This is the moment a playwright lives for

You are being conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Mumbai Literature Festival...

What makes theatre such an intricate world is a febrile network of human relationships woven in words. This is why when, at the end of it all, one is told that one has succeeded, it is such an exhilarating experience. As a playwright, I feel enveloped by the warmth rolling in wave after wave — from across languages, cultures, and even from bygone generations — and saying to me, 'Well done!' What more could one want? This is the moment a playwright lives for.

It's been five years since you tore into VS Naipaul at the same festival. Do you regret what you said?

I had waited for nearly a decade to say what I did. Several years ago, I had heard him speak in London in a BBC radio interview where he went on and on about how Muslims destroyed India. I couldn't respond since I held a government post as the Director of the Nehru Centre and would have needed to clear it with the High Commissioner first. That would have never been allowed. Later at Neemrana, too, my then boss dissuaded me from speaking up. So when I was invited to the Mumbai Literature festival where he was being honoured, I said everything I had not been able to say until then. Why should I regret what I said about Naipaul? I don't speak without thinking first.

The socio-political and socio-cultural climate in the country has undergone a major shift since.

I'm convinced such change is also part of democracy. Even if we find the polarisation and politics of hate difficult to digest, we can't do anything but face it. Because of the emergence of Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, it becomes sensational or controversial as everyone comments or criticises anything that is put out. That's the situation and we can't control it. 

I don't want to control it. That's how democracy will work. The only hope is the people's voice. History teaches us that it can't be stifled. Dispensations, regimes and rulers change. Each thinks they can dominate but eventually people have always had their way.

You have been provided with a security cover after activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh's assassination. Did you request it because of threats you received?

Gauri Lankesh was known for her opposition to the divisive moves of right-wing groups. I supported her since we had similar views. After her assassination, the Karnataka state intelligence gave inputs to the police to provide security to 18 writers, rationalists, and progressive thinkers. That is how my name was added to the list. In November 2015 too, after protests and a death threat on Twitter following my comments asking Tipu Sultan be given his due as a freedom fighter, the government had arranged for police security outside my home and assigned a gunman to accompany me in public places. This was done despite me not asking for protection. Never in my life asked for special security.

While your plays like Yayati, Hayavadana and Nagamandala are celebrated as classics, why do you think Tughlaq keeps striking a chord with audiences more than five decades after you wrote it?

Soon after I wrote Tughlaq, UR Ananthamurthy called it a critique of Nehruvian socialism. Everybody picked that up. A play is never about its own time. Tughlaq is not just about Nehru. The 1980s theatre-goers connected it to Indira Gandhi's assassination and now some people connect it to present day politics. Every audience interprets a play according to their own sense of reality. I am glad audiences still find Tughlaq relevant. A compliment which pleases me, certainly.

Although multilingual, you wrote all your plays in Kannada till the early 2000s. Was this conscious?

I don't think a writer has a choice about the language or the medium in which to express himself. While studying in the Karnataka College, Dharwar, all I wanted was to go to England, write poetry in English and be famous like Shakespeare and TS Eliot. When I was inspired to write Yayati, the dialogue came to me in Kannada first. It has stayed so for almost all my work.

Why do you think assertions based on religious, regional, caste language and food habits are now the norm in India?

But food, religion, caste and region have always been norms of identity in this country. If you talk of the intolerance being perpetuated using these, the blame will have to be apportioned to politicians who play people against each other.

It's been 12 years since you directed a film. Does filmmaking no longer excite you?

I am quite content with the films I have made, and I have absolutely no interest in making any more.