Mahachaitra, the Great Spring

Only for sale in India

The three plays in this volume were written and staged between 1986 and 1995, and they focus on three figures who have had a decisive influence on Kannada history and culture—Basavanna, the revolutionary religious genius and saint of twelfth-century Karnataka; Madaiah the Cobbler, a legendry character who had a great impact on the backward castes, untouchables and indigenous people of South Karnataka; and Tipu Sultan, the ruler whom the British schemed to defeat and depose. Mahachaitra, the play centred on the saint Basavanna, created a year-long controversy in Karnataka in which fundamentalists locked horns with Dalit and leftist defenders of the text, turning it virtually into a household name.