Karnabharam ( Karna’s Task)

 Karnabharam ( Karna’s Task)

Dr Swati Joshi 

Karna’s Task is considered as tragic narratives in one act play. It can be said that the play is protagonist centric deals with the tragic flaw of Karna and sometime known as ‘The Tragedy of Karna.’ The Play represents the mental and emotional struggle of Karna. From the very beginning to the end the character of Karna is shown as in the Psychological character. Karna and Indra can be considered as the central character on which the plot revolves. The Play begins with the as usual entry of stage manager. This is the same common pattern of Bhasa to begin his play. The Stage Manager pray to God and after that he wanted to announce something and suddenly he heard some noise. 

“May the Fortune bring you good fortune – he that smites the hosts hostile to the gods. The sight of him in his lion from sacred the world and underworld, with all the multitudes of men and women, gods and fiends. “Twas he that burst the breast of the demon king with the axe edge of his nails.”30 

The stage manager is the part of prologue of the play. There are other characters like Soldier, (on the side of Kuru) Karna, Salya, Indra and Angel. Comparative to other plays of Bhasa this play has very less characters but they are very important and interwoven. Salya is the driver of the chariot of Karna who constantly communicates and directs Karna regarding the intentions and activity of Indra. Indra is another important character and it can be declared that without him the play would have failed in developing of Karna’s character.  Another character is Angel but it is Indra only in form of Angel. After the entry of the stage manager the soldier comes to us and shows the circumstance of war and in the very beginning of the play we come across with the Bhasa’s common description of plays of War. These elements somewhere gives the proof of the authenticity of the plays of Bhasa. There is description of Sun whose comparison is done with Karna. Bhasa has used the elements of nature like sun, Agni, earth  and also dealt with different emotions like black misery, art of war, learning wish, cheating, hope, the dilemma of “to be or not to be” curse etc all are the words used by Bhasa in this Play. In this it can be said that Karna’s Task is a beautiful play by Bhasa that represents Karna’s mental status and his struggle when he was in the state of war. The name of the play itself suggests that Karna is having burden (bharam) on him. But here the question is what kind of burden Karna is facing or struggling with in.  Let’s discuss it. 

“During the interval time that elapsed between the verbal gift of the Kundalas and their actual delivery, those Kundalas were felt as if a burden (bhara) to his ears (Karna) by Karna.”31 

Dr. Swati Joshi

Gujarat