Narrative in Satish Alekar's 'The Dread Departure'

Narrative is generally not associated with drama as it tends tobe more performative than other genres. But Indian plays havenarrative as their essential element for they are mostly basedon myths, folktales, history and Puranas. So Indian dramatistsemploys different narrative strategies such as characters asstorytellers, retrospection, reporting, choric commentary,announcements, descriptions, thoughts, summaries, overheardconversations, letters, phone calls, Sutradharas, andconfessions to name a few. Alekar has used narrative inMahanirvan or The Dread Departure (1974). He has used twoseparate narrators for two Acts of the play to present the eventof Bhaurao’s death through different points of view. Theirnarrative styles changes as their attitude towards the death.The paper tries to examine how narrative is employed torepresent the central event of Bhaurao’s death inMahaniravan.