Benda Kaalu on Toast

Benda Kaalu on Toast

Play in Kannada

 by Girish Karnad

 pages: 100     price:Rs 70

Manohara Grantha mala, Dharwad

Girish Karnad is arguably one of the finest among the playwrights of modern India. He has fourteen plays to his credit. “Benda Kaalu on Toast” is his latest play. A versatile genius, Karnad has drawn his material from a repertoire of resources- myth, history, folklore and contemporary life-and has been comfortable with each one of them. A modern playwright, Karnad is not interested in plain, linear presentation of a story in the mere dialogue form. Instead, he creates situations where  characters and ideas  get problematised exhibiting multiple dimensions of the existential and civilizational problems and possibilities of perception. Karnad’s plays raise many important, fundamental issues and questions regarding the meaning and the very purpose of human existence, power structures and human relationships which have no simple answers or solutions. He does not use myth, history and folklore only to retell the old stories to the modern audience in the dramatic form. Instead, he creatively transforms them into metaphors and employs them to encounter and interpret the immediate, burning, contemporary issues. These metaphors provide him a larger canvas and the archetypal energy to deal with contemporary problems and situations. While dealing with  contemporary domestic and social life Karnad shows the ambition of  elevating the present to metaphysical heights.

       “Anju Mallige”, “Maduveya Album”, “Odakalu Bimba” and ‘Benda Kaalu on Toast” are the plays in which Karnad sets his situations in the present times. If “Anju Mallige” and “Odakalu Bimba” attempt to probe the labyrinths of human consciousness, “Maduveya Album” and  “Benda Kaalu on Toast” take on social, cultural and political issues. Steeped in the  specific details of  the Saraswath brahmin world “Maduveya Album” observes the tensions and  changing aspirations of a small  community  through a close examination of  the instituition of marriage which is under pressure from various  corners. In “Benda Kaalu on Toast” Bengaluru, the metropolis, itself is the protagonist! According to a legend king Veera Ballala, while hunting, got lost in a forest. An old woman saved the  exhausted, hungry king by offering him ‘benda kaalu’ (baked beans).In gratitude the king built a town there and gave the name Bendakaaluru to it. In course of time Bendakaaluru became Bengaluru. If one observes closely, not only the nomenclature but an entire value system has undergone a sea change. The title of Karnad’s new play-which is   half Kannada and half English- seems to epitomize this transformation. The play  may be read as Karnad’s metaphorical response to contemporary Bengaluru, the epitome of the contradictions and complexities of contemporary civilization.

                  If  this new play of Karnad outwardly appears a bit patchy, disjointed and loose it is understandable. One cannot-should not-expect a neatly woven tight plot in this kind of a play. It is very interesting to note that Karnad, in Author’s preface, declares that  the play   is his humble tribute to Shoodraka’s play “Mricchakatika”. And that explains the logic and   motivation behind the structural strategies of “Benda Kaalu on Toast”. It does not have a single plot. Each main character-drawn from different class, generation and strata of society- has his/her story. These individual stories meet at some point or other but most importantly, in spite of being unique they are able to weave a colourful, complex tapestry   thereby offering a micro visual of contemporary Bengaluru. The metropolis seems to be collapsing under its own weight. But it is also a hope, dream and the ultimate goal to the middle and the working class outside Bangalore. One character-Prabhakara Telang-sums up this aspiration when he says: ‘The city air, however polluted, is like a breath of fresh air for me after that suffocating growing-up in the village’.Other characters, especially the working class, echo the same sentiment. It is an irony that   Pops Iyer convinces Prabhakar that even Bengaluru is suffocating, too small a place for People like Prabhakar, and induces him to improve his prospects  by going abroad. Even as a number of other characters have found lucrative careers, Kunal  refuses to pursue the same course and braves all threats and challenges to explore a new space in music. The grand old lady Anasuya Padubidre finds her space in the race course while her daughter-in-law Anjana Padubidre finds solace in   philanthropic activities. Thus everybody in this play demands  one’s share of ‘Benda Kaalu’ in spite of Benda Kaaluru’s own pressures and constraints. It is this contradiction that Karnad’s play attempts to reflect and grasp.

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T.P.Ashoka

Prof.&Head

Dept.of  English

Lal Bahadur College

Sagar-577 401

Shimoga Dist.

Karnataka

Cell: 94482 54228