Considered to be one of the "founding fathers" of the Indian English novel along with R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) made a name for himself in the literary fraternity both nationally as well as internationally. Although he wrote short stories, essays concerning different subjects and art critiques, he gained fame as a novelist for works such as The Untouchable and Coolie.
Mulk Raj Anand's novels revolve around the underdog- a member of the oppressed class/caste and are realistic and sympathetic in their portrayal of the poor and the underprivileged. He led an illustrious literary life and many considered him to be the Charles Dickens of India. Incidentally, he has also written about the theatre in India and his views about the same make up a slim volume titled The Indian Theatre.
Given the diversity of various theatres in India, Anand's summary of the Indian theatre of the late forties and early fifties seems like a job finished even before it has begun. Although the work undertaken is not exhaustive or critical in a larger sense, it still provides the reader with the ethos of the theatre round that time. It survives as a panoramic survey of the microcosmic world of the theatre.
Anand's constant refrain in the book is about the merging of the old cultural sensibility with the new and the modern, which according to him can liberate Indian theatre but which unfortunately is not true of a lot of popular theatre. Ironically his views hold true even today except for a few notable exceptions.
For the coming weeks, Mumbai Theatre Guide will feature excerpts from the various chapters of The Indian Theatre by Mulk Raj Anand in honour of the versatile writer who recently passed away. We also decided to feature his work on the Indian theatre because it reads like the inscription found on old monuments whose presence bears witness to the times that once were. Anecdotal, humorous and telling in turn, The Indian Theatre sums up for an interesting read.
The Popular Theatre
A safety curtain, with birds and flowers and buxom Victorian wenches around a fountain, painted in crude commercial colours, bars you from the mystery as you sit in the auditorium. The play begins at about half past ten or eleven, just when you have dozed off after a futile attempt at catching the eye of the lady who sits in the box. For who else but a harlot would think of coming to the theatre at midnight unattended!
Certainly she is much more amenable to the whistles, the shrill shouts and the catcalls of the more experienced rou�s than to the surreptitious glances of the respectable little man furtively winking to attract her. So you have nothing to do but to chew betel leaf or sleep. Suddenly, there is a rustling and you see through your half open eyes that the safety curtain is going up and also the red plush tabs are parting, followed by the shooting of a gun�
And there is the clown trying to stand on his head. A thudding fall of his spotted behind and you awaken rubbing your eyes. Your patience with the antics of the clown is rewarded when at last the hero appears singing. He may be representing Sur Das or Hamlet, but he enters singing dolefully thumping his heart and rolling his eyes as though he were convulsed with the ache of a million broken romances.
