Margazhi/~yyi

Without fail my lovely R drops me an email and writes:

Dear E,

Remembered you on this day of Marghazhi 1st - you, your blog, your post, pic of andal in post, your amma's pongal description, your narration of this month's speciality...

Still lingering from 2008.....

and I can't help smile. R has this amazingly simple and innocent way of touching people's lives that I feel amazed, honoured and flattered (all at once) to know that there is some post that has touched her. Here it is and here too (just realised I had two posts). The former is a post I wrote back in 2007 (for a Margazhi that started in 2006). This post is dedicated to this dear friend of mine.

I wonder what aspect of Margazhi I can capture in this post and am at loss of words. Such a quandary is not a result of little else to speak about regarding a month when the God Himself is said to descend to the Earth. Surely one can say enough about the music, the rituals, the distant chants streaming through orange street-light. While there is so much to write I choose to pick one aspect of Margazhi which I haven't yet understood myself. This post will be unlike the earlier one in being less nostalgic and more reflective.

Andal, in essense, created Margazhi and the entire pavai tradition. While girls her age might pine for the handsome boy down the street, Andal sought none other than Sriman Narayana Himself. Sets quite a high bar. Her 30 paasurams fit well into the month of Margazhi with Margazhi Thingal being the first paasuram. The paasuram goes as follows:

Tamil:

English:

Margazhi thingal madhi niraindha nannaalaal
neeraada podhuveer podhumino naerizhaiyeer
seer malgum aayppaadi chelva chirumeergaal
koorvael kodundhozhilan nandhagopan kumaran
Aeraarndha kanni yasodhai ilam singam
kaar maeni cengan kadhir madhiyam pol mugaththaan
naaraayanane namakkey parai tharuvaan
paaror pugazha padindhelor empaavaay.

Translation:

On this day (commencing) the month of Margazhi

Which is like a moon in full resplendence,

Come quickly, young girls, oh so decorated,

And we shall bathe in the river. Oh girls with good qualities

And the prosperous ones from Aayarpadi (Gokulam), come.

Come for the sake of the son of Nanda,

One with a sharp pointedness in destroying all evil

One who wears fragrant garlands

And is the young lion of Yashoda

The dark hued, one with lotus (bud) shaped eyes

Whose face is as brilliant as the sun and moons (kadhir, madhiyam pol mugatthan)

That Narayana will Himself grant us deliverance

Let us sing praises to Him and worship Goddess Pavai who will grant us our wish (to unite with Him)

Of course, I paraphrase. Nevertheless, the intent is as stated above in the translation. Interpretations and extrapolations are possible and are left to the committed few.

I have heard this paasuram sung for several years without fail and I wonder at the immense love and clarity Andal must have had in knowing that Sriman Narayana is all she would ever need or want. Such single-minded devotion is not a decision or a resolve but a whole-bodied way of being. Neither you nor I could suddenly be impassioned into deciding that come tomorrow and we shall be as devoted to the Lord as Andal was. Devotion is not a decision for it come without religion (which is a decision or, as is often the case, a conditioning). Devotion is clarity and (for the lack of a better word) completeness.

I have never felt that though I know it and like one listening to a beautiful song sung in a language I don't understand, I listen to the paasurams sung and wonder how could someone love anyone (even the Lord) so much? The tales of Hanuman are also testimony to such love (and with that example, one realises such love to be clearly asexual). Personally, I consider Hanuman to be the best and most honourable character in the whole of the Ramayana for he could realise the Lord while the Lord himself was unclear about his nature.

Andal's love for Krishna is legendary and tales of Andal are told to young children (well, no more given that Nick and Cartoon Network have better tales) and girls dream of loving someone like that. But then they grow up and in that act there is inherent tragedy.

Margazhi is fragranced with the love of Andal and one can feel the conviction, the clarity and the sheer devotion of it all in her paasurams. Margazhi is when the Lord is most pleased. Margazhi is when the Lord nodded to Andal's question (10th paasuram): For a young delicate girl who has undertaken such a vow (of paavai), won't you open the door to your abode?

Generation V - The Age of Voyeurism

I don't think this generation can be called Gen-X or Y or any other letter of the English alphabet. I think we are in the midst of a growing generation of voyeurs. The funny thing about this moniker unlike the others is that it covers nearly everyone alive. The other categories seem to be temporal or spatial but not Gen-V as it stems from the basic (as in base) instinct of human beings. But I won't meander through the thickets of taxonomy.

Till a while ago, all we had was Buniyaad-like serials. That and Nukkad made most of our TV viewing, excluding music programs. Then came Mahabharat and Ramayan with their special effects. Pan to the days of Saas-Bahu serials which had daughter-in-laws and mother-in-laws nod alike with vituperative glances at their foe. Soon viewers started connecting to the characters in the serials. It wasn't uncommon to hear newly wed girls gossip about how much their mother-in-law mirrored the vile woman in so-n-so soap-opera. I believe men didn't play much part in these never-ending soaps (except for looking younger than their daughters).

Till a long while ago, we had 19:30 regional language news followed by one more at 20:30 in Hindi and then another in English (if I remember the timings right). It would have been absurd to imagine an entire channel for news. It would have been considered the joke of mankind to imagine a 24 hr news channel. What on earth could ever happen 24x7? All our politicians would be asleep and we don't quite care about some French premiere did with his in-house policies! Right? Fine, maybe there would be news for at most 4 hours in a day. Why would we need a 24x7 channel? 10 of them? Are you nuts?

Till a long while ago, newspapers were thin and the raddiwala came once in 2-3 months to collect them from us. We would be happy to see a few kilos balance the scales and a sum of Rs. 20 come our way. We would invariably buy some groceries for the kitchen and that would be it. International affairs would take 2 pages, sports, 2, domestic affairs would be 2-3, other states would command another 2 and the really local news would be a terse one page. There would be an editorial and reading the paper was a religious excursion into the words of the wise and informed! Why would I need a God-in-Gucci column? Why would I need a column about what celebrity X eats? The standard bulk of the daily in Bombay is a whopping 1 kg! Seriously, who can ever read all of that? It would require me to sit through the day with these papers and do nothing else. Especially, if I have to understand how Pamella Anderson's sprung a leak and forced her into reducing her assets. Or why Rahul Mahajan picked D and not N and why the wedding was getting delayed which would need you to be informed about his uncle's demise which would require you to be informed about the ceremonies surrounding death in the Indian communities, which would take you into an analysis of superstition in India and the atrocities done unto the Dalits and how Dr. Ambedkar was a great man before his affair was revealed, drawing a parallel with the affairs of great leaders like Nehru and Tagore (though not a real leader), finally rolling all of it back to the fact that Rahul Mahajan might not postpone his wedding because his uncle killed his father before ending in a serious debate about whether Rahul should forgive his uncle and delay his wedding with Sri Sri Sri ... Sri Ravishankar commenting on the importance of forgiveness and marriages and blessing the newly wedded couple.

Which brings me to the then-and-now topic of weddings and marriages. I have always seen weddings conducted differently. Thank my lucky stars, I still see them being conductive in a manner I can understand. Along came the Swayamvar (and later Swayamvadhu) brigade and weddings are no longer what they used to be. Marriages are no longer what they used to be. Now everyone has to know how I chose the bride/groom, what I had dreamt of when I was 5, 10, 15 (puberty set in and we would have experts commenting on the effects of hormones on our conception of our mating partner and how premature conception happens), 20 and now at the age of 27 when I am finally getting married (no, I am not!). They have to ask 10 of my friends what kind of girls did I letch at (well, they were too busy leching to notice) and a tarot card reader to divine how my first night would be (the two of clubs show a rather masochistic night with the queen of cups showing drunk revelry). Oh! In those days, the first night was really the first night (at least in India)! FYI...

Welcome to Generation V (pronounced "generation vee" or if you wish to be cool you could pronounce it "generation wee" (not wee-wee) or if you wish to sound educated then you could pronounce it "generation five" or if you wish to sound Churchillish (or hellish) you can pronounce it "generation victory" or... well, you sure are jobless!)

This is the generation of voyeurs. Frankly speaking, every decade had it. Human beings, as such, are voyeurs. We would spy on the mating habits of tigers and rabbits (do you ever find them peeping into our bedrooms?), and the affairs and flesh display of our fellow human beings. We were always curious about how the neighbour made it rich. We were always curious why the neighbour's neighbour was fighting with her husband. We were always curious and our curiosity led to voyeurism when all that we had in our life was surplus time to create and satiate curiosity and very little substance. We soon got curious about the actors on screen. We got curious about our actor's pet poodle. We soon got curious about our curiosity.
With gadgets making life simpler and somehow people having more time on their hand than options to utilise that time: enter reality shows and reality content. I will avoid trying to sound preachy, but hey! I may slip. I will dwell on the voyeurism in news, TV programs, movies and relationships. Surprisingly, that covers 80-90% of most people's lives.

Rakhi Sawant is a girl you might never marry. She is also a girl you might never want your son to marry and if you are old enough, you wouldn't want your grandson to marry. People with grey hair (and missing teeth) would summarise RS in one or two words and they aren't printable. This woman who has the least objection to doing anything on screen in order to get herself 2-10 minutes of limelight, hid nothing. She is gutsy, crude, stark and in your face (something else about her reaches you before her face can reach yours). I can't stand her because she lacks the ability to articulate and is disgustingly pretentious. RS decided to conduct her wedding (called simply, Rakhi ka Swayamvar, which means: Rakhi's ceremony of picking her own husband). You can read the details here. I was forced to see a couple of episodes (I was being fed at the house of a very dear friend and I played along). There were games and interviews and all the crap that one could manage to pack into a program (well, or so I thought before hearing about Emotional Atyachaar). RS acted the coy girl straight out of the textbook and continued to disgust me. She finally got engaged to a sleazy looking chap and later they broke up. Expected! All this, including the final breakup, swallowed hours of news channel time and pages of ToI and evenings of millions of people in India. Some kept saying "Oh! Come on, E. It is just timepass" and continued watching. I am sure Tom and Jerry serves as better "timepass" and retains our senses. Whatever! I thought the country would have learnt a lesson and would be wiser (but that, I learnt, is never true about this country).

Enter the drunkard and drug addict. He looks like a hooligan and comes from a family of politicians (less said about them). He acts like he has never seen a piece of feminine flesh and is known to have beaten up his wife and divorced her. That too, was a drama. His father was murdered and another drama conducted. This man would never feature as a model son/citizen/.../human being. He is the kind people use to scare their children into inculcating values and being educated. Mothers in far away villages tell their wailing child "So jaa, nahin to badey hoke uss ullu ke patthe jaise bann jaoge" which means, "go to sleep else you will grow up to be like that good-for-not-even-nothing scoundrel". Ladies and gentlemen, please run away from Rahul Mahajan. He has nothing to his name except disrepute. He has no job. He has no qualification which will get him a job. He has no history which can be proudly quoted to get him a job. And he decided to get married ala RS on screen. I had the gross misfortune of watching one episode of this while lunching at a dear friend's place. Her friend was addicted to this reality show and I had to wrench the mobile out of her hand as she was about to send her votes. I had to give her the math behind this SMS voting farce and she was too shocked to even notice that the program had ended (or maybe she just watches all of them in succession). I saw the last 3 girls. One of them was supposed to be extremely educated and looked rather refined. I was thoroughly disappointed to see someone supposedly so classy stoop to such levels. Her mother too joined in this drama. Hence, my conclusion that Gen-V spans age groups.

News channels have already come under fire for their callousness. Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai and all the other cartoons of our news channels will not have the decency to stay silent and leave the suffering/embarrassed individuals alone. They will keep hammering them with tonnes of questions while the camera zooms in and out. I had already written about RS (no, not the Swayamvar-wali RS) and his coverage of the Taj Hotel incident. His desperation to be the first to report some disaster oozed out of his words. BD (jalaile?) is equally dramatic and usually insensitive to the individual's situation while she continues to bombard them with questions and then turn rapidly to the camera with her conclusions. Western news channels had already mastered the art of invasive, voyeuristic reporting before India got its first 24x7 news channel and we obediently copied their style of reporting.

The coverage of the Aarushi murder was another incident which was sickening. The poor girl is dead and her family bereaved. Even if they were part of the murder, the media had no business prying into their lives in such a horrible and cheap manner. Aaj Tak and other news channels with their pathetic taste in background music insist on sensationalising every piece of news and every incident (which sometimes is not news).

Pan to the great scandal of the gurus. India is by far the most stupid nation in that it spawns more gurus per square yard than any other country. And this, in spite of the repeated scandals each one of them gets into. The latest is with Mr. N who was caught rolling on his bed with some actress devotee. My first question was, why does the nation care about what he does in his bedroom? My lifelong question is why do we need gurus when we do not have it in us to cultivate a spark of spirituality? If we had it in us, we wouldn't seek gurus beyond the nudge they might be able to give us. All the well known babas and swamis and gurus and godmen have landed themselves in scandals. From the Shankar Mutt acharya to Sai Baba (the one alive) to this recent one with Mr. N and the supposed Bhagwan Kalki and Mrs. BK. As long as there will be stupid people, they deserve such knaves. I think it is only a matter of time before something crops up against the great guruji of our times who happens to bug the daylights out of me! But that apart, why was that camera planted in Mr. N's room? Sting? Why broadcast it? The cheap thrills of watching some godman romp with an actress tickles Gen-V. If his words resonate with you, how does it matter whether he has sex with one or a dozen women? If his words don't stir anything in you why use his sexcapades to justify debunking him. And in all this, why destroy his ashram and hurt his devotees who are perhaps nothing more than ignorant fools?

We want to know the bedroom-tales of every actor and actress, and if we have exhausted that list then we want to know about our neighbours etc. It is not about whether we are holier than them or not (though a lot of people like to collect these tales to reassure themselves that they are indeed holier then thou) but more about the sheer hollowness in our lives.

Would I, E, be watching these videos or reading these articles if I had a deadline tomorrow?

No.

Would I, E, be watching these videos or reading these articles if I had my child in the hospital?

No.

Would I, E, be watching these videos or reading these articles if I was reading an interesting book by Henry James?

No.

Would I, E, be watching these videos or reading these articles if I was out on a date with this lovely lady?

No (I'd probably just wake up)

Would I, E, be watching these videos or reading these articles if I was having a wonderful meal?

No.

I am not holier than thou but I definitely don't watch TV (other than Discovery T&L, Discovery, Nat Geo, HBO, *Movies, Sony Pix, UTV WM, NDTV Lumiere and Cartoon Network) and I definitely don't read the paper (other than to find out whether there are any food festivals happening or book exhibitions or whether what they said about Libra really happened!!). I have friends call in to tell me that something happened in the world around me. I don't care, because my life has enough meat (no, I don't refer to my friends thus) to run smoothly without the base entertainment of watching someone's life lived out on screen.

LSD is the latest movie which talks about this Gen-V but no one is watching it with a meta-understanding of what this Gen-V is all about and what is happening around us without our noticing it. Perhaps LSD is fodder to Gen-V.

Reality shows, 24x7 news, newspapers with their sleaze state that they are catering to the demands of the people. Well, that is what pimps say too. That is what drug dealers say too. It amazes me to observe the double standards of people. No one I know will let their daughter sign up for the Rahul Mahajan drama or let their boy for Rakhi's Swayamvar. Still, I know enough people who watch these programs. Somehow watching is not considered on par with participating. But in murder and in violence, an onlooker who let the crime happen is considered a participant. Aren't these a violence done unto our sense of refinement and our standards of conduct and character?

If Dimpy Ganguly is considered cheap for whatever she did after show timings with Rahul M then why do you continue watching that program? Why would you watch a program where people are made to eat beetles or walk through a chamber of earthworms if you find it disgusting? Why would you watch MTV Roadies or the uglier Splitsvilla when you wouldn't swear like that and consider it vulgar? Emotional Atyachaar is the scum of all reality shows feeding directly on our craving for soft porn. And if you think they are fine and there is nothing wrong in being part of it, then my next question is, do you have nothing worthwhile in your life to spend your time on? Is this all that you can do? If you answer in the affirmative, I wonder what are you doing here!! :-) There is nothing nice on this blog. I do not cater to the "Wow" seekers. I have nothing "Wow" on this blog.

Which brings me to Seth Godin's article (for which I must thank K who shared it on Google Buzz before I did my periodic visit of Seth Godin's page). I agree with him entirely in his observation that our attention span, our intelligence, our refinement our ability to pause is taking a beating and this is no new phenomenon.

And with this I tie back to the nature of content itself. Content is created with least effort for reality shows. The people presenting news are not putting a lot of thought into what they are doing. It take a lot to be intelligent and insightful. I am yet to hear of one line of insight that the BDs and RSs have produced. The same seems to plague literature and the world of the written word with chic-lit and college capers abounding. The likes of Chetan Bhagat wave their resolve to cater to the LCD with aplomb. Music today is nearly all dhanchuk-dhinchuk. Lyrics get worse with every movie. The urgency to get out there and grab people's attention albeit for 10 min seems to be the sole motivator. It seems like a wife who cannot create genuine joy in the house and resorts to a quickie and considers her job done! The sheer effort required in producing content that is nearly immortal is what made some channels (BBC, Nat Geo, etc.) famous and fondly remembered. No one will remember UTV Bindass. The sheer lack of talent and worthy content seems to justify content providers to reel out low quality but high attractiveness stuff. So be it with blogs and the like. There are blogs which do nothing more than provide links to interesting content across the world (laziness) and some which are merely a collection of gossip columns and links to gossip columns around the world (high attractiveness). Good content need not always be only serious stuff. I had once pointed to two blogs which are seriously hilarious. Nothing about their posts provides food for thought, but they are simply hilarious and are not lazy or sleazy in the entertainment they provide. Being provocative too becomes a cheap trick if repeated too often.

So how should I conclude this? Hmmm... Generation - V is here to stay. No matter what I say and no matter what people think about the need to be refined, cultivated and educated, there will always be those who prefer the sleaze and cheap thrills of being a voyeur. You and I, definitely have the option of choosing differently. If your life lacks substance, resolve that and do not resort to the easy way out with lame entertainment. There is a huge difference between an occasional thrill and making that the only thing that can interest you.

More Reading (Will add more as and when I find them):

1. http://livemint.com/2009/01/13212700/Can-edginess-and-voyeurism-con.html
2. http://socialmediarockstar.com/voyeurism-social-media
3. http://www.freireproject.org/blogs/media-voyeurism-–-when-reality-becomes-spectacle
4. http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0705/heaton0705.html

(Belated) Holi Wishes

For the past two years I have always been away from home (or what one can call home) for Holi. This year I had a splendid time and returned to the days of my childhood. I did return with the dirtiest T-shirt and trouser (to have my mom admonish my childish ways) and I do not intend washing them ever!! Here is a collage of the shots my friend and I took on Holi. Happy Holi!

Tom Alter - Maulana Azad

Simply brilliant.

If you left this blog after reading those two words, you would have a good feel of what Tom Alter portrayed at Y's private assembly of friends (and I am indebted to her generosity in inviting me). I have always respected his acting, but today he shocked me in more ways than one.

This is a monologue written and directed by M. Sayeed Alam. The Urdu is mature and highly polished. I was stumbling across lines trying to figure out some of the words and in the process had to miss the lines that didn't wait for me. Such chaste Urdu left many in the audience clueless but the performance was still exemplary.

The gathering was at Y's private auditorium and the gathering, in Mr. Alter's words: "to call them the ‘audience’ would almost be an insult". Sir, call us anything, and it doesn't matter, but please call us whenever and wherever you perform.

This play is composed as a dictation by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad to his friend and secretary, Humayun Kabir. Humayun is often asked questions and Maulana summarises it for us. The book that Humayun is drafting is "India Wins Freedom". The agreement is that Maulana will speak in Urdu (sprinkled with Arabic and Farsi) and it is up to Humayun to render it appropriately in English. Maulana often teases Humayun for not having the "Jawahar-waali baat" in his English. The script was so effortlessly well polished that Humayun's corporeal absence wasn't felt.

The play’s brilliance rests as much on Mr. Alter’s talent as on Mr. Alam’s script. Some of the slips were not missed but they were overshadowed by the sheer strength and grip of the play. What was well done was the English accent in a typical Indian style by someone whose native tongue is English. But here is where Mr. Alter goes one step further to surprise us all: the script from which he was reading and preparing for the play was all written in Urdu. It turns out that he has learnt Urdu well enough to read and write in the Arabic script!! And I thought I was doing something oddly different by being a pucca South Indian but having my allegiance with Urdu!
Mr. Alter made good use of the props though after a point I wondered whether the grunts and groans were dramatic or genuine (whenever he kept switching on/off the lights). The Chennai heat forced him to unbutton his sherwani a bit (and I don’t think that was in the script)!

The play had Maulana take us through his life starting with a declaration that announcing his date of birth in such a manner resembled announcements prisoners made about themselves. Maulana was no alien to jails and had stayed a good length at the Ahmednagar jailhouse. Maulana takes us through various interesting phases in his life including the domestic scene and his political life. In all of them, the script brings out the sensitive side of Maulana and that was very well done.

The entire play shows us various facets of Maulana’s personality including his sense of humour, the poet in him, his punctured ego, his love for his wife and how he hardly ever got a chance to let her know about that while she was alive and the tongue-in-cheek commentary about various political figures of his times. He does not mince words about his thoughts on Gandhi or Nehru. His comments on Jinnah and Vallabhai Patel are pointed and scathing. The beauty of the script is that it is well balanced though often the attempt at balancing it was visible. Maulana would point out the mistake in, say, Jinnah and then say good things about him in the next sentence and then back to blaming him for his outlook and then stating that it was not entirely Jinnah’s faults. This back and forth was often visible though didn’t tire or become too stark.

The portions where Maulana talks about his begum and how she said “Khuda hafiz” when he left Calcutta were very touching. It was beautiful to get a glimpse into the personal life of such a statesman. The soft words he chose to describe his wife and their relationship were beautiful and moving. I simply loved the lines when he said, “Maut ko kis se rishtedari hai; Aaj woh, to kal humaari hai” (What bonds does death have with anyone, today it is his, and tomorrow it shall be mine). Maulana prayed at an unknown grave till he was released and allowed to visit his wife’s actual grave. I found that immensely sweet and wondered how genuine gestures of love and affection often go unnoticed or delayed. Maulana recalls offering prayers at Jinnah’s grave too (much after the partition). He says here (and I paraphrase): “Jo chale jaatey hai unse maafi maang leni chahiye; aur unko maaf bhi kar dena chahiye”

This play helped me better understand Maulana’s views and I respected the man for that. It also revealed him in the plain light of a human being when he cribs about being just an Education minister while Nehru, with a difference of two years between them, was Prime Minister and treated with such great respect and honour. He makes wonderful observations like the one about how a Hindu politician visiting Jinnah’s grave would have generated great fuss and attention but when a Muslim politician (himself) visited then people just showed him the path to the grave and let him walk down to there! He confesses to having made the biggest and most regrettable blunder of having chosen Nehru as his successor (something he says that he regrets more than his wife's death) but quickly adds that Nehru would also agree to that. He expresses his disappointment at Gandhi's stance over the partition and how he let Vallabhai Patel and Nehru and the Mountbatten couple to influence him. The lines vary between being sharp, witty, touching but always honest. I enjoyed the sher attempted by some Jose or someone like that who came to visit Maulana once. Maulana finds it amusing that his name should ever form the kaafiya of a sher and that too with as poor a word as khaulana!

In short the play weaved the entire persona of Maulana very beautifully taking us through anecdotes of his winning a poetry competition when he was about thirteen, to tales about Cheetah Khan, to tales about how he and the Maulvi would debate with Hindu priests about the Koran and the Hindu scriptures and then rush to the taverns to get themselves drunk, about his learning the sitar and a lot more. Mr. Alter’s Urdu was impeccable and his accents and intonations were remarkably well done.

If this play is performed in your city, please do join the audience. It is worth the two hours that one spends in such company.

Menakaa - Vasanth Kannabiran and Rajeswari Sainath

I had the pleasure of attending a dance ballet at the Music Academy. A very kind friend gave me the invites to this event and I was quite impressed with the crowd that attended this. As in most art circles, there were the bohemian few but a lot were the well composed and elegant kinds that educe a quiet respect by their presence. I wasn't armed with my camera so the pic here is courtesy The Hindu of an earlier performance.
Menakaa was conceived and written by Vasanth Kannabiran. When Roshni Goswami summarised the performance as "bringing together radical feminism and aesthetics", I had to agree with her. Vasanth (she founded Asmita) has attempted to re-interpret an old tale, but the mark of a re-interpretation is usually cleverness and a convincing argument. In that Vasanth has failed. She has taken the story of Vishwamitra and Menaka down to Bharata and his adopted son and converted it into an accusation against men. There is nothing clever in this. One can always take a story and turn it around to make the other person the culprit. One could make Duryodhana look innocent or Chanakya a bigot but there is hardly any creativity in there especially if not developed properly. To be able to tell a tale of how Duryodhana and Draupadi team together to destroy Hastinaputra might be something different and untold (and perhaps it never happened). If one doesn't wish to fictionalise a legend then one has to be clever in re-interpreting the tale. Vasanth fails here.
She has taken the tale of Vishwamitra and portrayed Menaka as not being a seductress. That is fine if she could have explained why then did Menaka come down to earth on Indra's bidding and dance around Vishwamitra. That was missing. Then Menaka blames Vishwamitra for being a typical male in "planting his seed in her womb and running away". That is quite possibly a familiar case but how then does she explain Menaka delivering Shakuntala and rushing off to the heavens to continue with her dance and courtesan duties? She doesn't. If Vishwamitra identified his purpose of becoming Brahmarishi (which he did) and hence returned to his penance (and not other hedonistic pursuits) how is that vile when compared to Menaka delivering Shakuntala, leaving her in the forests and returning to Devaloka (world of Devas)? Vasanth doesn't bother to explain and probably expects the audience to cast angry glares at Vishwamitra thereafter. Vishwamitra set out to achieve something, was interrupted and then resumed. Perhaps he was violent in between and that portion cannot be questioned in an interpretation. Vasanth's point of a man's anger in being proved petty and human enough to be incapable of aspirations as high as Brahmarishi are convincing and appear plausible. The take that Vishwamitra was ashamed of himself for falling prey to the call of this world when he had set his eyes on something else, hence, mutated that embarassment into a violent rape of Menaka could be well made and accepted, but the rest of it fell short of a cogent reasoning. Vasanth was more keen on establishing all men as perpetrators of violence and all the women (who participated in it) as being entirely innocent or justified. That would have been welcome if there was a convincing argument woven out of history.
Another point that Menaka makes is that she decided to bear the child (Shakuntala) because she thought that the child - a confluence of Vishwamitra's prowess and intellect and her beauty and charm - would be a wonderful son who could rule this earth. But when a girl was born she left to the heavens. That is a take I couldn't understand in the telling of a feminist tale. I thought Menaka would have taken care of her or left her in the hands of powerful teachers to raise her to become the ruler of the earth. Not quite the plan Menaka had in her mind.
Then Vasanth goes on to create the case of pure innocence and desertion of Shakuntala. Menaka claims that Durvasa's curse had nothing to do with Dushyant forgetting. He simply didn't want to have anything to do with a woman he had deflowered and enjoyed, which is possible and acceptable as an interpretation if she could explain why Dushyant saw the ring, regained his memory and returned to collect both Shakuntala and her child. Dushyant had no problems of heirs. He could have well married a few hundred princesses and had a few dozen children. Why return to Shanuktala and take her back with him to his palace? This has not been explained and hence the whole interpretation appears shallow.
Going by records, Bharatadesha has seen many illegitimate children and rulers so that is not news. But an attempt at re-interpreting things is welcome as long as there is a lot of creativity or sound basis (like I am told about Girish Karnad's Tipu Sultan) and convincing argument. Menaka fails in that. Hence, this play is as Ms. Goswami notes radical feminism and not the educating and transforming feminism that I respect and enjoy.
The dance choreography was fine though faulty in many places. The faults fell in the category of coordination and suitable bhavas. The layas were honoured well though the transitions were often blurred or fumbled. When there were more than two artists on stage coordination was an issue and this was starkly visible. When the sutradharini, Nainitha started out explaining the prayer to Saraswati, her gestures were not matched with the ideas/words being explained. Similar gestures were made for two unrelated ideas and Nainitha cannot be blamed for it! Nainitha was one of the gems of the evening (though she has to be more conscious of her foot work). Perhaps Rajeswari should have donned the role of a Sutradharini and let Nainitha take over as Menakaa (from sheer consideration for age and the ability to execute vigourous steps and sensuous ones too), but perhaps it is not protocol to have the teacher do a lesser role. The fillers between two pieces of music were also not gripping enough. A filler, once it feels like a filler, has failed in its purpose.
Rajeswari was good and her expressions and timing were appropriate. I was forewarned that I should not expect the usual flexibility of dancers in her and I realised why that notion was formed. She told the tale well and held the audience attention till the very end. I think she has to get her students to focus on foot work which is given lesser attention.
Nainitha as the sutradharini was very good in her crisp execution of steps though the flaws in choreography did do some damage. Her foot work was dragged - literally and figuratively - but her mudras were beautifully drawn out. Her expressions were appropriate and didn't give into exaggerration that one often sees in dancers. She too failed to coordinate well when there were more than 2 dancers on stage.
Vaishnavi Sainath was Shakuntala. Elegant and voluptuous, she carried off the scenes of the shy nubile very well although her initial display of wantonness was rather fudged. I might be wrong but her knees seemed to not cooperate well with her which might also explain her reluctance to go into the arai-mandi stance while performing some of the pieces. She must pay attention to her weight if she wishes to perform various roles demanding a more malleable form. Her bhava was fine though not entirely well pronounced.
The rest of the dancers were clearly amateurs and have a long way to go before grabbing audience attention. These three dancers stole the limelight and the points I raise before do not tell on their talent or capability as a dancer.
In spite of all this, I enjoyed the evening and simply couldn't take my eyes off the stage. Before the performance started I saw the world of Music Academy as I had heard of from my parents and grandparents. It was indeed interesting to watch patrons of arts and itching-to-be-celebrities interact with each other. I had but Le Clezio giving me company though beside me was this artist who seems to be quite famous (she did state that she plays - something which she didn't mention - for nearly all the artists though not for dance) whom I didn't recognise or disturb.

Sri Rama Navami