Page 31 - DENG202_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_III

Elective English—III

Notes

Notes In the Nazi-besieged Warsaw Ghetto, Polish doctor-educator Janusz Korczak had
orphans in his care stage The Post Office in July 1942. In The King of Children, biographer
Betty Jean Lifton suspected that Korczak, agonising over whether one should determine
when and how to die, was easing the children into accepting death. In mid-October, the
Nazis sent them to Treblinka.
Tagore’s other works fuse lyrical flow and emotional rhythm into a tight focus on a core idea, a
break from prior Bengali drama. Tagore sought “the play of feeling and not of action”. In 1890,
he released what is regarded as his finest drama: Visarjan (Sacrifice). It is an version of Rajarshi, an
earlier novella of his. “A forthright denunciation of a meaningless [and] cruel superstitious
rite[s]”, the Bengali originals feature intricate subplots and prolonged monologues that give
play to historical events in 17th-century Udaipur. The devout Maharaja of Tripura is pitted
against the evil head priest Raghupati. The dramas he wrote later has philosophical and
allegorical in nature; these included Dak Ghar. Another is Tagore’s Chandalika (Untouchable Girl),
which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama
Buddha’s disciple, asks a tribal girl for water.
In Raktakarabi (“Red” or “Blood Oleanders”), a kleptocrat rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
He and his retainers exploit his subjects—who are benumbed by alcohol and numbered like
inventory—by forcing them to mine gold for him. The naive heroine Nandini rallies her subject-
compatriots to beat the greed of the realm’s sardarclass—with the morally roused king’s delayed
help. Skirting the “good-vs-evil” trope, the work pits a crucial and joyous lèse majesté against
the boring fealty of the king’s varletry, giving rise to an allegorical struggle similar to that
found in Animal Farm or Gulliver’s Travels. The original, though prized in Bengal, long failed to
spawn a “free and comprehensible” translation, and its outdated and resonant didacticism failed
to attract interest from abroad. Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have
dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.

Example: Tagore’s major plays are– Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber], Dakghar
(1912) [The Post Office], Achalayatan (1912) [The Immovable], Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall],
and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red Oleanders]. He is the author of several volumes of short stories and
a number of novels, among them Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The Home and the World] and
Yogayog (1929).

3.3 Chitra

Chitra is a one-act play written by Rabindranath Tagore, first published in English in 1914. The
play adapts part of the story from the Mahabharata and centres on the character of Chitrangada,
a female warrior who attempts to attract the attention of Arjuna. Chitra has been performed
around the world and has been adapted into numerous different formats, such as dance.

Critical reception for Chitra throughout the years has been received positive reviews, and the
work has been described as “the crown of this first half of the poet’s career.” Several versions of
the play have been performed since its inception and it has been also been adapted into several
formats including dance. A 1914 article in the New York Times said using Hindu legends,
Tagore touched modern feminism with the character of Chitra.

3.3.1 Summary of the Play

The play is the story of Chitrângadâ and Arjuna from the Mahabharata and begins with Chitra
initiating a conversation with Madana, the god of love, and Vasanta, the god of eternal youth

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