Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

@article{187347,
        author = {J.BIMAL ROY},
        title = {A CRITICAL STUDY OF GIRISH KARNAD’S WEDDING ALBUM: MODERNITY, MEMORY, AND MIDDLE-CLASS IDENTITY},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {6},
        pages = {4344-4348},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=187347},
        abstract = {Girish Karnad’s Wedding Album portrays the Indian middle class caught between tradition and modernity through the lens of a family preparing for a wedding. Using multimedia elements and episodic scenes, the play exposes how technology, social expectations, and curated identities shape personal relationships. Karnad highlights emotional distances, gender norms, and diasporic anxieties hidden behind the façade of celebration. The play ultimately critiques the conflict between authentic emotion and the pressures of maintaining a perfect family image.
Introduction
Girish Karnad’s Wedding Album stands as a significant contribution to contemporary Indian drama, offering a sharp, insightful portrayal of the Indian middle class as it navigates the shifting landscape of modernity. Set against the backdrop of a traditional Hindu wedding, the play uses the structure of a “photo album” to explore how personal memories, family relationships, and social expectations are shaped by both tradition and the rapid technological changes of the late twentieth century. Rather than focusing solely on the wedding itself, Karnad turns his attention to the emotional and psychological undercurrents that surface in a household preparing for a major life event. Through fragmented scenes resembling snapshots, he highlights how individuals perform carefully curated identities for society while concealing private anxieties beneath a seemingly perfect family image. Karnad’s use of multimedia elements such as video, photographs, and digital communication reflects the ways in which technology mediates relationships and reshapes perceptions of intimacy, identity, and morality. The play interrogates the ambivalence of a generation caught between the comfort of tradition and the allure of global modernity. Characters grapple with issues such as arranged marriage, diaspora experiences, gender expectations, and the commodification of personal moments. Wedding Album thereby becomes more than a family drama; it evolves into a commentary on how middle-class Indians negotiate cultural continuity in a world increasingly dominated by digital representation. Through humor, irony, and subtle emotional depth, Karnad constructs a narrative that mirrors the contradictions and complexities of Indian society in transition.},
        keywords = {Girish Karnad, Wedding Album, Indian drama, modernity, middle class, digital culture, identity, family dynamics, tradition, globalization.},
        month = {November},
        }