A seemingly unprovoked act of violence by Sawar Ramchandra is the pivot around which the plot turns in Swadesh Deepak's now classic Court Martial. A disturbing tale of caste inequality is told here with the deeply hierarchical world of the army as its setting. With its crisp dialogue and unrelenting social critique, the play is as engrossing and relevant today as when it first appeared.
In a nameless 'backward area', the journalist Apoorva, in The Saddest Poem Ever Written, is committed to resisting social injustice. Her battle against the sadistic zamindar and his cunning wife and ruthless policemen will put her in a position where she'll be forced to choose between love and her revolutionary cause.
Rajat, the stage actor in Kaal Kothri, must choose too-between a salaried job and the theatre, which offers fulfilment to the artist but a dark future for his family. Ideals meet reality in the world of arts as Rajat must deal with his troubled life at home, an ailing playwright snubbed for being too utopian, and a sacntimonious civil servant he must bootlick.
Brought together here are brilliant translations of three of the most celebrated and timeless plays of one of the finest and most radical playwrights of our time.
Author and playwright Swadesh Deepak was born in Rawalpindi on 6 August 1942. After his MA in English Literature, he taught for a long time at the Gandhi Memorial National College, Ambala Cantonment. Following a period of illness from 1991 to 1997, when he had little contact with anyone other than his family and close friends, he made a momentous return to the world of letters with an autobiographical account of his illness, Maine Mandu Nahin Dekha, and the play Sabse Udaas Kavita. He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2004. He has a total of 15 published books to his name including short-story collections such as Tamasha, Baal Bhagwan and Kisi Ek Pedh Ka Naam Lo and hugely successful plays such as Court Martial and Kaal Kothri.
In 2006, he left home for a walk and never returned. He has been missing ever since.
Jerry Pinto is a writer and poet based in Mumbai. His books include the novels The Education of Yuri (2023), Murder in Mahim (2017) and Em and the Big Hoom (2012; winner of the Hindu Prize and the Crossword Book Award); the non-fiction book Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb (2006; winner of the National Award for the Best Book on Cinema); and two collections of poetry, Asylum and Other Poems and I Want a Poem. An acclaimed translator, Jerry has also published landmark translations from Marathi and Hindi, among them: Baburao Bagul's classic collection When I Hid My Caste; Sachin Kundalkar's novel Cobalt Blue; and the memoirs of Daya Pawar (Baluta), Malika Amar Shaikh (I Want to Destroy Myself), Eknath Awad (Strike a Blow to Change the World) and Swadesh Deepak (I Have Not Seen Mandu). In 2016, he received the Windham-Campbell Prize and the Sahitya Akademi Award.
You and I always write tragedies. Our vision of life is tragic. How did you imagine, Swadesh, that just wanting to write would be enough? No. First you have to live with your characters for years, you must take part in their joys and personal sorrows. You will have to bleed with them, accept extensive damage to the self. You must forget your own personal sorrows first and only then will you be able to write their sorrows. You know all this. When your characters come to you with hands outstretched, your book will begin to be written and then, whether it is a big book or not, it will be one that will lead you to salvation. And this long desolation will end.
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