When Girish Karnad spoke about how mathematics helps the theatre artiste in him

An old video of the actor, shared by the Indian public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, shows him talking about cross-wiring of art and science.

He said in the video, "I find it very hard to put things in a play, I need to distance myself from them, I need to give it a form, and I think this is where my mathematical training was such a great help. It helps me to put it in a shape and a form and distance it, giving it a formal look. The myths or folktales are easier to handle than raw immediate experience for me. And thirdly, I find that with the use of myths and folk tales and so on, you are able to tap, because people already know these tales, they already know, you share these, there is a community feeling in India, a community which shares these folk tales and myths and so on".

He further mentioned, "So, you can just pick out on what you like, take a lot for granted and develop or go into greater depth. You know, unlike a novel, as you know, a play has to be over if it stays in two to two and a half hours".

Girish Karnad predominantly worked in Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi films. His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting in Kannada, just as Badal Sarkar did in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in Hindi. He was a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary honour conferred in India.