By Shevlin Sebastian
Photo by Mithun Vinod
Karna
approaches the stage from the aisle of the JT Pac hall in Kochi. He
is bare-bodied and wears flared trousers. As Karna steps on stage,
a haunting Kathakali song is heard on the soundtrack. Soon, he
makes movements, resembling Kalaripayattu, the ancient Kerala
martial art form. There is an absolute silence for several minutes.
And
then Kunti appears in front of him standing on a small trolley
pushed by a younger version of Karna, her face and body covered by
a red shawl. Karna rises, and says, “O mother,” but Kunti
keeps pushing him back into the water. This falling down, the
splash, and the rising-up makes for a riveting sequence.
The
story, as related in the Mahabharata, goes like this: Through the
sun God Surya, Kunti has a child called Karna. In order to preserve
her honour, before her marriage to Pandu, she goes to the Ganges
river and, with the help of her maid, Dhatri, places her new-born
son in a basket and sets him adrift.
In
subsequent scenes, Karna carries on crying for his missing mother.
Later, he has a confrontation with his half-brother Arjuna, who
taunts Karna by saying, “You don't know your father's name. This
place is not for you. Out!”
A
defiant Karna says, “Arjuna, today for lack of an identity, you
have rejected me. But someday, our strengths alone will matter. We
will fight and I will kill you.”
It
was martial arts that saved Karna from the feeling of being
abandoned. “He is deeply involved in it,” says Koumarane.
“Otherwise, Karna would have become useless or an alcoholic.”
Meanwhile,
Arjuna goes to the Himalayas to get the Pashupatastra
weapon
from Lord Shiva. While there he has a fight with Lord Shiva, and is
defeated.
This scene is shown in dramatic style in the play. Arjuna climbs up
two long strips of white cloth hanging from rods from the ceiling and
does fight sequences by twisting and turning, going up and down,
forward and backwards, deftly using his hands and feet, and, finally,
when he is defeated, he slides, head first, straight to the floor.
Thereafter,
there are dramatic fighting scenes between Arjuna and Karna, with the
latter having animated conversations with Krishna and Parasurama and,
at the climax, Karna is killed.
It
is a gripping play, with intense and tight acting by the performers,
all
members of the Indianostrum Theatre in Pondicherry. They include
Vasant
Selvam (Karna), Sravanthi Vakkalanka
(Kunti),
Parasurama (Kourmarane) and Naveen Kumar J (Krishna), among others.
Unusually,
there are long periods of silence, when nothing happens, except for
soundless Kalaripayattu movements. This seems to be a risky ploy to
use in these impatient times. “I wanted to avoid the noise and talk
that is present in every play,” says Koumarane. “Because I
believe that silence has more power than words.”
(Sunday Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi)
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