Existentialism in Girish Karnad’s Plays: A Study of Yayati, Hayavadana and Tughlaq

Girish Karnad is a playwright, an actor, a script writer, a director and a scholar. Born on 19 May, 1938 at Matheran, a town near Bombay his childhood was spent in a small village Siri in Karnataka where he had his schooling. Here at Siri village he had the first-hand experience of the native folk theatre that left a lasting impression on his mind. Karnad moved to Dharwad, Karnataka University to do his graduation and in 1958 moved from Dharwad to Bombay to pursue his post-graduation. In Bombay he had an experience that proved to be a turning point in his life. For the first time he watched a modern theatre and got an altogether different experience from those he had watched earlier in his village. The play was Strindberge’s Miss Julie directed by Ebrahim Alkazi