Reflections
Publisher: Adavi publications, Dharwad
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Dharwad
Format: Criticsm
Number of pages: 76
Description: A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. And it is with considerable joy that I introduce to the readers  Basavaraj Donur’s beautiful collection of essays, Reflections.
 Donur’s essays cover a wide spectrum. The focus however is on drama and theatre. The play is the thing wherein he would catch the conscience of the very kings in creative writing.
Donur compels one to reflect. But, instead of adding my own reflections to  Donur’s, would rather indicate, first, what it is that he has attempted in these ten pieces in two parts, the first part on topics rather general and the second on drama and theatre in particular. I shall, then, touch upon a few of its excellences that go to make Reflections truly a promising start for its author.
The first essay of the first part, ‘The English Language and Indian Literature’, announces the author’s conviction that, for achieving artistic excellence, it is essential to be rooted in one’s soil. The author contends that, for various reasons, this requirement cannot be adequately met while the 
English language has an intimidating influence on our psyche as at present.  He tries to substantiate this with reference to two towering personalities of Kannada creative literature, namely Girish Karnad and U.R. Ananthamurthy, whose works suffer on account of their fascination for the alien and their inability to connect meaningfully to their fellow beings or to the realities around. While exuding confidence that the regional languages have become competent enough for all inter personal, emotional and artistic purposes, the author makes it clear that he is not against the use of English. Rather, his appeal is to “make the English language an Indian language”. 
This perceptive piece, which touches upon the issue of our cultural identity, is followed by a touching tribute to K. Shivaram Karanth on the occasion of his passing away and a spontaneous response to the conferring of the Janapith award on Shri Girish Karnad.
‘A Nest of Singing Birds’ which follows there- on, is a delightful piece which calls for an examination and reinterpretation of the Navodaya literature afresh for the present-day readers as well as for the would-be writers. The author acknowledges the work done by Prof. K. D. Kurtkoti in this regard. Referring to Kuvempu and Bendre, the two most significant writers of the Navodaya movement, he argues that their genuineness springs from their being rooted in the soil, the element more or less completely absent in the post-Navodaya period. In Bendre, that “great craftsman who constantly experimented with his poetry, breaking down old conventions and building new ones”, the author finds “a poet who not only produces the meanings but also produces language.” 
Two Points of View’, which comes next, is a powerful exposition of the points of view and concerns of the two great Kannada literary movements of the modern period. It is as if values are, for the Navya writers, an obstacle to experiencing life in its fullness; and the author contends that this has resulted in “the split characters of Navya literature while the Navodaya literature presented ‘whole’ characters.” Yayati of Karnad and Praneshacharya of Ananthamurthu are cited as examples of characters who do not face any dilemma when they sacrifice their values. In contrast, Kuvempu’s heroine in Nanna Devaru goes through the normal human situations normally, to be chastened in the end by the steadfastness of her brother-in-law who, then, “bathed as he is in the morning sun, appears no less than a God to her.”
The last piece of the first part, ‘An Exploration’, reflects the author’s anxiety about the future of man who has given up time-honoured principles of morality and religion and not created new ones in their place. It is an ardent plea for the rejuvenation of faith – faith in God, faith in values, faith in all that is beautiful and life-giving. For, “as life dries up, man’s creative power also diminishes,” says the author. He bemoans that sex has become a kind of obsession for the modern man. “The predicament and tragedy of man’s life today is that he can not be judgemental in his attitude to adultery, hypocrisy and other forms of immorality “he says. After all, Freud has made us believe that sex is the cause and inspiration for all human actions! The author warns that unless we change the entire pattern of our life, which is based on a lopsided understanding of ourselves, man’s very passions will burn him up. 
The opening essay of the second part, ‘Navya Drama and’ Historicity, is a bold attempt to address the question: How should we treat historical personalities and incidents in the medium of drama? Herein the author shows, deftly and definitively, how a number of playwrights in Kannada have when face-to-face with the great Kalyan Revolution. Taking Taledanda of Girish Karnad, Sankranti of P. Lankesh, Mahachaitra of Shivaprakash and Kettittu Kalyana of M.M. Kalburgi, he argues that these playwrights have failed to comprehend Basavanna and his sharanas, that their fascination for Existentialism, Intellectualism, Rationalism, Investigationism, etc have been impediments to their creativity, and that they see the whole Kalyana Revolution from a distorted point of view. The author is of the opinion that a proper play has yet to come out in our language, one that overcomes these drawbacks and embodies the soul of the period. But this can happen, he feels, only if one does not “deny a person (like basava) his inner voice, his godliness, and his metaphysics.”   
‘Drama and Language’ that follows is an analytical exercise which offers many insights into the collective and social aspects of drama, the role of the dramatist, the director, the audience, etc, and of course the complexities of the language of the play. The author makes out a strong case for the distinctiveness of the language of the theatre and offers suggestions to steadily evolve it. He is at once lively and lucid in his attempt to distinguish the language of the stage from the language of the text : “Sitting at one’s desk and reading a play brings into play only one aspect of the use of language, i. e., the way the dramatist has used language of the text and the stage language,”
‘Shakespeare and the Theatre’ carries the analytical exercise further to delve into the concept of theatre as distinct from drama. The reference point for this analysis is the Elizabethan theatre and Shakespeare’s part in it. The author has essayed a delicate task with considerable ease, as may be judged from this specimen.
“Drama without the theatre is not possible, and theatre without drama is also unthinkable; because drama achieves its full significance and meaning only when it is enacted on the stage, and the theatre is theatre only when the drama is performed. Still the two are very different. Drama offers the maximum scope for enjoyment, because drama in the written form is still abstract like a poem. It leaves something for our imagination and fancy, whereas the theatre does not. Theatre by nature is very concrete. It concretizes the drama to such an extent that nothing remains abstract on the stage; anything shown on the stage is to be fully and extensively explored. This is, in a sense, a limitation of the theatre. And this is one reason why drama becomes more important, enduring than theatre. Theatre, of course, has many excellences which drama as such does not possess.”
The very last piece is on Shakespeare proper: ‘The Opening Scene of Macbeth’. Taking his clue from Wilson Knight, the author contends that Macbeth is about absolute evil and the dark shadow it casts on human affairs. The opening scene of the play both announces and confirms the depth of this darkness.

II                                     
As I have already said, Dr. Donur compels us to reflect. That, perhaps, is the unique feature of  Reflections. I am aware of some of the inaccuracies and shortcomings of these essays; but I would like to caution the readers against judging our author too soon. One should not be put off by these minor drawbacks, lest he should miss the opportunity to explore and enjoy the avenues opened up before him. Let me make this clear. When, for example, the author asserts in his stormy style that anything written on drama and theatre certainly contributes to our knowledge of them (Drama and Language), it must be viewed as the expression of a certain innate optimism rather than as evidence of his critical acumen or the lack of it. Again, his tendency to overstate is evident when, in support of this assertion, he refers to theatre as the most neglected field of knowledge in the whole country. But, as I said, these excesses are pardonable in the context of the overall endeavour which is so commendable. One suspects that these very excesses go to enhance the charm of the essays which certainly bear the stamp of the author’s personality. Every one of these essays appeals, as essays should, as a personal statement from the author.
There is a certain Byronic streak in the author which explains his belief that it is better to have said and be done with it than to have not said it at all. And this is quite understandable in a young and upcoming writer, especially when not much help is available to him in the form of original criticism of drama or of theatre. At a time when emotions tend to dry up and theatrical representations of life largely ignored, it is but natural that a feeling friend and a faithful follower of the stage occasionally breaks out into a little disapropriate noise in the fury of his indignation. But it is a fury and indignation  that does signify something:a perspective on criticism that the author tries so earnestly to develop.
What renders these essays remarkable, then is not so much the author’s strong feelings, nor his very own style, but his basic concerns and the insights which are significant in themselves, especially the insights into contemporary Kannada theatre. 
The author’s concerns, as evidenced in these essays are indeed many  : influence of English on our creative writing, lack of encouragement for theatre in the country, decline of romanticism in the post-Navodaya literature, differing points of view of the Navodaya and Navya writers and the scant attention this receives in their evaluation, the new philosophy of sex which imports isms but banishes beauty altogether from life and literature; the problem of combining the demands of creativity with a fair degree of historicity; intricacies of language vis-à-vis the intelligibility, effectiveness and aesthetic appeal of a play; understanding Shakespeare, that supreme artist, who by his genius impregnated every ordinary observation.
It is not as if these concerns, and the insights involved, are scattered or unconnected. They display an uderlying harmony, a basic unity, with its potential to suggest the contours of a perspective on criticism, one that promises to be at once holistic and refreshing.     
Thus the author’s concern for a people’s cultural identity, which comes through in the essay on the influence of English on our creative writing, is directly related to the question of authenticity of language dwelt upon in ‘Drama and Language’ In fact,  Donur’s insightful observations on the language of the play remind one of  Dr. Johnson’s explanation for the vitality and enduring nature of Shakespeare’s plays. The other aspect that Johnson brought out, namely, the variety of themes and versatility of treatment in Shakespeare, in contrast to lesser mortals who are obsessed with the love-triangle, -this aspect finds its echo in an apparently unconnected piece. ‘Explorations. Ruminating over the modern attitude to sex, the question of true historicity that he discusses with reference to Navya drama is but part of the larger question of authenticity. As for the crucial question of the point of view involved in any writing, it is central to the author’s perception of authentic art. 
The insights of the author thus go to make a consistent whole. And his explorations into the concrete fundamentals of true art and true life augur well for all students of literature, teachers, practitioners of the various arts, as well as all those who savour their many delights.
My earnest wish is that, with every book that he pens, the author grows from strength to strength that the theatre and the arts prosper at length and of course that we be blessed enough to witness both. 

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Table of contents: title: Dr. Donur has just the requisite qualifications for shaping into a scholar-critic. Needless to say, enthusiasm is not enough. True, his critical interests are fed and servred by a large watershed of background reading. But maturity, as in the case of vintage wine, comes with age and ‘going through the mill’. I could have cautioned him against impatient ‘straining at the leash’ to explode into authorship, but that may prove as counter-productive as productive - who knows ? Moreover, no critic ever emerged “fully armed” like Athene out of the sea. Let him stick his neck out and learn, I said to myself. This surely is the way to grow, to mature, to come of age, to arrive.; title: For a debutant author (in English, I mean ) Mr. Donur is good, much too good. At places his language is so fluent that I wish I had such a facile pen.; title: But I must draw attention, at the same time, to the fact that Mr. Donur doesn’t altogether avoid the banal and the simplistic. At times he sounds nebulous, insubstantial. He often plays around the fringle of the topic, but just when we expect him to come to the core or the crux, he leaves off inconclusively.; title: I quite see eye to eye with his criticism of Lankesh, but not of Kalburgi. He makes too much play of the language of a dramatic text as being different from that spoken by the actor on the stage. All that I could agree with is that the test on the printed page comes alive on the  stage when spoken bu an actor - a living voice.; title: (There could be more than one tonal interpretations of course.) I am not such a votary of the stage as he is. And I wish he had sprinkled his essay on Shakespeare with quotations or citations to prove his point.; title: All in all, a good debutant effort on the part of Mr. Donur, to be seriously followed up, so as to lend substance and veracity to our hopes and expectations of him.; title: *  *