Karenina

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

I have spent half of my literature reading in drama. Shakespeare, Gadkari, Wilde, Chekhov, Moliere, Beckett, Genet, Brecht, Pirandello, Camus and so many and have always loved soliloquies. Speaking to oneself.

To be or not to be, that’s the question, to take arms with the sea of struggle… this Hamlet has been ringing in ears along with Camu’s Caligula. I always try to be someone else and that’s always me. Most of the times Anna Karenina. My friend might fight with me today calling me a narcissist and siding other narcissists. Including Ghalib or Iqbal, reading, loving and living literature has this price to be paid. People won’t like you.

You don’t compromise, you don’t conform to their standards, expectations because you are not you. You are Anna Karenina torn between selves or Hamlet, unable to exist but forced to live because his moral conscience does not let him die.

Therefore, I’m several me’s at several times and return to myself. I pay tribute to Anna today rather than to Hamlet because Tolstoy’s Anna represents best human aspect of love in his novel of the same title, the drama of life in much better manner (All happy families are like each other but unhappy families are unhappy in their own way … not because of good people but Anna who is portrayed … who is not a good person, but has engaged millions of peoples over several generations).

Should we judge great writers? Should we separate them from their art? Shakespeare who was absent at child Hamnet’s death, wife Anne realising his grief for the child in Hamlet, Doris Lessing castigated for abandoning child. Indira Ghose in this review or preview of Hamnet, directed by Chloe Zhao, contender for Oscar says Hamlet depicts a disintegrating moral order, a world without clear answers. It is a play for our times.

लेखकांचे जीवन आणि कला वेगळी करावी का? हॅमनेट या मुलाच्या मृत्यू समयी उपस्थित नसलेल्या शेक्सपिअर वरचा बायको अॅन चा राग कमी झाला नाही. लेसिंग सारख्या लेखिकेने मुलाला सोडून दिले. या गोष्टी लेखकांची लोकांच्या मनातील स्थान कमी करतात हे बरोबर आहे का? या प्रश्नाबाबत इंदिरा घोष टाइम्स मधे ऑस्कर नॉमिनेटेड चित्रपट हॅमनेट लिहितात. हॅम्लेट सारखे नाटक समाजाची ढासळणारी नीतिमत्ता दाखवते. जीवनातील कुठल्याच प्रश्नांना सुस्पष्ट उत्तरे मिळत नसतात हे सांगते.

हे नाटक आपल्या काळाला लागू आहे असे त्या सांगतात. (मी सकाळी या नाटकावर आणि टॉलस्टॉय च्या कादंबरीवर ब्लॉग लिहिला आणि संध्याकाळी त्या नाटकावर हा लेख वाचला. लोकांच्या नीट किंवा अजिबात प्रतिसाद न देण्याचा परिणाम म्हणून स्टेटस, इंस्टा, फेबू वर लिहायचे नाही या माझ्या निर्णयाला मी असा मधे मधे अर्ध विराम दिला नाही तर टाइम्स मधील हा लेख मराठीत कोण सांगेल, आज मराठी दिनांनिमित्त किमान तेवढी मायबोलीची सेवा घडू देत) Good evening! 🌸🌷Rys 27/2/26 at 6.46 pm

Image : courtesy Times of India @indiraghose