CONTEXTUALIZING T P KAILASAM'S PLAYS

This chapter attempts to contextualize Kailasam's work within the parameters of his home, his community, his contemporary Kannada theatre and also the Indian nationalist movement. On the basis of our discussion on the subject of myth in general and its use during the nationalist period in particular, we shall hereby look at some of the plays of T.P. Kailasam. The study presupposes that, to a great extent, contexts shape the lives of people, and their works. Kailasam hailed from an orthodox, wellto- do brahmin family, whose ancestors came from Tanjore. His father, Justice Paramashiva Iyer, was a strict disciplinarian and a very loyal citizen of the Mysore state. V.G. Krishnamurthy, a Kannada literary critic, tells us: 

It was a common practice to see him every evening, dressed in white clothe, a white Gandhian cap, white stockings, white canvas shoes, and also a white walking stick, taking a walk through the park

in front of Kannada Sahitya Parishat, which lay close to his white house in Bangalore.

(trans. Krishnamurthy 1988, 8)

As long as he lived in the "white house", Kailasam no doubt had to lead a correspondingly disciplined life. However, he soon rebelled against the conservatism of his family. To put it in his own words, he eventually became the "Black spot in the All references indicating "trans" suggest that the translation is mine.

White House" (trans, quoted in Krishnamurthy 1988, 34).

 He no longer lived in the white house but in the out-house in the same yard. That is to say, Kailasam distanced himself from his conservative background without leaving it completely. It was a small room which K.V. Iyer, a friend of Kailasam, describes vividly:

God knows why the room was so dirty. The only window was shut tightly. The ventilator above it was covered with a cardboard. No light was allowed inside the room. On the floor was a torn mat with a

black hole, probably caused by carelessly thrown cigarette butts. Stretched on it was an old thin mattress. The pillow was soaked in [hair] oil and dirt and had become 'pucca-waterproof'. It felt dirty even to brush it with one's hands. In one corner was a broom, a pair of shoes and a single slipper.... Another corner had a hockey stick and a thick woolen overcoat. Cigarette ash was strewn all over the room. It seemed ages since the room had been swept. (trans. Iyer 1985, 55-56)

In flouting all the basic criteria of good, clean living which his family and community had taken for granted, the "room" became the first symbol of Kailasam's rebellion against his orthodox background. Kailasam had his own reason for living so. Not only does he explain this, but he also provides, in his own peculiar phrasing, a significant justification of his right to live in that manner:

One must become a gutter-snipe. Then alone he can sit there and gaze at the sky, and the sun, and the world around him. This room has the right atmosphere and I can write things from here. (trans, quoted in Iyer 1985, 94)

Perhaps he was right to dream of becoming a "gutter-snipe". For 30 the "things" he was to write in this room were to bring about a revolution in the then existing Kannada theatre by questioning the presumption of purity and sanctity in all that his class and caste did. In order to comprehend this revolution, it is necessary

to understand the state of Kannada theatre just before and during Kailasam's time.

In his book T.P.Kailasam (1984), 

L.S. Sheshgiri Rao traces the period and situation when Kailasam came into Kannada theatre in the twentieth century. The Kannada theatre at that time was dominated everywhere by professional troupes who drew their material, the stories they dramatized, from traditional mythology. The plays they staged were also didactic in tone and purpose. The main intention behind these performances (besides providing entertainment), was to convey or confirm the traditional values of life. These performances were, towards the

end, considerably influenced by Parsi theatre groups which toured all over India during the nineteenth century, and which created appreciable demand for spectacle and music. Sheshagiri Rao mentions how a particular theatre group presented "real horses and elephants on stage" (Rao 1984, 25).

 Apparently, the intention of such presentation was to make the stage realistic. However, such elaborate stage settings, animals, and conventional melodrama besides a "failure to recognize the role of the spectator's imagination in the dramatic experience" (Rao 1984, 25) led to the downfall of this theatre. Rao traces the birth of 'elitist' Kannada theatre to this juncture in its history. The birth of the elitist theatre (around 1925) was due to B.M. Srikantia or Shri, popularly known as the father of the 31 Renaissance in Kannada literature. Influenced by English literature, he consciously sought to modernize Kannada literature.

His translation of some of the English poems of the Romantic period into Kannada marked the beginnings of the modern period in Kannada poetry. Romantic poems seem to have held a special attraction because of the ideology they represented in terms of the experiences of the common man, the fierce defense it made for

freedom and individualism, and the advocacy it gave for the use of common speech. Shri's dramas also sought to change the structure of Kannada theatre. Like his predecessors, Shri too went back to mythology but with a different purpose. Until then, Indian literature had no tradition of tragedy such as we are

familiar with in western terms. While discussing the psychology of colonialism in his book The Intimate Enemy. 

Ashis Nandy explains what tragedy meant in traditional Indian literature:

Tragedy in the Puranas did not center around a grand final defeat or death of the hero, or around the final victory of the ungodly. Tragedy lay in the majestic sweep of time and in the unavoidable decline or decay that informed the mightiest and the humblest, the epochal and the trivial, and the permanent and the transient. (Nandy 1983, 21)

But now with the influence of western education (as in the case of Srikantia) , the concept of tragedy also changed for the western-educated Indians. Nandy's analysis of Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Meahnadvadh Kavya illustrates this change in a retelling of Valmiki's Ramayana. The play upholds Ravana's son Meghnad as the hero, against the "weak-kneed, passive-aggressive", and "traditionally sacred figures" of Rama and Lakshmana (Nandy 32 1983, 19). Nandy explains that the retelling directly responds to the colonial situation. 

As mentioned in Chapter 1, the British colonizers perceived themselves as adults and masculine, capable of working towards "the upliftment of the underprivileged of the world" (Nandy 1983, 14) . 

And among the educated Indians there was a need to  reject the underprivileged status attributed to them in this paradigm. Therefore, in making Ravana and Meghnad the heroes., writers like Dutt underwrote the emerging ideology of modernity as well as compatible concepts of masculinity and adulthood in [their own] community's world view. What was recessive and in fetters in traditional  Indian masculinity was now made salient with the help of existing cultural imagery and myths. (Nandy 1983, 21)

Like Dutt, Shri also sought to change some mythological "villains" and marginalized characters into tragic heroes. For instance, Shri's plays Gadayuddha (1926) and Aswattaman (1929) explicitly show that Shri's sympathies lie with 'not so good' or marginalized characters. Gadayuddha presents Duryodana as the

lead character. The play evokes sympathy for the tragic hero Duryodana, who is killed by Bheema in the mace fight. Aswattaman is about the tragic death of Aswattaman, the son of Guru Drona. The play is a trans-creation of Sophocles' Ajax. Commenting on this aspect of the play in his essay "A New Look at Aswattaman", G.S. Amur says that "Srikantia's intention was obviously to induct the Sophoclean model into the 'Kannada literary experience" (Amur n.d., 139). 

Such a purpose reveals itself  in the fact that Shri made a series of substitutions like Aswattaman  for Ajax, Rudra for Athene, Krishna for Odysseus and so on. Such parallels between western and eastern characters seem to have been inevitable for the purpose of retriev ing the Aryan past and subverting the underprivileged status attributed to Indians by the British. Most apparent in these works are the standards that the western-educated Indians set for themselves because of the influence of western education. Re-structuring the old

texts (like the Puranas) or re-reading episodes from them as containing tragedy and re-interpreting them to the extent of reversing the roles of the characters like Rama and Ravana or Bheema and Duryodana became a deliberate endeavor. This, therefore,  marked a significant change from the tradition of Kannada theatre.

Yet another distinct change was brought about in Kannada theatre, this time, by T.P. Kailasam, a contemporary of Shri. During that time, the predominant subject used on stage was mythology. He broke this monotony and near monopoly by introducing social plays into Kannada drama, where themes and characters

no longer derived from mythology. Plays now addressed themes of current social relevance, dealing with contemporary problems like dowry, and the caste-system.

The plays addressed themselves, moreover, mainly to the brahmin society from which Kailasam himself hailed. We do not have to look too hard to notice that most of his plays are a critique of the conventions

and prejudices of brahminical society prevailing during his time. Eventually, after extraordinary success in social theatre, he too turned to mythology, for he shared the purpose of others  working towards reformation of their own society in the changed modern, colonial conditions. However, to understand Kailasam's interest in mythology, we need to first appreciate how according to him, the roots of everything contemporary needed to be examined. For this purpose let us briefly look at some of his social

plays. Kailasam's first play was Tollu-gatti (1923). 

Commenting on the play, A.N. Krishna Rao says, "just as Doll's House brought about a change in the western theatre, Tollu-gatti revolutionized the Kannada theatre" (trans. Rao 1971, 69) . 

The play is a critique of the hollow education system then in place in India, which did nothing to mould the character of a person. Puttu and Madhu are the sons of a brahmin, Hiriyanna. Puttu, the elder son, has passed the matriculation examination with a first class, while Madhu has failed. The father, Hiriyanna, automatically adores Puttu for his presumed education and is contemptuous of Madhu. But we soon realize that Madhu is better educated than Puttu in other important ways. For instance, he has really imbibed the principle which his mother has taught him that "the only way to pay our rent to god for living on this earth is by being useful to other people around us" (trans. Kailasam 1987, 19) . 

The play tests the character of these two youths when one day their house catches fire. As the fire engulfs the house, Puttu walks out with his books but Madhu risks his life in his attempt to save the other members of his family. Finally, it is Madhu who receives our appreciation and not Puttu, who is selfish and educated in the narrowest sense of the term. 

As in Tollu-gatti. most characters in Kailasam's social plays are middle class men and women. For instance, the trilogy comprising Patu-thourmane (1941), Satu-thourmane (1941), and Yodhruvani (1941) reflects the pretensions, dilemmas and anxieties of the middle class. In his "Adhyaksha Bhashana" (Presidential speech, 1945) delivered at the Kannada Sahitya Sammelan at Madras, Kailasam makes his intention clear: "I began writing plays not from a desire to write them! But to reflect the society"

(trans. Kailasam 1987, 598). Further, as a writer,

 Kailasam justifies the basis of criticism of society:

It is natural to me for I have a peculiar vision. ... In society, one may observe the pretensions of the rich and humility of the poor. One may also see a defect in that which is accepted as faultless. To my eyes it is so. Society does not have my peculiar vision. My vision sees a flaw in that which is accepted as faultless. And sees goodness in that which is normally accepted as wrong. (trans. Kailasam 1987, 599)

The keen sense of criticism which emerges in plays like Nam Brahmanke ("Our Brahminism") (1929) , Bahishkara ("Ostracization") (1929), Poli-kitti ("Naughty Kitti") (1923) and others is proof of this 'peculiar vision'. Bahishkara. for instance, deals with a poor brahmin family which is unable to get their daughter married at the age conventionally appropriate, and hence faces ostracization. It is a tragic play in which the girl, unable to bear the misery of her parents, commits suicide. The root cause of all this misery is dowry'. At the end of the play, the anguished father asks, "who is to blame for all this?" (trans. Kailasam 1987, 104). 

Clearly, identifying evils in our society and asking this sort of fundamental question constituted the essence of all reform movements in colonial India. Naturally, Kailasam's plays did not give a ready-made solution to such questions but left it to the audience to tackle them. For the plays mainly hoped to make the audience aware of the problems that plagued their society. As mentioned earlier, Kailasam specifically tried to reform brahmin society, against which he had rebelled. For instance, Nam Brahmanke is a critique of modern brahminism which follows customs meaninglessly. 

The play expresses disgust over the degeneration of priesthood. It takes place in an atypical brahmin setting, a lawyer's house where preparations are being made for the shradda of his deceased wife. Contrary to our expectations of a brahmin family, the lawyer, his son Kittu and daughter Saroja, are not hide bound by conventions. They are, in fact, hardly involved in the rituals of the ceremony. The lawyer is busy entertaining his friends, while Kittu, Saroja and her Christian friend Vaidoorya are chatting with each other.

Their collective reaction to the ceremony depicts a renewed outlook to brahminism. In the first scene, Kittu reminds Shastri, the priest conducting the ritual, that rituals and mantras are far from the layman's reality. For they are narrated in a language incomprehensible to the ordinary folk. The criticism comes even more strongly through Saroja. She tells Vaidoorya that the priesthood is "mostly ritual and leastly [sic, deliberate

choice by Kailasam] spiritualoo" (Kailasam 1987, 485).

 For her, priesthood represents nothing more than greed. And her assessment

of orthodoxy comes to us in an echo of Shakespeare—"Greed!  thy name is 'Orthodoxy'" (Kailasam 1987, 486). It is at this point, primed with these criticisms, that the scene of the actual ceremony is presented before the audience. As Saroja sums up in a peculiarly phrased description, the ceremony amounts in fact to a scathing representation of the degeneration of contemporary brahminism. She says that the ceremony is a representative of 20th century A.D. Brahminic activities. Ella [all] a childish pantomimic re-hash of the genuine rituals of Gods-inspired Hinduism which took its genesis long before 20th century B.C.!!; But alas! ... now expounded and exploited by greed-obsessed professional priests with no faith in their own preachings which they do NOT practice! (Kailasam 1987, 490)

It might be interesting to observe here that the reference, although from a Kannada play, has been rendered mainly in English with only a few words in Kannada. Embedded in this dialogue is not merely a need to prove how ancient Hinduism or Hindu civilization was, but also to emphasize the fact that the rituals may have been genuinely meaningful at one time but they have now become degenerate. As we saw in Chapter 1, this frame of thought had been the reason for many nationalists' desire to reconstruct the past. They perceived that Hinduism had been great, but had eventually degenerated because of evils like the rigid and opportunistic

caste-system. Of course, sacred scriptures such as the Bhagvad Gita proclaimed that caste was God's own creation, but the purpose of its creation was (according to apologists of the caste-system) misunderstood and grossly mutilated by certain sections of Hindus over the ages. Therefore, in Nam Brahmanke.when Saroja's Christian friend Vaidoorya points out that it is India's caste system which has made Hinduism degenerate, Saroja retorts with "God made.. .Universal caste organization" but "Man made local, communal, provincial, Insular Peninsular systems" (Kailasam 1987, 491). 

But really, "NO PARTICULAR CASTE IS SUPERIOR TO ANY OTHER CASTE" (Kailasam 1987, 492). However for generations now, priesthood, turning into priest-craftoo [sic, Kailasam deliberately pronounces certain words with a Kannada accent] has dominated the 92 percent of illiterate Indiansoo to the extent of giving the lie to Lord Krishna's organisation by making the small detail

of Location of Birth in society to determine one's caste, while the LORD KRISHNA, HIMSELF A NONBRAHMIN BY BIRTH, INSTITUTED FOR ALL TIME THE TRUE CRITERION FOR REAL CASTE; NOT THE INTEGRANT INDIVIDUAL'S LOCATION OF BIRTH IN SOCIETY! BUT HIS

PARTICULAR VOCATION'S WORTH FOR SOCIETY! NOT ACCIDENTAL BIRTH, BUT INTRINSIC WORTH [sic]!! (Kailasam 1987, 492)

Then why perform the hollow rituals of shradda at all? To which the lawyer's answer is: 

ceremonies in commemoration of the departing of our dearly beloved forebears ... is not so much in the ritual as the spiritual, begot of love ruled not by brain or reason but by beat of heart, which binds Mussalman—a Christian—or a Hindu! (Kailasam 1987, 502) So ceremonies like shradda may be important, but not in the

ritualistic sense. They matter for the sentiments they uphold. From this analysis, we can perhaps safely conclude that Kailasam was also participating in the nationalist assumption of a glorious past that had degenerated over the years, as an explanation of the condition of contemporary India. That past  held important links with the present in the form of ceremonies like shradda. But the ritual accompanying these ceremonies had not only become rigid, fixed, merely conventional; it had also become meaningless for the general population in the hands of the opportunistic priests down the long road of Indian history.

Kailasam not only presents his critique of brahmin society boldly but he also employs a new dramatic method to do so, which we identified earlier as the second major change from realistic, or stylized conventional Kannada drama. His method was 'farce'. In the Presidential speech he maintains explicitly:

At this juncture, where we have to reconstruct our nation, some feel that veera rasa is necessary. Some others feel that beebatsa and karuna rasas are necessary. Sringara rasa always has followers to it. As for me, I feel that the mask of humour is most essential.... Humour is like lightning. It cannot be used as a light. But it enlightens [even] the blindfolded in a matter of a second, (trans. emphasis added, Kailasam 1987, 599-600)

Plays like Patu-thourmane, Satu-Thourmane, and others are predominantly humorous. At the same time they reveal the serious dilemmas, anxieties, frustrations and rigid, discriminating conventionalities of Kailasam's society. Humour does not remain only a part of the action of Kailasam's Kannada drama. It surfaces especially through the language spoken by the characters in his plays. The language, popularly known as Kannadanglo, is a compact (even obviously forced) mixture of English and Kannada. For instance, let us consider Nam Kampini ("Our Company", 1944), which parodies the stylized performances of the theatre groups during Kailasam's time. Here is a company staging a play called Shoorphanakakulavilasa. It is about a childless King, who is a descendant of Shoorphanaka, sister of Ravana in the Ramayana, Besides parodying the frivolousness of the contemporary plays Kailasam also exposes the various odds against which the companies and actors had to fight for survival. But our intention at this point is not to interpret these odds but to comment on the dramatic speech employed in the drama. In Act II, scene I, the Queen strolls into the garden with her maids, all belonging to different regions around Karnataka. One among them is an "Up-to-date saki" (as Kailasam chooses to call her) who joins the other sakis that is, companions, in appreciating the scenic beauty around them. Her song goes like this: 

Eni garden u bahala silly

Nodalu not a rose or lilly!

waste of time in walking illi

Rotten garden suraly

Follow me maiden galella flowering viaitige!

Frost and snow and cold a thadayade fogualli shi

veruva. (Kailasam 1987, 449)

Although there are many English words in this song, most of them are pronounced with a Kannada accent. For example, "suraly" is meant to be "surely". Kailasam does not employ this mixed vocabulary only because it mimics the 'dialect' spoken frequently by the educated classes. (One should remember that during Kailasam's time English had acquired a considerably prestigious status in urban Kannada society). Since Kailasam was writing about his society as "he had seen and heard" it (Kailasam 1987, 654) ,

 he surely also found it apt to use the then prevailing language in the urban English-educated classes as a device to break up both the possibility of conventional interpretation of his plays and to introduce outrageously fresh readings of the situations he presented. Now, in addition to twenty-one such social plays in Kannada, Kailasam also wrote five mythological plays in English. The Burden (1933), Fulfilment (1933) and The Purpose (1944) were published while he was alive. The Brahmin's Curse and Keechaka were reconstructed and published after the death of Kailasam in 194 6 by B.S. Rama Rao, popularly known as the Boswell of Kailasam. As a writer who consciously wrote numerous social plays in Kannada on themes of great current relevance, why did Kailasam feel the need to write mythological plays, that too in English?

In the essay "Kailasam's quest for greatness", one answer is suggested by G.S. Amur: While Kailasam considered his command over Kannada adequate to the treatment of social themes, he thought, as a man who had spent quite a few years in England, he could do justice to the great epic themes only through the medium of English. (Amur n.d., 164)

Amur's analysis raises a central question about Kailasam's choice of dramatic speech, one that concerns his Kannada plays as well. We have already mentioned that Kailasam's intention in writing dramas pertaining to social themes such as dowry and the caste system was to make public the problems plaguing his society. Naturally, he must have found it not only adequate but also appropriate to employ Kannada "to the treatment of social themes".

This is not: the case with Kailasam's mythological dramas. They are written in English, that too in what may resemble Shakespearean English, which is far removed from an ordinary educated Indian's knowledge of the language. Considering Kailasam's supposed intention to employ Kannada for the social plays, one wonders whether his English plays merely reflect the thought that "as a man who spent quite a few years in England, he

could do justice to the great epic themes only through the medium of English". If the reasons go beyond this, then what are they?

 Kailasam had created a revolution by using the speech of English- educated ordinary people in his Kannada dramas. His intention to write mythological plays in English seems, in fact, to complete the revolution which began with his social dramas. Until then, speech in Kannada literature, be it prose or

poetry, was classical. Kailasam's need to rebel against his society and its many constructs perhaps instigated him eventually to write in English. Being the first social dramatist in Kannada, one would probably expect Kailasam to use the speech of Henrik Ibsen or Oscar Wilde, whose works had considerably influenced

him while in England. But the language employed in his tragedies is different from contemporary English speech. What we find is a blend of Shakespearean English and a few Sanskrit terms either retained or translated into English. For example, while words such as "my liege", "sire" (Kailasam 1987, 670 & 671) ,

 or lines such as "The Royal Patriarch/ Hath ruled that  none but fate may dare/ Condemn thy wishes and commands" (Kailasam 1987, 7 62) bear striking resemblance to Shakespearean English, terms such as "Prostrations Achaarya" or "it is CHATHURTHEE today" (Kailasam 1987, 659) are direct importations from Sanskrit- Here is, quite obviously, an evident attempt to imitate the western mode of speech and sculpt it to suit the Indian themes. But this does not explain why Kailasam resorted to dated English. Kailasam was writing tragedies and in the West tragedy was one of the most established of forms. Its popularity, especially through Shakespeare's works, had spread among the English- educated Indians too. Kailasam's works evidently express the influence of Shakespearean tragedy. The Brahmin's Curse carries as an epigraph part of the famous Shakespearean song "Not marble, nor gilded monuments,..", which helps to emphasize our claim that Kailasam must have found the western mode of tragedy a suitable model for constructing tragedies in English and consequently the language of established tragedy must have seemed to him a natural choice.

Another reason for Kailasam's intention to write in English could be sought within his social context. The social plays had explicit messages for the audience, hence they were rendered in the language of the educated people. The mythological plays, however, too had an implicit message for the audience. They were

aiming to retell a familiar past from an unfamiliar point of view. Therefore, Kailasam must have found it appropriate to distance this retelling from his audience, to render the themes in a completely alien language, which was not even Kailasam's contemporary English. In that case, who were the plays addressed to? Kailasam's English plays involve incidents from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The protagonist in The Burden is Bharata; in Fulfilment and The Purpose it is Ekalavya; in The  Brahmin's Curse it is Kama; and finally in Keechaka it is Keechaka. There is a pattern in the selection of these protagonists. All are 'marginalized' characters, characters slighted or ill-treated, who have been only minor figures in the lives of the traditional heroes of the epics, Rama or the Pandavas, or in others words, they have not had their due in the epics. This drastic change of character is probably matched by the language of the plays. These men are also figures, incidentally, who represent the western concept of 'masculinity'—a trait involving qualities like achievement, control, competition and power.

The 'heroes' of T.P. Kailasam's mythological plays resemble Michael Madhusudan Dutt's protagonist Megnad. Megnad, as Nandy explains, was "majestic, masculine ... courageous, proud, achievement-oriented, competitive, efficient" and "technologically  superior" (Nandy 1983, 19). 

So were Kailasam's Kama, Keechaka and Ekalavya. Ekalavya was a self-made archer whose skill had exceeded that of Arjuna and also Drona. But his skill had been thwarted first by Arjuna and Drona, and later by Krishna. Kama had mastered the most powerful weapons but he was a victim of a brahmin's curse. All these figures had genuine heroic qualities, but fate' (or deliberate trickery) had brought them only misfortunes in the end. For the colonizer, who is an outsider, Kailasam's plays might appear as challenges against western perception of the Indian heroes. On the other hand, for an insider, especially an upper caste/class Hindu, the plays must act as a critique on the then prevalent social structure. They highlight the exploitation

of the marginalized by upper caste Hindus. One should remember that during Kailasam's time, such Hindus were almost the only people to receive English education. Hence a claim that Kailasam's English plays were addressed to this class of the colonized and simultaneously also to the colonizer, ought not to sound far-fetched. Kailasam's mythological plays not only sought to criticize society but also to challenge the prevailing mythological framework on the stage. As against the purely conventional portrayal of mythological characters by the popular theatre groups, Kailasam's characters are first of all unexpected choices. And they are all brought out as human, briefly developing into representative types that make us feel that they have received 'shabby' treatment in the 'authorized' versions of the epics. In his book The Oppressive Present. Sudhir Chandra discusses the need felt by nationalists to create alternatives out of indigenous tradition in order to reshape Indian society. 

To borrow his idea for our purpose here, the humanization of mythological characters by Kailasam seems to arise from the need of the moment "to glean from this [mythological] past the traditional alternatives for reshaping Indian society" (Sudir Chandra 1992, 70).

Naturally, it ought to be obvious that the emphasis here is on 'alternatives', new ways of questioning or interpreting an unquestioningly accepted tradition. The Kannada plays of Kailasam are popular even to this

day. They are staged very frequently, especially by school and college students. Besides, they are also prescribed as texts to be read at the school and college levels. This is certainly not the case of the English plays. What could be the reason for this? First of all, most of them are not full-fledged dramas like Kailasam's Kannada dramas. The plays briefly explore the psychological depth of a character's predicament, for instance, Kama in The Brahmin's Curse or Keechaka in Keechaka. Unlike the Kannada dramas, they do not capture obviously essential features of the lived experiences of the audience. Secondly, the English plays employ a language which is far removed from the English that is commonly understood and spoken by educated people. It is archaic, and even awkward, verging on bombast at times. For example:

Bharata: (catching him [Anga] in his arms) Poor ancient! He will brush aside his king's behest to forbear from work and rest his limbs sore tried [sic] in the service of the Estate. Why, he has fainted dead away! ... What ho! Without! More light ho! Their gloom is maddening! (Kailasam 1987, 631)

or Bheeshma: ... Blessings, my budding bowman! But you will never bloom into a better until you better the

bearing of your body whilst at bowcraft. (Kailasam 1987, 665)

or

Raadhaa: But why anon? Meseems, my child, you're frighted to speak out! Whom was it that bought your

secret of? 

Anga: An ancient dame that came hither to-night

To caution me 'gainst FRATRICIDE!  (Kailasam 1987, 800)

There are too many archaic and awkward words here, like 'Without!', 'Avaunt', 'meseems', etc. This aspect has undoubtedly contributed to the neglect of Kailasam's English plays. To conclude, Kailasam's English plays are perhaps experimental, but not practically structured to meet the demands or the standards of a popular, action-packed theatre performance; nevertheless they are definitely works of significance and make

worthy objects of study- If nothing else, since an otherwise extremely successful and serious dramatist has ventured to write them. More, however, because they participate deliberately in the process of nation building. To appreciate them, it is essential to locate them in their nationalist context. Therefore, in

the next chapter, we shall analyze the texts in detail in an attempt at 'locating' them contextually.

 By MR Maithreyi