Ghasiram kotwala

Ghasiram kotwala

Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar was born on 6 January 1928 in Girgaon, Mumbai, and Maharashtra, where his father held a clerical job and ran a small publishing business. The literary environment at home prompted young Vijay to take up writing. He wrote his first story at age six. Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi. He is best known for his plays Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (1967), Ghāshirām Kotwāl (1972), and Sakhārām Binder (1972). Many of Tendulkar's plays derived inspiration from real-life incidents or social upheavals, which provides clear light on harsh realities. He has provided guidance to students studying "play writing" in US universities. For over five decades Tendulkar had been a highly influential dramatist and theatre personality in Mahārāshtra.) was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi. He is best known for his plays Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (1967), Ghāshirām Kotwāl (1972), and Sakhārām Binder (1972). Many of Tendulkar's plays derived inspiration from real-life incidents or social upheavals, which provides clear light on harsh realities. He has provided guidance to students studying "play writing" in US universities. For over five decades Tendulkar had been a highly influential dramatist and theatre personality in Mahārāshtra.

Introductiono Play

Vijay Dhondo Tendulkar (b. 1928) is an eminent Marathi playwright, screenplay writer, essayist, and journalist. He first came into prominence in the 1950s and 60s with one-act plays like Ratra (1957), Ajagar anigandharva (1966) and Bhekad (1969). But his signature style began to develop clearly with his association with the experimental theatre movement, which was part of the advent of modernism in Marathi literature. With modernism came the break from the traditional musical drama, the plays with mythological and folk ingredients and the imitations of Shakespeare, and a growing concern with social and political themes. This also meant the influence of playwrights like Ibsen and Shaw, Ionesco, Pirandello, Strindberg and Brecht, and a strong emphasis on formal and thematic experimentation. Tendulkar’s close association with the experimental theatre movement began with the plays he wrote for amateur groups like Rangayan, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Kendra and Avishkar. The plays that he wrote between 1955 and 1964 were keen explorations of middle class life and the isolation and alienation of individuals from the world around them, and include Manus navache bet (An Island called Man)(1955), Madhlya Bhinti ( The Walls Between) (1958), Chimanicha ghar hota menacha (Nest of Wax) (1958), Mee jinklo Mee harlo (I Won, I Lost) (1963), Kavlanchi Shala (School for Crows)(1963). His 1968 play, Shantata, court chalu ahe ( Silence! The Court is in Session ) brought him national recognition and a number of awards followed, among them the most prominent being the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Award and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1971.


Ghashiram Kotwāl (English translation by Jayant Karve and Eleanor Zelliot) was first performed in the original Marathi on December 16, 1972, by the Progressive Dramatic Association at the Bharat Natya Mandir in Pune. It was directed by Jabbar Patel and the role of Ghashiram was played by Ramesh Tilekar while Mohan Agashe played Nana Phadnavis. After nineteen performances, however, the President of the Progressive Dramatic Association banned the play on the grounds that it was anti-Brahman and gave an inaccurate picture of the historical figure of Nana Phadnavis. Most of the actors resigned from the Association and formed Theatre Academy on March 27, 1973. The production was revived on January 11, 1974. Since then, popular and controversial, and always contemporary, the play has been produced in many Indian languages, and Theatre Academy has also performed it in several European countries. The NSD production, directed by Rajinder Nath for Nandikar’s 17th National Theatre Festival, like Jabbar Patel’s, stays true to the play’s extensive use of traditional devices of the Marathi folk theatre.


Histoncol context: The play is set in Poona during the last years of the rule of the Peshwa Baji Rao n and his Chancellor Nana Phadnavis. Once when he makes Ghashiram the kotwal, and again at the end when he throws Ghashiram to the mob. One of the reasons stated for the banning of the play by the President of the Progressive Theatre Association was that the audience would not take kindly to the legendary figure of Nana being shown as debauched and evil, & Ghashiram, as Tendulkar himself tells us, was a minor figure of that period and therefore offers great scope to the playwright to flesh him out to suit the play’s representation of socio-political issues of our time.


The Brahmans were the most privileged of the various classes in Poona during this period, since they were also the class in power. While the government formulated a strict code of behaviour for them it also assured that they enjoyed the highest social status. They were granted a great deal of license and this is probably one of the incidental issues that attracted Tendulkar’s, allowing him to show that decadence could very well be the result of undeserved or excessive privilege. In the play, an interesting aspect of their preeminence is seen, as there is almost total absence of the other castes. On being questioned about the historicity of the play, Tendulkar’s very firmly states: This is not a historical play. It is a story, in prose, verse, music and dance set in a historical era. Ghashiram are creations of socio-political forces which know no barriers of time and place. Although based on a historical legend, I have no intention of commentary on the morals, or lack of them, of the Peshwa, Nana Phadnavis, or Ghashiram.’ On being asked whether the play sought to expose Brahman corruption and pretensions, he replied, ‘The decadence of the class in power (the Brahmans, incidentally, during the period which I had to depict) also was incidental, though not accidental.’


Since Ghashiram Kotwal continues to be a popular play, Tendulkar has commented on it in various contexts. At one point he says, ‘Ghashiram started with a theme, then came the specific ‘story’ or incident which was historical.’ Also pertinent to the theme of the play is his statement: ‘I had in mind the emergence, the growth, and the inevitable end of the Ghashiram; also those who create, and help Ghashiram to grow; and the irony of stoning to death a person pretending that it is the end of Ghashiram.’ Written and performed in the years leading up to the Emergency, which is considered to be the darkest period in the history of independent India, when the basic freedoms - to act, speak and think - became casualties, the play’s depiction of absolute authority unleashed on the people must now appear to have been prophetic. When we speak of historical context, therefore, it is as necessary to be aware of the play’s actual historical background, as it is important to recall when it was written and performed, and to be sensitive to the context in which it comes to us with each new performance.