Without A Leg To Stand On

Below is a personal account of my experiences in Udupi. 


15^th April 2011

After some sleep-deprived confusion, we find our way to the Yakshagana Kendra - where everyone is already awake.

We are greeted by Javoor – appears to be the Kendra’s caretaker but is actually, as we later discover, a dancer himself. He welcomes us into a green garden, which is flanked by the school on three sides. The building is three stories high - grey concrete and red sandstone, the iron gates are decorated by delicate dancers, and there are two dogs; Sultan and another one who was, for all intents and purposes, nameless.  

The entrance is through a stage, but apart from that it looks like any other school. Oh, except that it smells of boys - many, many boys. Yakshagana is, after all, a male dominated art-form.

We are taken upstairs – through a wide stairwell typical of schools – and given a pristinely white, clean room. They gather we are quiet sleepy and inform us that breakfast is at 8 and we should take rest till then. And boy, do I try. After a long bumpy journey, I welcomed a little quiet and some solid ground. But it isn’t meant to be. The sound of laughter, that seems to weigh a ton, slams down the hall, slips under the door and bowls us over. It takes us a while to realise that this is some kind of vocal practice. It stops soon enough, but I am now restless.

I feel like I’ve experienced a ghostly glimpse of the days to come.  

I turn. Aparna is already asleep.

The Yakshagana Kendra is - as the name suggests - a school for students of the dance-form; it functions, as they say, under the gurukool system. I'm not sure exactly what that means but from what I understand, they take in 10-15 full-time trainees every year. These boys will probably become professional, full-time dancers – they go to regular school (a recent development) but study dance before and after. The Kendra also runs small courses in the summer, to prevent kids in the area from – in their own words - 'troubleshooting at home'. 

The Kendra itself is populated by full-time students, teachers, bhagavats (singers, if you remember), and their children. It is an extremely family oriented space - children usually grow up around Yakshagana, and are fairly proficient by the end of their adolescence. 

                             

"It's in their blood," apparently. This is explained to me by Prof. Bhat at around 10 o clock the same morning. He tells me that he would have met me earlier but today is Ugadi, according to the solar calendar - incidentally, the same day as Baisakhi.

Our conversation takes place during the practice for the next day’s performance – a performance by the students of the summer school...

Students are from nearby and cover all age groups – though not gender. Prof. Bhat tells me that girls are slowly joining Yakshagana tradition. According to him, women were excluded from dance troupes as the routine was too tiresome - traditionally, dancers would walk from one performance to the next - they would leave their families to go on tour for months on end. Often, this distance would span a hundred miles. Of course, this is no longer a problem. In fact, I'm supposed to attend a girl's practice session in the evening.

"Your gender", as I am told. 

The performance practice continues in front of us – none of the students are distracted by our conversation. They run through the performance, as if they were doing so on stage – looking at a ghost audience in the garden. The dance teacher – who looks a bit like Dronacharya - stands on the side of the stage correcting them as and when they go wrong...which, to his credit, isn’t too often.

My first thought is that the form is loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. The narrator’s voice is large and all-consuming – I felt it almost like a weight. Characters leap in and out of frame, whirling like dervishes, spinning in and out of emotion. Loud.  

Though I don’t know Kannada, it is not difficult to spot characters at all. As characters reveal themselves to me, so does the story. I realise that this is a version of the Ekalavya myth where Dronacharya lives in regret of what he has done. It is not an easy story for children to portray, but Dronacharya’s regret – I suppose – softens the edge a bit. I am struck by how regret can absolve us of so much – and what an important role it plays in neatly tying up a narrative.

I notice that they did not demonise the Kaurava children either. A lot of texts and plays make the Kaurava children humourless, or make their brand of humour deplorable. In this version though, they make jokes and have an irreverent 'child-like' quality about them. It’s refreshing.   

The performance ends. Everyone dissipates for lunch. Avoiding the mountains of rice sure to be headed our way, we go out to town.  

Later on, we return to the Kendra to find four girls sitting around the stage. We exchange awkward smiles, and hurry on to find Javoor. He tells me that the dance teacher will not be taking class today, as a relative of his passed away. I go back to the stage, where the girls are still sitting.

There seems to be some confusion amongst them - one of them has some information that that he might come at some point. They talk amongst each other, and eventually I muster up the courage to ask them a few questions. This I feel, is the biggest lesson to learn i.e. to be unafraid to talk to people.

We learn that on Monday - the day after we are scheduled to leave - they are performing an episode from the Ramayana. It is an all-woman performance - in fact, one of the women I spoke to is playing Raavan! In contrast to what Professor Bhat said earlier in the morning, they say that Yakshagana has been the domain of men because that is how culture is. However, now it is different – but perhaps very much still the same. While women have begun to learn, there are no professional female troupes. Most women dance in an amateur capacity. Interestingly, there is one known female bhagvata - but she does not perform professionally either. (Someone by the name of Lilavati, from Dakshin Kanara)



I have a fairly casual conversation with them on form....

Vallari - who also learns Bharatanatyam - says that while Bharatanatyam and Yakshagana are formed on the same principles (those in the Natya Shastra), Yakshagana is more relaxed - the mudras are not so tight. Bharatanatyam, according to her, was a little artificial. She also says that in Yakshagana you can really feel the character. She isn’t too well versed with the colour symbology - but she does run me through a couple of mudras. They are essentially the same as in Bharatanatyam - which means, I need to study the Natya Shastra. The mudras are all displayed on yellowing paper on the wall that close three sides of the stage. Each is shown with writing in Kannada (I assume) which describes what it means - a thunderstorm or a forest; a deer, or a bird; the moon, or the sun...

                                   

Tomorrow we leave for Shimoga at 6 in the morning. 

- - - - -

The images in this post are taken and owned by me (Vidyun Sabhaney).  

Entry named after song by Buckingham Nicks.  
Here's hoping it doesn't take me three weeks to write the next entry. Feedback appreciated. 

The Primer before the Overkill

Earlier this week, I visited the Yakshagana Kendra in Udupi. I stayed there for three days, with the intent to understand Yakshagana.

Yes, I realise that the duration of the trip and its intent were oddly matched. It was unfair fight, you might say - but nonetheless, the battle took place.

Before I launch into the results, I’d like to take the time out to give you an extremely basic primer on Yakshagana – with the help of some pictures from my trip! Enjoy!

What is Yakshagana?

The word ‘Yakshagana’[1] can refer to many closely-related theatrical traditions across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and even Maharashtra.

The one that I have been closely exposed to during my travels is called Badagatittu[2] Bayalata[3], and is practiced in and around Udupi, Karnataka. It is used to tell stories from the Mahabharata, Ramayana and the Puranas. 

(Two children dressed as Kauravas. The Kendra also runs a

summer programme for children to learn the basics of Yakshagana)

As you can probably guess, traditionally it had a strong devotional function – performances would involve hours of puja and offering, turning a 4 hour performance into an all night affair… Nowadays you will - more often than not - see a shortened version, catering to modern lifestyle. According to a student at the Yakshagana Kendra, few people have time or patience for full-night performances and puja. In fact, I might go so far as to say it has become more oriented towards entertainment - performances often have a refreshing element of comedy. Though I'm not sure if this is a later development. 

 

           (A senior artiste from the Yakshagana Kendra plays Uttara Kumara, the cowardly son of 

                   King Virata who enlists the help of Brinhalla - who he suspects is really Arjuna - to fight

                       the Kauravas who have a sudden and mysterious interest in his Kingdom. Set in the thirteenth 

            year of the Pandava's exile from Kuru) 

Putting aside the costumes and the make-up for now, the theatre of Yakshagana – which is, quite literally, spectacular - lies in music, dialogue and dance.

In fact, it alternates between song, dance and dialogue. Songs have a ‘narratorial’ function – they describe the events of the story to the audience, thereby making the singer (or ‘bhagavat’) also the narrator. Following the sung narration, dancers act out the scenes thus described. This is done this through dance and dialogue – the latter of which tends to be extemporaneous, giving the performance a delicious live feel. This means that the senior artiste is expected to know his character so well that its dialogues should come naturally. Almost like second nature. I felt this ease when the actors were preparing themselves for Sunday night's performance. The only disruption in the still afternoon was that of laughter and light-hearted conversation.

   (Actors prepare for the performance)

In fact, there is information to indicate that in the past, actors would almost always play the same role – in fact, roles would be passed down from father to son. For example, an actor who played Bheema would pass the role on to his son. I don’t think this is still the case, but I did notice that children of artistes at the Kendra were encouraged to follow in their parents footsteps. Not with regard to a role per se, but towards Yakshagana.    

Yakshagana is traditionally only performed by men. Even today, there are no professional troupes with female artistes – only amateurs. As a result most female roles are performed by men. 

                                                          (A young actor plays one of Uttara's Wives)

If you’d like more detailed information I’d suggest you look up Marsha Bush Ashton – she wrote a detailed book on Yakshagana Badagatittu Bayalata in the 1970s called ‘Yakshagana’. (It's up on Google Books, you can view everything except the photographs. Huzzah!) 

My next few posts will be about my experiences in Udupi, accompanied by more photographs from the trip. 

The images in this post are taken and owned by me (Vidyun Sabhaney).  

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[1] Literally ‘Song of the Yakshas’

[2] Badagatittu means ‘northern style’ referring to the north of South Kanara, where Udupi is.

[3] Bayalata means ‘a play performed in an open space’. 

Entering Yakshagana

And so the research on Yakshagana begins! I’m a little terrified, to be honest. Come April, I’ll be watching a real performance and speaking to real artists! Much tougher than quoting from books, and thinking about the Mahabharata in abstraction.

That being said, quoted below is Martha Bush Ashton from her 1977 book “Yakshagana: A Dance Drama of India”. Traditionally Yakshagana performances last the entire night. This quote is a simple description of the events during a typical performance – one that doesn’t get into the details of the story, or the song. Later in the book, she also has some evocative descriptions of how Yakshagana performances are usually accompanied by a bazaar, and the ‘informal’ attitude that the locals have towards a performance. Those will be up soon.

“The performance structure is simple and invariable. The preliminary ritual is introduced with drum sounds, and includes the prayers to Ganapati in the dressing room. Then follows a procession of the singer, drummer, little clowns and stage hands bearing lighted oil-lamps, from the dressing room to the performance area. As the musicians take their places the lamps are secured to forked branches or palm fronds stuck into the ground on each side and toward the rear of the rangasthala. 

The second part of the performance is also preceded by a drum song and includes the little buffoons. They dance to songs in praise of the gods. After their exit, the singer extols the virtues of the audience and the Yakshagana. The Balagopalas then enter and dance in praise of Visnu. There is a second Ganapati puja, this time near the entrance to the performance area, followed by more dances by the Balagopalas – characters representing the youthful Lord Krsna and Balarama. Following their performance two female characters dance to songs about the exploits of Lord Krsna.

The third portion is prefaced by its particular drum song and constitutes the elaborate dance that introduces the story. 

The presentation of the story constitutes the fourth and major part, and of necessity has the most variety of form. 

The mangalam dance introduces the highly stylized finale. This is usually danced by a male dancer playing a female character or strives to songs eulogizing the beauty, virtue, and grace of the Mother Goddess, Durga and in praise of the Lord Visnu. These dances concluded, the singer tells the name of the troupe’s village and troupe’s deity. Usually the patron then pays for the performance, the strivesa announces the name of the patron’s deity, and of the patron, and assures the audience that what the devotees have offered (the performance) has been accepted by the deity and blessed. The singer then chants a Sanskrit poem (sloka) in honor of Lord Visnu and includes the name of the troupe’s deity. When this is completed, the strivesa pays respect to the maddale, tala and cande by touching them with his right hand. Then the singer, the drummers, the strivesa and the stagehands, the latter carrying two oil-lamps, proceed to the dressing room (cauka). On the way, the singer sings about young Krsna and his brother Balarama. In the cauka the final worship of Lord Ganapati is performed. The flaming oil-lamp is waved before the image and the singer, accompanied by the drummers, sings songs in praise of Ganapati and Goddess Durga. The performers then shout in unison, “Govinda” and the performance is finished. The troupe and staff pack the costumes and equipment in cane baskets.

Although by now they are very tired you feel a serene sense of fulfillment in them at this time. The glow on the horizon has now become the morning sun. With the Ganapati image (packed in a cane basket) carried at the lead, the troupe members, one behind the other, wind their way across the paddy field in a sinuous line, with the sun rising behind them and the long long shadows of tall slender palms seemingly following the troupe into the distance, as they have done for centuries.”  

 I hope you enjoyed this post - it really made me think about how I often forget that the Mahabharata has serious religious and ritualistic connotations for people. Being so involved in the narrative and the characters, I often forget that. This makes me a little afraid and a little curious - having never been comfortable with ritual, I wonder how I will respond... 

In the Valley of the Kauravas

A downright fascinating excerpt from a paper called ‘Worshipping Epic Villains’ by William S. Sax, who will be speaking on the same subject on the 1^st of March 2011 at the Conference Room of the IIC at 6:30.

‘When my village friends in district Chamoli, in the eastern part of Garhwal, heard that I was planning to travel to this area, they did their best to dissuade me. I was warned that men did not return from the valleys of the Rupin and Supin rivers (tributaries of the Tons): the women there enslaved them, turning them into goats or frogs by day, and back into men at night “for their pleasure.” Rumours of poison cults abound: the women of the area are said to worship supernatural beings who demand one human sacrifice per year. A friend of mine, a traditional healer, went so far as to empower some salt with special magical spells, telling me that if any local women were to offer me food, I should sprinkle this salt on it, and if it turned blood red, then I shouldn’t eat it. A retired government officer said that several decades ago when he toured through the area, whenever he was offered food by the local people it would first be tasted by a pre-pubescent girl, in order to demonstrate that it was not poisoned.

I had long been aware of rumours of the Kaurava cult in this region, but had dismissed them as fantasies. I reasoned that because some of the customs of the area were very unusual, people in other parts of Garhwal assumed that the entire culture was inverted and strange, and this was why Garhwalis elsewhere were so willing to believe the most outlandish tales about the local people. The idea that there might actually be a group of people who worshipped the Kauravas struck me the way it strikes most Hindus – as utterly implausible.

But I was wrong.’  

Hopefully this should be enough to tease your taste-buds. While it might not be enough to lead you to Garhwal itself, I hope you decide to pop down to Lodhi Road to re-assess your understanding of worship – and the worshipped.

This excerpt was taken from a paper called ‘Worshipping Epic Villains: A Kaurava Cult in the Eastern Himalayas’ published in ‘Epic traditions in the contemporary world: the poetics of community’ edited by Margaret H. Beissinger and Susanne Lindgren Wofford. University of California Press, 1999. 

Well, the First Days Are the Hardest Days

I suppose IGNCA’s Jaya Utsav (http://www.ignca.nic.in/­) is as auspicious an occasion as any to re-start my blog. That being said, there are no excuses for my 3 month hiatus - only justifications; the primary of which is my artist’s particularly complicated visa process. Rest assured, this is underway and we should have our Shohei with us shortly!

Now, the problem with a ‘hiatus’ (a word that makes me feel like a writer of Gossip Girl or some other American television programme) is that when you ‘re-start’, you are actually ‘re-beginning’. The long break throws up basics questions about why you are doing the work you’re doing. It’s like re-inventing the wheel. It would be easier if the Mahabharata were a lost or ignored epic, so my work could have a missionary ‘revivalist’ zeal – much easier to sustain, and re-create… but the Mahabharata is smashingly popular. Where, and how, do you find your space in a ‘text’ (and I use the word hesitatingly) that not just well-known, but commonly owned? Particularly when you are neither a researcher nor an academic, nor did you really ‘grow up’ with the story.

The only solution, unfortunately, is to throw myself back into reading about the Mahabharata. Hopefully the violence of the act should yield some results. So, for the next few weeks, I’m going to be focusing on the Yakshagana performance tradition of coastal Karnataka. Yakshagana is a musical dance drama that is performed in coastal and Malenadu regions of Karnataka – it literally means song ‘gana’ of the Yakshas. Traditionally, a Yakshagana performance goes on for an entire night – from sunset to sunrise, wherein the darkness is symbolic of the chaos that the stories bring with them. Dawn marks the restoration of order.

I am particularly interested in Yakshagana because with every performance, the actors change the ‘script’(to use a modern term). While the songs that actors perform to draw from a more or less fixed set, the dialogues  are entirely impromptu. This means that based on mood and inspiration, actors create new dialogues with every performance. A new Mahabharata, in a sense…

As a side note - for those of you interested in variations across epic performances, you should read a book called ‘The File on H’ by Ismail Kadare. It’s a darkly humorous account of two academics who travel to Albania in the 1940s in search of a connection between Homer’s Illiad and Albanian epic poetry i.e. how the latter developed in the former. Albanian epic poetry is typically recited by wandering bards - also known as rhapsodes. Their experiences, according to the researchers, no doubt influence their ‘memory’ of the song/story. For example, a minor characters death could be made more tragic or important because its vessel (the bard performing the song) might have recently experienced a personal loss as well. The line between the performer and the oral tradition is therefore blurred. 

To establish this, the researchers follow a tedious process which involves recording the performance of a song by a bard once, and then again a fortnight later. The purpose of this is to find differences between the first and the second iteration, a means to understand how accretive texts develop. The site for this exploration is a sleepy Inn at the foot of the Accursed Mountains called the Inn of the Bone of the Buffalo. Fitting, I think.

No doubt, it is a fascinating book that I plan to spend at least a few more posts on, in the future. But for now here's a quotation to for you to flirt with:

"At last the rhapsode took up his lahuta. It made a monotonous sound that seemed to draw the listeners into some all-embracing dream. Bill and Max glanced at each other. The rhapsode began to sing in a voice quite unlike his speaking voice. It was an unnatural, cold, unwavering voice full of anguish that seemed to come from another world. It made Bill's spine tingle. He kept on trying to follow the meaning of the words, but the monotonous delivery of the singer made that impossible. It felt as if he was being emptied from inside, as if his guts were being drawn out of him, as if his inner being was slowly being wound out along a wollen thread turning into a distaff. The rhapsode's voice had the ability to draw you out. If he went on much longer, everyone here was going to dissolve on the spot. But the lahuta stopped in time."

Kadare's writing can be as humourous as the quoted paragraph is poignant. His principle characters Bill and Max, in addition to the Herculean task of solving the enigma of Homer, find themselves at the mercy of the local Governor and his bored, lecherous wife. Add to this the suddenly 'to-close-to-home' Yugoslav-Albanian conflict - in which a huge bone of contention is the veracity of each side's epic tradition. Look out for spies, desperate housewives, and a disgruntled Yugoslavian monk. 

Coming back to the point, I plan to travel to Udupi in early April to watch and document at least one Yakshagana performance (this may sound like too small a number, but remember each performance is at least 8 hours long!) I have friend who grew up in Udupi who helping me with the arrangements. (Thank you, Azhar!) During my first conversation with him on this, he referred to the Yakshagana as an ‘industry’ – a term that puzzled me until I read a paper presented by P. Bilimale at the IGNCA conference on the Mahabharata last week -

“There are about thirty-six professional troupes performing more than 4000 Mahabharata centered Yakshaganas every year and also little more than 1500 amateur troupes annually performing an average of 1000 Mahabharat based episodes. We could also listed to more than 1500 Talamaddale performances all over the year. Thus there will be around 6500 Mahabharatas created every year in a remote and tiny place by the people. At an average of 300 audiences per performance there are about 20, 00,000 people watch and enjoy Mahabharata in and around coastal Karnataka.”

Ay Caramba! That is indeed an industry!

More detailed information on Yakshagana soon.

Don't forget to check out Jaya Utsav at the IGNCA website! www.ignca.nic.in
There are performances from across India everyday in the evenings.
Today @ 6:30 is Bheemaparvam from Kerala.
Tomorrow (Saturday) @ 6:30 is Padmagatha from Dolls Theatre, Kolkata (based on the story of Shakuntala)
Day after (Sunday) @ 6:30 is Keechaka Vatham from Tamil Nadu.

Contact Us!

Hey! Just to let you know, should you ever feel the need to, you can contact us at thechilkaproject@gmail.com
And yes, please contact us!

Whittled Down

The premise of 'The Chilka Project'. 

We begin our introduction with a deceptively simple story.

At some point in the history of the Bharata clan (rulers of Kuru in Ancient India), there was some ambiguity as to who should ascend the throne. The Kauravs and their Pandav cousins both lay equally legitimate claims to the throne.

In the initial stages, the disagreement was temporarily resolved by the father of the Kauravs, Dhritrashtra, who upon the advice of his brother Vidura divided the Kingdom into two, leaving one half for each. Unfortunately the ‘righteous’ Pandavs were more (naturally) successful rulers- and Yudhishtir, the eldest Pandav, decided to perform a rajasuya yagna, which would make him Emperor of the Earth.  Duryodhan was (in his ‘own’ words) ‘scorched’ with jealousy.

Mindful of his cousin Yudhishtir’s weakness for gambling, Duryodhan employed his Uncle Shakuni (a veteran at dice) to use the game to foil the Pandav’s plans to gain supremacy. Predictably, Yudhishtir “fell” for the plan, and found himself systematically gambling away his kingdom, his brothers, himself and, finally, his wife. Tension came to a head when Duhsasana, one of the hundred Kaurav brothers, attempted to disrobe Draupadi (the Pandav wife) in front of an assembly of courtiers, members of the public and finally Kuru elders. As the story goes, only Krishna (the Pandav’s cousin- considered an incarnation of Vishnu) came to her rescue, turning her sari into a stream of endless cloth, to prevent exposition. Each of her five husbands failed to speak for her. While, Yudhishtir’s crime was his own, the crime against Draupadi was a collective failure- of not just the Pandavs, but the Kuru elders present as well. This, in many ways, sealed the fate of the entire clan.

After the horrific gambling match came to a close, it was decided that the Pandavs would remain in exile for thirteen years, after which they could return to claim their Kingdom. After fulfilling the requirements of the exile, the Pandavs beseeched the Kauravs (through their cousin Krishna) to return their half of the land. Predictably, the eldest Kaurav Duryodhan refused. After several talks and negotiations, Krishna approached Duryodhan for the last time- he requested the command of five villages, and no more. Duryodhan, enraged, made the declaration he would not give even a needle’s worth of land to the Pandavs. It was then that War was declared. It lasted for eighteen terrible days, and the hard-won victory of the Pandavs ultimately revealed itself to be a hollow one.

Over the years the oral tradition of storytelling in the Indian sub-continent has turned this Bharata clan saga into a philosophical and ‘religious treatise’ that is now known as ‘The Mahabharat’ (literally, the great story of the Bharata clan). The original story (‘Jaya’- a poem of 24,000 couplets) is now a 1, 00,000 couplet epic. The myth-making process for Mahabharat is said to have extended from 400 BC to 300 AD.  As explained by J.A.B. Van Buitenen in the introduction to his translation of the Critical Edition (compiled by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune) of the Mahabharat[1], there is no reason why Bheeshma should be the son of Goddess Ganga, or why the Pandavas should be sired by Gods, or why Vidura should be an incarnation of Vishnu himself... These stories, and similar stories in the story, are what he refers to as the “mythologized” perimeter of the story. Following this is another layer of development called the “Brahmanised” perimeter of the story. Here he is referring to the “frame” of the Mahabharat- the explanation of how the Mahabharat came to be told.

According to the Critical Edition, the Mahabharat is first told to King Janamajeya (great grandson of Arjun), who is attempting a Snake Sacrifice... the framing narrative then abruptly jumps to Naimisa Forest where bard Ugrasravas is implored to recall the full epic to sage Saunaka and his followers.

With every retelling of the Mahabharat (in history, and sometimes in the story itself) it develops a wider girth- Bheeshma becomes an incarnation of Dyaus (one of the eight Vasus) and the explanation of how that came to be becomes a context to the story; Krishna and Arjuna are incarnations of the great sages Nara and Narayana; the story of Shakuntala is suddenly a prelude to the story, as an explanation of where the Bharata clan originated- and so on, so forth...

None of this means that these stories are not a part of The Mahabharat- it merely helps us understand that the text is not a pre-existing block created by Vyas... Due to the ‘loose’ oral nature of its origins, it has the amazing ability to absorb and adapt stories into its central narrative.

Over 1500 years later, to call the Mahabharat ‘popular’ would be an understatement- the story cuts across region and strata. As A.K Ramanujan said ‘In India... no one ever reads The Mahabharat for the first time.’[2]

Well, actually, no one actually ‘read’ the Mahabharat for a very long time- it was always sung or danced, spoken or acted... Each performance had its own tradition of stories that it drew from- be it the Kutiyattam performances in Kerala or the thirteen plays of Bhasa.... Today, to think of the Mahabharat beyond the unmoving text and one ‘writer’ seems difficult, but the tradition of the Mahabharat is filled with creators- actors, singers, dancers, playwrights, artists and sometimes even the medium itself! 

This is where our story begins.

Popular renditions of the Mahabharat have been attempted on several occasions, and these have often been met with great success. The most wildly successful version of the Mahabharat would be Baldev Raj Chopra’s television series ‘Mahabharat’ that aired on Doordarshan in 1988-1990. The television series, watched by a whopping 96% of the Indian television watching population, had a deeply religious relationship with the characters, the story and its “message”. [3] It related the historicity of the Mahabharat with the history of the “nation”- and in doing so, attempted to unify Indian Hindus under its aegis. The Pandavs were suddenly heroes of an imagined Hindu Nation, as opposed to the fallible humans that their actions reveal them to be (consider, for example, the dicing episode and the disrobing of Draupadi).  Frequent references to the Mahabharat as the immortal story of ‘desh prem’ and ‘bharata mata’[4] by the sutradhar (narrator) Time reflect this tendency. This has been (post- Ayodhya) deeply criticised.  While the ‘religiosity’ cannot be completely shed, the representation lacks self-awareness with regard to the experimental and interpretive nature of the story’s development. By placing the story and its characters within the context of the “nation” (though clearly effective in bringing in the ratings) the televised Mahabharat limited an epic that has been evolving for centuries.

The Mahabharat is a philosophical text, a religious treatise, a beautifully tragic story- but above all else it is a living being that grows with time. It has grown, through spoken retelling, from a 24,000 verse core text named Jaya to a 1, 00,000 epic called the Mahabharat.  And it is precisely because of its oral origins that no version of the Mahabharat can be universally acceptable. Even the scholarly ‘Critical Edition’ of the Mahabharat has not escaped controversy- the process of putting the text together excluded manuscripts from Kannada and Oriya completely, as well as specific passages from other manuscripts if they were in opposition to versions preserved by more conservative story-telling traditions. For example, the Kashmiri Sharda Mahabharat tradition, being more conservative, was the deal-breaker. If a manuscript from another region matched the Kashmiri version, passages from it were included, however if they were in opposition to it, then they would be removed completely. 

What’s more- none of these ‘potential’ manuscripts include versions of the Mahabharat that form region-specific dance, theatre and song interpretations. Nonetheless, the Critical Edition is a good place to begin looking at the Mahabharat as there is an awareness of the ambiguous nature of this text’s development- unlike B.R. Chopra’s Mahabharat, which treats the text like a pre-defined block.

As an ‘alternative’ to Chopra’s ‘mainstream’ version of the Mahabharat, we would like to approach the Mahabharat as a story that has evolved cross millennia and gathered nuances with every retelling, based on the narrator’s interpretation of it. 

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[1] Buitenen, J. A. B. van  The Mahabharat / translated and edited by J.A.B. van Buitenen  University of Chicago Press, Chicago:  1973

[2] Hiltebeitel, Alf ‘The primary process of Hindu Epics’ International Journal of Hindu Studies, Volume 4, Number 3. Springer, Netherlands: 2000

[3] Singh, Saluja ‘The epic (on) tube: Plumbing the depths of history. A paradigm for viewing the TV serialization of the Mahabharat’.  Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Volume 16.

[4] Ibid 92