A Portrayal of disillusionment, irony and incongruity of human life in Vijay Tendulkar’s Safar

Abstract

Vijay Tendulkar has remained the representative of the contemporary modern drama, not only in Marathi, but also on the pan-Indian level, for a long span of years. Tendulkar symbolizes the new awareness and attempts of Indian dramatists of the last quarter century, to depict the agonies, suffocations and cries of man, focusing particularly on those of the middle class. He has always been on the forefront and frequently achieved something new that gave new directions to Indian drama. Tendulkar’s Safar bares the cloistered middle class mind to the problems and situations of this real world. He puts forth the disillusionment, irony and incongruity of human life in the contemporary antagonistic surroundings. Making a common man experience a persistent feeling of estrangement in society and forcing him to return home with a feeling of charging, encountering a vacuumed emptiness in midst of reality. This paper aims to emphasise upon the immobile fate of impotent aspirations and unrealistic desires of the common man as revealed in Tendulkar’s play. Safar is a testimony to Tendulkar’s insatiable interest in human mind and his compulsion to write about all kinds of human situations. The play doesn’t carry the burden of intellectual speculation and yet it remains beyond the shallow and hollow, telling us silently, something original, beyond words. The play tends towards existentialism. Safar is notable for its uncompromising realism, merciless probing of human nature, and candid scrutiny of individual and group psychology and use of an effective experimental technique.