Girish Karnad

Girish Karnad (born May 19, 1938, Matheran, Bombay Presidency [now in Maharashtra], India—died June 10, 2019, Bengaluru, Karnataka) was an Indian playwright, author, actor, and film director whose movies and plays, written largely in Kannada, explore the present by way of the past. Alongside contemporary dramatists such as Badal Sircar and Vijay Tendulkar, Karnad transformed modern Indian theater by making it socially relevant and stylistically innovative.

Education and early works

Karnad graduated from Karnataka University in 1958 and went on to study philosophy, politics, and economics as a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford (1960–63). He wrote his first play, the critically acclaimed Yayati (1961), while at Oxford. The play, which draws from the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, recounts the story of King Yayati, an ancestor of the Pandavas. The king is condemned to premature old age by sage Shukracharya as retribution for his infidelity. The play established Karnad’s use of the themes of history and mythology that would inform his work over the following decades. Karnad’s next play, Tughlaq (1964), dramatizes the rise and decline of the 14th-century Delhi sultan Muḥammad ibn Tughluq, using the ruler’s idealism and eventual disillusionment as an allegory for political ambition and failure in modern India. It is among his best-known works.

Professional roles

Karnad joined Oxford University Press in Madras (now Chennai, Tamil Nadu) in 1963, where he worked until 1970 before turning to full-time writing. He served as director (1974–75) of the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, Maharashtra, and later as its chairman (1999–2001). He was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago (1987–88), chaired the Sangeet Natak Akademi (India’s national academy for music, dance, and drama) from 1988 to 1993, and was director of the Nehru Centre (India’s cultural outreach institute under the Indian High Commission in London) from 2000 to 2003.

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Later plays

One of Karnad’s seminal plays, Hayavadana (1971), was inspired by a tale from the Sanskrit collection Kathasaritsagara (11th century; “Ocean of Rivers of Tales”) by Somadeva and Thomas Mann’s novella The Transposed Heads (1940). The play explores questions of identity through the surreal story of a man with a horse’s head seeking to become fully human and a love triangle involving an accidental swapping of heads. With the play Nagamandala (1988), Karnad framed an unhappy contemporary marriage in imagery drawn from Kannada folk tales. He continued to produce work as a playwright in the 1990s and 2000s, including Agni Mattu Male (1998; “The Fire and the Rain”) and Benda Kalu on Toast (2012; “Boiled Beans on Toast”).

Acting and directing

Samskara (1970) marked Karnad’s entry into filmmaking. He wrote the screenplay and played the lead role in the film, an adaptation of an anti-caste novel of the same name by U.R. Ananthamurthy. Karnad followed with Vamsha Vriksha (1971), codirected by B.V. Karanth. Karnad appeared in the film Manthan (1976) as Dr. Rao, a veterinary surgeon who galvanizes rural farmers to form a dairy cooperative in a story inspired by India’s “white revolution,” a transformative farmer-led dairy development program. In Swami (1977), he portrayed Ghanshyam, a progressive husband torn between tradition and reform as he encourages his wife’s aspirations for education and independence. Karnad’s other well-known films in Kannada include Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane (1977; Godhuli) and Ondanondu Kaaladalli (1978). He also worked in Hindi, directing the critically acclaimed Utsav (1984), an adaptation of Shudraka’s 4th-century Sanskrit play Mrichchakatika.

In the television series Malgudi Days (1986–2006), based on R.K. Narayan’s stories, Karnad played W.T. Srinivasan, the father of Swami, a spirited schoolboy and central character in several of Narayan’s works. Karnad continued to work in film, directing such movies as Kanooru Heggadithi (1999) and acting in Iqbal (2005), Life Goes On (2009), and 24 (2016), among others.

Awards

Karnad was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India’s top civilian honors, in 1974 for his contributions to theater. In 1992 the Indian government awarded Karnad another of its highest honors, the Padma Bhushan, in recognition of his contributions to the arts. He was the recipient of the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary prize, in 1999 for his contributions to literature and theater.

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