When people all around us are slaughtered in the name of a temple (and masjid) I hear echoes from those times long past. - Girish Karnad

I have been lucky in having multipronged career. You know how I have been an actor, a publisher, a film maker. But in none of these fields have I felt quite as much at home as play writing.

I was excited by the story of Yayati. This exchange of ages between the father and the son, which seemed to be terribly powerful and terribly modern. At the same time I was reading a lot of Sartre and the Existentialist. This consistent harping on responsibility which the Existentialist indulge in suddenly seemed to link up with the story of Yayati.

The subject that interests most writers is, of course, themselves and it is easy subject to talk about. But you know it is always easier if you are a poet or a novelist because you are used to talking in your voice. You suspend your whole life talking as writer directly to the audience. The problem is being playwright is that everything that you write is for someone else to say.