Girish Karnad

Girish karnad who is considere d to be the chief dramatist in india was born on may19,1938 in matheran ,near Maharashtra he is known as an all rounder bcoz he is a playwright,poet,actor,director,critic and translator .by birth he is a Konkani&his schooling was in Marathi.he got a bachelor’s degree in mathematics&statistics in1958,when he was studying at Karnataka university.he dreamed of obtaining international literary fame by writing in English.after graduation he went to England &studied at oxford university where he received a Rhodes scholarship &received master’s degree in philosophy,politics &economics.he earned his fame after many years of hardwork .karnad worked with the oxford university in his state after comingfrom England .to become a full time writer he left the job in 1970.but before that YAYATI which was written in kannada in1961,was a big hit .as the play was a great success it was translated into several Indian languages &it gives the details of various events in a chronological order similar to the adventures of mythical characters from the MAHABHARATA .his 2nd play ie,Tughlaq which was written in 1964can be considered as his best known work .The play HAYAVADANA is based on Thomas mann’s story The TRANSPOSED HEADS. Some of his other works are Nagamandala,Taledanda&the latest 1 which he has written is Odakalu Bimba (a heap of broken images) which is an inspiration from T.S.Eliot’s poem ,The waste land. According to K.R.S.Iyengar,”in all his 3 plays (yayati,tughlaq&hayavadana)-be the theme,historical,mythical or legendary-karnad’s approach is modern,&he deploys the conventions&motifs of folk art like masks&curtains to project a world of intentions ,uncertainties &unpredictable denouements.” Due to skillful use of irony&crisp dialogues all his plays are