Chitra, a play in one act
Paper Type: Book Print Paper | Size: 178mm x 127mm
Black and white; 56 pages; Paperback
ISBN-10: 93-86906-55-7 | ISBN-13: 978-93-86906-55-7
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First published in English in 1913 by the India
Society of London, Rabindranath Tagore’s Chitra is a one-act play adapted from
a story from the Mahabharata. Chitra tells the tale of
Chitrangada, a warrior princess, who falls in love with Arjuna and begs the
Gods of Love and spring to help her win Arjuna’s heart. It is one of the three Nritya Natyas or dance-dramas created by
Tagore to enact stories through dance and music. Tagore imagines Chitrangada as
the ideal, exemplary woman, whose desire is to be equal with the man of her
choice while still retaining her own identity. In exploring Chitrangada’s
struggle to come to terms with her identity in the eyes of others as well as in
her own eyes, Tagore offers a lyrical portrayal of the emotions of a woman—a portrayal
that is still relevant even today.
Rabindranath Tagore
Author
Rabindranath Tagore, sobriquet Gurudev,
was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian
art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author
of Gitanjali and its “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse”, he
became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.He
is sometimes referred to as “The Bard of Bengal”.