Bandyopadhyay knows well that modern Indian theatre emerged in the 19th century, but casually forgets its pioneers. In Marathi, for instance, G.B. Deval's Sharada depicted "woman as protagonist and victim" as early as 1899. As for who first wrote modern plays in India, Mee overlooks Bharatendu Harishchandra's Hindi Andher Nagari (1881), which reads like a present-day satire on urban corruption. Similarly, she says the anti-colonial "theatre of roots" began after 1947, like so many critics unaware that Tagore broke with Western models and explored open-air indigenous paths since 1908. Nor was it the "most influential" post-Independence trend, for the Indian People's Theatre Association spawned an earlier, more important, leftist drama.
Surprisingly, no representative of this political movement figures among Mee's six plays. Although she suggests easy availability as a disqualification in her choice, Karnad's recently published The Fire and the Rain does appear. But others offer variety: K.N. Panikkar's Aramba Chekkan, adapting the Orpheus-Eurydice tale; Tripurari Sharma's The Wooden Cart, from street-theatre activism; Usha Ganguli's Rudali; Mahesh Dattani's domestic tragedy Tara; and Datta Bhagat's Routes and Escape Routes, a Dalit play.
Tendulkar's book has no new texts, but the wide range of social criticism map his invaluable contribution to Indian theatre. It includes the maverick's observations on his own work, in the form of two lectures he delivered in the Shri Ram Memorial series.
Mee's notes on the plays are better than those in many foreign publications, yet errors remain. Gujarat can hardly be called a "northwestern" state. The mythological Pururavas becomes Puruva. I didn't know that Karnad, salaried head honcho of several institutes, "makes his living in film"! Rudali is not originally a novel but a 40-page story, and Usha Ganguli did not act solo in Request Concert in the 1970s, but in 1986.
My own activity as translator makes me acutely sensitive to mistranslation. Mee's glossary renders Devi as "god". She explains the Buddhist concept of dhamma just as a term Ambedkar used. The 'champak' does not necessarily refer to the American frangipani, but to the native tree extolled by Sanskrit poets. And coming from a state where people gherao anyone for any reason whatsoever, I can't accept the word means "political demonstrations" alone.
