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Entertainment
Revenge of a princess scorned
CAN THERE be a more moving picture of a woman scorned than Amba in the Mahabharata? Voicing Silence, a project of the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, presented a solo show _ "Pani-t-thee" _ by artiste Usha Rani recently on this heroine, who embodies the plight of a woman in a man's world. The performance was organised by the Tamil Department, Madras University.
Just as she is about to garland the ruler of Salva at the Swayamvaram arranged by her father, the King of Kasi, Amba, along with her two beautiful sisters Ambika and Ambalika, is whisked away by Bhishma. The princesses of Kasi have traditionally been considered suitable brides for the kings of Hastinapura. And Bhishma thinks that there can be no better brides than these three sisters for Vichitraveerya, the son of his late father Santanu and the fisherwoman turned queen Satyavati. In abducting Amba, Bhishma sets forth a chain of events that will result in his destruction.
On reaching Hastinapura, Amba reveals her love for Salva. Aghast at the mistake he has made, Bhishma sends the princess back to her beloved. But Salva spurns Amba and asks her to return to the man who abducted her. Bhishma, sworn to bachelorhood, refuses to marry Amba and she is tossed back and forth by the two men. Angered and humiliated, she does rigorous penance for six years and gains an unusual boon. Reborn as the daughter of King Drupada, Sikhandi later becomes a man and learns the skills of warfare from Drona. At the battle of Kurukshetra, Sikhandi has his revenge as he becomes the cause of the death of the invincible warrior, Bhishma.
Amba's initial helplessness, her agony, her determination to obtain revenge, her mastery of archery and the sad irony of Bhishma's denial that the arrows came from Sikhandi, make the story of Amba-Sikhandi a gripping one to project women's issues through the feminist perspective.
The tale of Amba was presented in the Koothu and Isai Natakam styles. Song, movement, mime and speech were fluidly threaded together so that the whole performance seemed to flow like the mountain stream that Amba becomes in the end.
Directed by A. Mangai, "Pani-t-thee" was a one-woman presentation that had the audience, mostly comprising students, absorbed. Ms. Mina Swaminathan, Hon. Director of Voicing Silence project, in her introduction said Usha has had many years of experience in the theatre, and is a veteran in the "Isai natakam" form. For one hour, the audience at the Tamil Department auditorium watched with interest as Usha Rani deftly transformed from male to female and brought out the nuances and spaces between the two roles. The play began with the battle scene where Sikhandi, resplendent in the Koothu costume of warrior with elaborate headdress and shoulder ornaments, feels frustrated and anguished by Bhisma's denial that a woman's arrows can be the lethal ones. Usha metamorphosed into Sikhandi and through dance, movements and dialogue brought out the depth of Sikhandi's despair and anger. She went on to talk of how she mastered the skills of war and transformed into a man. As Usha removed the Bhuja Kirthi and elaborate headdress and decked herself with ornaments and flowers, she became Amba, the girl in love and the woman abjectly unhappy at Salva's rejection. She prays and attains her wish. But Ganga's curse materialises and in the end we see her as a fierce mountain steam, fed by the monsoons and flowing for just four months in a year. As she is infested with crocodiles, no one dares go near her.
"Not mere androgyny but the wholeness of the male and female was what I wished to project," says Mangai the writer of the text and the director of the play. "My primary image was the costume and the transformation of the man into the woman. And the beginning of the play arose from the fact that for a woman it is often not the event _ here, Bhishma's death - but the words - his denial - that remains a flaming wound. For the transformation, Tai Chai movements (Ravi Varma) were used because of the concepts of femaleness and maleness (ying-yang) inherent in the form."
Usha Rani displayed great confidence in the role and understanding of the text. The portions where she became Amba on the stage, through little touches, were deftly executed. Never once did she get tangled, even when the flowing sari (a simple but effective touch) came down in the end swathing her and giving the sense of timeless flow to the tale.
The Koothu movements by A. K. Selvadurai (the songs were also by him) and P. Rajagopal and the general form imparted by Mangai fused text and drama well. But often, the dialogue of Usha came forth in such a torrent that the words were lost in the flood. Mangai's text also departed from the original - in Bhishma's denial. A word about this as well as about the little known story of Ganga's curse in the introduction would have helped the viewer appreciate the show more.
Voicing silence will present Usha Rani in "Pani-t-thee" at Kulavai 2003, on February 9.
KAUSALYA SANTHANAM
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