Andha yug

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Bibliographic Information

Andha yug

Dharamvir Bharati ; translated, with a critical introduction by Alok Bhalla

Oxford University Press, 2005

Other Title

Andhā yuga

Uniform Title

Andhā yuga

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Description and Table of Contents

Description

Andha Yug focuses on the last day of the Mahabharata war. The ramparts are in ruins, the city is burning and Kurukshetra is covered with corpses and vultures. The few bewildered survivors of the Kaurava clan are overcome by grief and rage. Longing for one last act of revenge, they refuse to condemn Ashwatthama when he releases the ultimate weapon, the brahmastra, which threatens to annihilate the world. Instead, they blame Krishna for having caused the war, and curse him. The moral centre of the play lies in Krishna. He is the voice of compassion, an embodiment of all that is good and just in the world. Despite his failure to ensure peace, it is his presence throughout the play which reveals to us that the ethical and the sacred are always available to human beings even in the worst of times. Andha Yug is one of the most significant plays of modern India. Written immediately after the partition of the Indian subcontinent, the play is a profound meditation on the politics of violence and aggressive selfhood. The moral burden of the play is that every act of violence inevitably debases society as a whole. Alok Bhalla's translation captures the essential tension between the nightmare of self-enchantment, which the story of the Kauravas represents, and the ever-present possibility of finding a way out of the cycle of revenge into a redemptive ethicality. One of the most significant plays of post-Independence India, Dharamvir Bharati's Andha Yug raises pertinent moral issues in the context of Partition-related atrocities. The action of the play takes place on the last day of the Mahabharata war and is centered on a few bewildered survivors of the Kaurava clan. The figure of Krishna is central to the narrative. He represents the infinite variety of ways in which the good manifests itself in the ordinary world. He is the man of justice and truth. The Kauravas, however, are unable to imagine the truth about Krishna. This failure of imaginat ion becomes the cause of their final undoing.

Table of Contents

  • DEFENDING THE SACRED IN AN AGE OF ATROCITIES: ON TRANSLATING ANDHA YUG
  • PREFATORY NOTE
  • A NOTE TO THE DIRECTORS
  • PROLOGUE
  • ACT ONE: THE KAURAVA KINGDOM
  • ACT TWO: THE MAKING OF A BEAST
  • ACT THREE: THE HALF-TRUTH OF ASHWATTHAMA
  • INTERLUDE: FEATHERS, WHEELS AND BANDAGES
  • ACT FOUR: GANDHARI'S CURSE
  • ACT FIVE: VICTORY AND A SERIES OF SUICIDES
  • EPILOGUE: DEATH OF THE LORD

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