Theatre
Katha as drama
UMA MAHADEVAN-DASGUPTA
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Sharman's "Ramayana" goes to the heart of the epic to recover great questions of contemporary relevance.
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The Ramayana: The Epic as a Play in English, Gopal Sharman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Bhavan's Book University), Rs. 175.
Be: Short Stories, Jalabala Vaidya, Akshara Books, Rs. 150.
AMONG the celebrated contemporary tellings of the Ramayana is Gopal Sharman's four-act play, written during 1968-1970 on a Homi Bhabha Fellowship, and first performed at the Ashoka Chamber Theatre in New Delhi on November 3, 1970. Since then, the play has seen more than 2,000 performances across the world, including a season each on Broadway and at the West End. Set first in Ayodhya, then in exile, followed by Lanka, and then Ayodhya again, the play is structured as a katha, with Jalabala Vaidya in the role of the katha vachaka (storyteller), portraying over 20 characters in the course of the performance. Sharman's play has now been published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in a 155-page edition, with Sharadindu Sen Roy's elegant line drawings.
Contemporary echoes
The play begins with a contemporary individual's weary questions about the meaning of existence. The questions are put to an empty stage, but Hanuman's voice answers: "I am love and calamity, the sea menacing outside... Whenever or wherever this story is told, I am always there to ensure that it does not become a tale of ordinary woe but, as it should, the story of one man who became free of the curtain time without having to cease to be a man."
Changing worldview
The first act begins with Kaikeyi's demand to Dasharatha, but it also dwells on the Ayodhya king's philosophy of governance and justice. "What do you know what happens to a state where justice fails!" exclaims Dasharatha. The second act begins in the forest, with Sita's dream about being shut out from all light forever. After 13 years, Sita is looking forward to their return to Ayodhya, while Rama is aware that his worldview has changed significantly in the forest: "In 13 years I must admit this view has grown on me: that all things co-exist." Yet, foreshadowing the assault on Ravana's kingdom, he hints that it may not be possible to co-exist with Lanka.
The third act shows us a vulnerable and defensive side of Ravana. Against his overwhelming passion — "A lifetime I have waited for a love like this" — is Mandodari's wise sadness: "Now passions weary me, my Lord... To be attached. To be deprived. Unendingly. Is there no other way?"
Victory is on Rama's side, but it does not bring him peace of mind. "This war hangs heavy, very heavy on me," he tells Sita with profound guilt. "What have you seen of death? I led them to it, morning, noon, night." Sita suggests that he should proffer her to a "cleansing flame". Rama is reluctant, but Sita's wooden image emerges unscathed from the fire. Nevertheless, a chasm grows between them. A year later, as Rama sits in Ayodhya with no passion left but only "cold duty", Sita leaves for the forest.
The most important strategy in the play is his use of the single narrator of the story, the katha vachaka. In his introduction, Sharman explains how he arrived at this strategy: "The form — of a solitary person telling mythological stories and illustrating right and wrong through them — came in handy to people like Mahatma Gandhi, who called his public meetings prayer meetings, and which were, indeed, fashioned in every detail on the katha."
For Sharman, the katha framework had the potential to be "a precious gift to the urban theatre of our times". A low chair, a little table, a bound copy of the epic, a five-wick votive lamp, and the katha vachaka: "Here was excellent dramatic material, a potential theatrical medium with a technique practised and perfected over several hundred years." The mediating, commenting, intervening voice of the katha vachaka underlines the moral power of the play. It is the katha vachaka who tells us, at the end of the play, of Rama's state of disarray — his broken sword, his broken bow, his empty quiver — as he returns to the forest to seek out Sita and give her "the universe in this moment of truth". Sharman's "Ramayana" goes to the heart of the epic to recover great questions of contemporary relevance — questions about freedom, passion, duty, war, and justice.
Whimsical imagination
Be is a collection of 11 short stories by Jalabala Vaidya. At their better moments, the stories bring together a parable-like style of storytelling with a whimsical imagination. Others are made of long spiritual reflections. In one story, a hippy who has been searching for nirvana finally learns "to see God in everything". In another, a woman goes in search of absolute love before discovering it in her own heart.
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