BENGALURU: The loss of Girish Karnad continues to haunt many artistes and writers in the country, and storytellers in the city came together on Sunday to pay their tribute to the ace writer. Organised by Katha Corner, a storytellers’ circle, the tellers looked at eight of Karnad’s plays – Tughlaq, Yayati, Flowers, Bali: The Sacrifice, Maduve Album, Hayavadana, Nagamandala and his last play Road To Talikota – and converted them into mini stories at the session.
“We are presenting some of his best plays in a storytelling format. It’s a small tribute from our storytelling fraternity to this master storyteller. There are lots of layers in his each play. I can tell his story to a 10- year-old and even to an adult,” said Ramya Srinidhi, co-founder of Katha Corner, who is looking forward to conducting more such sessions.
The audience, aged 16 and above, got to hear Karnad’s plays as stories narrated by storytellers Lavanya Prasad, Sowmya Srinivasan, Tapan Mozumdar, Shylaja Sampath, Priya Muthukumar, Aparna Athreya, Sneha Kappanna and Ramya Srinidhi. Sowmya Srinivasan, founding member of Bangalore Storytelling Society, shared that despite owning a copy of Tughlaq for 25 years, she never read the book. “I was reading that book on a train journey when he passed away. For me, Tughlaq was the introduction to Girish Karnad,” she said while explaining why she chose the particular play for her performance. “The way he uses words to portray emotions and present the complexities of man’s thinking is captivating. So, I have used many of his dialogues in my session, especially the ones about corruption. Each dialogue is relevant today,” she added.
For Lavanya Prasad, who is the founder of the storytelling company Talescope, Karnad’s ability to re-create characters in folklore is what inspired her most.
“Our company focuses on mainly on folk tales, and Karnad’s Hayavadana and Nagamandala have been our inspiration in this field. Today, I presented the story of Flower, his play that was adopted from a Chitradurga folklore,” she said. Though the original script was a monologue, Prasad chose to present it as third person narrative. “Presenting these hours long plays in 20-30 minutes was the biggest challenge here for all of us,” she said.
Padma Shri recipient and well-known Kannada film director, M S Sathyu, was also present at the event. He told that CE that even after watching and reading several of Karnad’s plays, he saw a fresh presentation of them at the event.
“These storytellers have delved deep into each of the plays and tried to bring out its core element. One important thing is, no matter how many times we listen, read or witness these plays, they are evergreen. In particular, characters from Road To Talikota and Hayavadana are still relevant today,” said Sathyu.