A new book depicts modern Ramayana productions in the secular context of contemporary Indian theater
Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha are the perfect combination to explore ideas that have been brought together Demonstration of Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations and Arguments – Richman with his vast and varied knowledge of many Ramayana The stories that dot the subcontinent and beyond and Bharucha, with its lifelong commitment to theatricality and diverse performance traditions that animate some of our best-known and most loved stories. Richman and Bharucha trace the book and its inspiration over a three-year run Ramayana The performance festival which was organized under the aegis of performance repertory company Adishakti in Puducherry founded by Veenapani Chawla.
But, in reality, the essays they write go far beyond what was seen, experienced and discussed by artists, critics, and general audiences during those festive years. The book’s project itself is vast and the volume opens with several warnings about the extent and intent of the editors and other contributors. Beware, however, there is much to enjoy and much to learn from what is presented.
Contributions are a wonderful mix of photographs, play scripts, interviews with practitioners and theater makers, as well as essays from critics and scholars, all of which serve to remind us just how rich and diverse this performance tradition is. It also tells us how many ways there are to learn, read, interpret, and execute this ancient tale of a morally strong prince, who is soon elevated to the status of a god, and faces trials and challenges. have to face. His time in the world of humans.
The book took eight years to make, but the impetus for the Adishakti festival and the timing of the book’s publication are both deeply felt reactions to a national and religious politics that bridges the gap and to a culture that is increasingly is becoming dominant and monochromatic.
One story, many proverbs
More than ever, now is the time to be reminded that Hinduism never expressed itself in one voice or one language, that it was not entirely organized by a single caste, that it was a tradition Which retained both vibrancy and relevance precisely as it questioned itself and nurtured its own subversion of power and hierarchy. Richman and Bharucha are excellent guides in this project, striving to acknowledge the many ways in which a tradition survives and is meaningful to those who are in the process of creating it as well as to those who Find a living within it.
In the performance of Ramayana tradition (Oxford University Press), we are treated to simultaneously flourishing extremes such as the highly classical and Sanskritized renditions of the Ramayana in Kerala’s Koodiyattam and the flamboyant energy of folk performances such as the Tamil country’s Koothu that are always in the moment. live, even though they conflict with ancient stories and patterns. For example, experimental and avant-garde urban artists such as Maya Krishna Rao and Vinay Kumar set out to make the text their own through subtle depictions of Ravana, the antagonist of the story. The editors are fortunate that some contemporary artists (such as Usha Nangiyar, who, as a woman, perform a radical nangiarkuthu) are extremely candid about the traditions they live in and animate anew. We hear from them about the constraints of tradition and expectation and more fully appreciate their own barrier-breaking interventions.
What is also very important to this collection of essays is that neither the editors nor the contributors shy away from the issues of race and gender that are inherent to these exhibits and the greater ownership of the text itself. In fact, editors seek out these particular elements, re-emphasizing the fact that the text itself has been and is still subject to controversy and controversy. What becomes compelling here, as we consider how race and gender influence performance, what parts of the story are emphasized and which parts are overlooked, how the story is put in the hands of an artist. is created so as to represent their own position and politics in a text that might otherwise ignore them.
P. Thilagavati as Surpanakha in P. Rajagopal’s Ramaravana in the Kattaikuthu tradition. photo Credit: a majestic
height of mussel
Nowhere has it been presented more critically than in the 19th and 20th century retelling of the story of Shambuka in Hindi. In the essays by Aaron Sheraden and Sudhanva Deshpande, we see what a relatively small but very important event from the last book of sorts. Ramayana, ns Uttara Kand, where Rama kills a Shudra for practicing penance for privileged caste men, is changed in the Hindi versions to a call for revolution by the downtrodden castes. Shambuka, one who speaks, but in a few short lines Valmiki RamayanaInspired by thinkers like Swami Achyutananda (who followed Jyotirao Phule), Adi became a leader and teacher of marginalized castes at the hands of the Hindu movement.
country’s caste politics Ramayana, indeed of the whole edifice of Aryanized Hinduism, Shambuka is placed on its head as a man who challenges the status quo of Brahmin supremacy, a man with a vision of history and a definite position of non-caste. There is understanding. /Low-caste Hindus in a larger and more inclusive South Asian narrative that foregrounds the indigenous peoples of the subcontinent.
While nothing can substitute or stand in for the experience of live performances, the essays here give us a glimpse of the extent and pluralism of a tradition that, apart from the Ramlilas of the North (especially the Ramanagaram spectacle), we often or So are not associated with plays or with dramatic performances in the folk or classical traditions. We are fortunate, as a culture, to have a rich repertoire of performances and enactments that still largely retain their context. it’s fascinating to see how Ramayana It is equally claimed by the Sattriya monks of Assam as by the Koothu artists in Tamil Nadu and for each, their performance context is not only continuous with the past but also complete in the present.
usually, traditional Ramayana The performance, whether determined by the agricultural season or the sacred calendar, remains within a ritual area. These times and places have largely persisted, despite the pressures of capitalist economies and communities to modernize. Richman and Bharucha Vol. One of the many wonderful things that modern Ramayana Presentations within the secular context of contemporary Indian theatre, create a perspective that is both appropriate and alive with potential meaning. In the book (if not now in our shrinking world), traditional and contemporary Ramayana The performances and their creators are able to talk to each other in ideology and practice.
As much as I enjoyed and learned from this section, the greatest importance of the book, at least to me, lies in a sense of security—that the traditions of subversive and controversial fiction that I fear to lose are, in fact, stronger and stronger.
works with the author Ramayana and with the myths, epics and storytelling traditions of the subcontinent.
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