Girish Karnad was a man with strong principles: Bibhash Chakraborty

While remembering Girish Karnad, veteran theatre personality Bibhash Chakraborty said, “Once Sangeet Natak Akademi decided to host a theatre festival and invited several eminent thespians of the country to bring one of their plays to stage at the do. Utpal Dutt decided to stage Kallol. Congress was in power then and the play was pretty much anti-Congress. The bureaucrats and other politicians were in dilemma on whether or not to allow the play to be staged.Girish Karnad was the chairman of the Akademi. He said, ‘Nothing doing. Utpal Dutt is one of the greatest thespians India has ever seen. And if he wants to stage Kallol, he will stage Kallol. Or else, I will resign’. Girish was a man with strong principles and indomitable spirit,” he said.
Bibhash met Girish for the first time in 1974 at FTII. The duo shared a unique camaraderie. “We became close after I received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. I adapted his play, The Fire and the Rain, for Soumitra Mitra’s theatre group, Purba Paschim. I told Girish that I wanted to translate it in Bengali and he suggested I should refer to the Hindi translations of Ram Gopal Bajaj. Girish came down to Kolkata to watch the play. He also watched my Madhab Malanchi Kanya. We have adapted several plays by Girish,” Bibhash said.
Talking about his influence in Bengali theatre, Bibhash added, “Like several plays of Bertolt Brecht and Henrik Ibsen, we have adapted several plays of Girish Karnad. However, what we failed to adapt is his philosophy. We have not been able to imbibe his philosophy and craft. He was closer to us because of the Indianness of his plays, but we could not adapt that fully in Bengal’s theatre literature.