The Dreams of Tipu Sultan and Bali

This is a collection of two new plays by Girish Karnad, one of India s foremost dramatists and actors. The first play introduces the reader to the visions of one of India s most famous rulers, and the second, to the inner conflict of violence vs. non-violence of a 10th century king faced with his queen s infidelity. The figure of Tipu Sultan has continued to dominate Indian and British imagination for over two centuries, as the endless flow of
scholarly works, ballads, plays and novels about his tempestuous life and tragic end testifies. What however is less well known, is that this man, who spent a large part of his life on horseback,
maintained a record of his dreams that he kept concealed from his nearest associates. The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, which explores the inner life of this warrior, political visionary and dreamer, was commissioned by the BBC and broadcast in Britain on the fiftieth anniversary of Indian Independence. Bali: The Sacrifice was staged on June 2002 at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre, UK. The king in the 10th cent. Jain myth, upon which the play is based, is devastated to discover
that his queen is involved with an elephant-keeper. Circumstances force him to sacrifice a cockerel to the gods in order to avoid further evil befalling the family. But he is a Jain, and non-violence
is a fundamental principle of Jain faith. In desperation, he substitutes a bird made of dough, with unexpected results. The myth is less concerned with actual violence than with the morality of substitution, which permits violence that is wider and more subtle by masking its appearance.