Collected Plays: Taledanda, The Fire and the Rain, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, Flowers and Images: Two Dramatic Monologues, Volume 2

by Girish Karnad

This book is the second volume of a collection of plays by Girish Karnad, one of India's foremost dramatists and actors. It contains Taledanda , The Fire and the Rain , The Dreams of Tipu Sultan , and Macaulay's Children .

376 pages, Hardcover

First published December 29, 2005

About the author

Girish Raghunath Karnad (Konkani : गिरीश रघुनाथ कार्नाड, Kannada : ಗಿರೀಶ್ ರಘುನಾಥ್ ಕಾರ್ನಾಡ್) (born 19 May 1938) is a contemporary writer, playwright, screenwriter, actor and movie director in Kannada language. His rise as a prominent playwright in 1960s, marked the coming of age of Modern Indian playwriting in Kannada, just as Badal Sarkar did it in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in Hindi. He is a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award for Kannada, the highest literary honour conferred in India.
For four decades Karnad has been composing plays, often using history and mythology to tackle contemporary issues. He has translated his major plays into English, and has received critical acclaim across India. His plays have been translated into several Indian languages and directed by eminent directors like Ebrahim Alkazi, B. V. Karanth, Alyque Padamsee, Prasanna, Arvind Gaur, Satyadev Dubey, Vijaya Mehta, Shyamanand Jalan and Amal Allana. He is also active in the world of Indian cinema working as an actor, director, and screenwriter, both in Hindi and Kannada cinema, earning numerous awards along the way. He was conferred Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan by the Government of India.

Reviews

[Jasmeet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Words in Karnad's hand get spelled in just the exact dramatic way as he probably intends them to be. From its structural position to the literary significance rendered by the symbolic tapestry woven thus by myth, history, folklore and modernist reflection, the stage envisioned and characterized by the playwright is emphatic.

[Vish Patil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read Taledanda- the story drama written in its purest dialect bringing in the socio-political situation of 12 century Karnataka, the varna-classification of people based on castes and the relevance of reformation which turns out to harm the movement itself.

[Amit Chandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look into the past telling us how caste divide our society and it's effects.Also one man's struggel to bring peace and equality becomes others obsession and leads to treachery and butchery giving us the knowledge how difficult it is to keep up with the things you have started .

[EagleOverTheSea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this collection so much that I can't wait to lay my hands on volume two. I particularly like the unconventional actions of Karnad's heroines. They seem so much more real than the idealised sati-savitris of traditional Indian literature.

P.S. I tried adding Volume II to my wish list but it shows up as Volume I. *Trying to remind myself that I'm using the Beta version of Shelfari to avoid screaming with frustration*
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Update:

Yay! Finally reading Volume II