Evam Indrajit (Badal Sircar)

 Introduction: Evam Indrajit is a three-act play by Indian dramatist and theatre director Badal Sircar, first translated in 1975. It was the first play which was performed by Sircar’s ‘Shatabdi’ group. It was because of the performance of this group, Badal Sircar came to be known as a ‘barefoot playwright’. Evam Indrajit is an abstract, absurdist play with a central theme of the monotony of a mechanical existence. It explores the writing process and the search for inspiration and something exciting to motivate creation. It was Sircar’s first drama after a string of comedies, and remains one of his most enduring works, especially outside of his native India.

As Sircar investigates into the problems of middle-class society, he reflects on the existential attitude of modern life through contemporary situations. This play catches the attention of almost all concerned in the society. It displays the passion, ambition and frustration of the youth. The characters in it feel quite happy, consoled and relieved while moving on to their way. In the play, Manasi is a woman character and Amal, Vimal, Kamal and Indrajit are young youths who keep changing their roles, language and dresses, etc. with the progress of the play.

The play is a tragicomedy, inventive and contemporary in spirit. Sircar’s focus is on the meaninglessness of existence which is filled with a sense of concerned guilt and responsibility, maladjusted persons who belong to the urban middle class, and a world which is full of violence and inhumanity. The play not only demonstrates the external world but also the internal world or the psyche of the characters. It displays a true picture of the contemporary society, the meaninglessness and pointlessness of modern life.

Discussion: It is clearly observed that all the conventions of drama are given up in this play. In the opening of the play, a writer is seen on the stage, scribbling something on the papers, sitting with his back to the audience. Evam Indrajit is about a Writer, who struggles a lot to write a play but all in vain. Being unable to write something meaningful, he gets frustrated and angry. He himself admits that, though he tries to write a play yet he is not aware of the downtrodden – the labourers in the mines and the fields, the snake charmers and the fishermen. At this juncture, he is introduced to a woman named Manasi, who asks him to select the characters for his play from the people he knows. She suggests him to write about those people who are sitting in the audience and who appears to be quite undramatic.

Hence the Writer gets inspired by the suggestion of this lady and beacons four late coming youths from the audience to come on the stage and asks their names. In response to his question, they give their names as Amal, Vimal, Kamal and Nirmal. Listening to them, Writer gets perturbed and yells at the fourth one and challenges him that his name can be anything but Nirmal. Finally, the fourth man is compelled to expose the reality and confesses that his real name is Indrajit. He does so not to invite disturbance by breaking the set rules of the society. As against Indrajit, the characters like Amal, Vimal and Kamal are seen to be entirely different in their approach towards life. They represent the mass getting themselves satisfied only with their worldly comforts and never wishing to bring any change in their fixed routine. Such people are counted as the intellectuals of the society as they are knowledgeable about science, arts and worldly affairs. Their only aim of life is to achieve as many comforts as they can, as it provides them with a higher social status. They keep on doing all this without making a single attempt to think of the significance of their existence. As their existence is meaningless, they may be regarded as dead. When the Writer inquires Indrajit about his existence, - whether he is dead. At this, Indrajit replies that he is not sure about it.

The structure of this play comprises various interviews of the four male characters Amal, Vimal, Kamal, Indrajit and the female character Manasi taken by Writer. The other female character in the play is the Auntie, who is a typical elderly woman, understanding nothing about Writer’s attempts of writing something meaningful and, thus, represents the mass who is unable to realize what Sircar is writing about. With the help of the character of Writer, Badal Sircar in this play, attempts to demonstrate the life of the middle-class people and focuses on the middle class set of values which is rendered absurd. The very title of the play, Evam Indrajit suggests that the identity of Indrajit is not ‘only Indrajit’ but ‘and Indrajit’ and is presented being associated to the society and not being independently associated to his own existence. This play presents the hollow and futile picture of the pseudo-modern existence. Today with the progress of science, we are living in a world which demands success from every individual. Man, being a social animal, has been completely lost to its requirements and, in this way, he has lost his own individuality. Having been on such a stage in place of defining society, man is defined by society itself. Now man is bound with endless problems and frustration.

The character of Indrajit is chosen by Writer as the hero of his play. There is a scope of relationship between Indrajit and Manasi. Indrajit’s love relationship with Manasi cannot be considered to be appropriate in a middle-class society of India. As she was his cousin, so it becomes a case of taboo. A daring attitude is demonstrated by Indrajit to protest against the rigid norms of society, but he does not find the same kind of co-operation from the side of Manasi. In the starting phase of the play, we find Indrajit being possessed with a romantic spirit, as he looks being interested in a world which is beyond geography but inch by inch, he is seen becoming disillusioned. Though he gets to London, ultimately, he has to come back to the same place to accept the same existing system. Abiding by the existing social system he marries a girl and leads a toiling meaningless life. Still, it is his sheer consciousness of the world in which he is living, and his independent existence in the callous social system which is a point of great concern. Indrajit represents a modern man, who is afraid of going beyond the existing system and so he assumes a name ‘Nirmal’ to go to the same order.

Though the play Evam Indrajit is seen to be an expression of despair yet the dreams of Amal, Vimal, Kamal and Indrajit project a ray of hope. The characters represent the common men of the society suffering from a lot of external and internal conflicts. Out of all these factors, the play Evam Indrajit is found to be unconventional. The play is contemporaneous, inventive and replete with absurdist elements. The characters of the play are seen raising a voice against man’s existential crisis, his absurdity, death-wish, unemployment and anarchy prevalent in the society. Life is to be lived with full enthusiasm, zeal and zest, in place of being relegated to death. So, the desire for death is rejected in the play along with some other negative forces as cruelty, brutality, hypocrisy and foolishness, etc. The language of the play is ironical mixed with lyrical tone and touch.

Conclusion: The conclusion of the play, suggests that the present life system is fixed and it goes on the same way as everybody follows it. Still, there are a few who make an attempt to come out of this mechanical routine and think of an entirely new and dynamic system, without being afraid of getting rejected from the so-called established system. Such kind of people are represented in the play through  the characters, Writer and Indrajit. The main focus of the play is also on the point of existentialism to brood over the significance and meaning of one’s existence. Though, materialistically, the twenty-first century’s youth may be in a better condition from the youth of sixties, existentially, the same question is lying for them which was felt there in the play by Amal, Vimal, Kamal and Indrajit regarding the need of their running blindly after material gains, without being aware of the meaning of their existence.