‘Madras’ by Arundhati Subramaniam

 About the poet :

Arundhati Subramaniam  lives in Bombay where she works as writer, editor and curator. She has published two books of poetry in India with Allied Publishers, On Cleaning Bookshelves and Where I Live, and in Britain, Where I Live, which combines selections of work from her two Indian collections with new poems. She has also written The Book of Buddha and Sadhguru: More Than a Life , co-edited Confronting Love, an anthology of Indian love poems in English, and edited Pilgrim's India: An Anthology . In 2006 she appeared at London’s Poetry International festival and gave readings throughout Britain on a tour organised by the Poetry Society.

‘Madras’ by Arundhati Subramaniam :

I was neither born nor bred here.

But I know this city

of casuarina and tart mango slices,

gritty with salt and chilli

and the truant sands of the Marina,

the powdered grey jowls of film heroes,

my mother's sari, hectic with moonlight,

still crackling with the voltage

of an MD Ramanathan concert,

the flickering spice route of tamarind and onion

from Mylapore homes on summer evenings,

the vast opera of the Bay of Bengal,

flambéed with sun,

and a language as intimate as the taste

of sarsaparilla pickle, the recipe lost,

the sour cadences as comforting

as home.

It's no use.

Cities ratify

their connections with you

when you're looking the other way,

annexing you

through summer holidays,

through osmotic memories

of your father's glib

lie to a kindergarten teacher

(‘My mother is the fair one'),

and the taste of coffee one day in Lucca

suddenly awakening an old prescription -

Peabury, Plantation A

and fifty grams of chicory

from the fragrant shop near the Kapaleeshwara temple.

City that creeps up on me

just when I'm about to affirm

world citizenship.

About the poem :

In 'Madras' by Arundhati Subramaniam, the speaker delves into a profound reflection on their relationship with the city of Madras (now Chennai), expressing a deep and intimate connection despite not being born or raised there. The poem is rich in sensory imagery, painting a vivid portrait of Madras through its distinctive sights, sounds, and tastes.

The speaker reminisces about the city's essence, evoking memories of its unique features such as the casuarina trees, which are emblematic of its coastal landscape, and the tangy flavor of tart mango slices, often enjoyed with salt and chili, capturing the essence of street food culture. They also describe the Marina beach, renowned for its expansive sands and the salty breeze, offering a nostalgic recollection of carefree moments spent there.

Further, the poem alludes to the cinematic heritage of Madras, mentioning the "powdered grey jowls of film heroes," which symbolize the glamour and allure associated with the city's film industry. The speaker's mother's sari, still imbued with the magic of moonlit evenings and the echoes of musical concerts, serves as a poignant reminder of familial connections intertwined with the city's cultural fabric.

The sensory journey continues with descriptions of the aroma of tamarind and onion wafting from Mylapore homes on summer evenings, evoking a sense of nostalgia for the flavors and scents of home. The speaker also captures the grandeur of the Bay of Bengal, likening it to a vast opera flamboyantly illuminated by the sun, showcasing Madras's natural beauty.

Central to the poem is the exploration of language as a vital component of the speaker's connection to Madras. The familiarity and intimacy of the language are likened to the comfort of sarsaparilla pickle, evoking a sense of belonging and rootedness in the city's linguistic and cultural milieu.

Throughout the poem, the speaker grapples with the paradox of their identity, acknowledging the allure of a broader, more cosmopolitan worldview while simultaneously being drawn back to the specificities and intimacies of Madras. Despite their attempts to affirm a sense of "world citizenship," the city asserts its hold on them through the resonance of memories, familial ties, and the enduring essence of its culture and landscapes.

In essence, "Madras" by Arundhati Subramaniam is a poignant exploration of belonging, memory, and identity, showcasing the enduring bond between an individual and the city they call home.

Thank You...

‘A Room of One’s own’ by Virginia Woolf

 → About the Author Virginia Woolf :

Virginia Woolf was born as Adeline Virginia Stephen to Sir Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Stephen. Her father, Leslie was a famous scholar, philosopher, historian, author, critic and mountaineer. Her mother, Julia was previously a renowned model and had worked for Pre-Raphaelite painters. Both her parents were previously married and had children. Best known for her novels “Mrs. Dalloway” and “To the Lighthouse”, Virginia Woolf had been successful in creating inspiring impressions on her readers rather than recreating reality. Apart from poetry, Virginia also penned some pioneering essays on artistic theory, literary history, women’s writing, and politics of power. Her works have been synonymous with themes, such as gender relations, class hierarchy and the consequences of wars. Rightly distinguished as a fine stylist, Virginia loved experimenting with her works of biographical writing and composing painterly short fictions. Her other popular works include “Orlando” and “A Room of One’s Own”. Check out more on Virginia Woolf’s childhood and life in the following lines.

→ ‘A Room of One’s own’ :

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” ―‘A Room of One’s own’

The main subject of A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf is the place of women writers in the history of literature, mainly in the British context. Woolf examines the factors that have hindered women's access to education, literary production and success. One of its main theses of A Room of One's Own, which gave its title to the work, is that a woman must at least have "some money and a room of her own" if she wants to produce a fictional work.

When Woolf talks about ‘women and fiction,’ she brings out the fact that the term holds layers of meanings. Fiction written about women, fiction by women, fiction mentioning women, and so on. When talking about women fiction, she breezes through some exceptional women writers of that century. In this book, Woolf is not just looking at the multiplicity of representation but also insists on the material conditions required for the production of a fictional work. These are privacy and inheritance. Throughout the essay, we see how Woolf focuses on money and a private room as the two essential key elements for a woman to be a writer. The money would free the woman from the anxieties of livelihood. It would also make her independent, and she would no longer be at the mercy of the men of her household. When she stresses having a ‘room of one’s own,’ she has Jane Austen in her mind who did not have this privilege. Room is not just about space or privacy but also about real and metaphorical space that can be claimed as one’s own. 

Woolf challenges the claim of one single truth and talks about endless perspectives. ‘Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact’ – She is destabilizing the binary of true and false. Fiction, which is often claimed as a make-belief or a false narrative, is a prerequisite, especially for women. It is not unknown to us how history can often be flawed, disrupted, fabricated, and missing. She constantly uses ‘I’ as a vehicle, a fiction to move away from the logos of patriarchy. The power of the physical presence of the speaker here challenges the very notion of ‘I’, the pronoun – It debunks the idea of one stable man preaching or giving away one truth. The text questions what is absent in the archives and history – women as creative writers of fiction in the sixteenth century. Renaissance in Europe was, by and large, a male-dominated phenomenon. We had merely a handful of educated women, and they too belonged to the well-to-do aristocratic families. Since time immemorial, women utilizing their tongue and learning have always been a threat to patriarchy. The very foundation of patriarchy trembles and shudders at the thought of women empowering each other and putting forth their viewpoints. Shakespeare’s sister is an absent presence in “A Room of One’s Own.” She is a fictional character, a brainchild of Woolf, for highlighting the different ways in which society treats a talented man and a gifted woman. Judith, Shakespeare’s sister, in the text, runs away from her home to expose her creativity and knowledge with like-minded writers and creative thinkers. Sadly, she is thought of as a whore, and people leave no stone unturned to humiliate her and question her morality. Ultimately, she dies of suicide. The very question is Shakespeare had a sister is downright revolutionary. Do you realize how different this is from the way in which Shakespeare is read and celebrated? What if he really had a sister, even more brilliant than him, whose talent couldn’t see the light of the day just because she was a woman? Did she exist? Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes, fiction is truer than the truth.

Woolf also talks about poverty. There was no endowment in colleges for women. So, no scholarships either. There was a complete economic dependence on males while the women of the Victorian households stayed indoors. They didn’t even have a penny in their pockets. Well, did they even have pockets? They never earned enough to leave behind something, some sort of savings for future generations. “Nobody can pour from an empty cup.” You can only give if you have a surplus. I find it most interesting when Woolf compares women to a looking glass through which men see themselves twice as strong. This ego boost, this impression of magnification, gives us a clear sense of the Self and the Other. A ‘poet’s heart’ and a ‘woman’s body’ are seen as antithetical. A woman’s body is to be raped and impregnated, right? Well, that’s what society thought back in the day. This was the crux of tragedy, pain, and helplessness. There was no possible public place for women. She was barred from libraries, universities, parks, and clubs. The gendered, political, and social context of a woman’s very being makes her a whore in the eyes of patriarchy. There is no concern about her skills and talent such injustices prevailing before and during the sixteenth century could have driven them towards insanity.

In Chapter 5, we see Woolf looking at women writing modern fiction in her contemporary times. She is feeling the change taking place. Women, like men, are also a part of a tradition. This might be a parallel alternative to female literary tradition but a tradition nonetheless. The domain of heterosexuality is the central theme in most of these writings. She is intrigued by non-linear sentences that would break the conventions and the realist form of writing. In Chapter 6, the final chapter, Woolf attempts to escape from painful femininity. She talks about an interesting concept of a ‘man-womanly’ mind. The gender of writing can’t be wholly masculine or feminine as per Woolf. It’s vital to cultivate a self where neither of the genders gets prominence. The balance of the mind is what she is talking about. The mind that writes has to be free from the determination of the sex. That’s how one creates an avant-garde form of writing. 

Moreover, she also takes several detours in the text, which takes away the gravity and compactness of the text as a whole. At a time when the slaves and working-class women were struggling to free themselves from their cruel masters, even the thought of owning a room was far-fetched. And literature is not just about novel writing. What we see these slaves coming up with are fascinating songs, oral narratives, and so on. Woolf’s way of preaching about having one’s own physical space was unthinkable for a huge chunk of society when they couldn’t even have a roof over their head, forget having a room. All in all, even though this book does open up our minds to endless possibilities for women writers and women’s representation in writing, it fails to impress me just because it addresses the existence of the Bourgeoisie women and not the working classes and slaves. Had the text been a little more serious and inclusive, it’d have won a lot more hearts than it did. 

Thank You…

'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' by Mark Haddon

 ∆ About the Author :

The son of an architect, Mark Haddon was born in Northampton, England in 1962 and studied English at Merton College, Oxford. He became a carer for disabled people in Scotland after university, an experience which would inform his later work. His first writing work was as a children's author and illustrator.

Haddon is most famous for his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 2003 and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best First Book in 2004. This novel was the first Haddon wrote specifically for an adult audience, although it was eventually marketed to both adults and children. Haddon's earlier works include the children's series Agent Z. He also wrote the screenplay adaptation of Raymond Brigg's story Fungus the Bogeyman which was screened on BBC1 in 2004. In 2009 Haddon donated his short story The Island to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project.

Haddon is a vegetarian as well as a hard line atheist who lives in Oxford with his wife, Dr. Sos Eltis, a Fellow of Brasenose College, and their two sons. He enjoys canoeing, cycling and running marathons.

∆ 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' :

A mostly light-hearted novel told from the perspective of Christopher Boone, a teenage boy with autism. A lovely autistic teenage boy with an incredible talent for math and a gifted logical brain which is amazingly observant of every little detail around, is our hero in this book. He’s afraid of talking to strangers, being put in unknown situations, being touched and lacks the proper intuition about others that many “normal people” take for granted. He loves timetables, dogs, rats, prime numbers and Sherlock Holmes and he hates metaphors (not similes!), noisy places and yellow and brown colors.

“I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them”

The story of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time begins by Christopher chronicling his investigation of who killed his neighbor’s dog. But, a huge discovery along the way causes Christopher to investigate something more scandalous. Christopher is then determined to track down somebody who he is more interested in meeting.

The plot is interesting, unique and heart wrenching. Reading the things that this boy does and says and thinks is such a different experience. Through Christopher, the main character, we get a sense of feeling from the people he writes about. He writes about the characters' reactions, and through that, we can imagine their feelings.

“Sometimes we get sad about things and we don’t like to tell other people that we are sad about them. We like to keep it a secret. Or sometimes, we are sad but we really don’t know why we are sad, so we say we aren’t sad but we really are.”

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is written skilfully. The chapters are written on seemingly unrelated topics sometimes, just as, I imagine, an autistic person would write. The sentences are very much like the title. Haddon’s phrasing, descriptions, thought, and speech as Christopher often made me stop and reread what I just read.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time solves the mystery of a small incident in life and leaves us questioning the bigger unsolved mystery of being such a complicated creature. Also emphasizes how very small things in life are actually the most important ones that keep us alive inside and make our lives worth living. (sorry for the cliché). The part that moved me most was the part where both parents repeatedly express their pain for not being able to hug their child..

“I think people believe in heaven because they don’t like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don’t like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish.”

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time offers a big insight into the mind of someone with autism. The story is told by a quirky narrative which details random facts, stories and opinions of Christopher, and how he best explains the reasons for his odd habits and behavior. This novel demonstrates some good introspection by the character of Christopher, and features his great attempts to improve his social skills and his understanding of other people.

Thank You…

'The Portrait of a Lady' by Khushwant Singh

 ∆ About the author :

Khushwant Singh was born on 2 February 1915 in Pakistan, was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist, and politician. After his experience in the 1947 Partition of India, he wrote  Train to Pakistan in 1956, which became his most well-known novel and he also wrote a history of the Sikhs and the company of women. He was awarded Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.

∆  'The Portrait of a Lady' :

The author briefly describes how his grandmother used to look when he was a child. He describes her appearance to be typical of most grandmothers – she was an old, wrinkled woman. Although he had learned from people that his grandmother had been pretty in her younger days when she had a husband, he found it hard to believe. He then adds that he regarded his grandfather as someone who could not have a wife or children but could have only many grandchildren.

The author had seen his grandmother as an old lady since he was born. He found it against his nature to imagine his grandmother as a young woman – just like he could not believe her accounts of childhood when she used to play games. He could not come to terms with his grandmother being a pretty woman, but he always thought she was beautiful. He compares her to a winter landscape in the mountains – serenely white with her white outfits and silver hair. He found her to be the epitome of peace and contentment.

The author now tells us about the dynamics of his relationship with his grandmother over the years. As a child, his grandmother took care of him since his parents were in the city trying to earn a better life. His grandmother used to wake him up and prepare him for school. They used to go to the school together as it was attached to the temple. He attended classes while his grandmother read scriptures inside the temple. After school, his grandmother would feed stale chapattis to the village dogs, who would follow them home, fighting for the chapattis.

There came a turning point in the author’s life when his parents called him and his grandmother to the city where they had finally settled down. The author started attending an English school, and his grandmother no longer accompanied him to school. There were no dogs in the streets, so she fed sparrows. Their relationship began to change. She would ask him about his school, and he would tell her about the different concepts of western science and learning. The grandmother could not help him with these kinds of lessons at school. It made her unhappy. She became more disturbed to know that there were no lessons on God, and that music lessons were given at school. She became less friendly towards the author after learning this.

When the author went to the university, the friendship between him and his grandmother was broken. He stayed at the university, and his grandmother spent her days sitting at her spinning wheel, followed by afternoons when she would feed the sparrows. When the author decided to go abroad for further education, he expected his grandmother to be upset about it. But to his surprise, she was not. Instead, she accompanied him to the station to see him off and said goodbye with a silent prayer and a kiss on his forehead. He had imagined this to be his last physical meeting with his grandmother.

After five years, when the author returned, he found his grandmother looking the same as she used to years ago – not a day older. She welcomed him with a silent prayer and did not talk. Her happiest moment on the first day of his arrival was during the afternoon she spent with the sparrows. In the evening, she collected some women from the neighbourhood and sang songs about the homecoming of warriors. The author and his family persuaded her to stop, so she did not overstrain herself.

The next morning the author’s grandmother fell ill with a mild fever. While the doctor informed them that it would subside quickly, she was sure that her end was near. She expressed her desire to pray rather than talk to them since she was left with only a few hours of her life. Although the author and his family were reluctant, she paid them no heed. After some moments of praying, she passed away. The family mourned, and she was covered with a red shroud as was customary. Everyone went ahead to prepare for her funeral, and when they returned to her room to take her body away for cremation, they saw hundreds of sparrows scattered around her from her bedroom to the verandah.

Everyone felt sorry about the sparrows, and the author’s mother tried to feed some bread crumbs to the sparrows, but they did not seem to notice the food. When his grandmother was carried away, the sparrows flew away quietly.

Thank you…

‘The Hungry Tide’ by Amitav Ghosh

 → About the Author :

Amitav Ghosh, a pioneer of English literature in India, was born in Calcutta (Now Kolkata) in the year 1956. Amitav Ghosh was raised and educated at the same time in as different locations as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Egypt, India and the United Kingdom. His father was a retired officer of the pre-independence Indian Army. He completed his high school education from The Doon School and his bachelors from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, Delhi. He completed his higher studies in England where he went on to receive his Ph.D. in social anthropology from Oxford University. After completing his Ph.D. he decided to pursue his career in writing. He worked as a journalist for the first time with the Indian Express newspaper, Delhi.

→  ‘The Hungry Tide’ :

‘The Hungry Tide’ is a very contemporary story of adventure and unlikely love, identity and history, set in one of the most fascinating regions on the earth. Off the easternmost coast of India, in the Bay of Bengal, lies the immense labyrinth of tiny islands known as the Sundarbans.

For settlers here, life is extremely precarious. Attacks by deadly tigers are common. Unrest and eviction are constant threats. Without warning, at any time, tidal floods rise and surge over the land, leaving devastation in their wake. In this place of vengeful beauty, the lives of three people from different worlds collide. Piya Roy is a young marine biologist, of Indian descent but stubbornly American, in search of a rare, endangered river dolphin.

Her journey begins with a disaster, when she is thrown from a boat into crocodile-infested waters. Rescue comes in the form of a young, illiterate fisherman, Fokir. Although they have no language between them, Piya and Fokir are powerfully drawn to each other, sharing an uncanny instinct for the ways of the sea. Piya engages Fokir to help with her research and finds a translator in Kanai Dutt, a businessman from Delhi whose idealistic aunt and uncle are longtime settlers in the Sundarbans.

As the three of them launch into the elaborate backwaters, they are drawn unawares into the hidden undercurrents of this isolated world, where political turmoil exacts a personal toll that is every bit as powerful as the ravaging tide. Already an international success, ‘The Hungry Tide’ is a prophetic novel of remarkable insight, beauty, and humanity.

Thank You…

‘Sangati’ by Bama

 → About the author :

Bama, is a Tamil Dalit feminist, committed teacher and novelist. Bama was born in a Roman Catholic family belonging to the Paraiyar community from Pudupatti in the then Madras State. Her father, Susairaj was employed in the Indian Army and her mother was named Sebasthiamma. She is the sister of famous Dalit writer Raj Gauthaman. Bama's ancestors were from the Dalit community and worked as agricultural labourers.

Her early literary influences include Tamil writers like Jayakantan, Akhilan, Mani, and Parthasarthy. In college, she read and enjoyed Kahlil Gibran and Rabindranath Tagore. On graduation, she became a schoolteacher for very poor girls, following which she served as a nun for seven years. She chose to take the holy orders to escape caste-based discrimination, and also to further her mission of helping in the advancement of poor Dalit girls.

She rose to fame with her autobiographical novel 'Karukku'' (1992), which chronicles the joys and sorrows experienced by Dalit Christian women in Tamil Nadu. She subsequently wrote two more novels, 'Sangati' (1994) and 'Vanmam' (2002) along with two collections of short stories: 'Kusumbukkaran' (1996) and 'Oru Tattvum Erumaiyum' (2003). In addition to this she has written twenty short stories.

→ ‘Sangati’ :

If one happens to belong to a disadvantaged community of a society, then one is privileged a lot more than just a writer. Bama as a feminist who holds her grounds deeply rooted into the indigenous soil and Indian traditions which seem to have become more than just contaminated with the ever-prevailing, vitiated and cursed casteism.

Karukku, published much before Sangati, is her autobiography whereas Sangatiis an autobiography of her community which moves from the story of individuals' struggle to the perception of the Paraiyya women, a neighborhood group of friends and relatives and their joined struggle.

In the initial chapters, it's narrated in the first person, then counterpointed by the generalizing comments of the grandmother and other mother figures, and later still, by the author-narrator's reflections. The earlier chapters show the narrator as a young girl of about twelve years of age, but in the last quarter, as a young woman. The reflective voice is that of an adult looking back and meditating deeply upon her experience in the past which calls for practical actions. It has no plot in the normal sense but just some powerful stories of memorable protagonists.

Bama chooses only a woman protagonist for every story in her novel and yet comes up so clearly justified about her choices while doing so. In Sangati,as a child, she is shown questioning the unequal treatment meted out to her at the hands of her own maternal grandmother- Vellaiyamma kizhavi (old lady) in comparison to her brother. She is asked to eat after every male member in the family finishes eating.

The left-over of others are her only feast. In fact, even the quality of food served to the girls is much poorer than the kind of which is served to boys. All the household work like cleaning, cooking, laundry, baby-sitting, etc are done by the girls whereas the boys enjoy playing games or hanging out with their friends in the village. Despite this, the girls in the village are deprived of good education unlike the boys. The boys are kept free from all sorts of responsibilities that they should take up whereas the girls are over-burdened with numerous endless toilsome everyday activities.

She also raises the issue related to patriarchy in a very heroic manner. Her book- Sangati Teases out the way patriarchy works with Dalit women. As Bama nego-feminism voices out the grievances of the Paraiyya women, there is, in the first place, the question of economic inequality. Women are presented as wage earners as much as men are, working equally as men as agricultural and building-site laborers, but still earning less than men do, thereby highlighting Socialist-feminism.

Yet the money that men earn is their own to spend as they please, whereas women bear the financial burdens of running the whole family, often even singly. They are constantly vulnerable to a lot of sexual harassment in the world of work. Within their community, the power rests with men as the caste-courts and churches are male-led. Rules for sexual behavior are brow-raisingly different for men and women. Hard labor and economic precariousness lead to a culture of violence, and Bama boldly explores this theme too.

Bama realistically portrays the physical violence like lynching, whipping and canning that the Dalit women face. She writes of the violent treatment of women by fathers, husbands and brothers, and the violent domestic quarrels which are carried on publicly, where rarely women fight back. As a radical feminist, Bama explores the psychological stresses and strains which become a reason for the women's belief in their being possessed by spirits or pets.

Her language is also very different from the other women writers of India as she is more generous with the usage of Dalit Tamil slangs. She addresses the women of the village by using the suffix amma' (mother) with their names. From the names of places, months, festivals, rituals, customs, utensils, ornaments, clothes, edibles, games, etc to the names of occupations, the way of addressing relatives, ghosts, spirits, etc; she unceasingly uses various Tamil words.

The voices of many women speaking to and addressing one another, sharing their everyday experience with each other, sometimes raised in anger or in pain, against their oppressors, are reported exactly. The language is full of explicit sexual references too. Bama smartly suggests that sometimes a sharp tongue and obscene words are women's only way of shaming men and escaping extreme physical violence which give a violent and sexual nature to the language.

It's the result of internalizing a patriarchy based on sexual dominance and power which rests with men. Bama makes a gigantic linguistic leap in reclaiming the language of the Paraiyya women. She does so more consistently than any of her contemporary writers for narration, argument, comment, and not simply for reported speeches. She bridges the spoken and written styles of Tamil by breaking the rules of written grammar and spelling, and also by eliding various words and joining them differently; demanding a new and different pattern of reading Tamil.

The post-colonial thrust of her book is in its huge criticism of the Indian church. Bama questions the conversion happened in her grandmother's time. Only the Paraiyyas embraced Christianity, persuaded by the missionaries offering them free education whereas the other Dalit communities preferred to remain Hindus. Bama is a critique of casteism within the church and church rules. Here, the narrator's underlying question is whether the community should have converted at all.

This book has a lot in store for the readers not just to applaud the traditional feminine' ideals of fear, shyness, simplicity, innocence, modesty but rather, courage, fearlessness, independence and self-respect.

Thank You…

‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ by Tom Stoppard

 → About the author :

Tom Stoppard (1937- Present) is a Czech-British playwright. He belongs to the genre of Absurdism, and his many plays explore various themes such as reality versus the stage, fate versus free will, chaos versus order, and time. He is most renowned for his plays 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead' (1966), 'Arcadia' (1974), and 'Travesties' (1993). He has won multiple awards for his plays, including an Academy Award and several Tony awards.  Due to the upcoming Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, the shoe company that employed his father transferred the Straussler family to Singapore in 1939. However, upon arrival in Singapore, there was an invasion by the Japanese. Therefore, Stoppard, his mother, and his brother fled to India. Stoppard’s father stayed behind and died. In 1941, Stoppard and his family settled in Darjeeling, where he attended school. In 1946, Stoppard’s mother married a British army major, and they moved to England. Taking his stepfather's last name, he then became Tom Stoppard.

→ ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ :

GUIL: Well…aren't you going to change into your costume?

PLAYER: I never change out of it, sir," (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Act 1).

‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ is a three-act play by the English playwright Tom Stoppard. It is an existentialist, absurdist satire featuring characters and events from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. First performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1966, ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ enjoyed critical success, winning The New York Drama Critics’ Circle’s Award for Best Play and four Tony Awards in 1968. Since then, the play has been adapted into several radio plays and a 1990 film starring Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, and Richard Dreyfuss. ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ emerged from the Theater of the Absurd movement popular in Europe in the decades following World War II. Theater of the Absurd plays deal with existentialist themes such as the meaninglessness or absurdity of existence, a theme which runs throughout ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’. Critics tend to draw parallels between ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ and Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’, another Theater of the Absurd classic. 

In Act I, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two of Prince Hamlet’s childhood friends, journey to Elsinore to meet with King Claudius of Denmark. On the way, they pass time by flipping coins. Rosencrantz bets heads every time, winning 92 coin flips in a row. Guildenstern wants to understand why the law of probability is defunct, but Rosencrantz does not give the matter any thought.

The Tragedians, a theatre troupe led by the enigmatic Player, arrive. The Player says that the Tragedians can perform for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and that the two friends can participate in the sexual scenes if they pay extra. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are disgusted yet intrigued by the offer. Guildenstern and the Player play a few betting games, and the Player prepares the troupe to perform for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Before the Tragedians’ show can start, the scene shifts to Elsinore, where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet with Claudius and his wife Gertrude. Claudius and Gertrude command Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet and determine the reasons for his bizarre behaviour.

In Act II, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern fumble as they try to complete their mission and figure out what they are meant to do. The Tragedians arrive, and Hamlet asks them to perform a modified version of The Murder of Gonzago. The Player agrees and readies his troupe for the performance. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern spend their time bickering over which way is south and musing on the subject of death. They grow more and more distressed by the uncertainty and lack of freedom they experience as the events of Hamlet unfold around them.

Later, the pair watches the Tragedians perform a pantomimed dress rehearsal of their play that is narrated by the Player. The play reflects the events that occur before and during Hamlet, including Claudius killing Hamlet’s father, usurping the throne, and marrying Gertrude. The play also depicts the deaths of two spy characters who look like and are meant to represent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Although Rosencrantz sees some familiarity in these characters, he does not recognize them as his and his companion’s counterparts.

The Tragedians perform their play in front of the court, but it displeases a guilty Claudius. Hamlet then murders Polonius, Claudius’s advisor. Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to capture Hamlet and bring him to Claudius. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern set out to perform this task but procrastinate while Hamlet lets himself be captured. Claudius orders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to go with Hamlet to England and present a letter to the King of England.

Act III finds Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on a ship bound for England. While Hamlet sleeps, they discuss boats, death, and the existence of England. Rosencrantz is distraught at not knowing what to do once they reach England, but Guildenstern assures him that the information they need is in the letter Claudius gave them. They become confused about who has the letter, panicking until Guildenstern pulls it out of his pocket. They read it and discover that Claudius wants the King of England to execute Hamlet.

While the two friends are sleeping, Hamlet switches Claudius’s letter with a letter ordering the King of England to execute Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead of Hamlet. In the morning, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern discover that the Tragedians, on the run from Claudius, are aboard the ship with them. Pirates board the ship and attack the crew; Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Hamlet, and the Player escape the pirates by hiding in three barrels.

Once the pirates leave, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern emerge from their barrel to discover that Hamlet is missing. They despair over what to do without him. Thinking that it might contain useful information that will help them in this unexpected scenario, they read the new letter and discover that they are to be executed once they reach England. The Player reminds them that everyone dies, and Guildenstern angrily stabs him. However, the knife was merely a prop with a retractable blade, and the Player survives. The lighting changes, and only Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are visible. They utter their final words and disappear from the stage. Two ambassadors enter Elsinore to deliver the news regarding Rosencrantz’s and Guildenstern’s deaths, and the play ends as Horatio recites the final monologue from Hamlet.

Thank You…