Kaustav Chakraborty (PhD) is Assistant Professor, Department of English, Southfield (formerly Loreto) College, Darjeeling, West Bengal.
He has authored one book and also edited a volume of critical essays. Dr. Chakraborty has contributed many articles in reputed national journals and anthologies.
This edited volume on Indian Drama in English, including Indian plays in English translation, with contributions from experts specializing on the different playwrights, covers the works of major dramatists who have given a distinctive shape to this enormous mass of creative material.
This comprehensive and well-researched text, in its second edition, continues to explore the major Indian playwrights in English. It encompasses works like Rabindranath Tagore’s Red Oleanders; Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence! The Court is in Session, Kanyadaan, The Vultures, and Kamala; Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana, Tughlaq, Naga Mandala, and The Fire and the Rain; Mahasweta Devi’s The Mother of 1084; Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions, Tara, Dance Like a Man, and Bravely Fought the Queen; Habib Tanvir’s Charandas Chor; Indira Parthasarathy’s Auranzeb; and Badal Sircar’s Evam Indrajit. The book focuses on different aspects of their plays and shows how the Indian Drama in English, while maintaining its relation with the tradition, has made bold innovations and fruitful experiments in terms of both thematic and technical excellence.
New to This Edition
The new edition incorporates two new essays on very popular plays of all times—one, Manipuri dramatist Ratan Thiyam’s Chakravyuh, and the second, Maharashtrian playwright, Mahesh Elkunchwar‘s Desire in the Rocks. The essays added give a panoramic view of the plays in succinct style and simple language.
The book is intended for the undergraduate and postgraduate students of English literature. Besides, it will also be valuable for those who wish to delve deeper into the plays covered and analyzed in the text.
About the Author
Kaustav Chakraborty (PhD) is Assistant Professor, Department of English, Southfield (formerly Loreto) College, Darjeeling, West Bengal.
He has authored one book and also edited a volume of critical essays. Dr. Chakraborty has contributed many articles in reputed national journals and anthologies.
Table of Contents:
Preface • Contributors
1. Introduction: Representative Playwrights of Indian English Drama —Kaustav Chakraborty
2. Tagore’s Red Oleanders: A Thematic Study —Anada Lal
3. Translation of Symbols and other Tropes and Schemes in Red Oleanders —Basudeb Chakraborti
4. The Outsider’s Vision: Samant in Silence! The Court is in Session —Amrit Sen
5. De-silencing the Silence: Legal Institutionalization of a Woman’s Victimization —Shyista Aamir Khan
6. “Wound That’s Born to Bleed”: Critiquing Women’s Position in Indian Society through Tendulkar’s Silence! The Court is in Session —Tandrima Guha
7. Vijay Tendulkar’s Kanyadaan: Negotiating Social ‘Truth(s)’ —Joydeep Bhattacharyya
8. Vijay Tendulkar’s The Vultures (Gidhade): A Study in Violence —Rosy Chamling
9. Vijay Tendulkar’s The Vultures: An Interface between Feminist Critique and Existential Angst —Shubho Ray
10. Panopticons of Power: The Infusion of Family, Gender and Social Opportunism in Vijay Tendulkar’s Kamala —Ratul Nandi
11. Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana Revisited —K.L. George, S.J.
12. Hayavadana: A Theatre-goer’s Response —Dattatreya Datta
13. Casteism and Karnad’s Hayavadana —Kaustav Chakraborty
14. Reluctant to be Framed: Reading Tughlaq as a Medley of Voices and Conflicting Personas in Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq —Raja Basu
15. “And why should I deserve that Madness?”: The Strange Case of Karnadian Tughlaq —Abhishek Jha
16. A Tale of Subversion with a Conundrum of Mask: A Reading into Girish Karnad’s Naga Mandala —Zinia Mitra
17. Desires from the World beyond and the Women in Naga Mandala —Paramita Ghosh
18. Conflict between Natural Law and Moral Rectitude: Girish Karnad’s The Fire and the Rain —Antara Saha
19. ‘Fire’ and ‘Rain’ in The Fire and the Rain —Payel Sinha
20. Terrors of Immortality in Girish Karnad’s The Fire and the Rain —Shreyashi Chettri
21. The Mother of 1084: Political Drama Redefined —Gautam Sengupta
22. The Personal is Political: Re-reading Mahasweta Devi’s Mother of 1084 —Jaydip Sarkar
23. Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions: A Reconsideration —Ketaki Datta
24. History through Modernity: An Analysis of Final Solutions —Samipendra Banerjee
25. Multiple Appropriations: Writing the Contested Body in Dattani’s Tara —Pathik Roy
26. Form and Content in Mahesh Dattani’s Dance Like a Man —Indranee Ghosh
27. Dance Like a Man: Revisiting the Title —Nilanjana Sen
28. The Ironic Gaze: A Reading of Dattani’s Bravely Fought the Queen —Anindya Sen
29. Charandas Chor: Re-imagining the ‘Folk’ —Anshuman Singh
30. Rereading Indira Parthasarathy’s Aurangzeb as Religio-Political Diatribe Beneath a Historical Façade —Nitai Chandra Saha
31. Asif Currimbhoy: India’s First Authentic Voice? —Indrani Chakraborty
32. Songs and Poems in Evam Indrajit: Towards a New Hermeneutics of Entrapment and Alienation —Rajadipta Roy
33. Listening to ‘the Still, Sad Music of Humanity’: An Appraisal of Badal Sircar’s Evam Indrajit —Archana Biswas
34. The Poetics of Protest in Ratan Thiyam’s Chakravyuha —Anirban Chakraborty
35. ”And What Sin Am I Guilty Of?’: Stereotyping the ‘Destereotype’ in Elkunchwar’s Desire in the Rocks —Amrita Sarkar
Author Index/Name Index • Subject Index