produced plays, often using history and mythology to explore contemporary topics.

He transcribed his plays into English and received acclaim.

His plays have been translated into several Indian languages and directed by writers such as Ebrahim Alkazi, B. V. Karanth, Alyque Padamsee, Prasanna, Arvind Gaur, Satyadev Dubey, Vijaya Mehta, Shyamanand Jalan, Amal Allanaa and Zafer Mohiuddin.

He was involved in film in Hindi and Kannada cinema as an actor, producer, and screenwriter, and has received accolades.

He was named by the Government of India on Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan and received four Filmfare Awards, three of which are the Best Director – Kannada and the fourth a Filmfare Best Screenplay Award.

He appeared on Doordarshan in 1991 as a host of a weekly science magazine program called "Point".

Early life and education

Girish Karnad was born in Matheran, Chitrapur's Brahmin family, in present-day Maharashtra, 1938. Krishnabai (née Mankikar) was a young widow with a son who belonged to a poor family. She began working as a nurse and cook for a bedridden wife of a particular Raghunad, a doctor in Bombay Medical Services, because it was necessary for her to survive. He was from the Chitrapur, Konkani speaking Saraswat Brahmin group.

Krishnabai and Dr. Raghunath Karnad were married in private ceremony five years later, although the first wife was still alive. The marriage was contested not because of bigamy (it was not legal for a Hindu man to have more than one wife before 1956), but because of the widespread social stigma against widow remarriage, widowhood prevailed. Consequently, the wedding was held private and under the custody of the Arya Samaj, a reform group that accepts widowhood remarriage. Girish was the third of the four children born after 1912, and he was the third.

Karnad's first classes were in Marathi. Later, after his father was transferred to Sirsi in the Kannada-speaking areas of Bombay Presidency, Karnad's Bombay Presidency, he was introduced to touring theatre companies and natak mandalis (theatre troupes), which were experiencing a period of emonism during the golden Balgandharva era. He was an ardent admirer of Yakshagana and the theatre in his village as a youth. When he was fourteen, his family moved to Dharwad, where he grew up with his two sisters and a niece.

In 1958, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and statistics from Karnatak Arts College in Dharwad (Karnataka University). After graduation, he returned to England and studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Magdalen, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar (1960-63), obtaining his Master of Arts degree in philosophy, political science, and economics. In 1962-63, Karnad was elected President of the Oxford Union.

Personal life

Saraswathi Ganapathy, his future wife, while serving in Madras with Oxford University Press on his return from England, attended a party. They decided to marry, but they married ten years later, when Karnad was 42 years old. Saraswathi was born to Nurgesh Mugaseth, a Parsi mother, and Kodava Ganapathy, a Kodava Hindu father. There were two children in the household. They lived in Bangalore.

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Career

He resigned after seven years with the Oxford University Press, Chennai (1963–70), and resigned to write full time. While living in Madras (now known as Chennai), he became involved with the Madras Players, a local amateur theatre group.

He appeared at the University of Chicago as a visiting professor and Fulbright playwright-in-residence from 1987-88. During his time in Nagamandala, Karl Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis hosted its world premiere, based on Karnad's English translation of the Kannada original.

He served as both director of the Film and Television Institute of India (1974-1975) and chairman of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's national academy of the performing arts (1988-93). In the Indian High Commission, London, he served as the head of the Nehru Centre and as Minister of Culture (2000-2003).

Karnad is known as a playwright. His plays, which were written in Kannada, have been translated into English (mostly translated by himself) and several Indian languages. Kannada is his word of choice.

Kannada literature was heavily influenced by Western literature's revival. Karnad began writing plays. Writers would choose a subject that was entirely foreign to the appearance of native soil. C. Rajagopalachari's version of the Mahabharata, which appeared in 1951, left a lasting impression on him, and by the mid-1950s, one day after, he experienced a flurry of dialogues with characters from the Mahabharata in Kannada, he started.

"I could actually hear the conversations being heard into my ears," the speaker said. In a later interview, Karnad said, "I was just the scribe." Yayati was first published in 1961, when he was 23 years old. It is based on King Yayati's legend, one of the Pandavas' ancestors who was cursed into premature old age by his preceptor, Shukracharya, who was chastised at Yayati's infidelity.

In return, Yayati begged his sons to sacrifice their youth for him, and one of them accepts. In Mahabharata, it ridicules life by portraying characters. Satyadev Dubey and Amrish Puri, who was the lead actor for the play, were adapted it. It was a huge success, quickly translated and performed in several other Indian languages.

Karnad took a new tactic by utilizing historical and mythological sources to address current issues and the existentialist crisis of modern man, including characters embedded in psychological and philosophical conflicts. Tughlaq (1964), about a rashly idealistic 14th-century Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq, and allegory on the Nehruvian period, which began with optimistic expectations and ended in disillusion. This established Karnad, who is now 26 years old, is known as a promising playwright in the region. The National School of Drama Repertory, under the direction of Ebrahim Alkazi, starred actor Manohar Singh, who later became disillusioned and turned bitter amidst Delhi's historic Purana Qila. In 1982, the National School of Drama in London was staged for the Festival of India.

Hayavadana (1971) was based on a theme drawn from Thomas Mann's 1941 novella The Transposed Heads, which is first discovered in the 11th-century Sanskrit text Kathasaritsagara. Herein he used Yakshagana's folk theatre style. Vijaya Mehta directed a German version of the play as part of the Deutsche National Theatre in Weimar's repertoire.

Naga-Mandala (Play with Cobra, 1988) was based on a folk tale about him by A. K. Ramanujam, who received the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award for the Most Creative Work of 1989. As part of the 30th anniversary of Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis, J. Garland Wright produced it. Agni Mattu Male (The Fire and the Rain) was commissioned by the theatre later to write the play. But Taledanda (Death by Beheading, 1990), which portrayed the background, Veerashaivism's ascension, a radical resistance, and a reform movement in Karnataka in the 12th century, helped bring out current issues, long before it was published.

In a Kannada film Samskara (1970), based on a U.R. novel, Karnad made his acting debut as well as a screenwriting debut. Pattabhirama Reddy directed Ananthamurthy and directed Ananthamurthy. That film received the first President's Golden Lotus Award for Kannada cinema.

In television, he played Swami's father in the television series Malgudi Days (1986–1987), which was based on R. K. Narayan's books. In the early 1990s, he co-founded the science journal Turning Point on Doordarshan.

Vamsha Vriksha (1971), based on a Kannada book by S. L. Bhyrappa, was his directorial debut. Along with B. V. Karanth, who co-directed the film, it earned him the National Film Award for Best Direction. Later, Karnad produced several films in Kannada and Hindi, including Godhuli (1977) and Utsav (1984). Karnad has produced a number of documentaries, including one on Kanaka Dasa and Purandara Dasa, as well as one on two medieval Bhakti poets. Several of his films and documentary films have received numerous national and international awards.

Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane, Ondanondu Kaladalli, Cheluvi, and Kaadu's most recent film Kanooru Heggaditi (1999), based on a Kannada writer Kuvempu's novel, is one of his best Kannada films.

Nishaant (1975), Manthan (1976), Swami (1977), and Pukar (2000) were among his Hindi films. He has appeared in a number of Nagesh Kukunoor films, beginning with Iqbal (2005), where Karnad's role as the ruthless cricket coach earned him critical praise. Dor (2006), 8 x 10 Tasveer (2009), and Aashayein (2010) were among the leading figures in the series. He appeared in the films "Ek Tha Tiger" (2012) and its sequel "Tiger Zinda Hai" (2017), directed by Yash Raj Films.

In the Kannada gangster film Aa Dinagalu, Karnad has appeared.

In the audiobook of Kalam's autobiography by Charkha Audiobooks, Wings of Fire, he provided the voice of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, former President of India.

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