The Madras Players made the rains of Markazhi and Thai returned to Chennai in the chill air-condition at Museum theatre on Mar 10, 11 and 12. It was a Broadway play brought to Chennai both in terms of quality and content.
What would it be to watch a 150 minute play set in pre-independence times with just right proportions of dance, drama, and music? All in one? Well it must for the eclectic audience who can understand the nuances of the triloka and it should be an old theme. Not really, Gowri Ramnarayan, the grand daughter of Kalki Krishnamurthy had taken her grandfather’s old novel “Kanayazhi yin Kanavu” and made it into a simple English play twined in lilting melodies of Subramanya Barathi and Rabindranath Tagore to convey Kalki’s view on women emancipation and iced with graceful movements from barathanatyam. It is old wine in a new bottle.
The play was titled “Rural Phantasy” to probably remind us that women emancipation is still waiting to be attended in the back burner and Barathi’s fantasy of Pudhumai Penn far from reality. The messages Kalki had conveyed during the pre-independence seemed to be aptly true and relevant for today’s society. Newspapers still report dowry deaths, domestic violence, and female infanticide. We live in a technology age and still we treat women like kitchen and washing gadget, and machine making babies. Aren’t these issues still pending? Our thoughts have not changed but reformed to do more injustice and cruelty to women and mankind. India independence has failed to bring independence to women and liberation in the minds of men and the society that support and nurture such horrific cruelty against women.
The backbone of the play was issues like women education, female infanticide, child marriages, cleanliness, domestic violence, and equal rights for women which are prevalent in India. Set in a beautiful village “Kanaiyazhi” in Thanjavur district, Shakunthalai the female character returns to the village for a vacation. She finds the Taliban’s of the village lazing around, bullying and beating up their women. Her educated upscale status raise a lot of eye brows and brings a lot of criticism on her back but people seem to enjoy her way of life and her idea of freedom after initial resentment. Battered, shattered, oppressed women of the village make efforts to turn literate, sing the tunes independence and raise their voice against any cruelty. Her reformations started with the trips to the local school encouraging women to step out of kitchen and start holding books and pens instead of spoons and vessels, and sing independence songs rather than lullabies for their newborns, step out of abusive marriages and live a life with self dignity and service the society. Shakunthalai was truly the Barathi’s “Puthumai Penn” and setting free the caged parrots from malevolent cages.
A truly scintillating performance by the cast and crew with directional excellence from Gowri Ramnarayan and vivid choreography from Lasya Narasimhachari. Women draped in half-sarees oiled their long hair and plaited with flowers and ribbon and, a rarity these days. It is the same old spices that make the every new dish tasty and beautiful. Costumes and the settings brought out the flavor and time without much delay and difficulty.
The patriotic voices of TM Krishna, Sangeetha, and Amritha shooed away the sleeping devil in men and evoked the beauty and hidden treasures in women. The live music made it lively. The vocalists were able to bring out the emotions of the actors without my difficulty and the actors were able to show the same emotions on their faces. GNB & MS’s Manamohana from Shakunthalai won a standing ovation.
DKP’s Shanti Nilava Vendum created an ambience of true shanti and calmness, much needed commodity in today’s world. May God’s of the other worlds and all religions make a note of this? It is time such plays be staged all over the country and in countries like Iran, Afghanistan and other middle eastern nations where women are under men’s thumb. We can either make the next generation watch and appreciate such plays and the relevance of women rights or we can make such themes archaic. It is our decision, let us think now.
plays would come and go. society would never change.
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