Andha Yug

ANDHA YUG
Andha Yug, a play by Dharamvir Bharati, is one of such literary creation inspired from the
Mahabharata. The canonical verse play Andha Yug: The Age of Darkness, translated by Alok Bhalla,
which is a welcome addition to the journal's scope and can be recommended as compulsory reading
for anyone interested in modern Indian playwriting. The play was written in 1953, shortly after the
violent partition of the Indian subcontinent and after World War II, and the work retells a part of the
epic Mahabharat attributed to vyasa and focusing on the last days of the battle between the warring
factions of the two sets of cousins, the Kauravas and Pandavas. The play's protagonists are some of
the most complex figures of the Mahabharata, who appear as ancillary figures in most renditions of
the epic: Gandhari, the mother of the Kaurava princes, who blindfolds herself for life out of a sense
of misplaced solidarity with her husband, King Dhritarashtra, who himself was not only born blind
but also refuses to see the truth in every sense; Sanjaya, the chariot driver for King Dhritarashtra,
who is given extraordinary powers of vision by the author of the epic, Vyasa, in order to describe to
the blind king the atrocities of the battle; Yuyutsu, the illegitimate son of Dhritarashtra born to a
slave mother, who fights on the opposing side with his Pandavas cousins rather than his Kaurava
half-siblings, out of a sense of duty, and is punished with contempt upon his return home, precisely
because he was not able to turn a blind eye to the wrongdoings of his brothers; and Ashwatthama,
son of the teacher of both sets of cousins who wreaks havoc on the Pandavas in the aftermath of the
war, who is constantly confronted with half-truths, the contradictions and dilemmas of which drive
him to revenge and unending pain. The title Andha Yug: The Age of Darkness could just as well have
been translated as The Blind Age, for the profound questions of darkness, blindness, complicity, and
ignorance resonate at the core of the play and point out that the lack of vision characterizes not just
individuals but entire eras. It is considered to be a landmark in the history of Indian drama.
The play has a prologue, five acts, an interlude and an epilogue. The prologue begins with an
‘Invocation’ addressed to Narayana, Saraswati and Vyasa. It is followed by the ‘Proclamation’
explaining how Vishnu Purana mentions the age of darkness that will follow ‘the great war,’ the
strong reason behind the decline of prosperity, dharma and honour from the earth. In the end,
Chorus comments that with the death of the Lord began the age of darkness that will be full of half-
truth and some more great wars.
The fighting between the owl and the crow in Andha Yug is a symbol of the cunning tricks used
during the war time and the degrading values in the human world.
The title Andha
Yug: The Age of Darkness could just as well have been translated as The Blind Age,
for the profound questions of darkness, blindness, complicity, and ignorance
resonate at the core of the play and point out that the lack of vision characterizes
not just individuals but entire eras. The play transcends its direct
reference to the violence ensuing from the partition of India and Pakistan (as
the continent struggled with estimated deaths ranging from three hundred
thousand to a million, and perhaps twelve million displaced), and speaks to
the futility of war and greed everywhere.
Andha Yug, a play by Dharamvir Bharati, is one of such literary creation inspired from the
Mahabharata. r. Written just few years after the Partition; it meditates upon the difficult phase of
the holocaust which the play has a prologue, five acts, an interlude and an epilogue. The prologue
begins with an ‘Invocation’ addressed to Narayana, Saraswati and Vyasa. It is followed by the
‘Proclamation’ explaining how Vishnu Purana mentions the age of darkness that will follow ‘the
great war,’ the strong reason behind the decline of prosperity, dharma and honour from the earth.
the lives of millions of people. The play brings the fact into light that the real independence, peace
and prosperity cannot be achieved by the means of war or division. Wars cannot resolve effectively
the basic existential problems of human lives.
the moral and political issues depicted in Andha Yug are relevant even in the twenty-first century.
This technocratic age is perhaps the eponymous age of blindness surrounded in the sinister forces of
terrorism, corruption, religious fundamentalism, and bloodshed over the issues of community, caste
and honour.
The author of Andha Yug warns the readers against an age of darkness. He wants them to improve
themselves because improvement of their souls is the only way out from the encroaching darkness
and evil. He implies that there are at least two ways of improvement: the first is learning through
one’s own experience and the other is learning through others’ experience. At the very beginning of
the play, the playwright asserts that the story is meant to enlighten its audience. And that
enlightenment or improvement is to be achieved through learning from others’ experiences in their
lives. The story warns us against several types of blindness: spiritual blindness barring the soul from
contentment, deliberate blindness causing people not to accept the reality, and many others
produced out of the feelings of indulging affection, anger, contempt and jealousy. In ‘Proclamation,’
the playwright remarks: This is the story of the blind— Or of enlightenment through the life of the
blind. (Bharatt was
obvious that the play—written soon after the carnage of the Partition of the
Indian subcontinent, which nearly erased a form of life and civilization, and
being read once again in our rakshas (demonic) times of hysterical unrea-
son—still had the power to make us realize how close we live to the borders
of nightmares. it was obvious that the play—written soon after the carnage of the Partition of the
Indian subcontinent, which nearly erased a form of life and civilization, and being read once again in
our rakshasa (demonic) times of hysterical unreason -still had the power to make us realize how
close we live to the borders of nightmares.
and muted the voices of moral anxiety of characters like Vidura, Sanjaya, and Yuyutsu, drowning
them in the clash of armor and steel.
it was the gods who made the lives of Gandhari, Dhritarashtra, Duryodhana, and Ashwatthama so
bitter; this suggested that the translations had failed to guide their moral attention along the pilgrim
path of truth, a path that Vidura never abandons in the play, even in the midst of carnage.
curses Ashwatthama to wander through the endless wastes of time.
Ashwatthama, whose understanding of the moral issues of the war is deficient, fills us with terror,
but does not touch us with pity. This is how Ashwatthama describes Duryodhana’s death to
Kripacharya— Ashwatthama, whose understanding of the moral issues of the war is deficient, fills us
with terror, but does not touch us with pity. Ashwatthama, whose understanding of the moral issues
of the war is deficient, fills us with terror, but does not touch us with pity.:

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ANDHA YUG

curses Ashwatthama to wander through the endless wastes of time.

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