[Reader-list] “ ‘Rasa’ in the English Fashion…”: Golden Jubilee Lecture by Girish Karnad

[Meghana Arora]

Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

invites you to a Golden Jubilee Lecture



* *

*“‘Rasa’ in the English Fashion...”*

by* **Girish Karnad***




Monday, 4 February 2013, 6 pm
                                    RSVP

CSDS Seminar Hall,
                                                   Tel: 011 23942199

29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054
                 Fax: 011 23943450

Please join us for tea at 5.30 pm
                 email: jaya at csds.in





Annasaheb Kirloskar is known to have launched the modern Marathi ‘musical’
theatre (*sangeet natak*). Since he was a Brahmin, and until the middle of
the nineteenth century, secular entertainment was looked down upon as an
occupation for ‘the lower castes’, Kirloskar’s choice of the play was
clearly meant to declare his roots in the upper-caste--‘classical’-- Hindu
tradition. Yet, Kirloskar states that his ambition was to create ‘*Rasa* in
the English fashion’, a statement which has complex implications. Most
important of all, colonial society considered the activity of professional
theatre strictly ‘ business’, moving it from the field of ritual or
religious practice into the free market economy. Thus theatre, being
inaccessible to him on the basis of his caste, now became accessible as
‘financial enterprise’. The form had, in effect, changed its status and its
caste. This lecture will look at similar transformations which took place
parallelly in other forms around the same time and revolutionized the very
notion of ‘culture’ in India.



Girish Karnad is a playwright, actor and film director. He has served as
Director, Film and Television Institute of India, Chairman, Sangeet Natak
Akademi (the National Academy of the Performing Arts) and Director, the
Nehru Centre, London. Apart from being performed in most Indian languages,
his plays have been presented by the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis and the
Haymarket Theatre, Leicester. He was awarded Doctor of Humane Letters
(honoris causa) by the University of Southern California, LA, and the
International Theatre Institute, UNESCO, Paris has nominated him World
Theatre Ambassador. He has been honoured with the Padma Bhushan and awarded
the Bharatiya Jnanapitha.