it is a classical play written by Girish Karnad. It shows a myth of Naga. The story has a very interesting turning points which makes it appealing.

6.  Girish Karnad was born in
Matheran, near Bombay on 19 May
1938.
 His full name is Girish Ragunath
Karnad.
 Girish Karnad’s mother tongue is
Konkani, adopted language being
Kannada and English is his
adulthood Language.

7. • Karnad uses traditional stories to convey his point of
view. He focuses more on the cultural context of
Indian past.
• Karnad’s specialty is that he depicts modern
perspective in his characters.
• Karnad has acted in many other movies including
other languages.
• He has also appeared in television screen as actor and
also as Media personality.
• Karnad has also worked as a script-writer and director
for several films and also in television.
• Karnad’s contribution is at a greater high to the
theatre. Working for theatre is his primary passion and
others are profession.

8. Since1970 he has received many honors in
recognition of his dramatic writing, including the
Homi Bhabha Fellowship for creative work in folk
theatre (1970-72), the Padma Shri Award (1974), the
Karnataka Nataka Academy Award (1984), and the
Padma Bhushan Award (1992)and won four Film
fare Awards where three are Film fare Award for
Best Director - Kannada and one Film fare Best
Screenplay Award.

9. Style-
Girish Karnad has continued to produce plays of
superlative standards for the past four decades.
He often used history and mythology to deal with
contemporary themes.
Ancient manuscripts like Ramayana, the
Mahabharata, Yashodhara Charita,
Kathasaritasagar and other notable classical texts
are allegorically used in his plays.

10. NAGA MANDALA (FILM)
The film is based on the drama Naga-Mandala, scripted by Girish Karnad in
1987-88. ‘Naga Mandala’ is Kannada film directed by T.S Nagabharana and
written by Girish Karnad. Movie was released on 31st March 1997.
The Hindi film Paheli have been originated from the Kannada film Naga-
Mandala. The film was selected for Indian Panorama in the International Film
Festival held in 1997.

12. Written in 1988 in Kannada and later translated
into English by the author himself,
Nāgamaṇḍala by Girish Karnad became the
first contemporary play from India to have
been produced by a major professional theatre
in America, the Guthrie Theater in
Minneapolis that opened its season with the
play in 1993

13. Inspired by two folk tales told by
A.K. Ramanujam, the eminent
poet and the playwright has
composed this piece of writing.

14. An allusion to one of the main characters who is a
nāga –a snake, a popular deity mainly in rural
India, portrayed in mythology as half-human (in
the upper part of the body), half-snake (in the
lower part)
nāgamaṇḍala is the name given to a ritual snake
dance performed in the coasts of Karnataka, a
south Indian state which Karnad belongs to.

15. • To begin with the title itself Naga-Mandala comprises of two
easy words ‗Naga‘ meaning serpent and ‗Mandala‘ refers to a
drawing of the serpent on the floor, ―a tantric concept indicating
inner concentration; a source of energy.
• It basically refers to a kind of serpent worship belonging mainly
to the South-Indian areas and precisely to the erstwhile South
Kanara district of Karnataka and some parts of Kerala.
• While performing this worship the participants while dancing
attractively glides the serpent God onto his/her body. Naga-
Mandala is performed by two groups of performers: the ‗Paatri‘
who gets possessed by the serpent God and by ‗Naagakannika’
who is supposedly a female serpent.
• This character is also identified as ‗Ardhanaari'’ who also dances
and sings around the Mandala (serpent drawing, drawn on the
floor with natural colours).

16. Characters
1) Rani- is the main woman character of the play. She
bears all the tyrannies, yet she does not give up her
values of life. She is the only child of her parents and
gets their love in full measure.
As happens with most of the Indian girls, her fond
father finds a match for his daughter and marries her to
Appanna.
An Indian father generally thinks that a man is a good
match for his daughter if he has means to provide
wherewithal to his daughter. These fathers never bother
about the character of the men with whom their
daughters have to pass their lives.

17. Characters
2) Appanna-
• a young man, has no parents alive,
wealthy
• Addicted to visit concubine every night
and continues it even after marriage
• Marries Rani but never loves her
• Makes her a maid and cook
• Locks her up in house in night and
comes back next day for lunch only

18. Characters
3) Kurudavva-
• Kurudavva was an elderly woman and
she was an old friend of Appanna’s
parents.
• Sympathetic to Rani and gives her
support.
• Gives Rani ‘love root’

20. • As the ill-tempered, tyrannical, two -
dimensional husband, Appanna rapidly reduces
her daily life to a featureless existence without
companionship:
“Look, I don’t like idle chatter.
Do as you are told, you understand?” (254).
• Rani’s husband Appanna goes out every night
just uttering,
“well then, I’ll be back tomorrow at noon.
Keep my lunch ready. I shall eat and go” .
He regularly visits to concubines.

21.  Appanna is rich but has no interest in
Rani.
 He is interested in a concubine.
 As his parents are already dead, there is
nobody to tell him the difference between
a wife and a concubine.
 Like many Indian men, he considers his
relationship with the concubine a normal
thing; he never feels ashamed of it.

22.  The absence of this bond renders the
marriage meaningless and Rani is
reduced to the status of a housemaid
who must cook for husband and feed him
every afternoon.
 The prince of her dreams, who was to
bring her to his house turns into a
demon.

23. • Rani, an ideal Indian woman
modest, unquestioning and
uncomplaining, is locked in empty
house.
• Rani behaves like a traditional Indian
woman who fears to do any act against her
husband.

24. • Rani is a sensible woman who does
not think of breaking the pious
relationship of marriage with her
husband.
• She even tries to please her
Husbandbut fruitless

25. • Appanna fails to see that Rani is
young and beautiful.
• He goes to the concubine but keeps his
wife under lock.

26. Rani becomes a maid servant in
her own house.
She sweeps, mops the floor, scrubs
utensils, cooks food, and obeys
Appanna’s commands for a meal.

27. • Sometimes Rani gets a chance to chat
with Kurudavva.
• Kurudavva is the only person she can
meet.
• Rani shares with Kurudavva that her
husband speaks to her (Rani) only in
words such as ‘do this’, ‘do that’, and
‘serve the food’.
• As she is locked in the house, she is not
able to meet anybody.

28. Narrating her tale of woe Rani tells
Kurudavva,
“Apart from him, you are the first person I have
seen since coming here. I’m bored to death.
There is no one to talk to…”
To add to her woes, she is alone during
nights.
She is timid as young girls generally are.
“I am so frightened at night. I can’t sleep a
wink.”

29. Kurudavva was an elderly woman
and she was old friend of
Appanna’s parents.
 She suggests some tricks to Rani
to make her husband her lover.

30.  Rani tries to offers liquid of a love -
root through food to Appanna but she
fears if there would be negative
consequences of that root on her
husband.
 Therefore she pours the curry into
the anthill to destroy it.

31.  But there is a King Cobra tastes that
liquid and starts love to Rani.
 A cobra can assume any
Form (body) as it likes.
(Popularly known as Icchadhari Naag)

32.  Naga which drinks that liquid enters the house and
took the shape of Appanna. Rani thinks that Appanna
started loving her.
 But in reality, it was Naga in the form of Appanna

34. • He charges her with the offences of
adultery–
• “Tell me who it is? Who did you go to
with your sari off? You haven’t? And
yet you have bloated tummy.”
• “And you think I’ll let you get away with
that? You shame me in front of the
whole village, you darken my face, you
slut - !”

35. Rani in Naga-Mandala is very simple, innocent and
honest woman who cannot understand why her husband
doubted on her and she is the victim not thesinner. She
even asks her husband –
“Why are you humiliating me like this?
Why are you stripping me naked in front of the
whole village?
Why don’t you kill me instead? I would have killed myself.
But there’s not even a rope in this house for me to
use”(290).

36. Appanna cries, “What am I to do? Is the
whole world against me? Have I sinned so
much that even nature should laugh at me? I
know I have not slept with my wife. Let the
world say what it likes. Let any miracle
declare her goddess.
But I know what sense am I to make of my
life that’s worth nothing!”