Pursuit of Perfection in Girish Karnad’s ‘Hayavadana’
'Anyway, it’s impossible to improve perfectionist’, flaunts an actor in one of my favourite Hindi films. Since then, I have adopted perfectionism, as I was impressed by the actor. I got impressed for a reason—the actor, Amir Khan, along with the character played in the film left a lasting impression as far as pursuit of perfection is concerned. The actor is well known for his passion for creativity as well as for delivering perfect characters, or characters perfectly, for that matter of fact.
Then I read a play ‘Hayavadana’ (Man with a Horse’s Head) by one of my all-time favourite classic Indian writers, Girish Karnad. In this article, I will try to discuss the central theme of the drama with the sole purpose of unveiling one of the Indian masterpieces to my western friends.
The futile pursuit of perfection, human desires and a woman’s predicament are the central themes of the play; I will delimit the analysis to ‘human desires for perfection' only.
The humorous play had two plots blended together brilliantly. The writer has adopted the famous Shakespearean play-within-play technique; a narrator narrates the entire story as a play. Following Indian tradition—worshiping a god before the drama starts—the narrator begins the drama with an invocation to Lord Ganesh. Usually, the Lord Natraj or local deity…
