On the Occasion of Shakespeare Jayanti/Janmotsava (?)

Dear Bard of Avon,

Hope you are doing well! I am writing this letter to wish you a happy 458^th birthday. To be honest, I had forgotten your birthday just like every year. But thanks to social media that reminded me, along with several unnecessary things, of your birth anniversary. It so happened that I was going through my Facebook page where I came across an interesting linguistic discourse taking place in my country. The Indian Twitterati was engaged in a debate about the right usage between the two terms – jayanti and janmotsava with regards to the birth celebrations of Lord Hanuman? Despite being a true and patriotic Indian, born and brought up in the Hindi-speaking North India, I must admit shamefully that I had never thought about the difference between the two. For me these terms were synonyms. Being a university teacher who happens to teach literature only added to my embarrassment. However, thanks to the Twitterati that enlightened me about their difference: jayanti refers to the birth celebrations of someone who is dead, janmotsava  is the birth anniversary of a living person. Building up on this hypothesis, let me declare this day as Shakespeare janmotsava  since you refuse to die!

Having theorized your birthday, out of a compulsive academic habit, let me flatter you a bit (for that’s what one is supposed to do on birthdays). I am not sure if some Brit colleague of yours ever told you that you have become the millennium’s most successful writer. The popularity of a school drop-out like you far exceeds that of your Oxbridge contemporaries who had once called you an “upstart crow.” Believe me, none remembers them. None knows them. But you shine as the brightest star in the galaxy of writers ‘not of an age, but for all time.’ I bet, if you had a social networking account, you would have been the only one after the industrialist-cum-philanthropist Ratan Tata and former Indian president Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to have zero haters. (The data has been compiled after an extensive research on Twitter) Don’t be surprised by the absence of your compatriots on the list. They have committed enough misdeeds after your death to earn hate across the world.

Just a few days ago, I was thinking as to what made you so great. And then a realisation dawned upon me: You are loved by your friends and foes alike. Germans, the arch-rivals of your country, would refuse to accept you as a British playwright and appropriated you as a German dramatist instead. Hitler, the notorious war-monger and anti-Semitic, was particularly inspired by your characterization of Jews. So influenced was the Wiemer zeitgeist by your plays that the Hitler Youth organised ‘Shakespeare Weeks’ in Germany throughout the 1930s. I am sure that the Führer would have offered you German citizenship were you alive as he once did to the Indian hockey legend Dhyan Chand. Forget about the Germans, even a country that once described your nation as its “most dear enemy” and whose high-headed haute Parisian named Voltaire had called you a “drunken savage” and your plays “grotesque” could not resist your talent and welcomed your plays with open arms. It took less than a century for the French public opinion to transform you from being a savage to one of “the greatest geniuses of all time.”

  To reign the European heart was your destiny but to reach the “Heart of Darkness”, that great mystery called Africa, as your half-Polish-half-English writer had once called it, requires something more than just destiny and talent. I am not sure if someone told you but a Nigerian Marxist, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, once wrote that African students spent a great deal of time finding greatness even in your commas and full-stops. To engage scholars in such significant literary pursuit definitely requires another level superpower. And you seem to possess that power. Else how does one believe that despite having put you to rest some four centuries ago, hardly a day passes when your plays are not read or performed somewhere or the other part of your former empire? Yes, that’s the truth … the sun did set on the British empire a few years ago, you didn’t! YOU WON’T!!

  Your greatness received further impetus as you were pushed to the British colonies by the your fellow colonists to engage in some charity work – “White Man’s Burden” – as an India-born- British-colonist had once called it. Among all the colonies where your plays reached, there is but one whose inhabitants took to you like none else ever did – not even your fellow countrymen. The country is the humble abode of yours truly – Hindustan. None can match the obsession that Hindustanis have with you – not even Germans. (That there is a long history of colonialism involved in making you a success story here is outside the purview of this letter!) The more your plays were used to dominate the ‘uncivilized natives’, more passionately we loved you. Though this is not the right place to enumerate the reasons that marketed your plays here, let me at least  introduce you to your desi doppelgänger who popularized your plays here by adapting them in Urdu. A school drop-out just like you, he was fondly called Shakespeare-i-Hind (though his real name was Agha ‘Hashr’ Shah Kashmiri. Just to experience the taste of your play in Urdu, here is an excerpt from the opening speech that Khaqan (Lear) delivers in Sufaid Khuun (King Lear):

Ae baa’ise hayaate jahan baani/Ae ruuhe ravane sultani./Barson sair-e-jahane faani dekhi/Har cheez yahan ki aani jaani dekhi.

Jo aa ke na jaaye vo budhapa dekha/Jo ja ke na aaye vo jawani dekhi.

Andesh-e-marg o khauf-e farsurda ne ghera hai/Thode hi arse mein meri sham-e-zindagi ka savera hai.

Lihaaza chaahta hun ke vafaat se pehle hayaat ka ek bada farz hai, vo chukaya jaaye./Yaani na-ittifaaqi ke haathon se bachaa kar ye taaj kisi haqdaar ke sir chadhaaya jaaye …

 (O! Dear kingship – the reason of my existence!/ O! This beloved royalty.

I have seen the mortal excursions of life./ I have seen things that are transitory.

I have seen old age that does not go once it arrives./ I have seen youth that doesn’t come back once it’s gone.

Surrounded I am by  the doubt of death and fear of disappointment./Shortly, my life’s eve will have a sunrise.

Therefore, I wish to fulfil a grave obligation of mine./To prevent any future strife for the crown, I wish to give it to the most deserving one) …

 At the risk of sounding like an Urdu apologist, I must confess that the Urdu translation sounds so much better on my Indian ear! Of course, it’s not your fault but my inability to appreciate the Elizabethan blank verse. Cultural conditioning, you know! But don’t be disappointed for there are enough desi bardolators who are more English than the English. They won’t disappoint you.

Having said that, I must also confess that there is a growing breed of intellectuals who have been trying to malign your image by exposing “colonial ideology at work” in your plays. Post(-)colonial critics, as they are called, also include some of your own guilt-ridden kith and kin. In order to strengthen their agenda, they have even neologized terms like ‘colonial discourse analysis’, ‘contrapuntal reading’ and what not. I must admit that I happen to know a few of them. (That I also need to dirty my hands in such academic enterprise is purely an academic compulsion! Believe me dada, deep down I have great reverence for you. In any case, when have academics made much sense in the real world?) But don’t lose heart! Such critics are few and far between and comprise the academic fringe as of now. Moreover, there are powerful multi-billion film industries and OTT platforms that will make sure that no harm comes to you. I can proudly state that a particular film industry that belongs to the nation of ‘yours truly’ – Bollywood as it is called – will leave no stone unturned to save you from any such academic incursions. Till recently, we were happy rehashing your star-crossed lovers theme repeatedly. Even the more recent ‘radical’ Bollywood adaptations of your plays are hardly critical and are extension of your liberal humanist values. The message is clear: WE WON’T LET YOU DIE EVEN IF YOU WOULD WANT TO!

Sire! You have guided generations across cultures and nations for centuries and have become a superhero if not a demi-god. We, the people of India, have responded to your plays better than anyone else, even Germans. We have done more than what your Macaulays had expected of us. Now it’s time for you to reciprocate. My beloved country is witnessing unprecedented violence in recent past. Nothing seems to prevent people from indulging in it. Violence has become the cyclic order. Violence is being used to curb violence. When the state fails, writers need to take up their pens and commit themselves to the cause of society. With this in mind, may I commission you to write a play denouncing violence? I know condemning violence doesn’t suit your style but one needs to change with time else you will soon be out of public memory. I am sure that my people will listen to you. We have always listened to you in great admiration, bordering on idolatry … in fact bardolatory! We will listen to you this time too. I hope you will not refuse!

Thanking you in anticipation,

Yours truly,

An Indian bardolator.

PS: Apologies for writing the letter on the day of your baptism for there's still a controversy about your actual date of birth!