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Sunil Shanbag remembers Girish Karnad: Up to us keep his legacy alive
Updated On: 11 June, 2019 07:00 AM IST | Mumbai | Sunil Shanbag
Veteran director Sunil Shanbag remembers Girish Karnad's influence on his work, and Indian theatre
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Girish Karnad
In around 1972-73, when I was still in school, I happened to see Girish Karnad's play Hayavadana, directed by Satyadev Dubey. And that had a very strong influence on me. Even today, I remember how that performance had panned out on stage. It was clear to me after seeing Hayavadana — which involved both the play itself, and its production — that I wanted to do theatre.
Over the years, I read a lot of his plays. There were two things that connected me to what he wrote: his deep interest in folk tales and how he was able to use them as metaphors, and his love for history. He belonged to a generation of playwrights who forged an entirely new identity for contemporary Indian theatre. It was a generation of writers who were sensitive to what was happening around them and their work reflected their political concerns, and understanding of society. Girish's greatest strength was his cultural rootedness. The fact that he always wrote first in Kannada says a lot. Of course, his own English translations of his works were superb. He was a great conversationalist, extremely well read, erudite, and made connections between what you would think were very discreet things. It was that kind of a mind.
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