A HEAP OF BROKEN IMAGESby Girish Karnad

Tuesday, 01 January 2008

A HEAP OF BROKEN IMAGESby Girish Karnad
My friend from India, Nimma has a deep interest in the plays of the Indian Playwrite Girish Karnard, She sent me this Review of Karnard's A Heap of Broken Images.

A HEAP OF BROKEN IMAGES – Girish Karnad

      Girish Karnad’s latest release Two Monologues contains two monologues named Flowers and A Heap of Broken Images. A Heap of Broken Images is a brilliant play with a brilliant direction and acting is at its Zenith. The play has a strong story line. A Heap of Broken Images explores the urban Indian society with its fascination for technology. Images in the play are those that one relates to, that have an impact on people’s lives everyday.

TITLE The title of the play is taken from the following lines of T.S.Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland"…. ……..for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter …."

      BIKHRE BIMB – Odakalu Bimba (Kannada) was written exclusively for Ranga Shankara's opening festival in October 2004 .Subsequently in January, 2005 Karnad also wrote the English version – A Heap of Broken Images

      Three unique things happened when Ranga Shankara produced the play in March 2005 – 1. Girish Karnad directed his play for the first time .The last time Karnad directed a play

      was 40 years ago when he did Badal Sircar's Evam Indrajit .
2. Ranga Shankara produced its first play
3. A play opened in two different languages (English and Kannada)

BIKHRE BIMB - Playwright's note

      The twenty-first century is the age of the electronic image. From every corner of our world, electronic images fling themselves at us, entertaining, educating, enticing or offering us a virtual world of global dimensions to immerse ourselves in. The very notion of a private self seems threatened by this onslaught from outside. But suppose the most vociferous of these images were one's own (.The irony is that this wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t written the novel in English)

    The focus is on the new-age dilemma — the diminishing distinction between the real and the virtual. This is portrayed in the dramatic conclusion of this one-hour monoact. This is a one-act, one-performer play.

    AT THE STUDIO OF SHREE TV

    At the tele table the announcer welcomes the literary phenomenon of the decade Mrs Manjula Nayak. Manjula is a renowned short story writer who until a year ago had been a lecturer in English in a college in Bangalore. She had stunned the world with her first novel - The River has no Memories which turned out to be a bestseller. The advance she received made the headlines in India and in the West. Shree TV is about to broadcast the premiere of a Kannada tele film based on the remarkable novel. Now Manjula takes over from the announcer to deliver her 15 minutes speech.

    Manjula walks in with an attitude, a proud look on her made up face. Slightly arrogant at times and commenting on the Indian technology and broasting about her trips to America, London and Canada, she delivers her speech. She talks about her novel, her inspiration and the support from her husband. After a humorous speech, she is about to leave. But the doors are locked and the relay on the Television next to her has not changed.

    Her image is still on the TV screen but it is not her reflection. Her image refuses to leave the screen. A woman looking exactly like her is actually talking to her. She gets scared but then starts talking. Her image on the TV screen questions her for her betrayal of her language and identity by writing in English. Without warning, her own image decides to play confessor, psychologist and inquisitor.

    After a few moments of surprises and explanations, it becomes clear that it is her inner consciousness that in the form of the image on the television is trying to question her act and her outer made up face. In the course of their conversation we see the inner world of Manjula Nayak, and her life filled with pain, frustration, jealousy, betrayal and agony. Slowly and interestingly theManjula’s moods and actions during various important situations in her life are unraveled before us.

    “I wrote the novel in English because it burst out in English....What baffles me — actually, hurts me — is why our intellectuals can't grasp this simple fact," says a defiant Manjula Nayak. Subjecting Manjula Nayak to an interrogation that teases, taunts and finally strips the secrets from her soul the Image reveals the sordid truth about Manjula's marriage - her far from easy relationship with her dead sister Malini and the mysterious circumstances in which the best-selling novel was written and published. - Manjula, finds her conceits punctured and her deceptions gradually exposed.

. Finally she is forced into anger or emotional collapse. The 55-minute play progresses towards a tight and stirring finish as Manjula seems to morph into the Image which then morphs into Malini as "differences of ink and blood and language" are obliterated in a Babel of voices and a jumble of television images. The real Manjula morphs into her virtual self on the screen and the audience is left looking at her images flashing on eight TV screens. All one gets to hear are snatches of her preceding soliloquy, discordant disconnected, descending into cacophony, indicative of the predicament of human existence.

    PLOT

    Many people are upset by Manjula writing in English Had she known this earlier Manjula would not have committed the folly of writing in English. Manjula was able to resign her job and concentrate on her writing just with the advance that she received for her English novel

    Manjula’s novel The River has no Memories is about Malini her sister. It is dedicated to Malini. Malini was physically challenged from meningomyetocele. The upper part of her body was perfectly normal. Below the waist the nervous system was damaged and was completely dysfunctional. A series of operations since birth had reduced her existence to a life confined to a wheel chair.

    For Malini’s sake the family moved to Bangalore and lived in Koramangala Extension. Malini was the apple of their eye. A teacher came home to teach her. Malini was hungry for knowledge all her life. Manjula was not as bright as Malini .

    Manjula had to live with her grandparents in Dharawad. She visited her parents in Bangalore during vacation. The time she spent with her parents and sister were the happiest in her life. In Bangalore she met Pramod, married him and settled in Jayanagar. Her father had helped her with the house but had left most of the money in Malini’s name for her care. Malini was always the focus.

    When her parents died six years ago, Malini moved over to Manjula’s house and adjusted beautifully in the small house. She did not want any sacrifice on her account. So she insisted that they sell her house in Koramangala. It was clear that Malini didn’t have much time left. She died the previous year a few months before the book came out. Malini is the only character in the novel drawn from life.

    Manjula could not have written about Malinli in Kannada because Malini rarely used Kannada. Her Kannada was limited to the cook and the maid. Malini breathed, laughed, dreamed in English. Her friends spoke only English. Living with her for six years had improved Manjula’s English

PRAMOD AND MANJULA

Pramod and Manjula met in Bangalore. Attracted to Manjula, Pramod did not know how to convey his love for her. So he wrote two letters.

    1) To Manjula’s friend Lucy grieving and moaning about how Manjula tortured

    him

    2) To Manjula about Lucy

    He mailed the first letter to Manjula and the second to Lucy not by mistake. .Pramod had thought that he was very original and clever. Lucy tore the letter to shreds and flung the pieces at him and stormed out melodramatically. She even stopped talking to Manjula .

    Manjula did not even know Pramod was interested in her. She felt sorry for Pramod for trying a trick which every fifteen year old does. He had made such a fool of himself and did the only thing he could to save his self respect which was to marry Manjula. The image reminds Manjula that she would never have got another man of his caliber.

Manjula accepts that women found Pramod attractive. Pramod and Malini were very close to each other. Pramod was in software development and worked from home. He was basically a two woman man. He liked to have one on either side. Manjula used to call him Tirupathi Thimmappa. He was offered a job in an American software company but he hesitated to go while Malinli was alive. Malini became agitated when he received the offer. They knew Malini was dying. Soon she died. Then Manjula wrote the novel and sent it to literary agent in Britain

    Then Manjula wrote the novel and sent it to literary agent in Britain. In a couple of weeks she received an email from the agent accepting the novel for publication and the advance was mentioned. It was then that everything fell apart. Till that moment Manjula was essentially dependent on Pramod emotionally and financially. He was the quiet breadwinner, the more successful partner, and pillar of the family.

    Now suddenly with the rave of response and enormous advance Manjula had achieved, his behavior took an odd turn. Manjula received invitations to public functions, cultural events and literary conferences. Pramod never attended these events before or now. Manjula did not mind.

    Pramod opened a new office for himself away from home. As Manjula had resigned her job both husband and wife stayed at home all the time. People dropped to see Manjula and this disturbed Pramod. He could not stand them. Manjula was annoyed. His complains multiplied. The maid he said did not clean his office properly or she was too thorough .He could not find anything he needed. The quality of food at home was deteriorating. One day he wondered if they could reemploy the nurse who had looked after Malini to come and go once a day and Manjula couldn’t understand why? When she questioned him about it, he stared at his toes and went out of the room. Manjula didn’t know if he had the nurse visiting him in his new office.

PRAMOD AND MALINI

    Manju confesses to her image that there had been something insidious in the way Malini had taken over her home. Manjula who was out all day did not have much time for the house or Malini and Pramod. . The cook had come and gone. So had the maid and nurse. Malini and Pramod were together virtually all day. Malini was pretty with very soft skin, almost translucent, never exposed to the sun or wind. Most people in her situation would have grown fat, obese or developed diabetes. Malini did not do any of these. She was never bored. She remained alert and glowed. Her young, shapely, body small, firm, breasts were better than Manjula’s. Manjula herself had noticed it when bathing or changing her. When Manjula sponged Malini, Malini looked away. Perhaps she couldn’t bear Manjula’s eyes on her. There was no possibility of any physical intimacy between Pramod and Malini according to Manjula Though what went on between Malini and Pramod, was only words it bothered Manjula.

It was Manjula’s irritation that produced the novel.

Manjula conducted various experiments to check on them.
1. If Manju turned the key to the main door noisily before going in Pramod would-be at
his table looking studious and a picture of concentration. Malini would be deep into her book or her laptop. But she always gave Manjula a warm welcoming smile.

2) If Manjula surprised them by entering silently, an animated conversation would

suddenly come to a stop - a guilty pause, before Malini effortlessly continued

involving Manjula too in their talk. Pramod was no good at subterfuge. Manjula

could not repeat her experiments too often because they knew her timings.

    Malini and Pramod argued about ethics, religion, fascism, Immanuel Kant etc. When Manjula walked in. they gave a sudden look of guilt and horror as if Manjula had caught them making love. Manjula felt at times as if it wasn’t her home. She felt like an intruder likes the cook, maid nurse.

    Pramod went to bed willingly with Manjula.

    At this moment an embarrassed Manjula tries to escape from the image saying there was to be a commercial break after which the film would continue. But the image does not let go.

    Manjula confesses that there were times when she wondered if Pramod was fantasizing about having Malini instead of Manjula in bed with him. Malini lay listening within earshot imagining Manjula and Pramod together. To Manjula it was painful. This despair seems to have given the sensually charged atmosphere in the novel. No end seemed to be in sight.

    The book was a perfect objective correlative for it. It sold the book. Manjula kept protesting that the plot was not taken from life. Did Malini know that Manjula was writing a book about her?

. No

Once you found tranquility you must have written a tremendous pace

Manjula – It poured out .It was one way of making up for her absence.

She died.

Image:-A couple of weeks later you mailed the typescript to your literary agent 350 printed pages in just 2 weeks. 150000 words, in two weeks. 10000 words a day. It wasn’t inspiration . It was a cataract of words, a deluge not matched since Noah’s Ark

Manjula:-I worked my fingers to the bone.

Image:-Gigantic task worth the Guinness book of world records.

Manjula:-“Alright I did not write the novel. She did. She wrote every word of it. Once her health began to collapse about 18 months by the end she began hammering away at the laptop”.

Manjula knew she was writing something but had no time for it .After her death Manjula could not find her papers. She found the typescript in Pramod’s drawer. Malini had printed the entire novel. .

Image:-It was brilliant a masterpiece

To Manjula it was venom. Manjula was portrayed as a shallow pretentious mediocrity, a gushy, conniving and devious relative who had taken her in for her inheritance. Events were from life and conversations were recorded verbatim.

Image:-Maybe that was why Pramod hid the script.

Manjula doubts “Perhaps they had shared it together. Maybe they had laughed at Manjula together. Maybe Pramod was not as simple at all. Malini knew Manjula would read the work.

Malini despised Manjula. Maybe both did. Maybe Malini had turned him against her.

At that moment Manjula realized she hated the cripple. She had always hated her. She had only been waiting for her to die.

And Malini had known Manjula’s feelings this all along.

         For six years she had from her wheel chair stalked Manjula and pinned her down in coruscating prose. From beyond the funeral pyre Malinli seemed to challenge Manjula to burn the script. If she had done so Manjula would be condemned in her own eyes for destroying a masterpiece. If she published it everyone would know who the first cousin was. Malini had nicely crucified Manjula. Manjula had to do something Malini could not have possibly anticipated .She had to solve the problem as well as survive. Majula’s advantage was that she was alive and Malini was not.

    Manjula looked up the directory of Literary Agents in the British Council mailed the typescript to them She did not know if they would respond. Then it happened. She published the novel and won.

    Pramod was unforgiving. Manjula tried explaining to him. He would have none of it. Manjula explained that she did not steal the book. Malini liked to sign M. Nayak. Manjula’s letter accompanying the manuscript was signed Manjula Nayak. The agent obviously thought both were the same person. His reply arrived to Pramod’s email address since they both shared the computer. He printed off a copy of the letter and left it for Manjula on the kitchen table.

As Majula read it she could sense him watching her from his corner. Manjula wanted to ask him if he accused her of having stolen her sister’s book. She wanted to explain the genuine mistake made by the agent who was an Englishman who was unfamiliar with Indian names. But she only asked him “Why leave the mail on the kitchen table. You know I have a study of my own a desk at which I work” He looked nonplussed. Pramod apologized, picked up the mess and took it to his study and plonked it down on her writing desk. He was furious .He had never been so angry with Manjula before. The subject was never mentioned again.

    One day Lucy called Manjula. She was still unmarried. She had not talked to Manjula since the letter episode. Pramod had begun to invite her out in the evenings to dinner in expensive restaurants. There was no affair between them. Pramod never mentioned Manjula to Lucy. He cracked jokes, talked of other things as his work, information technology, Bill Gates, Wipro, Infosys, cyber jokes etc. There were no smutty jokes. He was hilarious. Lucy said he had her in stitches. She enjoyed the evenings enormously. His inexhaustible gaiety worried her. She wanted to know if he joked with Manjula too. Manjula answered that he had done so only in the early years of marriage not any more. Lucy said that if Manjula did not mind she would like to continue the evenings and requested Manjula not to question him or tell him what Lucy had shared with Manjula.. That was the last Manjula had heard of Lucy.

Now Pramod lived in Los Angeles. He was in demand as a software wizard. The launching of Manjula’s novel was a major media event in the US. It had proved to be a super hit in Britain. Manjula had been invited to New York for the release .Pramod had sent her an email of congratulations He apologized he could not get leave to attend. He didn’t even hint that she visit him in LA .So she didn’t go.

Manjula moves to the door

Image - Perhaps Malini did win in the end. (Manjula freezes.)

If she meant to prove to the world that you were a fraud she certainly succeeded. Manjula rushes to the image as if to destroy it. As she reaches out for the connections behind the TV the Image seems to become the upper part of her body. Manjula’s body gesticulates with the words of the Image as follows

“I am Malini Nayak the English novelist .Manjula Nayak the Kannada short story writer was decimated the moment she read my novel. I shall continue in the name of Manjula Nayak. As Manjula Nayak I have been invited as visiting professor to seven prestigious American Universities .I use the nomenclature for my passport, my bank accounts, property and financial investments. However I am in truth Malini my genius of a sister who loved my husband and knew Kannada and wrote in English

THEMES

The theme is multidimensional.. The dialogue between image and woman touches upon many issues —

1. The status of English versus Indian languages

2. Technology-driven existence

3. Gender issues

4. The self and the image

5. Delusion and reality.

The play is on Indian writers in English. Are they cut off from the "smell of the soil? The play is an attempt to examine the soul of an Indian writer caught in a global current. It is a comment on writers who make news with those huge, undisclosed advances that foreign publishers allegedly pay them. Writing in English can open up an author's world, with attractive monetary gains and exposure through invitations to foreign colleges. Themes of technology and the media intersecting with our lives are explored through the protagonist of the play Manjula Nayak. Manjula could be any author, or in fact authors all around. Karnad then shifts from larger concerns of technology interfacing with the individual to a more personal theme: the predicament of an author in a market-driven economy. Karnad also dwells on the flip side — authors decried as having "sold out" to larger markets, sometimes accused of compromising on identity and one's roots by writing in English. The theme of the image dominating real life acquires an unexpected dimension. The image is a complete character. It is not a passing shot or memory The image is relentless…..it is inhuman Weaving through ponderings on the politics of language, especially the role of English in Indian writing, and on how media and fame can affect human relationships, the play explores the larger debate of the virtual image that consumes us all.. Language is not just ciphers on paper but contain within them cultural history, and images as well as being time-bombs of hierarchy and discrimination. Karnad turned what could have been a fairly dry look at the politics of writing into a very intriguing story about the personal lives of the characters Every human can relate to the character. Our inner consciousness will always remind us of the mistakes we have made and the wrong decisions we have taken A Heap of Broken Images explores emerging facets of urban Indian society, with its fascination for technology. A Heap of Broken Images explores facets of the urban Indian society with its fascination for technology (Substantiate with examples from text)

CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF THE PLAY

    This is a one character, one -woman, one-performer, one - act play. Odakalu Bimba, is named A Heap of Broken Images, in the English version. The play breaks from tradition in many ways. But in content and form, the play moves away from earlier preoccupations with historical and folk themes. It negotiates the intersections between people and technology in a one-hour play. Odakalu Bimba is particularly relevant in Bangalore, since Bangalore, India's IT capital is a prime example of how technology and the media constantly invade and affect people's lives. The `image' referred to in the title of the play is the electronic image and the play examines what would happen when, instead of our interaction with other images, we are forced to confront our own. “The play is about my response to the electronic age; how it affects your emotions. It's based on real-life experiences," explains Karnad, adding that the play is likely to be one of the first attempts on the Kannada stage to explore the emotional problems arising from technology. Behind the made up face is a completely different image. Some felt that there was split personality involved in the character. Some felt that the writer had not made justice to the story; he had not presented his opinion in certain situations but had just explained it. Revisiting his favourite device of an erotic triangle, we find in the play his usual co-ordinates to one man with two women. The plot is complicated by linguistic (regional vs English), sexual (her husband falls for her sister) and even electronic (the omnipresent screen) politics. This 21st-century play makes tough demands on technology, as the monitor in a TV studio shows her image interrogating her live on stage. The geography of Bangalore frames dramatic points — Jayanagar means middle-class marriage, Koramangala spells wealth

TECHNIQUE

The play also grapples with technology .It uses an unusual format wherein the actors confront electronic images of themselves. Monologue morphs into a dialogue of sorts as Manjula grapples with Manjula, fact is juxtaposed with fiction and appearance collides rudely with reality. The interesting twist of course is that in Karnad's clever script, it is the virtual that is the real. And the images in the play are those that one obviously relates to, through living in such an environment. The image is a complete character. The play is a triumph of technology and timing. The dramatic device of mirroring her image on the television screen, suggests a monologue with her alter-ego. His earlier plays took their cue from the past to observe the present but A Heap of Broken Images takes its sustenance from the images of the ‘now’. It is this very eclecticism that makes his work universal and shows his deep commitment and passion for the theatre. It marks a point of departure, by taking a huge leap from the mythological and historical by framing it in the world of technology: a metaphor for the New Age. The twists and turns of the plot are quite remarkable for a one-woman play, When you're acting alone you can often improvise, but here the image will not stop for you, so you have to be perfect. Bikre Bimb has come to be considered as the first Kannada play to use technology of our contemporary world. Bikre Bimb is new only because Karnad weaves in his magic by making the image a complete character. The person and her image take an exit together in a classic Karnadian morphing of the mind and the body.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL The play reflects Karnad's own experience of being criticized as a deracinated and westernized playwright. The play among other things highlights the acrimonious, but almost a cold war kind of a syndrome between Indian writers of English as against those writing in Kannada. This is also quite true of other regional literature whose many proponents rue the hierarchy that the English language commands electronics, creates its own mythology and that the possibilities are endless Karnad in various interviews has mentioned that the play is autobiographical and that the seed of the idea for this play was planted in his mind by a conversation that he had with the writer Shashi Deshpande who had an emotional encounter at a writers’ conference in Neemrana between the regional writers versus the English writers. Why did Karnad choose a woman protagonist? "Because Shashi Deshpande is a woman," Karnad laughed. He added, "When a man becomes successful, he goes partying. A woman continues to have the responsibility of running the house.

Kannada writer U.R. Ananthamurthy is supposed to have burst out against Indian English writers saying Indians writing in English were like prostitutes since they wrote with an eye on the money and global reach the language offers. Karnad withdrew that statement after Ananthamurthy denied having ever said it .There is a dilemma about whether or not writing in English leaves you out of an entire participative process, reducing your readers. All of us, including writers, have become a part of the worldwide consumer market. A regional language writer wants to use the Internet, but it is essentially an English-language medium. Karnad could never invent a plot. Technology has such an impact on our lives that Karnad wanted to show the public mask we keep.

STAGE SETTING.

The setting is highly hi – tech. Many televisions were placed on a rack behind and a big plasma screen stood at the right hand side of the stage There was a little table and chair where Manjula sat initially. She moved around during the course of the play. Both the video and Manjula’s movements were carefully choreographed so that the real woman and her image on the screen really seemed to be having a face to face conversation. It felt as though the play had three characters, not one. The absent sister is as present in our minds as the one who is talking.
They must have taped the image's part earlier

    In terms of dramatic technique, the play seems to be attempting so many new things. The play also grapples with technology itself using an unusual format wherein the actors confront electronic images of themselves. The dramatic device of mirroring her image on the television screen, suggesting a monologue with her alter-ego is used. As the image talks, its eyes follow the woman around the stage. The actor's movements, pauses, timing, cuing, everything had to be choreographed to match those eyes perfectly. No improvisation. This tests the actor, especially as there is no predicting where the audience will laugh and throw her out of sync in the timing.

   IMAGE

   On the screen continues watching her calmly. She is unaware of it makes a move to the door image stops her. Manjula is confused if she is still on the camera. If the camera were on both would-be doing the same thing but now Manju was standing and the image was not. She fears it a technical hitch. She calls in the mike calls to Raza for help …………………………………………………

SUMMARY OF MANJULA’S SPEECH

She introduces herself. I am Mrs. Manjula Murthy but my creative self continues to be Manjula Nayak. It is difficult to talk about one’s work. So I shall take up two questions constantly I come across that seem to bother everyone in India and abroad.
1. After having written in Kannada all your life why write in English? Are you a Kannada writer or English writer?
2. What audience do you write for and the variations on that theme?
Many people are upset by Manjula writing in English. Writers who were her gurus or friends, intellectuals whom she respected were all breathing fire. Had she known this earlier Manjula would not have committed the folly of writing in English.

Daring to write in English she has according to them betrayed Kannada .But Manjula did not consciously choose to betray. The novel burst out in English. It even surprised her. She couldn’t understand why it kept all coming out in English. Manjula is baffled that such intellectuals couldn’t grasp this simple fact. They accused of writing for foreign readers as though she has committed a crime. British publishers liked the book as it was so Indian. The other manuscripts they had received were all written with the western reader in view. This novel had a genuine Indian feel.

For an Indian writer English is a medium of dishonesty If one raises the question how many Kannada writers are honest in what they write he is condemned a traitor and he loses. The President of the Central Sahitya Akademi - (The National Academy of the Letters) declared that Indians who write in English do so to make money. By writing in English they confess their complicity in the global consumer market economy. Ironically the President spoke in English. Speaking in English gives one the authority to make oracular pronouncements on Indian literature and languages.

Why one should not write in English for money? Wasn’t that good enough reason? Royalties earned when she wrote in Kannada were meager. What hits everyone in the eye is the money a writer in English can earn. The advance received for the novel – The advances only - helped her resign her job and concentrate on writing.

The second question is

How could Manjula a healthy outdoor woman so empathetic to the emotional world of a disabled person? How could she a strong and active person recreate the inner life of Malini who had been confined to bed all her life?

Manjula owed it to her sister Malini Nayak. .Manjula’s novel is about Malini. It is dedicated to her memory. Malini was physically challenged from meningomyetocele. The upper part of her body was perfectly normal. Below the waist the nervous system was damaged and was completely dysfunctional. A series of operations since birth had reduced her existence to a life confined to a wheel chair. For Malini’s sake the family moved to Bangalore and lived in Koramangala Extension. Malini was the apple of their eye. A teacher came home to teach her. Malini was hungry for knowledge all her life. Manjula was not as bright as Malini .

Manjula had to live with her grandparents in Dharawad. She visited her parents in Bangalore during vacation. The time she spent with her parents and sister were the happiest in her life. In Bangalore she met Pramod , married him and settled in Jayanagar. Her father had helped her with the house but had left most of the money in Malini’s name for her care. Malini was always the focus.

When her parents died six years ago, Malini moved over to Manjula’s house and adjusted beautifully in the small house. She did not want any sacrifice on her account. So Malini insisted that they sell her house in Koramandala. Malini was one who breathed, laughed and dreamed in English. Her friends spoke only in English. Living with her for six years had improved Manjula’s English. Manjula nursed Malini during her last few months and it was clear that Malini didn’t have much time left. She died the previous year a few months before the book came out. Malini is the only character in the novel drawn from life. The plot and other characters are fictional.

Now Manjula acknowledges the support she had received from her husband. Manjula was a Kannada writer proud of the language and civilization . Manjua was childless Malini became her child. The book is about Malini is dedicated to her memory She died last year a few months before the book came out. Manju was full time lecturer in college. College chores and home was full of memories of Malini .Suddenly she was writing in English floundering sinking utterly clueless Moments when she broke down and felt she couldn’t go on. Pramod was always at her side encouraging her prodding her on without him she would never have finished the novel states she has committed cardinal sin of writing in English There was no prayachitha or absolution Manjula questions .Fortunately the film is in Kannada that makes Manju very happy. After all the family I have written about is Kannada Manju is a Kannada writer born to the language and civilization proud of it. The Kannada reality she conceived in English has been translated back into Kannada to perfection by the Director

There she ends her speech with the words Good Night Namaskara. Manjula gets up from the tele table happy about her performance. Manjula’s image on the big plasma screen should have disappeared but it does not. The IMAGE continues to watch her calmly. Manjula is unaware of it and makes a move. But the image calls out Where are you going? You can’t go yet.

Manjula is confused if she is still on the camera. The Image says. If the camera were on, then both of us would-be doing the same thing. You are standing and I am not. Manjula fears it a technical hitch. She calls in the mike to Raza of the studio for help. No one appears.

MANJULA AND IMAGE

      Manju refuses to acknowledge the presence of the Image. From now on to the end of the play the image and Manjula react to each other exactly as though they were both live characters.

      The Image is Manjula’s alter ego, her hidden other self, her conscience, her darker side, the reality. It sets her conscience working by asking questions or passing comments cynically and sarcastically which expose the inner self of Manjula

      Manjula didn’t like the house in Koramangala for three reasons

1. It was too big to manage

2. It was too far away from college would have to give up her job

           3. The houses in the neighborhood belonged to NRIs and were always empty.

          4. Being a Kannada writer she wanted to breathe the language and live in the heart of

         Kannada culture

Arundhati Raja, the artistic director of Bangalore-based Artistes Repertory Theatre (ART), presents the monologue in English. Arundhati Nag, the person behind Bangalore’s theatre-revival and the founder of Ranga Shankara, acts in its Kannada version. Karnad brought in Bangalore-based filmmaker Chaitanya K M as co-director. electronics creates its own mythology, the possibilities are endless."

. I am in the Electronics City and in the computronic age