HABIB TANVIR’S CHARANDAS CHOR: RENEGOTIATING THE HUMANE

Habib Tanvir emerged as one of the most powerful and popular Indian Urdu and Hindi playwright, director, actor and a poet who innovatively reshaped the contours of contemporary Indian stage.. He pioneered the revival of interest in folk performance traditions and made it into a significant influential category in regard to contemporary theatre practice in India. Tanvir artistically fused the traditional and modern elements in his dramaturgy which made his plays socially relevant, having a touch of his own secular, democratic and humane vision. Habib Tanvir's seminal play Charandas Chor (1975) translated in English by Anjum Katyal (2004) is the most celebrated, most popular, most humane and most performed play all over the world.. The play based on a Rajasthani folk tale by Vijaydan Detha presents a heroic portrayal of an honest thief whose humanitarian zeal exposes the double standards of the world. Tanvir renegotiates the idea of humane by powerfully projecting the reversal of social hierarchy where truthfulness, honesty, integrity, moral values and even professional efficiency belong to a thief and the so called civilized people of higher strata of society are precisely devoid of these virtues.