Shakespeare’s 450th Birthday celebration: All world is a stage and all the men and women merely players…

                                                         Shakespeare is very much alive in different forms and different dialects these days, everywhere around the world as theatrical celebrations are going on to mark the 450^th birth anniversary of the great playwright. His plays have been adopted, reinterpreted and localized in diverse cultural contexts. The all time appealing plays hold charisma for enthusiastic and brilliant contemporary performers of today. Recently, I had an opportunity to see a couple of plays enacted by different troupes. I saw The Midsummer Night’s Dream and Shakespeare came home. Over a period, many transformations have taken place in the scripts and performances as well. The Midsummer Night’s Dream, a surrealistic play, is localized by adapting to the local culture and dialect and this adaption endears the audience. The rich live Jaipur folk music enlivens  and enthralls the audience. The Jaipur traditional costumes and the contemporary tattoos on face, waist, hands and legs suggest a fusion of tradition and modernity, a feature of postmodernism. The actors performed brilliantly with non-stop live music in the background.

Another play titled Shakespeare came Home has a very different approach. An English professor has conceived and scripted this play in a very different and novel way. Here, the playwright tries to give a comprehensive approach to the works of Shakespeare, especially the plays. In this challenging play, all the prominent characters of Shakespeare’s plays appear on the stage along with the great playwright and his wife. An English professor, a character in the play, goes on giving information about the legendary works. The most interesting thing about this play is that throughout the play the playwright goes on giving critical analysis of Shakespeare plays and the sources from which he got inspiration to write the plays. The blend of information and criticism makes the play more interesting to the audience. The plays are placed under the scanner and each play’s content is criticized in the context of present philosophies. Here in this play, it is interesting to note that the character as Shakespeare’s wife criticizes Taming of the Shrew in the context of feminism and male chauvinism. Reader’s response theory ultimately proves that the author is dead and the works are left to the discretion of the reader. The strong and intense script of this play represents the Readers’ Response Theory very strongly. Ultimately, the author is dead, the readers get prominence, and the plays are going to be interpreted in many ways and in many dialects as never before. In this context, the above-mentioned play Shakespeare came Home appears significant.

Shakespeare has been acclaimed globally long back but now he is accepted and acclaimed locally too in the remote pockets of the world. No doubt, the great playwright will continue to inspire future literature also.

                                                                                             

Literature Festivals

Now, literature festivals have become very popular  in India. People who are interested in books and literature look forward to these festivals eagerly every year, hoping to get something new and different each time. Earlier one-day festivals have been extended to five days now. Jaipur Festival, Mumbai International literature festival, Goa Arts and Literary festival, Luknow Literature festival, The Hindu literature festival in Chennai, Hydrabad literature festival and Kochin book Festival are the famous ones in India.  All these festivals represent linguistic diversity and literary consciousness to the hilt. Eminent writers and critics across the country will take part in these festivals and exchange their views on various topics and upcoming writers will be benefitted by these interactions and will pursue their literary interest with new zeal. A variety of topics would be covered and a new light be thrown on, in these festivals. The Hindu literature festival is going to take place on 16th, 17th & 18th Jan, 2015. The Kolkata literature festival will be held from 14th to 18th January, 2015. The Jaipur literature Festival will be held from 21st to 25th Jan, 2015. Already the lists of eminent writers and speakers who are going to attend these festivals have been announced. In these festivals, not only literature but also the allied subjects are going to be covered to enlighten oneself and audience.

Literature always reflects the multi layers of life in its true colors. Through literature, we see the visible and invisible both. These festivals cover important issues like the survival and progress of languages and dialects in the present context, which are need of the hour. The topics range from life to politics, literature to journalism, green wars to brunch and lunch, bollywood to popular culture and so on. A subject cannot be studied in isolation; it needs to be studied in the context of other subjects, as all subjects are interrelated. These festivals have designed the programs very carefully covering all-important subjects and focusing on the relevant contemporary national issues as well, which need to be tackled with different perspectives and approaches. Feminist issues like violence against fair sex and the role and existence of woman in the conservative society, denial of basic rights to women- are going to be addressed with a punch.  Consciousness and reasoning capacity have to be developed first among women about their basic rights through literature and discussions. When the world is progressing at a rapid speed and the borders are erasing, the above-mentioned problems need to be examined carefully and given right solutions to erase gender discrimination.

Powerful topics like Governance, Distant Neighbors, and Anticipating India rightly chosen for discussion need deep reflection and voids to be covered with appropriate answers to have positivity, as there is an urgent need for global harmony right now. The programs offered by the festivals have a wide horizon and vision , cover, and reflect on different topics very genuinely, it sounds. By reflecting and cogitating on issues like these, one may get some solutions to the present problems and direct the society to go on new lines. Besides this, art, dance, theatre, the allied fields, have significant roles to play here and contribute to the success of the literature festivals.

Thought provoking festivals are necessary because they come out with new visions at the end. New thinking and new visions are the result of intellectuals meet, exchange of views, and contemplations. The resultant new philosophy would help the society to change in a constructive and positive way. Globalization and information technology are in the process of erasing many age-old languages. In this context, literature festivals are most welcome, where one can look forward and take measures to safeguard the regional languages and heritage.

Aristotle, an old bookshelf, and a chinese torch

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Aristotle,the Greek philosopher, was in the habit of collecting books [manuscripts], spending huge amount of his earnings on it.  Sometimes Plato, Aristotle’s philosophic guide, used to call Aristotle’s house as “the house of the reader”. It was Aristotle, who gave us the principles of library classification. The concept of zoological garden and the foundation of logic are also his invention. Terminology of science is also the contribution of this genius. Alexander spent huge amount of his treasure to help Aristotle, in establishing the Zoological garden during his time, since he was the disciple of Aristotle.

                           While reading the classical novels in English, we come across the elaborate descriptions of the library and some interesting related scenes, which give a picture of life of that period. Description of a huge library room with polished wooden tables and chairs, books in red and blue jackets arranged neatly in rows, the elders retiring to the library after dinner to have chats over a cup of tea, servants bringing teapots on trays and knocking on the library door – such fine details made the reading more interesting and realistic. A collection of books, a library in the house, reflected taste and culture of a family in those days.

As a sign of culture, every educated family used to have a small or big library in one’s house in those days. Popular writers and popular magazines used to decorate the shelves. Reading was a sort of entertainment then. Reading always made one knowledgeable, imaginative and empathetic. Now, the word entertainment is the birthright of T.V. Since we are into visual culture now, passion for reading has considerably gone down in recent years. When I was rummaging through the shelf of old books one night, in recent days, I found King Lear, Crime and Punishment, Wuthering Heights, Lady Chatterley’s lover, Dr. Faustus, Gulliver’s Travels, Pilgrims  Progress, The Fountain Head, Atlas Shrugged, Emerson Essays…. and the list continued. Electricity went off suddenly, leaving me amidst the old yellowed books. A Chinese torch came to my help.  Chinese torches are small, handy and brilliant in their performance. These colorful torches have flooded the markets everywhere. The torch threw brilliant light on those classics. For me it was like a box of assorted chocolates wrapped in colorful glittering papers.  When I touched those books fondly and dusted, I could recollect some content of each book, very vaguely. I have started going through these old books one by one, once again. After a gap of nearly forty plus years, the same old books are giving me a different insight and different feelings altogether. I question myself, whether it is the all time appealing content of the book or the graying of my hair, which made the book more interesting and revealing.  A book, be it a novel or a biography or an essay, it always denotes the society, its culture and values. It stands as testimony for that period. This enables one to have comparative views of the past and the present.  Old books are always welcome because these are the repository of knowledge. After a gap, some books look rich and need to read often to get to the depth. Some books empty themselves at the first reading. Can we here apply Reader- response Theory?          .