History of Karyala explains at great length about the origin and forms of the folk theatre form from the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. As there is no script to act upon, the main thrust of the performers, the Karyalchees, is to instantly improvise situations and comment on them to entertain the audience through the medium of humour and wit. This situation draws upon their in-built ability to invent postures, stances and tones inviting a spontaneous reaction from the audience. Given any situation they improvise immediately a small sequence there and then and collectively achieve an instant result.

It is thus that these Karyalchees conceive and perform their small Cameos, and for this they have no training; there is no school of drama. It is their inheritance of reflexes which is imbedded in their being and called as "readymade formats of being". This "readymade format of being" consists of the ethnic sensibility to respond to "rhythm, rhyme and reason". Rhythm, because every movement of this play pulsates with rhythm, which is the life line of every Himachali, to whom Nati, taal or rhythm, comes naturally. A sense of rhythm also helps in witty and satirical repartee which has to be delivered with a hair-breadth sense of timing. This sense of rhythm automatically leads to "rhyme" which is expressed in the dialogue which they improvise on the spot - the exchanges ending in rhyme, an instance of this can be cited from couplets in Sadhu Ka Swang.

Karyalchie is also gifted with a built-in insight to defeat a fraud, to see contradiction, to distinguish the real from the spurious; the sublime from the ridiculous and it is here that his inclination towards rationality comes to his help. He discovers the `cant` and lashes out at it with a wit which amuses the victim and the audience alike, since it is disguised as tickling frivolity and does not hurt.

Thus, the whole format of Karyala, which is in the form of a variety entertainment, consisting of different encounters in a Himachali`s life, is tackled by these ingenious performers. Even so serious a subject as Indian spirituality is tackled with such hilarity and boisterousness so that not only does the message go home but it remains to be told in abiding reminiscences.

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