Description

This is a translation of Dharamvir Bharati's Andha Yug (1953), one of the most significant plays of modern India. Written immediately after the partition of the Indian subcontinent, the play is a profound meditation on the politics of violence and aggressive selfhood.

The action of the play takes place on the last day of the Mahabharata war and is centred on a few bewildered survivors of the Kaurava clan. The ramparts are in ruins, the city is burning, and Kurukshetra is covered with corpses and vultures. The surviving Kauravas are overwhelmed by grief and rage. They long for one last act of revenge against the Pandavas. That is why when Ashwatthama releases the ultimate weapon, the brahmastra, which threatens to annihilate the world, they refuse to condemn it as ethically reprehensible. The moral centre of the play lies in Krishna. Despite his failure to ensure peace, it is his presence throughout the play which reveals to us that the ethical and the sacred are always available to human beings even in the worst of times. While Alok Bhalla's translation captures the essential tension between self-enchantment and redemptive ethicality, the Introduction helps one understand the many facets of the complex and multilayered narrative.