The play deals with a Kannada woman writer who unexpectedly
produces an international bestseller in English.
(i) Can a writer be a truly bilingual practitioner?
(ii) Does writing in an ‘other tongue’ amount to betrayal of the
mother tongue?
Answers
Answer:
(i) A writer is an artist who might experience or observe a situation and its aftermath or repercussions, conceives them comprehends them, and produces them in the language which makes him ponder on it its authentic texture. While exposing his experiences, he undergoes a monologue in his psychic space where he questions, justifies and edits his thoughts. This again happens in the language which makes the artist contend and contest with himself. Each language comes with certain baggage and prejudices which can be traced in the vocabulary and use of language expressions. The mind captures certain moments in a particular language through which the writer associates himself with the instance. This language is his voice to give words to that context. Often, the writer sees things through the perspective of a third person and tries to adopt the language of the other to empathize with the context. Thus, a writer can be a truly bilingual practioner.
(ii) Creativity and perspective require a mind to observe and a language to comprehend and articulate a phenomenon. An artist produces an art which is a self-expression of his life. It is life itself. The articulation of his life depends on the language that had made him reflect, introspect and comprehend it. A language can either dilute or concentrate an observation. The socio-political, cultural and historical background of a language makes it different from another tongue and it is these variations that condition a language’s function of what, where or how to emphasize an issue or simply an observation. A language can either bestow a fact with the ultimate truth or make a truth stand as a bare fact alone. It is language that impresses simplicity on a beautiful essence and it is language again that transfers this aura to some other miscellaneous occurrence. Thus, as educated citizens, it is more important to focus on the product of an artist rather than judging him for not employing his mother tongue in his work. The art should be appraised in its own indigenous space and in its own original colour.