LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 9 : 9 September 2009
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.

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Girish Karnad's Yayati - A Tale of Malcontent All Around

Varun Gulati M.A., M. Phil., Ph.D. (Candidate)

Yayati: Image of an Alienated Modern Man

Keniston writes that "heroes" of all kinds and all ages have been alienated and their stories are the tales of alienation and of struggles to end it."

Girish Karnad's Yayati is an Indian mythological king who represents the modern alienated man. Karnad has borrowed the myth from great Indian epic Mahabharta and other Puranas.

The play opens when Yayati is married to Devayani, the daughter of demons' guru Shukracharya. Sharmistha, the daughter of the Demon King Vrishparva, is shown as her slave. Yayati was carried away with a wave of emotion to find the miserable plight of Sharmistha, a princess, in fact, and secretly married her in spite of the warning by his Father-in-Law that he should never let Sharmishtha share his bed. When Shukracharya came to know this, he uttered his curse on Yayati to become an old man. Shukracharya also said the only concession he could give was that if Yayati wanted he could give his old age to someone and take their youth from him.

Karnad takes a deep insight into Yayati's character and shows Yayati's passion for the enjoyment of life, which ultimately turns into detachment and aloofness. Yayati is a true ambassador of modern common man, who in spite of having much pleasures of life, still feels impatient and dissatisfied. Yayati takes the youth of Pooru, his youngest son, but soon realizes the impropriety of his shallow action and feels like an alienated common man. Yayati feels cataclysmic disillusionment and loss of faith in life. His torment and burden for Pooru's youth is revealed in the following words.

"Please help me, Pooru. Take back your youth. Let me turn my decrepitude into a beginning."

Thus, Yayati's disillusionment is complete only with saturation. He has had his fill but remains unfulfilled.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Levels of Politeness in Malaysian Parliamentary Discourse | Grammatical Influence of Telugu on Hyderabad Tamil | Separated by a Common Language - Asian Students Writing in English | Modality, Mood and Modal Auxiliaries: A Critique | The Impact of Translation Method On Word Meaning And Fill-In-the-Blank Tests Procedures on Short-Term and Long-Term Retention of Vocabulary Items | Proverbs in Tamil and Telugu | Chandra Lekha in He who Rides a Tiger by Bhabani Bhattacharya | A Literary Study of the Parables in the Gospels of the Bible | Can Hurdles be Overcome by Learners of ESL in Learning to Speak English? | A Strategy-based Scheme for Promoting Vocabulary Retention among Language Learners | The Effect of Text Authenticity on the Performance of Iranian EFL Students in a C-Test | On Interrogating Language and Cognition | Towards Education Reforms - Decolonizing English Studies in India | Girish Karnad's Yayati - A Tale of Malcontent All Around | HOME PAGE of September 2009 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR

Varun Gulati
S.A. Jain Institute of Management & Technology
Ambala City - 134003
Haryana
India
varun_gulati2020@rediffmail.com

 
Web www.languageinindia.com
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