Vijay Tendulkar, a Marathi writer of repute, who has been reckoned as a major playwright in modern Indian literature. Tendulkar is a traditional artist with extra ordinary talents, and his plays reveal modernist qualities. 'Gidhade' is translated by y Priya Adarkar, as 'Vultures' is a two-act play stands apart from the other plays of Vijay Tendulkar.
In fact it is a play, which displays on the stage, the unmitigated violence arising from drunkenness, greed and immortality. The drama is a social expose of violence, inherent in man, since time immemorial. The play was an instant hit, for nowhere had violence been so ruthlessly studied and portrayed in theatre. Critics pin the success of the play to its shock elements, admitting in the same breath that it somehow dimmed its central theme. The Vulture is indeed the most violent of Tendulkar's plays. It reminds one of Webster's plays 'The Duchess of Malfi'. It is replete with violent imagery consisting of blood, eeriness and mad raving.
Related Articles. MOON, RAJESH V. // Indian Streams Research Journal;Dec2012, Vol. 2 Issue 11, Special section p1 Tendulkar is a towering and glowering Indian dramatist and all plays are sharply focused and illuminating. Through his writings he attacks the society hypocrisies. Thematically, his plays have ranged from the alienation of the modern individual to contemporary politics from social individual. Bhaskar, Talluri Mathew // Literary Endeavour;Jan2016, Vol. 7 Issue 1, p50 Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar has been in the vanguard of the Indian theatre for nearly five decades.
He has always been controversial. His plays deal with the oppression ofthe weak by the powerful. Most of his plays have had their origin in his own personal experience. His thought provoking plays.
Nagarajan, R.; Rajarajan, S. // Labyrinth: An International Refereed Journal of Postmodern Studi;Oct2014, Vol. 5 Issue 4, p123 Tendulkar is a towering and glowering Indian dramatist and all plays are sharply focused and illuminating. Through his writings he attacks the society hypocrisies. Thematically, his plays have ranged from the alienation of the modern individual to contemporary politics from social individual. Kamble, Shri. Shivaji Shankar // Golden Research Thoughts;Dec2011, Vol. 1 Issue 6, Special section p1 Bhalchandra Nemade, a serious critic, advanced the term New Morality as a modern literary value to set a very high premium on the morality of the writer.
Nemade dichotomizes morality into two divisions viz. Old morality and new morality which is more akin to Mahatma Phule's true morality and.
Bharathiraja, S. // Voice of Dalit;Jul-Dec2012, Vol. 5 Issue 1, p19 Autobiography has been a popular genre of Dalit Literature. It places an authenticity of experiences of Dalits in the Indian Orthodox Hindu Caste System. Siddalingaiah is one of India's foremost Dalit writers.
Born in Magadi in southern Karnataka, he studied in a village school and went to. Hudson, Brian // Geography;Oct94, Vol. 79 Issue 345, p322 Examines selected writings by West Indian authors for the light they shed on the geographical education of children in the Caribbean. Literature as a useful source of information on childhood education; School geography's contribution to the cultural colonization of Caribbean minds; Geography. Donnell, Alison // Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism;Jun2012, Vol.
16 Issue 2, p75 The article presents how writer Edward Baugh unfolded the focus of criticism on literature as presenting images on the society of West Indian. It highlights West Indian literary criticism as a joint project of critics and writers, a discourse in which critical and creative ideas are cojoined. Nikam, Madhukar Janrao // Indian Streams Research Journal;Feb2012, Vol. 2 Issue 1, p143 It was the body language, his way of life, the gestures, and philosophic chantings and of course, the motivating speech of the Mahatma that played havoc in the minds of the people and they took him as their God, their guide. Moreover, the persons who went near him were so very much influenced. Sempere, Anindita Basu // Dom Moraes (Poet);6/ 1/2011, p1 This essay is an overview of the life and work of Dom Moraes (1938-2004), an Indian writer who traveled extensively for most of his life and wrote only in English.
He is best known as a poet. He won England's Hawthornden Prize in 1958, at the age of nineteen, for his first published collection.
Familial Degeneration in Vijay Tendulkar’s Gidhade (The Vultures): Prof. AJ Sebastian sdb Vulture is a bird that feeds on corpses and has come to symbolize anyone or anything that benefits from another’s sufferings. Vijay Tendulkar has very aptly entitled his play to portray familial degradation and man’s savage nature when avarice can lead to tearing one another, breaking even blood ties. Gidhade ( The Vultures 1971) has a singular place among Vijay Tendulkar’s (1828-2008) oeuvre of literary output spanning over fifty years. This article attempts to explore how avarice degrades humans to become like vultures in their excessive craving for wealth. Avarice, derived from Latin avarus, is the inordinate for. Its special malice lies in that it makes the getting and keeping of money, possessions, and the like, a purpose in itself to live for.
It does not see that these things are valuable only as instruments for the conduct of a rational and harmonious life, due regard being paid of course to the special social condition in which one is placed. It is called a capital because it has as its object that for the gaining or holding of which many other are committed (“Avarice.” ).
Tendulkar has portrayed what he has observed in life and has spoken in plain truth about the consequences of excessive avarice. He has said, “I have not written about hypothetical pain or created an imaginary world of sorrow. I am from a middle class family and I have seen the brutal ways of life by keeping my eyes open. My work has come from within me, as an outcome of my observation of the world in which I live. If they want to entertain and make merry, fine go ahead, but I can’t do it, I have to speak the truth” (Sumit. The dramatist symbolically refers to the house of Pappa to the hollow of a tree, nestling place of vultures.
The events unfold to prove the characters living like vultures prying on each other. The mood is also set with the howling of a fierce wind with the screeching of vultures. The story surrounds a middle class family where two brothers, Pappa and Sakharam, with dint of hard work, establish a prosperous construction company. In his excessive greed for money, Pappa deceives his brother and takes over the entire property.
Pappa divides his wealth between his sons Ramakant and Umakant. The duo in connivance with their sister Manik, plots to squeeze out everything from their father. Meanwhile, Manik has an affair with the Raja of Hondur, who impregnates her. The brothers attempt to blackmail the Raja, but he dies of heart attack. Desperate, they kick out the fetus growing in Manik’ s womb. Ramakat is unable to have an issue from Rama, after several years of conjugal life, devoid of love. Rama seeks emotional and physical fulfillment from Rajaninath who impregnates her.
Knowing of Rama’s pregnancy, Manik attempts by superstitious spell to gets the foetus aborted. The play is an epitome of psychological trauma the characters undergo in their undue Machiavellian pursuit of wealth. The play open in the garage of Pappa’s household where his illegitimate son Rajaninath, lives a solitary life, writing poetry. He makes his comment like an omniscient observer, interpreting the misery of Rama who is childless after twenty-two years of marriage in the midst of five ravenous vultures. They live a meaningless life “On the road to hell./ For both, their future/ Is lost, unredeemable,/ And there remains to them/ Only- death” (TV 202).
He felt pity for his helpless sister-in-law who came to a home which “was not a home, but a hole in a tree/ Where vultures lived/ In the shape of men” (204). The central motif of the play is poetically presented by the dramatist in the form of a prologue. Rajaninath felt compassion for her pathetic situation: I stood, A living corpse, a watchful stone. Like a worm, I watched and watched her. For twenty-two long years. All her hopes, her expectations Were scorched, uprooted where they grew.
But she only knew One longing. Threw of her chains in her need.
The need to swell with fruit. A soft fulfillment. Each womb-bearing woman’s right by birth.
Empty of pain And empty of desires. And, on the swinging branch Of her rotten hopes, Five vultures (205-6). The secret love relationship blooming between Rama and Rajaninath is given due attention by the dramatist to point out the only element of human sensibility in the play otherwise marred by evil machinations. The scene ends with the screeching of vultures, emphasizing the tone of the play. Scene II begins with the morning rituals of Rama at the altar basil while the others busy themselves with their mundane preoccupations. Rama, like a typical housewife busies herself serving tea. Pappa talks aloud irritated by his sons who long for his death, “If I die, I’ll become a ghost.
I’ll sit on your chest! I won’t let you enjoy a rupee of it. I earned it all” (209).
Pappa regretfully tells Ramakant how his wife died leaving such ungrateful wretches. Pappa knows that after he had shared out his property, he has become a burden to them. He recounts the way he had built up the great contracting business with Sakharam, his brother.
However, he ditched his brother and took over the entire business. Now, his sons are after him to take possession of everything, driving the old man keep yelling, “go ruin it, go ahead, both of you! Rub it in the dirt, you pimps, and then repent! Airs like emperors!” (214).
The greedy brothers Ramakant and Umakant discuss their sister Manik’s affair with the Raja of Hondur. Knowing her pregnancy, they plot to blackmail him to get a huge sum of money.
They also plan to stop supplying food and drink to their younger brother Rajaninath, though he never asked a share of the patrimony. Scene III introduces a late night episode where Pappa, Umakant and Ramakant are with all the paraphernalia of drinks around them. Like the absurd dramatists, Tendulkar introduces the proto-crime Pappa committed fifteen years ago swindling the entire business and pushing his brother Sakharam out. The crime is recalled dramatically introducing the corpse like drunken Sakharam lying on the sofa, and the comments made by the characters.
RAMAKANT: Bosh! ( Tries shaking the body.) He’s had it!
Look at thisabs’lute corpse! ( Laughs) Uncle Sakharam’s corpse. ( Laughs) To bloody death! Drunk t’death! ( Staggers over Uncle’s body and stands by it.) Long live Uncle!
UMAKANT: How’d Uncle get here, Ramya? Pappa cut his-er-throat! Pushed him out’f business! Turned’m out of house, Fifteen years ago (217-18). The conversation further reveals how Sakharam had planned to take over the business which Pappa found out and swindled in return.
Vijay Tendulkar Plays
Both were equal swindlers and the vulturing continued to be passed on to Pappa’s three children. They are all upset that the uncle has come to stay in the house.
Though they plan to kill him, they desist from such cruelty, being their father’s brother. They begin to suspect some fishy deal between Pappa and the uncle. As the debate goes on between the three, screeching of vultures can be heard to show the evil designs in the household.
They intent to take their father for a ride and extort money by flattery. In Scene IV Rama stealthily brings early morning tea to Rajaninath in the garage. The dramatist portrays their hidden intimacy and relationship in contrast to the five vultures. Their clandestine relationship is the only human element in the play which is one of brutal familial discord and destruction by avarice. Scene V shifts to drinking bout where the household has come to rejoice after having driven out Sakharam, their common enemy. As they make Pappa drink more liquor, he expresses his joy almost caressing Ramakant: “ It was bloody fun today Sakharam’s gone. Gone for goodRamya my child you worked wondersOne needs cleverness.
Bravo!” (225). 2012 full movie free download. Pappa was overjoyed having send away his brother empty handed. His children, like vultures, continue to hover around him, expecting their shares of the remaining wealth of the old man. As they are all drunk, they huddle around Pappa, who in his drunkenness suspects them trying to murder him. He threatens to become a ghost and haunt them day and night.
He refuses to give the little money left to them. They keep harassing him to confess in which bank he has his account. Finally he confesses under duress that he has rupees seven thousand. He begs for his life, but refuses to transfer the account.
But they keep forcing him to sign a cheque. He bleeds in the ensuing scuffle and keeps calling Rama to save him, “They’re killing me, they’re killing me! Bahu!” (231). As the scene fades out to open Scene VI, Rajaninath makes his comment on the development of the story ending Pappa’s life in verse like an omniscient observer. This is the story of the venerable Father-vulture’s hallowed end.
The oldest vulture, That stubborn ghost With death in his desires. Hiding his ugly maw, Trailing a wing, Departed from the hollow of a tree Where he lived Drawing tracks of hopelessness Upon the dust, With the dragging Of his corpselike, Hideous, Dangling limbs (232). Rajaninath further comments on Pappa’s meaningless tears that never dry, unlike human tears. And his vulture-children continue to torment the innocent victim Rama, escalating her sufferings. Act II brings together the three children further plotting to overthrow each other in the course of their card game. The two brothers plot to blackmail the raja of Hondur for having impregnated Manik.
But the sudden death of Raja thwarts their plans. The brothers secure aborting the foetus in her womb by kicking her in the abdomen. The episode climaxes with Manik screaming and crawling down the stairs, one leg in plaster, as Pappa keeps laughing at the turn of events. In Act II, scene IV, Rama informs her husband about her pregnancy. A delighted Ramakant advises to take all precautions to nurse the foetus growing within her. Ramkant tells her his difficulties in running the business. However, when Rama suggests him to give it up and take a job instead, he fumes and tells her to keep of from the world of men.
In scene V the two brothers hatch their plot to divide Manik’s share between them. But their bargaining leads them to a bitter quarrel. Both want take possession of the house. Umakant strikes discord by revealing the secret love relationship between Rama and their bastard brother. “Call the brat your own, go on! Put him on your head!
Vijay Tendulkar Plays
Lick his piss! Let that smart-arse have fun. You be the bloody father. Not a paisa’s worth of sense. Bringing shame on all of us!” (255). The revelation disrupts the relationship between the couple, and it eats into the psyche of Ramakant, who indulges in more and more drinks. Meanwhile the story gets a new twist when Pappa visits Rajaninath to cooperate with him to destroy the plans of his other children.
PAPPA: I’m telling you. So you’re my true son. You stayed in this garage, rotting away like a beggarI can’t endure this, Rajani. Nor would you.
This must be changedBy us I have made a new willIn this will, I’ve divided the whole estate between you and Manik. So you file a suit. Say the will’s genuine. Say the deed of division of the property was got by threats.
I’m there to back you up. I’ll say it in the court. Get it all changed! Teach those pimps a lessonDon’t say no You’re my only true son (259-60). But Rajaninath shows his disgust towards his father and tells his to get out of his sight.
In the meantime, Rama is heard screaming, since Manik has done some superstitious ritual, casting spell to abort her foetus. She is herd muttering, “I’ve done it I’ve done as I planned I cut the lemon I rubbed the ash. Seven times, on my loins and stomach! It’s going to abort – sister-in-law’s baby’s going to abort – Ramya’s brat’s going to abort – it won’t live. It won’t live!” (260). Scene VII is a soliloquy of Ramakant in an intoxicated mood cursing his brother determined to take possession of the house.
He curses his wife having his step-brother’s kiddie. Rifle in hand he threatens to shoot. He moans in anguish: “I’m a useless fellow, brother. Absolutely bloody good-for-nothing.
A bloody bitch. Son of a swine! I – I let my wife go go” (263). He is driven mad and runs around singing and dancing and uttering that he would abort his enemy’s bloody son. As he raves in his fury, the rain continues to rage as if in consonance with his wrecked mental condition.
The scene fades out to the screeching of a single vulture as the human vulture in Ramakant has to surrender to his own evil design. The play ends with the final scene with a poetic summing up of the events like an epilogue by Rajaninath: “The tale of the five vultures/ Had this end./ The story of men accursed” (265). He speaks of their lives as utter failures with no hope as they burn in the burning ghat “Where the sinful soul/ Burns off its being” (265). They have no escape from their misery like the growing howling wind.
The Vultures may be compared to Ben Johson’s Volpone which presents a satire on greed in society, built on Machiavellian principle. It is a disease which is the root of all evils.
Jonson has given names of animals and birds to his characters like in Animal Fables, to portray certain universal moral truth. Volpone in his greed pretends to be dying to attract birds of prey such as Voltore = vulture, Corbaccio = old crow, Corvino = young raven; Mosca = fly. The play is meant to entertain and instruct on the evil of greed and avarice.
Volpone lives for riches as an end in itself: Dear saint, Riches, the dumb god that giv’st all men tongues; That canst do nought and yet mak’st men do all things; The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot, Is made worth heaven. Thou art virtue, fame Honour, and all things else. Who can get thee, He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise- ( Volpone I:21-7). Tendulkar has recourse to Realism in the play as he delves into observing facts of life, attempting to describe human behaviour and surroundings as they are.
He has also very deftly employed the language of spoken speech in the dialogues on stage, in the footsteps of the masters of realism like Henrik Ibsen. Tendulkar has successfully exposed a menace plaguing contemporary middle class society, bringing about familial degeneration. ———– Works Cited: “Avarice.” Sumit Saxena, “A Conversation with sir Vijay Tendulkar,” Passion for Cinema, 20 December, 2006. Tendulkar, Vijay.
The Vultures. Collected Plays. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003, 199-265. Abbreviated: TV.
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |