After his public criticism of V SNaipaul, writer-actor Girish Karnad has kicked up a freshstorm by calling Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore a "second-rate playwright".
Talking to reporters near Nelamangala in the city'soutskirts, he said, "Tagore was a great poet but a mediocreand second-rate playwright. He produced his plays but thosewere never produced by his contemporaries. The contemporaryBengali theatre never accepted them. I think they did one ortwo plays. His comedy succeeded but not his other plays."
Asked the reason behind his contention, the Jnanpithawardee said, "Because he is second rated, what else shouldone call him? In the last 50 years, India has produced manyplaywrights like Badal Sarcar, Mohan Rakesh and VijayTendulkar, who are better than Tagore."
Last week, during a session on theatre at a literaturefestival in Mumbai, Karnad criticised Naipaul for his views onMuslims in India, calling him "stone deaf" and an "unreliable"writer of non-fiction as far as India is concerned.
Karnad, behind acclaimed plays like "Yayati", "Tughlaq","Naga Mandala" and "Broken Images", also contended that Tagoredid not understand poor characters because he came from thearistocracy.
"The poorer people in his plays are really cardboardcharacters. They have no passion and anguish at all... Hisplays did not have any impact. For instance, Bengali theatrepersonality Girish Ghosh and others were not influenced byhim," he said.
"People have the tendency to be reverential about peopleand think that they are marvellous because they got Nobelprize or something like that."
Karnad's comments have angered the Bengali film andtheatre world with Dadasaheb Phalke winning actor SoumitraChatterji calling it "embarrassing".
"It is embarrassing to call a Nobel laureate second rate. You also devalue his contribution to the original developmentof dramatic literature in the country... Tagore had his ownway of visualising reality. Karnad also said that he neverwrote for the poor which I think is rather foolish," he said.
Debashish Ray Chaudhuri, who has directed some of Tagoreplays, said Karnad is a non-Bengali and so he does not haveaccess to all of the Tagore's plays.
"His comments should not be taken seriously. I think itwas in passing. Tagore's plays are famous even globally. As aplaywright, he was ahead of his time," he said.
Another leading Bengali theatre personality, BibhasChakravorty, said, "It is his personal view. Of course, Idisagree with him but we cannot treat it as the view of theentire theatre field."
CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta also took exception toKarnad's remarks.
"This is extremely unfortunate that a man of knowledge ,a man of culture, a man of theatre and a man whose works havebeen liked by us, should have made such an unfortunatestatement. It is perhaps an expression of lack ofunderstanding about people. After more than 100 years, ifsomebody says he had been writing substandard material, it issad."
