Watching: Andha Yug

Overview

"Andha Yug"—literally 'Age of Blindness'—is an allegorical play written in the aftermath of the Partition of India by Shri Dharamvir Bharti. Rooted in the epic Mahabharata, this landmark 1989 Delhi performance was staged for the Nehru Shatabdi Samaroh Festival and has since been preserved by the Natya Shodh Sansthan, Kolkata (NSS). Set on the final day of the Kurukshetra war, the narrative chronicles the end of the Dvapara Yuga and the immediate descent into the dark Kali Yuga, triggered by Lord Krishna's demise. This five-act masterpiece explores the moral collapse, cycles of revenge, and psychological trauma of war. It depicts the pyrrhic reality of the Kali Yuga—the worst, shortest, and darkest of the four cosmic ages—in which recursive violence degrades the fabric of civilization, blinding individuals to reason as they are forced to reckon with the devastation's fallout.