I am going to be a little nostalgic today,” said Girish Karnad at the launch of his play Yayati.  The sentence is apt, to not only describe Karnad’s state of mind, but also describe the atmosphere in Oxford Bookstore, during launch of Girish Karnad’s Yayati by Satyadev Dubey, eminent playwright and actor, in presence of Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, famous actors and Arundhati Raja, a theatre personality.

As theatre personality Satyadev Dubey released the book, Karnad said, “He is here to release my book because he was the first one to me that my plays could be done.”

Satyadev helped innumerable people and helped them to reach heights that they deserved. Referring to Amol Palekar, Girish Karnad said, he was a painter before Satyadev “devoid us of some great paintings.”
To Karnad, Dubey is his “friend, philosopher..”. Karnad's face gets lightened with a notorious smile. Further speaking about the journey of the play till it was published, “Arundhati Raja persuaded me to get the play translated.”

Moving on to Naseeruddin Shah, he said, “Shyam Benegal once wanted an actor who is not handsome.” Amongst ripples of laughter, he said that he suggested Naseer.

After the launch of the play and release of the book Yayati, which has been translated, Satyadev said that he encourages translation.

Arundhati Raja, who is working to put the play on stage, said “We are not looking at Yayati as some mythological play. We are only focussing to get the human story out”.

Later, lines from the book were read by Naseeruddin Shah. In the short couple of minutes, few phrases could just talk to you. Soul reasons for suffering is that we have forsaken our gods. or Nothing however, ever happens as it must. and You have no sense how illogical suffering can be.

Shubham Shukla