Vijay Tendulkar’s Plays: a Critique of Modern Indian Society

Prof Rajendraprasad Shinde

Vijay Tendulkar (born in 1928) in Kolhapur, India is a leading contemporary

Indian playwright, screen and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and

social commentator. For the past four decades he has been the most influential dramatist

and theatre personality in Marathi, the principal language of the state of Maharashtra,

which has had a continuous literary history since the end of the classical period in India

and has nearly seventy-five million speakers today.

A lifelong resident of the city of Mumbai, Mr Tendulkar is the author of thirty

full-length plays and twenty-three one-act plays, several of which have become classics

of modern Indian theatre. Ghashiram Kotwal (Ghashiram the Constable) (1972), a

musical combining Marathi folk performance styles and contemporary theatrical

techniques, is one of the longest-running plays in the world, with over six thousand

performances in India and abroad, in the original and in translation. Mr Tendulkar's

output in Marathi also includes eleven plays for children, four collections of short stories,

one novel, and five volumes of literary essays and social criticism, all of which have

contributed to a remarkable transformation of the modern literary landscape of

Maharashtra and of India as a whole. He is an important translator in Marathi, having

rendered nine novels and two biographies into the language, as well as five plays. He is

the author of original stories and screenplays for eight films in Marathi, including

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Umbartha (The Threshold) (1981), a groundbreaking feature film on women's activism in

India. He is the father of actress Priya Tendulkar.

The plays deal with the complexity of human relationship. Each contains a subtle

critique of modern Indian society, and a distinct character and message. Kamala is an

indictment of the success-oriented male society in which women are mere stepping stones

for the achievements of men. Silence! The Court is in Session combines social criticism

with the tragedy of an individual victimized by society. Tendulkar's play is a drama-

within-the-drama. Like Luigi Pirandello's "The Pleasure of Respectability", the mask of

respectability in Tendulkar's play breaks down before the stark reality of life. Tendulkar's

Benare is unmarried, sexually exploited and has to abort her pregnancy to maintain the

facade of honour. Benare is cast in the role of an unmarried young girl who is being

accused of an abortion on legal and ethical grounds. In the course of rehearsal, Benare

breaks down because the story of her character is similar to her own. The outward

appearance gives way to the truth about the life of Benare. Premarital sex and abortion

are debated from the perspective of women struggling to liberate themselves from a

world dominated by men. The exploration of the body and sexuality is done through

fierce and bold debate. Monologues often rendered in melodramatic style echo in the hall.

The heated debate, discussion and polemic offer disturbing moments. Vijay Tendulkar's

own troubled vision is expressed through a character.

Sakharam Binder explores the complications of human nature, two necessary

components of which are sex and violence. The Vultures depicts the economic and moral

degeneration of a family.

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Encounter in Umbugland is a political satire and Ghashiram Kotwal, set in

Maharashtra in the late eighteenth century, recounts the power game played out in terms

of caste ascendancy in politics. A Friend’s Story is a stark commentary on the nature of

both heterosexual and homosexual love. Kanyadaan explores the texture of modernity

and social change in India through a marriage between two people of different castes and

backgrounds. Since the appearance of cross-dressing male actors in Patanjali's

Mahabhasya (ca. 150 B.C.E.), India's dramatic productions have been characterized by a

fluid role-playing of gender. Of course, having all-women and/or all-men performances

was intended to prevent transgressive heterosexual couplings.

For others, however, it became a space where same-sex desire and couplings

could flourish. In the play Mitrachi Goshta: A Friend's Story, pre-eminent playwright

Vijay Tendulkar more than alludes to this long tradition of same-sex gender performing

in theatre.

Vijay Tendulkar is the most influential playwright of our time. His plays have

made a sort of a history on Indian stage. He is the major figure in keeping Marathi Stage

avante- garde in comparison with other Indian languages including English. The major

theme in his plays is man’s loneliness in this universe. This gives his plays not only

modern Indian but a global dimension. Loneliness of the individual is his favourite

subject in most of his plays: Kashinath in Manus Navache Bet (An Island called Man),

Madhav in Mi Jinklo Mi Harlo (I Won, I Lost), Rama in Vultures, Benare in Silence, The

Court is in Session,

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Sunetra in Gharate Amuche Chhan (Our Sweet Little Home) and Ghashiram in

Ghashiram the Constable. These are a few examples of the loneliness of the human being

portrayed by Tendulkar in his plays. Tendulkar expresses the boredom resulting in human

life by showing these individuals’ broken dreams and their conflict with the society.

Individuals’ confronting with other individuals has already been the theme in Literature.

The next step is the confrontation between the individual and the reality. The ultimate

stage is the individual’s conflict with his identity. Tendulkar restricts himself to the

individual and is not a playwright commenting on social reality as such.

The theme of loneliness will come out as the major concern of Tendulkar in all

these plays. The Alienation in Marxist ideology is related to this loneliness only.

Capitalist system causes alienation in the individual. Marx stated that the individual is

alienated from nature, other individuals and from himself in the Capitalist Society.

Tendulkar doesn’t seem to propose his own philosophy of life. This is his strength

because then he would have explored only the theme of loneliness in its different

dimensions in his plays. This would have affected the artiste in him. Adherence to any

philosophical thought mars aesthetic quality of art. Life cannot be encompassed in any

philosophical ideology. We understand life by experiencing it. Experience is particular to

every individual. Every individual takes this experience in different way. It is an

independent experience.

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Concepts are born to enable us to exchange these experiences in the form of art.

The metaphorical creation is impossible in art unless there is this exchange of experience.

Therefore, Tendulkar’s plays explore the personality of the individual.

His admirers point to the way in which he exposed middle-class hypocrisy in a clinical,

naturalistic style and the iconoclastic manner in which he broke the existing frame work

of Marathi theatre. His critics, largely from the self-appointed moral brigade, have

branded him as a subversive writer who counted controversy. There is emotional

violence in pre- Vultures plays like Shrimant, Manoos Navache Bait, Maadi and

Gandharva.

Tendulkar's take on violence is matter-of-fact. Man, he feels, is part of the animal

kingdom and despite the veneer of culture, basic animal instincts are a part of his nature.

As a writer, he is interested in the human tendencies and frailties that can change people

almost overnight. He more than any other writer, read the pulse of society and foresaw

the way in which violence rules us.

By treating violence as a natural human trait, can a writer underplay the social

structures behind it? Doesn't violence stem from the social situation? Did Tendulkar's

training as a journalist give him insights into the world of violence, the seamier aspects of

city life? Did that training contribute to his ability to shock, to unite violent climaxes to

his plays? (“He could marvellously condense the universe into a small space due to his

journalistic background,” says Vijaya Mehta) Is his portrayal of women too middle-class,

male chauvinistic? Is he a bourgeois writing in the sentimental context of personal

experience and therefore not inclined towards theory and analysis of social processes?

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The close reading of his plays gives answers to these and other questions. These

questions give him the exclusive position of being the playwright of depicting complex

human conditions in Modern India.

Tendulkar is the most contemporary playwright even after such a long span of

writing from 1991 until today. He is always in search for significance in human life in his

day to day living. He is totally committed to the stage and does not give any scope to

extra artistic things in his plays. He is always experimenting in this medium.

He owns the responsibility of the thought behind his plays. Being a journalist

himself his plays reflect the life around him in most authentic manner. His plays present

the tensions in the middle-class person and reality that makes him helpless. For example

while An Island Called Man deals with the problem of residence in Mumbai the victim of

male dominated world is portrayed in Silence! The Court is in Session. These individuals

represent the types in the society. They are not sacrosanct people or blinkered

individuals. Like real persons they are simultaneously good and bad, weak and strong.

For example Shreedhar in Shreemant (The Wealthy) is eccentric and cruel but very

sensitive and emotional also. These characters reveal two aspects of Tendulkar as a

playwright. One is his keen sense of conflict in life and the other is his deep faith in life.

Conflict in his plays has many dimensions. It is between two individuals in some

plays. (Vimal and Sunetra in Our Sweet Little Home, Sakharam and Laxmi, Sakharam

and Champa in Sakharam Binder, Ghashiram and Nana in Ghashiram, the Constable,

Shreedhar and Dadasaheb in The Wealthy). There is also a conflict between the

individual and his family (I Won I Lost, Vultures, Gift of Daughter). There are also a few

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instances of a conflict between the individual and the social circumstances (An Island

Called Man, The School of Crows, and Pahije Jatiche- One Must be Born to be Like

Oneself). Tendulkar also shows the conflict between two value systems in some of his

plays (Silence! The Court is in Session, Kamala, Vultures, Gift of Daughter). In all these

plays there is someone or something who or which is against the individual. However the

subtle and significant conflict is within the individual himself. His characters inflict pains

to themselves while confronting with themselves.

As a playwright an individual is most important for Tendulkar and therefore an

individual’s struggle with life is equally important for him. I would like to present the

detailed analysis of one representative play of Vijay Tendulkar to show how he deals

with the complexity in human life. The play called The Cyclist immediately creates the

ambience of modernity in our mind.

The Cyclist was intended to be Tendulkar's last play, and perhaps his ultimate

comment on himself and the reality surrounding him. In 1991, Tendulkar, in his early

sixties, had written 28 full-length plays, his work singularly recognized for its intellectual

integrity, innovative form and content. His plays have generally dealt with themes that

unravel the exploitation of power and latent violence in human relationships, seeking

always a well-deliberated resolution. The desire to write an allegorical play denoting

life's journey must have been a tempting one. Despite its numerous productions, The

Cyclist has continued to confound its directors and audience. Critics have not been sure

whether the play is a metaphor for contemporary Indian reality or an allegory about the

journey of life.

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As an intended last play (4), The Cyclist is different from Tendulkar's large body

of work. It is a skillfully crafted, uninterrupted piece about the adventure of life told

through a cyclist's journey. As an experimental playwright, Tendulkar's every play, in its

form and structure, is different from the previous one. This complex theme he takes head

on, and tackles with a simple form and language -- an episodic structure and naturalistic

mot naif dialogue. Life's complexity can perhaps be best understood when told in simple

terms. In this, Tendulkar joins other great journey writers such as Homer (The Odyssey),

Voltaire (Candide), Ibsen (Peer Gynt), and Beckett (Waiting for Godot).

The Cyclist is not about one but three journeys: geographical, an historical

journey of the bicycle, and a psychological exploration. A young man is about to start a

"world trip" on his bicycle. There is no specific geographical location in which the play is

set, but a place from which he is trying to get away. He dreams of distant lands, oceans

and mountains, wanting to see exotic places, meet interesting people.

The geographical journey is at the same time the story of the development of

bicycle itself -- the cycle as a symbol of progress, opening new horizons for the society

despite all the obstacles placed in its way to stop its advancement. The adventure gets

darker and darker as the journey progresses, the Cyclist facing difficult elements both

natural and human. It unravels man's dehumanization through a series of encounters

which, though often extravagantly comic, tend to become illogical and bizarre as we

move deeper into the play.

In journey narratives, the obstacles encountered are generally surmounted; in The

Cyclist the process is reversed, the expectation of certainty whimpering into nothingness.

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It's only in the later part of the Cyclist's trip that we come to find out that this is

essentially a metaphysical journey -- a journey of the mind. Buried deep in the play is the

grand existential question, “where I came from, where I am going?” -- Life’s journey in

search of elusive truth.

The play generates a train of events manifested on stage through a series of

slapstick situations. Tendulkar lets his character Cyclist play straight, whereas those he

encounters on the way come in a group as hoodlums, in pairs as the Lords of Earth and

Sun, or single as Sage, or Actor. These latter are written in exaggerated manner. Perils of

the journey are mixed with uneasy laughter.

Tendulkar has described his plays as about the reality surrounding him, "I write to

let my concerns vis-a-vis my reality -- the human conditions as I perceive it." The reality

in The Cyclist, however, with its layered journeys, gets elevated to a level transcending

geographical and cultural boundaries. For example, all the characters in the play have

been consciously given symbolic names. E.g. X,Y, Z. or such titles as Ma, Pa, Lion,

Ghost, etc. And even the central protagonist the Cyclist is neutrally called the Main

Character.

Tendulkar has said that it is the content of his work that determines the form. He

is precise about directions for staging the play. The script points to a minimalist setting --

an exercise bike as the sole prop. The bald patch on the Cyclist's head, which viewers see

in the last scene, is to ensure that the play is about an adult and is not mistaken for any

children's fantasy. Again, the use of coarse language at the beginning, in a violent crowd

scene, reinforces the playwright's intent about the adult nature of the play.

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Most directions are embedded in the dialogue which in its naturalistic idiom is

marked by short sentences, often half finished.

In The Cyclist, unlike most of Tendulkar's other plays, there is no strong female

character. Instead, it's a Mermaid (a woman with a fish's torso) who eventually strips the

Cyclist to his flesh and bones, having swallowed his wet clothes. Mermaid's seduction of

the Cyclist is that of Oedipus, a composite of mother, girlfriend, and an enchantress.

Main Character: Why are you laughing?

Mermaid: Because your clothes are in my stomach!

Main Character: Where? Stom…No, this can't be!

Mermaid: If you got the clothes, you'll run away from me, somewhere

far…thinking that I swallowed your clothes (in a guilt-ridden voice)

Main Character: (not believing and with fright) Swallowed them? (a bit

pathetically) Ridiculous…I have to go on my travel…the world journey…

by cycle...Oh, such an old dream of mine…

Mermaid: (in a dreamy voice) I'll guard them for nine months in my

womb. Then I'll give birth to a lovely child. A child in your clothes,

handsome as you. He'll call you Pa…Pa, Papa, and me…Ma, Ma….

Referring to the pointless search for meaning in his plays, Tendulkar has said, it's

a “jungle in which you can always enter, but has no way out.”

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Unlike his other plays, which often have a pall of gloom over them, The Cyclist

was written in an upbeat frame of mind. Despite all the travails and troubles that the

journey brings, the Cyclist does not give up. As he remarks: "A journey is a journey. It

has to be completed. Mine will not be affected by any loss or pain." The Main Character

has the will to overcome obstacles. And even when the Cyclist's determination dissipates

and the situation is hopeless, his cry for help is rewarded. Pa appears out of nowhere as a

shining light with his clichéd advice to get him out of his pickle. The best solution Pa can

offer in one Zen-like moment of revelation -- (when everything fails) “Do nothing,

sometimes that's all you need to do.”

The journey has to be completed even when we don't know its ultimate

destination (except one's mortality). There are two options. It could be an open-ended

journey to a place different from where one started; or it's a completed journey that

culminates with a return home -- to the place one began. In Eastern philosophy, the path

is more significant than the destination.

Injured and exhausted, stripped of his clothing, the Cyclist lays naked beside his

bicycle in the end. He curls in a womb-like position and falls asleep. It is not clear

whether he will be up the next day to continue his adventure.

Tendulkar has declined comment on the play except to say that it speaks for itself.

In my correspondence with him (which spans a decade), he made only one remark

comparing the situation in India in 1999 to the play: “Life here is as in the Cyclist. It will

never change. Each day we ride our old, dilapidated wheel-less cycle and go places.

Breath-taking static activity.”

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Works cited & consulted:

1. Baby: Vijay Tendulkar (Neelkanth Prakashan, Pune) 1975

2. Bhau Murarrao: Vijay Tendulkar (Neelkanth Prakashan, Pune) 1975

3. Bhalyakaka: Vijay Tendulkar (Amey Prakashan, Nagpur) 1972

4. Shreemant: Vijay Tendulkar (Joshi Brothers Booksellers and Publishers,

Pune) 1960

5. Tendulkar, V., Five Plays: Kamala, Silence! The Court is in Session, Sakharam

Binder, The Vultures, Encounter in Umbugland, New Delhi, Oxford University

Press (1996)

6. The Cyclist and His Fifth Woman Two Plays by Vijay Tendulkar

Vijay Tendulkar, Balwant Bhaneja (2006)

7. Collected Plays in Translation Kamaka, Silence! The Court is in Session,

Sakharam Binder, The Vultures, Encounter in Umbugland, Ghashiram Kotwal, A

Friend's Story

Vijay Tendulkar, Samik Bandoyopadhyay (2004)

8. Three Modern Indian Plays Girish Karnad, Badal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar (1990 )

1. Tendulkaranche Natak: Pathya Va Prayog (Tendulkar’s Plays: Texts and

Performances): Dhongde Ramesh (Dilipraj Prakashan, Pune) 1979

2. Marathi Natak: Navya Disha Navi Valne (Marathi Drama: New

Directions and New Dimensions) Bhavalkar Tara (Mehta Publishing

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House, Pune) 1997

3. Aajche Natakkar (Playwrights of Today) Dr Punde Dattatraya, Dr Tawre

Snehal (Ed) (Snehwardhan Publishing House, Pune) 1995

4. Literary India: Hogan Patrick and Lalita Pandit (Ed) (Rawat Publishing

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