Not All Remarks of Girish Karnad needs bash!!!

724th BLOG POST -->>

            It has been a long time since I and everyone is bearing the outrage against Girish Karnad. Though not even 15 days has passed since the issue aroused but still it has started frustrating. An issue is just a matter of an outcome of what has been played in few seconds, but then it is talked for hours and it is dragged up to many days. As the journalists are regularly contacting Girish Karnad, he is giving several statements to different journalists every time he is being interviewed, hence it's not ending the issue of him and Naipaul but raising many other issues. E.g. As the statement on Tagore has also been made by Girish. Is there any end to this? Now, other authors have started coming into the scene and giving their view points over the issue. Taslima Nasreen is the latest entrant into the issue who's standing in the support of Girish for his statement against Tagore being an incredible playwright. Now, as even I'm blogging on the issue, I would not have written this if the issue would have ended in the Mumbai's Litfest itself. 

              First of all, I would say that Girish Karnad should apologize to the organizers of Litfest publicly. It is an offensive act to ignore what you were being invited for and do something of your personal interest. When you are an institution in yourself, you have rights to speak and talk on any thing that you want to but when you are under an institution, permanently or temporarily, you should talk what they want you to. If you don't want to, reject the invitation at first place. As this is my Blog space, I am free to talk anything but once I would be asked to write a guest Post on some other website on a given topic, I can't talk what I would like to, I will have to speak on the topic that is given to me. This is the most basic key that everyone who's an invitee or chief guest knows, by default. I don't know how Girish Karnad managed to talk on his personal cold enmity he has with VS Naipaul. He was called to the Litfest to speak on his life in theater. Rather than that, he began criticizing the organizers of the Fest for honoring Naipaul with Lifetime Achievement Award. He called Naipaul Anti-Islamic. Though the organizers could have stopped Karnad from speaking against Naipaul but they didn't in respect of the free speech that every individual have. 

            Just because Naipaul wrote about Masjid demolition and all the past that were related to the same issue, does not mean that all the post-Masjid demolition riots and violence happened because of what Naipaul wrote. Those were the results of political parties' influence. And when you call him anti-Islamic, you should know that he is married to a Muslim from last 17 years and his marriage is still successful.  And the two children of Naipaul are brought up as Muslims. Hence, my dear author, if you would have spoken on the topic that you were given, you would have been respected more but you chose to do something that has framed you as a person with bad thoughts and worst attitude. You played a villainous role in Ek Tha Tiger which, according to you, says that you are anti-Pakistani. Right? Don't baffle now. It's your logic. 

              And now, to others, I would like to say that his claim and view on Rabindranath Tagore can be ignored with no angst for Karnad. Every reader has his own perspective. Just because the writer is Tagore, does not mean that it's a compulsion to like his writing or playwright. Though I have never read any book by Tagore but I'm accustomed with his short stories. But still I am writing on this topic, I don't know how much credibility I have to speak but still I will. I am not talking for or against Rabindranath Tagore's playwrights but I am saying that it's not a big issue if an author speaks against Tagore's playwright. How wrong Karnad is when he says that Tagore didn't reflect the real lower class people's plight as he was bought up in elite society? He can be right. How wrong Karnad is when he says that the contemporary writers to him were more effective as they went through the line of struggle as they were themselves from lower class? Not much wrong. How wrong Karnad is when he says that except Rakta Karabi(The Red oleander) and Dakghar(The Post Office), not any of Tagore's play got staged and acclaimed? He is almost true in every point that he has raised against Tagore's playwright being over-rated. 

            Hence, ending the post on the issue of Girish Karnad-VS Naipaul and Girish Karnad-Rabindranath Tagore, I would say that Girish Karnad is wrong what he did in Litfest by speaking on what he was not meant for(against VS Naipaul) and he is right when he reviews Rabindranath Tagore's works as everyone has the right to publicly express his/her views. 

 Thanks.

 ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU