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Mohan

akesh,

odernism,

nd hePostcolonialresent

Aparna

Dharwadker,

University

ofWisconsin-Madison

1. Geomodernism and the Indian-Language Playwright

The

fin-de-siecle critical

project

of

redefining

the

spatio-temporal

boundaries of modernism has

recently gathered

new momentum

by

taking up the question of modernism's relation to colonialism and

postcolonialism.

The

formative nfluence of non-western

aesthetic and

cultural

practices

(especially

those

belonging

to

colonized

peoples)

on

Euro-American

modernisms is a

well-noted event

in

the histories of

modern

iterature nd art.1But the

reciprocal

nfluenceof Euro-modern-

ist

theory

and

practice

on

post/colonial

expressive

forms is

only

now

beginning

to receive

attention.

Some currentwork

at

the intersection

of

modernist

and

postcolonial

studies demonstratesboth

the

necessity

and the

difficulty

of

devising

an

adequatemethodology

for

dealing

with

"modernism tthemargins,"and I will approachmy discussion of Mo-

han

Rakesh a

late-twentieth-centuryndian-language

modernist

n

the

theatre

by way

of

three seminal

arguments

about the

reconfiguration

of

modernism-as-subject.

Describing postcolonial

writers' emulationof

high

modernistssuch

as T. S. Eliot

and W. B. Yeats

as "the

great irony

of the

history

of

post-

colonial

literatures,"

imon

Gikandinonetheless assertsthat

a

convergence

f

political

nd

iterary

deologies

mark[s] sig-

nificant artof thehistoryof modernism ndpostcolonialism.

Indeed,

t is

my

contentionhat t

was

primarily

I

am

empted

to

say

solely

in

the

language

nd

structure

f

modernism

hat

a

postcolonial xperience

ame o

be articulatednd

magined

in

literary

orm.The

archiveof

earlypostcolonialwriting

n

Africa,

he

Caribbean,

nd

India s dominated

y

anddefined

by

writers

whose

political

r

cultural

rojects

were

enabled

y

modernism

ven whenthe

ideologies

of the

latter,

s was

the

case

with

Eliot,

wereat

oddswith

he

project

f decolonization

. . .

[W]ithout

modernism,

ostcolonial

iteratures we know t

wouldperhaps otexist.2

These are

far-reaching

laims about he

centrality

of modernism

o

post-

colonial

writing,

and

they

call for a radical

revision of the

conventional

© South

CentralReview 25.1

(Spring2008):

136-162.







I

38 SOUTH CENTRAL

REVIEW

eth

century

authors,

across the

spectrum

of

genres

and

languages.

As a

memberof the firstgenerationof Indian-languagewriterswhose careers

unfoldedafter

political

ndependence

n

1947,

Rakesh

exemplifies

many

of the

larger iterary,political,

and culturalrelations

(and

ruptures)

hat

are seminal to

any

discussion of Indianmodernism those between

co-

lonial

and

postcolonial

modernities,

ndigenous

traditionsand western

influences,

Indian

anguages

and

English, bourgeois-romantic

ational-

ism and ironic

individualism,

Left

ideology

and

a

skeptical

humanism,

nationalism and

cosmopolitanism,

center and

periphery,

village

and

city.

His

conscious

and

unconscious

self-fashioning

as

a

postcolonial

modernistappears n the wide rangeof literaryand"personal" enres

he

practiced, ncluding

short

stories, novels,

plays,

essays,

interviews,

conversations,

eviews, diaries,

and etters.

In

the

specific

case

of

drama,

Rakesh's three

full-length plays

show

a

radical

sensibility working

through

he

matter

of

the remotehistorical

past

as well as the immediate

present.

Ashadh ka ek din

(A

Day

in

Early

Autumn,

1958),

and

Lahron

ke

rajhans(The

Royal

Swans on the

Waves,

1963)

place

theirhistorical

protagonists

the

canonical

fifth

century

Sanskrit

poet

Kalidasa and

the Buddha's

stepbrother

Nand,

respectively-

in

largely

invented ac-

tions thatunderscore he intenselyhumandramaof separationand loss

elided

in

the

metanarratives f

history.

The third

play,

Adhe adhure

The

Unfinished,

1969)

returns

o the

postcolonial

urban

present

to

portray

the

collapse

of a

middle-class

family

unable to

cope

with its

declining

material

circumstancesand

fractured

elationships.

All

three

plays

are

establishedclassics of

post-independence

heatre,

kept

in

constantcir-

culation as

texts and

performances

n

the

original

Hindi,

as well as

in

multiple

Indian-language

ranslations.

Yet none is

currently

available

n

an

acceptable

English

translation,

n

India or

elsewhere,

and Rakesh is

effectivelyabsent romthemapof contemporary world" heatre.While

in

Hindi he

continues at the

center of

a

flourishing

ndustry

of

posthu-

mous

publication,

scholarship,

and

criticism,

he

commentary

n

him in

English

remains

argely ournalistic,

andreaders

n

the

West

have access

to

only

a

handfulof

scholarly

considerationsof his work.6

Rakesh is

therefore a

pristine subject

for modernist

recovery,

one

whose oeuvre

offers

an

opportunity

to uncover that

"language

and

structure f

modernism" n

which,

according

o

Gikandi,

"a

postcolonial

experience

came to be

articulated nd

magined

n

literary

orm."7

n

the

following section,I considerthe conceptsof modernityand modernism

as

they appear

at

the levels of

taxonomy, heory,

and

practice

n

Indian

literature nd

cultureafter

the mid-nineteenth

entury,providing

a con-

ceptual

framework

or

successive

generations

of

pre-

and

post-indepen-







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,

&THE POSTCOLONIAL PRESENT DHARWADKER 1

39

dence writers.

then

move to

a

discussionof the modernist

positions

that

appear n Rakesh'stheoryand criticism over the course of his career,

especially

in

his

arguments

about

creativity,

authorship,

orm, content,

and

language.

In

the

final

section,

I

take

up

Adhe adhure as a

dramaof

urban

dysfunction

which combines

realism

with several structural

n-

novations

to accommodate he

psychodrama

of home and

family

the

privileged

narrative f realism

n

modernwestern heatre to the Indian

metropolis.

To be

analyzed

without

misrepresentation

and

fallacy,

however,

Rakesh's

postcolonial,

Indian-language

heatricalmodernism

requires

somecorrectivesbeyondthoseofferedby thetransnational erspectives

of current

cholarship.

Even as the boundariesof modernismhave ex-

panded

n

time

and

space,

theoristsand critics situated

n

the American

academy

(whatever

their cultures

of

origin)

have

given overwhelming

priority

o the

European

anguages especiallyEnglish)

as the connective

links

between western

and non-westerncultural

production,

and

to the

genre

of

prose

fiction as the

privileged

vehicle of a

global modernity.

In

the collection

Geomodernisms,

or

instance,

only

two of

the

sixteen

essays

Ken

Seigneurie's

discussion of Lebanesenovels

in

Arabic,

and

Sung-shengYvonneChang'sof Taiwan-Chinese ew Cinema- dealwith

non-Europhone

materials;

none of

the

essays

has dramatic

performance

as its

mainfocus. Susan

Friedman's

uperbparatactic

eading uxtaposes

novels

fromtwo

very

different

places

andmoments

n

the twentieth

cen-

tury

E. M.

Forster's

A

Passage

to India

(1924)

and Arundhati

Roy's

The God

of

Small

Things

(1996)

to

explore

"some

unexpected

lines

of

affiliationand

cultural

mimesis,"

with the task of

comparison

clearly

facilitated

by

the authors'

ommonmedium

of

English. Similarly,

Ariela

Freedman

ocates

the

"Ganges

ide of modernism"

n

India

n the

photog-

raphyof RaghubirSingh(dispensingwith language altogether)and the

Anglophone

iction

of Amitav Ghosh.8

The same

predispositions

appear

in

the broader

ield

of

postcolonial

criticism:

Simon

Gikandi,

Tejumola

Olaniyan,

Jahan

Ramazani,

Rosemary

MarangolyGeorge,

and Fawzia

Afzal-Khan

are

among

the

diasporic

critics

in the American

academy

whose

studies

of

modern/ist

African,

Caribbean,

nd Indian

writing

deal

principally,

f not

exclusively,

with

Anglophone

materials;

Olaniyan

s

also

the

only

scholar

concerned

with theatre

o

any

notable

extent.

9

From

a

methodological

standpoint,

he

simultaneously

nclusive

and

exclusive logic of revisionaryapproachess perhapsclearest nRebecca

Walkowitz's

Cosmopolitan

tyle:

Modernism

Beyond

theNation

(2006),

which delineates

a

tradition

of British

literary

modernism

extending

from

the novels of

Joseph

Conrad,

James

Joyce,

and

Virginia

Woolf at







140

SOUTH

CENTRAL

REVIEW

the

beginning

of

the twentieth

century

o those of W. G.

Sebald,

Salman

Rushdie,and KazuoIshiguroat the end, on the premisethat the earlier

group

of writers

developed

a

"specific repertoire

of

literarystrategies"

that

were transformed

y

writersof the later

group.

Walkowitz

herefore

considers he

late-twentieth-century

'internationalization

f

English

it-

erature' . . not

only

as

an

expansion

of

places,

actors,

andeven

languages

but also as an

extension of modernist

impulses

and

practices"

which

saves modernism rom

being

restricted o

"a

single

historical

period

(the

early

twentieth

century)

or to a

single global

orientation

'Europe'

or 'the

West')."10

ut her

focus remainson

English

and

England:

although

her

reading effectively superimposes he literaryproductsof postcolonial

migrancy

and

diaspora

onto the

map

of

late-twentieth-century

British"

literature,

he

migrant

authors

she

considers

reconfigure

modernism

by

arriving

n

the

post-imperialmetropolis

and

embracing

ts

language.

To

contend

ully

with the

postcolony

n

all its multifaceted

omplexity,

hen,

modernist tudiesneed a fourfoldreorientation: f

chronology,

rom

the

early

to the late twentieth

century;

of

location,

from the West

to

Africa,

Asia,

and

the

Caribbean;

f

language,

from the

global

marketplace

of

Europhone/English

writing

to the less

visible,

but no less

significant

field of non-European anguages drawn into the orbit of modernity;

and of

genre,

from

prose

fiction, non-fiction,

and

poetry

to theatre

and

performance.

For

such

a

shift to be

meaningful,

however,

we

have to

dispense

with

two

interrelated

ssumptions

hatare

especially misguided

n

relation

o

India: hat in

the hands of Indian

writers,

both

English

and the modern

Indian

anguagesembody

"vernacular"ultureand

experience,

and

that

the

postcolony

must

always

and

only represent

a

"periphery"

n relation

to

the

imperial

"center."For

instance,

n

addressing

he visual medium

of photography s well as theverbalmediumof fiction,ArielaFreedman

returns

ompulsively

o the idea of

"vernacular"

rt: n her

view,

Raghubir

Singh attempts

o create

a

"modernist ndianvernacular

n

photography,"

and

"Singh

and Ghosh at once

demand he creationof

a

new vernacular

andretainan

integral

ink

to

the

past."11

ince the term vernacular"efers

to

a

"native

anguage"

or "mother

ongue,"English

can be

described

as

a vernacular n

India

only

in

the

pejorativemetaphorical

ense of a me-

dium that is

inherently

econdary

o the dominant orms of the West

a

value-judgment

belied

by

the

cosmopolitanism,

global readership,

and

diasporicocationsof major ndian-English riters, romSalmanRushdie

to

Rohinton

Mistry

and

Jhumpa

Lahiri.The term is no less

misleading

for

major

Indian

anguages

such as

Hindi or

Bengali,

whose

history

and

evolution

parallel

hose

of the

modem

European anguages,

and n which







M.

RAKESH,

MODERNISM,

&THE POSTCOLONIAL PRESENT DHARWADKER 14 1

written

iteratures ave existed for

a

millennium.

Sanskrit,

he classical

language n relation o which the modern anguageswould be vernacu-

lars,

began

its decline

in

the

twelfth

century,

while

English,

the

imperial

language

hattook hold

in

the nineteenth

century,

has

not

dislodged

the

modern

iterary

ultures

of the

major

ndigenous anguages.

Hindi,

which

is Mohan Rakesh's

chosen

medium,

is also the third most

frequently

spoken language

n

the

world,

after MandarinChinese and

English.

As

later sections

demonstrate,

Rakesh is not

a

"vernacular"writer but a

cosmopolitan

modernist

ully cognizant

of Western

movements,

but also

fully

committed o

an

indigenized

aesthetic,

his

cosmopolitanism

nher-

ing preciselyin theculturalambidexterity f his vision. Ifhis medium s

not

that

of

the western

imperialmetropolis,

t is a

medium

with its own

thousand-year

mperial

and

metropolitan istory;

and

f

his

modernism

s

furthest rom

he

Anglo-European

enter

n

terms

of

geography,anguage,

and cultural

codes,

it

is

proximateenough

in

theoretical,aesthetic,

and

political

terms

to constitutean

important

ormationwithin

geomodern-

ism.

To

acknowledge

this

global genealogy

is to unsettle the Eurocentric

binarism

f center

and

periphery:

modernism

an no

longer

be

approached

asanexclusivelywesternaesthetic,andnon-westernmodernisms annot

be claimed

as

merely

derivative

or

subsidiary

versions of

a

hegemonic

practice.

Studies

of

postcolonial

modernism husdo not

need to

be

preoc-

cupied

with what

Gikandicalls

"theroles

played by

ostensible

margins

in

the constitution

of culturalcenters"

or what Walkowitzdescribes

as

the

"persistent

fforts

to

reimagine

the center

in

terms of

peripheries,

within

and

without,"12

specially

when

European anguages

are not the

media

of

composition.

Rather,

o deal with

postcolonial

literatureand

theatre

n a

multilingual

ocation such

as

India,

one has to

reimagine

he

periphery s thecenter,and attend o the internalprocessesof modernist

self-

fashioning.

"Our

explicit

aim,"

Doyle

and Winkiel

observe,

"is to

collapse

the

margin

and center

assumptions

embedded

n

the termmod-

ernism

by conjuring

nstead

a

web of

twentieth-centuryiterarypractices,

shaped

by

the

circuitry

of

race,

ethnicity,

nativism,

nationalism,

and

imperialism

n

modernity,

nd

by

the idea or

commodity

of

'modernism'

itself."13

he

same

preference

or

plurality

ppears

n Friedman's ssertion

that

"thenew

geography

of modernismneeds

to locate

many

centers

of

modernity

across

the

globe,

to focus

on the cultural

raffic

inking

them,

andto interpret he circuitsof reciprocal nfluence and transformation

that take

place

within

highly unequal

state relations."14

My

discussion

in the remainder

of this

essay attempts

o

locate

one such

center

in

the

discourses

of

modernity

ndmodernism

n

India,

particularized

n

Mohan







142

SOUTH

CENTRAL

REVIEW

Rakesh's

theoretical

arguments

about literatureand

theatre,

and

in his

groundbreakingastfull-lengthplay.Given theraritywith which Indian-

language

writersare drawn nto this

conversation,

Rakesh

appears

n

my

analysis

not

only

as an

individual

alent but as a

paradigmatic

igure

of

transition rom colonialism to

postcolonialism

who

must be accommo-

dated

appropriately

within

modernist

studies and

geomodernism.

2. Modernity and

Modernism

in India:

Taxonomy, Theory,

Practice

The commonest terms for "modern" nd

"modernity"

n the Indian

languages

are adhunikaand

adhunikata,

respectively,

and

they

appear

with the

greatest frequency

in

two

leading literary languages

of

the

modern

period,

Hindi

and

Bengali.15

Both

terms

designate

a chronol-

ogy

circa

1

850 to the

present

as well as

a

complex

of

literary,

ultural,

and

political

qualities.

In

the

cultural-political phere,

the

terms define

a

period ("the

modern

age");

a

phase

in

the

history

of

society

and

the

nation

("modern

ndia");

and

particularways

of

thinking

"modern"

t-

titudes

to,

say,

society,

the

family, sexuality,

and

gender).

In

the

literary

sphere,

they

denotea

body

of

writing

("modern"

Bengali

or

Punjabi

or

Gujarati iterature);

phase

in the

development

of a

language

"modern"

Assamese);

specific

authors

ranging widely

in

time and

place

(Ban-

kimchandra

Chatterjee

1838-94],

Rabindranath

agore

[1861-1941],

Buddhadeva

Bose

[1908-74],

Gopal

Krishna

Adiga

[1918-1992],

and

Girish

Karnad

1938- ],

to name

a

few); genres

such as

fiction,

poetry,

drama,

and

criticism;

modes

such as

comedy

and

satire;

forms such

as

love

poetry;

particular

echniques

of versificationand

fictionalization;

and even the

qualities

of fictionalcharacters

n

novels or

plays.

In

many

criticalstudies, he

concept

of adhunikata odh s

employed

asameasure

of the "sense"or

"understanding"

f

modernity

n the workof

a

particular

authoror

group

of authors.

"Modern"

s

also

variouslysynonymous

with

"new"

{naya

or

navya) "contemporary"sarnakaleen),"progressive"

(pragatisheel),

and

even

"post-independence"

svatantrayottara);

ts

established

antonym

s

"tradition"

parampara).

However,

he

equivalent

term for

"modernism" adhunikatavad is

entirely

absent

in

Indian-

language

taxonomy

and

theory.

The theoretical erm closest to

it

is ut-

tara-adhunikatavad

postmodernism),

ndthe dozen or

so

works

dealing

with thismovementin the Indian anguagesarecompletelydwarfedby

the

currency

of adhunika

and adhunikata.

The

absence of a distinctionbetween

"modernity"

nd

"modernism"

in

Indian

axonomypresents

a

notable contrast o the

West,

which con-







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,

&THE POSTCOLONIAL PRESENT

DHARWADKER 143

tinues to

regard

modernismas a

specific aesthetic-politicalexpression

of modernity,however permeableits boundaries.16 he Indianusage

has to be

understood, herefore,

n

relation

to two

defining

features of

subcontinental

iterarymodernity:

he

pervasiveness

and

simultaneous

indigenization

of western

influences,

and a

paradoxical

relation

to tra-

dition.

According

to

Dipesh Chakrabarty,

the

very

colonial crucible

n

which

Bengali

[readIndian]

modernityoriginated

ensured

hat t

would

not be

possible

to

fashion a historical

account of the birth of this mo-

dernity

without

reproducing

ome

aspect

of

European

narrativesof the

modern

ubject

for

Europeanmodernity

was

present

at this birth."17or

example, nnineteenth-centuryrama ndtheatre"modernity"meant he

importation

of a new

Anglo-Europeanperformance

culture

consisting

of urban commercial

theatres,

proscenium

staging,

an

expanding

and

literate

middleclass

audience,

andnew dramatic orms

(the

social-realist

play,

the

history play,

political allegory,

and so

on),

all

undergirded y

the enormous

nfluenceof

Shakespeare.

But

if

the forms and institutions

of colonial

performance

were

borrowed,

ts

languages

were overwhelm-

ingly

Indian,

and

its

subjects

came

largely

from Indian

myth, history,

literature,

ociety,

and

politics.

The aestheticof

western-style

realistand

political dramadeveloped alongside indigenizedforms of musical and

spectacular

heatre;

Kalidasa

emerged

as

the

canonical

counterpart

o

Shakespeare.

As

Sudipta

Kaviraj

notes,

"modernitypresented

writers

with two

different

iterary

worlds,

one drawn

rom

Indian

raditions,

he

other from

the West.

Authors

mprovisedby using

elements

from both

aesthetic

alphabets

and

produced

new

forms that were irreducible o

either."

Hence

a

"distinctively

ndian . .

species

of the

literary

modern"

emerged

from the colonial

encounter,

one which distanced tself

from,

but

also

assimilated,

radition.18

Conceptually,herefore, ndianmodernitys definedoverwhelmingly

by/as

that

initial moment of

rupture

rom

indigenous

tradition

brought

about

by

colonialism,

one

that

contains

all

subsequentdisjunctions

s ex-

tensions

of

the

original

breach.For

example,

hePicador Book

of

Modern

IndianLiterature

egins

chronologically

with MichaelMadhusudanDutt

(born

n

1824)

and ends

with Sunetra

Gupta

born

n

1965)

a

strategy

of

periodization

nd

grouping

without

parallel

n

western

representations

of

modernity.

t

is

possible

for

critics

writing

a decade

apart

o describe

Mohan

Rakesh

(b.

1925)

as the "messiah

of modern

theatre,"

and

the

Hindi poet-playwrightBharatenduHarishchandraborn seventy-five

years

earlier)

as a "fountainhead

f Indian

modernity."19

s a

chronologi-

cal

and

qualitative

ategory,

ndian

iterary

modernityencapsulates

part

of

the nineteenth

century

and

all

of the

twentieth,

as well as

the work of







144

SOUTH CENTRAL

REVI W

individual

authors

anywherealong

the

spectrum,

althoughTagore

s

the

only authorconnectedexplicitlyto modernism.20dmittedly, he use of

the terms

adhunikaand adhunikatahas accelerated

remendously

ince

independence:

1972 of the 2142

items

in

the first

category,

and 95 of 96

items

in

the second

belong

to the

post-

1950

period, suggesting

that

the

formulation

of the idea

of

modernity

as

been

mainly

a

post-independence

preoccupation some

theorists

even assert

hat"real"

modernity

belongs

only

to the

post-independence

writers,

not their colonial

precursors).

But

in

terms

of the

frame

of reference,

he most common

usage posits

modernity

as

a

process

that

began

in

the nineteenth

century

and

contin-

ues into thepresent,withoutanyovertacknowledgmentof a modernist

configuration

n

the latertwentieth

century.

Demarcating

modernismas

a

particularphase

within the continuum

of

modernity

s

important,

owever,

because of the

very

intensity

of the

rupture

etweencolonial

and

postcolonial

ormsof

expression

across he

entire

spectrum

f

genres

and

anguages.

n

Kaviraj

s

phrase,

he colonial

writers

possessed

a

"travestic

modernity"

n

which the

accomplishments

of one

generation

were

cancelledout and

"made

mpossible"

by

the

next.

In

Bengali,

even

major

authors uch as Dutt and

Tagore

could not create

"arepertoireof acknowledgedstyles in which literarywritingcould be

carriedon for the

indefinite

uture,"

eading

to

a

demand

or

change

"in

the fundamental

aesthetic itself."21

n

theatre,

the

first

serious

critique

of colonial

practices

came from

the Indian

People's

TheatreAssociation

(IPTA),

which was

launched

n

1943 as the

anti-Fascist,

anti-imperialist

cultural

wing

of the Communist

Party

of India. The

IPTAmanifestoes

describedurban

dramaof the

previous

half

century

as

having

fallen to

"some of

the lowest

depths

of

degeneration"

ecause

of its

dependence

on inane

middle-class

conventionality

or its

escape

into "bad

history

and senseless mythology."22 ooting itself in the "significant acts, as-

pirations,

and

struggles

of

our

people,"

the movement also asserted

ts

commitment

o

a

"national"

erspective:

"theIPTA n

its dramatic

works,

while

always

keen to

imbibe

healthy

nfluences

rom

abroad,

must strive

to

see

that

its work

is

rooted

in

the national radition.All

cosmopolitan

tendencies,

which have no

relevance to our

living

conditions,

must be

opposed."23

decade

later,

however,

the IPTA

was

in

serious decline as

a

populist

national

theatre

movement,

and the

first

generation

of

major

post-independence

playwrights

was

shaped precisely by

the

opposite

values of a rooted cosmopolitanismand a skeptical, if not intensely

critical,

attitude

oward he nation.

Modernism in

Indian theatre is

therefore

a

postcolonial

(and

still

unfolding)

phenomenon,

and the dominant

aesthetic of the

period







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,


45

(1955-1975)

during

which such

playwrights

s Dharamvir

Bharati,

Vijay

Tendulkar,adalSircar,GirishKarnad, ndmostnotably,MohanRakesh,

produced

heir

pioneering

work

(Left-wingpolitical

theatrewas the

only

major

orm

outside ts

ambit).

n

specific

relation o the

West,

his Indian-

language

modernism

appears

more inevitable han

deliberate:

t is

not so

much

that

certain

authors et out

self-consciously

to emulateEuro-mod-

ernism

n

the

mid-twentieth

century,

but

that,

given

their

cosmopolitan

conditioning,

aesthetic

proclivities,

and historical

circumstances,

hey

compulsively

reinvented

modernism

or

theirown time

and

place.

With

respect

o

colonial

antecedents,

hese

authors

distance hemselves

equally

from the commercialismof theatre mpresarios uch as Girish Chandra

Ghosh

(1844-1912)

and

D. L.

Roy (1864-1913),

and the nationalist

cultural

roject

of

literaryplaywrights

uch as Michael

MadhusudanDutt

(1824-1873),

BhartenduHarishchandra

1850-1885),

and Jaishankar

Prasad

1889-1

937).

Like colonial

playwrights,

he

postcolonial

modern-

ists

turn

obsessively

to

Indian

myth

and

history,

but

mainly

to

re-imagine

the

past

as

a radical

analogue

or

an

imperfect

present;

he

plays

they

set

in

the

present

are

mainly

realist

portraits

f the modernurban ndividual

caught

n the

nexus of

familial claims and

societal norms.

Both

settings

producederomanticized nddeeplyambivalentviews of the nationand

national

culture.

Most

importantly,

hese

playwrights represent

what

Fredric

Jameson

calls

the "full-blown

deology

of modernism"

"that

moment

n

which

the

modern

. .

[is]

theorized

and

conceptually

named

and identified

n

terms

of

the

autonomy

of the aesthetic."24

nd

they

do

so

by

establishing

new models

of

literary

authorship

n

which drama

appears

or the

first time

as a

"private"

extual act

dissociable

in

prin-

ciple

though

not

in

practice

from

performance.

It is worth

emphasizing

at this

point

that he

appropriate

mbrella

erm

for these shifts in the theoryandpracticeof Indiantheatre s modern-

ism

rather

han

postmodernism.

Theorists

such as

Edward

Said,

Gayatri

Spivak,

andHomi

Bhabha,

and

the

leadingpoetician

of

postmodernism,

Linda

Hutcheon,

have

variously

encouraged

he

parallel

dentification

f

postcolonialism

nd

postmodernism

s

revisionary

ate-twentieth-century

aesthetic

and

political

movements.

Hutcheon

ocates

the

principal

over-

lap

between

the two

in their

common

opposition

to

"a

generalized

and

usually

demonized

. . .

thing

called

modernity,

and its

artistic

expres-

sion,

modernism,"25

hich

was

seen

as "an

international

movement,

elitist, imperialist, 'totalizing,'willing to appropriate he local while

being

condescending

owards

ts

practice."26

ther

mportantpoints

of

contact

are

a

common

interest

n

self-reflexivity,

rony,

and

marginality,

and

a

suspicion

of

history

as

an authoritative

discourse about the

past.







1

46 SOUTH CENTRAL

REVIEW

Hutcheon

admits,

however,

hat he

complicit

politics

of

postmodernism

presenta strongcontrast o the oppositionalpolitics of postcolonialism,

while

its deconstructive

mpulses

can be

disempowering:

"The current

post-structuralist/postmodernhallenges

to

the

coherent,

autonomous

subject

have to be

put

on hold

in

feminist

and

post-colonial

discourses

. .

[those]

challenges

are

in

many

ways

the

luxury

of the dominant

order

which can

afford

o

challenge

thatwhich

it

securelypossesses."27

The

very glibness

of this comment

points

to

a

problematic

dissonance

between

Hutcheon'sneat theoretical

generalizations

and the

particular

discourses

hat

are her

subject.

As

AnthonyAppiah

has

pointed

out

with

reference to a specific genre, Europhone,postcolonialAfrican novels

are

fictions of

delegitimation

hat

reject

the western

imperium

as well

as the nationalist

project

of the

postcolonialbourgeoisie,

but are not

for

this reason

postmodern

works. Like

postmodernism,

postcolonialism

challenges

earlier

legitimating

narratives,

but

in

the name of

an ethi-

cal universal

and

a

simple respect

for human

suffering.

"And

on

that

ground,"

Appiah

concludes,

"it s not an

ally

for Western

postmodernism

but

an

agonist,

from which

I

believe

postmodernism

may

have some-

thing

to learn."28

riedman

argues

that

the modernisms

emerging

from

thenationalistic,decolonizing mpulsesof postcolonialismneed time to

establish

themselves,

but "to call

[these]

postliberation

arts

'postmod-

ern' as

they

often are is to miss the

point entirely."29

t is

significant

in

this context that

SalmanRushdie'sembraceof

postmodern

migrancy

and his

predilection

for

irony,parody,

and

pastiche

make

him

the

only

anglophone

authorof

South-Asian

origin

who is invoked

by

Western

theoristsof the

postcolonialpostmodern.

Ariela Freedman

trategically

juxtaposes

Rushdiewith two

postcolonial

moderns,

Raghubir

Singh

and

Amitav

Ghosh,

both

of

whom

describe modernism as conducive

and

postmodernism s tangential o theirart.Inhabiting he language-world

of Hindi

rather

han

English,

Rakesh's

writing

in

its

entirety

evokes

an

indigenized

but

cosmopolitan

aesthetic

that is also

emphatically

mod-

ernist,

not

postmodernist,

nd

intersects

with the more familiar orms of

Euro-modernism

n

especially fascinatingways.

3.

The

Cosmopolitan

Modernism of Mohan

Rakesh

In

a theatre

culturewhere most

playwrights

offer little self-reflexive

commentaryon theirchosen genre,Rakesh'ssystematicreflectionson

dramaand

theatreover the course of a controversial areermake

up

an

extraordinary

rchive,

especially

in

light

of his

premature

death

at

the







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,


DHARWADKER 147

age

of

forty-seven

n

1972. Collected

posthumously,

most

recently

in a

convenientsingle volume titledNatya-vimarsha,30he writingsvaryin

form,

subject,

and

occasion,

but are

linked

by

a

cosmopolitan

ensibility

thatmoves

fluidly

between

the

personal/local,

he

regional,

he

national,

and he international.

n

his

play prefaces

anda handfulof

personal

ssays,

Rakesh ocuses

specifically

on the Hindi

stage

andhis own

position

within

the traditionsof

Hindi

and Indiantheatre.But the

general questions

to

which he returns

epeatedly

the nature

of

modernity,

he

relevance of

western o Indian

practices,

he relationof words and

anguage

o

theatre,

and

drama'srelation o

technology

and the

technological

media of

film

andradio are nvariably ormulatednthe contextof worldtheatre,es-

pecially

modernwestern heatre.Such authors s

Chekhov,Gorki,Kafka,

Woolf, Eliot,

Spender,

Sartre,Camus,

Hemingway,

Brecht,Beckett,

and

Pinter

appear

n

the

essays

as

strategicpoints

of reference or

arguments

about

criticism,

authorship,

orm,

sexuality,

he inbuilt obsolescence of

avant-garde xperiments

n

theatre,

ndso on.

Complementing

he

essays

are

a series of

public

and

polemical

forumsfor Rakesh's deas: the 1966

East-

WestSeminar

n

Bombay,

a conversation

with the

Soviet

playwright

Alexei

Arbuzov

(date

unavailable),

a

long

interview

with

Carlo

Coppola

(recordedn 1968andpublished n 1973),and a NationalRoundtableon

the

Contemporary

elevance

of Traditional

heatre,

rganizedby

India's

National

Academy

of the

Performing

Arts

in

1971. His most

complex

intercultural

experience

came

in

1970-71,

when he visited

Geneva,

Moscow,

Vienna,

Prague,

Munich,Paris,

London,

East andWest

Berlin,

Copenhagen,

Stockholm,

and

Helsinki to

gather

materials or

his Nehru

Fellowshipproject

itled

"TheDramaticWord."

At

the

time of his

death,

Rakesh

was

preparing

o

visit Southeast

Asia

and the United States for

further

esearch,

and left

behind

an outline of

the

project

n

English

that

formsanAppendixto Natya-vimarsha.

In

view

of

this

internationalism

an important

dimensionof Rakesh's

cosmopolitanism),

his

"modernity"

ould well

be

regarded

as an effect

of

his

membership

n the

synchronous

ommunity

of

world theatre.

His

modernist

positions,

however,

are

intimately

related to

the sense of

a

radical

upture

etween

he

"old"

and he

"new"

n

mid-twentieth-century

Indian-language

writing

a

break

hat s

generational

s

well as historical

because

t

coincides

with

the transition

romcolonialism

o

postcolonial-

ism.

Rakesh

regards

he event

of

Partition

n 1947

as the

beginning

of

a crisis thatenvelopedthe generationof writerswho came to maturity

in

the

1954-64

period,

giving

this decade the same transformative ole

that the 1910s

performed

n

Anglo-modernism.

The immediate

context

of

much of his

theorizing

s

the

emergence

of the "new short

story"

and







1

48

SOUTH

CENTRAL

REVIEW

the "new

poetry"

in

Hindi,

but the

crucial

general

stance is

a

sense

of

absolute and irreconcilable difference from the pre-independence genera-

tion,

proclaimed

in

an

essay appropriately

titled "Imaratein tutane

par"

("On

the

Collapse

of

Structures"):

A new era

does

not

begin

in

literature

until the consciousness

of the

age

has been

converted nto

certainconvictions

and un-

certainties.As

long

as

some

entrenched deas continue

o

propel

consciousness,

the earlier

age

that s in decline does

not come to

an end. In the

years

after

Partition,

he clash between

the

outgo-

ing

and

incoming

eras

has been

constantly

evident ...

In this

kind of battle,thereare no

grounds

for

give-and-take.

.

[and]

any

talk of a

compromise,

of

"taking

he

good

and

rejecting

he

bad in both"

seems

pointless

and unfounded.

This

is

not a crisis

of

relative

achievements,

aboutwhat is

good

in

one or

the

other,

but of two

radically opposite

visions that cannotbe reconciled

under

any

circumstances.31

This

sense of mutual

antagonism appears unfailingly

whenever Rakesh

takes

up generational

relations

among

Hindi

authors.

Tongue

firmly

in

cheek, he describes the phony complacency with which the old estab-

lishment has

decided to label the new

writing

nonsensical,

half-baked,

and

merely

fashionable,

so that

it

poses

no threat to the edifice of Hindi

literature. "The new

writers,"

Rakesh

asserts,

have

no

complaint

at all that he criticsof the

older

generation

did

not

offer them

recognition;

rather,

t's

the critics who

complain

about the new

people

not

wanting

recognition

from

them . . .

They've

not

given

themselves time to

ponderwhy

a

generation

that

has no intellectual

compatibility

with

them,

whose creative

valuesdonotmatch heircriticalvalues,wouldplaceany impor-

tance on their

validation,

especially

when

they

have

placed

the

bar of

conventionacross their own

receptivity? BK

79)

The

embeddednessof these

arguments

n

the

particularities

f mod-

ern

Hindi

writing

is

self-evident,

but

throughout

his careerRakeshalso

asserted the

need to

conceptualize

an

Indian

modernity

independent

of

western

models.

In

an

essay intriguingly

itled

"Samajik-asamajik"

("Social-Antisocial"),

he

complains

that

the debate about

modernity

andthenew sensibilityin Indiahasalwaysbeendependenton extrinsic

concepts

of

modernity,

lthough

here s

no

genuine

relationbetweenthe

two.

Consequently,

when

derivative

deas are used to evaluate

literary

experiments

t

home,

"either

hose ideas seem

superficial

nd

unfounded,







M.

RAKESH,

MODERNISM,

&THE POSTCOLONIAL PRESENT DHARWADKER

149

or

all of our literature

begins

to look shallow and backward"

BK 85).

In the mimeticgenreof theatre, here is an even greaterneed to avoid

replicating

the modes of

developed

nations,

because such imitations

create

a false sense of

avant-gardism

without

accomplishing anything

real. Rakesh's dissociation

from the mimic men of his own

generation

is

unambiguous:

[Their]

ision

s concerned

with

giving

he

stage

a "new" nd

"modern"ook

from he

outside,

andnot with

searching

or

a

theatre

ithin ur

personal

ivesand ircumstances.or

hat

quest

we need

a

deep

understanding

f

our ife andenvironment a

clear

ecognition

f the heatrical

ossibilities

ftheassaults nd

counter-assaults

n our sensibilities.

Only

this

quest

can lead

us

in

the direction

f

really

new

experiments,

nd

give

shape

to that heatrecraft

ith

whicheven we have not

yet

become

acquainted.

NV44)

Elsewhere,

Rakesh

mocks those

for whom

"real

ife

can

only

be lived

outside

this

country,

new

literaryexperiments

are

possible only

in other

languages,

he

problems

of

the

age

are born

only

in the

Atlantic

and Pa-

cific continents,andthe true touchof modernitycan be felt only in the

air of

Europe

andAmerica"

{BK

109).

His unease is

in line with Partha

Chatterjee's

argument

hat

"modernity

was a

contextually

ocated and

enormously

contested

idea"

in India because

"in the world arena of

modernity,

we are

outcastes,

untouchables,"

while

in the Indian

arena

writers

were

not able

to subscribe

o

any

uniform

concept

of

modernity

"irrespective

of

geography,

time,

environment

or social

conditions."

"Ours

s

the

modernity

of the

once-colonized,"

Chatterjee

bserves,

and

his

enabling

move is

to derive

the

particular

rom

the universal:

"if there

is any universalor universally applicabledefinitionof modernity, t is

this:

that

by

teaching

us

to

employ

the methodsof

reason,

universal

mo-

dernity

enables

us to

identify

our own

particular

modernity."32

akesh's

particular

modernity

demands

that

Indian-language

heatre first

give

adequate

expression

to

the existence

around

t,

and

only

then

approach

expressing

he

national

and

the

global.

Conversely,

with

immediate

everyday

experience

as his

main

focus,

Rakesh

sees

no

incompatibility

between

modernity

and

the

categories

of

"Indianness"

nd

"intrinsic

radition"

hat

were valorized

after

in-

dependence.In an essay, "The Elementsof Modernityversus the Ele-

ments

of

Indianness,"

he

poses

his

arguments

on this

subject

as

a

set

of

questions:







1

50

SOUTH CENTRAL

REVIEW

What

is this Indianness? s Indian raditionan inert

static

substance r anendlesslyamplifyingurrent?s it necessarily

antitheticalo

so-called

modernity?

s this

modernity

neces-

sary

demand f

history

r

merely

charadeo

fill

ourown

nner

void with

mawkish

oreign

mitations?

nd above

all,

is there

an

opposition

etween

universality

nd national raditions

n

therealmof art?33

Rakesh therefore

rejects

a shallow

dependence

on the West as well

as

the

appeals

to intrinsic radition

and essential

Indianness.

What

he does

formulate s a

powerful argument

or an

indigenized

(not

vernacular)

modernism hatcan dealwith the

sprawling

haosof contemporaryndian

life

without

resorting

o either

derivativeness

or

dogmatic

revivalism.

The traditions

of

living,

he

argues,

have

precedence

over the traditions

of

art,

and the issue of tradition

has

to

be considered

n relationto the

life of the

people,

not

only

in

relation o

literature.

Rakesh's modernism

n

the theatre

consists,

then,

in a

rupture

rom

the

"modern"

practices

of the

previous

century,

a

re-valuation

of the

playwright

as

artist,

a

focus on the word as the

defining

element

in

drama,

and an unsentimental

approach

o the nation's

past

and

present.

As a playwright,he disengageshimself, both explicitly andimplicitly,

from

all

the

dominant ormations

of the colonial

period:

he commercial

urbanParsi

stage,

the

unstageable

iterary

dramaof such

major

Hindi

authorsas Bhartendu

Harishchandra

1850-1

885)

andJaishankar rasad

(1889-1937),

and the

populist

political

theatre aunched

by

the

IPTA

in

the

1940s. Parsi theatre

n

his view was a ridiculous

spectacle

mod-

eled on second-rate

western

theatre

that

could create

only

a

"low and

rotten"

egacy

for

theatre

n

Hindi.

Harishchandrawas

a

pioneer

who

failed due

to limited means

and the absence of

support,

while

Prasad

"brokeaway fromthe Parsicompanytraditions,but neither advanced

Bhartendu's

raditionnor

created

any

sign

of a

new tradition

n

theatre"

(NV37).

Both

literary laywrights

eparated

drama-as-verbal-text"rom

'theatre-as-popular-performance,"

ut

the effect

especially

of

Prasad's

refined

anguage,

hematic

gravity,

and

literaryperfection

was such that

"the

very

consciousness of the

relationship

between

dramaandthe

stage

disappeared"

rom

the

playwright's

craft

(7VF38).

In

the

preface

to his

first

play

(published

n 1

958),

Rakesh

acknowledges

hat

drama

n

Hindi

is not

linked to

any particular

heatrical

radition,

but insists that the

Hindistagewill "haveto take a leadingrole in representinghe cultural

needs

and

aspirations

f the

Hindi-speaking egion" NV17).

In

the

essay

"Natakakar ur

rangmanch""The

Playwright

nd he

Theatre"),

e adds

that

despite

a

deep

interest

n

contemporary

heatrical

activity,

he feels







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,

&THE POSTCOLONIAL

PRESENT

DHARWADKER

1

5

I

cut

off from

it

because Hindi lacks the kind of

well-developed

theatre

n

whichtheplaywrightcould create a viable role for himself (NV41).

Imagining

a future

n

which "drama" nd "theatre" an

achieve

par-

ity

is

thereforea crucialmove for

Rakesh,

and

his

revisionary

aesthetic

places

the

playwright-artist

t the

center

of

both activities.

A 1

966

English

essay

titled

"Looking

Aroundas

a

Playwright"

ets the tone

by

describ-

ing

the act of

writing

as the

expression

of

an

irrepressible

urge

and

a

psychic struggle:

What oncernsme most

s

my

desire

o

write,

or to

put

t more

aptly,my inability

o

helpwritingplays.

Theforces nsideand

outside

me create sort

of

compulsion

to

express

ndcom-

municate

omething

hat s

by

its ownnature ramatic What

is this

great something'?

do

not know. t is

in

the

air,

n

the

age,

n

me.

I know t is

there,

butcannot

ive

it a name.

Maybe

I

want o

writedrama ecause

cannot

ive

it

a name.34

To

persistent

questions

about

why

he chooses to writeaboutcertain

hings

and not

others,

Rakesh's

response

s

that

"I

cannot

write,

or

try

to

write,

like

anyone

else,

because

I am

not

anyone

else.

I

write

[in]

a

particular

way . . . becauseI findfacility in writingthatway."35 heimportanceof

"writing"

lso leads

him to

question

the claim

that

theatre,

ike

film,

is

a "director's

medium":

or

him the dramatic

ext exists

independent

of

the

staging

process,

and

regarding

he directoras the

sole orchestrator f

the

performance

vent

creates

an artistic

void

in

theatre.

The ideal that

Rakesh

posits

in

theory

and

practice

s an

equal

collaborationbetween

the

living

author,

director,

and

performers,

but there

is no discursive

context

in which

he is

willing

to

cede

the

priority

of the

playwright

as

author,

and

of drama

as

text.

Thistextualist onceptof theplaywrights inseparablerom he instru-

mental

role of

language

n

theatre,

mbodied

n

what

Rakesh

persistently

calls

"the

dramatic

word."

"The

problem

of

wrestling

with

language

for

the sake

of

expression,"

he

comments,

"comes

before

every

writer

that

is,

before

every

alertand sensitive

writer,"

ecause

the

attempt

o articu-

late

feeling

is

always

"incomplete."

Language

s also

for Rakesh both

a

"primitive"

nd

a

"finite"

nstrument,

and

the

"graphs

of sensation"

are so

complex

that the

act of

writing

always

leaves behind

a

residual

anguish

about

what

has

remained

unsaid

(BK1\).

Much of

this

struggle

for expressionevokes the well-known passage in the final movement

of

T. S.

Eliot's

"BurntNorton":

"Words

train, Crack,

and sometimes

break,

under

he

burden,

Underthe

tension,

slip,

slide,

perish, Decay

with

imprecision,

will not

stay

in

place

/ Will

not

stay

still."36But

this







152

SOUTH CENTRAL

REVIEW

writerlyagon

symptomatic

f

high

modernism oes not

preclude

Rakesh's

firm,evenstubborn nsistenceon languageas the sine qua of drama,

especially

n

the

post-cinemaage.

In a

conversation

withAlexei

Arbuzov,

he

argues

hat

dramaandtheatrehave to be

regarded

s

primarily

erbal-

auralrather han

visual

forms,

because

in mimetic

terms,

aurality

s what

separates

drama romfilm: "the undamental ifferencebetween

the two

mediums

is that in

one,

the visual

expectation

gives

birthto the

word,

and

in

the

other,

the verbal

expectation gives

birth to the scene"

(NV

65).

Words

and

images

are

certainly nterdependent

n

both

media,

but

the

word is central o

drama,

and the

image

to

film.

Rakesh

also clarifies

thatword-centerednessntheatredoesnotenforce"literariness" words

have to

achieve

not

literary

effects but the resonances

appropriate

o

a

particular

dramatic tructure.

The second

point

of

convergence

between theatre

and

film

is technol-

ogy.

In

the same

measure

hathe

values

words,

Rakesh

devalues

spectacle

and mere technical

sophistication.

In an

essay

titled "Theatre

Without

Walls,"

he

argues

hatthe

"over-elaboration f

technical

devices

and an

increasing dependence

on

them,

in

the

given

conditions

here,

is more

likely

to

retard he

growth

of theatreand confine

it

to

a

groove

that

may

not let it expandinto new and original shapes through ts own dyna-

mism."37 ike his

contemporary

Badal Sircar

b. 1925),

Rakeshbelieves

that

theatreshould

cultivate ts distinctivecharacteristics nd

maximize

its own

possibilities,

insteadof

getting

caught

up

in

a

game

of

technical

one-upmanship

with film

that

it

is bound to

lose.

He is also

unfazed

by

the

charge

that his

thinkingmay

be

determined

by

"drama" ather

han

other orms

of

theatre,

becausehis

"prime

oncern,"

he

declares,

"is with

this form of

theatre

only."38

or

Rakesh,

a

rejection

of the word would

eventually hallenge

he

very

existenceof

"dramatic

heatre,"

ecause

"all

effortsto expand he visualpossibilitiesof theatre hrough echnological

legerdemain

ventuallyonly

underscore ts limitationsand

vulnerability

in

comparison

with

film"

(NV6%).

n

the

exchange

with

Arbuzov,

he also

resists the

suggestion

that the

issues of word and

language

may

have

a

disproportionateignificance

n

post-independence

ndia,

because

"in a

broader

perspectivethey

are also

the fundamental

questions

for theatre

everywhere"(NV

70).

To sum

up,

Rakesh locates the

uniqueness

of

theatrenot

in

its

mimetic

qualities

(which

it

shareswith

film)

or even

in

the fact

of live

performance,

but in the

creationof a

living

idiom for the

stage,which he describes as theplaywright'sparticular hallenge.

Finally,

Rakesh

is

led

by

the

shape

of

his own theatricalcareer to

reconcile the

principle

of

modernity

with

the historical matter from

antiquity

hat

formedthe

basis of two of his

three

major

plays.

The first







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,


53

play,

Ashadh ka ek din

(1958),

used the

figure

of

Kalidasa

to offer its

ironicportrait f the artist,caughtbetween theprovincialsources of his

poetic

inspiration

ndthe

ambiguous

attractions f

metropolitan

atron-

age.

The

second

play,

Lahron

ke

rajhans

1

963),

symbolically

evokedthe

tension and malaise

in

the

palace

of

the

Buddha's

stepbrother,

Nand,

as

Nand

inexorably

oses interest

n a life

of

married

uxury

with his wife

Sundari,

and sets out at

the

end

to seek the

eightfold path

of

enlighten-

ment.

In the case of

Kalidasa,

Rakesh

was

accused of

passing

off fiction

as

"history"

or the sole

purpose

of

debasing

the

symbol

of Indian iter-

ary greatness.

But after the success of Lahronke

rajhans,

he was also

accusedof turninghis back on an unmanageablepresentby retreating

into a

pristine

past.

Rakesh's

rejoinder

o the

critique

s

in

part

a

version

of Eliot's

argu-

ment

in "Tradition

nd

the

Individual

Talent,"

hat "thehistoricalsense

involves

a

perception,

not

only

of the

pastness

of the

past,

but of its

presence;

. . This historical

sense,

which

is a

sense

of the

timeless

as

well as

of the

temporal

and of

the timeless and the

temporal ogether,

s

what

makes

a writertraditional.

And

it

is at the

same time what makes

the

writer

acutely

conscious

of his

place

in

time,

of his own

contempo-

raneity."39n the interviewwith CarloCoppola,Rakeshclarifies hathis

historical

plays,

like

those of other

Hindi

playwrights

uch

as Dharamvir

Bharati

and

Jagdish

Chandra

Mathur,

are not

exegeses

on

history,

or

sentimental

portraits

of

an

age

to which

the authorswere

particularly

attached,

or

forms of

revivalism and

reaction.

Rather,

history

interests

him

principally

or its

symbolic

and

explanatory

power

in

relation

o the

present.

Kalidasa

s

not so much

an individualas

a

representation

f the

"creative

energies"

within Indian

culture,

and

of the internal

struggles

that

destabilize

he creative

self

in

every age.

"I

for

one

could not find

a

better abel,a bettersign, for ourcumulativecreativeabilities,"Rakesh

notes

(NV

105).

Conversely,

"It is not the

things

and events here

and

now

that

are

contemporary,

ut

the

way

in which one sees

them . .

.

No work

of

art is

ever modern

because

of its

subject

.

. .

[but]

because

of

the

way

in

which

that

subject

has been treated."

Rakesh defines

this

"contemporary

ision"

as

"a

phenomenon

of the mind

that

gives

a

par-

ticular

direction

o

its faculties

and

makes

it

see

and

interpret

hings

in

a

light

that

emerges

from

the events

and attributes f

the

age."

A

lot of

historical

plays

are

meaningless

costume

dramas,

and

a lot of

ostensibly

modernandcontemporary laysareprimitiveandarchaic.As forhimself,

Rakesh

claims

that

he is "not

really

aware of

having

written

anything

that is

not

contemporary."40







1

54

SOUTH CENTRAL

REVIEW

Notwithstanding

hese theoretical

ustifications,

Rakesh did come

to

acknowledge hathis twohistoryplayswere admireddisproportionately

for their

literary

elegance,

and

something

was

lacking

in

the dramatic

realization and

meaning

of their words.

"In

my

third

play,"

he

notes,

"I

tried to

grasp

the realities of the

life

around

me

in

a

straightforward

way,

and tried

to search for

a

language

that would be the

language

of

ordinary

conversationand accessible to the

largest

numbersof

specta-

tors"

(NV

155).

The

result,

Adhe adhure

{The Unfinished,

1969),

was

hailed almost

overnight

as a

classic of the nuclear

amily's

material

and

emotional

collapse

within the circumscribed

pace

of

the middle class

urbanhome. Significantly, he strongestendorsementsof theplay came

from

important

directors

of Rakesh'swork. Om

Shivpuri

described

t as

"thefirst

meaningful

Hindi

play

about

contemporary

ife ... Its

charac-

ters,

situations,

and

psychological

states are realistic and believable

. . .

It has

the

capability

of

grasping

he tension of

contemporary

ife."41 or

SatyadevDubey,

it

"exploded

he

myth

that

the Hindi

playwright

can-

not

produce

a

work

dealing

with

contemporary

ituations

and characters

connected

with

our life"

(57V 37).

Both Ebrahim

Alkazi and

Rajinder

Nath

saw the

unusually

successful 1969

productions

n Delhi

and

Bom-

bay as signs of a new interestin serious theatre on the partof urban

Indian

audiences. The

play's

status as a modernisttour de force rests

on

its

particular

ntegration

of form and

content,

theme and treatment.

It

takes

up

what

Una

Chaudhuri

has called a "foundationaldiscourse"

of

modern drama

the

representation

f home as a

place

of

victimage

from

which the

protagonist truggles

o

escape

for the sake of

autonomy

and selfhood

and

transforms

t

through

a

stylized, indigenized

realism

that

captures

exactly

the

conjuncture

of failed

ambitions,

spaces,

and

relationships

n

the

postcolonial

metropole.42

4. Adhe

adhure and the

Unfinished Project of Living

I

am

ust

about o

complete

play

that s calledAdheadhure.

Adhuremeans

"incomplete"

ndadhe

means

"half." his

refers

to the

ordinary

ocial

milieu

oday

hat s

in

itselfboth"half and

"incomplete."

t'sthe

story

of a middle lass

family

n this

city

which s

beingdragged

own

by

circumstancesntothe lower

class.Their

passions,

efeats,

esires,

truggles,

nd

along

with

these,

he

situation

raduallylipping

ut of theirhands

I've

tried o showall

this

n

the

play

. . The

hing

want o show s

that he

ndividuals not

solely

responsible

or

his

situation,

e-

causewhatever

hecircumstances

ad

been,

hewouldhavehad o







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,

&THE POSTCOLONIAL

PRESENT DHARWADKER 1

55

make hesame hoices

again

nd

again.

Whateverhe

ndividual

choosesn lifeentails special rony, ecause ircumstancesake

the same urn

again

and

again.

NV60)

These

remarks

by

Rakesh

during

his

interview with Carlo

Coppola

(recorded

n

July

1968)

contain

the two dominant

ropes

of

the

play

he

was about

to

finish:

a

few half-realizedselves

struggling endlessly

to

escape

a vicious and closed circle of

circumstances.

Adhe adhure

s,

first

and

foremost,

a

triumph

of the

atmospherics

of

entrapment,

stablished

at the drama's

very beginning

in

the

performative

and

generic

rather

than informativeand individualized

descriptions

of characterand set-

ting.

The list of dramatis

personae begins by

identifying

five roles for

a

single

actor,

who

opens

the action

by

delivering

a

monologue

as

the

Man in

the

Black

Suit,

and then

appears

as Man

1,

Man

2,

Man

3,

and

Man

4,

playing

multiple

roles

in

relation to the

forty-year-old

Woman

who

is the

play's

"main

character."

twenty-one-year-old

on,

an Older

Daughter

who

is

twenty,

and a

Younger

Daughter

who is

thirteenround

off

this

"representative"amily.

While the older Man's five

successive

roles are

differentiated

y

the

qualities

of "ironic

civility,""desperation,"

"complacency,""self-centeredness,"

nd

"callowness,"

the

remaining

characters

belong

to the

uniformlynegative register

of

"regret,"

"con-

flict," "malaise,"

"frenzy,"

"revolt,"

and "bitterness"

{SN 242).

The

same

qualities

of uncontainabledisorderextendto the

all-purpose

oom

in

which

"thebrokenremnantsof

the

past

status

of

this home . . . have

somehow

managed

to

keep

a

place

for

themselves,"

their

presence

be-

ing

more intolerable

now thantheir absence would have been

(57V 43).

Incongruity,

decay,

and

disconnection

characterize he

space

of

home,

evoking

the "urban

xhaustion"

hat,

according

o

ArjunAppadurai,

as

seriously begun

to

challenge

the modernistambience of Indianmetro-

politan

cities.43

At the same

time,

Rakesh's

play

seems to

paradoxically

exemplify

Chakrabarty'sonception

of modernism

following

Marshall

Berman)

as "the aesthetic

means

by

which

an

urban and literate class

subject

o the invasive

forces of modernization eeks to

create,

however

falteringly,

a sense

of

being

at

home

in

the modern

city."44

While

the

beginning

of

Adheadhure

uggests

a

stylized,

generic

drama

of emotional

dysfunction,

he

body

of the

play

containsa "realistic" c-

tion

in

which

the characters

have individualized

names. Mahendranath

(Man

1)

is

a failed

entrepreneur

who no

longer provides

for his

family,

and describes

himself as

a

parasite

who has devoured his

home from

the inside. Savitri

(Woman),

the

family's only

breadwinner,

s

caught

between

the

desperatedaily struggle

to

keep

the

household

going

and







156

SOUTH CENTRAL

REVIEW

her desire

for

escape.

Binni

(Older

Daughter)

has

recently eloped

with

a man fromwhom she already eels estrangedwithoutknowingthat he

was

probably

her

mother's lover.

Kinni

(YoungerDaughter)

has chan-

neled

her

rageagainst

a

decentered

ife into a

precocious

sexual

curiosity.

Midway

through

he

play

Savitri ries to coax her

callow boss

Singhania

(Man 2)

to find a

job

for the shiftless Ashok

(Son),

then cracks under

the strainand leaves with a

wealthy

former

over,

Jagmohan

Man 3),

even

as Mahendranatheeks

refuge

in the home of his former

business

partner

nd

confidante,

uneja Man

4).

However,

Jagmohan's

ife can

no

longer

accommodate

an

old

attachment,

nd

Juneja

ecturesSavitriboth

on hervice-like hold over her husbandand the futilityof herbelief that

she has

any

real choices

in

life.

At

the end of the

play

all five characters

are

back

in

the intolerable

place

of

victimage, waiting

for the

cycle

of

recriminations o

begin again.

In

creating

an intimate

connection

between economic

decline,

emo-

tional

disintegration,

and

the

space

of

home,

Adhe adhure echoes the

familial

focus andconflictual

tructure f westernrealist

drama,

but

with

crucialdifferences.

First,

here s no

single "protagonist"

hose selfhood

can render he

struggle

with

home

in

individualistic ermsandrelate

t to

the ideaof a singulardestiny.Rather,he conditionof victimageextends

to all

the inhabitants

f home:

every

memberof Mahendranaths

family

s

equally

alienated rom

every

other

member,

reating

he

play's signature

atmosphere

of

constantly erupting

emotion.

Second,

the

dysfunction

within

the

family

is

a

modernistreversal of Indian culturalcodes

that

are

normative

n

the

same

measure

hat

they

are

unattainable,

nd seri-

ously

limit

the idea of

individual

autonomy.Underlying

the

historical-

material

development

of the

family

in

contemporary

ndia are

mythic

models

derived

mainly

fromthe

Ramayana

andthe Mahabharata nd

reinforceddaily in the mass-culturalnarrativesof cinema and televi-

sion

of

perfect

love,

duty,

obedience,

and

respect

between husband

and

wife,

fatherand

son,

older

and

younger siblings. Chakrabarty

otes

the

struggle

in

Bengali

modernity

between

"passions

on

one side and

familial

or

kinshipobligations

on

the

other,"

which ed to

the

subjection

f

"sentiments

to]

the

guiding

handof

(a

moral)

reason"

o

that

he ideal of

"respectable

omesticity"

ouldbe

preserved.

He also

describes

abitrata

(purity)

as a

touchstone that

suppressed

he

emergence

of "a

category

such

as

'sexuality'

that

could have

mediatedbetween

the

physical

and

psychological effects of sexual attraction."45n contrast,Adheadhure

bracketsmoral

reason

and

underscores he

sexual

transgressions

f

all

its

characters,

he

women even

morethan

he men.

By

emphatically enying

respectable

domesticity

and

the ideal

of

purity,

t

makes

the inherited







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,


DHARWADKER

157

norms of

familial conduct

obsolete,

and

places

the urbanIndian

family

on a recognizably"modern" nd modernist ooting.

Third,

the

play

stresses the condition of

victimage

but excludes the

heroism of

departure.

Mahendranath's

ttempts

o walk

away

from his

hollow life follow

a

completelypredictable attern

f rebellious

departure

and

humiliating

eturn,

because

he

does

not

"ever

feel well after

eaving

the house."

Savitri riesto use

her

power

over

Jagmohan

o

convince

him

that

her

family

ife has become

"completely, ompletely mpossible,"

but

his evasions

send her

back,

more bitter

and

disillusioned

than

ever

(SN

313;

302).

Indeed,

home

in this

play

has the

power

to

ravage

characters

evenafter heyhavesupposedly scaped rom t. Unawareof hermother's

history

with her

husband,

he older

daughter

alks about

carrying

away

something

within

herself from

her home which has eaten into her new

marriage

and

filled her with

pent-up

emotion.

Older

daughter.

comehere

.. I comehere

only

so

that

. .

Woman

Savitri]:

his

s

your

ownhome.

Older

daughter.My

own home!

. . Yes.And

I

comeso

that

may

ry

oncemore o

search or

hat

hing

because f which am

humiliated

ver

andover

again! In

an almost

breaking

oice)

Can

you

tellme, Mama,what hat

hing

s?Andwhere t's hid-

ing?

nthewindows

nddoorsof thishouse?

n

theroof?

n

the

walls?

In

you?

In

Daddy?

n Kinni? n Ashok?Where s that

awful

hing

which

he

says

I

have

carried

way

within

myself

from his

house?

SN

263)

At

the

end of

the

play,

as

all five characters

eturn o

the

place they

hate,

Savitri

"looks

outwards

with

glazed eyes

and sits down

slowly

in

the

chair,"

acknowledging

he

impossibility

of release

(SN

325).

Thereare wo other mportantmeansof a modernist werveawayfrom

realism

mAdhe adhure:

haracterization

nd

dialogue.

The

performance

of

five roles

by

a

single

actor

s not

ust

a Brechtiandevice

demonstrating

the

alienation

of

actor

from

role and of character

rom

a stable

ethos,

but

an existential

move

uncovering

the closed

loop

of

social,

sexual,

and

conjugal

relationships

between

adultwomen

and men.

The Man

in

the Black

Suit

who

initially

addresses

he audience

in the metatheatri-

cal

mannerof

Pirandello

or Anouilh

describes

himself as

the uncertain

symbol

of

an uncertain

play,

neither

outside nor

inside the

action,

the

faceless figurewe may bumpinto on the sidewalk withouttaking any

notice.

Yet he

also claims

to be

a

fixed

point

of

reference,

he one who

knows

that

the identities

and circumstances

of the

"special"

amily

in

the

play

might

change,

but not

the fact of men and women

having

to







1

8 SOUTH

CENTRAL

REVIEW

endureeach other

against

heirwill.

The

four dramatic

oles

this charac-

terperforms n the course of theplayunderscore he futilityof Savitri's

rebellion

against

her

marriage,

because she encounters

he same

man

wherever she turns as

husband,

boss, lover,

and

nemesis.

Each

man

uses

and discards

her,

but the

point

of this

repetition

s the absence

of

choice:

intimacy

between adults eads

inevitably

o

disaffection,

and all

men are

eventually

versions of

the

same

man.

In

a climactic

exchange,

Juneja

ells Savitri hatshe was attracted o

a

succession

of men because

they

were

"not-Mahendranath,"

ut

living

with

any

of them

would

have

made them

similarlyrepugnant.

His

final

word

is a

rejection

of

agency:

"And even thenyou have felt thatyou can make a choice. But moving

from

right

to

left,

from frontto

back,

from this corner o

that corner

. .

have

you really

seen the

possibility

of

a

choice

anywhere?

Tell

me,

have

you

seen

it?"

(SN 323).

This lesson is

enforced

relentlessly

becausethere

areno act and scene

divisions and no breaks

n

the

action,

only

transitions

rom one

phase

to

the next

designatedby changes

in

lighting.

The

dialogue

in

the

play

is

spare,

and the

syntax

imitatesthe indirectionsand elisions of conversa-

tion. Most of the

conversationbetweenthe characterss

deliberately

lat,

inarticulate,nconclusive.Experimentingwith languageas themeasure

of

(dis)connection

between human

beings,

Rakesh

employs

a

register

in

which words are used not

to

say something

but

to not

say something,

and

conversation deteriorates

periodically

into babble. Most lines

of

dialogue

repeat something

that has

just

been said but is not

especially

worth

repeating,

so

that

the

exchanges

between characters eem

like an

interconnected

equence

of

inanities.

Older

Daughter.

What's he

matter,

Daddy?

Man1: Matter? .

.

Nothing's

hematter.

Older

Daughter:

weakening)omething

r

heothers

definitely

the

matter.

Man

1

:

Oh

nothing, ourMummy

was

sayingsomethingust

now . . .

Older

Daughter.

Whatwas she

saying?

Man

1:

1

don'tmean

her,

was

saying

o

her

..

Older

Daughter.

Whatwere

you saying?

Man

1

:

1

was

talking

bout

ou.

Older

Daughter.

What

were

you saying?

Woman eturns.

Man

1:

She's

back,

he'lltell

you

herself.

SN257)







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,

&THE POSTCOLONIAL

PRESENT DHARWADKER 1

59

Yet this is not Beckett's

aporia:

Rakeshbelieves

that

"thewordlessness

between words can be very meaningfulbecause it bears the dramatic

tension

within itself

-

its relative

weight

depends

on the words that

come before

and after.

In

itself,

it

is

a

temporary

break

n

the

passage

of

words an interval

hatconnectsthe

words on both sides"

(NV63).

The

disconnections

n A

dhe

adhure

build

towardsa

tense

climax in

which the

emotional and

physical

violence

between

the

older

couple

is

fully

laid

out

in

the

final

dialogue

between Savitriand

Juneja.

The

family dynamic

appears

hyper-realistic

n

one

perspective,

but

in

another

t

acquires

a

kind

of

ritualistic,

predatory

renzy.

Whatever helimitsof femaleagency,however,Adheadhurereverses

conventional

gender

roles

in a

manner

hat

was radical for the India of

1969,

and

is

scarcely

less radical

in

the

early twenty-firstcentury.

As

the cornerstone

n

the

family's

economic

edifice,

Savitridismantlesnot

only

male

authority

but

masculinity

itself,

becoming

the first married

woman

in

majorpost-independence

drama

o

brush aside conventional

sexual

mores. She has both the

ability

andthe

maturity

o talk of

choices

driven

by

desire.

Indeed,

all

threewomen

in

the

play challenge

the status

quo,

the mother

by looking

for a

way

out,

the older

daughter

hrough

herstrangemarriage,andthe younger daughter hroughher adolescent

sexuality.

The

multiplication

of

male

roles

does

not

detract from

the

focus on

women,

because

in

all four roles the Man is eitheremasculated

or

compromised

by

his

duplicity.

Adhe adhure

s a

showpiece

of

the

double

reach of

modernism,

nto

the crevices of

urbanIndian

ife as well as the

geopathic

narrativesof

modern

dramamore

broadly.

The

play

also

stands

n

for what is still the

dominant

generic

formation

in

post-independence

Indian theatre a

body

of

major

urban

drama

that

engages

with the historical

present

rather hanthe receivedorimaginedpast, employsmoreorless realistic

performance

tyles,

and uses the

private space

of home

as

the

testing

ground

of not

only

familial

but social and

political

relations. Since the

1980s,

the

decolonizing impulses

in

postcolonialism

have

sought

to

erase

this drama

hrough

a

sweeping

cultural

critique

that

establishes

premodern,

non-urban,

anti-realistic

orms as

"intrinsic,"

nd

modern,

urban,

realistic forms

as "extrinsic"

o Indian theatre.

To outline the

modernist

counter-critique

f

this

traditionalist

eaction is

beyond

the

scope

of

this

essay,

but

Rakesh's drama

s one

important

eason

why

a

significantnumberof Indianplaywrightscontinueto engage with the

rhythms

of

ordinary

ife

in

the

city, confronting

he

fragmentation

hat

Rakesh saw

as a hallmark

of

modernity.







1

60 SOUTH CENTRAL

REVIEW

NOTES

1 Simon Gikandioffers one of the most forcefulrecentstatementsof this connec-

tion when he

observes

that

modernism

represents

perhaps

the most intense and

unprecedented

ite of

encounterbetween the institutions

of

European

cultural

production

and the

cultural

ractices

of

colonized

peoples.

It is rare o find

a

central

ext

in

modern

literature, rt,

or

ethnography

hat does not

deploy

the

other

as a

significant

source, influence,

or

informing analogy.

And

the

relationship

between the

institution

of

modernism

and these other cultural

spaces

is

not,

as was

the

case

in

earlier

periods

of

European

art,

decorative:

t

is

dynamic,

dialectical,

and constitutive of the field of

European

and American culture

("Preface:

Modernism

n the

World,"

Modernism/Modernity

3,

no.

3

[2006]:

421).

2. Gikandi,"Preface," 20; 421.

3. Susan Stanford

Friedman,

"Periodizing

Modernism:Postcolonial

Modernities

and the

Space/Time

Borders of

Modernist

Studies,"

Modernism/

Modernity

13,

no.

3

(2006):

428.

4.

Susan Stanford

Friedman,"Paranoia,Pollution,

and

Sexuality:

Affiliationsbe-

tween E. M. Forster's^

Passage

to India andArundhati

Roy's

TheGod

of

Small

Things"

in

Geomodernisms

Race, Modernism,

Modernity,

ds. Laura

Doyle

and

LauraWinkiel

(Bloomington:

Indiana

University

Press,

2005),

246.

5.

Doyle

and

Winkiel,

Geomodernisms,

.

6. Rakesh's nterviewwith Carlo

Coppola

titled

"Mohan

Rakesh")

n the

Journal

of

South

Asian

Literature

,

nos. 2-3

(1973):15-45,

remains he most substantial

rimary

source

for Rakesh o

appear

n

the West.Fourother

essays,

threeon Rakesh's iction

and

one on Lahronke

rajhans,

also

appeared

n

the Journal

of

SouthAsian Literature

n 1973

and

1977-78.

In

my

Theatres

f Independence:

Drama,

Theory,

nd Urban

Performance

in India since 1947

(Iowa

City: University

of Iowa

Press,

2005),

225-43 and

passim,

I

discuss Rakesh

n

the contextsof

post-independence

models of

authorship,extuality,

nd

multilingualism;

s a

postcolonial

modernistcommitted o

contemporaneity

nd urban

experience;

and as a

theoristand

practitioner

f the

postcolonial historyplay.

Vasudha

Dalmia,

Poetics,

Plays,

and

Performances:

he Politics

of

Modern ndian Theatre

New

Delhi: Oxford

University

Press,

2006)

contains

a

chapter

itled"Neither

Half

norWhole:

Mohan Rakesh and

the Modernist

Quest"

117-149).

7. Gikandi,"Preface," 20.

8.

Friedman,

"Paranoia," 47;

Ariela

Freedman,

"Ganges

Side of

Modernism,"

in

Geomodernisms:

Race, Modernism,

Modernity,

ds. Laura

Doyle

and LauraWinkiel

(Bloomington:

Indiana

University

Press,

2005),

114-29.

9. See Fawzia

Afzal-Khan,

Cultural

Imperialism

and the

Indo-English

Novel

(University

Park:

Pennsylvania

State

University

Press,

1993);

Rosemary Marangoly

George,

The

Politics

of

Home:

Postcolonial Relocationsand

Twentieth-Century

iction

(Cambridge:

CambridgeUniversity

Press,

1996);

Simon

Gikandi,

Reading

the

African

Novel:

Essays

in

Interpretation London:

J.

Currey,1987),

and

Writing

n Limbo:Mod-

ernismand Caribbean

Literature

Ithaca,

NY: Cornell

University

Press,

1

992); Tejumola

Olaniyan,

Scars

of Conquest/

Masks

of

Resistance: TheInvention

of

Cultural

dentities

in African, African-American, nd CaribbeanDrama

(New

York: Oxford

University

Press,

1995);

and

Jahan

Ramazani,

The

Hybrid

Muse: Postcolonial

Poetry

in

English

(Chicago:

University

of

Chicago

Press,

2001).







M.

RAKESH,MODERNISM,


6

1

10.

Rebecca

Walkowitz,

Cosmopolitan

Style:

Modernism

Beyond

the Nation

(New

York:Columbia

UniversityPress,2006), 2; 7;

5.

11.

Freedman,

"Ganges

Side of

Modernism,"117,

126.

12.

Gikandi,"Preface," 22;

and

Walkowitz,

CosmopolitanStyle,

10.

13.

Doyle

and

Winkiel,

Geomodernisms,

.

14.

Friedman,

"Periodizing,"

29.

15. In

the Online

Catalogue

of

the

Library

of

Congress (Worldcat),

he

keyword

adhunika

yields

a total of 2269

records,

including

2142

books in

multiple languages;

adhunikata

ields

96

book-length

works.

16.

That

this distinction

s made

necessaryby

the

specific

context of

literature

nd

art

is clear

in the

Oxford

English Dictionary

entry

on

"modernism,"

where

the term

is

defined

as "a

usage,

mode of

expression, peculiarity

of

style,

etc.,

characteristic

f

modern imes,"anddesignates"themethods,style, or attitudeof modernartists,writ-

ers, architects,

composers,

etc."

A

"modernist"

s,

rather

autologically,

"a

supporter

r

follower of modern

ways

or

methods;

an

adherentof modernism."

1

7

Dipesh

Chakrabarty,rovincializingEurope:

Postcolonial

Thought

nd Histori-

cal

Difference

(Princeton:

Princeton

University

Press,

2000),

148.

18.

SudiptaKaviraj,

"The

Two Historiesof

Literary

Culture n

Bengal,"

n

Literary

Cultures

n

History:

Reconstructions

rom

South

Asia,

ed.

Sheldon Pollock

(Berkeley:

University

of California

Press,

2003),

558.

19. See

Govind

Chatak,

Adhuniknatakka masiha MohanRakesh

[Mohan

Rakesh,

The Messiahof Modern

Theatre] Delhi:

Indraprastha

rakashan,

975),

andTrilokchand

Tulsi,

Bharatendu

aur adhunikata:Bharat mem adhunikata

ka

sutrapat

[Bharatendu

and

Modernity:

The

Inception

of Modernityn India] Hoshiyarpur:Vishveshvarananda

Vaidik

Shodh

Sansthan,

1988).

20. See Urmila

Mishra,

Adhunikata

aur Mohan Rakesh

[Modernity

and Mohan

Rakesh] (Varanasi:

Vishvavidyalaya

Prakashan,

1977);

Prabhakar

Machve,

Modernity

and

Contemporary

ndian

Literature

New

Delhi:

Chetna,

1978);

Sukrita

Paul

Kumar,

Conversations

n

Modernism,

With

Reference

o

English,

Hindi,

and

Urdu

Fiction

(New

Delhi:

IndianInstitute

of Advanced

Study,

Shimla,

in

Association

with Allied Publish-

ers,

1990);

Nalini

Natarajan,

Woman

nd Indian

Modernity:Readings of

Colonial

and

Postcolonial

Novels

(New

Orleans:

University

Press of

the

South,

2002);

andAbu

Sayid

Ayub,

Adhunikata

Rabindranath

Modernism

and

Tagore],

rans.Amitava

Ray

(New

Delhi:

SahityaAkademi,1995).

2 1

Kaviraj,

"TheTwo

Histories,"

558.

22 Sudhi

Pradhan,

Marxist

CulturalMovementn

India: Chronicles nd

Documents,

vol.

1

(Calcutta:

National Book

Agency,

1979-1985),

134;

136.

23.

Pradhan,

ol.

2,

162.

24. Fredric

Jameson,

A

Singular

Modernity:Essays

on the

Ontologyof

the Present

(London:

Verso,

2002),

197.

25.

Linda

Hutcheon,

The Post

Always Rings

Twice:

the Postmodernand the Post-

colonial,"

Textual

Practice

8

(1994):

205.

26.

Linda

Hutcheon,

"'Circling

he

Downspout

of

Empire':

Post-Colonialismand

Postmodernism,"

riel

20,

no.

4

(1989):

152.

27. Hutcheon,"Circling,"151.

28. Kwame

AnthonyAppiah,

In

My

Father s House:

Africa

in the

Philosophy

of

Culture

New

York:

Oxford

University

Press,

1992),

155.

29.

Friedman,

"Periodizing,"

27.







1

62

SOUTH CENTRAL

REVIEW

30. Mohan

Rakesh,

Natya-vimarsha

Meditations

on

Theatre],

ed. Jaidev

Taneja

(New

Delhi: National School

of

Drama,2003);

hereaftercited

in the text as NV.

All

translations rom the Hindi are mine.

3

1

Mohan

Rakesh,

Bakalamkhud

In

His Own

Words] Delhi:

Rajpal,

1

974),

93-94;

hereafter ited in

the text as BK.

32. Partha

Chatterjee, Talking

About Our

Modernity

n

Two

Languages,"

n A Pos-

sible India:

Essays

in Political Criticism

New

Delhi: Oxford

University

Press,

1997),

263;

269;

270.

33.

Rakesh,

Sahitya

aur sanskriti

[Literature

nd

Culture] (Delhi:

Radhakrishna

Prakashan,

1990),

109.

34.

Rakesh,

"Looking

aroundas

a

Playwright,"Sangeet

Natak

3

(October

1966):

18.

35. Ibid., 19.

36.

T. S.

Eliot,

The

Complete

Poems and

Plays,

1909-1950

(New

York:Harcourt

Brace,

1980),

121.

37.

Rakesh,

"Theatrewithout

Walls,"

Sangeet

Natak 6

(October-December

1

967):

67.

38.

Ibid.,

67.

39. T. S.

Eliot,

"Tradition nd

the Individual

Talent,"

n The Norton

Anthologyof

English

Literature 8th

d,

gen

ed.

Stephen

Greenblatt,

Vol. F: The Twentieth

Century

andAfter

(New

York:W. W.

Norton,

2006),

2320.

40.

Rakesh,

"Looking

Around,"

18-19.

41.

Rakesh,

Mohan Rakesh ke

sampurna

natak

[The

Complete Plays

of Mohan

Rakesh],ed. Nemichandra ain

(Delhi:

Rajpal,

1933),

331;hereafter itedin the text as

SN.

42.

The idea of "a

vague, culturally

determined

ymbology

of home"as one of the

"foundational iscourses"

of modern drama

appears

n

Chaudhuri,

who also coins

the

term

"geopathology"

o

designate

"the

problem

of

place"

that

erupts

n

realist

theatre

of the late

nineteenth

century,

and "unfoldsas

an

incessant

dialogue

between

belonging

and

exile,

home

and homelessness."Chaudhuri

rgues

that

"the

dramaticdiscourse of

home is

articulated

hrough

wo main

principles,

which structure he

plot

as well as the

plays'

accounts of

subjectivity

and

identity:

a

victimage of

location and a heroism

of

departure.

The former

principle

defines

place

as the

protagonist's

undamental

roblem,

leading

her or him to a

recognition

of the

need for

(if

not

an

actual

enactment

of)

the

latter"

Una

Chaudhuri,

taging

Place: the

Geographyof

ModernDrama

[Ann

Arbor:

University

of

Michigan

Press,

1996], xii).

In

Theatres

f Independence,

82-85,

1

discuss

the

modificationof

these

principles

n

post-

ndependence

ndian

realist theatre.

43.

Arjun Appadurai,

"Body,

Property,

and Fire

in

Urban

India,"

American

An-

thropology

Association

meeting, Washington,

D.

C,

November

1997;

also

quoted

in

Chakrabarty,

rovincializing,

182.

44.

Chakrabarty,

rovincializing,

156.

45.

Ibid.,

141.