Sense and censorship

After leaving his readers hungry for two years, Kiran Nagarkar has surprised them with a double treat of two books at one go. Bedtime Story and Black Tulip is one of the landmark releases of the year and packs in it a play and a screenplay, in that order. Bedtime Story is a revival of one of his previous works that was heavily censored in the 1970s. “This was the happiest hour of my life. Publishers, authors and chief editors are not supposed to get along well, but I have to say this and I can’t tell you how grateful I’m to Karthika (of Harper Collins). Even though Bedtime Story was given to her at the last minute, she read it and instantly said, ‘I will do this’,” says Nagarkar.

He has no problems with Black Tulip being compared to a masala novel. “I am glad you used the word masala. It shows you the range. I have been writing screenplays, I don’t want to go over the same furrow again and again. I love heist on the screen. I wanted to bring changes. Black Tulip is a screenplay with two endings. It’s an armchair read — a classic cop and robber set-up.” And if the screenplays were to be made into a film, he has us know that he’d like Kangana Ranaut to play the protagonist.”

The first draft of his play Bedtime Story had 78 cuts. “Buddha could not be mentioned, Gandhiji could not be mentioned. There were various questions like — why did I even bother when we already had the Mahabharata? How dare I tamper with the basic story? The problem was I really couldn’t understand if there is even a single oral narrative of Mahabharata. I was dumbstruck,” he recalls. Even though he has managed to get the book published after nearly four decades, the author doesn’t believe that the previous issues hindering the release are non-existent now. “I really don’t think that the issues have been overcome. It’s just that 37 years is a long time to remember one’s own words, and at the very last minute I remembered that I also have a play,” he says, with a chuckle.

Speaking of reinterpreting Draupadi’s character, where Draupadi gives hell to everyone around her, Kiran says, “I’m not the first one to do it, and I hope to God that I’m not the last one either. But the fact is this Draupadi certainly is not going to take anything lying down. She genuinely thinks that she is a man’s equal, she is absolutely hell bent on standing up for her own rights.”

There are also passages in the book that have strong words against Krishna. “That of course offended censors the most,” Nagarkar says. “There is a line in the passage where Draupadi is almost abusing Krishna by using some strong words against him like ‘you are a shameless god’, for delaying his intervention while she was being humiliated by Kauravas. At this point in time, I was actually asked by the censors, ‘Tumhi swatala kon samjhtat?’ (Who the hell do you think you are to use this language about God). I have written this play because of its reverence in the society. At the same time I would like to say that I love the Mahabharata, theoretically so beautifully written.”

Bedtime Story/Black Tulip: A Screenplay Story by kiran nagarkar Rs 650, pp 304 HarperCollins India

When he was writing the book, Nagarkar wasn’t sure of what to anticipate. He says, “When Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses, people told him. ‘I’m sure you must have known this will create an uproar’. I’m not sure you write things because you are in the thick of it. Sometimes I read it and I’m like — oh my god I did it! I have been so often criticised for writing this — ‘Who do you think you are Kiran, you are damning everybody’.”’

Ask him if he can write a play of this sort today, and he says, “No, I don’t think so.” Alluding to the issue of censorship, he adds, “I feel this country is going through a terrible phase and I hope this ends soon. What is happening across the world is also so terrible that I don’t think a play alone is enough.”

He admits to self-censorship though. “I have been self-censoring since the times of Shiv Sena. I’m not a scholar, I know my limitation. We don’t even know how lucky we were to be in practicing democracy, from the time we got our Independence. I genuinely fear we are heading into really difficult waters,” he says. He continues, “I am not into testing limits. I know I can’t write about Shivaji because my notion of him is intermittently different from what we talk about. With the Shiv Sena and MNS around, there is no chance. Are they even listening? I think it’s a pre-condition of censorship in many ways that the book is never read. I do not want to touch Shivaji at all. I do think of him as an extremely shrewd statesman.”