Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Theatre of the Absurd...

... The first thing that popped into my head when I read about Behenji's statue making and installing spree.

The term Theatre of the Absurd (French: Théâtre de l'Absurde) was coined by the critic Martin Esslin, and was the title of his book first published in 1961. Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet were presented by Esselin as the four defining playwrights of the movementand later on Harold Pinter.

As per Wiki: Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play".

These playright have company: Behenji. How else does one justify crores already spent from the state exchequer on statues of Behenji, Kanshi Ram, Ambedkar and as per TOI reports - Elephants (her party's symbol)? And all this is unfolding not in a theatre somewhere...but in Uttar Pradesh...in India. All's the world a stage apparently for Ms. Maya.

There is a famous bengali skit where Bhanu Bannerjee was told that his statue would be installed...he declined the offer saying what would it serve except for crows and eagles ****ing on his head.

Obviously Behenji had not taken that into consideration nor thought it important enough to consider the proverbial excreta hitting the fan.

But moot point is, like her name says it all, everything in this world is afterall....Maya (illusion)!

More here on Theatre of the Absurd

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't surprising really. Politicians have been known since forever to be keen on spending state monies to further their shelf life in either mortal or, art form. And, it would not be surprising if a couple of years down the line out pops a story that a significant portion of the sum in question was not spent but siphoned. The added twist in this is of course provided by the theory of "this is the external manifestation of the Dalit sentiment" by demonstrating they can do better what they have seen been done. Grandiose and pointless spending that is.

The trend is far more evident (without trying to be snarky) in African regimes when one regime is upturned by the other. There are lots of countries which have had examples of such grand and baroque expenses only to have ended up in net zero. As a country, and, I quote you, we indulge in so much theatre that I guess anything less is not acceptable to us. So, we have industrialists spending largesse on weddings and birthdays, ministers using the state exchequer to get their way and, similar cases of abuse. The system itself is too pliant and, it is so because we have decided to "watch, bitch and move along".

Nothing new really. Sadness is that in near future this might just be the new PM of the country we are looking at. Who knows ?

Swati said...

Remember Gupi Gyne Bagha Byne....break a couple of noses or maybe the purses in her case, to get across a message? Abosho ja dheent mohila, I dont know if anything will work with her...

Sukanya C said...

You mean "Hirak raajar (raanir) deshi...

Swati said...

Eggjactly...thats what i meant...
:-$

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