Skip to main content

Ghashiram Kotwal - Vijay Tendulkar

This is a tragedy by Vijay Tendulkar. It is indeed a great tragedy.

Protagonist or the central character is Ghashiram, a poor Brahmin from Kanauj who had came to Pune for better life. But here he faces humiliations. The city was ruled by Nana who was full of lust. He was married seven times and still continue.

Here Ghashiram works at bavannkhani, a red light area with Gulabi, who entertains Nana. Ghashiram meets Nana here. Nana  joines in dance with Gulabi and hurts his ankle and Ghashiram saves him by offering his back to rest his injured leg. Nana gives necklace in reward. But servants of Gulabi snatches away it and throws him out.

Another time in Dakshina ceremony Ghashiram tries to take alms but other Brahmins throws him out saying that he had theft a purse. He was innocence but punished.

Nobody was ready to accept him a Brahmin. People were saying, where is your shaved head? Where is your holy thread? Where is your pios look? Where is your holy book?

These kind of humiliations makes him from good person to evil man. He was angry for the society of hatred, jealousy, immorality, lust, adultery etc. and decided to take revenge of his insults and wants to make the city moral.

It is turning point of the play. Ghashiram comes to know that Nana is womaniser and can do anything for getting woman. So he uses his own daughter Lalita Gauri as a bait. In a religious ceremony Nana sees Gauri and goes mad for her. Ghashiram knows this and deals with Nana that he will give his daughter but he wants to become Kotwal(police) of Pune. Nana agreed and Ghashiram becomes Kotwal of Pune.

Ghashiram does his job sincerely and gives orders like no whoring without permit, no cremation without permit, eat with a lower caste is a crime. These type of rules makes people angry. Ghashiram believes he had bring peace in the city. Now he had power and he thought he will find husband for his daughter and will arrange wedding. But he soon came to know about his daughter's death because she was pregnant by Nana and so he was interested no more and was going to another marriage. Ghashiram shatters. He repents but what can he do now?

The play goes to end when some Brahmins comes to Pune. They were hungry and eat mangoes from the garden without asking Ghashiram. Ghashiram gives order of lock them into jail, but it was very small and twenty two Brahmins dies because of suffocation.

People complaints to Peshwa. Peshwa meets Nana and Nana gives sentence to death for Ghashiram. Ghashiram before dying repents which shows how he was feeling guilty. He says, "I danced on your chests but I wasted the life of my little daughter. I should be punished for the death of my daughter. Beat me. Heat me. Cut off my hands and feet. Crack my skull. Come on. Look! I'm here. Oh, that's good. Very good"

Here tragedy of Ghashiram ends. Themes of the play is revenge, lust for power, politics, search for identity, etc. It follows the rules of Aristotelian tragedy. In this play we have tragic hero who is not thoroughly bad or fully good. He has hamartia like ambition of power, revenge. His position was high in society so his fall affects whole city of Pune.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Old Woman - Joseph Campbell

'The Old Woman' is simple and short poem by Joseph Campbell where he compares old woman with different things and describes her. The poem has three stanzas. .In  the first stanza , the poet compares the old lady with the white candle. White colour is symbol of peace and candle is symbol of light. The old woman is like white candle. She is in peace and she gives other people light by his experiences. She is able to show right path who need that. In the second  stanza, the poet compares the old lady with the spent radiance of the winter's sun. It refers old woman's long life. But now she is old like winter's sun, but she has gathered a wide experience of life. Poet writes, "A woman with her travail done" In last stanza, the poet compares the old woman with the water under the ruined mill. The water is still under the ruined mill and by comparing this poet writes about the old lady that her all sons has gone, they do not live with her. But she has all the...
20 comments
Read more

To the Indians who died in South Africa - T.S. Eliot

A man's destination is his own village,  His own fire, and his wife's cooking;  To sit in front of his own door at sunset  And see his grandson, and his neighbour's grandson  Playing in the dust together.  Scarred but secure, he has many memories  Which return at the hour of conversation,  (The warm or the cool hour, according to the climate)  Of foreign men, who fought in foreign places,  Foreign to each other.  A man's destination is not his destiny,  Every country is home to one man  And exile to another. Where a man dies bravely  At one with his destiny, that soil is his.  Let his village remember.  This was not your land, or ours: but a village in the Midlands,  And one in the Five Rivers, may have the same graveyard.  Let those who go home tell the same story of you:  Of action with a common purpose, action  None the less fruitful if neither you nor we  Know, unt...
6 comments
Read more

Joy and woe woven are fine - William Blake

In this short poem William Blake wants to give message that joy and grief, both are part of life and both are good. He says joy and woe are woven fine. Woven means things which are attached to each other. Both happiness and grief are fine. They are cloths of our soul. In every grief, there are also joy we need to find it. We are not here for only happiness or for only pain. But we are made for both. And when we know that joy and woe both are part of our life, we can live happily in grief also. So, in this poem poet wants to tell that accept both joy and pain. Do not become unhappy when sad moments come, there are always happy moments also. Know that both are part of everyone's life and live happily. That is all poet wants to say in the poem.
2 comments
Read more