“And I Have the Same Restlessness Today”: Vijay Tendulkar ‐ A Connected Reading

AbstractVijay Tendulkar (1928–2008) was a game‐changing Marathi playwright who brought unprecedented themes and genre experiments to Indian theater. His disturbingly bare depiction of violence and cruelty in power‐ and gender‐relations was both controversial and ground‐breaking. His gritty Hindi screenplays also changed the aesthetics and politics of Indian parallel cinema. In this chapter, I present Tendulkar's work within the concerns of world literature: his universal insights that transcend boundaries, yet linguistic and cultural specificity that grounds him in his region, the continuing circulation, translation, and consumption of his work nation‐ and worldwide, and also his connections to non‐Indian (German) theater. Moreover, I consider Tendulkar's symbiotic and epicentral impact on other artists who went on to establish themselves on the international scene. Finally, to provide a global reader an entry‐point into the vast and shape‐shifting paradigm of world literature, I develop Connected Reading by giving biographical glimpses into Tendulkar's literary obsession and into his reader, in whose global flow Tendulkar is a strong current.