The Visionary in Incognito: Remapping Cultural Memory in Girish Karnad’s “Dreams of Tipu Sutlan”

Abstract

The paper attempts to examine Girish Karnad’s “Dreams of Tipu Sultan” as a reconstruction of cultural memory that connects and reads different figures of memory from Indian history to provide an alternate picture of Tipu Sultan’s legacy that in unknown to many Indians. Karnad inserts Tipu Sultan’s selected dreams to prove that the emperor was more than what the history books have cemented. The play travels through the inner life of Tipu and acknowledges the warrior as a visionary and a man of innumerable merits. Karnad’s play criticizes, preserves and transforms few chapters from Indian history.