Depleting Value of Performing Arts in India

There once came a stage in life where you had to make a choice between Arts and Science. So confused then, you heard people say that Arts is a dreadful field with no future. And so, you headed straight into securing a place for yourself in this world; Here we are spreading awareness on performing arts and there such repulsive attitude towards arts, leave alone performing arts. Students of the 21^st era are considered absolutely fortunate for having facilities clicks away from them. They are nurtured with best of education in their interests, not just limited to academics but more inclined towards performing arts as well.  Yet, when it comes to choosing a career option, performing arts is a closed door.

India is home to rich traditions of performing arts with folk theatre, dance and music, laying their roots in the Puranic Vedas of the 13^th century. Be it the Ramleela performed in rural spaces or classical ragas from Krishna temples, various forms of performing arts - drawn from India’s discreet cultures—have prevailed from a time even before the establishment of Euro-American Theatre. The Natya Shastra itself - written Bharat Muni - is evidence of creative potential that our country beholds. Indian theatre and art has outbound the criteria of beauty and serenity reflecting in human ideals who owe their legendary titles to performing arts.

 Be it majestic voices of Lata Mangeshkar and Shankar Mahadevan, the soul-stirring vibrations in fingers of Anushka Shankar, rhythmic dance of Sonal Mansingh, or the deep dramatic life insights of Naseeruddin Shah and Rajit Kapur, India is store house of performing arts and discreet theatre. Now at the onset of extinction of Sanskrit theatre and many other specimens of Indian dances and music genres, almost no one remains to carry forward the legacy of entertainment in its purest form. The question is why.

Learning a performing art is sought after not just for its credentials, but because it is a way of life that thrives on delight and hope for perfection. It gives an individual mature perspective of life, to live on little movements of feet, strings and emotions and value it all.  Just this artistic factor of performing arts makes it more repellent as a career because what more is to be gained out of it in long run?

The applause and appreciations are too thin to be able to drive away poverty of a mass population. Moreover, in today’s fast paced world no youngster would consider matching up to the long and tiresome gestation period of a successful performing arts career. It’s just that the materialistic profit expected of a job doesn’t suffice in case of performing arts. With such forebodings the value of performing arts is depleting in nature. However, there are still hearts that beat on the strings of instruments and dramatic movements. And there will still be pursuit for Performing Arts, though not as a full-fledged career, however hard we wished.

'tis a wave, in a storm.
Rises and plunges, rises and crash!
Hits a distant end,
Retaliates back.
Gushes in internal fights.
Goes on, Goes wild!
Till the havoc may subside into a calm death. 
There is no more,
Yet there is more. 
Depth of an ocean is eternal.

The Government Inspector by Akavarious Productions

Ever seen the back stage of a production functioning and perhaps breaking a leg and a chair literally. If not, then this play will treat you with all the anomalies , comic disasters and ego clashes of a theatre crew. 

The Government inspector is to arrive Incognito in a small town full of corruption. He is the threat the lavish lives of the Mayor, the Magistrate and many more who thrive on black money and are many more people who are the are assets of deep corruption and fun on stage.

News is afloat that the inspector is living in a cheap inn and his identity is declared by his unpaid bills. Hence forth, preparations are made to great him and treat him in the most proper way.

Recommendations, improvements and improvisations, all go along on a roller coaster of laughter and madness. The bunch of actors are in their fury of cutting and eating lines and making up for the forgotten props. Mixed along are their anxieties, spontaneity, songs and love triangles trying to find a place in the play.

The play is absolute fun and cheerful in its display of life as art and art as life. Full of colorful costumes, hysterical songs and dances. They end they play with relief of having made through it and throwing around shoes and heck for the glitches others caused. The play turns out just the way it had ought to be, not missing its mark in betraying the audience with their view of fiction mingled with reality.

A must watch to believe - The Government Inspector written by Russian playwright Nikolai Gogol, a hit show by Akavarious Productions with Adhaar Khurana as the gem of an actor.

La Chayim's The Pillowman

    

After having watched a number of performances that yielded to disappointment, ‘The Pillowman’ came as a breath of fresh air to me. Or I’d rather say a taste of witch’s broth to avoid an illusion with the pristinely of the former phrase.  ‘The Pillowman’ is a very renowned piece of dark comedy by Martin McDonagh and was recreated on stage by La Chayim Theatre Production at Prithvi Theatre.  I must say that it was a rightful recreation that was gripping and has pushed the play into limelight with audience and certainly towards worthy appreciation.

An infamous short story writer named Katurian  is summoned for interrogation by two canny yet hilarious detectives. Three kids have been ruthlessly killed in very peculiar manners and the detectives are investigating those murders in the city. Mysteriously, the stories written by Katurian are the exact blue prints of the children’s execution plans. The story revolves around Katurian, his mentally challenged psychopath elder brother Michal and their obnoxious and bizarre parents who have shrewdly experimented with their children’s up growth. The plot curiously builds to a disturbing climax and a tragic end.

But the innermost theme dwells on the blurred lines between fiction and reality, and how far we can go to sooth our wounds with our imagination. Some stories reflect the past; some reveal us, our desires, fate and nevertheless console us from the dreadful present. The Pillowman is an eminent character from Katurian’s short story that represents a compassionate companion to the solitude bed of death for all children meaning to end their lives.

 The Pillowman encourages them to commit suicide so as to guard them against the wrath and misery of adulthood. Only a few brave kids have the heart to resist the Pillowman.  Michal is one of them. He gladly lives a tortuous life for the love of his brother and the priceless literature. Along side rolls Katurian's quest to preserve his works of fiction merged into reality. It is the only evidence and significance of his entire life that shall live even after his death. 

Praises

His name comes as a prayer
At times it’s chant at bed

My beloved grows more sacred everyday

Thus, I beseech his glimpse one ray.

He knows not of me but his absence does

Which my mind fulfills with his aura

My sorrows are his and so are my woes

Yet I do not share his secret to row.

Motley’s Ismat Aapa Ke Naam – Play Review

Urdu literature has never been defined best than in the words of famous writers Sadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chughtai. Both these legends, these maestros’s of Urdu world have been adequately touched upon by Naseeruddin Shah’s Theatre group Motely. Specifically Ismat Chughtai hai has been glorified in this popular performance ‘Ismat Aapa Ke Naam’ featuring three stories of Ismat Chugtai narrated and dramatized by Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah and Heeba Shah. Ismat Aapa Ke Naam is one of the best works presented by Motely Theatre group which gives a tribute to Ismat Chughtai and introduces the young minds to the best of literature in its pure form.

The performance initiates with Heeba Shah recounted a short story called ‘Chue Mue’ or the Touch Me Not plant by Ismat Chughtai. The story relates the tale of a lady who got married into rich household. She is as dedicate as a 'Touch Me Not' shrub. It seems that she is all pampered and bestowed to be a rich household’s bride. However, the fact that she cannot bear a child snatches her security of a husband as he goes on to marry another woman. This is put in contrast with a scene of a poor woman who deliver her baby herself in a train and cuts the umbilical cord with a nail cutter’s knife. This is witnessed and narrated in a small girls first person’s perspective who herself in tied up in the knots of traditions and stereotypes.

The second tale is of a wedding that was never accomplished for its purpose in that era. It is known as ‘Mughal Bachha’ or also as ‘Ghunghat’– ‘The Veil’ which was never raised. A beautiful lady, a girl married at the age of 12 or 13 remains barren and unhappy all her life as she couldn't succeed  in one task of her life – marriage and conceiving.  All this happens over silly attitudes and self-esteem of a man. Ant the stringent traditions of a society that could neither favor or rebuke a different kind of marriage that the couple could create. Mughal baccha fees away on the night of his wedding after being denied an unveiling of the 'Ghunghat' by his wife. In arrogance,  he leaves to cherish other women and never to return until death chooses to bring him back in his last stage of life. Even then, he is stuck to his ego like a magnet and dies without having seen the face of his fairest wife. The story brings out the unspoken sorrow of an unfortunate girl who to her death never saw the face of joy. It is a tragic wonder as to how she could have answered the (sexual) call of her body all her life. This was brilliantly put forward by Ratna Pathak Shah who in a fantastic way related the tail. So did Heeba Shah. It was as though they had absorbed the character of the stories with trivial of efforts.

The final story was more of an added layer to the most brilliant theatrical encounter.  Nasseruddin Shah in his turn related a wonderful, comical and satirical tale of love, lust, laws and jealousy. A free bird of love comes to serve at Mirza’s house and serves him with hospitality and love only in return for a little respect and a something more. She gets that, her wings are chipped for a while with the word ‘Nikha’ meaning marriage but then she is freed once again only to return to the soft heart and gullible Mirza. And goes on the hilarious game of love and lust and jealousy.

Words are too less to describe the beauty of ‘Ismat Aapa Ke Naam’. Nor did I do the injustice of letting too much out through them. The performance uses a lot of actions, enacting, and implements unimaginable kind of comedy rising from forgotten past. It is absolutely amusing to see Motley on Stage casting an ancient spell.  The set uses a huge king sized bed, chairs and lamps a midst the tales unfold them self. They are beautifully supported by the lights and sounds. Of course the Shah family is seen at their best in this blend of narrations. All of them do a brilliant job at bringing alive the quintessential task of storytelling without as much as change a word in them. ‘Ismat Aapa Ke Naam’ is a must watch for the theatre lover. Motley certainly brings you theatre at its best. 

aRanya's Colour Blind - Play Review

There was just a thin crease between the audience and the stage which lead me to its symbolic interpretation. Indeed there is a thin crease. Both involve active participation of the audience. However, things are so mild on this side. Being an audience is an easy job. It’s only when your take a step to other side is when you realizes the intricacies and hardship of performing a play. It is a heck some job but worth the appraise one receive. 

This production team has already performed twice in the day and this was their third and final performance of 1 February 2015. I was eager to see what Color Blind withheld for me. Color Blind is written by Durijottam Bhatachaterjee, Kaliki Koechlin and Manav Kaul. It is directed by Manav Kaul and performed by Swanand Kirkire who plays death , Satyajit Sharma who plays the old Tagore as well as the professor, Ajitesh Gupta, Kaliki Koechlin who does the dual role of Research student and O Campo. Also, there are Amrita Bagchi, Chitangada Chakraborty and others in the play.

Color Blind - a play so vast in it spectrum that it enrolls ages of a man, a legend into a few hours. The play in its structure rolls up and down the line of time in the life of Tagore adding a distinct, a mere humane dimension to the holy character of Rabindranath Tagore. We see him through the vain eyes of a research student in the play who happens to be writing the play on Tagore. We see Tagore’s interaction with death as it kept visiting him regularly when taking away his near and dear ones one by one since he was a child, beginning with his mother. In return Tagore bargained for a pen with which he keeps on writing through his tragic time in life. The ink of which pen’s lies with Tagore in his spirit towards life with which he sails by writing and writing more, drawing from the tragic instances of his life.

 Finally, death arrives for him, but Tagore having accomplished so much in life has still the desire to achieve more. It seems as though he keeps sifting through vast majority of his work just in search of a song, a form of completeness in his life. This is how the research student puts it which she shows through the story which she has written within the play. Part of her story shows Tagore a youth writing stories and searching for a much cherished song from his childhood. He urges his beloved to sing it to him as he is going away with death. And just before he leaves he wishes to hear that last song. The characters of this story seem distorted, directing each other, going with the flow of the writer who keeps changing her mind about character’s name and relation between each other. But, I suppose that’s a way in which the writer intends Tagore to be searching for the last song.

The play depicts Tagore as a man of 63 who meets Victoria O Campo, his Argentinean admirer during his journey to Peru where he stops at O Campo’s Villa for a few weeks. There, they develop a spiritual relationship to say but there as sparks flying as we see the man in Tagore coming out in sexual intimacies between Tagore and O campo. She brings out the child there is within Tagore, whom he interacts with during a conversation with O Campo. He translates poems for her and begins painting for her just so she could understand his work. O Campo urges Tagore to stay back while he urges her to come to Shantiniketan. But fate has its way as they part never to meet again. They keep writing letters to each other until O Campo breaks this cord and Tagore is blinded in love. 

Color Blind brings out Tagore not as a legend but Tagore a man known by his relationships. It explores his ties with his childhood, his beloved through his love encounters, his works, his quest for completeness – the final song of his life and his relation with death. His work is so unique that it seems the real writer is someone else and Tagore is a different person in himself. All this comes out in the conversation between the research student and her professor who challenges her bold claims about Tagore’s relationship with O Campo. This conversation gives way to what we can call small tale of love between them. The professor is a Bengali and resembles to Tagore is little ways while the student seems drawn to him for those attributes. In a midst we hear a rock version of Tagore’s music giving a picture of the contemporary version that has evolved of Tagore.

Among all of this a little lad who stays on and off throughout the pay. He is playing Tagore’s fascinating childhood with the games he played, the things he created, his experience and his imaginative powers which stay on with Tagore till his later life and it gives way to his creativity. Tagore later in his life yearns for the song he sang in childhood. He even punishes himself like he used to be when he was little – by dipping his face in a bucket full of water. Like each one of us Tagore hopes to catch back his childhood.

 After having separated from O Campo and having written dozens of other works, his death arrives to him in a very beautiful manner, just as he fathomed. Having known Tagore, even death assumes that Tagore has already crafted his head a poem on departure from the world. To their surprise, he hasn’t. He, his age versions and the writer (that is the research student writing an end to her play) recite a few lines in unison pondering on how death would be. Would it be lovely? As a day arise signifying the revolution, the renaissance from Tagore’s works, death says that there is no more the need of a lamp (The Dia) death blows it away and along leaves Tagore taking his exit from the world.

The play uses a lot of Tagore’s work – his poetry and songs. It makes use of French and Bengali language to indulge its audience. The set of the play is very minimal but very classy. A part of a seat laid with chairs and table for the professor and the research student in the front. A net mesh wall on which inscribed are Tagore’s incomplete work laced with scribbles in chalk, behind which is a seat and area reserved for Tagore’s encounters with O Campo.The net creates a breathtaking effect as though viewing Tagore’s inner story in the drafts of his works. The third layer of stage is a long platform at the back for the artists within the research student’s story. The stage craft display multiple layers just as the plot is multi-layered creating a wonderful visual effect. Color Blind as the name suggest is a very pale tale of a legendary man which reveals the artist within each one of us.   

Bol - Film Appreciation

“Sirf Maarna jurm kyun hai, paida karna kyun nahi” is a quote that defines the 2010 release Pakistaani movie named ‘Bol’. It raises the question why is giving birth not a crime just as killing is? Bol has been one revolutionizing blockbuster movie which broke box office records for its sensational themes. Bol has gained such fame as it tackles major issues such as Women’s freedom, homosexuality, rationalism and prostitution and brings light upon family planning and gender issues.

The film stars Humaima malik as protagonist, supported by Mahira Khan, Atif Aslam and Iman Ali. It is written by Shohaib Mansoor. Directed by Saqlain Nawaz, this Pakistaani movie is quite unique. The story line moves around a family with 9 family members. Father, mother and seven girls live in house in Lahore. The movie touches upon the common issues faced my families, such as poverty, rasing many children and also increasing number of girls.

The father of the family is a Hakim – a traditional doctor. He has always had a longing for a boy but he has been unfortunately been blesses with girls. In his quest the mother has been withered. She has given birth to dead kids also. After a long time a boy comes along, however the ‘daai’ informs the Hakim that the child is transgender. Having thought about the consequence of this incident in his society, the Hakim decides to kill the kid. However his wife prevents him from doing so. The child is named ‘Saifullah’ urf ‘Saifi’ by the mother and the sisters.

As time passes by Hakim continues trying for a son. The result is more dead kids and detoriating condition of the mother. Seeing this, the eldest daughter of the house Zainub takes a stand and gets her mother sterilized. When the Hakim finds out about this, he has a heated argument with Zainub. This scene brings in many religious questions. The Hakim claims that the prophet Muhammad (SAW) had suggested that the coming generation of his followers should be very big. Zainub retorts back that the prophet would never say such a thing; he must have meant that his followers should be big in their thoughts, ideologies, hopes and faith.

This in the movie is the first instance of a women taking a big step and excising her freedom. Seeing the bigger picture, Zainub has always been the most rebel lient one. At the end she suffered the tragic consequence of her boldness. However, it was her courage that brought the issue of her issue of her house to a wide platform to be sorted. And it was for her that her family gained freedom from her treacherous father. 

Saifullah was a strong depiction of homosexuality, its nature and innocence. As a kid he was harassed by a school teacher at home. Saifullah grew up as a playful boy and with him grew his fantasies.  Once he dressed up in his sister’s dress and applied make up and droned a veil just to see how he looks. When he was caught and beaten by his sisters he said that he was a girl because he felt like he wanted to do such things, that he wished he could get married to his neighbor’s son Mustafa. He seems absolutely innocent and chaste in this matter as he is only guided by his instincts. Later in the movie he is punished for this nature of his. Saifullah’s family sent him out to work as he was an excellent painter. When he stepped out, Saifullah was harassed for his delicate and beautiful looks. He was also raped. When he returned home, his family wept on the incident and when the father found out, he killed Saifullah by choking him with a plastic bag as he feared the insults he would receive from the society.

The father of the family is a very stereotypical and shrewd person. He is an image of a patriarchal head which is so prevalent is our society. He always wished for son, and he conviently killed the one he received. He had made his family members prisons within the house. He makes them pray for irrational things like making Pakistan win the cricket match. He is the kind of person who bended the rules when it suited him. He never agreed to the rationality which was regularly pushed into his view by his daughter Zainub.  When he killed his son, he used up the money of Masjid Charity to escape murder charges from the police.

 To replace the money, he started working as an Arabic teacher of a lower caste Muslim family who ran a brothel. Slowly he moved into the ill aspect of it. When he asked the owner of the brothel – Saqa - for money, he suggested that this Hakim sleep with his daughter Meena – a prostitute- to give his business a baby girl who would work as a prostitute when she grows up.  Hakim, under the dept of the money he had stolen agrees to do so. He gets married to Meena and grants her a daughter, however on realizing the fate of this daughter of his, his own bloods, he pleads Meena to give him his daughter. It’s ironic that he accepts a prostitute for his wife but doesn’t desire the same future for his daughter.

After a few days Meena comes to Hakim’s house in disguise to leave her daughter at his house. When the family finds out the truth, each one is agitated especially the mother and Zainub. Zainub tells the Hakim that tell would leave the house next morning. Meanwhile, Saqa comes to take his grand-daughter back. Waching him arrive, the Hakim tries to kill suffocate the baby to death with a pillow. In defense Zainub hits her father on the head and accidentally kills him. She tells one of her sister to take the baby girl away. When Saqa comes in, she tells him that the hakim killed the child and threw it away, and she killed her father. This is their moment of liberty as well as bondage for the family.

Another simultaneous story that adds more relevance to the movie is the neighbor’s son Mustafa and Hakim’s second daughter Ayesha’s love story. They both are good singers and guitarists. Ayesha frequently sneaks out with Mustafa to tour Lahore and to perform on stage. They both are in love and wish to get married, however the Hakim is a foe of his neighbor and refuses the proposal from him. When he fixes Aysha’s marriage with an elderly person, Zainub and other family members get her hitched to Mustafa secretly. When Hakim finds out he gets really angry and curses Zainub. The love story completes to give way to another triumph. A women’s will to choose her husband is executed here.

The movie actually is in retrospect as Zainub in the beginning of the movies states her story to the media while she is about to be hanged for killing her father. Zainub is the revolutionist who brings the change in her family’s situation. She urges her sisters to leave their veil and live their lives. She asks them to live guilt free and independent. After her death, the family follows Zainub’s advice and open up a restaurant named ‘Zainub’s café’ which becomes a huge success.   

All in all, the movie tries to provoke the audience to eradicate all evils of the society. It promotes women’s freedom, family planning and acceptance of homosexuality in our society.  The movie is a strong symbol of freedom of expression of women. It questions the absence of her rights and it questions objections towards her existence. Bol also discriminates a man’s right to give birth to children who he cannot care for. And it certainly questions his sense of justice. Bol has been a dynamic movie exploring the condition of women in our society.

The Plight of a Sati

Today is my day of Love

Such fortune has come across my way

That I shall dance and declare my love

Upon the woods in which you lay

Burn oh fire pyre

Burn with desire

Swallow my soul and mind

Fill my heart with your crackling quoir 

Completed as I shall be

Like beads strung in heaven, with my Swami

My sins shall wither away

As I will be incarnated with thee

T'is a delightful escape 

For the world meant nil without you

Let this void be filled with a breeze of fire

and quench my dry eyes with water so serene and blue