Skip to main content

Girish Karnad's "Hayavadana"


           Girish Karnad's Hayavadana is a play about the story of two friends Devdutta and Kaplia and their love interest Padmini. The main plot is based on the story of transposed heads in the Sanskrit Vetala - Panchavimsati. The subplot Hayavadana, the horse-headed man is Karnad's own invention.

            The theme of incompleteness has been presented in the play at three levels.

1.     Divine level includes Lord Ganesha

2.     Human level includes Devadatta, Kapila & Padmini

3.     Animal level includes Hayavadana

The chorus Bhagavatha begins the play by worshipping the Elephant-headed Lord Ganesha. He is an embodiment of incompleteness. Bagavatha introduces Devadatta and Kapila as bosom friends. They are complementary to each other: “One Mind, One Heart”, but they are presented as binary opposites. They are socially, psychologically, culturally, economically and educationally poles apart. Devadatta represents the acme of intellect. Kapila represents the ultimate in physical prowess.

Devadatta, the man of intellect falls in love with Padmini. With the efforts of Kapila, both get married. In the course of time, Padmini gets attracted to Kapila’s robust physique, Devadatta becomes aware of it. On the way to Ujjain fair, they go to Kali of Mount Chitrakoot. Devadatta beheads himself as he cannot live without his wife as well as his friend.  Finding him lying dead, Kapila also beheads himself.

Padmini decides to end her life, but she is stopped by Goddess Kali. She gives Padmini an opportunity to bring both of them back to life. In haste, Padmini mixes up the heads of both. Goddess Kali knows the intentions of Padmini and says that humans can never give up selfishness. An old stage suggests that the man having Devadatta’s head is the rightful husband of Padmini.

After some months, Padmini loses interest in Devadatta and goes in search of Kapil since the Physique of Devadatta’s head starts assuming its original shape. At the end of the play, both male characters fight and die. Padmini too ends her life by committing Sati along with the pyre of the two.

The horse-headed man Hayavadana deepens the significance of the main theme search for identity. He is blessed with Goddess Kali. He becomes a complete horse but with a human voice. Hence the search for completeness can never be attained.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Things That Haven't Been Done Before - Edgar Guest - Poem & Summary

    The things that haven’t been done before, Those are the things to try; Columbus dreamed of an unknown shore At the rim of the far-flung sky, And his heart was bold and his faith was strong As he ventured in dangers new, And he paid no heed to the jeering throng Or the fears of the doubting crew. The many will follow the beaten track With guideposts on the way. They live and have lived for ages back With a chart for every day. Someone has told them it’s safe to go On the road he has traveled o’er, And all that they ever strive to know Are the things that were known before . A few strike out without map or chart, Where never a man has been, From the beaten path they draw apart To see what no man has seen. There are deeds they hunger alone to do; ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rabindranath Tagore - Where the Mind is Without Fear – Gitanjali 35

  Rabindranath Tagore - Where the Mind is Without Fear – Gitanjali 35 Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. About Author Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a renowned Bengali poet, writer, composer, and philosopher. He reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art, with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his collection of poems, "Gitanjali" ("Song Offerings"). ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Magic Brocade - Tale from China

        NARRATOR 1:  Once in China there lived an old widow and her son, Chen. The widow was known all over for the brocades that she made on her loom. NARRATOR 4:  Weaving threads of silver, gold, and colored silk into her cloth, she made pictures of flowers, birds, and animals— NARRATOR 2:  pictures so real they seemed almost alive. NARRATOR 3:  People said there were no brocades finer than the ones the widow wove. NARRATOR 1:  One day, the widow took a pile of brocades to the marketplace, where she quickly sold them. Then she went about buying her household needs. NARRATOR 4:  All at once she stopped. WIDOW:  Oh, my! NARRATOR 2:  Her eye had been caught by a beautiful painted scroll that hung in one of the stalls. NARRATOR 3:  It showed a marvelous palace, all red and yellow and blue and green, reaching delicately to the sky. All around were fantastic gar...
Post a Comment
Read more