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A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES: Dilip Kumar Roy attention to the smallest details in the construction of the play, Roy has turned a biographical sketch into a beautiful piece of drama.
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Sri Chaitanya is a historical character. The incidents of his life presented in this play, too, are historically true. Could we, therefore, call this play a historical drama? A comparison with Shakespeare may naturally suggest itself to us, for he has written a few immortal history plays. He has, obviously, imaginatively treated history and presented
"...a kind of truth which is sometimes higher than truth to fact... His histories are always true to the spirit of the age even when they are false in details.... Whatever is universal in the mind and character of entire ages and people is brought closely before us. The general temper of the times is faithfully reflected in the historical plays and the incidents that affected the common fate of our country are brought prominently into view. The poet has, moreover, breathed the breath of life into dead heroes, and endowed them with all their natural gifts and characteristics so that they reappear before us as distinct and vivid personalities."28
Dilip Roy, too, seems to have the same intention of exhibiting imaginative truth of Sri Chaitanya in his play. In the 'Preface' to Sri Chaitanya he explicitly
writes:
"In a work like this I do not feel obliged to being a bondslave to history as such, since what I set out to write is not history embellished but to express dramatically my heart's vision of one whom I have regarded as an Avatar of Krishna since my childhood, whose songs I have passionately loved and sung and whose Presence I have felt while singing of his divine humanity. That is why, historically, I have been.... more faithful to the spirit that moved Sri Chaitanya, the spirit which has, alas, been often misunderstood even by many of his followers."29
The difference between Shakespeare's view of history and Dilip Roy's view should be clear here. Shakespeare was principally a dramatist. He had an eye for oddities and eccentricities of real human personages which he discovered in his historical figures, too. All of them are impressively drawn flesh and blood individuals. Who would ever forget heroic Hotspurr or spoilt Prince Hel, the companion of Sir John Fallstaff?
Roy is not a dramatist at all. He lacks an objective artist's insight into the complexity of human character. His world is peopled only with Dilip Roy's. He sees no one else. It is difficult to distinguish one character from another when
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