On-stage performances leave a long lasting impression on you than on-screen performances. They have an impact on you you probably cannot imagine with the moving pictures. So I have always heard from the theatre lovers around me, if I don't address them as fanatics to do the least. Well, Saturday was a day when I came face to face with this dawning realisation.
I have started watching some serious Theatre work very recently and Sunday was another such day my better half, who is a fanatic herself and justifiably so, decided to take me to watch Draupadi, a baby of Kanhailal (for ignorant souls like myself, he's one of the well known faces of national/Manipuri Theatre and truely a visionary to say the least), at the ongoing Nandikar Theatre Festival in Kolkata. I did not know this evening would change my perception of Stage Performances forever.
Kalakshetra Manipuri is a group which was formed by Heisnam Kanhailal who is an alumnus of NSD.
The entire play progressed pretty smoothly. Although i did not get anything out of their language, they used the stage and their body languages to keep the audience in loop. The play appeared a very well composed social play with equally good, if not brilliant, performances from each member. However lightening struck me in the last half an hour when Savitri Heisnam, playing the old Draupadi, took the stage by surprise.
She made the audience sit up, right to the edge of their seats when she enacted the scene of getting humiliated by the millitary personnel, raped and bruised, and then came the moment of naked truth. She took off her clothes to the horror of her tormentors and the very object of their desire was now her strength. And it is now that i realise I shared the horror of those tormentors. She made me feel ashamed of my existence in a bold act of defiance. There was no lust, no love but only shame in what was to follow. It is indeed a difficult feeling to explain. She refused to bow down, to cry or lament of surrender to evil. She decided to rise up against the atrocities using her very own body as her weapon. Yesterday this body made her vulnerable. Today, it was her strength. I saw my companion literally on the edge of her seat and her hand covering her mouth gaping in horror. I had goosebumps. Savitri the actress or Drapadi the character, someone out there had stirred a hornets nest. How? By defying the social norms of Indian Theatre? Or by taking us to watch in real the grave injustice that happens around and yet, we keep living in denial?
There are a thousand thoughts racing in my mind and while I write this, I am having goosebumps again. I am no expert in Theatre but I am definitely a changed person after last nights performance.
This was one of those moments which keep you thinking for all times to come. In these times of "development" are we not forgetting the pityful state of affairs that women are still in? Should we still continue to live in denial or get up and act?
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Mesmerized!
Monday, November 4, 2013
Attempted HAIKU
In a blink,
Curio and laconic,they spoke a million words-
Your eyes.
Hidden away in the shadows of night,
When all silhouettes are but strangers,
Tucked away in safety-my dreams
Pitter patter onto the dry earth
Like your first smile,
That touched my heart.
Conscience? Is it a myth?
Very recently I had gone to watch a play being staged at Girish Manch in the northern part of the city which dealt with a very deep and thought provoking subject. It was good depiction of one's dilemma, of the conscience fighting one's evil inside, of the constant struggle to keep one's heart clean despite all the impurity around. Impurity, huh?
The best part of the play was, apart from the fact that it was my break after a long time, that it made me think. Right from the day we are born, we are taught about good and bad, about the beautiful and ugly, about white and black.We tend to tag dark people to evil, bald people as baddies, we look upon a roadside urchin with shabby clothes with contempt. Contempt, huh?
How do we as a society decide what's good and what's bad?
Isn't it all about a common convenience that drives such judgemental notions? What the majority could not fathom, nor achieve, nor have the luxury or free will to obtain, might be as well termed evil. And then there are situations that leads to actions. Situations created by the social structure itself, that lead to irresponsible actions. But how does that qualify as evil?
While it is a good idea to start educating masses about the good, the bad and the ugly, its more pertinent to ask first-who decides?
So, we come back to the original question. Conscience. Is it not then just the conventional values and notions sitting guarding our minds all the time?
Well, lets not brood over this issue so much, shall we? As long as the wine keeps flowing, all's well under the bright blue sky.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Rains
The thirsty Earth
Relinquishing the heaven above
To meet an old friend
Since times immemorial
That the land and the sky
Have attempted to meet
At a far off horizon
You have looked down
On the Earthly existence
With an envious soul and
A plight to dissolve in its magnitude
A wayfarer with a strange
Jauntiness about you
Looking down from the
Dark clouds heaping upon themselves
You poured down upon
The thirsty Earth
With a buoyance of sprite
Spreading delight
And mirth
The Earth smiled back
Knew you would arrive
To wash away the acridity
Into a world sublime
Rain Rain (Don't) go away, Little Johny wants to play!
Three days of unrelenting rainfall! Monsoons it is! The day started as gloomy as expected. It took me a lot of motivation to shake off my laziness and get going for the hospital. I was literally waiting on an "island" for a bus. It was water everywhere. Lanes, bylanes, streets, houses, basements, shops. Gutters and ponds overflowing. Luckily i did reach on time and was pleasantly surprised to find all the patients posted for the OT to have arrived well before the scheduled hours!
And then came my turn to get back home. As it seemed, it had rained all day long. the water levels had increased. People had all kinds of emotions written all over their faces- frustration, reluctance, malaise, gloom. Indeed there was a minority who had a song at their lips and a hop in their gait! I stood near the Metro station and was taken back to my school days! How we would love when on rare occasions our school would declare a rainy day. Otherwise we would wade through waters, stamping and splashing, getting drenched from head to toe, pushing and pulling, full of giggles and laughter and life!
It is a different story now. A little walt from the station i came across this group of urchins playing in a pool of water. Paper boats all around them, free from all the restrictions, sailing in the little cold breeze that blew. The kids, oblivious to the troubles around, enjoying every splash. It did not matter if the rains didn't stop or the dark gray clouds overhead never melted or disappeared. It did not matter if buses never ran or offices or schools never shut. They knew in their innocent little hearts, it was playtime and there was no one to stop them.
Now im back at home, all dried up. A hot cup of tea in my hand and the rains outside. Is this inner peace or am i in a waking dream?
Sunday, August 18, 2013
A Walk to Remember
Its a sad story that inspite of being a Bengali, I haven't had much of an exposure to my own literature. Right from my childhood days when I had Hindi as my second language, I have been reading a lot, English literature mostly. My passion for literature, both classics and contemporary, continues till date.
Resultantly, it has been really pleasant and a wonderful experience watching Bengali theatre in the last one year. Thanks to my better half for that.
It was a clouded overcast day and the entire afternoon spent in a stuporous state. Then came an impromptu plan to watch theatre at the Academy of Fine Arts. Me and Ankita set course for a political sattire Tasher Desh, inspired from the work of Rabindranath Tagore with the same name. The play was a good experience overall. Being a layman I cannot much comment on the technical aspect of the play but on the whole we both enjoyed it a lot.
And then came the rains. Pouring onto the humid hot city, bringing relief. Roadside cuppa and a smoke later we were on our way back. Walking under the same umbrella. Getting wet. Hands clasped together. Wading through small puddles of water. Looking at each other while we walked down the empty roads. An otherwise ordinary day with yet another extraordinary ending.
Finally back to my seat while the roadside stalls are getting closed. Hot air from the teapots making their way up. Now the stoves are cold. The shops almost shut. People comfortably home ready for the busy week ahead. And I, smiling with a good feeling inside. Of a complete day coming to a happy ending. Have a pleasant night!
