Those plays which are contemporary but are forgotten a few years later are not political plays. Political plays talk about much more than a political event; they talk about the forces that shape the event... I have an offer now to translate my play, Tughlaq, into Iranian. Now, why is that? Because it makes sense in Iran today," Girish Karnad had told this writer in March this year, about why he deemed relevance necessary for the success of political plays.


Girish Karnad

Three months later, his passing left an aching void in the world of theatre. But theatrewallahs quickly found a way of paying tribute to the playwright the way he would have liked it, and thus began a series of readings of Karnad’s plays by theatre companies across India. "But the joy of a play lies in mounting it," says Mumbai-based Abhinav Grover, who has taken on the task of directing a dystopian adaptation of Tughlaq, where he also plays the 14th-century Sultan of Delhi. Though a historical play about the idealist ruler who failed miserably, Karnad’s script alluded to the times he wrote it in — the Nehruvian era and the ultimate disillusionment with it. Since then, the play has been staged at different stages in the country’s history including Alyque Padamsee’s English adaptation of it and Ebrahim Alkazi’s staging of the play in Delhi.