BANASHANKARI: Rumour has it that this Wednesday’s show at Chowdaiah will be theatre veteran Master Hirannaiah’s last. He, however, doesn’t think so.
“I will continue performing for as long as I breathe,” says the octogenarian, who took on the name of his father and the responsibility of running his drama company after his passing in 1953.
“I used to stand and walk around during a performance before. Now, after my back operation, I sit and do my act,” he told City Express.
The performance this week, Mastrayana — a medley of Makmal Topi, Lanchavatara as well as a shadow play and a magic show — is a ‘benefit show’: part of the proceeds will go to Mahila Dakshata Samiti, which works to help uplift women and children in distress.
Last year too, the satirist who often takes a dig at politicians, was cornered by Siddaramaiah’s supporters in Mysuru, after he made a few unflattering remarks about the chief minister. Even then, some reports said he had promised the Congress leader that he would give up performing.
Ask him about it, and he sounds surprised. “How can I? We artistes too have to do our duty by the society,” he says. He believes, like his father did, that satire is the best means for social reform.
“They brought in caste and class, so I backed off. But people like us — my father and I — know that we have to take both the praises and brickbats,” he says.
All the same, as people representing a public figure, he believes the party workers should have refrained from vandalism, and taken a more lawful path to show their disapproval.
“They could have come up to me and explained to me how I was wrong, and I would have corrected myself. In theatre, we don’t need a separate Censor Board; the audience filters what goes and what doesn’t,” he explains. “Or they could have gone to court like Nijalingappa did.”
This, he says, shows the difference between the politicians of an earlier era and those of today. “Before, they were human beings. Now, they have become rakshasas,” he says.
The hush-hush of bribery is a thing of the past, he observes. “Now people tell you directly how much you need to pay them — and their minions — for their service,” he says.
Talking about the general anxiety of the government at the Centre clamping down on the freedom of speech, he says, “The Constitution is the highest God in a democracy, and if someone wants to supersede that, the court will rule otherwise, like the High Court did when Nijalingappa moved it against my play Lanchavatara in 1963,” he recalls.
Whether in Bhrashtachara or Lanchavatara, he takes corruption head on, improvising the pieces that have run for decades to introduce elements from the current political scene.
“The frame remains the same; the photo might change,” he says. “We bribe a child with a chocolate or a new pencil to run an errand, and this attitude continues.”
His plays are often narrated from a villain’s perspective. “My father used to do this too. He would take on the character of a pimp, and say that it was society which made him that way, for if no one lusted after women who weren’t their wives, he would have found another occupation,” he says. Hirannaiah Senior founded the drama company Mitra Mandali Drama Company.
So when the last few lines are delivered, the audience accepts them because it knows that it’s the artiste who speaks, he reasons.
On the current theatre scene, he says the days of Gubbi Veeranna’s company were glorious for Kannada drama.
“Now, Bengali and Marathi company theatre are thriving, but we’re getting there too,” he says.
Mastrayana, Wednesday, 7 pm, at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall. Tickets are available on www.bookmyshow.com