Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments 0197552501, 9780197552506

Table of contents :
Dedication
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments: The Journey of the Book
Note on Transliteration
PART I: ORIENTATIONS AND BEGINNINGS
1. The Ramayana Narrative Tradition as a Resource for Performance • Paula Richman
2. Thinking the Ramayana Tradition through Performance • Rustom Bharucha
3. Where Narrative and Performance Meet: Nepathya’s Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam • Rizio Yohannan
PART II: THE POLITICS OF CASTE
4. Shambuk’s Severed Head • Omprakash Valmiki, Translation by Aaron Sherraden
5. Recasting Shambuk in Three Hindi Anti-Caste Dramas • Aaron Sherraden
6. The Killing of Shambuk: A Retelling from a Director’s Perspective • Sudhanva Deshpande
PART III: INTERROGATING THE ANTI-HERO
7. Ravana Center Stage: Origins of Ravana and King of Lanka • Paula Richman
8. Ravana as Dissident Artist: The Tenth Head and Ravanama • Rustom Bharucha
8a. Script of The Tenth Head • Vinay Kumar
8b. Script of Ravanama • Maya Krishna Rao
PART IV: PERFORMING GENDER
9. The Making of RāmaRāvaṇā: Reflections on Gender, Music, and Staging • Hanne M. de Bruin
10. Writing Her “Self ”: The Politics of Gender in Nangyarkuttu • Mundoli Narayanan
PART V: CONVERSATIONS AND ARGUMENTS
11. Reflections on Ramayana in Kutiyattam • David Shulman, Margi Madhu Chakyar, and Dr. Indu G., in conversation with Rustom Bharucha
12. Questions around Rām Vijay: Sattriya in a MonasticTradition • Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami with Parasmoni Dutta, Paula Richman, and Rustom Bharucha
13. Performing the Argument: Ramayana in Talamaddale • Akshara K.V.
PART VI: BEYOND ENACTMENT
14. Revisiting “Being Ram”: Playing a God in Changing Times • Urmimala Sarkar Munsi
15. The Night before Bhor  rti: Play and Banarasipan in the Ramnagar Ramlila • Bhargav Rani
16. The Challenges Ahead: Researching the Ramayana Performance Tradition • Rustom Bharucha
List of Performance Traditions
Glossary
List of Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Performing the Ramayana Tradition

Performing the Ramayana Tradition Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments

Edited by

PAU L A R IC H M A N A N D RU ST OM B HA RU C HA

1

3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Richman, Paula, editor. | Bharucha, Rustom, 1953– editor. Title: Performing the Ramayana tradition : enactments, interpretations, and arguments / edited by Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020043366 (print) | LCCN 2020043367 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197552506 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197552513 (paperback) | ISBN 9780197552537 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Vālmīki. Rāmāyan. a. | Vālmīki—Adaptations. | Tulasīdāsa, 1532–1623. Rāmacaritamānasa. | Kampar, active 9th century. Rāmāyan. am. | Performing arts—Religious aspects—Hinduism. | Performance—Religious aspects—Hinduism. | Acting—Religious aspects—Hinduism. Classification: LCC BL1139.27 .P374 2021 (print) | LCC BL1139.27 (ebook) | DDC 294.5/922—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020043366 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020043367 DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Paperback printed by Marquis, Canada Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America

In memory of Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami and Veenapani Chawla

Contents Preface and Acknowledgments: The Journey of the Book  Note on Transliteration 

xi xvii

PA RT I :   O R I E N TAT IO N S A N D B E G I N N I N G S 1. The Ramayana Narrative Tradition as a Resource for Performance  Paula Richman 2. Thinking the Ramayana Tradition through Performance  Rustom Bharucha 3. Where Narrative and Performance Meet: Nepathya’s Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam  Rizio Yohannan

3 29

50

PA RT I I :   T H E P O L I T IC S O F C A ST E 4. Shambuk’s Severed Head  Omprakash Valmiki Translation by Aaron Sherraden

63

5. Recasting Shambuk in Three Hindi Anti-​Caste Dramas  Aaron Sherraden

65

6. The Killing of Shambuk: A Retelling from a Director’s Perspective  Sudhanva Deshpande

83

PA RT I I I :   I N T E R R O G AT I N G T H E A N T I - H ​ ERO 7. Ravana Center Stage: Origins of Ravana and King of Lanka  Paula Richman

97

8. Ravana as Dissident Artist: The Tenth Head and Ravanama  Rustom Bharucha

123

viii Contents

8a. Script of The Tenth Head  Vinay Kumar 8b. Script of Ravanama  Maya Krishna Rao

129 142

PA RT I V:   P E R F O R M I N G G E N D E R 9. The Making of RāmaRāvaṇā: Reflections on Gender, Music, and Staging  Hanne M. de Bruin

161

10. Writing Her “Self ”: The Politics of Gender in Nangyarkuttu  Mundoli Narayanan

186

PA RT V:   C O N V E R S AT IO N S A N D A R G UM E N T S 11. Reflections on Ramayana in Kutiyattam  David Shulman, Margi Madhu Chakyar, and Dr. Indu G., in conversation with Rustom Bharucha 12. Questions around Rām Vijay: Sattriya in a Monastic Tradition  Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami with Parasmoni Dutta, Paula Richman, and Rustom Bharucha 13. Performing the Argument: Ramayana in Talamaddale  Akshara K.V.

213

238

257

PA RT V I :   B EYO N D E NAC T M E N T 14. Revisiting “Being Ram”: Playing a God in Changing Times  Urmimala Sarkar Munsi

281

15. The Night before Bhor Ārti: Play and Banarasipan in the Ramnagar Ramlila  Bhargav Rani

298

Contents  ix

16. The Challenges Ahead: Researching the Ramayana Performance Tradition  Rustom Bharucha

321

List of Performance Traditions  Glossary  List of Contributors  Index 

333 335 343 347

Preface and Acknowledgments: The Journey of the Book The idea of this volume emerged during the third Ramayana festival held at the Adishakti Laboratory for Theater Arts and Research in Puducherry (Pondicherry) in February 2011. For many years, Adishakti has experimented with traditional narratives, performance techniques, and psychophysical disciplines, adapting them in contemporary productions, many of which have dealt with mythological figures from Indian epics. In 2009, Veenapani Chawla, the Artistic Director and Managing Trustee of Adishakti, asked Bharucha to serve as a coordinator of discussions with artists, gurus, and audiences at the first festival. He continued to play this role for the remaining two festivals while collaborating with Chawla as the co-​Artistic Director between 2010 and 2011. Richman gave an illustrated talk about representations of Ravana at the third festival. The festivals’ format featured a performance each evening and an open-​ ended discussion the following day. Each performance drew from the Ramayana narrative tradition, testifying to the diverse ways in which parts of the narrative have been staged through specific modes of enactment, dramaturgy, music, costume and makeup, actor training processes, and histories of interpreting the Ramayana in particular social contexts. Richman, who has published three earlier volumes which analyzed many narratives and retellings around the Ramayana story, found herself elated and intrigued by the performances. Bharucha’s experience at the festivals, as well as his training in theater and research in the field of performance studies, compelled him to study the performance registers of what happens to Ramayana texts when they become embodied through diverse enactments in different Indian performance traditions. Ours was never a purely text-​based exploration of Ramayana performances in India. Much less has been written about the performance traditions than the narrative traditions: the actual modalities, processual dynamics, and, above all, context-​ sensitive individual histories of diverse performance traditions of Ramayana have been relatively less studied. As co-​editors, our goal was not to produce a synoptic, panoramic overview of the field; such an

xii  Preface and Acknowledgments: The Journey of the Book overview results in generalizations and the perpetuation of stereotypes, with little attention to the nuances and complexities of individual performances. Therefore, we focused on more regional and local renderings of the Ramayana performance tradition in India within the material, aesthetic, and social contexts of different groups and individual artists, located in specific regions, cities, and villages. This book does not, therefore, provide a monolithic perspective on the Ramayana tradition in performance. Instead, the case studies that appear in this book affirm only too clearly that this tradition is as varied and densely textured in performance as its texts in their written languages and literary genres. The key question that this volume explores is: what happens to the textual traditions of the Ramayana when its diverse retellings are interpreted and embodied through a spectrum of performances? The three primary rubrics that we have selected for the overall editing of the volume are enactment, interpretation, and argument. Our contributors deal with each of these categories as they allow research questions to emerge through context-​specific inquiries and patterns across different essays and interviews to bring them into conversation with each other and readers of this volume. Three of the productions addressed in this book—​Usha Nangiar’s performance of Mandodari in the Nangyarkuttu tradition, Maya Krishna Rao’s Ravanama, and Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam’s RāmaRāvaṇā—​were staged at the Adishakti Ramayana Festival. But the essays written about them, as indeed all the other essays and interviews in this volume, were specially commissioned, written, critiqued, and revised over an eight-​year period. During this time, ours has been for the most part a long-​distance collaboration, with Richman having taught at Oberlin College in Ohio, followed by her retirement in Wellfleet, in the United States. Bharucha was based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, followed by his retirement in his home-​city of Kolkata (Calcutta) in India. The volume took eight years to complete because, as editors, we knew that we had to investigate for ourselves how diverse Ramayana traditions are performed and received in their respective locations. Conversations and direct engagements with performers were crucial to our research. So, while Adishakti stimulated our decision to work on the volume together, there was a long journey ahead. Our journey took us to multiple sites to meet many of the practitioners and scholars represented in this volume. For instance, we traveled to Majuli island in Assam to interview Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami, a respected authority on the medieval saint, social reformer, and playwright Sankaradeva

Preface and Acknowledgments: The Journey of the Book  xiii (1449–​1568), whose one play relating to the Ramayana story, Rām Vijay, stimulated the interview published in this book. We visited the Ninasam Theatre Institute located in the village of Heggodu in Karnataka, where we engaged with the verbal performance tradition of Talamaddale. Here we were in a better position to understand its subtleties in relation to the robust physical and musical tradition of Yakshagana, which we had experienced at the Idagunji Mahaganapati Yakshagana Mandali in the village of Gunavante, Karnataka. We also spent time watching the Sanskrit performance tradition of Kutiyattam at Moozhikkulam, Kerala, along with many other aficionados of Ramayana, at an annual festival organized by Nepathya. On an earlier trip to Kerala, we had interacted with some of the most creative exponents of Nangyarkuttu, the “sister tradition” to Kutiyattam, at Natana Kairali in Irinjalakuda, and Chathakutam Krishnan Nambiar Mizhavu Kalari in Chathakutam, both located in the state of Kerala. We also spent time at the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam based in the village of Punjarasanthankal near Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, where students from underprivileged backgrounds received regular schooling along with professional training in Kattaikkuttu (also called Terukkuttu by some practitioners in the field). We also found ourselves returning to two bases: the Kiralur Retreat for Arts Research in Kerala, where we were able to analyze our fieldwork, and the campus of Adishakti, where we could consult the videography from the three Ramayana festivals and converse with Vinay Kumar, Nimmy Raphel, and other members of the Adishakti team, on the experimental dimensions of the Ramayana tradition. Despite such travel, we were not able to cover all regions of India. We were keen to include an essay and transcription of a special musical rendering of the Ramayana as interpreted by a group of Mewati Jogis. But, sadly, the untimely death of the leader of the group, Umar Farukh Mewati, prevented us from doing so, even though the sheer virtuosity and humor of his storytelling enhanced our understanding of verbal art in performance. We also acknowledge that many of our experiences and interviews with different artists, gurus, and theater organizers do not appear in the volume due to limitations of space. Nonetheless, they have influenced the shape of this volume immensely. Further, our experiences with performers doing Ramayana in different ways enlivened our experience as editors. We attempted to balance the scholarly research in the essays with insights gained from conversations with performers in the field. Therefore, this volume features a variety of voices, in

xiv  Preface and Acknowledgments: The Journey of the Book different modes of commentary, supplemented by play texts, interviews, and photographs. This multivocality of the diverse analyses and interventions in this volume testify to our belief as editors in the Ramayana’s ceaseless capacity to retell itself in different media and languages. We hope that your journey through this volume will compel you to arrive at your own conclusions about the performative iterations of the Ramayana tradition. We would like to acknowledge the active collaboration of our numerous contributors to the volume, who have been gracious and patient in making the complex journey of this book so dialogic and cogent. Although some of them may have somewhat different perspectives on the Ramayana from our own (and the two of us did not always agree in our analyses), the conversation generated around these differences has proved to be mutually productive and illuminating. More conversations in academic forums were held with the faculty and students of the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU); with Molly Kaushal and her staff at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts; with participants attending a conference on orality at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Shimla; and with Sundar Sarukkai and his colleagues at the Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities at Manipal University. Some funding for the project at various stages was provided by the Dean’s Office of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oberlin College, the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association, the UGC–​UPE grant awarded to Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), for which we are grateful. Arundhati Ghosh and Sumana Chandrashekar of IFA have been well-​wishers of the project from its inception. At a more personal level, we would like to thank Michael Fisher for his help with formatting and preparing the manuscript for publication, including the index; Jazmin Guerrero for her recording work in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka; Samik Dasgupta for his help with the transcription of some interviews and the preparation of the glossary; Aaron Sherraden for his expert guidance in matters relating to the use of diacritical marks in three languages; Kavita Singh and Sourav Roy for alerting us to sections of the visual archives of the Ramayana; Courtney Kain and Nepathya Srihari Chakyar for their assistance in recording interviews at Nepathya; Prathish Narayanan for his photography of the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam; Kesavan Nambudiri for his overall management of our stay in Kerala and for his lively conversation and insights into matters relating to performance; and the students of Oberlin College in seminars on the Ramayana tradition, as well as the students of the

Preface and Acknowledgments: The Journey of the Book  xv School of Arts and Aesthetics at JNU attending the seminar on regional performance traditions. As editors, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to Cynthia Read, Executive Editor of Oxford University Press, New York, for her unfailing support of the book through the final stages of the manuscript into production. We also benefited greatly from the generous reports of two anonymous readers of our manuscript, which helped us to inflect the narrative of the volume in productive ways. In addition, we thank Drew Anderla, Brent Matheny, Leslie Johnson, Aishwarya Krishnamoorthy, Dorothy Bauhoff, Archanaa Rajapandian, and other members of the OUP team, for answering myriad questions about preparing the manuscript for publication at a particularly tense point in time when the COVID-​19 pandemic presented enormous difficulties in sustaining the production process of the book. Finally, we dedicate this book to the memory of two major contributors to the volume: Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami, who shared his deep knowledge of Sattriya with extraordinary generosity, and Veenapani Chawla, whose inspiration and close engagement with the Ramayana story helped us to begin our journey. PAULA RICHMAN Wellfleet, United States

RUSTOM BHARUCHA Kolkata, India

Note on Transliteration We have designed this volume for general readers, Ramayana scholars, and performance theorists and practitioners. To ensure maximum accessibility for general readers, terms in Indian languages with italics and diacritical marks are used sparingly. Therefore, we employ widespread anglicized spellings for familiar words that appear often in the volume: characters (e.g., Sita, Mandodari, Ahalya), places (e.g., Ayodhya, Lanka, Panchavati), and authors of texts (e.g., Valmiki, Kamban, Chandravati, Tulsidas). Indian terms found in English dictionaries (e.g., veena, raga, avatar) appear without diacritical marks or italicization. Diacritical marks and italics are used for the first mention of any performance term in each chapter—​for example, attaprakaram (āṭṭaprakāram; actor’s manual). Subsequent use of the word in that chapter appears only in its anglicized form without italics (e.g., attaprakaram). No diacritical marks are used for the names of performance traditions (e.g., Kathakali, Ramlila, Sattriya) but we include these names with diacritical marks in the “List of Performance Traditions” for reference at the back of the volume. Following this list is a glossary with conceptual terms and categories in different Indian languages, most of which are represented with both anglicized and diacritical marks. Titles of texts in Indian languages appear in italics with diacritical marks each time they occur (e.g., Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi, Nāṭyaśāstra). In productions where an act or episode is a stand-​alone performance, we treat an individual act’s name as a title (with diacritics and italics). Also, quotations from Indian-​ language texts or dialogue from plays appear in italics with diacritical marks where needed. We have followed the exact spellings of production titles used by practitioners in their publicity material, such as RāmaRāvaṇā (with diacritical marks) and Ravanama (without diacritical marks). Seeta Swayambara’s title includes a regional pronunciation; in Bengali, “v” and “w” are pronounced “b.” While being aware of local and regional variations in spelling characters’ names within the Ramayana narrative, our practical concern to enhance the

xviii  Note on Transliteration reader’s ability to identify continuities across regions has led us to minimize variations in characters’ names. Therefore, the major distinction we have maintained is between “Rama,” used in Sanskrit (including verses and songs) and in South Indian languages, and “Ram,” used in regions such as North and East India (in Chapters 12, 14, 15). Moreover, since Chapters 4–6 all deal with Hindi productions, the Hindi “Shambuk,” not “Shambuka,” is used here. A more minute differentiation in the use of diacritics appears in Chapters 10 and 11, where two somewhat different transliteration systems for Malayalam have been used by scholars. For those drawing on regional usages and pronunciation in Kerala, the word nirvahanam from Kutiyattam is rendered as niṟvahaṇaṃ, as opposed to nirvahaṇam, which draws more directly from the Indo-​European Sanskrit tradition. Wherever necessary, we have inserted multiple spellings of a particular category in the glossary (e.g., abhinaya/​abhiṉaya/​abhiṉayaṃ). “Ramayana,” when italicized with diacritical marks, refers to the Rāmāyaṇa of Valmiki. Without diacritical marks, it refers to the core story, so in “the Ramayana tradition” or “the Ramayana narrative,” no diacritics are used. Where helpful, some compounds have been broken into their constituent parts. For example, a dash before “kāṇḍa” enables non-​specialists to readily identify the section of the narrative under discussion (e.g., Bāla-​ kāṇḍa, Uttara-​kāṇḍa).

Figure 1.  Nepathya Srihari Chakyar demonstrating mudras (hand gestures) while narrating the story of Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam at the Nepathya institute, Moozhikkulam, Kerala. 1.1 ājña – command; 1.2 bhārya – wife; 1.3 duhkham – sorrow; 1.4 muṭakkuka – obstruct. Photo credit: Prathish Narayanan, courtesy of Rustom Bharucha.

Figure 2.  Featured in several Shambuk-​related publications by Samyak Prakashan, New Delhi, notably Niraparādh kī Hatyā (2016) with cover design by Shant Kala Niketan. Photo credit: Samyak Prakashan, courtesy of author.

Figure 3.  T. K. Soman as Shambuk in Janam’s production of Śambūk-​Vadh performed in September 2005 at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Photo credit: Janam, courtesy of author.

Figure 4.  Kalamandalam Shanmukhan [C. Shanmukhadas] as Ravana enacting Tapassāṭṭam at Oberlin College, Ohio, in October 2010. Photo credit: Shankar Ramachandran, courtesy of author.

Figure 5.  R. S. Manohar [Lakshmi Narasimhan] as Ravana in Ilaṅkēswaraṉ (King of Lanka) in Madras in 1956. Photo credit: Natya Shodh Sansthan, theatre archives, Kolkata, included in entry on Manohar in The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre, ed. Ananda Lal (2004), courtesy of author.

Photo credit: Anoop Davis, courtesy of author.

Figure 6.  Vinay Kumar as Tenth Head in Adishakti’s production of The Tenth Head reflecting on Icarus and notions of flight.

Figure 7.  Tenth Head meeting Sita for the first time. Photo credit: Anoop Davis, courtesy of author.

Figure 8.  The Actor (Maya Krishna Rao) discovers Ravana while reading the morning newspaper. Photo credit: S. Thyagarajan, courtesy of author.

Figure 9.  The Actor creates Sita, the character. Photo credit: S. Thyagarajan, courtesy of author.

Figure 10.  “Disgust” in the “Michael Jackson” sequence. Photo credit: S. Thyagarajan, courtesy of author.

Photo credit: P. Rajagopal, courtesy of author.

Figure 11.  Archival photograph from the 1930s of the Kattaikkuttu company owned by P. Rajagopal’s father. Although the production Pulēntiraṉ Kaḷavu is from the Mahabharata, the image provides historical evidence of Kattaikkuttu costumes and makeup. 1st right standing, front row: Vayalur Rattinam—​Kaṭṭiyakkāraṉ (clown); 3rd right: Rajagopal’s father, C. Ponnusami in female role; 4th right: Munnusami in kaṭṭai vēṣam role; 1st left: C. Balakrishnan, in Drama costume.

Figure 12.  Shurpanakha played by P. Thilagavathy in RāmaRāvaṇā. Photo credit: Kattaikkuttu Sangam/​A. Prathap, courtesy of author.

Figure 13.  The two clowns in RāmaRāvaṇā played by P. Moorthy and M. Duraisamy. Photo credit: Kattaikkuttu Sangam/​A. Prathap, courtesy of author.

Figure 14.  An image of Usha Nangiar performing Ahalya in Ahalyāmōkṣam at Government Sanskrit College, Tripunithura, Kerala, December 27, 2016. Photo credit: Ramesh Varma, courtesy of author.

Figure 15.  Usha Nangiar performing Cintāviṣṭayāya Sīta at Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, Kerala, January 17, 2019. Photo credit: Ramesh Varma, courtesy of author.

Figure 16.  Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami, Sattradhikar of the Natun Kamalabari Sattra, Majuli, Assam. Photo credit: Parasmoni Dutta, courtesy of Parasmoni Dutta.

Figure 17.  Sri Jagannath Bhuyan, a monk of Natun Kamalabari Sattra, playing the role of Vishwamitra in a performance of Rām Vijay at Natun Kamalabari Sattra, on Mahāpuruṣ Śañkaradev’s anniversary, Majuli Assam, August 2019. Photo credit: Samiron Goswami, courtesy of Parasmoni Dutta.

Figure 18.  A scene from Rām Vijay performance: Ram and Lakshman fighting the demoness Tadaka, on their way to Vishwamitra’s hermitage. Performance by the monks at Natun Kamalabari Sattra on Mahāpuruṣ Śañkaradev’s anniversary, Majuli, Assam, August 2019. Photo credit: Samiron Goswami, courtesy of Parasmoni Dutta.

Figure 19.  Niranjan Saikia from the Uttar Kamalabari Sattra, Majuli, playing the Sutradhara in a bhāonā performance at Majuli Auniati Hemchandra Higher Secondary School, 2014. Photo credit: Dipak Boruah, Uttar Kamalabari Sattra, courtesy of Parasmoni Dutta.

Photo credit: Ninasam Theatre Institute, courtesy of author.

Figure 20.  A Talamaddale performance in action: (top) Prabhakara Joshi performing a role with accompanists; (bottom, left to right) significant performers from the past and present: Sheni Gopalakrishna Bhat, Perla Krishna Bhat, and Sarpangala Ishwara Bhat.

Figure 21.  Urmimala Sarkar Munsi in a heroic stance as Sri Ram in a 1994 production of Seeta Swayambara produced by Uday Shankar India Culture Centre, Kolkata. Photo credit: Uday Shankar India Culture Centre, courtesy of author.

Photo credit: Bhargav Rani, courtesy of author.

Figure 22.  Waiting for Bhor Ārti, Ramnagar Ramlila, 2011.

PART I

OR IE N TAT ION S A ND BE GIN N ING S

1 The Ramayana Narrative Tradition as a Resource for Performance Paula Richman

Where does the Ramayana narrative begin and end? The question sounds straightforward, yet no single answer applies to every textual rendition. Most pre-​colonial Hindu narratives which retell Rama’s story begin with his birth on earth, but Chandravati’s 16th-​century Bengali telling of the story opens with Sita’s birth.1 Some retellings of the story end triumphantly with Rama’s coronation and the inauguration of his dharmic rule. Others, such as a set of women’s songs, take the story onward to narrate Sita’s trials as a “single” parent, raising her sons at Valmiki’s ashram. The Indian Ramayana tradition encompasses many retellings in hundreds of literary works of different lengths and narrative arcs. Consider, for example, how differently the story unfolds in these two examples. A brief one in Telugu consists of just three words: kaṭṭe, koṭṭe, tecche, “built [the bridge to Lanka], beat [Ravana], brought [back Sita].”2 The12th-​century Irāmāvatāram [The Descent of Rama] in Tamil appears near the opposite side of the spectrum in length; even without counting its extensive interpolations, it runs to more than 10,000 verses.3 Selectivity shapes where and how a retelling starts and ends, as well as which episodes receive emphasis. Selectivity plays an even greater role in how events from the Ramayana tradition are represented in performance. The long and complex Ramayana narrative contains so many episodes and characters that it is rarely performed today in its entirety.4 Most enactments

1 For an English translation of this unique text, see Bose and Bose (2013). 2 Velcheru Narayana Rao, a Telugu scholar, shared this three-​word summary with me. 3 The oldest extant Irāmāvatāram manuscript dates from 1578, but some later ones include up to 12,000 couplets, many added significantly later by Velli Tampiran (Blackburn 1996: 30). 4 A noteworthy exception is the Ramlila of Ramnagar, which includes recitation of the entire Rāmcaritmānas by Tulsidas over 30–​31 days. See Rani’s Chapter 15 in this volume. Paula Richman, The Ramayana Narrative Tradition as a Resource for Performance In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0001

4  Orientations and Beginnings focus on one or a few linked episodes (episodic treatments) or consist of greatly simplified plots (condensed treatments) presented in language accessible to their audience. The analysis of Ramayana performances in this volume reveals intriguing patterns in selection of episodes, choice of linguistic registers, and decisions about what to elaborate or condense. To avoid confusion, the co-​editors of this volume use a consistent set of terms to refer to different renditions of the Ramayana story. Valmiki’s ancient Rāmāyaṇa epic, whose origins lie in bardic songs in praise of warriors’ valor, presents Rama as a courageous warrior and ideal king. (Rāmāyaṇa in italics with diacritical marks refers to Valmiki’s text. Without them, “Ramayana” refers to the core story.) In contrast, “devotional Ramayanas,” composed in Indian regional languages centuries later, represent Rama as fully divine on earth and praise his compassionate salvific deeds. “The Ramayana tradition” refers to the diverse corpus of texts and enactments that tell the story. Neither a synopsis nor synthesis of multiple texts, the phrase encompasses Indian Ramayana renditions collectively. Performing the Ramayana Tradition contains two introductory essays, 10 essays on specific performances, three translations, two play scripts, and two sets of interviews—​organized into six parts. Each part engages with issues shared in two or more performances of episodes from the Ramayana tradition. The essay which you are reading provides a road map for the volume, showing how each performance in each part draws (or does not draw) on previous written or oral texts, but first we turn to the narrative units that inform Ramayana performances.

Narrative Units The Ramayana narrative arc contains seven units called kandas (kāṇḍas; “books,” “cantos,” or “sections”). Familiarity with the contents of the kandas enables readers to locate enactments within the narrative’s arc. The earliest, extant, full, literary text in the Ramayana tradition, Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, begins with the kanda that tells of Rama’s birth on earth and concludes with the kanda that recounts his return to heaven.5 Valmiki’s depiction of

5 Robert Goldman, general editor of the authoritative, seven-​volume, annotated, English translation of the Rāmāyaṇa, concludes that the text’s oldest parts date to the mid-​6th century bce (1984: 22–​23) and the final kāṇḍa to no later than the 2nd or 3rd centuries ce (2017: 69).

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  5 Rama’s story has been expanded, condensed, reordered, supplemented, recast, rejected, opposed, allegorized, and critiqued by authors over the centuries. Yet, his division of the story into six (or sometimes seven) kandas largely endures in most Hindu retellings. To those familiar with the core story, a kanda’s name quickly calls to mind specific events, characters, and settings. The first three kandas narrate episodes that lead to Ravana’s abduction of Sita. Bāla-​kāṇḍa focuses on Rama’s youth (bāla), dealing with his unusual birth, initiation into his warrior duties, victory in the bow contest, and marriage to Sita. Ayodhyā-​kāṇḍa relates the dynastic crisis in the capital city of Ayodhya, which propels Rama’s exile to the forest and Bharata’s rule as regent. Araṇya-​kāṇḍa depicts events in the forest (araṇya), where Shurpanakha offers to marry Rama and is disfigured by Lakshmana when she tries to attack Sita. Ravana’s revenge for his sister’s mutilation and his desire for Sita lead him to abduct her and carry her off to Lanka. The next three kandas culminate with the war between Rama and Ravana. In Kiṣkindhā-​kāṇḍa, Rama secures as an ally Sugriva (exiled ruler of the monkey kingdom of Kishkindha) by slaying Sugriva’s usurping brother. In return, Sugriva sends his monkey army to locate Sita. In Sundara-​kāṇḍa (sundara means “beauty”), Sita refuses Ravana’s offer of marriage and fixes her mind on Rama. Hanuman locates Sita in Lanka and assures her that Rama will soon rescue her. Yuddha-​kāṇḍa depicts battles (yuddha) in the war. After many losses on each side, Rama slays Ravana, Sita proves her purity, and Rama ascends the throne, inaugurating his ideal rule. Rāmāyaṇa includes another kanda, uttara (final), which most orthodox Hindus also attribute to Valmiki.6 Textual historians, however, view much of the Uttara-​kāṇḍa as a later work due to its heterogeneous content and a style that differs from that of previous kandas. Sanskritist Sheldon Pollock distinguishes between two different ways of understanding the history of Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa. Philologists concern themselves with the text’s “genetic history” (how the text grew into its present form), assuming that a text changes over time as new layers are added, so they view textual passages which contradict each other as proof that one was a later interpolation.7 In contrast, the text’s “receptive history” refers to how pious Hindus revere the text; to them it is irrelevant if one part of the text was written after the others,

6 For an astute introduction and helpful notes, see Sattar’s translation of Uttara-​kāṇḍa (2016). 7 Pollock (1991: 5–​6).

6  Orientations and Beginnings since the whole Rāmāyaṇa attributed to Valmiki is perceived as a sacred and indivisible text. Uttara-​kāṇḍa’s longest backstory, which fills nearly half of the kanda, recounts Ravana’s ancestry, birth, and deeds.8 It also depicts two controversial deeds during the reign of Rama: his beheading of Shambuka, a Shudra, and his banishment of pregnant Sita. The Ramayana tradition encompasses a range of themes, including protection of ascetics, proper marital alliances, a son’s duty to his father, friendship, valor in war, upholding social hierarchy, and educating princes. Most of them appear in the enactments analyzed in this volume.

Situating the Volume’s Endeavor The volume brings together case studies that display different kinds of diversity in enactments drawn from Ramayana narratives. Performances studied include enactments from different historical periods and Indian regions. All the productions in the volume have been staged in recent years; most continue to be part of the repertoire of specific performance traditions. The volume’s authors examine these enactments to tease out how they represent Ramayana events and characters while adhering to (or departing from) the conventions of individual performance traditions. In the process, the volume reveals multiple narrative strands within the Ramayana tradition. In doing so, it also highlights some of the ways that playwrights have conceptualized—​ and performers have represented—​episodes that exemplify these strands. The majority of published scholarship on the Ramayana tradition focuses on literary works, in manuscript or print, that recount or take the story for granted. Yet Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa includes an account of its first recitation by Rama’s sons, thereby locating oral performance at the start of the textual lineage: Valmiki trained Rama’s twin sons, Lava and Kusha, to perform his Rāmāyaṇa, which is “sweet both when recited and when sung” and “eminently suitable” for accompaniment with drums and stringed instruments; the boys are described as excelling in “articulation and modulation” while singing the poem.9 Furthermore, until the mid-​20th century, literacy in

8 Robert Goldman and Sally Sutherland Goldman call this account of Ravana “a mini-​epic in itself ” (2017: 6). 9 Bāla-​kāṇḍa 4: 6–​9 (Goldman, trans. 1984: 132).

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  7 India was limited to small elite groups, so performances—​recitations, musical performances, and physical enactments—​served as major ways to disseminate the story. Thus, focusing on performances of the Ramayana narrative deepens our understanding about how most Indians have encountered the story. The volume’s contributors ask new questions about Ramayana-​ based enactments, both well-​studied ones and ones that have been little studied. For example, the longest and most elaborate Ramlila, performed in Ramnagar (Varanasi) for audiences of thousands, has received more attention from scholars than any other Ramayana performance in India. Shaktibhadra’s Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi [The Wondrous Crest-​Jewel], enacted in the Kutiyattam tradition, has also received meticulous scrutiny in Sanskrit, Malayalam, and English studies. These two performances richly deserve the attention that scholars have paid to them.10 Yet, by contextualizing them on a spectrum of Ramayana enactments, rather than in isolation, the Ramnagar Ramlila and Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi can be viewed in fresh ways. The volume also analyzes less well-​known enactments, so readers who know only local productions can learn of others. Thus, the volume demonstrates the centrality of performance to the Ramayana tradition’s diversity. The volume expands and extends Kapila Vatsyayan’s pioneering study of Ramayana-​based performances (1975: 54–​100) by also analyzing enactments in Sanskrit (Kutiyattam) but also in regional languages, such as Tamil (for Kattaikkuttu), Kannada (Talamaddale), and Brajabuli (Bhāonā). Some performance traditions have been ignored or shortchanged in standard surveys of Indian theater, but this volume takes each case study seriously within the framework of the Ramayana enactments across India. For example, outside of Karnataka, few have heard of the verbal art called Talamaddale; Akshara K.V.’s Chapter 13 in the volume provides the first analysis in English of strategies it uses to debate about complex episodes from the Ramayana tradition. Moreover, secondary literature about Indian performance traditions that include Ramayana-​based productions tends to focus largely on legends of its 10 Space limitations make it impossible to cite all secondary literature on the Ramnagar Ramlila, but the following exemplify diverse approaches: Schechner and Hess (1977); Kapur (1990); Kumar (1995); Hess (2006); Lothspeich (2020). A team of scholars published a translation and analysis of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi in Jones, ed. (1984). Another volume by Margi, edited by P. Venugopalan (2009), brings together for the first time the āṭṭaprakāraṃs (acting manuals) for seven acts (including three manuscripts from Ammannur Madhava Chakyar) and krāmadīpikas (production manuals) for six acts of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi. Also see the regularly updated bibliography on Kutiyattam, under Heike Oberlin (Moser)’s supervision: https://​publikationen.uni-​tuebingen.de/​xmlui/​handle/​10900/​46921.

8  Orientations and Beginnings origins, enumerations of certain guru/​disciple lineages, comments on its aesthetics, accounts of styles of costumes and makeup, and/​or appreciative writing about a few famous artists, without considering its relation to other forms of Ramayana-​based arts in the region. A notable exception is the Ramayana tradition in Odisha, which has received more intensive study than other regions due to Joanna Williams’s analysis of its literature, sculpture, illustrated palm leaves, and performance (1996).11 The essays in this volume also contextualize specific performance traditions in relation to, among other issues, political changes, issues of caste and gender, and the economics of production. Furthermore, because the volume contains multiple case studies of performance traditions, larger patterns emerge than if looking at only one performance tradition. In addition, the volume encompasses multiple kinds of voices. They include remarks of Kutiyattam performers and scholars after a performance of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi and excerpts from conversations with the head of a monastery that stages devotional dramas. In one essay, a director recounts how Marxist teachings led to a production with caste violence as its core plot: in another essay, a theater connoisseur who has regularly attended Talamaddale for several decades shares observations about its arguments. One essay shows how local legends represent the power of improvisation. Another scrutinizes prefaces to printed playscripts for clues about publication history. By bringing together voices of playwrights, actors, scholars, and spectators, the volume reveals how differing interpretations of Ramayana episodes circulate in society.

Part I: Orientations and Beginnings Part I in this volume provides three ways to orient readers to Ramayana-​based performances. This chapter, “The Ramayana Narrative Tradition as a Resource for Performance,” focuses on texts (e.g., those by Kamban, Sankaradeva, Valmiki) that shape how performers enact episodes. By understanding the textual lineages of the Indian Ramayana tradition, scholars of theater and performance and general readers can see how playwrights and performers interpret, enact, and innovate

11 The case differs somewhat for Mahabharata narratives of the Pandavas and Krishna. For example, Aparna Dharwadker analyzes plays drawn from the Mahabharata narrative during the modern period (2005). Also see M. L. Varadpande’s Mahabharata in Performance, which contains an overview of its episodes from various performance traditions (1996). For stories of Krishna’s life, see Norvin Hein’s study of Ramlila and Raslila plays in Mathura (1972: 129–​271) and John S. Hawley on enactments of Krishna’s deeds, especially in Vrindavan (1981).

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  9 within the Ramayana tradition. Next, Rustom Bharucha’s Chapter 2, “Thinking the Ramayana Tradition through Performance,” orients general readers and Ramayana scholars by analyzing relevant Indian terms dealing with theater and performance across regions and performance traditions to facilitate a critical grasp of the psychophysical, dramaturgical, and contemporary registers of Ramayana performances. A third approach to the Ramayana tradition emerges from looking at the narrative’s role for beginning students of Kutiyattam, a centuries-​old Sanskrit theatrical form whose plays are still enacted in India’s southwestern state of Kerala today. Chapter 3, “Where Narrative and Performance Meet: Nepathya’s Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam,” is introduced and translated from Malayalam into English by Rizio Yohannan. This Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam [Ramayana Condensed] forms part of a lineage of summaries, which first appear in Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa itself. Some scholars view them as vestiges of memory aids that ensured accurate transmission by bards who recited oral narratives in court. The first chapter of Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa contains a summary called Saṃkṣipta Rāmāyaṇa [Condensed Ramayana], which provides a retrospective account of how Valmiki composed his Rāmāyaṇa.12 First, he heard Narada, a celestial seer, summarize Rama’s deeds. It was only after this summary that Valmiki created a new poetic meter, meditated, and composed his text. Thus, Valmiki transformed Narada’s summary into a memorable poetic work. Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam, too, plays a transformative role as the initial text through which students of Kutiyattam learn to perform memorable works of theater. Yohannan analyzes how its linguistic and temporal features facilitate learning Kutiyattam’s basic gestures and expressions; students master the skills and aesthetics of their art by watching, hearing, and imitating their guru who enacts the summary. Its pedagogical role attests to the pivotal role of Rama’s story in India’s oldest continuous performance tradition.13

Part II: The Politics of Caste This volume’s Part II includes a poem and four plays that criticize the outcome of the story of the Shudra named Shambuka, which first appears in the Uttara-​kāṇḍa attributed to Valmiki. The story legitimates the social hierarchy 12 Saṃkṣēpam and saṃkṣipta both derive from the Sanskrit sam (together) and the verb root kṣip (to condense, concentrate, compress), each denoting a concise summary. 13 What is often labeled Kutiyattam’s Ramayana trilogy consists of Aścaryacūḍāmaṇi, Pratimānāṭakam [The Mirror Play], and Abhiṣekanāṭakam [The Coronation Play]. Many scholars attribute the latter two plays to Bhasa.

10  Orientations and Beginnings prescribed in brahminical texts, which divides humans into four ranked categories called varnas (varṇas). Brahmins (priests and teachers), Kshatriyas (warriors), and Vaishyas (merchants) are classified as “twice-​borns,” having two births: a physical one and later a ritual one that qualifies them to study sacred texts. Thus initiated, according to brahminical texts, they are eligible to perform tapas (asceticism). In contrast, those texts define Shudras as servants, whom it ranks as the lowest and most polluting varna, denies study of sacred texts, and forbids to perform tapas. The Sanskrit story culminates with Rama maintaining the varna hierarchy by beheading Shambuka for practicing tapas. This first extant narration of Shambuka’s story contains four components, each stressing that one must never perform the duties of a varna other than one’s own. The first component depicts a Brahmin entering Rama’s court, carrying his son’s corpse. He accuses the king of failing to uphold the social order because a son would never die prior to his father in a well-​governed kingdom. Second, Sage Narada warns King Rama that if a Shudra performs tapas, it threatens the order of the cosmos, so the miscreant must be executed immediately. I call the third component the “textual seed;” it depicts Rama interrogating Shambuka, who is practicing extreme austerities. Warning the ascetic to speak the truth, Rama asks Shambuka’s varna and the goal of his tapas. Shambuka replies that he was born a Shudra and has engaged in tapas to attain “the status of a god in this very body.” Even before Shambuka finishes speaking, Rama decapitates him. The fourth component describes sages and gods lauding Rama, certifying that Shambuka’s beheading is unambiguously worthy of praise. In 20th-​and 21st-​century plays in this cluster about Shambuka (Hindi, Shambuk), the only component that remains is the textual seed, providing the basis for condemnation of upper-​caste violence against Shudras. Part II begins with Chapter 4, “Shambuk’s Severed Head,” written by acclaimed poet and writer, Omprakash Valmiki (1950–​2013), translated by Aaron Sherraden from Hindi into English. “Valmiki” at the end of the poet’s name signals a connection between the allegedly low social rank into which Omprakash was born and the ancient author of Rāmāyaṇa. Legend says that the original Valmiki was born into a family of robbers, a group that brahminical texts classify as “impure.” Since they viewed Valmiki as polluting, he was not judged worthy to chant Rama’s pure name. Instead, he was given the mantra “marā” which, repeated constantly (ma-​rāma-​rāma), meant that he uttered Rama’s name inadvertently, thereby accumulating merit. The

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  11 Dalit caste into which Omprakash Valmiki was born claims Valmiki as its ancestor.14 “Shambuk’s Severed Head” assumes familiarity with the seed of Shambuk’s story and charges that self-​proclaimed Rams today continue to murder Shambuks, while society turns a blind eye to such atrocities. The two remaining essays clustered in Part II examine the story’s textual seed as it developed between the 1930s and the present. Sherraden’s Chapter 5, “Recasting Shambuk in Three Hindi Anti-​Caste Dramas,” shows how a network of Hindi publishers in North India printed plays about Shambuk’s life and sold them at Dalit gatherings and local melās (fairs) starting in the 1930s. The plays all feature (or take for granted) the textual seed of the interrogation and beheading of Shambuka. He is portrayed as a disciplined and articulate ascetic who contravenes prohibitions against Shudras performing tapas. The playwrights transform Valmiki’s solitary forest ascetic into a teacher at whose ashram his followers imbibe self-​respect. After he is martyred to prevent others from emulating his actions, his students unite to prevent future upper-​caste violence against them. Part II’s last essay, Chapter 6, on “The Killing of Shambuk,” by director Sudhanva Deshpande, recounts how Jana Natya Manch (People’s Theatre Front, known as Janam), a Marxist-​inspired street theater group, used Shambuk’s beheading as the core of a 2004 play written to spread leftist ideals. Janam staged “The Killing of Shambuk” in more than 50 proscenium and open-​air productions in Delhi, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. The play also integrated elements that expanded its scope, such as a subplot (a love story), dramatic variety (a play within a play), and humor (a tale where a clever laborer outwits a cruel landowner), but at its core lay the Shambuka story’s textual seed. At least five textual strands about Shambuka circulate in India. We know that the first strand occurs in the Uttara-​kāṇḍa attributed to Valmiki. The second strand, which appears mainly in Jaina texts, casts Shambuka as Shurpanakha’s son, whom Lakshmana kills. A third strand in Hindu devotional retellings portrays those slain by Rama as attaining moksha (eternal dwelling in Vishnu’s heaven); these texts praise Shambuka’s killing as motivated by Rama’s compassion because it enables Shambuka to attain the 14 For the Valmiki caste, see Lynch (1969), Juergensmeyer (1982: 169–​180) and Leslie (2005). Besides an autobiography, Omprakash wrote a history of the Valmikis. Valmiki sanitation workers in North India made newspaper headlines in 1988 by refusing to collect garbage until the serial Rāmāyaṇ, which appeared on the state-​sponsored television channel, added the episode in which (their alleged ancestor) Valmiki sheltered Sita in his ashram, which the serial had not included.

12  Orientations and Beginnings highest spiritual goal. A modern Kannada retelling of Shambuka’s story alters events so that Rama does not kill Shambuka; instead, after Shambuka uses his accrued tapas to save the Brahmin from death, he realizes that all ascetics deserve his respect.15 These strands differ strikingly from the fifth strand, featured in the “Politics of Caste,” built around the textual seed of Shambuka’s story and its present-​day implications.

Part III: Interrogating the Anti-​Hero Part III focuses on Ravana. Sanskritist Sheldon Pollock argues that in Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, Ravana represents “the demonization of the Other,” but is this claim also true of post-​Valmiki performances?16 The two essays in this cluster indicate that the situation is far more complex than Pollock’s statement indicates. In Chapter 7, “Ravana Center Stage,” I examine Tapassāṭṭam [The Performance of Tapas], an improvised sequence inserted into the Kathakali work titled Rāvaṇodbhavam [Origins of Ravana], shortly after the work’s debut in 1780.17 I juxtapose it with Manohar’s 1954 Tamil mythological drama, Laṅkēswaraṉ [King of Lanka], where Ravana abandons his daughter when he learns that she is destined to destroy Lanka. The second essay in this cluster, Bharucha’s Chapter 8, “Ravana as Dissident Artist,” analyzes two recent avant-​garde Ramayana performances in English, juxtaposing Vinay Kumar’s The Tenth Head with Maya Krishna Rao’s Ravanama. The performance texts of both the productions, written by Kumar and Rao, are included along with Bharucha’s critical annotation. Tapassāṭṭam draws directly from sargas 9–​10 of the Uttara-​kāṇḍa attributed to Valmiki, yet Kapalingattu Nambudiri’s small yet pivotal changes in emphasis transform the story’s outcome. By comparing the first part of Tapassāṭṭam with the Uttara-​kāṇḍa verses upon which Nambudiri draws, I show the result of his tiny modifications. In Uttara-​kāṇḍa, when Kaikasi (Ravana’s mother) sees Kubera (Ravana’s half-​brother) cross the sky in his father’s majestic aerial chariot, Kaikasi declares that both boys were sired 15 For Jaina tellings, see ­chapter 3 in Sheradden (2019). An early form of the devotional strand appears in Bhavabhuti’s Uttararāmacarita (Pollock, trans., 2007: 145–​146). For the Kannada play by K. V. Puttappa and a Tamil play, see Richman (2008: 129–​148), and for a Telugu play, see Narayana Rao (2001: 159–​177). These southern retellings are little-​known in North India. 16 Pollock (1993: 21). 17 Rāvaṇodbhavam is generally regarded as the first Kathakali work with an anti-​hero (prati-​ nāyaka) as its central character.

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  13 by the same father, but Kubera took his father’s wealth, leaving Ravana none. This account depicts Kaikasi as a second wife jealous of the privileges obtained by Kubera, the first wife’s son. Kaikasi incites in Ravana an ambition to perform asceticism that will allow him to surpass his half-​brother. In contrast, centuries later in the 1780s, Tapassāṭṭam depicts Ravana hearing Kaikasi weeping out of fear that her inferior status as second wife will deprive Ravana of privileges enjoyed by Kubera. To prove to his mother that Ravana can overcome the limitations of his birth, he goes off to perform asceticism that eventually brings higher status to Kaikasi. Because Nambudiri’s slight alterations show that Ravana conducted tapas neither out of greed nor egotism, the audience realizes that the goal of his harsh self-​mortification was to end his mother’s sorrow. Therefore, Ravana appears in a more altuistic and sympathetic light in Tapassāṭṭam than the Ravana in the Sanskrit Uttara-​kāṇḍa. Laṅkēswaraṉ, the Tamil mythological drama written and first staged in 1954 by Manohar, who also starred as Ravana, made excellent use of Manohar’s talent for finding a hitherto unrecognized nobility in “evil” characters. He borrowed aspects of Ravana’s character from Kamban’s Tamil Irāmāvatāram [The Descent of Rama] at a time when Tamil scholars and antiquarians had successfully revived interest in Kamban’s text, hailing it as proof of the nobility, continuity, and epic scope of Tamil culture, which they linked with Ravana’s Lanka.18 Although Kamban reserved his highest praise for Rama, he also endowed Ravana with the pivotal qualities of the ideal ruler found in Tamil’s earliest war poems: he led his warriors to victory and used war booty to enrich his realm. Manohar also borrowed an incident in which Ravana’s infant daughter was put in a box and placed in the sea from the Sanskrit Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa (ca. 15th century). Far from undermining the play’s success, the two borrowings from older texts attracted enthusiastic Tamil audiences, who attended 1,800 performances of the play in India and Ceylon. Turning to Bharucha’s essay, which highlights two avant-​garde interpretations of Ravana, Vinay Kumar’s The Tenth Head focuses on a conflict between Ravana’s Tenth Head and the other nine heads. Although the script refers to some individual events from the Ramayana story (e.g., the protective circle drawn by Lakshmana to protect Sita), the production connects to Ravana primarily through independently envisioned imagery, graphics, and

18 Cutler (2003: 279, 301–​305).

14  Orientations and Beginnings video, with no elaborate retelling of episodes from any familiar Ramayana text. Over the centuries, artists have faced challenges when they depict Ravana with a central head: since four heads extend outward on one side of the central head and five heads extend outward on the other side, the visual representation is uneven. Kumar uses this iconographic asymmetry to critique social collectives that demand complete conformity to their norms. In the play, Ravana’s Tenth Head regularly dissents from coercion and military violence that the nine heads perpetrate on those who do not submit to their dictates. The Tenth Head’s major strengths lie in its innovative performative dimensions and multimedia inputs, analyzed in Bharucha’s essay with annotation of Kumar’s play text. This experimental theatrical work presents one of Ravana’s heads in an unprecedented way. Maya Krishna Rao’s Ravanama assembles fragments drawn from multiple texts to emphasize Ravana’s impressive physique, enjoyment of life’s pleasures, and sheer power to obtain what he wants. Rao draws on a fragment from Valmiki’s account of Hanuman’s visit to Lanka, where he enters a palace bedchamber and is dazzled by Ravana’s magnificent sleeping body (V:8). Ravanama also refers to a song sung by some Telugu-​speaking Brahmin women about how Shurpanakha lures Sita into drawing Ravana’s big toe, the only part of him that she saw in captivity. Then, the drawing metamorphoses into an animation of Ravana, which seeks Sita’s love, thereby inciting Rama’s jealousy that causes him to banish Sita to the forest. Rao even incorporates a scene from a recent Tamil short story by “Ambai” (C.S. Lakshmi), where Ravana teaches Sita to play the veena. Rao’s choice of fragments deconstructs notions of Ravana as utterly evil and highlights his unique presence.19 Part III illustrates how four playwrights shape distinctive representations of Ravana as more complex and sympathetic than a mere demonization of the Other. Tapassāṭṭam supplies a different motivation for Ravana’s tapas and evokes sympathy for Ravana and his mother as members of a low-​ranked group who fight to gain respect in a hierarchical society. Manohar modifies relations between characters to reinterpret how the actions of Ravana, his wife, and his siblings lead to Ravana’s death. Kumar’s focus on Ravana’s iconography enables him to utilize video, animation, and graphic art to depict a dissident artist battling a hostile society. Rao’s assembly of fragments from 19 During a post-​performance conversation, Rao identified a key performance that shaped her view of Ravana: the intensity and single focus of Tapassāṭṭam in Kathakali. As an actress who has created her own one-​person show on Ravana, she vividly recalls how a Kathakali actor enacts Tapassāṭṭam, sitting alone “in deep reflection, holding the entire space of the stage.”

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  15 multiple texts allows her to perform Ravana as a larger-​than-​life archetypal presence who enjoys pleasure to its fullest, while challenging the norms of established society.

Part IV: Performing Gender Part IV investigates the complexities of performing male and female identities and highlights factors that facilitate or discourage actresses from performing on stage, where the preponderance of Indian theatrical productions has long featured only men, who play male and female characters. In doing so, the two essays probe the nature of a performer’s agency in relation to the Ramayana tradition and Indian society at large. Hanne M. de Bruin analyzes a Tamil play that draws mainly on Kattaikkuttu theatrical conventions to critique patriarchal norms embedded in the Ramayana narrative. Mundoli Narayanan details the process by which Usha Nangiar first reconstructed and enacted solos of female Ramayana characters that were part of the Nangyarkuttu repertoire, yet now are almost never performed.20 Then she began to create and enact her own solos that engage with the dilemmas of women in Kerala today. Bruin’s Chapter 9, “The Making of RāmaRāvaṇā,” analyzes a probing and boundary-​breaking play developed at Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam, a residential school that trained talented girls and boys from socially underprivileged backgrounds in theater and performance.21 The gurukulam promoted women’s presence and voices on stage in Kattaikkuttu, which continues to be a nearly all-​male performance tradition in rural Tamil Nadu. P. Rajagopal, who comes from a family of Kattaikkuttu performers and was trained in it from childhood, composed RāmaRāvaṇā, taught it to students, and directed it. The play’s nonlinear structure focuses on episodes where Ravana and Rama (via Lakshmana), perceiving their power and honor to be under threat, respond by perpetrating violence on women: Lakshmana mutilates Shurpanakha (at Rama’s order), Ravana abducts Sita, and Rama rejects Sita after her rescue from captivity. Intriguingly, the major roles in RāmaRāvaṇā were all played by girls and young women.

20 Henceforth, I refer to Usha Nangiar as “Usha,” as she is known in the Nangyarkuttu world. 21 Bruin was program director and main fundraiser at the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam. After training a new generation of female and male performers, the school closed in the spring of 2020.

16  Orientations and Beginnings By focusing on how both Rama and Ravana use women as pawns in male rivalry, the play deconstructs binary oppositions between the demonic and the divine, as well as adharmic and dharmic modes of conduct. The play also dismisses binary opposition between Sita and Shurpanakha by representing each as beautiful and independent.22 RāmaRāvaṇā draws on Irāmāvatāram’s verses for song lyrics, quotes the passage in Kamban’s text where Rama refuses to accept Sita back as part of this play’s dialogue, and depicts Rama as being unaware of his divinity. During the play, a crown symbolizing power and rule hangs above the stage; as the play ends, Sita pauses briefly under it and then exits the stage, while the lyric of a song poignantly asks where a just king is hidden. It asks that the king come forward to govern in an enlightened way. Narayanan’s Chapter 10, “Writing Her ‘Self,’ ” traces how Usha revived and expanded female solos in the Nangyarkuttu repertoire, thus imbuing them with a contemporary sensibility. The Nangyarkuttu performance tradition consisted largely of actresses performing solos of female characters who appear in the Kutiyattam repertoire; Nangyarkuttu is called a “sister” form to Kutiyattam since both share the same theatrical conventions, yet over time, female solos had nearly vanished. Some writers attribute their loss to an oral tradition that claims it is inauspicious to portray the pañcakanyās (five virgins):23 Sita, Tara, Ahalya, and Mandodari (four of the five) come from the Ramayana story. In 1980, when Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, the doyen of Kutiyattam performers and teachers, decided to resume training students in Nangyarkuttu, Usha studied with him and also immersed herself in Kutiyattam manuscripts of production and acting manuals. She discovered that Nangyarkuttu had once been replete with female solos, even ones later proscribed as inauspicious. Realizing that the manuals served to authorize reviving women’s solos, Usha reinstated and enacted several female characters in accord with directions from the manuals. For example, in the production manual on Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi, she learned about a solo on Mandodari (Ravana’s wife), which included its first and last verses. After commissioning a Sanskrit

22 Valmiki depicted Shurpanakha as ugly, but Kamban set a precedent in southern depictions of Shurpanakha in Irāmāvatāram, where she adopts a beautiful form when she approaches Rama. 23 Rama banished Sita because she was abducted by Ravana. Tara was Vali’s wife, who was appropriated by Sugriva. The husband of Ahalya cursed her for adultery with Indra. Mandodari, born to Maya and a celestial apsara, married Ravana, who was a rakshasa. For analysis of the five virgins, see Bhattacharya (2019).

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  17 scholar and Kutiyattam connoisseur to compose suitable poetry for the rest, Usha enacted the solo, to great acclaim. In 2019, she received a request to create a solo for the 100th publication anniversary of Kumaran Asan’s 1919 Malayalam poem, Cintāviṣṭayāya Sīta [Sita in Reflection], which poet and Malayalam scholar K. Satchidanandan characterizes as interrogating “the whole value system that led to her [Sita’s] tragedy.”24 Perceiving how presciently Kumaran Asan depicted patriarchy as trapping Sita and Rama in a gilded cage, Usha created and enacted Sita not as a passive wife, but rather a woman becoming conscious of the culturally constructed gender roles that rob individuals of agency. The case studies in Part IV analyze two ways that girls and women have gained access to the stage and have claimed agency as performers. The Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam trained girls for the stage by educating them to enact female and male roles and by staging productions in which they were treated as equals to boys. By training a new generation of actresses, the school prepared them to combat attempts to exclude them from future theatrical productions. In a different context, consulting manuscripts of Kutiyattam manuals led Usha to realize that Nangyarkuttu actresses possessed more agency in the past than in the present, so she used their textual authority to revive old solos. Then, in the new solos she created, she challenged male representations of female characters. Thus, she modeled how Nangyarkuttu performers could not only recover and expand their repertoire but also increase their exercise of agency.

Part V: Conversations and Arguments Part V explores discourse about the Ramayana tradition in verbal interactions among those who enact, watch, teach, or administer enactments drawn from it. In Chapter 11, Bharucha interviews a scholar of South Indian texts and two Kutiyattam performers. Chapter 12 contains excerpts from a set of conversations with the head of a preeminent Vaishnava sattra (monastery) led by a scholar researching monastic culture in Assam, along with this volume’s co-​editors. Akshara K.V.’s Chapter 13, “Performing the Argument,” examines episodes in Talamaddale, a Kannada verbal performance tradition, in which actors play Ramayana characters who argue about morality,

24 Satchidanandan (2005: 150). See Asan’s poem in English translation (Yohannan 2008: 64–​87).

18  Orientations and Beginnings controversies, and ambiguities in the narrative, drawing on Kannada retellings. The interviews in Chapter 11, “Reflections on Ramayana in Kutiyattam,” occurred after a multi-​night performance of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi’s final act concluded. They reveal different ways that textual scholar David Shulman, actor Margi Madhu Chakyar, and actress Dr. Indu G.—​the latter two affiliated with the Kutiyattam cultural center Nepathya—​approach Kutiyattam. Shulman has studied Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu literary texts for many decades; only much later in life did he watch Kutiyattam performances at Nepathya with deep intensity over many years. In contrast, Madhu Margi and Dr. Indu G. began study of Kutiyattam by learning Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam and then spent an extended period in physical training, engaging with textual interpretations only afterward. In addition, Shulman encountered Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi’s acts sequentially as he read the play-​text, while the two performers learned each of the play’s acts as separate productions. Despite differences in how they interact with texts, all three concur that the intricacies of time and imagination play pivotal roles in enacting Ramayana-​based works from the Kutiyattam tradition. Chapter 12, “Questions around Rām Vijay,” provides excerpts from three days of conversations with Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami, led by Parasmoni Datta, along with Richman and Bharucha. They begin by discussing Rām Vijay, one of the six one-​act plays written by Sankaradeva. Incorporating dance, mimetic acting, songs, and percussion, the plays helped Sankaradeva and his disciples spread Vaishnava bhakti (devotion) in Assam. Sankaradeva also founded the sattra (monastic order), where, among other duties, senior monks train talented novices to enact devotional plays. Rām Vijay portrays the youthful deeds of Rama: defeating demons who harassed Vishwamitra’s ashram, stringing the bow and marrying Sita, and encountering Parashurama.25 Rām Vijay lauds Rama’s protection of sages and superior skill in archery. It also provides a model of devotion by stressing Sita’s love for Rama, not only in this life but in her past one. Sankaradeva also introduces humor in depicting Vishwamitra, whose ascetic practice should have endowed him with equanimity of mind and control over his emotions. Instead, when he beholds Sita’s beauty, he faints; when he sees Parashurama,

25 Medhi (1997: lix–​lx) analyzes the selection of episodes in Rām Vijay, commenting on ones which appear (or do not appear) in Sankaradeva’s retelling of incidents from the Bāla-​kāṇḍa.

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  19 he trembles in terror. As I watched the play, the audience laughed heartily at these scenes, as I did. The monks venerate Krishna as the Supreme Lord, yet Rām Vijay, which was written at a royal patron’s request, focuses on another avatar of Vishnu, Rama, whom followers of Sankaradeva consider less powerful than Krishna. In order to contextualize the apparent anomaly of Rām Vijay, the interview with Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami covers a wide-​ranging discussion of devotional, philosophical, and monastic frameworks in Assam that directly affected Sankaradeva’s conflicts with local kings, his familiarity with Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa in Assam’s textual lineage, and the pivotal role played by worship in the nāmghar (community prayer hall), which is also the primary performance space of Sattriya. These factors illuminate aspects of Krishna-​centric Assamese Vaishnavism that shape how Rām Vijay represents Rama. Akshara K.V.’s “Chapter 13, Performing the Argument,” explains how Yakshagana and Talamaddale both rest on a corpus of vocal music that serves as a musical reservoir from which the bhāgawata (vocalist) selects which songs to sing in a specific performance. After a song, actors improvise dialogue which is neither written down nor considered part of the prasanga (prasaṅgas; text of an episode). Although these features are common to both Yakshagana and Talamaddale, the two forms have become increasingly differentiated over the last 40 years.26 While Yakshagana uses vivid costumes, towering headgear, choreographed footwork, and, at times, adaptations of plots and music from films, Talamaddale concentrates on verbal art; actors wear ordinary clothing, sit while performing, and retain their focus on religious stories. Further, Talamaddale actors use their improvised dialogues to showcase their specialized skills: some emphasize emotions, others assemble their arguments according to logic in philosophical texts, and yet others represent characters in domestic settings. Actors generally receive their assigned roles only upon arriving at a venue, so the most talented excel at being ready to play any major character (e.g., Rama one day, Ravana the next). Talamaddale spectators watch debates that resemble statements of opposing lawyers in court, listen to arguments that unfold according to the rules of philosophical logic, and laugh at humor that—​at times—​resembles present-​day standup comedy.

26 My discussion here was enriched by conversations with, and performances by, Yakshagana and Talamaddale artists and also spectators in Karnataka in January 2011 and December 2016.

20  Orientations and Beginnings Pioneering Parti Subba (ca. 17th century) composed prominent prasangas based on episodes in the Ramayana tradition. Some Talamaddale actors draw directly on Kannada retellings from which the prasangas drew, especially Narahari’s 16th-​century Torave Rāmāyaṇa and Lakshmisha’s 15th–​16th-​century Jaimini Bharata. They also draw on recent sources, such as Helavanakatte Giriyamma’s women’s ballad and K. V. Puttappa’s Rāmāyaṇa Darśaṇa, which interweaves ideas from Freud and Sri Aurobindo. The two alternative titles used for one of Parti Subba’s most often performed works, Vāli Vadhe [Slaying Vali] or Vāli Mōkṣa [Saving Vali], illustrate Talamaddale’s openness to differing interpretations; the former title interprets Vali’s killing as a cruel deed, while the latter title interprets it as a salvific act since it releases Vali from the cycle of death and rebirth. Akshara calls Talamaddale a “cultural forum for arguing with texts and previous performers” because when actors perform competing interpretations of an episode, they preempt any claim that an episode must only be interpreted in one way. Actors playing Ramayana characters and Talamaddale audiences credit performances with engaging, informing, and sharpening their intellect. Part V explores ways of conversing about episodes that illuminate how various interpretations can coexist within Ramayana discourse. The conversations, interviews, and arguments reveal the dynamic nature of exchanges among performers and spectators of Ramayana episodes. They show how region, language, and religious affiliation have produced a robust body of diverse practices in performing the Ramayana tradition over time.

Part VI: Beyond Enactment Thus far, this volume’s essays analyze enactments and contextualize them in relation to textual traditions, language, and regions. The final part examines enactment but goes beyond it to study what happens after it ends. In Chapter 14, “Revisiting ‘Being Ram,’ ” Urmimala Sarkar Munsi reflects on not only 25 years of acting in Uday Shankar Indian Cultural Centre’s dance-​drama, Seeta Swayambara, but also events following performances. In Chapter 15, “The Night before Bhor Ārti,” Bhargav Rani investigates what audiences at the Ramnagar Ramlila do after a scene of the lila ends but before the next begins, especially on the night before the lila’s last day.

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  21 Seeta Swayambara, in which Sarkar Munsi played the role of Rama, was one of the most popular shows in the group’s repertoire. It drew on selected Bāla-​kāṇḍa episodes: Vishwamitra bringing Rama and Lakshmana to his ashram to defeat the rakshasas, the breaking of the bow that was Sita’s marriage test, and the wedding of Sita and Rama. Uday Shankar’s dance curriculum, designed in the 1940s and 1950s, required all students to study the “male” movements of Kathakali and the “female” movements of Manipuri dance, so Sarkar Munsi learned to enact “male” characters with specific walks, facial expressions, and gestures. To play Rama, Sarkar Munsi received a list of “dos and don’ts” that prescribed precisely how she must step, smile, and move. She learned to embody Rama with an upright spine and respond graciously when viewers came to her for divine blessings. Yet none of this prepared her for “being Ram” in two other ways. The day after she had enacted Rama on the previous night, the performers attended a lunch at the house of a prominent judge, and his wife prostrated herself on the floor in front of Sarkar Munsi. In doing so, she treated Sarkar Munsi as Rama incarnate, even though Sarkar Munsi had packed up her costume and was wearing everyday clothes. As a modest young 22-​year-​old woman, she felt uncomfortable when an elder treated her this way. In addition, and much more problematically, even while Sarkar Munsi modeled her facial expressions after a Sri Rama whose smile signified inner peace, Sri Rama was being appropriated by Hindutva forces in relation to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on the alleged birthplace of Sri Rama (Gopal 1991). Sarkar Munsi concludes with reflections on why dancers are subjected to (non-​explicit) constraints on their agency in relation to events outside the world of dance. Rani’s essay provides an ethnographic account of the activities of audiences at the Ramnagar Ramlila not only after, but also between enactments of Rama’s deeds. While this Ramlila has received more scholarly scrutiny than any other Ramayana-​based performance in India, Rani has nonetheless chosen a hitherto under-​analyzed aspect of it: waiting. And since, unlike Ramlila at any other site, the one at Ramanagar includes a month-​long recitation of the entire Rāmcaritmānas (often referred as “the Mānas”) by Tulsidas, the daily time spent waiting after the enactments of individual episodes adds up significantly. Between scenes, during the extended break for evening worship before the night’s performance, and then waiting for the auspicious moment for worship (ārti) at the end of each night, men in the audience nap or

22  Orientations and Beginnings roam the grounds to greet friends and kin, drink tea, eat savories and sweets, and exchange gossip. Furthermore, the night before the dawn of the final day of the Ramlila, Bhor Ārti, is the longest period of waiting, filled with the largest number of activities other than watching or chanting Ramlila. Rather than going home and returning in the early morning hours, lots of spectators, especially men, spend the night at the site in activities infused with banārasīpan, the local ethos of Varanasi/​Banaras that centers on leisure and pleasure. Rani argues that if one focuses only on the ritual drama without sufficient attention to the everyday practices pursued when the ritual drama is not being enacted, one misses a crucial part of the experience of attending the Ramlila of Ramnagar. In Bharucha’s comments in Chapter 16, “The Challenges Ahead: Researching the Ramayana Performance Tradition,” he reflects on what occurs during enactment and what occurs beyond it. He also highlights the larger implications of the political forces discussed in Sarkar Munsi’s essay and the nature of the “everyday” documented in Rani’s essay. Finally, he sets out some methodological issues to be considered for future research about performing the Ramayana tradition: the challenge of translation, the marginalization of the vocal registers in contrast to its psychophysical elements, the economics of grassroots and rural Ramayana performances, and the crucial difference between diversity and plurality in understanding the larger political resonances of the Ramayana tradition today.

Texts and Kandas as Resources Three texts have served as the most influential resources for the performances analyzed in this volume: the oldest one, Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa; the earliest devotional retelling in a regional literary language, Kamban’s Tamil Irāmāvatāram; the most widely known one in North and Central India today, the Awadhi Rāmcaritmānas by Tulsidas. Performances featured in this volume confirm that Valmiki’s text has served as a reference work for many playwrights. We have seen that Tapassāṭṭam reinterprets the motivations of Ravana and Kaikasi while otherwise holding tightly to the words of the Uttara-​kāṇḍa attributed to Valmiki. The same Uttara-​kāṇḍa served as a key source when the Sanskrit scholar, whom Usha had commissioned, consulted the Uttara-​kāṇḍa’s account of Mandodari’s parentage, birth, and marriage. In addition, a different debt—​to

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  23 the manner in which Valmiki’s Bāla-​kāṇḍa presents the text’s own genesis according to Sage Narada—​is taken for granted in the prologue to Manohar’s King of Lanka; there Ravana explains to Narada the correct way to tell the Ramayana narrative, so the sage will no longer circulate an inaccurate one. Two Tamil playwrights each draw on different parts of Kamban’s Irāmāvatāram to engage with contemporary debates of their day. Manohar’s Laṅkēswaraṉ follows Kamban by representing Ravana as a heroic chieftain-​ ruler, an ideal praised in classical Tamil poetry. By investing him with more nobility and grandeur than Valmiki does, Manohar tacitly acknowledges that Tamil ideologues of his day had elevated Ravana, whom they view as their unjustly betrayed ancestor, to a great Tamil hero. Nonetheless, Manohar’s final scene still depicts Rama’s triumphant coronation after slaying Ravana, in effect rejecting the ideologues’ claim that Rama was wrong to slay Ravana. Half a century later, RāmaRāvaṇā quotes from Kamban for quite another purpose. Rajagopal condemns Rama’s refusal to accept Sita back after captivity and points out that both he and Ravana used women as pawns in their rivalry. Thus, Rajagopal speaks to present-​day debates about women’s equality by disagreeing with a fundamental premise in Kamban’s text. The volume also analyzes Ramayana-​based performances that do not draw significantly from a specific text. Instead, Maya Krishna Rao’s Ravanama contains multiple fragments from written, oral, ancient, and recent tellings from the Ramayana tradition to highlight Ravana’s charisma. The Tenth Head by Vinay Kumar contains few references to texts, but he cites other Ramayana-​based performances in his use of gesture and music. Rao and Kumar each present original ways of thinking about Ravana and, in Kumar’s case, the relations between his heads. Despite widespread popularity in North and Central India, Rāmcaritmānas appears only in a limited way in this volume due to at least three contingent factors. First, Rani’s chapter on Ramlila focuses on what occurs after enactments and chanting Rāmcaritmānas has ended for the scene or for the day. Second, the Hindi playscripts analyzed by Sherraden focus on anti-​caste plays that enact Shambuk’s story as drawn from Valmiki’s text; the Uttara-​ kāṇḍa by Tulsidas does not include Shambuk’s story. Third, many village Ramlilas draw instead from Rādheśyām Rāmāyaṇ, a more accessible mid-​ 20th-​century text in modern Hindi.27



27 Lothspeich (2013).

24  Orientations and Beginnings More knowledge of Ramayana-​based episodes in performance traditions in North India in addition to Ramlilas may reveal a more complete picture of productions of episodes from the Ramayana tradition in the region. Equally welcome would be studies of textual influences on performances of episodes from the Ramayana tradition from languages such as Bengali (Bangla), Marathi, and other regional literary languages of India. Turning from texts to narrative units, it becomes clear that various playwrights draw from the same kanda in order to achieve different results. For example, Seeta Swayambara in the Uday Shankar dance repertoire and Sankaradeva’s Rām Vijay both focus on episodes from Rama’s youth, as set out in the Bāla-​kāṇḍa but, as the plays’ titles reveal, each performance has its own emphasis. Seeta Swayambara depicts Rama’s leaving Ayodhya and eventually arriving at King Janaka’s court, where his stringing of Shiva’s bow wins Sita’s hand in marriage. In contrast, Rām Vijay centers on Rama’s three victories in battle: with rakshasas harassing forest ascetics; with Sita’s suitors who jealously attack Rama when he strings the bow; and with a furious Parashurama. Moving from Bāla-​kāṇḍa to the other “outer” kanda, Uttara-​kāṇḍa, its heterogeneous content serves different purposes, depending on the performance tradition being enacted.28 The poem and plays about Shambuka’s tapas (in Part II) all draw from Valmiki’s Uttara-​kāṇḍa; each one contemporizes the story’s “textual seed” to contest the power of brahminical Hinduism over “lower” castes in present-​day India. Since Nambudiri’s Tapassāṭṭam, Usha’s Maṇḍōdariyuṭe Niṟvahaṇaṃ, and Maya Rao’s Ravanama also draw on the kanda, more plays analyzed in this volume draw on it than on any other kanda. Although some textual scholars dismiss the last kanda as “late,” that does not seem to deter playwrights and performers from authoring or enacting episodes from it. Among the middle five kandas, Araṇya-​kāṇḍa is the most frequently enacted among those analyzed in this volume. For example, Akshara’s essay examines impromptu dialogue inspired by a song about the beauty of the forest, illustrating how Talamaddale actors connect the song to a broader issue: how city life and forest life differ. Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi depicts the forest as a dangerous place, where rakshasas deceive Rama and Sita with māyā (illusion). RāmaRāvaṇā rejects the opposition between 28 Many textual scholars see the “outer kandas” (parts of the first and much of the last) as later interpolations by a later hand, and the “middle kandas” as the work of Valmiki.

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  25 deceitful Shurpanakha from the forest and virtuous Sita from the palace by representing both females as beautiful and independent in their own right. Moreover, the forest kanda contains some of the most dramatic episodes, many of which have significant elaboration or alteration by playwrights and performers. For example, Manohar radically alters Shurpanakha’s proposal of marriage to Rama; his father married three wives, so she wants to test whether Rama will remain faithful to Sita when he is propositioned. Episodes from Kiṣkindhā-​kāṇḍa appear in Yakshagana and Talamaddale, particularly in prasangas by Parti Subba. A striking example is a performance centered on an argument between Rama and Vali about whether Rama deviated from dharma by shooting Vali while concealed behind a tree. The prasanga seems tailor-​made for Talamaddale since the two characters debate about an incident which contains apparent ambiguities or contradictions; the complexity of Vali’s death ensures that two actors have sufficient evidence to debate opposing claims.29 The episode thus exemplifies an affinity between this kanda and Talamaddale conventions.

Conclusions Readers should keep in mind that the volume does not claim that the performances analyzed in this book—​or the scene depicted on its cover—​ represent the corpus of Ramayana performances as a whole. In the future, other scholars will probably focus on a different set of productions, which will help increase our knowledge of the diversity of such performances. This volume’s editors and contributors do not attempt to draw sweeping conclusions from their multiple findings. Instead, they seek to prompt, rather than foreclose, further study of performances that draw on the Ramayana tradition. Although many texts retell the story of Rama and Sita in different ways, this volume’s primary emphasis is not on texts but on performances, documenting how playwrights and performers have re-​ envisioned episodes from the Ramayana tradition, from the first recitation of Valmiki’s text to Usha Nangiar’s newly created solo on Sita in 2019. Performing the Ramayana tradition remains an endeavor that grapples 29 For Vali’s slaying in the Ramnagar Ramlila, see Kapur (1990: 130–​131); in Tamil-​Malayalam puppet plays, see Blackburn (1996: 82–​94), in Teyyam possession rituals, see Freeman (2001).

26  Orientations and Beginnings with ultimate concerns about duty, love, rule, and death. Since a range of Ramayana-​based performances have occurred so often over the centuries, it is worth considering that when the newly decolonizing nation of India selectively revived cultural narratives with the goal of uniting disparate groups, Hindu nationalists chose the Ramayana narrative as a “national” epic that told of a golden age of perfect rule. Later, state-​sponsored Ramayana cultural events and the televised Rāmāyaṇ in the mid-​1980s claimed that they brought together texts from most regions of India into one pan-​Indian framework. Yet, additional ways of interpreting and performing the narrative developed early in the history of its dissemination. This volume shows how the same episode can take on diverse meanings and outcomes when represented in accordance with conventions of specific performance traditions, in addition to the political circumstances of a production in a specific region. Performances analyzed in this volume show how arguments and differing perspectives are an intrinsic part of the Ramayana tradition. Conflict between brothers recurs across the Ramayana narrative, as suggested by the volume’s cover image. The ruling family of Ayodhya presents the most idealized fraternal relations, in which Rama and Bharata argue, each insisting that the other ascend the throne. In Lanka, two brotherly options unfold: Kumbhakarna vociferously disagrees with Ravana’s abduction of Sita yet sacrifices his life for Ravana in battle; in contrast, although Vibhishana also argues with Ravana, he later betrays kin and kingdom by revealing military intelligence about Lanka to Rama. In Kishkindha, Sugriva and Vali fight over territorial rights and try to kill each other. These three sets of siblings testify to the tensions that arise between kings and their brothers. At a different level, the cover of this volume calls to mind broader themes. Like most literary epics that have been appropriated for political ends, the Ramayana narrative leads inexorably to a violence justified by sectarian constituencies. Debates that develop about what defines proper action rest on discussions of moral behavior that play a major role in retellings of the story. Finally, the argumentative mode itself can be seen as part of a narrative tradition that encompasses many kinds of—​at times—​conflicting interpretations of episodes over time and across regions.

The Ramayana Narrative Tradition  27

Bibliography Bhattacharya, Pradip. 2019. The Panchakanya of India’s Epics: A Question in Search of Meaning, 2nd revised edition. Kolkata: Writers Workshop. Blackburn, Stuart. 1996. Inside the Drama-​House: Rama Stories and Shadow Puppets in South India. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bose, Mandakranta, and Sarika Priyadarshini Bose, trans. 2013. A Woman’s Ramayana: Candrāvatī’s Bengali Epic. London and New York: Routledge. Cutler, Norman. 2003. “Three Moments in the Genealogy of Tamil Literary Culture.” In Literary Cultures in History. Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock, pp. 271–​322. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dharwadker, Aparna. 2005. Theaters of independence: Drama, Theory and Urban Performance in India since 1947. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freeman, Rich. 2001. “Thereupon Hangs a Tail: The Deification of Vāli in the Teyyam Worship of Malabar.” In Questioning Ramayanas, a South Asian Tradition, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 187–​220, 384–​390. Berkeley: University of California Press. Goldman, Robert P., gen. ed. 1984–​2017. The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, an Epic of Ancient India, 7 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Goldman, Robert P., trans. 1984. The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India, Vol. 1: Balakanda. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Goldman, Robert P., and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, trans. 2017. The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, an Epic of Ancient India, Vol. VII: Uttarakāṇḍa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gopal, Sarvepalli, ed. 1991. Anatomy of a Confrontation: The Babri Masjid-​ Ramjanmabhumi Issue. New Delhi: Penguin Books India. Hawley, John Stratton. 1981. At Play with Krishna: Pilgrimage Dramas from Brindavan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hein, Norvin. 1972. The Miracle Plays of Mathura. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hess, Linda. 2006. “The Open-​ Air Ramayana: Ramlila, the Audience Experience.” In The Life of Hinduism, eds. John S. Hawley and Vasudha Narayanan, pp. 115–​139. Berkeley: University of California Press. Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts program. November 23–​29, 2015. New Delhi. Jones, Clifford Reis, V. Raghavan, D. Leela, A. Nambudrippad, and Betty True Jones. 1984. The Wondrous Crest-​Jewel in Performance: Text and Translation of the Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi of Śaktibhadra with the Production Manual from the Tradition of Kūṭiyāṭṭtam in Sanskrit Drama. Delhi: Oxford University Press and American Institute of Indian Studies. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 1982. Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th Century Punjab. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kapur, Anuradha. 1990 [1985]. Actors, Pilgrims, Kings and Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar. Calcutta: Seagull Press. Kumar, Nita. 1995: “Class and Gender Politics in the Ramlila.” In The Gods at Play: Lila in South Asia, ed. William Sax, pp. 156–​176. New York: Oxford University Press. Kunjunni Raja, K. 1964. Kutiyattam: An Introduction. New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi. Leslie, Julia. 2005. “The Implications of Bhakti for the Story of Valmiki.” In The Intimate Other: Love Divine in Indic Religions, eds. Anna S. King and John Brockington, pp. 54–​ 77. Hyderabad: Orient Longman.

28  Orientations and Beginnings Lothspeich, Pamela, ed. Spring 2020 (Special Issue). “The Field of Ramlila.” Asian Theatre Journal 37:1: 1–​245. Lothspeich, Pamela. 2013. “The Radheshyam Ramayan and the Sanskritization of Khari Boli Hindi.” Modern Asian Studies 47: 1–​34. Lynch, Owen M. 1969. The Politics of Untouchability: Social Mobility and Social Change in a City of India. New York: Columbia University Press. Medhi, Kaliram, ed. 1997 [1948]. [English] “Introduction.” In Aṅkāvalī, pp. 1–​ 80. Guwahati: Lawyers Book Stall on behalf of Kaliram Medhi Trust. Narayana Rao, Velcheru. 2001. “The Politics of Telugu Ramayanas: Colonialism, Print Culture, and Literary Movements.” In Questioning Ramayanas, a South Asian Tradition, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 159–​185, 382–​384. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pollock, Sheldon. 1993. “Rāmāyaṇa and Political Imagination.” Journal of Asian Studies 52:2: 261–​297. Pollock, Sheldon, trans. 1986. The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, an Epic of Ancient India. Vol. II, Ayodhyākāṇḍa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pollock, Sheldon, trans. 2007. Rama’s Last Act by Bhavabhuti. Clay Sanskrit Library. New York: New York University Press. Raghavan, V. 1984. “Introduction to the Translation of the Play.” In Wondrous Crest-​Jewel in Performance: Text and Translation of the Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi of Śaktibhadra with the Production Manual from the Tradition of Kūṭiyāṭṭtam in Sanskrit Drama, ed. Clifford Jones, pp. 1–​26. Delhi: Oxford University Press and American Institute of Indian Studies. Richman, Paula, ed. 1991. Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press. Richman, Paula. 2004. “Why Can’t a Shudra Perform Asceticism? Śambūka in Three Modern South Indian Plays.” In Ramayana Revisited, ed. Mandakranta Bose, pp. 125–​ 148. New York: Oxford University Press. Satchidanandan, K. 2005. “The Ramayana in Kerala.” In Retelling the Ramayana: Voices from Kerala, trans., Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan, pp. 145–​150. New Delhi: Oxford University. Sattar, Arshia, trans. 2016. Uttara: The Book of Answers. Gurgaon: Penguin Books. Schechner, Richard, and Linda Hess. 1977. “Ramlila of Ramnagar.” The Drama Review 21:3: 51–​82. Sherraden, Aaron. 2019. The Many Deaths of Śambūka: A History of a Rāmāyaṇa Story. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin. Smith, W. L. 1995. Rāmāyaṇa in Eastern India: Assam, Bengal, Orissa, 2nd revised edition. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. Varadpande, M. L. 2007. Mahabharata in Performance. New Delhi: Clarion Books. Vatsyayan, Kapila Malik. 1975. Ramayana in the Arts of Asia. Teheran: Asian Cultural Documentation Center for UNESCO. Williams, Joanna. 1996. The Two-​Headed Deer: Illustrations of the Ramayana in Orissa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yohannan, Rizio Raj, trans. 2008. “Sita Immersed in Reflection.” In Ramayana Stories in Modern South India: An Anthology, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 64–​ 87. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

2 Thinking the Ramayana Tradition through Performance Rustom Bharucha

How does the act of performance inflect, transform, or subvert the story of Rama? Do gestures, movements, dance, music, song, and spectacle have the capacity to illuminate thematic and conceptual insights that extend beyond what is available in written narratives? What are the affinities and points of departure between thinking about the Ramayana tradition at the levels of narrative and performance? In critical hindsight, I realize that these questions were sparked by my first sustained encounter with diverse performances of the Ramayana tradition at the three Adishakti Ramayana Festivals held in Puducherry between 2009–​2011.1 The festivals were memorable for the vibrant quality of their diverse performances, but, even more memorably, the discussions following the performances were animated, argumentative, and deeply felt. Listening to the gurus, performers, dancers, musicians, and scholars of multiple Ramayanas from Assam to Rajasthan and Kerala to New Delhi, I learned that performing the Ramayana tradition is, first and foremost, a practice that has been deeply studied, internalized, and yet remains open to being questioned and debated at diverse levels. It should come as no surprise, then, that one of the primary priorities of this volume, Performing the Ramayana Tradition, should be its focus on learning about the tradition from practitioners themselves, who are often marginalized, if not absented, in academic discourse.

1 Envisioned by Veenapani Chawla in collaboration with her actors at the Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Arts and Research, Puducherry, the essential idea behind the three Ramayana festivals was, in Chawla’s words, “to open the epic up to allow the many voices in and around the text to find release in new performance expressions and multiple interpretations” (unpublished note, November 27, 2014). The three festivals showcased 75 performances, including dance, theater, music, and puppetry, in addition to lectures, film shows, and discussions with the participants. For description and documentation of some of the events, see www.adishaktitheatrearts.com. Rustom Bharucha, Thinking the Ramayana Tradition through Performance In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0002

30  Orientations and Beginnings Yet performers are theorists in their own right, with much to contribute to understanding the material, hermeneutic, and experiential aspects of the Ramayana tradition. At one level, the discussions at the Adishakti festivals have provided this book with a set of case studies and a cluster of questions that stimulate study of Ramayana performances as a set of paramparās—​legacies which have been passed down over the years, if not centuries, through generations of performance knowledge transmitted from teachers to students within specific schools of thought or practice. At another level, I was surprised by the inscriptions of contemporary life and political culture that punctuated the critical observations made by the gurus and performers, who had no difficulty in holding forth on episodes from the Ramayana story. Get a Terukkuttu guru to respond to Rama as maryādā puruṣottam, the most supreme of men in terms of social propriety, and you will hear the anti-​ brahminical thrust of decades of Dravidian politics rearticulated with full force. Talk to a Nangyarkuttu performer about her view of Sita’s banishment and you will encounter a language that may not be cast in the idiom of the #MeToo movement but is strongly woman-​identified. Extend the discussion to those performers demeaned by the stigmatization of caste and you will have no other choice but to see Shambuka’s predicament in a Dalit context. Gender, caste, sexuality, power, identity, hierarchy, resistance: all these areas of debate and contestation came up in the exchanges at the Adishakti festivals with robust responses to the Ramayana tradition, whose associations with an ancient past could be more accurately described as confrontations with an ever-​renewing present. It would be a mistake, however, to reduce an understanding of the “contemporary” to just these social, political, and economic references. A more complex understanding of contemporaneity demands a close examination of the interrelationships between the material and aesthetic dimensions of performance. In other words, it is not just what the participants in the Adishakti festivals were saying about the general state of things in the world that mattered; rather, what mattered was the way in which they were calling attention to their positions within the dramaturgy and texture of their own performative interpretations of the Ramayana story. Therefore, in this introductory chapter, which provides an orientation for reading the performative dimensions of Ramayana in this book, I highlight the contemporary not so much in the use of multiple narratives of Ramayana at a thematic level; rather, I call attention to the actual performance vocabulary of specific

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  31 traditions, out of which interpretations of the Ramayana story are made possible through time-​tested legacies and training processes. This close engagement with the languages of performance makes the Ramayana tradition come alive in this volume in unprecedented ways. Readers need to keep in mind some axiomatic premises while reading this volume: no tradition is ever static or entirely pure; if so, it would have died a long time ago. Not only do traditions live through their own inner mutations, they also draw their energy from ceaseless interactions with other traditions. So, for example, the popular dance-​theater and musical tradition of Kattaikkuttu (also known by some as Terukkuttu) in Tamil Nadu draws on influences from the Drama (Nataka) tradition, and, less perceptibly, on the rural Devadasi tradition of performance, as demonstrated in this volume by Hanne de Bruin’s analysis in Chapter 9 of Kattaikkuttu’s “oral reservoir.” Another example of such interaction in this volume is to be found in Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami’s discussion in Chapter 12 of the Sattriya performance tradition at the monasteries of Majuli in Assam, which continue to show traces of the earlier storytelling tradition of Oja-​pali. In more modern theatrical productions, one encounters hybrid affinities with “company drama” and other forms of spectacular, proscenium-​framed commercial theater, a feature found in Paula Richman’s analysis in Chapter 7 of Manohar’s Laṅkēswaraṉ, a popular Tamil production from the 1950s. While the juxtaposition of elements from different genres may be detected across performance traditions, what is not so easily recognized are the infinitesimal changes that ever so slightly transform the inner energies of the performance. Costume changes, for instance, indicate different textures in performance—​old materials and colors may not be readily available. Likewise, the use of microphones or other technological devices in oral narrative traditions registers an alteration in the resonance of the voice. However, underlying these external changes, “inner” changes at psychophysical transformations of energy in acting can indicate more subtle markers of change. With change in any manifestation—​external or internal—​there is almost always some level of experimentation. The assumption that innovation can only manifest itself in post-​technological societies feeding the creative economy is overstated, if not patently false.2 Performance traditions across 2 See Bharucha (2009: 70–​75) for a critique of the “creative economy” and its appropriation of the concept of “innovation.”

32  Orientations and Beginnings the spectrum, from time-​tested ritual practices in the remotest villages to the modernist theatrical experiments of the metropolis, are always already in a state of flux, and innovations are happening all the time, even though they may not be recognized. Ironically, some of the regular features and conventions of performance traditions with pre-​modern histories may register as strangely avant-​ garde insofar as they exemplify, quite unconsciously, some of the most tenacious features of a postmodern aesthetics. Among these features, I would highlight long-​duration performances extending over days and weeks and itinerant site-​specific enactments of a single performance, as found for example in the Ramlila of Ramnagar. Another feature at the level of acting would include intense reflexivity in the juxtaposition of roles like “actor,” “character,” and “narrator,” as found in Kutiyattam. At a dramaturgical level, one could point out nonlinearity in narrative and improvisation as integral to performance structure, as found in the verbal art of Talamaddale. Most of all, I have been struck by the uncanny resemblance between pre-​ modern performance traditions and avant-​ garde works in the ways in which extra-​performative dimensions meld into the cultures of everyday life at the level of ritual and community participation, so much so that the distinctions between “performance” and “life” can become blurred. Through all these demonstrations of the affinities between performances across time, the reader of this volume is likely to find some tantalizing clues as to how so-​called traditions seem to have anticipated future possibilities of creative expression. Far from being stuck in the past, therefore, the Ramayana performance tradition can be said to illuminate the future in the present. But how exactly do we see “the present”? The philosopher Giorgio Agamben in his widely circulated and eloquent reflection on “What Is the Contemporary?” (2009) has argued that the contemporary is signaled through a rupture in time, a breaking point in history, and it is through this disjunction that the “contemporary” manifests itself through what he describes as “disconnection” and “anachronism.”3 Only those who are in a position to see this condition, according to Agamben, are in a position to perceive the contemporary. To what extent would this provocative reading apply to performative renderings of the Ramayana tradition? 3 Agamben (2009: 40).

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  33 For a start, Agamben’s perception of the contemporary rests on a notion of “singularity,” which runs counter to the broader communitarian contexts in which meanings generated around the Ramayana tradition tend to be mobilized. I refer here to groups of actors, scholars, gurus, and traditional performers, whose affinities and differences invariably converge around constituencies, whether these constituencies happen to be monasteries, as is the case with the Sattriya tradition in Assam, or caste-​bound and familial traditions like Kutiyattam in Kerala, or contemporary street theater groups like Janam in New Delhi, which have their own organizational and ideological links to political parties, trade unions, and activist groups. Even when there are strong individual interventions within traditional narratives of Ramayana, as is the case with avant-​garde performers like Vinay Kumar and Maya Krishna Rao creating their own postmodern deconstructions of Ravana, these interventions are almost always mediated by references to enactments in earlier performance traditions associated with specific gurus and groups. Conversely, a traditional performer like Usha Nangiar can bring to her performance of Nangyarkuttu a palpable sense of what David Shulman, in his interview in Chapter 11 of this volume, describes as “extreme personalization.” Significantly, this personalization is enhanced by its immersion in traditional conventions, codes, and disciplines. Drawing on these examples, I would argue that “tradition” in the Indian performance context is what enables us to define the “contemporary” not as a “rupture in time,” which Agamben sees so categorically as a sign of “contemporariness”; instead, I call attention to the complex relationship that exists between the past and the present, and, more specifically, the past in the present, which is what defines the “contemporary” in the Indian context. Let us take, for example, just one contemporary but vitriolic reference to the Ramayana story in an altogether unprecedented controversy which has died down almost as precipitously as it flared up between 2017 and 2018. This controversy centered around the blockbuster Bollywood film Padmavati, later renamed Padmaavat, which provoked a militant Rajput organization called Karni Sena to stage acts of violence on the film sets and in public spaces, in protest against the film’s allegedly erotic and dishonorable representation of the legendary Hindu queen Padmavati. The point relevant to the argument here is a particular threat made by a Karni Sena member: “Rajput Karni Sena is fighting to protect the image of women being portrayed in the films. We never raise a hand on women but if need be, we will do to Deepika [Padukone, the star of the film] what Lakshman did to Shurpanakha

34  Orientations and Beginnings for violating the rules and culture of India.”4 In other words, Padukone ran the risk of having her nose chopped off. A more chilling threat would be hard to imagine, although it remained at the level of intimidation rather than action. Note that Shurpanakha is being invoked to justify a vigilante measure sparked by the alleged excesses of misrepresenting Rajput honor in India today. Arguably, she is not just a point of reference, operating at the level of “disjunction” or “anachronism,” to invoke Agamben’s categories; she is a visceral memory, whose sexual provocation of the chaste Lakshmana deserves to be punished not just once, but in the here and now of contemporary India. Agamben, I believe, would be duly challenged by this threat, not least because when he theorized the “contemporary” through close readings of ancient Greek texts and European medieval treatises, he was not dealing with anything like the phenomenon of the “lived reality” of Ramayana as it continues to be invoked, embodied, politicized, and performed in myriad registers in India today. I stress “myriad registers” because Shurpanakha, like every other character in the Ramayana narratives of Valmiki, Kamban, Tulsidas, among other retellings of the Rāmākathā [the story of Rama], is never a monolithic figure, but an archetype that lives and breathes and changes within the immediacies of different contexts, discursive structures, arguments, and worldviews. In this regard, we need to confront a truism in any performance tradition, whether one is dealing with Ramayana or Mahabharata or any mythic or modern narrative: the point is not merely to understand a performance within the context of its conventions and techniques, its training process and protocols of representation, vital as these considerations may be for assessing the semantics of any performance. The more crucial question concerns what happens to a performance in the process of its unfolding. So, for instance, if one had to deal with any performance of Shurpanakha as played by a Kutiyattam artiste or by a feminist performer, we would need to ask: Who is Shurpanakha in that performance? What is the actor doing to the role? How does he or she become transformed in the process of playing the role? This is where questions relating to performance history are inevitably mediated by observations relating to the nuances of acting concentrated in specific gestures, movements, expressions, emotions, and energy, through which a very individuated Shurpanakha comes alive, while being embedded in the performance conventions and protocols of a particular tradition. 4 This statement was made by Mahipal Singh Makrana, president of the Sri Rajput Karni Sena in Rajasthan. Reported in The Asian Age, November 16, 2017. See also the news coverage on the Karni Sena agitation in India Today, November 16, 2017.

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  35

Languages of Performance In this volume, we are dealing with the Ramayana tradition in many Indian languages, including Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, and its derivatives at local and subregional levels. Some languages are more specialized, such as the use of Sanskrit with a heavy inflection of Malayalam for Kutiyattam performances, and Brajabuli, which is said to have been specially invented for the performance of Sattriya. There is no word in any of these languages that can be said to encompass “performance” at a generic level, as it has been theorized, and arguably hegemonized, in articulations of Theater and Performance Studies in English since the mid-​1970s. By no means should this be taken to imply that “performance” does not matter in understanding the diverse manifestations of the Ramayana story; rather, I argue that there is a gamut of highly nuanced and differentiated categories in Indian languages that suggest diverse aspects of acting, presenting, feeling, showing, exhibiting, transforming, and doing, all of which suggest the multidimensionality of “performance,” despite the absence of a single all-​encompassing term for “performance” across all traditions. In this section, I argue in favor of the word “enactment,” which is the category that is implicitly invoked in most of the contributions to this volume. More emphatically, the contributors to this book have highlighted vocabularies and perceptual processes from within the performative contexts of specific Ramayana traditions, more often than not in a descriptive mode with attention to individual performance histories. As co-​editors, Richman and I have encouraged our contributors to use performance categories in Indian languages (for which English translations are provided) to facilitate a better sense of how these traditions are perceived, interpreted, and discussed within their own contexts of reception and spectatorship. This process has generated a context-​sensitive appraisal of diverse enactments of the Ramayana tradition. In these enactments, the focus is very much on what happens to the Ramayana story within the framework of a specific performance tradition, as interpreted and embodied in specific ways by actors trained in dance, song, movement, and the spoken word, for audiences who are for the most part familiar with the tradition. To prepare readers for encountering the complexity that goes into reading and interpreting any enactment and writing about it, I provide in the following section a thick description of the performance categories that could be invoked in order to understand specific traditions within their regional

36  Orientations and Beginnings languages. While all these categories may not be used for the analysis of each enactment, they constitute a performative grammar that shapes the understanding of a performance at semantic, expressive, kinetic, and hermeneutic levels. To provide some concrete evidence, let me focus now on three languages in South India—​Malayalam, Kannada, and Tamil—​which figure prominently in this book through its explorations of Kutiyattam, Nangyarkuttu, and Kathakali in Kerala; Talamaddale in Karnataka; and Kattaikkuttu in Tamil Nadu. I am grateful to three contributors to this book, Mundoli Narayanan, Akshara K.V., and Hanne de Bruin, who through their close engagement with the performative registers of Malayalam, Kannada, and Tamil, respectively, have provided the insights that I have assembled in this section. For a start, as Narayanan points out, there is no one synoptic category that encapsulates all performances in the southwestern state of Kerala.5 Instead, such vocabulary draws both on Sanskrit derivatives and Malayalam words with Tamil derivatives. Among the Sanskrit derivatives, one encounters words like avatāraṇam, meaning “to present,” “to introduce,” “to show,” conveying the general meaning of presenting any performance. There are also more specialized uses, as in kathāpātṟa avataraṇam (presentation of character) or bhāva avataraṇam (presentation of bhāva, or emotions). Another Sanskrit derivative used for “manifestation, display, demonstration” is pṟakaṭaṉam. Focusing more specifically on the actual practice of an actor/​ dancer—​one needs to make the obligatory qualification here that in Indian performance traditions “acting” and “dancing” are not mutually exclusive categories—​the word naṭaṉam refers to the skills of the naṭa (male actor/​ dancer) and the naṭi (female actor/​dancer). More precisely, abhiṉayam is used to refer specifically to the skills of the actor; it is linked to the all-​ encompassing word “abhinaya” (abhinaya) from the Nāṭyaśāstra (c. 200 bce–​200 ce), which encompasses four distinct modes of expressing performance practice: āṅgika (body), vācika (voice), sātvika (inner sentiments) and āhārya (costume and makeup). These four elements are integral to almost all aspects of acting across Indian traditions, with the word “abhinaya” being synonymous with “acting” in vocabularies of several performance traditions, both traditional and modern.

5 References to the performance vocabulary of Kerala in the next two paragraphs are drawn from my email exchanges with Mundoli Narayanan (September 18, 2018).

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  37 Moving beyond Sanskrit derivatives to actual words used in Malayalam with Tamil derivatives, Narayanan calls attention to kaḷi, meaning “to play,” which can be found as a suffix in any number of traditional forms like Kathakali, extending even to contemporary usages, as in phrases like kaḷibhṟāntan (one who is crazy about Kathakali). The other two widely used words relating to the actual enactment of plays are “kuttu” (kūttu) and “attam” (āṭṭam), both words connoting the process of expressing something through the use of movement and facial expressions, as in traditions like Kutiyattam, but also extending to performance conventions like colliyāṭṭam (acting improvised to singing) and iḷakiyāṭṭam (gestural improvisation with no accompanying singing) in Kathakali. These nuances of terms with the suffix “attam” indicate the subtleties of performance vocabulary in any one linguistic tradition. They are not viewed as esoteric or overly specialized; rather, they are taken for granted by its practitioners as a readymade vocabulary. Contributing to the intricacy, but also complicating the epistemology of performance-​related categories in Malayalam, are analogous words in other languages like Kannada, the dominant language spoken in the state of Karnataka. Here, as Akshara K.V. has pointed out, the word “aata” (āṭa) is the most widely used word for performance, serving as a suffix for forms like Bayalata (the open-​air staging of Yakshagana), Doddata (Yakshagana as performed in the western region of Karnataka), Sannata (the musical form in which Karnataka’s first “modern” play Saṅgyā-​Bāḷya was staged), and the puppet tradition of Gombeyata.6 Extending beyond specific performance genres, “aata” covers a spectrum of meanings relating to “game, play, sport”; “dance, drama, performance”; “action and movement”; and different kinds of “make-​believe.”7 Clearly, in these multiple usages, “aata” could be described as a polysemic category, which demands constant contextualization and recontextualization in order to clarify the specific nuances of its usage in relation to its broad semantic range. The complexities increase when we turn from Karnataka to the state of Tamil Nadu where the use of attam (āṭṭam), referring to “play, sport, game” in Tamil, does not have quite the same kind of currency in the public sphere as “aata” in the Kannada context. As Hanne de Bruin has pointed out, the use of the word can be determined by caste strictures and also by the possibilities 6 References to performance vocabulary in Kannada in this paragraph draw on email exchanges with Akshara K.V. on September 17, 2018. 7 Kannada Nighantu (1970: 587). The words in this encyclopedic entry defining āṭa have been translated by Akshara K.V. from Kannada into English.

38  Orientations and Beginnings of “behaving like one possessed” (as in veṟiyāṭṭam = veṟi-​y-​āṭṭam “dancing possessed”).8 In a similar register, the widespread and popular use of kuttu (kūttu) in Tamil Nadu, which covers almost all performance activities relating to dance, music, movement, action, notably in the vibrant tradition of Terukkuttu, is not free of either class or caste prejudice. At one level, its nomenclature includes derivatives like kūttāṭu (“to dance and act on the stage”) and kūttāṭi/​kūttaṉ (dancer, actor), the latter extending to Lord Shiva, who is recognized as the ultimate dancer. However, Terukkuttu’s literal connotation of “a dramatic performance or dance in a street” can be read in disparaging ways, extending more patronizingly to manifestations of vulgar behavior in public spaces and even “public disgrace.”9 In contrast, the use of nāṭakam with its Sanskrit inflections is often used by performers to enhance their social prestige, more often than not linked to their professional identifications as actors and the official naming of their institutions and organizations. From this brief encapsulation of related, yet differentiated, categories of performances in three states of South India, it becomes clear that we are dealing with a vocabulary that is heavily inflected by regional and local considerations in relation to skill, social prestige, class and caste assumptions, gender, and religious identities. Caste, in particular, plays a huge role in defining any performance or enactment, even if its articulation may be deliberately understated by theorists of performance, who may be more concerned with highlighting the aesthetics of performance than the more material aspects of earning a livelihood through singing, dancing, and acting, which are determined by hereditary caste norms. Therefore, in Tamil, the Sanskrit word vēṣam can be used to indicate what goes into performing a role when an actor enters and becomes a character. However, if one had to ask a kuttu performer in everyday life what he does, he is more than likely to refer to the task of performing as “doing a job/​vocation,” the crucial word toḻil being used to refer to a traditional hereditary caste occupation.10 Apart from inflections of caste, which have yet to enter the discursive normativity of mainstream theater and performance vocabularies in English, one is also compelled to acknowledge the intricate inter-​lingual and intra-​ lingual interfaces between derivatives in Sanskrit and their incorporation 8 References to Tamil performance vocabulary in this paragraph draw on email exchanges with Hanne de Bruin, December 15, 2018. 9 This pejorative definition appears even in the Tamil Lexicon (1924–​1936: 2037). For the history of prejudice against Terukkuttu and the politics of naming Kattaikkuttu, see Bruin (2000: 98–​120). 10 I thank Bruin for emphasizing this point in our correspondence on January 3, 2019.

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  39 within regional and local contexts of performance vocabulary. Once again, it would be hard to find this kind of inter-​and intra-​lingual dimension in the predominant monolingualism of Theater and Performance Studies as theorized in English. Perhaps the most complex of all considerations would be an understanding of performance categories which have larger metaphysical and religious connotations. Here the primary category of lila (līlā) exemplifies the challenge of nomenclature. While lila can be readily understood as “play” or “sport,” this specific usage is usually linked to enactments of gods, as in performances of Ramlila, where the gods are “impersonated” on stage as svarups (svarūps) by young Brahmin boys. Beyond these enactments, which proliferate across the villages, towns, and cities of North India, lila also has larger theological connotations which refer to the “descent” of the avatars of Lord Vishnu in their earthly manifestations, notably Rama and Krishna. In addition, in the widest possible hermeneutic register, lila celebrates the creation of the universe itself as the unmotivated play of the gods.11 Although one can refer to Ramlila as a “performance,” it does not necessarily follow that all readings of “performance” are necessarily to be understood or experienced as lila.12 Within the framework of the Ramlila in Ramnagar, there is a sharp distinction made between lila and natak (nāṭak), a more secular and popular category used for all kinds of modern theater practices, whose practitioners would never use the word “lila” to describe their enactments on stage.13 The word “natak” is a ubiquitous modern category connoting both the actual dramatic text of a play and its performance.14 Practitioners of different popular performance genres outside urban areas in the northern and eastern states of India would in all probability fall back on

11 For a spectrum of perspectives on lila, read Sax 1995. 12 Richard Schechner’s (1985, 2015) influential reading of Ramlila as “performance” within the disciplinary framework of Performance Studies is examined by Rani in Chapter 15 in this volume. 13 Read Lutgendorf (1991: 322) for a telling episode in which the Maharaja of Banaras insists on substituting new actors for the svarups (impersonations of gods) of a Ramlila performance in Ramnagar. These svarups had suffered a death in the family which rendered their participation inauspicious. Refusing to compromise on ritual propriety, even at the expense of sacrificing the performance quality of the enactment, the Maharaja declared in Hindi: “What do you think this is . . . some nāṭak?” Lutgendorf has translated this last word as “play.” 14 This dominant category in Bengali theater has supplanted earlier categories like pālā, which has become almost archaic, although it can be used in a modern context, as in the Bengali adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera as Tīn Poyshar Pālā. Another word with a wide range of references is ranga, which extends beyond theatrical performance or entertainment to refer to an everyday event, a joke, or a colorful story (Bandyopadhyay 2011: 1883). Although this word is no longer used in the urban context of theater, rangamancha (raṅgamañca; stage) has wide currency not only in Bengali, but in Hindi as well (raṅgamañc), referring to the stage or the institution of theater. I am grateful to Rajdeep Konar for clarifying these insights in an email exchange dated January 2, 2019.

40  Orientations and Beginnings categories like khel/​khela or nāch. However, states like Assam use a special vocabulary for traditional Vaishnava plays, notably words like bhāonā, which refers specifically to enactment. Therefore, acting in ritualized Assamese contexts gets rendered as bhāo diyā (giving a performance) or bhāo lowā (taking a role), the word “bhāo” being replaced by the English word “part” in more colloquial references to acting in everyday conversation.15 This compels us to acknowledge the infusion of English words which have now been incorporated into the Indian theater vocabulary, like “part,” “role,” and “play.” However, this “play” with its secular connotations has little do to with the metaphysics of “divine play” as suggested by lila. Therein lie the paradoxes and differences in the shifting registers of performance as represented in this book, which have been determined by the larger multilingual registers of the Ramayana performance tradition across different regions and states in India. Given these shifting registers, let us turn now to the relationships between narrative and performance.

Narrative and Performance Narrative, as Richman (2008, 2000, 1992) has richly demonstrated over the years, can exist in multiple stories and retellings of the Ramayana tradition, which would include performances and enactments. And yet, there is often a false assumption that while “narrative” is essentially written and textualized and meant to be read rather than acted, “performance” is embodied and physicalized through gestures, movements, and all the psychophysical elements that go into “acting.” Such a perspective misses out on the fact that that almost all epic narratives, including those relating to Rāmākathā (Rama’s story), have traditions in which orality has played and continues to play a crucial role. It is now widely accepted that the so-​called epics, more accurately described as itihāsa (Mahabharata) and kāvya (Ramayana), now accessible in multivolume publications, were at some point in time chanted, discussed, debated, told, and retold, before they were scripted. In this context, Philip Lutgendorf ’s reading of Tulsidas’s Rāmcaritmānas as katha (kathā; story) rather than granth (book) reminds us that while the Mānas may be available in a plethora of publications, it remains a story that 15 I am grateful to Parasmoni Dutta for providing me with these details of Assamese performance culture in an email (January 11, 2019).

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  41 is primarily “told,” bringing together a teller (vaktā) and a listener (śrotā), in a range of diverse performative structures ranging from the intimate to the congregational to the spectacular.16 Arguably, any katha operates with an almost tangible immediacy at an oral/​aural dimension, extending beyond the interface of the teller and listener, to encompass the atmosphere of a particular neighborhood. As Lutgendorf points out in his evocative ethnography of Banaras, the sounds, rhythms, and melody of the Mānas, blaring from loudspeakers, hang “in the air,” contributing to an acoustic aura of Tulsidas in the public sphere. Following the sound advice provided by A. K. Ramanujan and others not to create a false binary opposition between the “oral” and the “written word,” we could say that remnants and memories of oral traditions continue to inflect and influence the diverse ways in which the Ramayana story gets interpreted in the written word; and, conversely, written texts of particular stories from the Ramayana tradition continue to influence storytelling traditions in actual performances.17 In the Ramnagar Ramlila, there are at least two textual traditions which are almost simultaneous—​one involves the chanting of the entire Rāmcaritmānas by the Ramayanis (Rāmāyaṇīs; reciters), and the other engages with dialogues (samvād) written in the prompt-​books held by the two directors (vyās), who “assume responsibility for the elaboration (vyākhyā) of the text into an act of performance.”18 In this “performance,” the Ramayanis have no role to play in the dynamic interaction that takes place between the two directors and the multitude of characters from the Ramayana story, who are, quite literally, prompted and cued to say their lines. These dialogues often “depart significantly,” as Lutgendorf reminds us, from the Tulsi narrative, with frequent interpolations and infusions from other texts, and rhetorical elaborations of additional lines which Tulsidas has not fleshed out.19 Paradoxically, while the hallowed text of Rāmcaritmānas is available in any number of editions through the prodigious printing history 16 Lutgendorf (1991: 117). Calling attention to the Sanskrit verb kath, meaning “to converse with, tell, relate, narrate, speak about, explain,” Lutgendorf emphasizes that a kathā requires a “dialogical milieu” (satsaṅg), an assembly of devotees which is itself “constitutive of the act of kathā” (115, 118). 17 Ramanujan (1999: 538–​548). See also the Introduction to Blackburn and Ramanujan (1986). 18 Lutgendorf (1991: 332). See also the extended descriptions of these lila enactments on stage in Schechner (1985, 2015) and Kapur (1990). 19 Ibid. For instance, when Rama and Sita bid farewell to Sumantra in the forest with “comforting words,” Lakshmana, in the Tulsidas narrative, utters “some harsh words.” Elaborating on such words, the actor playing Lakshmana in the Ramnagar Ramlila rails against Dasharatha: “Not long ago, falling under the spell of a woman, he sent us to the forest. Now he tries to wheedle us with sugary words! I’ll come back after fourteen years and give him my answer—​with arrow and sword!” (333). In Lutgendorf ’s account, this “stark irreverence,” which is not to be found in Tulsidas, is greeted with loud cheers by the audience (334).

42  Orientations and Beginnings surrounding it, the promptbooks of the two Ramlila directors are much harder to access. In this regard, the guarding of the lines spoken on stage as written in scripts and promptbooks is part of a larger tradition in Indian popular theater, where play-​texts are often regarded as the “property” of individual groups who resist print culture to avoid the possible appropriation of their texts by rival theater groups.20 The contributors to this book assume for the most part that there is no strict opposition between “text” and “performance.” Indeed, most of their analyses are based on what is called text-​based performance (as opposed to exclusively devised or improvised performance within the contemporary rubric of “performance making,” where there is no preexisting text, at least in the written sense of the word). “Dramatic text” is the category normally used to describe a play that is written either by a playwright or an ensemble of players. Pushing the limits of this nomenclature, one could say that it can also represent a text which is composed by a writer/​musician (as is the case with the attakkatha [āṭṭakkatha] which provides the story-​text for a Kathakali performance). Both the written dramatic text, as in a playscript, and a musical composition around a text, as in an attakkatha, are linked through the intimate interweaving of words and music. In the performance practice of Kattaikkuttu in particular, as seen in Bruin’s detailed exposition of RāmaRāvaṇā, the writing of this modernist play by P. Rajagopal cannot be separated from its rich repertoire of songs in diverse modes. The semantics of the written and spoken word cannot be separated from the affective registers of music. Whether the “dramatic text” is written or sung, in different combinations of language and music, the point is that it cannot be separated from certain assumptions of authorship. In contrast, a “performance text” could be described as the treatment of a dramatic text through multiple inputs, which vary from production to production, including the actor’s score, the director’s mise-​en-​scène, the design, the music, and spectatorship, which cumulatively contribute toward the performative dynamics of a production in actual practice. It could be argued that while the performance text is essentially contingent and variable, dependent on these multiple inputs in shifting performative circumstances, the dramatic text in its written form is more

20 For vivid insights into the popular performance cultures of Nautanki and Parsi theater, notably its creation and dissemination of play texts within local codes of ownership, read Hansen 2011 and 1992.

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  43 “stable,” although I would hesitate to use the word “fixed.” One needs to keep in mind that diverse versions of the same dramatic text may exist in handwritten forms, with words that are scored out or redacted, with scribbled notes on the margins. Once a text gets printed, it is more likely to be regularized and divested of its improvisatory elements, even though this cannot be entirely guaranteed. If one had to push the understanding of performance text into sectors of traditional performance, one could argue that the attaprakarams (āṭṭaprakārams; acting manuals) which exist in the Kutiyattam tradition in Kerala are cryptic accounts of how particular roles should be enacted within the framework of specific acts. They too could be described as performance texts insofar as they are specifically written with the actor’s performance in mind. In this book, we have contrapuntal perspectives on the attaprakaram offered by Sanskrit scholar David Shulman and two leading practitioners of Kutiyattam, Margi Madhu Chakyar and Dr. Indu G., whose insights appear in two distinct, yet interrelated interviews. At one level, attaprakarams provide a notation of how a performance should be structured through the use of specific gestures, movements, and emotions. At a deeper level, however, they could be regarded as the inner maps of specific performances, somewhat similar to what Konstantin Stanislavsky would regard as an actor’s “score,” which enable performers to stay on track with what they are doing on stage. Without the actual “writing down” of an attaprakaram and subsequent memorization, no Kutiyattam performance is possible. In this volume, there are many representations of the “dramatic text,” which have been analyzed by Richman in the previous chapter—​didactic plays around Shambuk, written in Hindi by Dalit playwrights belonging to different activist and social organizations; Brijesh’s Śambūk-​Vadh (The Killing of Shambuk) written specifically for the street theater group Janam in dramaturgical consultation with director Sudhanva Deshpande. Even though Omprakash Valmiki’s incendiary poem on “Shambuk’s Severed Head” is not a play, it has a performative intensity which gives it the quality of a dramatic monologue. Other texts examined by Richman in the previous chapter include Manohar’s Laṅkēswaraṉ, one of the most popular Tamil theatrical productions of the 1950s, and P. Rajagopal’s RāmaRāvaṇā, written specifically for the Adishakti Festival in 2011, drawing on an adaptation of the Kattaikkuttu tradition in a modernist interpretation of the Ramayana story. Even an avant-​garde performance piece as highly fragmented and infused with multimedia elements like Vinay Kumar’s The Tenth Head has

44  Orientations and Beginnings nonetheless been meticulously written as a dramatic text, with characters, scenes, and stage directions, which is published in its entirety in my Chapter 8 on “Ravana as Dissident Artist.” To Kumar’s text I have added annotations describing the performative elaborations of the text, which defy the precision of stage directions on account of their improvisatory quality and sheer histrionic bravura. While the productions mentioned in the preceding paragraph are all framed within a modern or postmodern aesthetics, the repertoire of traditional performances documented in this book includes some of the masterpieces in the Kathakali repertoire, notably Kallaikulangara Raghava Pisharoti’s Rāvaṇodbhavam, an attakkatha which provides the framework for a virtuoso solo performance in which Ravana returns to a memory of his own childhood. In such enactments, the interweaving of “dramatic text” and “performance text” becomes only too palpable. In contrast, there is more of a distinction between the written prasangas (prasaṅgas; “episodes”) which are sung during performances of Talamaddale by the bhāgawata (lead singer), and the verbal improvisations of the performers who have the capacity to take off on a word, epithet, or trope from the prasanga text. This argumentative play of words between performers is not scripted at all, relying on modalities of argument in the Ramayana and Talamaddale traditions with the free play of on-​the-​spot verbal repartee. In contrast to the temporal complexities of such improvisations involving the intersections of past, present, and future, one encounters more chronologically structured dramatic sketches (nāṭ) in the Sattriya tradition, around mythological subjects such as Sankaradeva’s Rām Vijay (Victory of Rama). Here there is a correlation between text and performance, with the Sutradhara (director) providing the necessary clues for the entrances and diverse actions of characters. In contrast to the one-​act dramaturgical structure of Rām Vijay, the performative dynamics of Kutiyattam can be said to extend over several nights of performance. And yet, the strict rule is that only one act of an intricately written play like Shaktibhadra’s masterful, seven-​act play Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi (The Wondrous Crest-​Jewel) can be performed—​such is the minutiae of elaboration in this act at the level of gesture, expression, and fidelity to each and every word in the text. Countering this textual regime are spaces within any Kutiyattam performance for the actor’s nirvahanam (nirvahaṇam), by which he or she systematically recapitulates the history and genealogy of a character, going all the way back to the vanishing point of time, only to return to the exact moment from where the flashback

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  45 begins. Different renderings of the nirvahanam in the Nangyarkuttu repertoire relating to Mandodari and Ahalya have been meticulously traced by Mundoli Narayanan in this volume based on an interview with one of the leading exponents of Nangyarkuttu, Usha Nangiar, who is both a performer and a scholar in her own right. Finally, among the many perplexing “texts” in the Ramayana performance tradition is the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam, which is found immediately after the chapter which you are now reading. This “summary” of the Ramayana story written in prose varies slightly, from family to family, among those who have inherited the Kutiyattam tradition. The use of a “summary,” which serves both as training process and virtuoso performance piece, defies any clear-​cut textual definition. Here the exactitude of the summary as a dramatic text, whose words must be intoned by the actor with absolute fidelity to detail, is, simultaneously, a performance text where the gestures and facial expressions are embedded in the words themselves.

Beyond Enactment Against the diversity of dramatic and performance texts represented in this volume, there are a few contributions that are not specifically text-​based. Part VI, the final part of this book, is titled “Beyond Enactment” to prepare the reader for another epistemology of performance that is not specifically related to the enactment of a particular text from the Ramayana tradition through gestural and expressive codes based on an already existing actor training process. With the influence of Performance Studies, there is now a widespread understanding of “performance” in a broader social and political register which extends beyond the domain of theater to encompass diverse forms of human behavior and interaction, controversy and debate, particularly in public spaces.21 If in text-​based performances the focus is very much on the stage or a performance space and the intimate dynamics of the actor-​ spectator relationship, the “performances” represented in the last cluster are framed within the more fluid social dynamics of public culture and everyday life. 21 For a broad overview on the epistemologies of “performance” as defined in Performance Studies, see Schechner (2013) and Carlson (2017). Another perspective on “performance” in the context of “spoken verbal communication” can be read in Bauman (1977). For a summary of the theoretical distinctions between “theater,” “performance,” and “performativity,” see Bharucha (2014: 18–​27).

46  Orientations and Beginnings The two chapters in the final cluster that engage with this more fluid understanding of “performance” include Bhargav Rani’s reflections in Chapter 15 on what happens to the concept of lila when one shifts the gaze from the enactments of the Ramlila to the experiential dynamics of the līlā-​ premis (literally, “lovers of the lila”) as they wait for the lila to resume in the intermissions of leisure and fun. The title of his essay, “The Night before Bhor Ārti,” evokes multiple recreational events that last through the night, preceding the most auspicious moment of the Ram Lila when the svarups are worshipped as gods on the final day of the month-​long enactment just as dawn is breaking. Chapter 14, which is not entirely a text-​based enactment of the Ramayana narrative, is Urmimala Sarkar Munsi’s self-​questioning in an autobiographical mode on playing the role of Sri Rama for a period of 25 years in the dance-​drama Seeta Swayambara produced by the Uday Shankar India Culture Centre. While Sarkar Munsi does engage partially with the dynamics of enactment as she reflects on the challenges posed in playing a “male” role within the narrative context of Seeta Swayambara, the thrust of her essay is more specifically directed to the political dynamics of playing a god in turbulent times. Her essay is best read within the discourse of Dance Studies, where the agency of a dancer to select for whom she dances and under what circumstances provides yet another perspective on how “performance” pushes the boundaries of enactment at a purely technical or psychophysical level. The two essays by Sarkar Munsi and Rani are followed by my concluding chapter to the book, where I spell out some of the challenges that lie ahead in researching the Ramayana performance tradition against the larger politicization of the Ramayana narrative in the contemporary public sphere of India. While the challenge of asserting the pluralist dimensions of the Ramayana against sectarian readings of the narrative is a political task, it would be inaccurate to undermine the political dimensions underlying the other essays in this volume as well. When Usha Nangiar retrieves the forgotten, marginalized, and allegedly inauspicious pañcakaṉyās (“the five virgins”) from the Nangyarkuttu repertoire, and the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam specifically allocates male roles from the Ramayana to young women performers, they are engaged in countering the politics of gender in both traditional and subaltern contexts. When Sheradden and Deshpande call attention in their essays (Chapters 5 and 6) to the ways in which the figure of Shambuk questions brahminical protocols through a radical, Dalit-​identified pedagogy, we encounter yet another reading of the political which questions

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  47 the affirmation of Ramayana as a hegemonic text. Perhaps the most challenging statement emerges unobtrusively in the discourse with the venerable sattradhikar (abbot) Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami when he emphasizes that Sankaradeva regarded his own guru as the bhakts (devotees) themselves. To acknowledge the inspiration of ordinary people as initiators of a practice-​ based bhakti is, to my mind, an extraordinarily nuanced position that compels one to rethink the political beyond the controversies and immediacies of the realpolitik today. Returning to the relationship of narrative to performance, I would say that avant-​garde performer Maya Krishna Rao posed the most provocative challenge to the notion of “narrative” in this book. She told me, in one of our many interviews, that what matters to her about Ramayana is not its narrative, but something a lot more visceral. For her, Ravana is not to be grasped through the multiple stories surrounding him, even though she uses some of them to build her own narrative in Ravanama. Rather, Rao, as a performer, highlights the specific rhythmic beat in Kathakali linked to the iconic piece of Rāvaṇodbhavam that catalyzes her volatile incarnation of Ravana. She emphasizes that the “beat” matters; it is in the beat that Ravana lives. This emphasis comes very close to my own experience of watching an episode from the shadow puppet tradition of Ravana Chhaya staged at the first Adishakti festival in 2009, where the unadorned beauty of the presentation of Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana as they enter the forest moved me deeply. This episode seemed to have no interest in advancing the plot or reinterpreting the Ramayana story. I remember vividly the scene in which Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana crossed the river in a single boat, the entire episode taking its time—​a very long time—​to depict the boat moving back and forth between the banks. Nothing was being enunciated in this uneventful sequence—​no elaboration of character or plot. Yet, such was the laya (tempo) of the movement, so gentle and almost imperceptible, that it seemed to me that this rhythm was getting to the very heart of the wondrous beauty of the river as rendered through the play of shadows in Ravan Chhaya. It could be argued that in such intimate encounters the “story” of Ramayana forms the backdrop in our minds for a more nuanced phenomenology of experience, which is inevitably personal and transformative. I would never deny the power of such intimate moments in the world of performance, but I would also acknowledge that even as the “story” gets taken for granted in the experience of such a moment, it is never entirely absented, even when temporarily suspended. Although the performance in question

48  Orientations and Beginnings may not have any stake in “taking the story forward,” it is through this very choice that it contributes at a subliminal level to the Ramayana tradition by lingering on a specific moment, elaborating on its multitudinous possibilities, and providing a caesura in our minds to dream the possibilities of reimagining Ramayana one more time. I stop at this point and urge you as a reader to participate in the diverse renderings of Ramayana in this book, engaging with its thematic issues, local histories, and interpretations of performances, allowing your imagination to question the illusions of certitude provided by the written word. It is in and through the imagination that the multiple worlds of Ramayana have the potentiality to become “more than real,” in David Shulman’s memorable phrase, compelling us to engage with the reality of our times with renewed perceptual vigor, insight, and creative resilience.22

Bibliography Agamben, Giorgio. 2009. “What Is the Contemporary?” In “What is an Apparatus?” and Other Essays, trans. David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press: 39–​55. Bandyopadhyay, Haricharan. 2011. Bangiya Sabdakosh, Vol. 2, eighth printing. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Bauman, Richard. 1977. Verbal Art as Performance. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Bharucha, Rustom. 2009. “Creativity.” In Cultural Expression, Creativity and Innovation: The Cultures and Globalization Series, Vol. 3, eds. Helmut K. Anheier and Yudhisthir Raj Isar, pp. 21–​36. London: SAGE. Bharucha, Rustom. 2014. Terror and Performance. London and New York: Routledge. Blackburn, Stuart, and A. K. Ramanujan, eds. 1986. Another Harmony: New Essays on the Folklore of India. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Bruin, Hanne M. de. 2000. “Naming a Theatre in Tamil Nadu.” Asian Theatre Journal 17:1 (Spring 2000): 98–​120. Carlson, Marvin. 2017. Performance: A Critical Introduction, 3rd edition. London and New York: Routledge. Hansen, Kathryn. 1992. Grounds for Play: The Nautanki Theatre of North India. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press. Hansen, Kathryn. 2011. Stages of Life: Indian Theatre Autobiographies. Ranikhet: Permanent Black. India Today Web Desk, with inputs from Rohini Swamy. 2017. “Padmavati Row: Karni Sena Threatens to Chop off Deepika Padukone’s Nose,” November 16, 2017, https://​ www.indiatoday.in/​movies/​bollywood/​story/​padmavati-​row-​karni-​sena-​threatens-​ deepika-​padukone-​1087486-​2017-​11-​16, accessed April 15, 2018.



22 Shulman (2012).

Thinking the Ramayana Tradition  49 Kannada Nighantu, Vol. 1. 1970. Bangalore: Kannada Sahitya Parishattu. Kapur, Anuradha. 1990. Actors, Pilgrims, Kings and Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar. Calcutta: Seagull Books. Lutgendorf, Philip. 1991. The Life of a Text: Performing the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press. Ramanujan, A. K. 1999. “Who Needs Folklore?.” In The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, ed. Vinay Dharwadker, pp. 538–​548. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Richman, Paula. 1992. Many Rāmayāṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Richman, Paula. 2000. Questioning Ramayanas: A South Asian Tradition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Richman, Paula, ed. 2008. Ramayana Stories in Modern South India: An Anthology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sax, William S., ed. 1995. The Gods at Play: Lila in South Asia. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schechner, Richard. 1985. Between Theatre and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Schechner, Richard. 2013. Performance Studies: An Introduction, 3rd edition. London and New York: Routledge. Schechner, Richard. 2015. Performed Imaginaries. London and New York: Routledge. Shulman, David. 2012. More than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tamil Lexicon. 1924–​1936. Madras: University of Madras. The Asian Age. 2017. “Padmavati Row: Will Sever Deepika’s Nose, Warns Karni Sena,” November 16, 2017, https://​www.asianage.com/​india/​all-​india/​161117/​padmavati-​ row-​will-​cut-​off-​deepikas-​nose-​as-​done-​to-​shurpanakha-​warns-​karni-​sena.html, accessed April 15, 2018.

3 Where Narrative and Performance Meet Nepathya’s Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam Rizio Yohannan

Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam is a concise summary of the Ramayana story, which is taught by the guru to the disciple during the earliest stage of Kutiyattam training. The five active schools of Kutiyattam in Kerala today each use a slightly different abridged version of the story to initiate pupils into an extended multiphase regime of study. The Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam translated later in this chapter comes from the Nepathya School in Moozhikkulam, located near Kochi (Cochin) in Kerala.1 A young entrant into the world of Kutiyattam learns to enact the concise narrative summary word by word, line by line. Doing so provides ample scope to master a whole gamut of skills and techniques connected with Kutiyattam; its enactment accommodates many of the hasta (hand gestures) and bhāvas (emotions conveyed by facial expressions) employed in Kutiyattam.2 In Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam, a total of 260 mudras are used. On many occasions, “the same mudra is used to convey different ideas,” as, for instance, the kingdoms of Ayodhya, Lanka, Janakapura, and Kishkindha.3 Further, the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam does not contain the names of any mudra. In fact, the Malayalam word that is used by practitioners is not “mudra,” but “kai kattal,” which means “to show by hands.”4 1 In translating Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam, I consulted extensively with Margi Madhu Chakyar and Dr. Indu G. of Nepathya on April 22, 2018. Prathish Narayanan photographed Srihari Chakyar, a student at Nepathya, enacting Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam. 2 Apart from contributing to the training process of new Kutiyattam students, Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam is also included in the performance repertoire and enacted, for instance, in the final act of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi. A printed edition of the play (along with its acting and production manuals) includes Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam (P. Vēṇugopalan 2009: 701–​707). For a detailed notation and analysis of the gestures and expressions of the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam, see G. Venu’s edition which is subtitled “An Attaprakāram (Acting Manual) for Depicting the Story of the Rāmāyaṇa through Mudrā-​ s in Kūṭiyāṭṭam Theatre” (2013). 3 Venu (2013: 9). 4 Venu (2013: 10). Rizio Yohannan, Where Narrative and Performance Meet In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0003

Where Narrative and Performance Meet  51 A serious learner practices for many years to grasp the nuances of the gestures and expression, as well as the exceptions, and to bring out the power of each word uttered in the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam. By mastering its text and presentation, a talented and dedicated learner gradually acquires a performative capacity that equips him to interpret a story with a unique temporality and style.5 The manuscript of Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam followed by the Nepathya School of Kutiyattam is handwritten in one long paragraph running into eight pages of an old diary. The entire text seems to have been copied in phases—​the ink changes in between—​perhaps by an actor during the process of learning the text gradually. A strikethrough and replacement of a word occasionally appears in a different hand. Evidently, it has been slightly modified over time by different actors according to their own physical and performative requirements. Onstage, the text of the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam is nearly inviolable. As every word of the text is uttered, enacted, and illuminated by the actor-​ narrator with the aid of gestures and expressions, it primarily serves not as a literary text but as a performance script which an actor adopts and slightly modifies in relation to his own faculties. On my request, Madhu graciously described and demonstrated how the Saṃkṣēpam is performed onstage. In the light of the nilaviḷakku (standing lamp) that illumines his visage and torso, the naṭa (actor) sits on a stool on the stage and turns himself into a sūta (narrator). As he begins to narrate the summary, his voice, expressions, and gestures converge in an act of storytelling that transcends his self-​ consciousness as an actor. While an actor-​narrator presents the Saṃkṣēpam with simultaneous vocalization and enactment, the focus extends beyond the mere meaning of the words in the text. He utters each word with the accompaniment of gestures and expressions, thus creating a sphoṭa of sorts, a veritable explosion of meanings.6 In this explosion, “the mudras are not regarded as mere technique, but as something that contains a unique energy of the expression

5 This essay uses “he” as a pronoun since Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam was primarily taught to male performers of Kutiyattam. Recently, however, it has been introduced into the Kutiyattam curriculum at Kerala Kalamandalam and is learned by all. 6 Sphota is a major concept in Bhartrhari’s (5th-​century) grammatical tradition, as explained in his work Vākyapadīya. Literally “explosion” or “bursting,” it refers to speech production and how the mind orders linguistic units to create a meaning beyond the literal one.

52  Orientations and Beginnings of bhavas.”7 Yet, this intensity does not stir the actor-​narrator from his seated position, compelling a viewer to watch him closely. The text of Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam is intriguing reading for both what it contains and what it does not contain, what it pays close attention to and what it radically condenses. The Moozhikulam version that I have translated calls attention, for instance, to the ashrams that Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita visit in the forest. It also reports in detail the names of the weapons they acquire or use. Simultaneously, it radically condenses the entire Ayodhyā-​ kāṇḍa, Yuddha-​kāṇḍa, and much of Sundara-​kāṇḍa, including nearly all the interactions between Sita and Ravana. The integral connection between the text and its fullest embodiment by the actor explains why the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam condenses the plot in places where a lot of movements involving the whole body are required. Also, it omits reflective passages and conversations that are hard to enact in a seated position. As Margi Madhu Chakyar and Dr. Indu G. explained, the enumeration of various weapons and the ashram scenes that are dealt with in detail in the Saṃkṣēpam are there because these can be illustrated using the limited faculties of the actor’s upper body alone, while sitting and delivering his lines. The performance of Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam is not quite improvisatory, but it provides the ground and condition for an actor’s performativity to blossom. Its mode of presentation leans toward āngika (gestural)—​rather than vācika (verbal)—​performance. The text is uttered very slowly with elongated articulation of words, with stress placed on chosen syllables to bring out the full meaning of the utterance. In the process, an actor’s manōdharma (creativity) manifests itself through an intense, concurrent utterance and enactment of the script, not yet brought to the fruition of a refreshing rasānubhūti (experience of the rasas) that the main performance would offer a sahṛdaya (enlightened spectator). Nonetheless, parts or most of Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam can be inserted in the full performance of a Ramayana play at relevant junctions of the narrative. It is critical to understand the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam as a practice piece for the performer, and not just as a warm-​up item for the actor onstage or a mere device to help the audience remember the story thus far. The prescient move by eminent thinker-​actors such as Ammannur Madhava Chakyar to make Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam an integral part of the institutional training of Kutiyattam has helped the art form adapt to the contemporary practice 7 Venu (2013: 10).

Where Narrative and Performance Meet  53 of condensing the performance into capsules. Its narrative and expressive dimensions help a practitioner hold the entire Ramayana story in his head as a single thread, even as he dexterously negotiates the three-​pronged act of being the naṭan (actor), the kathāpātram (character), and the sūtan (narrator) at once. This practice trains the actor to refrain from getting too emotionally involved in the action, and helps him return, time and again, to the central point of shifting between the roles of the narrator and actor. Thus, Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam serves as a major tool for acquiring the discipline required by an art form such as Kutiyattam. The text of the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam offers an unusual narrative structure and poses a major challenge to one who seeks to translate it into English. Malayalam, being a language that makes use of word and sentence clusters, allows pages to be written in a few sentences, which is the case for Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam. My translation of this text in English could not hope to simulate the structure of its source, a remarkable single-​paragraphed handwritten manuscript of not more than six to eight long clustered sentences. Reading this original, one sees that, even as it follows a linear narrative, its syntax evokes a structural allegiance to the nonlinearity of Kutiyattam on stage. Moreover, while the composition of words into long clustered sentences in this text apparently follows the grammar of orality, where one hardly punctuates one’s flow of thought, the vocabulary is devoid of colloquialism; it sounds quite like a formal performance script. As an extraordinary training manual and rehearsal guide for the artist preparing for the stage, Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam is an invigorating mix of the formal and informal, the fast and slow, the linear and nonlinear, the subjective and objective, the changing and stable. Now let us turn to the translation.

Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam And, long long ago, the Solar Dynasty came to be.8 And therein, very many kings came to be. And, hence came to be an illustrious capital named

8 The Malayalam original is written in clustered sentences for which there is no equivalent in English. The use of “and,” “then,” “thus,” etc., in the beginning of sentences is a way to evoke the peculiarity of the original syntax. These words are only approximations of the usage in Malayalam—​ inflectional ways to indicate continuity and use of words that are evocative of a specific mode of storytelling. Translation of these aspects is difficult since there are only a limited number of English words that can show such an extension of time.

54  Orientations and Beginnings Ayodhya in Northern Kosala. As time passed, different kings in this lineage reigned over that region, caring for the people each in his own unique way. And then came the time of King Aja, to whom was born a legendary son, Dasharatha. And, this prince grew up with fine manners, and married three maidens Kaikeyi, Kausalya, and Sumitra, and began to live happily with them. But, as time went by, the king became consumed by the sorrow of not having a son.9 Heeding the words of Sumantra, his chief counselor, Dasharatha brought the pious sage Rishyasringa to perform the Ashwamedha sacrificial ritual presided over by Sage Vashishta on the banks of the Sarayu. Thus, purified under the supervision of Rishyasringa, Dasharatha then proceeded to perform a splendid Putrakameshti sacrifice for the blessing of begetting good sons. While the Putrakameshti was in progress, the devas under the leadership of Indra, normally unseen by earthly beings, appeared together at the shore of the Milky Ocean.10 And they praised Lord Narayana and pleaded with him to rescue them from the torment inflicted on them by the rakshasas. The Lord then appeared before them and promised thus: “O Devas, I shall kill all the rakshasas such as Ravana, and save you.” Narayana then gathered all his powers, as well as that of Anantha, the serpent, and his sacred conch and chakra, and infused them into a bowl of sweet payasam, which was handed over to a dark deity who then promptly appeared in the holy fire of the Putrakameshti sacrifice, and offered it to Dasharatha, who in turn paid respects to the presiding Sage and went into his wives’ quarters and divided it among the three of them. Dasharatha’s wives received the gracious gift, ate the sacred payasam which blessed them with auspicious conceptions, and eventually four precious scions were born to Dasharatha. Mightily pleased, he performed in great purity the rituals of birth, naming, and food offerings for his sons. The princes began schooling at the age of five and were initiated when they were eleven, and then they went to the ashram of Sage Vasishta to learn the Vedas. Later, when the rakshasa Subahu, son of Tataka, and his companions were harassing Sage Vishwamitra and hindering him from performing his sacrifice at the Siddhashram, the sage went to Ayodhya and sought the help of Rama and Lakshmana, who followed him to his ashram. On their way, they 9 In this paragraph, the words “prince” and “king” refer to Dasharatha. This shows the passage of time—​where he is referred to as “prince” his growing up time is indicated. The Saṃkṣēpam dramatically condenses time by referring to him as “king” immediately after. 10 The Milk Ocean is one of the seven oceans described in mythological texts.

Where Narrative and Performance Meet  55 received the Bala-​Atibala mantras that quenched their thirst and hunger, and reached Tataka’s Forest, where they killed Tataka who blocked their way. In the evening they reached Vamana’s ashram, and learned the use of the arrow called Jrumbhakastra, and in the morning set out to Sidhhashram, where they killed Subahu and his companions, thus allowing the sacrifice of the Great Rishi to proceed without disruption. And then, they crossed the Ganga and went to Gauthama’s ashram, and liberated Ahalya who had long been lying on the ground in the form of a stone. Proceeding thence to Janaka’s kingdom, and breaking Shiva’s great bow, the Triyambaka, Rama won Sita in marriage. And as they were returning home in a magnificent procession with their kinsfolk, they encountered Parashurama, whose challenge Rama accepted and overcame with ease. And, they all went back to Ayodhya, celebrating splendidly, and lived on happily thereafter. And, as it came to be, their middle mother, Kaikeyi, interfered with their happiness, and it came to such a pass that Rama along with Sita and Lakshmana had to go in exile to the forest. Thereafter they lived in the ashram of Guha, wore matted hair, crossed the Ganga, and reached Bharadhwaja’s ashram.11 They paid respects to Sage Bharadhwaja and received their wooden clogs from him and went further up the mountain of Chitrakuta, where they lived in penance and austerity. And at this time, Bharata arrived with the news of their father’s death, and they did all the rites of their sire’s passage properly, and Rama commanded Bharata to take over the throne of Ayodhya, upon which Bharata promptly placed Rama’s sandals on the throne and vowed to rule the land on his behalf. And, from there they went through the wild Dandaka Forest and slayed the rakshasa Viradha who had been terrorizing the sages who dwelled in the Dandaka forest.12 Then they visited Sarabhanga’s ashram, paid tributes to Sarabhanga, and saw the Sage’s astonishing entry into the fire by which he was transformed into a divine being. Then, journeying to the hermitage of Suthishna, they stayed with Suthishna13 and other sages for 10 years and then proceeded further from there. On the way, they bathed in the Panchapsara Tirtha, the lake of the five celestial maidens, and visited Agastya’s ashram, 11 In most tellings of the Rama story, Guha is a tribal chief. Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam does not include the word “Sage” but refers to his abode as “Guharashram” (ashram of Guha) and he is mentioned along with other sages. 12 Although “they” refers to Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita, one cannot use these names in the translation to clarify who “they” are because every word of the Saṃkṣepam is enacted and words not in the original must not be enacted. 13 Again, “he” cannot be used, because the name “Suthishna” is enacted in the performance.

56  Orientations and Beginnings and promised to kill any demon who tried to harass the sages there. Upon this, a pleased Sage Agastya granted them special weapons. On their way, they entered a friendly pact with Jatayu, and proceeded to Panchavati, where Lakshmana built a modest hut. While Rama and Sita were living there happily, Ravana’s sister, Shurpanakha, happened to see Rama and Lakshmana, and struck by lust, approached them in the form of Lalita and proposed marriage first to Rama and then to Lakshmana. But, when the brothers did not agree to wed her, she became furious and assumed her original fierce form, upon which Lakshmana cut off her ears and nose. Shurpanakha’s cousin, Khara, and 14,000 other rakshasas who came to avenge her humiliation were killed by Rama. Shurpanakha, terrified by this feat, ran to her brother Ravana in Lanka and recounted to him her disfigurement and the killing of their kin, as well as of Rama-​Lakshmana’s valor and Sita’s beauty. On hearing about Sita, Ravana became love-​struck and went to seek the help of his ally Maricha, who was already vengeful since Rama had killed his mother Tataka and brother Subahu. Maricha was employed in the form of a golden deer to tempt Sita and to get Rama away from her, so that Ravana could approach Sita in disguise and abduct her. Jatayu, Rama’s ally, saw Ravana capturing Sita and tried to stop him, but Ravana chopped off his wings, fatally wounding him. Ravana then proceeded to take Sita to Lanka. While Ravana kept Sita under his custody in the Ashoka Grove under the Simsapa Tree, Rama followed the golden deer and realized that it was a mere illusion, and he killed it. But when Rama and Lakshmana returned to the ashram, they found Sita nowhere. They met Jatayu, who was bleeding to death, and the bird related to them the story of Sita’s abduction before he passed away. They performed the funeral rites for Jatayu, and went further ahead, killing Kabandha and liberating him, giving moksha to the ascetic Shabari, and then reached Lake Pampa. Then they traveled in search of Sita in the valley of the Malyavan mountains, where they met Hanuman, upon whose advice they made a pact with Sugriva, the monkey king, who told them of the terrible asura Dundhubhi who was killed by his fearsome brother and rival, Bali. Rama threw the corpse of Dundhubhi miles away with a single twist and kick of his foot, killed the valiant Bali, and enthroned Sugriva as the indisputable king of the monkeys. Then they went to Matanga’s ashram and spent one

Where Narrative and Performance Meet  57 year and four months in penance there. During this time Sugriva did not visit them, and Lakshmana, furious at the negligence of the monkey king, went looking for Sugriva but was appeased by the good words of Tara, who then convinced Sugriva to join hands with Rama and Lakshmana to liberate Sita. Sugriva thus went with Lakshmana to Matanga’s ashram, placed his monkey army at the disposal of Rama, and delegated them to look for Sita in different lands. Rama summoned Hanuman, who was going toward the South, and gave him his ring with the royal insignia and a secret word for recognition. Thereafter, Hanuman went with Angada and other monkeys to look for Sita Devi in the southern regions. During their expedition, Angada happened to kill the demon Hayagriva, mistaking him for Dasagriva [Ravana], and nervously fled with his band of monkeys to the desert regions. During this time, the king of devas sent the Aswin gods disguised as birds to show the monkeys a clearing where they could rest and live on fruits and tubers.14 At the end of that month, they went to the seaside and realized that time was passing but they still had no news about Sita’s whereabouts. They feared Sugriva’s anger, and in despair wanted to kill themselves, but finally sat down to listen to old Jambavan’s moral stories in hopes of gaining redemption from their sins.15 At this time, the vulture Sampati came there and, upon discovering the connection between the monkey army’s mission and the death of his brother Jatayu, who was also Rama’s ally, asked Jambavan to narrate the Ramayana story until then, and Jambavan obliged him. After listening to Jambavan, Sampati revealed to the monkeys that Sita was in Lanka, and they instantly wanted to cross the sea but did not know how to do it. Hanuman, on learning the Ramayana story from Jambavan, became inspired and in his valor flew across the seas, overcame Surasa’s challenge, killed Simhika, reached the Trikuta mountain, struck Lankalakshmi down, and entered Lanka. And, he met Sita Devi and gave her Rama’s signet ring, and in return received from Sita the Chudaratna, a jewel from her hair. Then he crossed the grove, killed the guards, all the ministers’ sons, and Prince Akshaya, Ravana’s youngest son. Finally, he allowed 14 Amarēndra, literally “king of the devas,” refers to Indra. 15 Salkathakākaḷ literally means “good stories,” but refers not merely to stories that are good but to those that are resonant with deliberations on the meaning of life.

58  Orientations and Beginnings himself to be bound by the Brahmastra of Indrajit so he would be brought into the presence of Ravana. He then related to Ravana the noble deeds of Rama, and the infuriated Ravana ordered his tail to be set on fire. And he, jumping over the towers, burned Lanka with the fire on his tail, and then leaped into the sea to quell the fire. At that time, he heard praises from all around, and mightily pleased, he bowed to Sita Devi and again crossed the sea, then went to the Honey-​wine Pleasure Grove where he celebrated with Angada and other monkeys. And they returned to Matanga’s ashram, gave Sita’s Chudaratna to Rama, and told him about her plight. Learning of Sita’s state, Rama was enraged and pledged to kill Ravana. Along with Sugriva and other monkeys, all ready to fight, Rama then proceeded to the southern seashore, where he accepted the service of Vibhishana, who was estranged from his brother Ravana, and anointed him King of Lanka. And then they requested Varuna to allow them to cross to Lanka, but Varuna refused, and thus angered, Rama aimed the fiery arrows at Varuna, which made the latter so fearful that he readily allowed them to build a causeway. And they made a bridge across the seas and reached Lanka, and killed all the rakshasas ranging from Prahastha, Kumbhakarna, Indrajit to Ravana himself, and crowned Vibhishana the King of Lanka. And, upon Sita’s entry into fire to prove her purity, Rama accepted her, and with Sugriva and other monkeys, boarded the Pushpaka vimana [aerial chariot], reached Ayodhya, and began to rule the kingdom. In a while, lest people cast aspersions on Sita’s chastity, Rama abandoned the pregnant Sita, killed the Sudra sage [Shambuka], and made Shatrughna kill Lavanasura. Soon, to be redeemed of the sin of abandoning Sita, he started the Aswamedha sacrifice, wherein the princes Lava and Kusha arrived with Sage Valmiki, singing the Ramayana story. Listening to them, he recognized them as his own sons, and welcomed them. But, Sita was again asked to enter the fire to prove her chastity, upon which she was infuriated and pleaded with the Earth to swallow her to save her from humiliation, which happened thus. At this time, the God of Death came in the guise of a brahmin, and had a conversation with Rama, and Rama left the side of Lakshmana, and took a dip in the Sarayu with Bharata and Satrughna and Sugriva and other monkeys, and renounced his human form, assumed the divine form to reach Vaikuntha, and thenceforth lay on the bed of Anantha in the glorious company of Lakshmi.

Where Narrative and Performance Meet  59

Malayalam Bibliography Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam. n.d. Handwritten Malayalam manuscript in the possession of Margi Madhu Chakyar and Dr. Indu G. of Nepathya, Kerala. 8 pages. P. Vēṇugopalan, P., ed. 2009. Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi krāmadīpikas āṭṭaprakāraṃs [The Wondrous Crest Jewel: Production Manual and Acting Manuals]. Margi: Thiruvananthapuram.

English Bibliography Venu, G. 2013. Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣepam: An Attaprakaram (Acting Manual) for Depicting the Story of Ramayana through Mudra-​s in Kutiyattam Theatre. Thrissur: Natana Kairali.

PART II

T HE P OL IT IC S OF C AST E

4 Shambuk’s Severed Head Omprakash Valmiki Translation by Aaron Sherraden Whenever I wanted1 to sit in the shade of a lush tree and rest a moment horrible screams began to echo in my ears as if there were countless corpses hanging from every branch and Shambuk’s severed head lay on the ground, I want to get up and run Shambuk’s head blocks my path It cries out—​ I have been hanging from this tree for ages Ram has killed me time and time again My words flutter like a bird with severed wings—​ You are not the only one who gets killed, Ascetic Countless people are killed here every day; their sobs stay stifled in the black layers of darkness. They are here in every street Ram Shambuk Dron Eklavya Yet everyone stays silent 1 The Hindi title is Śambūk kā Kaṭā Sir. Omprakāś Vālmīki, 2012. Pratinidhi Kavitāeṃ, edited by Rāmcandra (Dillī, Śilpāyan), 21–​22. Omprakash Valmiki Translation by Aaron Sherraden, Shambuk’s Severed Head In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0004

64  The Politics of Caste Somewhere there is something that won’t let the screams coming from locked rooms escape It glorifies fingers soaked in blood. Shambuk, your blood has seeped into the ground and any day now it will erupt in a volcanic explosion!

5 Recasting Shambuk in Three Hindi Anti-​Caste Dramas Aaron Sherraden

“I was born into the Shudra varṇa and I am engaged in formidable tapas. I wish to obtain renowned divinity with my body, O Rama. “Out of a desire to attain the world of the gods, I do not speak untruthfully, O King. Know me to be a Shudra by the name of Shambuka, O descendant of Kakutstha.” As the Shudra was speaking, Raghava drew his radiant, stainless sword from its sheath and cut off his head. —​Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa; Uttara kāṇḍa 67.2–​41

These are the only words Shambuk (Skt. Śambūka) utters in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, the earliest text that incorporates the story of the Shudra ascetic’s death. Saying little more than his name, his varna (varṇa; socio-​religious rank), and his divine ambitions, Shambuk is decapitated by Ram for the crime of practicing asceticism (tapas) forbidden to his varna, a crime that has caused the death of a Brahmin boy. After Shambuk dies, the gods subsequently rejoice that his aim of obtaining renowned divinity (devatvam) with his body (saśarīraḥ) will not be realized and they praise Ram for his role in preventing it.2 After Valmiki, several other retellings of the story of Ram and Sita containing the Shambuk story have modified its details, in some cases portraying Ram as a divine king who compassionately sets Shambuk on the

1 All translations in this essay are my own. 2 This description of the gods’ response to Ram’s killing of Shambuk is relegated to the appendix of the Baroda Critical Edition because its editor, U. P. Shah, considers it “incongruous” to the narrative. See Shah (1975: 27) and Goldman and Sutherland Goldman (2017: 1033). Aaron Sherraden, Recasting Shambuk in Three Hindi Anti-​Caste Dramas In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0005

66  The Politics of Caste path to heaven.3 Ultimately, the authors of these retellings alter the episode to elevate Ram and demonstrate his sympathy toward Shambuk. As such, the focus remains on Ram and his greatness. Such retellings are also deeply concerned with a social order of four varnas, the maintenance of which provides the entire basis of Shambuk’s death in these texts since he, a Shudra, was engaged in practices that brahminical texts reserve for the three twice-​born varnas. While the idealized simplicity of a four-​tiered social system has been endlessly complicated by emic notions of jāti (birth-​group) and etic attempts to classify all these social distinctions into “castes,” the vocabulary of varna has nevertheless frequently been called upon as an expedient mode of classification, even for those traditionally subjugated within its structure. By the late 19th century, for example, Jotirao Phule insisted that the Shudra-​Atishudras (i.e., the Shudras and those outside the varna system such as Dalits and tribal communities, avarṇas) ruled over a prosperous pre-​Aryan society under the leadership of King Bali.4 Some later Dalit and other non-​Brahmin assertion movements of the early 20th century drew upon Phule’s pivotal idea of the Atishudras as a way to define a distinctive and robust non-​Brahmin identity.5 These movements inspired a wealth of new voices to engage with the Ramayana tradition and added new dimensions to understanding Shambuk’s death. The Adi Hindu movement—​a Dalit movement started in the 1920s in Uttar Pradesh (United Provinces at the time)—​capitalized on the potential for Shambuk, a figure oppressed by the upper varnas, to embody the tenets of their movement. Such a targeted use of the character by India’s oppressed communities at a time of widespread social assertion created a paradigm shift in the control over the details of Shambuk’s story, moving the focus away from Ram’s greatness and toward Shambuk’s bravery and wisdom. This essay examines three dramas written in Hindi during the 20th and 21st centuries. Each one is intimately tied to anti-​caste activism and views Shambuk as a charismatic leader who aimed to educate his comrades and reclaim the prosperity of a pre-​Aryan society. All the works mentioned here are illustrative

3 Kalidasa’s 5th-​century Raghuvaṃśa initiates this line of narrative, setting a precedent for the episode’s presence in more overtly devotional texts like the 15th-​century Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa. 4 For Phule’s views on the Aryan invasion theory, see O’Hanlon (1985: 141ff). 5 By using the term “non-​Brahmin” in this essay, I intend to refer to those groups that are relegated to subordinate social positions within dominating brahminical structures. Because the precise demarcations between such oppressed communities are often blurry, such a term has the potential, as context warrants, to include tribal, Dalit, and other “low-​caste” communities such as the Other Backwards Classes (OBCs).

Recasting Shambuk  67 of a characterization of Shambuk that developed especially in performative genres over the last hundred years in Hindi-​speaking areas of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.6 By looking at a selection of dramas created and received in this sphere of influence, we can see how, for many, Shambuk came to acquire an unshakable status as a champion of non-​Brahmin concerns.

A New Vision of Shambuk Shambuk’s portrayal as an educator and revolutionary in North India’s anti-​caste literary circles did not develop by accident. Authors characterizing Shambuk in this way believed that they were uncovering a truth about Shambuk that had been hidden under substantial upper-​caste redaction of the real circumstances surrounding his death. For them, the Ramayana tradition as we have it today leaves out the fact that Shambuk was not killed just for his tapas, but also for educating India’s Original Inhabitants and enlightening them about their once-​thriving pre-​Aryan past.7 Similar to many non-​Brahmin movements at the turn of the twentieth century, the Adi Hindu movement, founded by Swami Achhutanand (1879–​1933), adopts the Aryan invasion theory to claim that India’s civilization was at its peak with the Adi Hindus, before the Aryans imposed their Brahminism on the peaceful Adi Hindu way of life.8 Given Phule’s own thoughts on an Aryan invasion, it is no coincidence that Achhutanand was “greatly influenced by the writings of Jyotiba Phule . . . who presented an early critique of the caste system as a Brahmanical imposition used to dominate the lower castes” (Hunt 2014: 33). Achhutanand follows Phule in his suggestion that the Aryans deceived King Bali and then occupied his kingdom. He also posits that those who fell into slavery were categorized by the Aryans as 6 Another similar drama from 1920, Śambuka-​Vadha, by the Telugu playwright and non-​Brahmin activist Tripuraneni Ramasvami Chaudari, exhibits similar plot features to the Hindi plays examined here. While it does not fit within the scope of this essay, the play seems to have contributed significantly to Shambuk’s early characterizations in the anti-​caste assertion movements at the beginning of the 20th century, as did the works of Periyar E.V. Ramasami. For Chaudari and Śambuka-​Vadha, see Narayana Rao (2001: 159–​185, 382–​384) and Ranganayakamma (2004: 738ff). For E.V. Ramasami, see Richman (1991: 175–​201). 7 The term “Original Inhabitants” is a translation of a concept taken from the primary sources used in this chapter. I use this same translation for two different terms (ādinivāsī and ādivāsī) that come to mean the same thing: those who the playwrights believe resided in India prior to an invasion of Aryan peoples who forced the widespread implementation of Aryan culture on these “Original Inhabitants.” 8 Hunt (2014: 32). This essay in many ways builds on her meticulous research.

68  The Politics of Caste Dasyus and Shudras, while those who escaped to the forests became tribals (Jigyasu 2004: 112). The Aryan invasion theory is not the only marker of Phule’s influence on Achhutanand. Phule’s insistence on education for the Shudra-​Atishudras is also well represented in Achhutanand’s work, including his play Rām-​ Rājya-​Nyāy (Nāṭak): Śambūk-​Muni-​Balidān [Justice during the Reign of Rama (A Drama): The Sacrifice of Sage Shambuk] (henceforth Rām-​Rājya-​ Nyāy), originally written in 1931.9 Here, Shambuk is portrayed as the leader of an ashram that operates as a place of learning for non-​Aryans. There he enlightens his followers about their pre-​invasion society, culture, and religion and prepares for a social revolution against the Aryans. Shambuk’s characterization in Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy is, in this way, an allegorical representation of several features of the Adi Hindu movement. Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy as we have it today is a single-​act play consisting of five scenes and a prologue featuring a director (sūtradhāra) who describes and sets up the play, a format recalling classical Sanskrit dramatic structures.10 The work has only a handful of speaking roles and avoids complex staging, leaving the emphasis on personal monologues or extended interactions between two or three characters at a time. It contains elaborate discourses on Adi Hinduism and the conflict between it and Ram’s governance. Owing to its simple structure and small cast, Chandrika Prasad Jigyasu, a friend and follower of Achhutanand and proprietor of the Lucknow-​based publishing house Bahujan Kalyan Prakashan (BKP), says confidently in the introduction to the BKP edition of Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy that, “the play is . . . very easy to put on. The small stories and episodes are easy to remember, and the songs make the subject matter absolutely clear. The play lasts two hours. Its enactment most often happens at night after meetings.” Jigyasu also claims that it has been performed on many different stages.11 Drama was a pragmatic way for Achhutanand to reach his target audience of followers, although information on public performances is scarce, which may suggest that Jigyasu’s claim is somewhat inflated. Regardless of how often or where the play was

9 This date appears in Swaroop Chandra Bauddh’s introduction to the Samyak Prakashan edition of the play (2006: 27). Hunt estimates it was written in the late 1920s or early 1930s (2014: 97). 10 The director specifically mentions the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Uttararāmacarita, and “the Bengali and Dravidian Rāmāyaṇas” as sources of the Shambuk story (Achhutanand 1995: 6). 11 He also notes that this was one of two plays that served as vehicles for Achhutanand to spread his Adi Hindu doctrine and that he had hoped to write more before he died (1995: 3–​4). In Jigyasu’s prologue to the play, he indicates that under the pseudonym “Prakash,” he contributed to the play’s development by revising the language and adding songs.

Recasting Shambuk  69 performed, it circulated widely as a pamphlet. Thus, its life as a text amidst a burgeoning non-​Brahmin print culture in Uttar Pradesh starting in the 1920s has been just as instrumental in spreading Achhutanand’s message as the play’s potential to be staged publicly.12 Ram’s character in Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy is burdened by the hardships of kingship and he laments it openly. In the opening scene, for example, we first learn that Ram is overwhelmed by the constant demands of Ayodhya’s Brahmins. Ram: Following the orders of the Brahmins, I sent my beloved Janaki into exile just to keep my subjects happy and I struck lightning into my own life. But alas! Even with all that, the harsh Creator feels no compassion. He is committed to the destruction of my subjects. . . . The Brahmins aren’t getting the ghee, milk, or grains they need for sacrifices. . . . A king is bound for hell if the Brahmins of his kingdom are experiencing difficult times. (Achhutanand 1995: 89)13 The theme of brahminical pressure appears consistently in multiple passages throughout the play, illustrating the Brahmins’ hold on Ram. This pressure appears most clearly when a Brahmin approaches, holding his son’s corpse and accusing Ram of causing the boy’s death by not ruling his kingdom according to dharma. Clearly disturbed that such an accusation would come from a Brahmin, Ram appeals to his guru, Vasishth, who explains the reason for this untimely death: Vasishth: My beloved Ram, why do you so needlessly repent in your mind? You’re not a sinner (pāpī), nor are you unprincipled. You uphold your duty. Sin (pāp) cannot even touch you. I will tell you the cause of all these tragedies. Some great seers who dwell on the shores of the Godavari River have told me that some Shudra named Shambuk has given up his work of service and is doing the work of the Brahmins; and he’s trying to get to heaven with his body through yogic means and ascetic strength. This is why all these disturbances are happening in your kingdom. That enemy of varṇāśrama-​dharma has become a guru to the 12 Hunt (2014), 97–​98. Jigyasu’s own BKP played a major role in the rise of non-​Brahmin publishing activities in Uttar Pradesh. See ibid., 37ff. 13 Henceforth, the page number in the Hindi edition appears immediately after quotes from the play.

70  The Politics of Caste Original Inhabitants (ādinivāsī) and has settled in the Dandaka Forest. He has broken the societal chains of varna and is teaching the Shudras his Adi Dharma in opposition to the Vedas and Shastras. His teachings have corrupted thousands of Shudras and others; now they are debating with Brahmins. . . . You are the king, you should deliver the punishment of death to this enemy of dharma. (1995: 12). Vasishth’s speech here is meant to reveal a deep anxiety among Brahmins regarding Shambuk’s revolutionary activities. His speech informs the audience toward understanding Brahmins as orchestrating Shambuk’s death under the guise of restoring dharma. Achhutanand extends this point by portraying Ram as initially convinced that Shambuk does not deserve to be executed. Ram: How could the Brahmin boy die because of him if he’s off in a secluded forest practicing yoga or tapas and bringing awareness to his kind? I consider him innocent and he doesn’t seem to deserve this punishment. That poor man has committed no crime. My mind is reluctant to punish him. (1995: 12) Only after Vasishth prods him more does Ram finally agree to deliver the sentence, further solidifying the theme that Brahmins are using Ram to carry out their own intentions. Shambuk’s dedication to educating his fellow Original Inhabitants is spotlighted on several occasions in Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy, yet we never get a clear sense of the inner workings of his school. Shambuk’s lessons are implicit, with his followers forming the play’s chorus, singing songs highlighting his teachings and articulating messages of resistance, education, unity, and pride. Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy’s main emphasis lies in expounding Adi Hindu philosophy by describing it vis-​à-​vis a conflict with the Aryans. Achhutanand expresses some of these Adi Hindu tenets through a conversation between Shambuk and his wife, Tungabhadra. Tungabhadra: You have hundreds of thousands of followers. People come from miles away to take advantage of your profound knowledge and hear your lessons. There is nobody in this Dandaka Forest who can compare to you in

Recasting Shambuk  71

Shambuk:

yoga or tapas—​I hear this every day. Do these twice-​borns still think you are an Untouchable, a servant, and a slave even now? Yes, my dear, these Brahmins will never be able to consider me an Aryan twice-​born or equal to them. I can get as far ahead as I want through my ascetic strength and my accomplishments. But remember, I don’t want to become an Aryan twice-​born and erase my Adi Lineage or my Adi Dharma. . . . The truth is that people belonging to the Original Lineage are themselves the religious gurus to the twice-​borns. Those Aryans created their Vedānta after learning our knowledge of experiencing Ātman and now they have started to propagate it as Brahmā-​vidyā. Yet they still don’t understand its secret. . . . They learned this knowledge from us and have the nerve to write about us in their texts as being Shudras, low, slaves, servants, and mixed-​ varna, and they disgrace and torment our people everywhere. (1995: 17–​18)

After some Adi Hindu tenets are laid out through this discussion, the dramatic action shifts and we learn that Ram is on his way to execute Shambuk. The two confront each other in Shambuk’s ashram, where they discuss Shambuk’s fate and the unjust nature of his punishment. Tungabhadra tries to convince Ram to forgive her husband, even standing between him and Shambuk as Ram raises his sword. While Shambuk stands ready to be sacrificed, Tungabhadra taunts Ram for having a heart of stone. Shambuk utters his last words, chastising Ram for blindly following the orders of Brahmins and showing compassion for the oppressed only when it serves his own purpose. Ram then decapitates Shambuk, whereupon Tungabhadra dies of heartbreak after singing a mournful song about the death of her husband and the deceitful Aryan rule; in it, she curses Ram to be tormented by the cries of the weak. The play ends with Shambuk’s followers singing songs of unity, education, pride, and resisting oppression. Achhutanand’s emphasis on portraying Shambuk as a teacher and hero of the Original Inhabitants led later playwrights to continue to foreground these characteristics with enthusiasm and innovation. With the increasingly unified voice of non-​Brahmin writers in and around Uttar Pradesh

72  The Politics of Caste in the decades after Achhutanand’s death in 1933, this revitalized image of Shambuk became standard among playwrights and other authors. Many of the same themes from Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy appear in subsequent Hindi works on Shambuk.

Periyar Lalai Singh’s Call to Action A significant point along the trajectory of Shambuk’s character development in the Hindi dramatic world comes with the work of Periyar Lalai Singh (1921–​1993), a prominent publisher-​activist in Kanpur District, Uttar Pradesh. Like many non-​Brahmin publishers in Uttar Pradesh, Singh’s own publishing house, Ashok Pustakalaya, focused on the dissemination of affordable and readable works relating to prominent Dalit and other non-​Brahmin figures, opposition to caste discrimination, and reinterpretation of conventional histories of India and accounts of Hinduism. The connection between Jigyasu’s BKP and Ashok Pustakalaya (now the Periyar Lalai Singh Charitable Trust) is evident from the introduction to Singh’s 1962 drama, Śambūk-​Vadh (Killing Shambuk), coauthored with Ram Avtar Pal.14 Jigyasu contributed to the introduction, writing that “this play, Śambūk-​Vadh, reinvigorates the memory of Ram’s ancient exploits that happened under his rule as the Solar Dynasty’s king during the Treta Age. By showing scenes of all aspects of these exploits—​both covert and blatant—​this great team of authors has made the play into a mirror of the current system of society. This exposes Aryan Brahminical policy” (1985: 4). Jigyasu connects Śambūk-​Vadh to the wider network of Dalit and non-​Brahmin publishing houses in Uttar Pradesh and places it in the literary lineage of Achhutanand’s Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy, which, as we have seen, Jigyasu helped to create and circulate. By the time Ashok Pustakalaya released Śambūk-​Vadh, the number of like-​minded publishing houses in Uttar Pradesh had been rising steadily for four decades. The expansion of these presses supplemented non-​Brahmin identity politics by printing works that presented unified perspectives on 14 Like the director in Achhutanand’s play, Pal writes on the origins of Shambuk’s story in Śambūk-​ Vadh’s introduction: “We have relied upon the history and some fictions of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa and other Rāmāyaṇas, etc. in the play Śambūk-​Vadh presented here” (Singh and Pal 1985: 11). Henceforth, quotes in translation from this play are immediately followed by the page number in the Hindi original.

Recasting Shambuk  73 non-​Aryan history and the impact of figures like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Phule. Śambūk-​Vadh’s success relied on the efforts of such publishing houses and on distribution of the play at festivals and other non-​Brahmin events.15 As a three-​act play with a total of 16 scenes and nearly 20 major speaking roles, Śambūk-​Vadh is much more elaborate than Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy, drastically reducing the ease with which it could be performed.16 For this reason, the play has spread primarily in its printed form. Singh and Pal gave a great deal more attention to Shambuk’s teaching activities and students than Achhutanand did in Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy. They also provide a more developed description of Shambuk’s revolutionary ideals, doing so right in the play’s opening scene, in which Shambuk speaks with a few students at his school: Shambuk: If we can’t come together soon and keep ourselves from being trapped in [the Aryans’] net of lies and deceit, then we will have to deal with it for ages to come. . . . I think that we should create a Committee for the Uplift of Society. . . . The Committee will travel around and prevent our people from becoming trapped in the deceitful cycle of this artificial varna system. Setu: But Guruji, royal authority is under the control of the Aryans. Shambuk: What of royal authority? At most what they have is military power, which they will use to try and suppress us. But I have also seen to it that a militia be organized right away under Gyanu’s and my supervision and with it, we can face their soldiers while protecting ourselves from their militaristic wrath. (2013: 17) Shambuk’s Committee for the Uplift of Society recalls attempts by India’s various Dalit and other non-​Brahmin movements to band together in opposition to casteist subjugation, a process in which Achhutanand took an active role.17 Śambūk-​Vadh, however, offers us something new with the militaristic 15 Periyar Lalai Singh Charitable Trust no longer prints the play. Instead, New Delhi’s Samyak Prakashan has been producing copies of Śambūk-​Vadh since 2013. 16 Unlike Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy’s introduction, the introductory material to Śambūk-​Vadh contains nothing about length or ease of performance, as had been the case with Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy’s introduction. During the Ambedkar Jayanti celebrations in Kanpur, I spoke about Śambūk-​Vadh’s performance history with J. N. Aditya, current trustee of the Periyar Lalai Singh Charitable Trust. He had never seen the play performed, but Singh told him of two occasions on which it had been staged: once in Jhinjhak, Kanpur District, and once in Kanpur city (interview, April 14, 2017). 17 Mark Juergensmeyer notes that “the Adi Hindus of U.P. were in contact with the Ad Dharm of Punjab. The leader of the Adi Hindu movement, Swami Achutanand, called a meeting in Delhi in

74  The Politics of Caste aspect of Shambuk’s plan, namely the formation of a Military Corps (sainik dal) aimed at training the Original Inhabitants to protect themselves against Aryan aggression.18 When word of Shambuk’s revolution spreads, several confront him about his followers and his tapas. Markandey: In accordance with the views of which Shastra, do you have the right to read and teach the Vedas, perform and oversee sacrifices, and undertake such intense tapas? Shambuk: . . . The injunction of a Shastra is not an injunction from God. . . . Before the Aryans came, every Original Inhabitant (ādivāsī) here had performed deeds such as the twilight rituals and tapas. Gautam: But you have no body of literature which states that non-​ Aryans have the right to read and teach or practice tapas like the Aryans. Shambuk: What meaningless nonsense are you saying, Gautam? If our literature was fully formed, how could these Aryans—​whom one could count on one’s fingers—​have ruled over us and subjected us to religious, social, economic, and political exploitation? On the contrary, all you Aryans would have come begging as refugees, not as rulers. Narad: (Sarcastically) You’re right, great one. Gautam: So why haven’t you developed your literature? Why haven’t your ancestors completed it and preserved it? Shambuk: Gautam, you are mistaken if you think you could ever imagine the amount of literature we had before the arrival of the Aryans. All your literature was created by stealing from ours. You just cast the net of your self-​serving, artificial varna system and jati distinctions over it. The first thing your foresighted leaders did was set our literature aflame and reduce to it ashes. (2013: 25–​26) early 1926, which some of the Punjab people attended.” The purpose of the meeting was “to bring some unity among Scheduled Caste activists in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and the Punjab” (Juergensmeyer 1982: 25). Achhutanand even hints at connections with the Adi Dravida movement in Scene 4 of Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy (1995: 24). 18 The sainik dal is a reference to the Samta Sainik Dal, which Ambedkar founded in order that India’s Dalits could unite for protection and self-​assertion.

Recasting Shambuk  75 Singh and Pal use Shambuk’s interaction with the Brahmin sages to illustrate a pre-​Aryan golden age destroyed by Aryan exploitation of the peaceful Original Inhabitants and their systems of knowledge. In doing so, they largely fall in line with Achhutanand’s Adi Hindu interpretation of Indian history and Hinduism’s textual history. Shambuk’s sharp criticism in this way is met with a swift response by the Brahmins. After the sages meet Shambuk, they discuss how to eliminate him and his threat to their supremacy. Narad: We will have to cheat the current ruler, Ram, like we did when we had him kill Tataka, trapping him in a net of deception. We devised a brilliant plan for him to clash with Parashuram, we successfully exiled him to the forest, and had him destroy King Bali and the great overlord Ravan. . . . We need a Brahmin with only one son to get involved in this plan. . . . We will give his boy medicine to render him unconscious and declare that Ram is wholly responsible for his death. . . . We will say that a Shudra ascetic is practicing tapas in Ram’s kingdom and, due to this, sin (pāp) has spread in the kingdom . . . causing this untimely death to occur, that too while his elderly father was still alive. A king’s rule which could allow such an atrocity to happen is in danger of utter ruin. This kind of conspiracy is only hinted at in Achhutanand’s play, but the ruse Narad proposes in Śambūk-​Vadh is blatantly treacherous. Singh and Pal bring the Brahmins’ control over Ram far out into the open. Narad clearly has no respect for Ram and does not hesitate to manipulate him in order to suppress and end Shambuk’s threat to brahminical privilege. The sages ultimately recruit the Brahmin Shivakanth, father of Shailendra, to participate in their ploy. Throughout the play, we hear about the troubled friendship between Shailendra and Kundan, Shambuk’s student and the eventual leader of the Committee for the Uplift of Society. Shailendra becomes increasingly uncomfortable with Kundan’s intellectual progress and his position as leader of the Committee. While discussing Kundan with his parents, Shailendra’s disapproval of Kundan’s actions manifests in an outburst of threats against Shambuk and his followers. Shivakanth then takes advantage of his son’s frustration and convinces the boy’s mother, Jaleshvari, to follow through with Narad’s plan. Shivakanth and Jaleshvari bring their unconscious son to Ram’s royal court to confront him about the boy’s “death.” Shivakanth and his wife tell

76  The Politics of Caste Ram about Shambuk practicing tapas, whereby sin (pāp) and unrighteousness (adharma) have spread in the kingdom, resulting in their son’s death. Ram responds: Ram: I beg your forgiveness for my saying so, gracious mother, but everyone has the right to praise God. All are the children of the Supreme Brahma, the Paramātmā. Youngest or eldest, all sons have equal right to serve their father. Why question whether he is a Shudra or savarṇa (i.e., a twice-​born), Aryan or non-​Aryan? I cannot forbid anyone this right. (2013: 51) Ram’s position here reveals his hopeful intentions for his subjects. Much like in Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy, he is a just ruler with a mind toward equality, but the pervasiveness of brahminical pressure from all angles proves to be too much for him. Worried that the Brahmin parents might curse him, Ram calls an emergency meeting of his Advisory Council—​an institution of Brahmins—​ to address their complaint about Shambuk. Narad explains the situation at length, but in addition to Shambuk’s tapas, he emphasizes that Shambuk is educating and organizing his followers for revolution: Narad: This sage Shambuk has opened a school for Original Inhabitants where only non-​Aryans can receive an education. He is revolting against the kingdom. Ram: How is he revolting against the kingdom? Do explain, great sage. Narad: Under his leadership, the Committee for the Uplift of Society is inciting subjects against you, my king, and he has also overseen the organization of a very large Military Corps. An enormous people’s revolution against you will occur very soon, and while you are busy stopping it, he will attack. (2013: 57–​58) Convinced that Shambuk deserves to die after Narad’s explanation, Ram departs to carry out the punishment. During the confrontation between Shambuk and Ram, Ram charges Shambuk for his alleged crimes. Ram: Your practicing tapas as a Shudra has resulted in the spread of sin (pāp) in my kingdom, causing the gods to be angry with my subjects. . . . A Brahmin’s boy has died at a young age. Your Committee for the Uplift of Society is a gross affront to the

Recasting Shambuk  77 brahminical functions of the Aryan varṇa system. On top of that, you have brought together an army of revolutionaries against the kingdom and organized a formidable Military Corps. That being the case, prepare to die. (2013: 59) Ram’s charges mimic Narad’s words, falling in line with the theme of brahminical puppeteering and marking a vast departure from Ram’s own thoughts as represented by his response to the Brahmin mother. As in Achhutanand’s play, Shambuk’s wife, Tungabhadra, tries to interfere and prevent Ram from killing her husband. After her unsuccessful attempt to beg for her husband’s life, Ram beheads Shambuk. Tungabhadra chastises Ram and dies from the pain of separation from her husband. With both Shambuk and Tungabhadra dead, the play recedes from its climax quickly. Shailendra is given medicine to make him regain his consciousness and Shivakanth then credits Ram for bringing his son back to life by killing Shambuk. As Shambuk’s students lament the loss of their guru and his wife, they castigate Ram for his cruelty and injustice. Thousands gather at the tomb of Shambuk and Tungabhadra, where Kundan ends the play with a hopeful speech: Kundan: Don’t be distressed. Do your work with conviction. Some great leader or another will come to lead people who are truly honest, sacrificing, and devoted in their actions. Make these offerings here now and go to your homes peacefully. (2013: 64) These final words bring the play to a very mobilizing conclusion. At the same time that they bring the play to an end, they also bring the audience into the active state of anti-​caste assertion during the time when Singh and Pal were writing. Indeed, Singh appears to have had a vision of Śambūk-​Vadh that transcends the limits of the stage and even of the text itself. In his introduction to the play, he directs the reader’s attention to four directives. First, he asks readers to support their children in their educational endeavors and open their own schools to avoid the systemic mistreatment of low-​caste students in schools where they form a minority. Second, he asks that readers work toward protection and self-​assertion among India’s lower castes by starting local branches of the Samta Sainik Dal. Third, he asks readers to give up rampant superstitions plaguing society by forming their own Committees for the Uplift of Society, a group portrayed in Śambūk-​Vadh as a means to

78  The Politics of Caste spread awareness and confidence in non-​Brahmin communities. All three directives are modeled on Shambuk’s actions, as portrayed in the play, but Singh’s last directive is the true call to action: “You don’t get anything from just reading this play, Śambūk-​Vadh, or any other book. You only get something when you act according to its message.”19 These four injunctions bring the plot of Śambūk-​Vadh off the page and into society, where all oppressed communities are meant to benefit. Aware of how booklets and their information circulate off-​stage, Singh utilized the mobility of the pamphlet to spread these messages and ignite social change as widely as possible.20

Advocating for Shambuk with Drama Underneath a portrait of Periyar Lalai Singh, shown in his younger years, on the dedication page to 2015’s Rukā Huā Faislā Śambūk Vadh (A Pending Ruling on the Killing of Shambuk, henceforth Rukā Huā), author Amar Visharat says: “My book is hereby dedicated to the memory of the most honorable Periyar Lalai Singh Yadav and the endeavors he has undertaken.” Turning the page to the author’s biography, one sees a picture of Visharat reading the 2013 Samyak Prakashan edition of Śambūk-​Vadh. With Rukā Huā, we thus step beyond Uttar Pradesh’s borders, but remain within the sphere of influence of the state’s anti-​caste literary networks within which Singh and Achhutanand before him had been important figures. Rukā Huā consists of several writings on anti-​caste issues, focusing especially on Shambuk, Ram’s conduct, Ravan worship, and an analysis of the Supreme Court statement condemning’s actions against Eklavya.21 In a short essay entitled “The Court Has Found Dron Guilty,” Visharat appeals to the

19 Singh and Pal (1985), 8. 20 A. R. Akela, from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, wrote a poem in 1980 entitled Śambuk Ṛṣi kī Bārahmāsī athavā Rām Rājya kī Naṅgī Tasvīr (The Perennial Story of Sage Shambuk or The Bare Truth about the Reign of Ram), which demonstrates Śambūk-​Vadh’s ability to move through space and time. Akela heard a song about Shambuk at a village gathering and wrote this poem after reading Śambūk-​Vadh, which the singer had recommended to him after he asked how he could learn more about Shambuk (interview April 24, 2017). By including narrative details unique to Singh and Pal’s drama, Akela’s poem shows Śambūk-​Vadh’s direct influence. 21 Eklavya was a talented archer whom Dron, the guru of Arjun and the Pandav brothers, denied tutelage because he was a tribal Nishada. Eklavya continued refining his archery in the presence of a mūrti (image for worship) of Dron which he made of clay. Dron confronted the archer and demanded Eklavya’s right thumb as guru-​dakṣiṇā (honorarium for a teacher). Without this thumb, Eklavya lost his expertise in archery. The Supreme Court condemnation of Dron’s actions appears in Criminal Appeal No. 11/​2011 (Arising out of Special Leave Petition (Crl) No. 10367 of 2010).

Recasting Shambuk  79 Supreme Court of India to issue a statement on Ram’s treatment of Shambuk, as they had done with Dron’s treatment of Eklavya, noting the two cases’ similarities. He says, “The Supreme Court has found Guru Dronacharya guilty for his vile action, now it is Ram’s turn” (Visharat 2015: 27). Visharat includes a short drama in his pamphlet to detail the events of Shambuk’s death and provide context in support of his plea to the Supreme Court. In the introduction to the play, Visharat notes that “several people in India have written plays on the killing of Shambuk and they have shown people how the killing of Shambuk happened through these plays.”22 In Visharat’s three-​scene drama, its themes and characterizations show the clear influence of Singh and Pal’s Śambūk-​Vadh. In the opening conversation between Narad and Vasishth, they plan to blame Shambuk for the death of a Brahmin boy, using a ruse by which the boy is given medicine that temporarily renders him unconscious.23 When the Brahmin father demands justice for his son’s death, Narad and Vasishth both feign opposition to searching for Shambuk because it would delay the successful completion of Ram’s Horse Sacrifice. Steadfast in his commitment to alleviating the Brahmin’s distress, Ram declares that he will only resume the Horse Sacrifice once the boy has been brought back to life. During their search, Ram, Vasishth, Narad, and their retinue encounter an ashram and decide to inquire about Shambuk’s whereabouts, not knowing that this ashram is run by Shambuk himself. Ram and company enter the ashram as Shambuk is lecturing on pre-​Aryan civilization in India, the oppressions caused by artificial divisions of caste, and the importance of equality. Shambuk welcomes Ram into the ashram and they have an amicable exchange. But, as soon as the king learns that the ascetic is the Shudra for whom they had been searching, the interaction turns hostile. Ram charges Shambuk with the death of the Brahmin boy and sentences him to death for this and his attainment of knowledge. Confused by the charge, Shambuk disputes his involvement in the boy’s death but prepares to sacrifice

22 Visharat goes on to say that “[p]‌laywright Brijesh wrote Śambūk-​Vadh which was performed by Jana Natya Manch (Janam) under the direction of Sudhanva Deshpande at the National School of Drama for the annual National Theatre Festival” (2015: 11). See the following essay (Chapter 6) in this volume by Sudhanva Deshpande for analysis of the creation, plot, and performance of Janam’s Śambūk-​Vadh. Like both Achhutanand and Pal, Visharat also acknowledges Valmiki’s connection to the Shambuk story, saying, “This is a story of the Age of Ram because this incident is described in cantos 23–​96 [sic] of the Uttarakāṇḍa in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa” (2015: 11). Visharat makes no mention of Rukā Huā ever being performed. 23 Visharat spells Vasishth as “Vaśiṣṭh” in Hindi, but I use “Vasishth” for consistency.

80  The Politics of Caste himself for the rights of the oppressed and the unlettered. After Shambuk dies, his wife, Tungabhadra, laments and chastises Ram and then dies of grief. Shambuk’s followers experience despair and do not know what to do next. Yet, one follower consoles the group, encouraging everyone to spread Shambuk’s messages. Another commits himself to continuing Shambuk’s movement. In a paragraph after the conclusion of the drama, Visharat again appeals to the Court to release a statement on whether Shambuk’s death was justified, as they had done for the loss of Eklavya’s thumb, thereby emphasizing the theme of the collection as a whole and drawing continuity between the drama and the other written materials in the volume (2015: 25). Visharat’s entire booklet thus demonstrates an attempt to make a pointed argument sustained over a variety of contexts, weaving dynamic current events together with primordial history, using drama as a way to present that history in an updated way.

A Shambuk for the Times As Dalit and other non-​Brahmin assertion movements took hold across India at the turn of the 20th century, Achhutanand provided his own Adi Hindu movement with a hero in Shambuk and crafted his image in Rām-​ Rājya-​Nyāy, a simple drama that could be easily performed in impromptu settings. Since drama can be understood and enjoyed publicly through performance or privately through reading, it became an effective means to spread a portrayal of Shambuk as an educated, articulate, and ambitious leader and symbol of prideful non-​Aryan identity. Shambuk’s character continued to embody issues of non-​Brahmin unity, education, and history long after Achhutanand’s death, and drama remained a preferred means of telling his story, as authors adapted its format to suit a variety of receptive trends. As the network of non-​Brahmin publishing houses expanded in Uttar Pradesh after the 1920s, later playwrights like Singh and Pal capitalized on the potential for their work to circulate, not always on stage, but at least in print. This allowed subsequent writers to elaborate on themes found in Rām-​Rājya-​ Nyāy while maintaining its spirit and sense of dramatic action. Visharat shows his indebtedness to earlier playwrights, but embeds his drama in a larger project, demonstrating drama’s suitability for narrating Shambuk’s story even when performance is not the sole goal. Whether their works were performed or read, the playwrights discussed here had much to gain from

Recasting Shambuk  81 reshaping Shambuk’s image to suit the momentum of anti-​caste assertion, literary development, and identity formation throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Shambuk’s heroic depiction in these contexts marks a clear break from his near-​silence in Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa long before the era of anti-​caste assertion. The implications of the Shambuk episode have taken on new meaning in this new age, and their potential for change and social transformation continues even today.

Hindi Bibliography Achūtānand, Śrī 108 Svāmī “Harihar” 1995 (11th printing). Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy (Nāṭak): Śambūk-​Muni-​Balidān [Justice during the Reign of Ram (A Drama): The Sacrifice of Sage Shambuk)]. Lucknow: Bahujan Kalyan Prakashan. Bauddh, Svarūp Candra. 2006. Introduction to Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy (Nāṭak): Śambūk-​Muni-​ Balidān [Justice during the Reign of Ram (A Drama): The Sacrifice of Sage Shambuk)]. New Delhi: Samyak Prakashan. Bṛjeś. 2006. Śambūk-​Vadh [Killing Shambuk]. New Delhi: Jana Natya Manch. Siṃh, Pairiyār Lalaī, and Rām Avtār. 1985. Śambūk-​Vadh [Killing Shambuk]. Kanpur: Ashok Pustakalaya. [Reprinted 2013. New Delhi: Samyak Prakashan.] Viśārat, Amar. 2015. Rukā Huā Faislā Śambūk Vadh [A Pending Ruling on the Killing of Shambuk]. Delhi: Dhamma Prakashan.

Sanskrit Bibliography Shah, U. P., ed. 1975. The Uttarakāṇḍa: The Seventh Book of the Vālmīki-​Rāmāyaṇa. Baroda: Oriental Institute.

English Bibliography Ghosh, Arjun. 2012. A History of the Jana Natya Manch: Plays for the People. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Goldman, Robert P., and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman. 2017. Introduction to The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: An Epic of Ancient India, Vol. VII, Uttarakāṇḍa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hunt, Sarah Beth. 2014. Hindi Dalit Literature and the Politics of Representation. New Delhi: Routledge. Jigyasu, Chandrika Prasad. 2004. “Shree 108 Swami Achhutanandji ‘Harihar.’” In Multiple Marginalities: An Anthology of Identified Dalit Writings, ed. Badri Narayan and A. K. Mishra, pp. 101–​129. New Delhi: Manohar. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 1982. Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th-​Century Punjab. Berkeley: University of California Press.

82  The Politics of Caste Narayana Rao, Velcheru. 2001. “The Politics of Telugu Ramayanas: Colonialism, Print Culture, and Literary Movements.” In Questioning Ramayanas: A South Asian Tradition, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 159–​185. Berkeley: University of California Press. O’Hanlon, Rosalind. 1985. Caste, Conflict, and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-​ Century Western India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ranganayakamma. 2004. “Tripuraneni Ramaswamy Chowdary’s ‘Murder of Sambuka’.” In Ramayana The Poisonous Tree: Stories Essays and Foot-​Notes, trans. B. R. Bapuji, pp. 738–​746. Hyderabad: Sweet Home Publications. Richman, Paula. 1991. “E.V. Ramasami’s Reading of the Rāmāyaṇa.” In Many Rāmāyaṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 175–​201. Berkeley: University of California Press.

6 The Killing of Shambuk A Retelling from a Director’s Perspective Sudhanva Deshpande

The earliest account of Shambuk’s story, which appears in the final book of Valmiki’s Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa, is very brief.1 The war is over, Ravana vanquished, Sita banished, and all seems well in Ayodhya. One day, a distressed Brahmin appears in Ram’s court, with the corpse of his young son in his arms. The child, he complains, has died before his time, and holds Ram responsible for the death. Something, he says, is wrong in your kingdom, which led to the death of my son. Ram is confused. What could be wrong in the reign of the greatest of kings? Narada appears and explains to Ram that if a Shudra performs tapas without punishment, the Kali Yuga will begin, and then declares that a Shudra is performing tapas somewhere in his kingdom, thereby upturning the natural order of things. His asceticism has led to the Brahmin’s son’s death. As the most righteous sovereign, Ram must take responsibility and set the wrong right. Ram goes to the forest and beheads the Shudra ascetic named Shambuk. The dead Brahmin child immediately returns to life. There are many questions that Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa does not answer about the episode. Who was Shambuk? How did he learn to perform tapas? Who was his teacher? Did he have any followers or students? Was he married? Why was he in the forest rather than in his own home? How did his tapas lead to the Brahmin boy’s death? Why that Brahmin and his son? How did Shambuk’s killing revive the boy? One cannot take the story literally; it is mythology, after all. Instead, this fable calls attention to Dalit assertion and brahminical reassertion. The death

1 The Uttara-​kāṇḍa of Valmiki’s Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa recounts the story of Shambuka (Skt, Śambūka) in sargas 64–​67. Shambuka’s story does not appear in the Hindi Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas, possibly because it contradicts the image of Ram as compassionate to all. Sudhanva Deshpande, The Killing of Shambuk In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0006

84  The Politics of Caste of the boy results in the overturning of the brahminical order; his coming back to life symbolically restores the brahminical order. In other words, Shambuk’s tapas should not be viewed as an individual act; it is a symbol of the collective assertion of Dalit rights. Shambuk, then, is not a lone ascetic. He is a leader of his people. The site where he does tapas, rather than a literal forest, is an ashram where Dalits gain education.2 This was the premise upon which we in Jana Natya Manch (Janam for short) decided to create our telling of Shambuk’s killing, titled Śambūk-​Vadh. Founded in 1973, Janam is a New Delhi–​based, left-​wing, voluntary theater group; we all have day jobs or are students and we come together to create and perform plays in the evenings and on holidays. Nobody in the group is paid. Śambūk-​Vadh is a 2004 play written by Brijesh with music by Kajal Ghosh, which I directed.3 It has a playing time of approximately 90 minutes. While Janam is primarily a street theater group, we also stage some proscenium plays;4 Śambūk-​Vadh was an open-​air proscenium play with a fixed script, costumes more elaborate than in street theater, live music, and a cast of about 20. Over two years, it had a run of over 50 performances. We performed the play mostly in the open, in a modular mobile theater that we set up in parks and gardens, in or around slums, industrial areas, and middle-​class neighborhoods. Occasionally, we might do a performance or two in an auditorium as well. Although the bulk of the shows of Śambūk-​ Vadh took place in the mobile theater in the open, many performances were also staged in auditoriums. This was partly because the play was invited to

2 Sherraden’s essay (Chapter 5) in this volume analyzes the development of the notion of Shambuk as a teacher at an ashram where other Dalits come to gain an education. 3 While there were no formal talkback or discussion sessions after the play, an open-​air performance automatically leads to informal chats among players and spectators, since the winding up also happens in full public view. During the production, while there was some turnover of actors and musicians, the essential play remained the same. Go to https://​youtu.be/​RkxGs1EV4nA for a video recording of the entire play. For a synopsis of it, see http://​www.jananatyamanch.org/​playslistsv.htm. 4 From 1973 to 1978, the group staged proscenium plays, but these were performed, for the most part, in the open, on makeshift stages, to mass audiences of thousands, in open fields or parks. After the national Emergency in India (1975–​1977), we found it increasingly hard to stage such large plays. In October 1978, we created our first street play. For a decade after that, we created 24 original street plays, and performed them about 4,000 times. In the summer of 1988, under the leadership of our cofounder Safdar Hashmi, we returned to proscenium theater with a production directed for us by the well-​known artist Habib Tanvir. Since then, we’ve done street, proscenium, and other performances (such as poetry readings and “happenings”). Safdar Hashmi, along with a spectator, was killed when we were attacked while performing a street play in an industrial township on the outskirts of Delhi in January 1989. Safdar’s killing became a landmark moment in the cultural history of post-​Independence India, with hundreds of artists and activists coming together to protest across the entire country. For more on Janam’s history, see S. Deshpande (2020, 2007, 2002, 1997); Ghosh (2012); Prashad (2009); van Erven (1989); Da Costa (2017); Arora (2016).

The Killing of Shambuk  85 some festivals, such as the 2006 Prithvi Theatre Festival in Mumbai (after which we toured towns in Maharashtra), and Bharat Rang Mahotsav 2007, the festival of the National School of Drama in Delhi. The process of thinking about a play on Shambuk began in early 2004. As head of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in power at the Centre (New Delhi).5 Jana Natya Manch decided to campaign against the BJP, and in favor of Left candidates, with a street play in the run-​up to the elections, while planning to mount the Shambuk play afterward. It was to be a large play, staged in the open as a proscenium production. The long-​time Janam actor and writer Brijesh was to write it, and I was to direct it. As it happens, the BJP was voted out. But we decided to go ahead with the play anyway, since the electoral defeat hardly meant the end of the conservative BJP as a party, much less its parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Thus, in the summer of 2004, we started working on putting together the script. Brijesh has always been keen on mythology and ancient tales. He was reading everything that came his way.6 We had discussed the possibility of adding other narratives to the slender Shambuk tale from Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa. Brijesh chanced upon the Sanskrit story of Satyakama and his mother Jabala from the Upanishads, which provided the crucial breakthrough for our narrative.7 Jabala is what we might call a domestic servant in modern parlance. Like many women who work in middle-​class homes, she faced sexual harassment from her employers. When she got pregnant, she was not sure who was the father of her son, Satyakama. The boy is bright, and his mother is eager for him to get educated, so he goes to teacher after teacher, asking to be taken on as a pupil. Each asks him to declare his gotra (sub-​lineage). Unable to name his father, and therefore unable to identify his lineage, he is rejected 5 The party’s visibility took a leap during a campaign orchestrated to build a temple at the alleged site of Ram’s birth, where a medieval mosque, long out of active use, stood. Followers of the Hindu Right demolished the mosque on December 6, 1992; the demolition led to the most extreme violence that India had seen since the Partition. In 1999, the BJP headed a government that lasted its full term of five years and looked ready for a second inning after the elections in May 2004. 6 And so was I. Between us, we read scores of mythological tales, novels, stories, poems, political tracts. Some of it was around the Shambuk tale, but most was generally around caste and history. We read hungrily and widely to immerse ourselves in relevant material. Much of what we read is today, 16 years later, impossible to enumerate. I thank Paula Richman for references to Ramayana texts and to Chāndogya Upaniṣad. I thank Aaron Sherraden for his translation of Omprakash Valmiki’s poem on Shambuk, which (along with the writer’s autobiography) was crucial to our reading. 7 Chāndogya Upaniṣad IV.4.1–​5 in Radhakrishnan and Moore (1957: 66). Here, Satyakāma Jābāla from a Sanskrit text enters a Hindi play as Satyakama Jabala.

86  The Politics of Caste everywhere. His mother then instructs him, should anybody ask, to say his name is “Satyakama Jabala,” indicating that he is her offspring. “Jābāla” is a matronymic, a link to the mother’s name.8 One teacher, Rishi Gautam, is impressed by the boy’s intelligence and confidence. He reasons that such a burning desire to be educated indicates birth in a Brahmin lineage. He conducts the investiture of the sacred thread ceremony for the boy, which gives him a Brahmin identity. The boy is admitted to Gautam’s ashram, and learns the Vedas. Rishi Gautam is mentioned in Rāmāyaṇa. If one assumes that this Gautam and Ram were contemporaries, Brijesh argued, Shambuk and Satyakam could also be so. What if they met and the younger man became Shambuk’s assistant? After all, if Shambuk’s ashram was imparting brahminical education to Dalits, surely Shambuk needed co-​teachers, so Brijesh decided that Satyakam was one of them. A smart move dramatically and politically, it provided the opportunity for us to create a sympathetic counterpoint to Shambuk, as we’ll see. With these elements in place, we still needed something that would propel the narrative and plot forward. The play was to be performed largely in the open, in bastīs (poor neighborhoods) and open spaces in the city, to audiences that may have experienced theater in their home states (particularly the rural or semi-​urban forms that are subsumed under the term “folk” theater), but rarely had the opportunity in the metropolis. We needed a strong emotional element to hold the narrative thread together. What about a love story? We cooked up a love story: the daughter of the rājpurohit (royal priest) of Kalinga falls in love with a carpenter, they get married secretly, and elope. They’ve heard that Ayodhya is a safe haven for Shudras. In Ayodhya, while being chased by soldiers from Kalinga, they are rescued by Satyakam, who takes them to Shambuk’s ashram. He is happy because the priest’s daughter, Valaya (known as Sundari, “Beautiful one”), knows Sanskrit and has read the sacred books. Thus, Shambuk gains another teacher. In the meantime, both Brijesh and I were reading modern Dalit literature—​ poetry and autobiographies, of course, but also fiction. I was struck by the fact that everything I was reading was grim, serious, dark. That Dalit poetry and autobiography should be dark makes sense, because it reflects grim and dark realities where oppression, abuse, indignity, and humiliation are part of everyday life from childhood on. But why should fiction also only be serious 8 Patronymics are much more common (e.g., Dāśarathi for Rama) especially in high varnas, but matronymics also occur (e.g., as a matronymic for Lakshmana, Saumitra, “son of Sumitrā”).

The Killing of Shambuk  87 and dark? After all, humor has been, for centuries, a tool of the oppressed to mock the oppressor. It is possible of course that I did not read widely enough, but I didn’t find any humorous pieces. Then, out of the blue, I found “Ab Nahiṃ Nāchav [We Won’t Dance],” a Hindi short story by Ramnihor Vimal. The story was a bit long for our use but, at its core, is delightful and clever subversion. In a village, a landless Dalit agricultural laborer goes to the zamindar and asks him for some wheat, since he has visitors and wants to serve them kheer (a milk-​based dessert). The zamindar says, “OK, but you must do some work for me first.” The Dalit has no choice—​he has always done begār, unpaid labor. As he goes off to work, the Brahmin priest, who thinks the zamindar is showing too much kindness to the lowly, instigates him to use a clever trick. Accordingly, after finishing the work, when the Dalit asks for the wheat, the zamindar comes running from the store, shouting that there’s been a miracle. The wheat, he claims, spoke to him! It said, “I am the Wheat God/​I am consumed by the Brahmin-​ Kshatriya-​Bania/​I’d rather be consumed by rats/​than go to a Shudra’s home.” The zamindar claims helplessness in the face of this divine order. The Dalit accepts his fate and goes away despondent. A couple of months later, time comes for the new crop to be planted. Since it is going to rain soon, there is no time to be lost. The zamindar summons the Dalit and orders him to sow his fields. The Dalit meekly accepts but comes back running from the field, shouting that there’s been a miracle. The plow, he says, spoke to him! It said: “I am the Plow God/​I only want to be touched by the Brahmin-​ Kshatriya-​Bania/​I’d rather rot away/​than be touched by a Shudra.” The zamindar and Brahmin are incredulous: how can a plow talk? It has never happened in the past! Well, says the Dalit laborer, if the wheat can talk, why can’t the plow? We inserted this little story as a play-​within-​the-​play: Sundari directs the inmates to perform it as a play at Shambuk’s ashram. As we began devising this scene, I felt that we weren’t utilizing the comic potential of the scene enough, since the humor only comes at the end, with the subversive twist. I was looking for a visual element that would be funny and political. What came to mind was Shudraka’s Mṛcchakaṭikam [The Little Clay Cart], where the Brahmin thief uses his sacred thread to make measurements before creating the hole in the wall to rob the house. I had also observed how one of our actors, a Dalit as it happens, was struggling to get comfortable with the sacred thread. Brijesh had created a character at Shambuk’s ashram, a wrestler called Pundarik, and we decided that Sundari would cast him to play the Brahmin. As they rehearse, big-​bodied but

88  The Politics of Caste soft-​hearted Pundarik struggles to be evil and menacing as the Brahmin—​ until he wears the sacred thread, at which point he is transformed! When he removes it, he is again all milk and honey. I liked this little business for many reasons. First, it expresses a reality that actors know all too well: properties and costume do help in expressing the character. Second, it brought in a playfulness to the play-​within-​the-​play—​the real audience watching our play would anticipate the change in Pundarik once they caught on to how the sacred thread was changing how he was playing the Brahmin. Third, it expressed the reality that power flows not just from abstract and intangible institutions (here, caste society), but also from visual symbols by which these institutions express themselves. And even though it was probably only in my head, the connection with an ancient Sanskrit classic pleased me immensely. To top it all, the scene was a sure-​fire hit in all our performances. Ramnihor Vimal’s tale of inversion, coupled with a heightened comic playing style and the business with the sacred thread—​what was not to like! We sometimes forget how humor runs through our traditional theater, from ancient dramatic texts and more recent rural performance traditions like the Tamasha of Maharashtra or the Nacha of Chhattisgarh to rural-​ urban forms like the Nautanki of Uttar Pradesh.9 Yet, prahasan (farce) targets two figures repeatedly: the Brahmin priest and the policeman. That such humor can be politically sharp needs no underlining. A few months before we began work on our play, I had traveled with Habib Tanvir and his Naya Theatre in Madhya Pradesh as they performed their classic farce, Poṅgā Paṇḍit [The Duplicitous Pandit] in September 2003. In town after town, they were opposed and threatened by local adherents of Hindutva.10 During that time, Habib Tanvir and I had chatted about the prahasan tradition. I learned a lot from those conversations, from observing his actors do Nacha, and from watching audience reactions. I was determined to bring some of that learning into our play. As we began working on individual scenes that Brijesh had written, cleaning up the narrative, teasing out interconnections, fleshing out some characters, and dropping others, I began thinking of how the play was to

9 All three forms mentioned here use song, live music, and dramatic narrative to tell mostly secular, non-​mythological tales. On Nautanki, see Hansen (1991). For a brief introduction to Tamasha, see “Tamasha” in Bhandare (2009a). 10 See Deshpande (2003). Sanjay Maharishi and I captured some of this on video as we chronicled Naya Theatre, and we turned it into a documentary film: One Day in the Life of Ponga Pandit, available at: https://​youtu.be/​NarhrWr1pN4.

The Killing of Shambuk  89 open. We needed a chorus to introduce the principal characters, their mythological roots, and their relationships. One day, I was getting the actors to improvise situations not in the play. One of them was: what happens when the dhobi (washerman), whose objections lead to Sita’s banishment in Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, comes home triumphant, only to confront his own wife, who is angry at the injustice meted out to Sita? The improvisation itself wasn’t particularly memorable, but it led to the idea that we could have a chorus of dhobans (washerwomen), who would introduce the narrative and principal characters, and act as allies of Sundari and her husband. They served as a Greek-​type chorus at one point, narrating earthshaking off-​stage happenings to principal characters. The character that the dhobans opened the play with was a Brahmin, addicted to gambling. Brijesh found a gambler’s song in the Ṛg Veda, which he translated. The gambling Brahmin interacts with the dhobans on the one hand, and a group of Dalit gamblers of the Pukkas (mouse-​ catcher) jati on the other. Among other things, the Pukkas gamblers hilariously blow logical holes in the varna theory, which the Brahmin is unable to counter. This sequence was based on the dialogue between Jotiba and Dhandoba in Jotirao Phule’s Gulāmgirī.11 The other comic characters in the play are a pair of policemen. In 1988, I had observed how Habib Tanvir had edited, expanded, cleaned up, and made hilarious a play that Safdar Hashmi had written. Based on a short story entitled “Satyāgrah” by Munshi Premchand, the story goes as follows. The Viceroy of British India decides to visit the city of Banaras. The Magistrate wants it to be a grand success. But the Congress calls a strike for that day. To break the strike, the Magistrate, along with Hindu and Muslim feudal potentates, ask Pandit Moteram Shastri to go on a counter hunger strike. Moteram agrees, but his hunger strike comes to nothing when a young Congress worker visits him with the best Banarasi sweets. Seduced by the irresistible aroma, Moteram is unable to control

11 Jotirao Phule (1827–​1890) was perhaps India’s most radical nineteenth-​century opponent of caste. Gulāmgirī [Slavery] is one of his two seminal works. Published in 1873, it coincided with the foundation of the Satyashodhak Samaj (Truth-​Seekers’ Society) by Phule. Gulāmgirī is composed as a dialogue between Jotirao and Dhondiba, a peasant. It presents a revisionist view of Indian history, where the god Vishnu and his 10 avatāras (incarnations) are seen as 10 waves of invasion by the Aryans into India, resulting in the enslavement of Shudras, the lowest of the four varnas in the hierarchical Indian caste society, and Atishudras, those outside the fold of the varna system, thus considered untouchable (see Phule 2002).

90  The Politics of Caste himself and pounces on the sweets, thus breaking his hunger fast. The colonial plan is foiled! Safdar had expanded a few lines of the story to create the entire first half of the play, quite brilliantly, but his first draft was teeming with characters. One of the things Habib Tanvir did was to rationalize the number of characters, by merging some of them. For example, he combined the messengers with the cops, so that the cops ended up doing the job of the messengers as well. As their role grew, Habib Tanvir also introduced an element of tomfoolery and slapstick into their business: one of the cops would plant a kick on the bum of the other. These two cops, one dumb, the other dumber, were a huge hit in the play that came to be called Moterām kā Satyāgrah. Brijesh’s first draft was also teeming with characters, and we decided to use the exact same strategy as Habib Tanvir. The cops, dumb and dumber, became a punctual presence in the play. One of them was voluble, and the other said not a single word in the entire play, using only a whistle to convey everything. Like the Moterām cops, our Śambūk-​Vadh cops also became a huge hit, with the audiences anticipating with delight the moment when the whistle would blow. The politics of the play were expressed through an axis of two sets of two characters. We’ve spoken of Shambuk and Satyakam, who are allies in seeking the destruction of caste. On the other side, that of brahminical reaction, were two other characters: the royal seer and Ram’s guru, Rishi Vashisht, who appears in the story of Ram and Sita, and an invented character, Susharma, who doesn’t. If Satyakam is a hot-​headed radical to the more temperate Shambuk, Susharma is the hot-​headed radical to the more “liberal” Vashisht. After the war and Ram’s coronation, the kingdom of Ayodhya has entered a phase of relative peace and consolidation. Ram, upon Vashisht’s advice, follows a policy of varna samanjasya (varṇa sāmañjasya; the coexistence, or mutually beneficial balance, of the various varnas), whereby Shudras are given limited rights. Vashisht believes that you cannot rule by the stick alone and that the state must accommodate the rising aspirations of Shudras, so long as the essential structures of caste society are not threatened. Susharma, on the other hand, believes that this policy of appeasement will lead to greater threats to caste society. In the beginning, and for a long time, Shambuk gives the benefit of the doubt to Ram. He believes that Ram is a righteous and just ruler, who will surely be sympathetic to the plight of the Shudras. Satyakam, on the other

The Killing of Shambuk  91 hand, believes this to be false. He sees the policy of varna samanjasya to be a ruse to perpetuate varṇa bhed (caste segregation). These debates, between Vashist and Susharma on the one hand, and Shambuk and Satyakam on the other, were based largely on debates between Gandhi and Ambedkar, as well as what we saw within Hindutva ideologues.12 Personally, for me, this was one of the play’s strong points and imparted a realness to the Shambuk figure, because he changes as the events unfold. He is not an image of perfection, who has all the right ideas from the beginning. On the other hand, Satyakam too is not perfect; even though he is more radical than Shambuk, he continues to sport the sacred thread given to him by Rishi Gautam, until he is forced to confront his own contradictions and eventually forsake the sacred thread. By playing out various contradictions and hesitations of the different political viewpoints, the play strove toward a dialectical understanding of caste and politics, representing the march of history not as one clear, unbroken, forever-​progressing line toward justice and freedom, but as a process of backtracking and leaps forward. Shambuk’s killing in the end, is, of course, a movement backward, but in embracing martyrdom, he also takes the struggle forward. At a very early stage of the writing process, Brijesh’s script also had references to Valmiki himself (though the character, like Ram himself, didn’t appear on stage). Valmiki represented that section which has made peace with the varna society and has been rewarded with important positions within the state apparatus. After all, when Sita is shown the door, she goes to Valmiki’s ashram. Could we say that Ram had facilitated this transfer, and in return given Valmiki state honors? If we had gone with this line of development, we would have had a three-​cornered debate within the Shudra/​Dalit discourse in the play: Valmiki as the most conservative; Shambuk as the initially center-​left figure who eventually goes to the left; and Satyakam to the left of Shambuk. There were, however, several problems with this. One was a simple dramatic problem. How many important characters shall the play refer to, without showing them on stage? Ram clearly was one. But if the same

12 The Gandhi-​Ambedkar debate is well known, and any number of commentaries have been written on it. For a recent, and scathing, critique of Gandhi’s position, see Roy 2014. Within the Hindutva group, former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee seems like a “moderate” compared to his more hardline contemporary Lal Krishna Advani; Advani, in turn, takes on the “moderate” mantle in comparison to his erstwhile protégé Narendra Modi, prime minister of India. Yet, all have been members of the militant organization RSS all their lives.

92  The Politics of Caste technique were to be used for another character, the impact that Ram’s character creates on people’s minds would have been relatively less. Then there was also the issue of the politics of the symbol. Valmiki is generally not seen, in popular perception, as a sarkārī sant (establishment saint, or a holy man backed by the government and doing its bidding). On the contrary, he is revered by a section of the Dalits who have, in fact, even taken on his name as their own caste identity.13 Last, there was the question of balance. If you have a three-​cornered debate on the Shudra/​Dalit side but only a two-​sided debate on the Hindutva side, it makes the ideological balance of the play wonky. As it is, the play had multiple narratives woven into each other, and we weren’t really gaining anything by adding one additional layer of complexity. I decided to drop the Valmiki pole altogether, but to retain one aspect of it. When Vashisht’s messenger Vrat goes to meet Shambuk to try to persuade him to withdraw his revolt, in return he offers him state honors and emoluments. Shambuk scorns the offer, of course, but it does show us the various machinations the state employs to emasculate the Dalit revolt, from offering pomp and glory to revealing its armed might. We opened the play in the autumn of 2004, and over the next couple of years, we performed it about 50 times in and around Delhi, as well as in Maharashtra, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. About 10 of these performances took place in closed-​door auditoriums. The rest were in the open, to audiences numbering between a few hundred to a couple of thousand. Across the board, audiences appreciated the play. In some places, it led to a few angry responses. After all, Ram is a revered Hindu god, often considered the finest and most virtuous among sovereigns, so any play that presents a different view is bound to cause some consternation among believers. A response we heard more than once was that since Shambuk’s story is an interpolation in Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, it is presumably a deliberate attempt to malign Ram. I am no scholar, so I can’t say with certainty, but I guess this has to do with the fact that Tulsi’s Ramayana omits the Shambuk episode altogether. Be that as it may, nowhere was the opposition vicious, dangerous, or violent. My own feeling is that the use of humor made the play carnivalesque; the playing style referenced the rural and semi-​urban forms like Tamasha and

13 For example, see the writings of Omprakash Valmiki, whose autobiography Joothan: An Untouchable’s Life (2003) is a seminal text in Hindi and whose poem on Shambuk appears in Chapter 4 of this volume.

The Killing of Shambuk  93 Nautanki, making the play at once familiar and simple to follow; and the fact that Shambuk reposed faith in the figure of Ram throughout the play, except right at the end, made the play relatively inoffensive to believers.

English Bibliography Arora, Swati. 2016. “Performing Delhi: Understanding the Street through Marxist, Feminist and Ritual Theatres,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Exeter. Bhandare, Sandesh. 2009a. “Tamasha,” Inter-​Asia Cultural Studies 10:1: 103–​118. Da Costa, Dia. 2017. Politicizing Creative Economy: Activism and a Hunger Called Theatre. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Deshpande, G. P., ed. 2002 (rpt. 1893). “Gulāmgirī.” In Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule, pp. 23–​99. New Delhi: LeftWord Books. Deshpande, Sudhanva, ed., 1997. “The ‘Inexhaustible Work of Criticism in Action:’ Street Theatre of the Left.” Special Issue: Street Theatre. Seagull Theatre Quarterly 16 (December): 3–​22. Deshpande, Sudhanva, ed. 2002. “Why this Issue: Editorial.” Special Issue: “A Cannibal Time.” Seagull Theatre Quarterly 32–​33: 34–​41. Deshpande, Sudhanva. 2003. “Habib Tanvir Under Attack.” Economic and Political Weekly 38:35: 3620–​3621. Deshpande, Sudhanva, ed. 2007. Theatre of the Streets: The Jana Natya Manch Experience. New Delhi: Janam. Deshpande, Sudhanva, 2020. Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi. New Delhi: LeftWord. Ghosh, Arjun. 2012. A History of the Jana Natya Manch: Plays for the People. New Delhi: Sage. Hansen, Kathryn. 1991. Grounds for Play: The Nautanki Theatre of North India. Berkeley: University of California Press. Prashad, Vijay. 2012. “Janam’s Commitments.” Naked Punch 09: 127–​141. Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli, and Charles Moore, eds. 1957. A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roy, Arundhati. 2014. “The Doctor and the Saint.” In Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar. New Delhi: Navayana, pp. 15–​170. van Erven, Eugene. 1989. “Plays, Applause and Bullets: Safdar Hashmi’s Street Theatre.” The Drama Review 33:4 (Winter): 32–​47.

Non-​English Bibliography Premchand, Munshi. 2000. “Satyagraha.” In Mānsarovar, vol. 3, pp. 209–​219. New Delhi: Prakashan Sansthan. Vimal, Ramnihor. 2002. “Ab Nahiṃ Nāchav [We Won’t Dance].” Dalit Sahitya Annual, pp. 247–​277.

PART III

IN T E R RO GAT I NG T HE A N T I-​H E RO

7 Ravana Center Stage Origins of Ravana and King of Lanka Paula Richman

The Hindu Ramayana tradition primarily represents Ravana as Rama’s opposite. How does the situation change in theatrical productions where Ravana takes center stage and Rama is absent or at the margins? This chapter examines portions of two Ravana-​centered theatrical productions from South India that explore his aspirations and deeds in multiple phases of his life, rather than only his encounter with Rama. The first, a Kathakali performance first staged in 1780 titled Rāvaṇodbhavam [Origins of Ravana] and set more than 10,000 years before Rama’s birth, explores Ravana’s endeavor to end his mother’s sorrow. The other, a Tamil mythological drama titled Laṅkēswaraṉ [King of Lanka] from the mid-​1950s, concerns Ravana’s efforts to protect his daughter and begins in a celestial world where he dwells after he is slain by Rama.1 Ravana’s words, deeds, and motivations dominate the stage in both productions. In exploring the intersection between Ravana’s life and Indian theatrical representation, this essay addresses three questions. How does the design and structure of each play shape representations of Ravana? How does each playwright depict the motivations that drive Ravana’s actions? Under what kind of political circumstances does each play originate? The answers illuminate two strikingly different ways in which Ravana has appeared on the South Indian stage. Most broadly, this essay demonstrates that the story of Rama and Sita takes on quite a different tone and trajectory when viewed not as Rama’s journey but as the journey of Ravana. More specifically, I argue that the performance

1 Rāvaṇodbhavam is also spelled Rāvaṇolbhavam in Malayalam. Formal written Tamil prohibits a word starting with “L,” so an initial “I” is inserted to make Ilaṅkēswaraṉ; since when most people speak about the play, they call it Laṅkēswaraṉ, I use that title in this essay.

Paula Richman, Ravana Center Stage In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0007

98  Interrogating the Anti-Hero conventions of Kathakali and mythological dramas shape how each play respectively represents Ravana. Further, I analyze how their scripts’ design and rhetorical strategies illuminate aspects of Ravana’s life not highlighted in most familiar Rama-​centered plays. Finally, I argue that each play was composed and staged during a time of rupture in local political configurations. The essay reveals two distinctly innovative ways in which two South Indian playwrights have represented Ravana in the 18th and 20th centuries.

Ravana as Son in Kathakali In Rāvaṇodbhavam [Origins of Ravana], author Kallaikulangara Raghava Pisharoti (1725–​1799), focuses on Ravana’s life, beginning with the events that led to his conception and ending with his marriage to Mandodari. Pisharoti pioneers a new kind performance in Kathakali, a martial dance-​ drama from India’s southwest coast (today, Kerala), by depicting an anti-​ hero, Ravana, as the central character of his work.2 After Rāvaṇodbhavam’s debut, Kapalingattu Nambudiri, the head of a rival troupe, created an interpolation for the work which subsequently became one of Ravana’s most famous scenes in Kathakali repertoire; in it, the monarch’s emotional turmoil takes center stage as Ravana reveals his inner thoughts and re-​enacts the origin of his boons that won him rule over the three worlds. Since the performance conventions of Kathakali shape the representation of Ravana in Rāvaṇodbhavam, briefly revisiting them is fruitful. A Kathakali (“story play”) work rests on its attakkatha (āṭṭakkatha; “enacted-​story” or play-​text), which functions as a rough equivalent of a libretto for an opera. Pisharoti’s text serves as the basis for the actors who enact the attakatha through eye movements, footwork, and mudras (hand gestures): eyes express emotions such as pity, heroism, or anger; footwork shows energy and power, speeding up in battles and slowing at more contemplative moments. Like a sign language with its own grammar and vocabulary, hand gestures physically convey the words of verses to visually depict the story. The vocalist sings padams, first-​person Malayalam verses that express a character’s feelings, and ślokas, third-​person Sanskrit verses which describe the scene and incidents. Drummers maintain the rhythm. 2 See Zarrilli (1984, 2000); True Jones (1982); Nair and Paniker (1993) for studies of Kathakali in English.

Ravana Center Stage  99 Rāvaṇodbhavam began a new phase in Kathakali’s development. Initially (ca. 1500–​ 1600), Kottarakkara Thampuran, from the royal family in southern Kerala, established the art form by composing eight attakkathas about Rama’s deeds and naming it Ramanattam (“Rama plays”). In the late 17th century, Kottayam Thampuran expanded the genre’s content by writing attakkathas drawn from the Mahabharata; to reflect the expanded content, the performance form’s name was changed to the broader term, Kathakali. Then Pisharoti pioneered a new kind of attakkatha: not only did he compose the first one whose main character was a prati-​nayakan (prati-​nāyakan; “anti-​hero”) rather than a hero, he also did not portray Ravana as dying at the work’s end, as had previous prati-​nayakans. By placing an anti-​hero at the center, Pisharoti anticipated later developments in Indian theater that led to the more sympathetic portrayal of anti-​heroes as “underdogs” or stigmatized characters. Each type of Kathakali character falls within a ranked hierarchy that ranges from most refined (noble warriors) to least refined (ogres). Each type is enacted according to stylized conventions known to performers and audiences. The character’s rank determines how he acts, moves, dresses, looks, and uses (or abstains from) speech.3 Male heroes of the highest rank (e.g., Rama, Arjuna), called pacca (“green”) for the color of their facial makeup, perform virtuous actions, move in dignified ways, and wear majestic costumes. They are silent while performing. Pacca and katti (“knife”) characters wear costumes that show similarity because both exhibit valor in battle, and both wear green makeup. A katti’s face, however, includes three features that distinguish it from a pacca’s face: an upturned red moustache, thick red lines above eyes and eyebrows, and white balls on his forehead and nose. All three disrupt the face, making it less refined. Katti characters, located one rung below pacca ones, transgress the bounds of virtue, fight with great might, and often yell when expressing anger or arrogance. Zarrilli describes a katti character as having “a streak of nobility” in his blood;4 Ravana’s father was Vishravas, a great Brahmin ascetic, but since Ravana’s mother is a rakshasa, he cannot attain pacca status. Nonetheless, Pisharoti presents both Ravana and his mother sympathetically.

3 Until the late 20th century, only men performed Kathakali. That is still largely true, but today some women have trained in Kathakali. 4 Zarrilli (1984: 173–​174).

100  Interrogating the Anti-Hero

Ravana’s Ancestry, Childhood, and Marriage In Rāvaṇodbhavam, Pisharoti first depicts how the rakshasa dynasty lost its honor, and then portrays how Ravana restores its fortunes and reputation.5 Valmiki’s Uttara-​kāṇḍa (VII:2–​34) deals with the ancestors of Ravana, his birth, practice of tapas (“asceticism”), and boons won. Pisharoti follows Valmiki’s depiction of how the deeds of Ravana’s ancestors led to the decline of the rakshasas. As Rāvaṇodbhavam opens, Indra (king of the gods) has learned that three rakshasa brothers—​Mali, Malyavan, and Sumali—​are harassing humans and deities. Indra asks Lord Vishnu to help him destroy the three miscreants and Vishnu agrees. The deities plan a secret attack but are caught unaware when the rakshasas launch a preemptive strike. While Malyavan battles Indra, Vishnu slays Mali. Chastened and fearful, Malyavan and Sumali flee the battle and seek refuge in Patala (the netherworld). By turning their backs in battle, they bring dishonor on themselves and their lineage due to their cowardice (Valmiki VII:5.5). Rāvaṇodbhavam now shifts focus to Sumali’s marriage-​age daughter, Kaikasi. One day, Sumali glimpses the grand pushpaka vimanam (puṣpaka vīmānam; “flower chariot”) in the sky, upon which sits Kubera, shining like the sun. Sumali thinks that, were his daughter to unite with Kubera’s father, she too would bear a radiant son, who would restore the honor of Sumali’s lineage. Sumali instructs Kaikasi to go to the forest where Kubera’s father, Sage Vishravas, performs tapas, and ask him to marry her so that she can give birth to a son. Dutifully, she approaches Vishravas, he intuits that she seeks a son, and their first coupling produces Ravana.6 Unfortunately, Kaikasi had approached Sage Vishravas while he was performing a three-​fire sacrifice. During Vedic rituals, one must eschew all contact with impurity, such as sexual intercourse or consorting with rakshasas, but here both prohibitions are flouted. Vishravas also begot Ravana at an inauspicious time of day.7 These misdeeds lead to the birth of a child with a frightful appearance. Valmiki’s account, which Pisharoti follows, declares that Ravana was “a horrendous and very fearsome child,” with 10 heads, huge fangs, dark skin, and “coppery lips, twenty arms, huge mouths, and hair that glowed like fire” (VII.9. 21–​22). Bad omens occurred at his birth: the sun

5 See Nayar, Nair, and Akkitham (1979: 599–​615) for Rāvaṇodbhavam’s attakkatha in Malayalam. 6 Later, they produce sons Kumbhakarna and Vibhishana, as well as a daughter, Shurpanakha. 7 Customarily, one does not start an endeavor (e.g., marriage, a trip) at an inauspicious time.

Ravana Center Stage  101 vanished from the sky, blood rained down, meteors crashed to earth, and jackals circled in an inauspicious direction. Rāvaṇodbhavam then depicts how Ravana’s parentage shaped his early life. Previously, Vishravas had married Devavarnini, who bore a son named Kubera. As the first wife and mother of the eldest son, Devavarnini outranks Vishravas’s second wife, Kaikasi, and Kubera outranks his younger half-​ brother Ravana. Earlier, Kubera performed tapas and Lord Brahma rewarded him by appointing him God of Wealth. His riches led Kubera to obtain the flower-​adorned aerial chariot. When Kaikasi saw that magnificent chariot, she worried that her son would not be able to attain the same standard of wealth and status as his half-​brother. When Kaikasi explains her concerns, Ravana vows to rectify the inequity by performing tapas. Ravana chooses a particularly harsh form of self-​ mortification. Practitioners usually undertake tapas for one of two goals: some perform acts of self-​mortification to burn off past karma, attain equanimity of mind, and achieve moksha; others, especially rakshasas, perform tapas to gain extraordinary powers. Those who perform tapas (from the Sanskrit verb root tap, “to make hot”) generate heat; if the heat becomes excessive, the heavenly thrones of deities are said to grow hot, so they send Brahma to offer a boon to the ascetic. If the practitioner accepts it and desists from tapas, his threat to the gods is averted.8 Since the fruits of tapas accrue outside the regular mechanisms of society, ascetic practice can yield powers unavailable through ordinary channels. The intensity and duration of Ravana’s tapas win him boons that enable him to rise above his allegedly unalterable social status as son of a second wife. Rāvaṇodbhavam culminates with two marriages. Ravana takes as his wife Mandodari (daughter of Maya, architect of the gods, and Hema, a celestial courtesan) who is known for wisdom and virtue. Weddings call for great celebration at least partly because they usually result in producing sons who carry on the lineage, which pleases parents of the groom. Rāvaṇodbhavam portrays the origins (udbhavam) of Ravana’s boons that enable him to wed, beget sons, and restore the honor of his lineage. According to oral tradition, as soon as Rāvaṇodbhavam’s debut ended, its royal sponsor, Prince Vira Kerala Varma of Cochin, asked Kappalingattu Nambudiri, the head of his own Kathakali troupe, to improve the play. 8 In the Puranas, deities, rakshasas, and humans gain special powers through tapas (Doniger O’Flaherty 1978).

102  Interrogating the Anti-Hero Although it was a bit unusual to ask a different troupe to add to something to an attakkatha, it was not unusual to improvise additional material to an attakkatha during a performance. Such newly created material, called ilakiyattam (iḷakiyāṭṭam; “elaboration,” improvised interpolation) plays a crucial role in Kathakali, as Phillip Zarrilli explains: they “offer the connoisseur and traditional patron the opportunity to fully relish the simultaneous, varied manifestations of the rich performance meal offered through the technical and emotive skills of the team of artists.”9 V. Kaladharan, publicist for the government-​run art academy, Kerala Kalamandalam, notes that the ilakiyattam “roughly envisages the non-​textual yet clearly chartered terrain of recollection.”10 In essence, an ilakiyattam does not deviate from its attakkatha; it enhances it with fresh visual elaboration. Nambudiri’s ilakiyattam, aptly named Tapassāṭṭam, consists of an āṭṭam (performance) that reveals the motivation of Ravana’s tapas.11

A Nirvahanam’s Turning Points Tapassāṭṭam takes the form of a nirvahanam (nirvahaṇam), a theatrical device which functions roughly like a flashback.12 When Pisharoti composed Rāvaṇodbhavam, the soldiers from the king’s militia who staffed Kathakali troupes were nearly all Nayars, middle-​ranking retainers who had studied martial arts. In contrast, Nambudiri was a Brahmin with Kutiyattam training, in which each night of a multi-​night performance starts with a nirvahanam.13 During the performance, the actor uses mudras to convey a visual soliloquy, in which he re-​enacts past events that led to the current moment. Pisharoti’s attakkatha depicts how Ravana won his boons, but Nambudiri’s nirvahanam enhances that depiction by revealing what Ravana is thinking before, during, and after gaining those boons.14 Nambudiri inserted Tapassāṭṭam 9 Zarrilli (1984: 254) 10 Kaladharan (2009: 2). 11 If an ilakiyattam wins approval from spectators, gurus teach it to their students. 12 Narayanan’s Chapter 10 in this volume gives a detailed account of how a nirvahanam unfolds. 13 Only the second Brahmin to contribute significantly to Kathakali’s aesthetics, Nambudiri refined its costumes, makeup, and choreography. He also taught instrumentalists to follow the actor’s movements (rather than just mark the beat) and introduced new mudras from Kutiyattam into Kathakali (True Jones 1982: 31; Menon [rpt. 1957] 1986: 30–​49). 14 Tapassāṭṭam differs in two ways from Valmiki’s account (VII:9–​10). Rāmāyaṇa depicts Kaikasi urging Ravana to surpass Kubera’s achievements (VII:9.33–​35), but Nambudiri depicts Kaikasi lamenting that her son may not have access to the same privileges as Kubera, which is why Ravana determines that he will end her sorrow by earning boons. Also, Rāmāyaṇa portrays Ravana receiving

Ravana Center Stage  103 between two of Pisharoti’s padams.15 Note that Kubera’s chariot in the sky, Kaikasi weeping, and Ravana’s tapas occur elsewhere in the attakkatha, but Tapassāṭṭam portrays them through Ravana’s retrospective lens. As the nirvahanam begins, Ravana asks himself how he achieved his present good fortune. To answer, he re-​enacts his past to reveal his thoughts at its key junctures. The analysis of Tapassāṭṭam that follows conveys something of its narrative arc and dramatic power. The actor sits in the middle of the stage, wearing huge headgear and an elaborately ornamented costume. He begins to enact Mother Kaikasi, who sits at the center of the space, rocking sleeping Ravana, on her lap. The actor mimes holding, rocking, and caressing her son. Gazing at him lovingly, she rejoices at having given birth to him. Hearing a faint noise above, she looks up, sees nothing, and returns to admiring the boy. When the sound grows louder, she looks up again and glimpses the majestically adorned aerial chariot approaching, as its drummer heralds a powerful personage: Kubera, Ravana’s half-​brother. We know that his tapas enabled him to become the God of Wealth and guardian of one of the earth’s four quarters. The aerial vehicle decorated with flowers symbolizes Kubera’s wealth and fame. As Kaikasi realizes how successful Kubera has become, she worries that, as the child of a second wife, Ravana will not enjoy the advantages of his half-​brother. Jealous of Kubera’s good fortune, she gazes down at Ravana with sorrow. Although Vishravas fathered both boys, Kubera is powerful (pratāpam) but she fears that Ravana may be inconsequential (nissāram) and weeps.16 The performer then assumes the role of Child Ravana, who awakens when his mother’s tears fall on him, and asks why she is crying.17 He mimes hearing her tell of Kubera’s wealth and her fears about Ravana’s limited opportunities. Asking her to cease her crying, Ravana declares that he will perform tapas in the forest to earn boons. This first turning point of Tapassāṭṭam occurs as Ravana decides to undertake tapas. The audience sees that Ravana’s desire for a boon originates from neither greed nor egotism, but rather from his wish to comfort his mother. The dialogue between Kaikasi and her son, enacted in mudras, takes

a single boon: invulnerability to giant birds, mighty serpents, yakshas, daityas, rakshasas, and gods (VII:10.17) but Tapassāṭṭam depicts Ravana getting four boons.

15 See Nayer et al. (1979: 612).

16 Pratāpam denotes both physical power and social status.

17 The nirvahanam is a solo, so the actor sequentially enacts the roles of other characters.

104  Interrogating the Anti-Hero up proportionately more time than any other exchange in Tapassāṭṭam. It spotlights Kaikasi’s hopes for her son and portrays the source of his ambition to perform tapas. Despite his tender age, Ravana chooses an especially harsh form of tapas: the five-​fire sacrifice. After purifying himself by bathing, he creates four Vedic fire pits, fills them with fire, and consecrates each one with oblations.18 Next, he orders the sun to stand still before him to serve as the fifth fire. He focuses single-​mindedly on tapas, despite the searing heat before him. After 1,000 years, he stops, expecting to see Brahma approach, but there is no sign of him. Ravana surmises that his tapas did not suffice to gain Brahma’s attention, so he embarks on even more rigorous self-​mortification.19 Raising his sword, he slashes off one of his heads and flings it into the fire. Again, he looks around, expecting that this act of extreme self-​sacrifice will attract celestial attention, but Brahma does not appear. Grimly determined, Ravana performs another 1,000 years of tapas and sacrifices a second head. He continues to perform tapas and offer a head to the fire every 1,000 years, until only a single head remains. Still, Brahma does not appear. Discouraged, Ravana decides to abandon his tapas and return home. Abruptly, he changes his mind. Refusing to accept defeat, he determines that he will behead himself, even if it ends in his death. He believes that, were he to sacrifice his life, his fame as the valiant warrior who refused to accept humiliation from the gods would last forever; he would be known eternally as the one who exposed Brahma’s neglect of his duty. Ravana defiantly raises his arm to sacrifice his last head and declares to the heavens: “I will put you to shame (mānakkēḍu; literally means ‘loss of pride’). Envision your infamy (apamānam)!” This second turning point spotlights Ravana’s willingness to persevere in rigorous self-​mortification and to face death without fear, exhibiting an extraordinary type of courage usually found only among soldiers during war. His motivation never flags, even when Brahma fails to respond to his tapas again and again. The intensity and duration of his tapas demonstrates one-​ pointedness of mind, a pivotal achievement in ascetic discipline by which the practitioner focuses his attention solely on the task at hand. His adherence

18 Narayanan identifies the five fires as symbolizing anger, passion, greed, attachment, and jealousy—​all of which can be subdued through tapas (2009: 261 n25). 19 The Kathakali actor’s costume lacks artificial heads, so Ravana mimes cutting off his heads.

Ravana Center Stage  105 to this regime of tapas enables him to live up to both the Hindu warrior ideal and the ascetic ideal. Next, Tapassāṭṭam depicts the circumstances under which Ravana gains four boons from Brahma, rather a single one. Only after Ravana has threatened to shame Brahma does the deity finally appear. He quickly restores all 10 heads, thereby admitting that he had erred when he did not approach and offer a boon to Ravana at the end of his five-​fire tapas; Brahma makes amends by returning Ravana to his (10-​headed) state prior to sacrificing nine heads. During the early millennia of Ravana’s tapas, he had viewed himself as petitioning Brahma for boons, but as more millennia pass, Ravana’s fury at Brahma’s neglect increases. When Brahma appears at last, Ravana imperiously takes control, thereby reversing expected power relations. First, he demands rule over all three worlds. Brahma grants it. Second, the rakshasa wants boundless fame. The deity grants that too. Third, Ravana demands all wealth. That Brahma also provides. Without even uttering the customary blessing spoken when a guest departs, Ravana now gestures for Brahma to leave his sight. As the deity turns to depart, Ravana suddenly recalls Brahma and demands the boon that Ravana will not be killed by a rakshasa or a deity. After it is granted, Ravana again dismisses Brahma. Then, strutting back and forth across the stage, his head thrust back in triumph, Ravana relishes his success. “Now, who is there equal to me on earth?” he asks with pleasure. As he turns homeward, Tapassāṭṭam ends.20 The pivotal final turning point in Tapassāṭṭam occurs when Ravana gains his fourth boon. Previous scholars have not considered the result of the change from one boon in Uttara-​kāṇḍa to four boons in Tapassāṭṭam. I argue that each boon elevates Ravana’s fortunes above those of Kubera in a different way. By gaining rule over the three worlds, he appropriates Kubera’s guardianship over one of the earth’s directions. By winning boundless fame, Ravana surpasses Kubera’s limited fame since Ravana’s fame derives from several sources (e.g., mastery of the Vedas, ability to perform more unprecedented tapas, invincibility from deities and rakshasas). When Ravana gains all wealth, it makes Kubera’s position as God of Wealth no more than an empty title. Finally, Ravana’s invincibility from deities and demons allows him to defeat Kubera and seize his aerial chariot, a symbol of wealth and status, as 20 Ravana’s strutting may be interpreted as showing his overweening pride or expressing satisfaction at finally receiving the boons he has earned through his extended tapas.

106  Interrogating the Anti-Hero war booty. Ravana has now significantly surpassed his half-​brother in multiple ways.

Reception and Circumstances As noted earlier, at Rāvaṇodbhavam’s debut, Prince Vira Kerala Varma unexpectedly asked Nambudiri to improve the production and re-​enact it the following night.21 In those days, Kathakali productions began around dusk and ended at dawn of the next day, so the prince’s charge put Nambudiri under intense time pressure to enhance Rāvaṇodbhavam. Nambudiri worked closely with the two Nayars in his troupe, actor Ittiri Panikkar and percussionist Kavungal Unniri Panikkar, to create an ilakiyattam for Rāvaṇodbhavam. This improvised elaboration came to be known as Tapassāṭṭam. When the three men re-​performed Rāvaṇodbhavam with Tapassāṭṭam the following day, Kathakali connoisseurs responded enthusiastically to the newly created nirvahanam, and Prince Vira Kerala Varma awarded each of the men a costly ceremonial cloth. Four days later, they presented Rāvaṇodbhavam in Trichur, where the maharaja of Cochin watched it with pleasure and honored the three men with gold wristbands, usually bestowed upon those who have shown valor in battle. Thus, adding Tapassāṭṭam transformed Rāvaṇodbhavam from a relatively undistinguished attakkatha into one that won rare honors from royalty inside and outside the kingdom in which it was created. Rāvaṇodbhavam spotlights how Ravana’s family circumstances shape his actions. Its account of Ravana’s ancestry emphasizes his maternal grandfather’s flight from battle and his subsequent dishonor, his mother’s journey to get pregnant, her son’s inauspicious birth, and her unhappy life as a second wife. Ravana changes his situation by adopting the ascetic “script” of his father and half-​brother. Ravana’s boons transform an insignificant boy into ruler of the three worlds. Tapassāṭṭam portrays Ravana’s five-​fire tapas surpassing his father’s three-​fire tapas and also Kubera’s fame, wealth, and prestige. Rarely does one find such a fine-​grained account of two generations of mixed marriages recounted by a rakshasa son.

21 Narayanan says the prince asks Nambudiri “to contribute something of his own to the performance of the play” (2009: 209). See also Menon (1986: 40).

Ravana Center Stage  107 Tapassāṭṭam won such approbation among spectators that it has continued to be taught to Kathakali students up to the present.22 Although all-​night Kathakali performances have been gradually replaced by shortened evening performances, Tapassāṭṭam has remained a popular item in concerts of solos based on Kathakali excerpts.23 Stressing the respect accorded to Tapassāṭṭam for over 300 years, scholar Betty True Jones calls it “the most remarkable interpolation in the repertoire for Ravana” and “an acknowledged masterpiece of theatricality which endures in the repertoire of master actors to this day.”24 What circumstances shaped the creation of Pisharoti’s attakkatha and Nambudiri’s ilakiyattam? Kathakali is an active (not static) narrative genre. Ilakiyattams like Tapassāṭṭam are welcomed by audiences and provide performers with space for continuing creativity. Indeed, the performance tradition expanded significantly when its repertoire grew from Ramanattam to encompass attakkathas drawn from the Mahabharata and when Pisharoti broadened Kathakali’s scope further by breaking new ground with a prati-​nayakan as the central character. Furthermore, Kathakali does not prohibit performers from drawing on features from other performance genres; Nambudiri drew on Kutiyattam when he staged Tapassāṭṭam as a nirvahanam. In this light, the legend of Rāvaṇodbhavam’s debut indicates why Prince Vira Kerala Varma did not hesitate to request that Nambudiri add something to the performance of the play. Therefore, the political circumstances under which Rāvaṇodbhavam emerged deserve close attention. Mundoli Narayanan, scholar of performance and cultural studies, argues that Rāvaṇodbhavam reflected the changing nature of governance in the region by the late 18th century. He identifies notable parallels between Ravana’s deeds in Rāvaṇodbhavam and the deeds of Sakthan Tampuran, “the Strong King,” who ruled Cochin de facto from 1770 to 1789 and de jure from 1789 to 1805. Narayanan points out that Pisharoti’s attakkatha and Nambudiri’s Tapassāṭṭam were created during Sakthan’s reign and that the prince who served as Pisharoti’s patron was a member of Sakthan’s family.25

22 For example, the syllabus for advanced Kathakali students in the regular six-​year course at Kerala Kalamandalam [Kerala Center for the Arts], founded in 1930 to train new generations of students in arts of the region, includes Rāvaṇodbhavam (Zarrilli 1984: 86). 23 Zarrilli (1984: 219–​254); Bolland (1980: 73). 24 True Jones (1982: 30–​31). 25 Narayanan (2007: 239) analyzes legends about Sakthan in Sankunni Kottarathi’s Malayalam Aithyamāla [Garland of Legends] (1982: 250).

108  Interrogating the Anti-Hero Prior to Sakthan’s rule, political decisions in Cochin were negotiated between the ruler, heads of temples, and merchant guilds. When the British started to appropriate power in nearby kingdoms, however, Sakthan seized control over decision-​making in his realm. He worked ruthlessly to transform his administration so that, in case of foreign attack, troops could be mobilized rapidly. In an infamous incident, he insisted on building a road through the sacred grove of a temple. When the temple oracle objected, Sakthan slaughtered him on the spot. With similar refusal to back down, Ravana threatens Brahma with eternal infamy unless he gives Ravana the boons earned through tapas. Tapassāṭṭam depicts Ravana as persevering and arrogant; legend portrays Sakthan as determined and prideful. Ravana won rule of the three worlds, seizing power over rulers of earth, heaven, and the netherworld; Sakthan appropriated all political power in his realm, ending long-​standing traditions of negotiations between the king, temples, and guilds. Thus, in theatrical performance, Rāvaṇodbhavam echoes the shifts in local governance during the time that Sakthan centralized power in himself. It is impossible to prove a sole causal link between Sakthan appropriating all political power and Ravana gaining rule over the three worlds, but similarities between their patterns of behavior are striking.

Ravana as Father in a Tamil Mythological Drama Moving from Rāvaṇodbhavam in 1780 to Laṅkēswaraṉ in 1956 is not only a historical, linguistic, and geographical leap, but also one of genre and dramaturgy. In 1954, Lakshmi Narasimhan (1925–​2006) founded National Theatres, which mounted many mythological dramas in which he played the male lead.26 He earned his stage name, “Manohar,” in college when he played Manohar, the lead in Sambarantha Mudaliar’s eponymous 1920 play, so I refer to him as “Manohar” in the rest of this chapter. He continued to act on stage and in film throughout his life. V. Padma, scholar and director, points out that actors from live theater provided skills in singing and speaking that “talkies” needed: “no fundamental difference existed between the two arts; the earliest movies were just filmed prints of stage productions.”27 Film 26 Later, when he landed his first major role as hero of the film Rajambal, his name was made more “suitable” for a Tamil film star: R[amasamy] S[ubramania] Manohar (Guy 2009). 27 V. Padma (2004: 470).

Ravana Center Stage  109 scholar Theodore Baskaran contextualizes Laṅkēswaraṉ by observing that mythological content was prominent in both Tamil stage and screen in the middle decades of the 20th century.28 Manohar won special approbation for playing “evil” characters in mythological dramas. In 1956, he played Ravana in Laṅkēswaraṉ, a work so popular that Manohar’s name soon became synonymous with the play (Swaminathan 2004: 254). Nearly half of Laṅkēswaraṉ’s scenes take place in Mithila, Ayodhya, or the forest, and focus on Rama’s deeds that would be familiar to Manohar’s audience. Yet nearly the other half of the play’s scenes occur in Ravana’s palace (especially his inner chambers) and are newly conceived for Laṅkēswaraṉ. My analysis starts with the play’s prologue. Then I examine its representation of Ravana and Sita to show how Manohar negotiated the multiple political currents of Tamil public discourse in the 1950s.

Mythological Dramas and Manohar’s Company Sisir Kumar Das, scholar of Indian literature, defines “mythological drama” as an accepted label for theater based on myth (as opposed to history or current social issues). Das specifies four defining features of mythological dramas: mythical time; characters and situations from ancient narratives (e.g., Ramayana, Mahabharata, and puranas); elements of religious performance (such as veneration of Ganesha on stage); and “the dominance of devotion.”29 In Tamil country, mythological dramas began in the mid-​19th century, continuing to draw audiences into the late 20th century. In an interview with Lakshmi Viswanathan, a theater and dance critic, Manohar identified his forte as “classical themes based on the Puranas.”30 He enlivened puranic plots with memorable songs that established a mood, spotlighted an auspicious event, or summarized lengthy episodes. Songs in Laṅkēswaraṉ include women in Ayodhya singing about Rama’s forthcoming coronation (scene 11); Rama and Sita praising the forest’s beauty (scene 26); and a song that recounts events in Kishkindha concisely (scene 33). Manohar put his personal stamp on each National Theatres production, leading a troupe that, depending upon the script, could include up to 28 Bhaskaran (1996: 12–​15). Although National Theatres did “socials” and “historicals,” it was best known for its “mythologicals.” 29 Das (2004: 289). 30 Viswanathan (2000).

110  Interrogating the Anti-Hero 60 people. Besides playing the role of the male lead, he also made decisions about aspects of production, direction, and scripts.31 In particular, Manohar took pride in masterminding the special effects for which his plays gained fame.32 They included celestial settings and miraculous deeds that Manohar strove to make appear utterly real on stage. Bharat Dabholkar, a Bombay advertising executive and theater fan, describes what he saw upon visiting Manohar’s special-​effects warehouse: [a]‌river of blood 8-​ft. deep, skeletons which grew from 5 ft. to 8 ft., a man being beheaded and his head rolling down, a pushpak viman [aerial chariot] taking off and slowly disappearing from sight, Shiva’s face during the Last Flood when he swallowed everything. These were really illusions but were stunningly life-​like.33

In his essay, Dabholkar also likens the quality of Manohar’s stagecraft to that of Cats and Phantom of the Opera, which were “produced at enormous cost, using sophisticated special effects,” yet points out that the effects that made Manohar’s plays look so real were “in the hands of dozens of dedicated dhoti-​clad Tamilians.” Manohar once said, “How can you ask the audience to merely imagine a king’s palace? You must recreate it on the stage, use rich props, special lights, and transport them to that world. Only then will drama be convincing.”34 Despite his work in films, Manohar’s greatest love was live theater; he developed a loyal audience for his mythological dramas and earned the sobriquet “Protector of Drama.”35 In his acting, Manohar broke free of essentialized ways that previous actors had represented villains in mythologicals. In addition to King of Lanka, he played other “evil” characters such as Indrajit (Ravana’s son) and Shishupala (Krishna’s foe). Manohar endowed Ravana with complex and, at times, contradictory motives, showing how the king struggled to balance demands from siblings, love for his daughter, and

31 After assistants gathered puranic stories about a character, Manohar picked the episodes that would appear in the play, often writing the dialogues himself. 32 In my interviews with those who attended Manohar’s plays, they invariably began by praising the impressive special effects and recalling how eagerly they awaited them in new productions. 33 See http://​www.thehindubusinessline.com/​todays-​paper/​tp-​life/​dramatic-​oments/​article1758810. ece. Manohar also oversaw special effects for Dabholkar’s film about a politician in heaven. 34 Quoted in Viswanathan (2000). 35 Film Beat states that M. G. R. gave him this sobriquet. www.filmibeat.com/​celebs/​rsmanohar/​ biography.html.

Ravana Center Stage  111 royal deeds in order to maintain the prestige of his lineage. Notes Tamil art critic Venkat Swaminathan: “The characters he chose were evil in popular perception, so he could play up their other side—​noble, sensitive, artistic, and with other qualities demanding admiration, like unbending courage or the will to fight to the last. His portrayal of them was intended to earn the audience’s sympathy.”36 Manohar’s Ravana was noble but doomed, sensitive but stubborn, and ready to die rather than back down. His strengths and arrogance impel the play, which features an uncommon paternal situation, an intriguing prologue, and Ravana’s tragic death. Part of Laṅkēswaraṉ’s distinctiveness in the 1950s derives from Manohar’s choice to depict Sita as Ravana’s daughter.37 He draws two motifs from the anonymous, ca. 15th-​century, Hindu Shakta text, Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa (henceforth AR): the notion that Sita would destroy Ravana, and his decision to send infant Sita away.38 Manohar possessed a prodigious memory that enabled him to recall countless stories, epics, and puranas. His awareness of multiple tellings of Rama’s story meant that he could draw on them selectively in order to fashion his own unique interpretation of Ravana in Laṅkēswaraṉ.

Prologue as Point of View Laṅkēswaraṉ’s prologue takes place in the kingdom of moksha (mokṣa-​ camrājyam), a heaven where Ravana dwells after being slain by Rama. The setting displays Manohar’s usual attention to stagecraft: the audience sees Ravana in a grand hall filled with gold, precious gems, beautiful damsels, and fragrant flowers. Stage directions call for lamps to spread rays of light

36 Swaminathan (2004: 254). 37 Saṅghadāsa’s 5th-​century Jain text, Vāsudevahiṇḍi, depicts Mandodari and Ravana as Sita’s parents (Kulkarni 1959: 291). In Guṇabhadra’s 9th-​century Jain Uttara Purāṇa, Ravana orders infant Sita placed in the soil of a distant land. She is discovered by Janaka in Mithila (Singaravelu 1982: 236). 38 The AR recounts Ravana’s experience at the bow contest where angry kings, who had failed to string Shiva’s bow, attacked King Janaka. Sita jumped into a fire and when Ravana quenched it, he found only five gems, which he put in a box. The box grows heavy, so Ravana opens it and finds Baby Sita. Fearing ill-​fortune, Ravana sends the infant away, where King Janaka finds and adopts her. Ramayana scholar V. Raghavan notes that AR’s author knew multiple Ramayanas and that the text mentions many sacred places and shrines in the Deccan, today parts of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra (Raghavan 1998: 75, 120–​121). Sherraden calls AR a Ramayana “storehouse” with “an incredible collection of stories,” observing that it is frequently the exception to most other texts of the story (2019: 27). Laṅkēswaraṉ differs from most tellings that Manohar’s audience would know, with the exception of certain Sanskrit scholars.

112  Interrogating the Anti-Hero as graceful as the celestial women who enter the hall to worship. The script specifies that sounds of the veena waft through the hall (NT 1/​1).39 Although devotional texts declare that those slain by Rama win eternal bliss, most previous Tamil theatrical productions portrayed Ravana in his assembly hall, the forest, or in battle. In Laṅkēswaraṉ, however, Ravana meditates, seated on a golden throne, and chants Rama’s name, a deed that would surprise most Tamil audiences. Celestial Sage Narada enters the hall, greets Ravana, and tells him that he has just returned from earth, where people are debating whether Ravana is Aryan or Dravidian. Puzzled, Ravana ridicules these two options, insisting that he was born into the arakkar kulam (rakshasa lineage). He argues that, when judging individuals, one should assess their deeds rather than classifications with origins in religion (matam) (NT 1/​2). Narada tells Ravana that Tamils have changed the “story of Ravana” to praise him and revile Rama; some even claim that Ravana belongs to their iṉam (community), thereby asserting that he shares their varna and race (NT 1/​3).40 The exchange spoofs the rhetoric of the Dravida Kazhagam, a Tamil social reform movement that had gained many non-​Brahmin adherents from the 1930s to the 1950s, when Laṅkēswaran was first staged. Dravidianist ideologues view the Ramayana as a thinly disguised fiction about how Aryans (northern Brahmins and Kshatriyas) conquered and humiliated Dravidians (indigenous people in the south), whom Ravana ruled.41 Dravidianists wanted to eradicate varna hierarchy, which ranks non-​Brahmin Tamils as Shudras because brahminical texts claim they are polluting. Many Dravidianists had come to believe that Ravana was their ancient ancestor and a great king.42 In this play, Ravana disagrees vehemently with such Dravidianist claims, condemning those who preach against social hierarchy, calling them caste-​ obsessed hypocrites in a caste-​ridden culture (iṉa-​p-​paṇpu) since they

39 No author’s name appears on Laṅkēswaraṉ’s Tamil typescript from 1956, which bears only “Property of National Theatres,” so I cite from it as NT [National Theatres]. Using the script’s pagination, I cite the scene/​page of scene, so 3/​2 refers to scene 3’s 2nd page. I thank Srilata Raman for a copy of the play’s script that Manohar gave her in 2001. 40 Iṉam denotes a type, group, or superclass. Depending on context, it can refer to a race, ethnic group, class, caste, or community. Modern Tamil compounds using iṉa(m) show the term’s range: iṉa-​veṟi means “racism;” iṉa-​paṭukolai means “genocide.” 41 Tamil terms for rakshasa are arakkaṉ or rāṭcataṉ. In modern Tamil, arakkaṉ can also refer to a person who is inhumane, cruel, or monstrous. On the other hand, the Tamil phrase rāṭcata vēlai (literally “rakshasa work”) refers to a task so huge that only a rakshasa could complete it. 42 Richman (1991: 175–​201) surveys some diverse ways in which Ravana has been represented.

Ravana Center Stage  113 call for a varna-​free society but express hatred for members of castes other than their own. Moreover, Ravana now reveals that Rama is his son-​in-​law. Stunned, Narada asks Ravana to explain, so he begins to recount the story from his perspective. Narada’s arrival in Laṅkēswaraṉ calls to mind his pivotal role in Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, where he is depicted telling Valmiki the story of Rama, after which the sage composes his famous poem. In contrast, Laṅkēswaraṉ depicts Ravana as the source of the real story, who then reveals it to Narada. Afterward, Narada vows to give piracaṅkam (preaching) on earth to correct misperceptions of what happened (NT 1/​4). Next, Ravana asks why humans say that he has 10 heads. Narada answers that Ravana has 10 good qualities (honor, an illustrious lineage, learning, firmness, good sense, generosity, tapas, effort, sovereignty, and passion); the 10 heads symbolize these qualities (NT 1/​4–​5).43 Ravana (who has only one head in the play) ridicules the 10-​headed image as liable to mislead people, declaring that when rational people encounter irrational religious stories, they should remember that such texts are prone to hyperbole. The exchange between Ravana and Narada provides metanarrative commentary on various ways in which narratives about Ravana and Rama have been interpreted in the past. Next, Ravana narrates events in the early years of Ravana’s reign. His boon of invincibility from deities or demons gave him the power to defeat all his foes and conquer the three worlds. His subjects in Lanka thus felt secure and benefited from the king’s war booty, which he used to make Lanka beautiful and prosperous. Since Ravana ruled well and never deviated from the path of justice (nīti), truth flourished in Lanka. As a result, his subjects did not suffer from hunger, poverty, natural disasters, or human treachery. Ravana told Narada, “From ruler to servant, they lived in bliss (āṉantam)” and “without iṉa-​paṟṟi (attachment to iṉam)” (NT 1/​5), echoing Dravidianist claims that Ravana’s kingdom lacked caste hierarchy. “Ravana’s reign” retains the notion of ideal rule but decouples it from protecting the varna order, although that was an essential element of Rama’s rule. In narratives that recount life in a past golden age, inevitably some misstep causes its perfection to wane. Ravana blamed Lanka’s decline on the jealousy of the gods, claiming that they blew winds of envy into his realm and impelled him to tell a lie. From then onward, justice and truth started to 43 A name for Ravana, “10 Heads,” when applied to a person, indicates in Tamil that she or he is a genius.

114  Interrogating the Anti-Hero decrease in Lanka. Eventually Ravana went to war and was slain by Rama. Then, Rama returned to Ayodhya, where he established perfect rule in his realm (NT 1/​5).

The Arc of Ravana’s Downfall After the prologue, the play’s acts begin at the royal palace in Lanka, where news circulates that Queen Mandodari is with child. When she bears a baby girl, a delighted Ravana names the infant “Sridevi,” Goddess of Good Fortune (NT 3/​2).44 As the people of Lanka celebrate the birth, Ravana sends for the royal astrologer. But when the astrologer reads Sita’s horoscope, it reveals that she will cause Lanka’s downfall. Kumbhakarna, Vibhishana, and Shurpanakha demand that Ravana kill her immediately but he adamantly refuses. When they browbeat him into sending her away, the infant is put in a box with a tiny bow (to indicate Kshatriya status) and placed in the river by Mayavi, whom Ravana nonetheless charges to look after her. When she later washes ashore, Mayavi places her in a furrow of the earth. When the queen awakens from her sleep after her exhausting labor, Ravana tells her their child was stillborn. The moment that he utters this lie, his moral authority and peace of mind start to wane. Worried about Sita’s fate, he falls into melancholy, loses his appetite, and feels remorse about abandoning Sita (scene 7). Only when Mayavi reports that King Janaka has found Sita in a furrow and adopted the infant does Ravana recover, pleased that she now lives in a home worthy of her royal birth. Later Mayavi reports that King Janaka has arranged a bow contest. Ravana, aware of his duty to marry his daughter to a suitable husband, knows that Shiva’s bow is huge; he thinks that no suitor will be able to lift it, so he worries that Sita may remain unmarried. The action now shifts to Rama’s youth and his departure for forest exile. This alternation between Ravana-​centered scenes and Rama-​ centered scenes continues throughout the play. The next scenes depict Rama’s victory in the bow contest, marriage to Sita, and return to Ayodhya. After he is almost coronated, he departs for forest exile, along with Lakshmana and Sita. This set of scenes seems almost as the play were beginning all over again, since they all depict Sita’s life after King Janaka adopts her. Laṅkēswaraṉ continues to shift back and forth

44 Sita is an avatar of Goddess Lakshmi, also called “Sridevi.”

Ravana Center Stage  115 between Ravana and Rama, almost as if two “plays” were going on at the same time: one focusing on Ravana as father of Sita and the other on Rama’s familiar deeds.45 The two plays intersect mainly through Sita’s movements (Lanka to Mithila, Ayodhya to the forest, back to Lanka). Laṅkēswaraṉ has the structure of a play about dharmic Rama, while the Ravana-​centered section reveals Manohar’s sympathy for the rakshasa king. Shifting back to Ravana, the play portrays his anger when he learns that Sita has joined Rama in exile; he feels that his princess-​daughter should not have to endure the hardships of forest life, rather than live in luxury in the palace.46 Abruptly, he orders his army to mobilize for war, planning to raze Ayodhya in revenge for its residents’ failure to prevent Sita from going to the forest, but Vibhishana argues that he cannot punish an entire city for the misdeeds of its king and queen. Kumbhakarna warns that a king must not meddle in the domestic affairs of another kingdom. Both brothers worry that Ravana’s rashness could be catastrophic. After finally abandoning his plan to attack Ayodhya, Ravana threatens to tell the world that Sita is his daughter, desisting only when he realizes that doing so would reveal to all that he lied about Sita’s birth (scene 18). The play now shifts to Sita, Rama, and Lakshmana meeting Guha, crossing the Ganga, and creating a cottage in the forest. The play then shifts back to Ravana’s chambers, where Mandodari observes that, since their daughter’s stillbirth, the king has been acting very strangely. Recently, she has heard him utter “Sita” aloud, so she assumes that he has fallen in love with another woman. When she demands to know who Sita is, King Ravana becomes furious that she expects him to account for his actions to her and strikes the queen. Vibhishana rushes in to protect his sister-​in-​law and tells her that Sita is her daughter. Ravana throws Vibhishana out, Mandodari leaves weeping, the king orders his servant to bring wine, and drinks it while angrily brooding about his wretched life. Laṅkēswaraṉ’s representation of events must be altered in order to adapt to Sita’s status as Ravana’s daughter and, therefore, to provide a new rationale for Shurpanakha’s offer to marry Rama (scene 29). Manohar radically transforms the character of Shurpanakha by presenting her as Sita’s paternal aunt, who wants to test whether Rama will be faithful to her niece

45 “Familiar” refers to the core set out in the Bāla and Ayodhyā kāṇḍas of Valmiki and Kamban. 46 In most retellings of the story, Sita insists on joining Rama in exile, even when he warns that forest life will be too harsh for her. Laṅkēswaraṉ’s Ravana objects for the same reason.

116  Interrogating the Anti-Hero (especially since Rama’s father, Dasharatha, married three wives). So, she assumes the form of a beautiful woman and tries to seduce Rama.47 He rejects her advances, orders his brother to deal with her, and leaves for his morning ablutions. Meanwhile, Shurpanakha and Lakshmana are arguing when Khara arrives, so she lies to Khara, telling him that Lakshmana was harassing her. When Khara attacks Lakshmana, he slays Khara and disfigures Shurpanakha, who flees to Ravana’s palace and incites him to abduct Sita. Manohar portrays Shurpanakha as having fallen in love with Rama. She goads Ravana into abducting Sita, because when Rama comes to rescue her, Shurpanakha will have the chance to see him again (NT 23/​2). Laṅkēswaraṉ depicts Ravana’s encounter with Sita in Panchavati in a manner virtually unprecedented in Hindu Ramayana tradition: when Ravana meets his daughter for the first time since infancy, he finds himself overcome with emotion. Although Sita does not know that Ravana is her father, she feels inexplicably drawn to him. When she returns from the cottage with food for the so-​called ascetic, she finds him weeping. He explains that he finds it painful to witness the harsh life of Sita in the forest. Touched by his sympathy, Sita asks him to stay and meet Rama. In replying that he cannot, he inadvertently alludes to pressing royal duties in Lanka. Realizing who he is, Sita faints. Ravana quickly puts her in his aerial chariot and takes her to Lanka (NT 33/​2–​4). The play now shifts back to Rama’s deeds, including a scene in which a song summarizes Rama’s encounters with Hanuman, Sugriva, and Vali in Kishkindha. The play again shifts back to Ravana’s inner chambers and tracks Ravana’s descent into madness. Mandodari excoriates him for kidnapping Sita. Her presence in Lanka brought Hanuman, who set the city on fire, causing many rakshasas to die. Then Mandodari begins to criticize Sita and Ravana responds by striking the queen. At that moment, a guard announces that Rama’s army is approaching. Vibhishana urges Ravana to meet Rama, apologize, and return Sita, but Ravana haughtily replies that a king never apologizes. Vibhishana, realizing it would be useless for him to remain in Lanka, leaves to join Rama’s side and the war begins.

47 Valmiki depicts Shurpanakha approaching Rama in her rakshasa form, but Laṅkēswaraṉ follows Kamban’s account, where she takes on a beautiful form. Laṅkēswaraṉ’s Shurpanakha tests Rama’s fidelity to Sita, a reversal of Rama testing Sita’s fidelity to him in the fire ordeal.

Ravana Center Stage  117 Ravana, an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva, now worships him and begs for help. As countless rakshasas die in battle, Ravana begins to converse aloud with his manam (“heart” or “inner voice”), which condemns him for deviating from the truth (NT 37/​3). Lanka’s greatest warriors, including Ravana’s beloved son Indrajit, are slain in battle, and Ravana’s manam tells him that he will die soon. As Ravana puts on his war gear, he decides that Sita is the cause of the war, and orders Mayavi to kill her. When he refuses, Ravana murders Mayavi and departs for the battlefield.48 Ravana’s talk with his manam and murder of Mayavi show that the king has lost his mind. In the next scene, a song recounts Ravana’s death and Mandodari’s grief. With the play’s final shift back to Ayodhya, Rama ascends the throne amidst great celebration. Thus, despite Manohar’s alterations, Laṅkēswaraṉ culminates with Rama’s triumphant coronation, which culminates most devotional plays about Rama.

Negotiating Dravidianism A rumor circulated in Madras that, before staging Laṅkēswaraṉ, Manohar took the script for approval to the Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram, the most prestigious Hindu leader in Tamil country. Whether true or not, the rumor indicates Laṅkēswaraṉ’s potentially volatile subject matter and hints at negotiations preceding its staging. Manohar staged Laṅkēswaraṉ after Dravidianists had been attacking Ramayana ideology for more than two decades, and many Tamil non-​Brahmins would never view the story the same way.49 Were Manohar to present a purely devotional play about Rama, he would alienate them. Yet, were he to portray Rama negatively, he would upset pious Hindus. Laṅkēswaraṉ walks a razor’s edge. Echoing Dravidianist beliefs about Ravana, the play emphasizes the excellence of his early rule, attributes its decline to the gods’ envy, and portrays the king’s affection for his daughter with sympathy. The majority of Tamil Hindus are devotees of Shiva and his family; many fewer are devotees of Rama. In fact, devotional poetry in South India stresses Ravana’s worship of Shiva.50 Moreover, Laṅkēswaraṉ does not include Ravana’s monstrous behavior as 48 Some theater fans have observed that the play’s focus on father-​daughter relations and the king’s tragic death echo King Lear, which Manohar had studied in his school days. 49 See Rāmācāmi (1930) and Richman (1995: 631–​ 654) for Dravidianist interpretations of Ravana’s reign. 50 See Hospital (1985: 359–​361) for puranic references to Ravana as a devotee of Shiva.

118  Interrogating the Anti-Hero abductor of countless women (depicted in Valmiki’s Uttara-​kāṇḍa) or eater of raw human flesh (mentioned in Sundara-​kāṇḍa). Even Sita’s kidnapping just returns her to her natal home. Ravana’s misdeeds are usually attributed to lust, greed, and lack of control considered “typical” of rakshasas. Instead, Manohar depicts him as a father whose concern for his daughter’s well-​being leads to his tragic death. Laṅkēswaraṉ omits or minimizes Rama’s apparent deviations from dharma, which have bothered pious Hindus who worship Rama as divine. For example, Rama is not involved in Shurpanakha’s mutilation; instead, Lakshmana disfigures her in Rama’s absence. Rama’s slaying of Vali is mentioned only briefly in a song about Kishkindha. Sita’s banishment too is absent because the play ends with Rama’s coronation. Laṅkēswaraṉ culminates with Ravana’s death and start of Rama’s reign, which devotional dramas portray as a golden age. In Tamil country, conflicting interpretations of the story of Rama and Sita had become polarized by the 1950s; questions about Ravana figured prominently in public Tamil debates about the kinds of cultural work the narrative performed. In Laṅkēswaraṉ’s prologue, when Narada mentions arguments on earth about Ravana’s identity, he refers to such disagreements. When Ravana dismisses claims that he is Aryan or Dravidian, Manohar has imagined what Ravana might say, were he alive in 1956. The prologue thus serves as metanarrative commentary about the high stakes involved in retelling Rama’s story at that historical moment in Tamil country. Laṅkēswaraṉ was greeted with enthusiasm by fans of mythological drama as well as those whose sympathies lay with Ravana. Audiences savored the special effects and songs for which National Theatres’ dramas were known. Manohar endowed Ravana with the nobility which Dravidianists attributed to the ancient king of the south. He continued to play Ravana long after 1956. Among the 29 plays for which he gave 8,000 performances, 1,800 (an auspicious number) were of Laṅkēswaraṉ. Most theater critics rank Laṅkēswaraṉ as his best play. In addition to Manohar’s innovative staging and special effects, Randor Guy noted that he made a “huge investment in period costumes, sets, and props.”51 Chandran observed that Manohar had a “perfect face” for Hindu mythology.52 Santhanam credits him with transforming how “the villains 51 Guy in The Hindu (Metro Ed), http://​www.thehindu.com. Accessed January 3, 2009. 52 Chandran. Blog. http://​mymovieminutes.blogspot.com/​2014/​09/​a-​tamil-​film-​actor-​of-​ theatrical.html. Accessed February 2, 2008.

Ravana Center Stage  119 of myths and legends were depicted” (2008), while Viswanathan notes that Manohar moved far beyond the “rather unimaginative stereotyped villain” to make “a whole generation of theatre-​goers” fans of Ravana (2000).53 Manohar’s innovative characterization and plot modifications not only present Ravana through new lenses, they also signal an exploration of alternative forms of kingship other than the one that Rama represents.

Conclusions Rāvaṇodbhavam and Laṅkēswaraṉ each contain a unique overall narrative structure that represents Ravana as the central character and allows the audience to perceive his thoughts and motivations, thereby retelling the narrative from his perspective. Pisharoti’s text takes the form of a prequel since it deals entirely with Ravana’s deeds before Rama’s birth on earth. In doing so, it reinterprets Ravana’s deeds in ways that differ from the Rama-​centered narrative tradition. Manohar’s script, in effect, tells two stories: one composed of familiar deeds from the bow contest to Rama’s coronation, and the more surprising and novel one that starts with Sita’s birth and culminates with Ravana’s madness and death. Both works avoid reducing Ravana to a stock villain, and both examine his relationship with a female family member: his mother in Rāvaṇodbhavam, and his daughter in Laṅkēswaraṉ. Both works also enhance sympathy for Ravana, each in a different phase of his life. Pisharoti depicts him as a child who learns that his ancestors brought shame upon his lineage, but his tapas enables him to restore the honor of his lineage and elevates Kaikasi to the mother of a valiant warrior. Tapassāṭṭam depicts Ravana earning boons that enable him to surpass the status of his half-​brother and rule all the worlds, by re-​enacting his upward arc of victory through extreme self-​discipline. In contrast, Laṅkēswaraṉ begins after Ravana’s death, as he recalls from heaven the golden age of his rule, but then goes back in time to detail how affection for his daughter led to his downfall. Laṅkēswaraṉ’s narrative has a downward arc, evoking pity for a king and father whose admirable intentions were undermined by his siblings and led him to lie to his wife, and forfeit his fame, kingdom, and

53 Santhanam, The Hindu, January 18, 2008. http://​www.thehindu.com Accessed February 12, 2017; Viswanathan, The Hindu, October 2, 2000. www.filmibeat.com/​celebs/​rs-​manohar/​biography. html. Accessed October 10, 2016.

120  Interrogating the Anti-Hero life. In Rāvaṇodbhavam, Rama does not appear at all, while in Laṅkēswaraṉ, Manohar devotes his creativity to scripting Ravana’s deeds, while replicating Rama’s deeds as found in familiar texts. Both plays capitalize on established theatrical conventions, but also incorporate new elements that enhance their narratives. Pisharoti expands the scope of the central character by casting a prati-​nayakan in that role. Nambudiri uses his knowledge of Kutiyattam to incorporate a nirvahanam that enhances viewers’ perceptions of Ravana’s aspirations. The mythological genre suits Manohar’s representation of the deeds of larger-​than-​life Ravana.54 The genre focuses on events that occurred in ancient times, depicts a celestial realm (the kingdom of moksha), shows how deities shape life on earth (in Lanka through their winds of envy), and includes the miracle of a tiny infant in a box set afloat. Manohar also introduces unfamiliar new elements into his drama by depicting Sita as Ravana’s daughter. Both plays represent concepts of rule other than Rama’s reign. In Rāvaṇodbhavam, Ravana challenges the fairness and authority of the status quo (symbolized by Brahma), while Sakthan challenges the power of temple oracles and merchant guilds. Sakthan’s centralization of power in himself is akin to Ravana’s declaration at the end of “Tapassāṭṭam” that no one equals his power in all three worlds. Manohar stages Laṅkēswaraṉ in Tamil country when internal challenges by non-​ Brahmins threaten Brahmins’ near-​monopoly over political influence and privilege. When the political status quo becomes open to critique, opposition to Rama’s enforcement of varna hierarchy can emerge. In such situations, Ravana’s rule can be depicted as an alternative to long-​standing narratives that undergird the status quo. Nonetheless, the two plays depict the rule of Ravana differently. Rāvaṇodbhavam focuses on Ravana’s centralized rule; Laṅkēswaraṉ puts forward the possibility of a less hierarchical rule at a time of threat to Brahmin power when other communities were gaining access to representation in governance. At two moments when local political configurations were undergoing major shifts, two South Indian plays subjected Ravana to newly relevant political reassessment.

54 Among the other two genres that Manohar staged, the “social” dealt with current problems in society, while the “historical” dealt with the heroic past. Neither fits Ravana’s story.

Ravana Center Stage  121

English Bibliography Appukuttan Nair, D., and K. Ayyappa Paniker. 1993. Kathakali: The Art of the Non-​worldly. Bombay: Marg Publications. Baskaran, S. Theodore. 1996. The Eye of the Serpent. Madras: EastWest Books. Bollard, David. 1980. A Guide to Kathakali with the Stories of 36 Plays. New Delhi: National Book Trust. Chandran. Blog. http://​mymovieminutes.blogspot.com/​2014/​09/​a-​tamil-​film-​actor-​of-​ theatrical.html. Accessed November 14, 2017. Dabholkar, Bharat. http://​www.thehindubusinessline.com/​todays-​paper/​tp-​life/​dramatic-​ moments/​article1758810.ece. Accessed September 12, 2016. Das, Sisir Kumar. 2004. “Mythological Drama.” In Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre, ed. Ananda Lal, pp. 288–​289. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Doniger O’Flaherty, Wendy. 1973. Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Goldman, Robert P., and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, trans. 2016. The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, an Epic of Ancient India. Vol. VI: Uttara kāṇḍa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Guy, Randor. “Rajambal 51.” The Hindu (Metro Ed). January 3, 2009. http://​www. thehindu.com. Accessed November 4, 2017. Hospital, Clifford. 1985. “Rāvaṇa in Epic and Purāṇa.” Purāṇa 27:2: 352–​370. Kaladharan, Viswanath. 2009. “The Opulence of Recollections.” Lecture, Department of Sanskrit, Calicut University, Kutiyattam: Texts and Traditions [Seminar]. Kulkarni, V. M. 1959. “The Origins and Development of the Rāma-​story in Jaina Literature.” Journal of the Oriental Institute (University of Baroda) IX: 284–​304. [Nambudiri, Kapalingattu. 1780.] Tapassāṭṭam. [with superscript English translation] October 10, 2010; October 10, 2014. Soloist, Kalamandalam Shanmukhan [C. Shanmukhadas]. Warner Arts Center, Oberlin College, Ohio. [Nambudiri, Kapalingattu. 1780.] Tapassāṭṭam [with superscript English translation] January 13, 2011. Soloist, Kalamandalam Shanmukhan [C. Shanmukhadas]. Depart­ ment of Comparative Literature, Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod. Narayanan, Mundoli. 2009. “The Politics of Memory: The Rise of the Anti-​Hero in Kathakali.” In Dance Matters: Performing India on Local and Global Stages, eds. Pallabi Chakravorty and Nilanjana Gupta, pp. 237–​263. New Delhi: Routledge India. Padma, V. [A. Mangai]. 2004. “Tamil Theatre.” In Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre, ed. Anand Lal, pp. 468–​471. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Raghavan, V. 1998. Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇas Other than Vālmīki’s: The Adbhuta, Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa, and Ānanda Rāmāyaṇas. Chennai: Dr. V. Raghavan Centre for Performing Arts. Richman, Paula. 1991. “E.V. Ramasami’s Reading of the Rāmāyaṇa.” In Many Rāmāyaṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. P. Richman, pp. 175–​201. Berkeley: University of California Press; 1992, Oxford University Press, New Delhi. Richman, Paula. 1995. “Epic and State: Contesting Interpretations of the Ramayana.” Public Culture: Society for Transnational Cultural Studies 7:3 (Spring): 631–​654. Santhanam, Kausalya. January 18, 2008. “Manohar Revisited.” The Hindu. http://​www. thehindu.com/​todays-​p aper/​tp-​features/​tp-​f ridayreview/​Manohar-​revisited/​article15397247.ece. Accessed February 12, 2017.

122  Interrogating the Anti-Hero Singaravelu, S. 1982. “Sītā’s Birth and Parentage in the Rāma Story.” Asian Folklore Studies XLI:2: 235–​243. Smith, William L. 1995. Ramayana Traditions in Eastern India: Assam, Bengal, and Orissa, 2nd rev. ed. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Swaminathan, Venkat. 2004. “Manohar, R. S.” In Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre, ed. Anand Lal, pp. 254–​255. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. True Jones, Betty. 1982. “Kathakali Dance-​ Drama: An Historical Perspective.” In Performing Arts in India: Essays of Music, Dance, and Drama, ed. Bonnie C. Wade, pp. 15–​45, 235–​237. Berkeley: Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies, Monograph 21. University of California, Berkeley. Viswanathan, Lakshmi. “Superstar of Tamil Theatre.” The Hindu. October 2, 2000. www. filmibeat.com/​celebs/​rs-​manohar/​biography.html. Accessed October 10, 2016. Zarrilli, Philip B. 1984. The Kathakali Complex: Actor, Performance and Structure. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications. Zarrilli, Philip B. 2002. Kathakali Dance-​Drama: Where Gods and Demons Come to Play. Performance and Drama Studies. London and New York: Routledge.

Malayalam Bibliography Menon, K. P. S. 1986 [1957]. Kathakaḷirangam [Kathakali Theater]. Kozhikode: Matrubhumi. Nayar, S. K., Anandakuttan Nair, and Akkitham, comp. and ed. 1979. Nūtiyonnu Āttakkathakaḷ [101 [Kathakali] Playtexts]. Kottayam: Sahitya Pravarthaka Co-​operative Society.

Tamil Bibliography National Theatres. 1958. Ilaṅkēswaraṉ [King of Lanka]. Tamil typed manuscript. Rāmācāmi, Periyār Ī. Vē. 1972 [1930]. Irāmāyaṇa Pāttiraṅkaḷ. Tirucci: Periyār Cuyamariyātai Piracāra Niṟuvaṉa Veḷyīṭu.

8 Ravana as Dissident Artist The Tenth Head and Ravanama Rustom Bharucha

In the contemporary performance repertoire of Ramayana in India, two of the sharpest, most provocative, and distinctly postmodern counter-​ narratives have been created and performed by Vinay Kumar and Maya Krishna Rao in two highly disjunctive, eclectic, and fiercely self-​reflexive works entitled The Tenth Head (2013) and Ravanama (2011), respectively.1 Both works focus in different ways on the figure of Ravana. I stress “works,” more precisely, “works-​in-​progress,” not “productions,” because both Vinay and Maya (as I choose to address them in this essay because I have known them for many years), engage intensely with process, improvisation, and an openness to the risks of creative failure at levels rarely encountered in contemporary Indian theater. We are not dealing here with yet another attempt to capture a mythical figure from an epic narrative through the dramaturgical conventions of storytelling, musical narrative, and political allegory, orchestrated around a retelling of the Ramayana tradition in a modernist theatrical idiom. Instead, we are compelled to engage with different manifestations of an avant-​garde sensibility, where the focus is less on retelling a narrative than on deconstructing its multiple and at times contradictory sources through highly individualized strategies of performing the self. 1 The Tenth Head was produced by Adishakti in Puducherry (Pondicherry) as part of a larger series of productions focusing on themes and characters relating to Ramayana: Nidravathwam (2011) elaborates on the theme of sleep intersecting the narratives of Lakshmana and Kumbhakarna; Hanuman Ramayana (2011) draws on Hanuman’s perspective on the Ramayana as represented in sources from Kerala; and more recently, Bali (2018) reworks the feud between Bali and Sugriva to explore ethical dilemmas in determining right and wrong. Nidravathwam and Hanuman Ramayana were self-​directed solo performances by Nimmy Raphel and Suresh Kaliyath, respectively. Bali, an ensemble production, was directed by Nimmy Raphel, while The Tenth Head remains the last production directed by Veenapani Chawla. For a history of Adishakti as a company, see Gokhale (2014). Ravanama was commissioned for the third Adishakti Ramayana Festival in 2011. Conceptualized, directed, and performed by Maya Krishna Rao, it is the only production on Ramayana that she has staged to date under the banner of her company Vismaiyah. Rustom Bharucha, Ravana as Dissident Artist In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0008

124  Interrogating the Anti-Hero Inevitably, the two works do not represent accessible narratives with a clearly defined plot, characterization, and theme. Maya and Vinay emphatically reject such conventions in favor of a more mercurial performativity in which Ravana and Ramayana are less subject matter than catalysts for highly intricate journeys. Having seen various mutations of both The Tenth Head and Ravanama, in rehearsal, performance, and video recordings, I acknowledge my own sense of defeat in bringing closure to either of these ongoing creative processes. Every time I see them, I encounter not just something “new” (which is the sine qua non of all performance, where, as Antonin Artaud put it, “the same gesture can never be repeated the same way twice”).2 More concretely, I encounter radical shifts in the signification of the mise-​en-​ scène of the two works, which can be simultaneously jolting, thrilling, and occasionally, deflating. When Maya enacts Ravanama as a solo performance, the shifts in the mise-​en-​scène amount to a near-​sabotage of any clearly defined realization of a prescribed dramaturgy; she may, for instance, decide to “try out,” with no rehearsal whatsoever, an entirely new sequence for a specific night’s performance, which could involve a video recording or a new soundtrack. With Vinay the mutations appear more regulated since he shares the performance space of The Tenth Head with other actors (who play the role of Artists and also provide live percussion). Ultimately, for Maya and Vinay, the contingency of not just “living in the moment,” but of disrupting the moment with new elements, is part of their identity and adrenalin as actors ceaselessly experimenting on themselves. Ravana, it would seem, feeds their desire for disruption, rather than submission to the protocols of an already prescribed dramaturgy with predictable norms. Maya and Vinay could be described as assertively independent performers, even though their independence is inevitably circumscribed by their conditions of life and work. For a long time, Maya has undertaken the process of directing herself, based on long hours of improvisation in her studio that she records on video camera, and then studies, probes, deconstructs, and finally, reconstructs for performances. She used this process to create Ravanama.3 In contrast, Vinay’s improvisatory skills, I would argue, have been modulated and shaped by his decision to work as one of the 2 Artaud (1958: 75). 3 Along with this seemingly hermetic process of playmaking, Maya is known for her risky and courageous interventions in agit-​prop theater, for instance, Walk (2012), staged at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, two days after the brutal rape of Jyoti Singh in New Delhi on December 29, 2012. In a totally different register, Maya performs as a stand-​up comic in popular pieces like The

Ravana as Dissident Artist  125 founding members of Adishakti, a theater collective based in Puducherry, which owes its hybrid sensibility and tradition-​inspired contemporaneity to the artistic direction of the late Veenapani Chawla. At a biographical level, both Vinay and Maya, based in Puducherry and New Delhi, respectively, remain connected to their home-​state of Kerala, whose multiple performance traditions, including Kutiyattam, Kathakali, Teyyam, and the martial arts tradition of Kalarippayattu, remain vital points of psychophysical reference. Significantly, the specific movements and gestures of these traditions are rarely replicated by Vinay and Maya without profound transformation at performative and hermeneutic levels. At times, the autobiography of the two performers filters into their fictional worlds. For instance, Vinay’s allegiance as an actor to the collective structure of Adishakti can be said to provide one of the key motifs underlying the primary dramaturgical thrust of The Tenth Head. In this quirky narrative, Vinay does not play Ravana as such, but, more precisely, the “tenth head” of Ravana, which doesn’t quite fit into a larger scheme of symmetry, organization, and discipline. Therein lies the fundamental trope of the play, which focuses playfully (and yet, philosophically) on the arrangement of Ravana’s 10 heads on a horizontal plane—​five on one side, four on the other, with the tenth head in the middle. While the entire spectrum of heads in Ravana’s familiar iconography appears to be seamless, clearly some cunning is at work here, because for symmetry to exist, there has to be some structural adjustment in the size of the heads.4 Without spelling it out at a literal level, Vinay uses this visual conundrum to reflect on the role of the individual in any collective, who attempts to struggle against totalitarian regimes of fascism Non-​Stop Feel Good Show (2011) and Ants in My Pants (2015). Her faith in improvisation, which underlies her embrace of diverse genres, is largely anchored in her early Kathakali training. 4 This premise can be said to operate for the popular renderings of Ravana’s heads, as in graphic novels and comic books, where the Tenth head is often nothing more than a dot that almost disappears into the illusion of symmetry provided by the other heads. However, this subterfuge can be challenged in the classical iconography of Ravana’s heads. As art historian Naman Ahuja informs me, “First of all, Ravana is not always shown with 10 heads. Sometimes it is just one. Second, the heads can be arranged in a semi-​circle instead of being in a line, as, for instance, in a series of sculptures in Ellora and Elephanta called the Rāvaṇānugrāha Mūrti. These sculptures narrate an episode when Ravana shakes Mount Kailash, causing Parvati to get scared and ask Shiva to stop the earthquake. Nonchalantly, the ever-​caring and protective husband stills the earth with his toe. Ravana’s ire becomes a cause for the couple to manifest their affection. Depicting this scene, Pahari and Mughal artists envision Ravana with four heads on either side of the middle one, and then add a tenth on top of the ensemble, which is the head of a donkey, an obvious and humorous reference to Ravana being a stubborn dolt” (personal correspondence with author, January 21, 2018). Ahuja adds, “In general, iconographic rules in śāstrā about multiple-​headed deities permit the heads to be arranged in a tiered format as well as in a row.” For more on the multiplicity of heads and arms in Indian iconography, see Srinivasan (1997).

126  Interrogating the Anti-Hero and technologies of propaganda. As will become evident later in the play text of The Tenth Head, which follows this introduction, these technological manipulations become possible through the interventions made by the so-​ called Artists in the play, who serve as a foil to the character of the “tenth head” in their submission to order, symmetry, and cunning. In a different self-​reflexive mode, Maya works with another kind of dramaturgical strategy, which is one of the most overused tropes in the theater, where an actor trying to shape a play is compelled to face the reality that there are many false starts to any narrative. Ravanama, thus, builds not on a resistance to any collective as such, but on ceaseless self-​reflection whereby the Actor (both Maya and not Maya, occasionally becoming Ravana) breaks her different acts and impersonations with the words, “We could start here.” These breaks, which occur at least five times in Ravanama, compel us to engage with the script’s primary leitmotif that encompasses a seemingly wild, yet curiously logical, set of transformations involving different manifestations of Ravana: we see Ravana from the Kathakali repertoire, from fragments of oral narrative in which he metamorphoses into a bird, and from a short story in which he teaches the sitar to Sita in a guru-​shishya (teacher-​ student) relationship. These allusions reveal that Ravanama is a mythic narrative of Maya’s own invention which occasionally gets ruptured, as in her raucous simulation of Michael Jackson’s rendition of Bad (“bad” being how Ravana can be interpreted at the lowest common denominator, undermining his prodigious intelligence and compelling beauty). So, what is it about Ravana that serves as a catalyst for the creation of The Tenth Head and Ravanama? Is it his irresistible power, his capacity for love which is not often recognized by purists, or his acute sensitivity to unprecedented dimensions of beauty? Ravana, it could be argued, in his encapsulation of power, love, and beauty, is an Actor par excellence. In Maya’s interpretation, one can sense moments of her bonding with his creativity, while in Vinay’s performance, where he self-​consciously embodies the “tenth head” of Ravana, as opposed to Ravana in all his multi-​headed splendor, there is more irony and playful detachment. Both actors would deny any suggestion of “evil” in their interpretations of Ravana, even though The Tenth Head alludes to the most horrendous events of world history, notably the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima. However, these events are juxtaposed in the mise-​en-​scène with Tenth Head’s quest to pursue his own life, while the other nine heads (somewhat arbitrarily associated with the nine rasas), would appear to be more complicit in the orchestration

Ravana as Dissident Artist  127 of violence. This correspondence between rasas and nine heads is addressed in the performance text of The Tenth Head that follows. Likewise, in my notes to the text, I annotate allusions in Ravanama to Telugu women’s folk songs, Jain retellings of Ramayana, and contemporary Tamil fiction, although these sources go through such a profound sea-​change in Maya’s performance that they can barely be recognized as belonging to different narratives. While both works exhibit a decisive irreverence that is often satirical, jokey, and subversive, this should not be equated with a lack of respect for tradition. For example, in The Tenth Head, an early choice involved the drumming of the mizhavu (miḻāvu; the traditional copper drum used in Kutiyattam), along with the rhythms of bossa nova (a choice initiated by Veenapani Chawla). At another point in the narrative, Vinay renders the strangely surreal and somewhat inexplicable padam of Poothana singing to Krishna with his back to the audience, punctuated by one split-​second of a seemingly casual gesture as he scratches his ass. Such ruptures of protocol indicate that the focus is less on playing the sthāibhāva (primary emotion) of a sequence with its obligatory permutations and combinations, and more on deflecting habituated responses to specific conventions by juxtaposing different performance idioms. Hybrid elements play a crucial role in both works: If in The Tenth Head, we encounter playful demonstrations of mime and physical theater, counterpointing the abstract graphics of animation and the occasional figuration of cinema noir, in Ravanama, compulsive parody is followed by an almost trance-​like submission to the all-​pervasive feeling of Ravana as an invisible presence. Both Maya and Vinay have the gift to realize the power of lokadharmi (lokadharmī; the representation of the “real”) in accentuating the sense of ālaukika, the palpable evocation of an extraordinary dilation of energies. The representation of banal actions and gestures through lokadharmi is juxtaposed with the more stylized abstraction of emotions through natyadharmi (nātyadharmī). Therefore, while wearing socks, using a laptop, and drinking from a mug of hot steaming tea, Maya/​The Actor can splice in the natyadharmi (stylized) dynamics of Dasamukha (“10 Heads”) into her everyday actions through her gaze and facial vibrations. In a more prolonged sequence, Vinay has an almost 30-​minute virtuoso rendition of lokadharmi in the Kutiyattam mode which is presented as an “epiphany.” In it, the Tenth Head dramatizes a chance meeting with Sita in everyday life, which leads to his inspired discovery that the tyranny of symmetry can be circumvented with a circular formation of the heads, which he then offers

128  Interrogating the Anti-Hero to Sita in the form of a necklace. She accepts it, dazzled by its beauty, thereby freeing Tenth Head from his ceaseless resistance to the mechanisms of a collective uniformity. This moment of liberation is followed by an epilogue where the definitive iconography of the 10-​headed Ravana is made visible through an assembling of different heads in a funky animation of a head-​shrinking-​and-​expanding technological apparatus. I leave you to read this surreal insertion in the text that follows, although there is no guarantee that the links between the different segments in both The Tenth Head and Ravanama will be readily grasped. Both Maya and Vinay, one could argue, almost flaunt the absence of a clear-​cut dramaturgical intelligibility in favor of a different demand made on the audience to create connections between the fragments of their narratives at metaphoric, symbolic, sensory, and personal levels. Whether or not these connections are made is another matter, but both works challenge the audience to shape their own narratives through an act of co-​creation. I shall leave you to read the texts of these two plays, whose multiple allusions and enigmas I will not attempt to synthesize. However, to fill in the gaps of these minimal texts, and to explicate certain transitions and actions, I have added my own commentary and explanatory notes to the play in bold following each scene.5 I claim no “final word” on how these volatile and multimedia texts resonate for all viewers as I account for my own critical spectatorship. My focus is on performance analysis, rather than on a critical review of the productions, the analysis being nurtured by conversations with the artists. With these preliminary comments, I offer here a slightly edited version of the texts created by Vinay Kumar and Maya Krishna Rao of The Tenth Head and Ravanama, respectively. While the former is rendered as a structured dramatic text, with clearly identified characters and stage directions, the latter is more akin to the instructions to be found in the āttaprakārams (acting manuals) from the Kutiyattam repertoire. Such manuals “notate” the text not just as an aide-​mémoire but as a ground which provides the performer with the most minimal stability for the slippages of performance itself. By annotating the brief scenes from each text with my own commentary and footnotes, I hope to create the effect of both a critical dialogue and a jugalbandī (playful contest of skills) in which the sawāl-​jawāb 5 I reproduce the play texts as given to me by Vinay and Maya (without diacritical marks) but my additional footnotes to them contain diacritical marks in accord with this volume’s stylistic format.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  129 (question-​answer) interaction of instrumentalist and percussionist in the Hindustani classical music tradition offers a model for a dynamic interaction between writer/​performer and spectator/​critic.

8a  The Tenth Head Vinay Kumar

Scene 1: GLIMPSING SITA (The light falls on a space just off a white screen. From behind this screen there emerges an arm. Slowly it withdraws to emerge again briefly. Withdrawing and appearing a number of times, the arm is followed by a shoulder, then half a body and finally the whole body of the actor emerges. His eyes fix on an object as he moves towards it.) Ravana is playfully moving towards an invisible Sita, who could be seated behind the lakshmanrekha.6 Not to kidnap her but to talk with her. As Ravana approaches her at close quarters, he is tentative and afraid of rejection. He introduces himself, half-​singing, half-​talking: Tenth Head (TH):

Call me head—​more precisely, Tenth Head. Unlike you I have never been an independent head. A head that can breathe on its own, A head that can think on its own, A head that can fornicate on its own. The simple pleasures of an independent head were never there for me. I have always been with those . . . (He turns to look at the screen behind him.) . . . nine rascals—​Madam.

6 The lakshmanrekhā is the boundary line traced by Lakshmana around the dwelling of Rama and Sita in Panchavati at that critical point in the narrative when Lakshmana reluctantly leaves Sita to join Rama, after hearing a cry for help. Ostensibly meant to protect her, Sita crosses the line when Ravana, disguised as a mendicant, approaches her for alms. Absent from Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, the lakshmanrekha in Tulsidas’s Rāmcāritmānas appears not in Araṇyakāṇḍa, where one would expect to find it, but in Lankākānda, where Mandodari undermines Ravana’s valor and heroism by reminding him that he dared not cross Lakshmana’s mere line marked on the ground.

130  Interrogating the Anti-Hero Black out The entire sequence takes around 10 minutes and the first part is performed in total silence. At first, the slow, almost stealthy appearance of Vinay’s body, made visible through fragments of the ear and the eye, suggest the presence of a voyeur. But gradually, the darting of the body behind the screen acquires a light commedia-​like quality, mischievous and playful. It’s like Ravana playing peek-​a-​boo with an unidentified Sita, who remains a present absence. This Ravana has the temperament and quirks of a child. Countering the demoniac images of Ravana in epic literature, he tries to frighten Sita, then pouts, and makes a face at her. Later, when Vinay turns to look behind him, it is not clear who he is addressing, but he is referring to the Artists (“nine rascals”) who make their appearance in the next scene. Finally, in a brilliant inflection of the stylized chanting used in the scene, there is an abrupt end with Tenth Head addressing Sita as “Madam”—​a hilariously colloquial way of indicating everyday class hierarchies.

Scene 2: THE 10 HEADS—​A FILM BY TENTH HEAD (A group of Artists enter. They have come to see a film made by Tenth Head on the 10 heads. He wants their help in arranging the 10 heads symmetrically on one neck. After they have seen the film, Tenth Head gestures to ask them their opinion of the film.) Artist 2: Interesting. Artist 1: Very interesting. Artist 3: Interesting devices. Artist 2: Was it autobiographical? Artist 4: What was your intention? Artist 3: Intentionality. (A hopscotch grid appears on the floor of the stage. Tenth Head moves towards it pointing it out to the artists, as an explanation. They don’t comprehend.) Artist 2: What is your intention? . . . (Tenth Head mimes number 10, and the Artists respond by voicing the mime. Next, he mimes “head” and again they voice it. Then he mimes number 1

Ravana as Dissident Artist  131 and points to his neck. This is not understood by the Artists, so he voices an explanation.) TH: Artist 1: Artist 2: Artist 3: TH: Artist 1:

Equally, symmetrically—​with no change in size. 10 heads on one neck. We could help you do that. We are all artists. We can draw anything. Artists need to study their subjects first. So, we’ll study you.

(TH ponders for a moment, then goes to a screen and does a series of poses in front of it for them. As he does so, they creep up on him. When TH sees them close to him, he breaks off and says—​) TH: What? But I am not like them (pointing to the screen where the nine heads have been screened). Artist: Let’s see. TH: I am—​ Artist 1: Let’s see. TH: —​not—​ Artist 2: We’ll see. TH: . . . like them. Artists: Let’s see. (Artists trap TH and push him behind a screen.) Black out The Artists are funky, leather-​jacketed, and “contemporary cool.” They are played in a satirical mode with a combination of gibberish and stylized gestures, reminiscent of television commercials and talk shows. The film designed by Tenth Head resembles a game on a mobile phone: bright blue background, jocular heads like bouncing balls, which get rearranged in different combinations—​triangular, in clusters of four and five, V-​shaped, and in the form of an arrow. Clearly, in Hindi film jargon, it is a “flop film,” leaving behind a trail of question marks.

132  Interrogating the Anti-Hero

Scene 3: FLIGHT MIGHT (Nine heads appear in a new screen arrangement. Simultaneously, light falls on the lone figure of TH, his hands tied by a thick rope. He struggles with the rope. He then tries to lift his feet off the floor. They seem to be stuck. In the background the heads start moving freely across the screen. On the screen the HEADS, each of whom expresses one of the nine emotions,7 start speaking among themselves.) Head 4/​Bhaya: The forest will remain our home. Head 8/​Adbhuta: Not forever. We will grab the cities. Head 9/​Shanta: Attacking someone and taking his wealth . . . is that not a sin? Head 3/​Raudra: Not if it is Kubera.8 Head 5/​Bibhatsa: He kept all wealth to himself . . . Who are we? His brothers or second-​class citizens? Head7/​Hasya: All his is ours—​ Head 8/​Adbhuta: Everything. Even his Lamborghini. Head 6/​Karuṇa: It flies . . . (The heads disappear from the screen.) TH: (sings to himself) Once a fool wanted to fly. He wanted to leave the common ways. (Tenth Head unravels the rope tied around his hands as a catapult. He watches the stone he has catapulted fly away and then the flight of the bird he has missed.) TH: In a flash, in the sky, on earth, under the water, in hell, in heaven . . . To reach these places in a flash . . . So, he used waxed wings and climbed to where no one had been.

7 The nine rasas represented in the text are: Hāsya, the comic; Śṛṅgāra, the erotic; Vīra, the heroic; Bībhatsa, the disgusting; Śānta, the peaceful; Karuṇa, the compassionate; Raudra, the violent; Bhayānaka, the fearful; Adbhuta, the fantastic. 8 Kubera is the God of Wealth, who built the city of Lanka from which he was ousted by his step-​ brother Ravana. He travels in his Pushpaka Vimāna, a flying palace or chariot, which the nine heads compare to the Lamborghini, a luxurious sports car.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  133 (The nine heads reappear on the screens behind him. And he turns then to ask them.) TH:

The closer the light the greater the fall and with that fall the light goes to all along with that fall the light goes to all.

(The background score of Penderecki’s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima shifts the focus to vehicular flight. TH turns to listen to the sound of screeching jets and bombing in growing horror. The heads on the screen disappear. In despair TH almost concedes defeat, but then his arm becomes a wing and he moves to the music of the Threnody as though he were Icarus or an aspiring bird. And then, like Icarus, he collapses. The sound of marching feet is heard. On the screen the heads come alive again. They speak rhythmically together and move as though they are marching. In the background the Threnody continues.) Heads: In our brother’s vehicle higher and higher where gods or humans cannot find us on the curves of the clouds we will hide then in a flash the flash of a second an unexpected second for the people below we will go down faster than we came up takes a few seconds then everything, everything, everything is ours. (On the screens the heads are displaced by a flash of white light and then the mushroom cloud.)

134  Interrogating the Anti-Hero Burn Out This scene begins with the nightmarish and chilling orchestration of Penderecki’s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, possibly one of the most eerie approximations at an acoustic level of the Hiroshima tragedy. One can almost hear screams and screeches of unbearable pain, disappearing into silence. To this score, the nine heads appear and disappear in a void—​each disembodied head animated with a specific expression heightened by protruding eyes, bulbous lips, and grimaces. They look like a humanoid army of menacing archetypes cohering, despite their differences, in a fearful symmetry. Why the nine heads should be specifically associated with the nine rasas (including Śānta rasa) is not clear. While the expressions of the heads approximate the individual rasas, they are not spelled out in the script. What becomes more palpable at a sensory level is the way in which these heads/​ rasas begin to operate like a phalanx of assailants, almost like soldiers in a military operation. As their collective menace deepens, their form changes as they resemble winged creatures, then missiles descending relentlessly to the ground. Counterpointing this metamorphosis of the animated heads is the figure of Tenth Head played by Vinay, his hands entangled in red twine, his feet stuck to the ground, from which he gradually attempts to free himself—​first by making a catapult out of the twine from which he aims at a bird. He misses but watches the bird fly away. In this flight are allusions to both freedom and the fate of doomed Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. In a tricky counterpoint of images, the barely visible silhouette of Tenth Head flapping his hands like an injured bird is set against the virulence of the nine heads assembling in the form of a galactic missile which descends to the earth. What follows is a reproduction of the actual footage of the Hiroshima explosion, complete with the timing of its lethal seconds, as the mushroom cloud envelops the sky while the earth is reduced to ground zero. When I first saw this image of Hiroshima, I told Veenapani, “This is a very dark vision.” But the juxtaposition of this vision with the seemingly more jocular journey of Tenth Head to find his own freedom contributes to the play’s complexity. Along with the darkness of Penderecki’s score and Hiroshima, there is also the lightness of numerous references, including one of the heads’ barely concealed greed for Kubera’s aerial chariot, mischievously equated with a Lamborghini.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  135

Scene 4: ABDUCTION SEDUCTION (Light comes on to flood the screens which seem to form the lakshmanrekha. The strains of a tanpura are heard and a female voice starts singing. It is a Kathakali padam sung by Poothana to Krishna.9 Here it seems to be Sita singing to Ravana in a strangely twisted parallel. TH who had collapsed as Icarus rises and listens to the singing voice; he goes to the lakshmanrekha, trying to break in. And then he sees someone. He falls to his knees and a shadow falls on his face. He goes towards the person hidden from view behind a screen in the posture of a beggar. An arm emerges from behind the screen and gives him something. He takes it. It is a tennis ball. Through the exchange of the ball between TH and the arm (Sita), there emerges an unspoken conversation and relationship between the two. As they play, the other nine heads appear on the screen. TH and Sita continue to play ball as the heads speak. TH appears to stride both worlds as he plays with Sita and responds to the other heads.) Head/​Adbhuta: There he is. Head/​Bhaya: She behind. All Heads: Journey? TH: Fine. Head/​Raudra: So, let’s kill her. TH: Do we need to? Head/​Vira: And what about the humiliation, anger, pride? TH: She can sing, she can dance, she knows medicine, mathematics, she can speak about anything under the sun. Head/​Bibhatsa: Liberal thoughts are dead. Time for revenge. TH: He will suffer the pain, when he knows she is here, he will come. . . Looking. For him she has thrown away everything. [PAUSE] Head/​Karuna: Head/​Shringara: TH: Head/​Shringara:

You never made sense before. But now you do. Let her stay here till he comes. When he comes? Then we can ask about the difference in a woman’s love. Here and There.

9 A familiar padam in the Kathakali repertoire from Pūtanāmōkṣam sung in raga Anandabhairavi.

136  Interrogating the Anti-Hero (The Heads fade off the screen. TH is alone. Sita too has withdrawn. He plays with the ball she has left him.) TH:

Who is she? . . . Not a word. Just a look . . . I saw her eyes . . .

(He drops the ball and starts dancing to the alap of raga lalit in dhrupad.10 Suddenly, he is interrupted rudely by the Artists, who in the darkness flash torchlights on him, while they discuss what they have discovered about him so far.) Artist 1: Artist 2: Artist 3: Artist 1: TH:

He doesn’t fit in. No, he doesn’t. And 10 heads? They don’t balance. Now if they were nine—​! Nine? Did someone say nine? Who said nine? Let me be a special head, an independent head. Artist 1: Padmanabha is your sole enemy.11 Artist 2: 10 is evolution. Artist 3: Don’t take anything less than 10. TH: But what about the visual effect, the BALANCE, the side strain on our neck? Artist 1: Leave that to us. TH: Do you have any ideas to make me fit in AND be visible? Artists: (No response. They switch off their lights.)

Black out The Kathakali padam sung by Poothana to Krishna comes as a sharp contrast to the Penderecki score. Instead of the harsh, almost electronic sounds, of the threnody to Hiroshima victims, one hears a soft, caressing voice which evokes kārun.a rasa, exuding the sentiment of compassion 10 Dhrupad is often regarded as one of the oldest forms of singing in the Hindustani classical tradition. Its slow introductory section (ālāp) is known for its meditative and spiritual content and resonance. Rāg lalit is a particularly serene composition which is generally sung at dawn. 11 Padmanabha is another name for Lord Vishnu. The Artists appear to be taunting Tenth Head that Vishnu’s 10 avatāras are more potent than Ravana’s 10 heads.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  137 and maternal care. To what extent the relationship between Poothana and Krishna gets equated in the audience’s mind with Sita singing to Ravana remains an open question. Nor is it clear that the placement of the screens on a slight diagonal suggests the lakshmanrekha. Despite the ambiguity of these connections, it becomes clear that the production has entered a different tonality as Vinay as Tenth Head dances to the padam with his back to the audience. His very strong and pliant movements, bending and swaying low on the ground, are punctuated suddenly with what appears to be a “bum scratch” as Tenth Head scratches his ass—​one of the many deliberate gestures inserted in the mise-​en-​scène which consciously deflect from any possibility of surrender to the musicality of a traditional repertoire. The familiar is made unfamiliar, deliberately, irreverently. In counterpoint to the first scene in the work, Tenth Head simulates the begging posture of Ravana in his mendicant guise while he is approached by a hand, beckoning him from behind one of the screens, which offers Tenth Head a yellow tennis ball. Next follows another simulation of a children’s game, as in the opening sequence of the play. The ball is tossed between the hand and Tenth Head, then rolled on the ground, lightly, then aggressively as in a competition, and, magically, made to disappear. On display is a childlike theatricality which suggests that Ravana, or more precisely, Tenth Head, and Sita are literally playing ball with each other. In counterpoint with this lightness is the malicious drone of the nine heads, who appear on a screen, with a projection of Tenth Head answering their questions on another screen. The thrust of the script is violent and direct: “Liberal thoughts are dead. Time for revenge.” The only point of agreement between Tenth Head and the Nine Heads is when he suggests that “he” (Rama, the only time that he is ever alluded to in the play) will come looking for Sita, thereby facilitating a test of the difference in a woman’s love, here (in Lanka) and there (in Ayodhya). As the heads disappear and Sita’s ball game also abruptly ends, Tenth Head seems lost. For a few blissful moments, he abandons himself to a slow rapturous turn of his body in an improvised dance to the excruciatingly beautiful and haunting rāg lalit sung in dhrupad. Suddenly, his dance is interrupted as the three Artists surround Tenth Head and flash their torchlights on his face in what appears to be a scene from an interrogation in a thriller film. Cowering on the floor, Tenth Head seems to submit to the dictates of the Artists, who are only too clear that he does not “fit in,” even as their solution to finding a way of making him “fit” into

138  Interrogating the Anti-Hero Ravana’s 10-​headed iconography while being “visible” (independent?) is left unresolved.

Scene 5: EPIPHANY (The following scene is performed in lokadharmi Kutiyattam by a mizhavu and chenda).12 TH sits on a stool center stage. He is dreaming of Sita. Suddenly his dreams are interrupted by a visitor who tells him that Sita is in the neighborhood. At first TH does not believe it. Then he goes looking for her. When he finds her, he has to jog her memory for her to remember who he is. Finally, she remembers him and asks if he has had something to eat and drink. Then, on TH‘s questioning, she relates all that has happened to her since last they met. TH is shocked to hear that her marriage is over and that she has had twins. After some time, he asks her if she is happy. She is. She then asks after him. He tells her that he has packed away his heads and is free and light these days. Sita wants to see the other heads just to check where he has kept them. At first TH is jealous. But then he shows her the bag in which he has kept the heads. She is not convinced that all the heads are in the bag, so TH takes them out one by one to show them to her. He finds there are only nine heads in the bag. He panics until Sita reminds him that the Tenth head is on his shoulders. He is embarrassed. Then she wants to see all the nine expressions. TH refuses, it’s too much psychological effort to wear all those emotions. They argue. She threatens to leave. He gives in, but on condition that he show her only three. After he has done that, she wants to see the heads arranged on his shoulders. TH arranges the nine heads on his shoulder but tries to avoid putting on the Tenth head for one reason or the other. Finally, when he does put on the Tenth head the whole arrangement collapses on to the side of the neck which is wearing six heads. Sita then understands his problem and asks him to take the heads off. TH does so happily. However, a sadness comes to him when he sees his brother heads lying uselessly on the ground. Suddenly, he gets an idea. He sews the heads up into a necklace and wears them around his neck. He has solved the problem of symmetry

12 The miḻāvu is a large pot-​shaped copper drum associated primarily with performances of Kutiyattam, while the chendā is a cylindrical wooden drum used in Kathakali and other performance traditions in Kerala.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  139 and equality of size! For in a circle, unlike in a line, the heads can be the same size and there is no problem of balance and symmetry. Perfect democracy! He looks up to see that Sita is dazzled by the necklace. He takes it off and offers it to her. He is now free.) Black out For me, this is the high point of the performance—​a sustained half-​ hour abhinaya sequence in a comic, robust, and occasionally boisterous lokadharmi mode. This is what Vinay does best—​solo performance that is incredibly skilled, bordering on the virtuoso, but which refuses to take itself too seriously. The narrative is intricate but not all the storytelling is as vivid as the description provided in the script. Therefore, in exchanges with Sita where she challenges Tenth Head to show his nine heads—​and expressions—​to which he agrees to offer three, Sita poses questions which are projected on the back screen. Vinay remains seated on his stool, Kutiyattam style, while the mizhavu and chenda provide nonstop accompaniment, the musicians looking strange since they still wear the leather-​ jacket outfits of the Artists. As always, in lokadharmi, the sheer ordinariness of the gestural details, punctuated with colloquialisms, contributes to the humor of the performance. So, if I had to paraphrase the opening dialogue of the Epiphany where Tenth Head hears that Sita is in the neighborhood, it would go something like this: “He’s joking!” (referring to the person mentioning Sita’s whereabouts), “Look at this guy, what’s he saying?” “Are you sure?”; then, mouth open, Tenth Head sees Sita and waves to her. “Yes, that’s me.” The sheer incongruity of the mythological figures of Rama and Sita recognizing each other in what appears to be a street scene contributes to the humor, as, indeed, Tenth Head’s dexterity in pouring coffee, South Indian style, from one stainless steel cup to another, contributes to his exuberance on seeing Sita. In deference to her elevated status, he then proceeds to brush his teeth, and with the most delicate of gestures, rinses his mouth. The humor takes on more vivid registers when Tenth Head starts pulling out the heads from a bag to realize that there are only nine. In sheer panic, he searches frantically for the missing head only to realize that it’s sitting on his own neck. The manner of showing the different expressions is pure virtuosity as Vinay slaps his face to produce a new expression—​bibhatsa (disgust) being amplified with hair plucked out of his armpit, hasya (humor) being animated in the form of a disembodied laughing mouth.

140  Interrogating the Anti-Hero The animation of the lokadharmi increases as Tenth Head talks to the other heads while arranging them in a horizontal frame; he even appears to feed them. The conviviality does not last: the heads collapse. Later, as Vinay absentmindedly touches a gold chain around his own neck, while staring disconsolately at the fallen heads, a solution becomes apparent. With the professionalism of a seasoned tailor, Tenth Head proceeds to sew the individual heads in a necklace, thereby solving the problem of symmetry. He throws the necklace to Sita like an offering. She receives the necklace and from the sheer joy on Tenth Head’s face, we see that his offering has been accepted and he is now free.

Scene 6: LAST WORD (The stage lights come on to show the empty stool on which Tenth Head had been sitting. The Artists enter deep in thought. They don’t seem to agree with Tenth Head’s circular solution to the problem of symmetry and balance in the arrangement of the 10 heads. They mock Tenth Head’s hopscotch model, which had appeared earlier in the play. They want to keep to linearity—​and perhaps hierarchy?) Artist 1: (mockingly) Equally! Artist 2: Symmetrically! Artist 3: With no change in size! (They laugh.) Artist 1: Artist 2: Artist 3: Artist 1: Artist 2:

Let’s cheat. Four heads THIS side, equal width. On this side—​first two normal. The third—​a quarter. The fourth—​half.

(pause) Artist 1: Squeeze the tenth. (All the artists laugh uproariously.) Artist 3: Let the shrinking begin.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  141 (The Artists rearrange the screens. On them appears a steampunk animation of the heads being shrunk or enlarged by machinery in a resizing plant.13 Slowly there emerges a traditional picture of Ravana with a miniaturized tenth head in the far corner, tiny, almost invisible.) (Fade Out) The End The last scene of the production begins with a fake curtain call, where after the sheer exhilaration of Tenth Head’s offering of the necklace to Sita, it almost seems as if there is a resolution. But this is not the case: after the fake curtain call has been acknowledged, the Artists reassert themselves and proceed to reject the “circular” (democratic?) solution of the necklace, where each head is given due respect. Perhaps, if one had to stretch the visual metaphor a bit, and imagine the necklace to be made of crystals, then it is possible to see reflections of all 10 heads of Ravana, resembling each other, and yet remaining quite distinct in each of these crystals.14 Refusing to abandon their own dogmatic adherence to the principles of linearity, the Artists decide to cheat. They have no other option to sustain their vision of total symmetry. Significantly, they do not perform this act of cheating themselves; rather, they rely on technology to camouflage their vision. What appears on stage is a projection of a massive “resizing plant,” an apparatus with all kinds of wheels, pulleys, pendulums, levers, and apertures for diminishing and enhancing the size of individual heads, which are systematically positioned and then dropped into the respective apertures, while the technology continues to emit metallic sounds as in a video game. Gradually, a panel in the center parts to reveal a void from which the 10 heads of Ravana appear in the standardized iconography available in mythological calendars, advertising signs, and Ramlila effigies. Everything disappears into darkness except the iconography of Ravana, resplendent in its perfect symmetry, with no trace of Tenth Head’s attempts to be free. This finale seems to suggest that only by cheating can icons come into being—​the reference in the script to a tiny miniaturized Tenth Head is a 13 Wikipedia defines Steampunk as “a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-​century industrial steam-​powered machinery.” 14 This would correspond with the Jain explanation of Ravana as “10-​headed,” noted by A. K. Ramanujan in his classic essay, “Three Hundred Rāmāyaṇas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation” (1991: 22–​48). As a child, Ravana wore a necklace made of nine gems so his mother saw his face reflected nine times. Thanks to Paula Richman for reminding me of these references.

142  Interrogating the Anti-Hero kind of a wish fulfilment, because this head is so minuscule that it cannot be seen. What dominates is Ravana himself, as he has been marked and identified for centuries. For all the attempts to humanize him through the performative surrogacy of Tenth Head, the final iconographic image is ominous as it moves toward the audience with a soundtrack of marching feet in the background—​a reminder of the militaristic scenario with which the Nine Heads had chanted their litany of hatred, revenge, and destruction. And thus, The Tenth Head ends. In my experience, the audience reaction to the closing moments is invariably somewhat muted. It differs from the elation that normally follows the scene of the Epiphany where Tenth Head’s resolution is recognized as a premature conclusion. Why was it necessary to combine the two narratives of Tenth Head seeking his freedom and the Artists determined to hold on to the traditional iconography of Ravana? Could Vinay not have told his own story of Ravana culminating in his creative union with Sita, who is less the wife of Rama (who does not figure in this narrative) than a playmate and kindred soul? When I followed up on these questions by asking Veenapani whether the role of the Artists was needed at all, she responded in her usual cryptic, yet enigmatic, way: “But, you see, we function like a company. All the artists need to be visible.” Although not entirely convinced by this response, on re-​viewing the production many times, I have come to realize that the complexities of the individual negotiating his or her role in any collective formation is what lies at the heart of The Tenth Head, even though its treatment of this seemingly somber theme is ironic, playful, and self-​reflexive.

8b  Ravanama Maya Krishna Rao (Lights. M. enters from green room, shuts door, looks around room . . . Switches on torch, takes a few steps, the light illuminating her feet . . .) I need no more walk . . .

Ravana as Dissident Artist  143

SOUND 1 I need no more set my foot on the ground (Sets foot into atta (wheat flour) pile . . . Slaps foot silently and makes a line out of the atta . . . Legs outstretched . . . sliding movement.) And wake her, wake Sita from restless sleep As she tosses and turns under the covers of the earth. (fingers in/​out of flour) For now my 10 heads have turned into 10 wings I can fly as high as I like or low low Low enough to smell the breath of her sleep . . . I could start like that . . . Or . . . (Walks over to kettle . . . pours hot water.)

In contrast to The Tenth Head, Ravanama’s performance script is even more cryptic, the barest bones of a fully fleshed out, corporeal performance. The central figure is “M,” which stands for both Maya and the Actor, who are not quite the same personae. Throughout the play, one witnesses a liminal process whereby Maya becomes the Actor, who in turn becomes Ravana; at times the process is reversed, with the interstices visible. The performance space resembles a rehearsal room, with props scattered all over—​for instance, a pile of dough made out of wheat flour on which Maya performs her first sequence of movements, as she metamorphoses, ever so slightly, into a bird, a manifestation of Ravana drawn

144  Interrogating the Anti-Hero from folk literature.15 From this imagined perch of the sky, Ravana looks down on the sleeping figure of Sita, without wanting to disturb the breath of her sleep. However, this is just one possible “beginning”; Maya/​the Actor breaks the movement with a sudden shift in her voice (“I could start like that”), the microphone on her body picking up the most infinitesimal of whispers. Matter-​of-​fact, almost non-​theatrical, this actor wears work clothes and appears to be taking a break for a cup of tea. Maya confides to me that rehearsing Ravanama was a lonely process, with no one available to hold the camera to record her early improvisations. “Eventually,” as she said, “I realized that Ravana was watching me. And I began to perform for him.”

SOUND 2—​SHLOKA (Listening to Shloka.16 M. pours tea . . . steam . . . goes to table . . . changes T-​ shirt . . . wears socks . . . dusts table.) I could start where I am right now a woman wakes up in the morning, gets ready, drinks her tea combs her hair picks up the paper turns, turns, turns looks, won . . . dering why it is that for some reason that she cannot explain to herself, her gaze gets fixed 15 It is very difficult to specify the sources from which Maya draws her inspiration. Almost compulsively, she forgets what she reads or else she absorbs the reading into her creative process, making the source her own invention. The closest I have come to finding a source for the bird-​motif of Ravana can be traced to the Tamil short story “Forest” (2006), which plays an important role in the last moments of Ravanama (see note 21). C.S. Lakshmi elaborates on the bird-​motif: “[In my story], I have not referred to Ravana becoming a bird but . . . in his conversation with Sita in the forest, Ravana says that two of his bodyguards beg Rama for their lives on the battlefield and he tells them to go away before Lakshmana comes. They say they are too tired to retreat, so he turns them into a kite and a parrot. Ravana tells Sita he could have been that parrot. That particular story about Rama turning the soldiers into a bird and a kite is from one of the Ramayanas I have read” (correspondence with author, November 20, 2017). 16 The slow, rhythmic, invocation-​like cadence of the shloka (śloka; a Sanskrit verse) almost “corporealizes” Ravana through sound and brings him to life.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  145 at a point beyond that she is drawn to this man a man like no other a man who moved to a 10-​beat cycle 10 heads to a 10-​beat cycle even slower than she moves now 10 heads battling to a 10-​beat cycle (switches on desk lamp)

In this sequence, which begins with a shloka from one of the familiar episodes in the Ravana repertoire of Kathakali, the Actor is at once talking to herself about her daily morning routine and at the same time layering her observations of everyday life with glimmers and intimations of Ravana’s being. Through the smallest of gestures and expressions, one notices his arrogance and sheer imperial presence as he flicks the dust from the table, and with a thrust of his foot upward, removes a sock. What emerges is a palimpsest of gestures, as Maya/​the Actor is shown warming up, but at the same time already becoming Ravana. With slow hieratic gestures, this Ravana turns the pages of the newspaper to the rhythm of the chenda, occasionally freezing his movement, perfectly aware of the affect that he is generating. As the Actor/​Maya gazes into the beyond, there is an invisible, yet palpable, evocation of Ravana that comes alive through a manifestation of his 10 heads, punctuated by a 10-​beat cycle.

SOUND 3—​CHENDA (M. picks up mug, blows on tea . . . looks up . . . the eyes seem to be engaged in battle.) why, why, why . . . why was this woman, this actor, this woman, this wife, this mother so drawn to this man? Was it because he loved a woman like no man has ever loved? A king, a man on earth, a bird in flight, a lover . . . scorned, rejected, a father . . .

146  Interrogating the Anti-Hero (opens laptop . . . types) A king, a man on earth, a bird in flight, a father, blessed—​cursed by the gods . . . a lover scorned . . . rejected. (shuts laptop) I could start like that. WARM UP—​vvvvvvvv . . . lover . . . fffffff . . . mmmmmm . . . (goes to mirror . . . silence . . . wears robe . . .) A man . . . a king rejected, scorned, pushed away, (in mirror, muttering) Your hair . . . your feet . . . your breasts . . . your eyes . . . won’t you . . . from me . . . clothes . . . jewelry . . . a paan (betel leaf) and stain your lips? (takes off first sock) Light.

The figure of Ravana steadily metamorphoses through roars and ominous nonverbal sounds. Once again, it is the juxtaposition of everyday gestures that makes the stylization so startling—​for instance, Ravana’s squinting and quivering eyes take on new dimensions as they are seen framed over the rim of a mug of tea. Just as Actor/​R avana gets up, s/​he gargles a dash of tea in the mouth, swallows it, and then, in what appears to be a combination of jabbering sounds and jazz improvisation, moves toward the mirror. This could be described as a stereotypical moment of any actor looking into the mirror, but as Maya put it to me in one of our conversations, “Cheesiness pursued with stubbornness can result in something significant.”

Ravana as Dissident Artist  147 The robe that the Actor drapes on herself seems almost like a piece of silk cloth, many of which are strewn around the stage and tucked into Maya’s costume to create varied effects, not least the sense of a “protean body.” Later, Maya will evoke Sita with a square patch of a pink Kanjeevaram sari which belongs to Maya’s mother and has been carefully and deliberately cut into pieces. Maya acknowledges, “I would never have cut up the sari were it not for Ravana.” The audience may not be aware of the personal history underlying this prop, but it plays a key role in Maya’s way of intimately evoking Sita. As the Actor stares into the mirror, she is infused with an energy that she can scarcely contain, compelling her to move back and forth from the mirror to the bottom of the stage with a frenzied fluttering of her fingers. The volition and independent energy in the movement of the fingers seem to take the Actor by surprise. At one point, she takes a swig of water to suggest her own bewilderment of her in-​between state, which has yet to fully morph into Ravana, who manifests himself more robustly in the next sequence.

SOUND 4—​SHRINGARA Music Horn: (looks . . . hand shake . . . hold . . . takes off other sock . . .) Pipe: (hand shake . . . slaps hand, shifts mudra to left and strokes face with right) Drums: (runs back . . . turns around, sees feet) (Touches feet . . . breasts . . . hair . . .) Drums: (other side hair . . . throws hair at Sita . . . runs back for sari) High pipe: (puts on sari, pleats . . . rejects bangles . . . rejects paan (betel leaf) . . . removes bangle and gives it back . . .) She will have nothing from you Ravana, take it all away. (walks back to robe) There has to be another way to begin.

148  Interrogating the Anti-Hero (Stroking robe) kitataki . . . tha tha thai . . . (beats rhythm on the ground) Shhhhh . . . Yes, there is another story, I know there is another story . . . she sleeps . . . (picks up T-​shirt . . . starts back and forth running action) and when she awakes, she will not remember her own story.

In a highly deconstructed and fragmented enactment of shringara (śṛṅgāra; the erotic sentiment), this scene mimics the famous scene in Kathakali from Tōraṇayuddham where Ravana tries to woo Sita with gifts, which are systematically rejected. The familiarity of this episode, which, for Maya, is inextricably linked to watching and internalizing how the legendary Kutiyattam guru Ammannur Madhava Chakyar played the role, is defamiliarized by a remix of a soundtrack by an African contemporary music group called “Musicians of the Nile,” playing horn and pipe, along with Iranian drums. This score provides the background for Maya’s sudden breaks of movement and gesture, accompanied by unsettling moments of silence. These elements enhance the more familiar moments in the Kathakali enactment of the scene, notably, the use of fluttering fingers to evoke the bees which are jealous of Sita’s lustrous black hair. Through the visual narration of the enactment, Ravana appears to take the initiative as the key narrator. At a physical level, what we see on stage is the figure of Ravana responding to Sita’s rejections of his gifts, but, at a vocal level, we hear the voice of the Actor saying, “She will have nothing from you Ravana, take it all away.” This body-​voice split in the persona represented on stage contributes to the overall ambivalence of the enactment. There are no clear-​cut distinctions between the roles played by Maya, the Actor, and Ravana; the overall effect is one of a troubled metamorphosis of being.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  149

Sound 5—​LULLABY Ravana, Mandodari . . . Gave birth to a long prayed for baby girl But with a curse that Once she grew to be woman, She would be the cause of her father—​Ravana’s death

(sound resumes . . . action of setting baby afloat . . . creating baby out of a rolled-​ up T-​shirt . . . baby placed on pink sari cloth . . . kolam (floor-​drawing with powdered rice) lines drawn around T-​shirt in inverted triangular shape.) Is that why, is that why (drawing line one) Ravana desired a woman, (line two) not one he saw with his own eyes but one that his sister Surpanakha described in every detail? (half of line three) Is that why he could never touch Sita? (. . . other half) Because this woman was of his own blood, his child? (sets baby afloat . . . looks at hands . . . rubbing out dust . . . rocking . . . dusting . . . rocking) So Ravana was never to know . . . The look in her eye, The rhythm of her sleep The question in her mind? The length of her little fingers (M. as Ravana gets pink Sita cloth . . . sits, rub thighs . . . massage . . . sits on one knee)

150  Interrogating the Anti-Hero To the soothing sound of wind instruments, the Actor moves a cloth back and forth with a gentle swaying motion, suggesting a child is being rocked to sleep. Maya sees the T-​shirt that she wears in rehearsal as the closest visual embodiment of the Actor. When the cloth of the T-​shirt is treated as a baby and placed on a square of the pink Kanjeevaram sari, the boundaries of the kolam resemble a yantra-​like structure that protects the baby. The allusion to stories that a girl-​child would be the cause of Ravana’s downfall is drawn, like most of Maya’s sources, from a spectrum of retellings of the story of Rama and Sita, rather than a single source for the motif of abandoning Sita as child.17 Significantly, Ravana’s moment of parting with the child is played with a depth of emotion, almost reminiscent of psychological realism, which runs counter to the presentational mode which dominates the enactment of the early part of the narrative. This moment in turn is cut with a totally different gesture, the slapping of a thigh, which takes us into the next sequence, more directly sensual, and yet abstracted.

SOUND 6—​THIGH ( . . . slapping thigh) Never to know The length of her fingers The question in her mind The breath of her sleep Ravanaaaaa Never to know The breath of her sleep . . . But but but . . . What of Sita

17 These include Indian Jain and Shakta retellings and ones from Southeast Asia. See also Manohar’s 1956 Tamil play Ilaṅkēswaraṉ analyzed by Richman in Chapter 7 of this volume.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  151 How did she know How did Sita know As she painted his portrait How how how The breath of his thigh The heave of his chest The look in his eye When all she had ever seen were his feet? Huh? Huh? How Sita did you know to paint Ravana’s portrait If all you had ever seen were his feet?

From the abandoning of the child Sita to the slapping of the thigh, which is a standard gesture in the Kathakali repertoire to suggest masculinity and lust, Maya takes us directly into the more carnal idiom by which Ravana is traditionally represented in Kathakali. At one level, the carnality of the scene is sparked at a thematic level by a women’s song in Telugu which forms part of the Ramayana tradition, in which Sita paints Ravana’s portrait which comes alive on the instigation of a gypsy-​like character called Kuravanji. There is a knock on the door, and Rama wants to enter—​not just to enter the room, but to claim his connubial right as a husband. Trying to figure out a way of concealing the animate Ravana-​portrait, Sita hides it under the bed, with some hilarious effects, as the irrepressible Ravana throws Rama out of the bed. There is a “folk” imagination at work here, which is at once transgressive and boisterous.18 Significantly, Maya does not follow this dramaturgical route, as the next scene demonstrates so eloquently.

18 Velcheru Narayana Rao’s “A Ramayana of Their Own: Women’s Oral Tradition in Telugu” (1991), 126–​127, relates a slightly different and more textured rendering of the scene when Shurpanakha, disguised as a female hermit, enters Sita’s chamber and cajoles her into drawing a picture of Ravana. Sita says that all she ever saw of him were his feet, so she draws Ravana’s big toe. Shurpanakha then completes the entire picture and asks Brahma to endow it with life so that she can see her dead brother again. As the picture gets animated with Ravana’s corporeality, Shurpanakha runs away, leaving Sita and her female attendants to deal with the metamorphosing Ravana picture. They try to burn and drown it but with no success. Then Sita invokes Rama’s name, which succeeds in temporarily subduing the image. At this point, Rama knocks on the door and, as narrated earlier, Rama ends up being thrown out of bed by the picture of Ravana. This humiliating action triggers Rama’s suspicion of Sita and he banishes her to the forest.

152  Interrogating the Anti-Hero

SOUND 7—​PIANO (Makes portrait . . . makes eyebrows . . . nose . . . lips . . . his drapes . . . finally eyes.) How come I look into my own eyes as I paint his eyes? (M. turns on lamp, places cloth on chest . . . puts it on ground . . . lies behind it . . . “bird” gestures on cloth, sleeps . . .)

In this scene Ravana is drawn with meticulously stylized gestures that lead to the creation of his eyes. Then the narrative significantly shifts from the third person, in which Sita is asked how she manages to draw Ravana when all she ever saw was his feet, to the first person, where Sita says in wonder: “How come I look into my own eyes as I paint his eyes?” Maya’s subtle intervention here shifts attention from the feet to the eyes. In attempting to explain the erotic aspects of shringara in Ravanama, Maya reiterates the well-​known trope that Sita has never looked at Ravana’s face. Nor has he ever touched her. It is precisely in this non-​ tactile interaction that the erotic rasa is born. Significantly, Sita looks not at Ravana’s eyes, but at her own eyes as reflected in his painted eyes. This moment epitomizes their awareness of each other without bodily contact. This moment is the first time that Sita gets tentatively embodied as a presence on stage. A storm is heard howling in the background. Maya describes it as a storm that rages in Sita’s heart which then enters Ravana’s state of being. But who is Ravana at this point? What we see on stage is a figure of the Actor walking in a distracted manner on a dark stage with a lamp in her hand. Gradually, she places the “Sita cloth” on stage and lies alongside it, making what appear to be bird-​like gestures as she blows on the cloth. The first motif of the play, featuring Ravana as Bird, thus returns. Then, in a shift, the Actor goes to sleep, and a dream appears on a small video screen through a surreal juxtaposition of images focusing on isolated costume accessories and props from Kathakali—​a crown, a conch, jewelry, bangles, bracelets, the filigree of a necklace, sequins, tassels, all in vivid colors of green, red, yellow, with metallic glints and sensuous textures. Significantly, there is no white in the images, which contrasts

Ravana as Dissident Artist  153 sharply with the description of a majestic and erotically charged figure of Ravana, who is seen sleeping—​“the red-​eyed Ravana’s white silk garment seemed a little disarrayed,” his “gold-​decked arms” showing “scars of war.” This description is heard in Maya’s voice-​over to the video clip, which is sonorous and dream-​like.19 Video Clip Voice-​over As he breathed, deeply in his sleep, His breath a riot of fragrances—​mango, nutmeg, bakula20 His long gold-​decked arms showed scars of wars Right-​sized fingers, thumbs, nail, palms Arms that showed scars of war Mango, nutmeg, bakula There, look there—​marks that Indira’s tusker and thunderbolt had left Lay stretched across Like rabbit’s blood Arms that lay on his white bed That glared like two five-​headed serpents An elephant resting in mid Ganga Breathing hard like a snake The red-​eyed Ravana’s white silk garment seemed a little disarrayed, His long gold-​decked arms breathing hard Wars with the mighty gods Like rabbit’s blood Right-​sized fingers, thumbs, nails, arms, Like rabbit’s blood Showed scars of wars

19 The voice-​over’s text is a free adaptation from K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar’s verse rendering of Sundarakāṇḍa, translated as “The Epic Beautiful,” (1983: 126–​127). The words belong to Hanuman, who is struck with awe as he glimpses Ravana sleeping in his palace. Through Hanuman’s eyes, Ravana’s beauty is captured. I am grateful to Michael Fisher for identifying the exact passage from Srinivas Iyengar’s translation as used in Ravanama. 20 “Bakula” is the name of a flower, plant, and tree, which is known for its fragrance (botanical name, Mimusops Elengi; English name, Indian medlar).

154  Interrogating the Anti-Hero Breathing hard like a snake There, traces on his shoulders, Indira’s tuskers The red-​eyed Ravana’s white silk garment seemed a little disarrayed.

(Video ends. Lights)

In a surreal register, one can view this sequence as a dream seeping into the Actor’s being, as she prepares herself for a final exposition of Ravana in all the splendor of Kathakali. But this is not quite what materializes, as the Actor awakens from her sleep and adds bits of silver paper tucked into arm and chest, along with long beaded earrings. These accessories are very different from the glitter of the Kathakali props shown in the video. In a quiet transition, and with no seeming logic, the Actor suddenly stops dead in her tracks center-​stage to a blast of Michael Jackson’s “Bad.”

SOUND 8: “BAD” + REPENTANCE (Impersonation of Michael Jackson’s “Bad,” accompanied by strobe lights.) The provocative Michael Jackson number is one of the few sequences in the play where Maya/​the Actor deliberately seems to confront the audience, almost mocking the spectators by coming to the edge of the stage and mimicking their propriety. Adopting a technique often used by satirists mocking censorship, Maya/​the Actor seems to imply, “OK, you want me to be bad, I’ll play Ravana as that terribly bad person that you all imagine and want him to be.” With a hybrid incorporation of Michael Jackson’s signature movements and gestures, including a snippet of the “moon walk,” Maya grimaces, pouts, snarls in a distinctly grotesque mode. (The Michael Jackson number is followed by a sequence called “Repentance,” which is made up of repetitive movements of continuous obeisance.) Why “Repentance” should follow “Bad” is not immediately clear at a dramaturgical level. However, the audience witnesses a repetition of movements based on genuflection, with Maya/​the Actor kneeling on the floor and repeatedly bending her body to the ground. A sense of grief inheres in the insistent repetition of this ritual gesture, which almost acquires the aura of a spiritual cleansing in its concentrated stillness. From the

Ravana as Dissident Artist  155 minimalist rigor of the “Repentance” sequence emerges the possibility of imagining a “new beginning,” outside the palace, deep inside a forest. Yes, there is a new beginning to be made Not within the four walls of a palace (M. rubs off walls of palace (atta) with feet . . . sits in center.) But in the endless winding river Where you can look as far as the gaze will go and still never Know where the river begins . . . and ends but there is another story waiting at the far end of the river so far, the iris trembles to stay in focus (goes to mirror to wear bird robe) That is where this story finds a middle? . . . an end? For you may think that Ravana was killed in the war so you may have been told that is where Ravana sat many years later (wears nails) so I was told so this actor wanted to believe so this woman wanted to dream (M. gets up) From the longest bamboo that Ravana could find in the forest, he laid frets, He drew strings from his gut Stood on one foot For many moons And laid them across For fourteen years he laid his breath across his veena to give it life A father waiting for his daughter. He knew Sita, his daughter, would come

156  Interrogating the Anti-Hero One of the more elaborate and explicit scenes in the production, this sequence gives due weight and full articulation to the text, without deconstructing it. Wearing the long, tapering fingernails (nakham) used in Kathakali to accentuate gestures, Maya transforms from the Actor into Bird. Her head and neck jerk with bird-​like movements while her body shudders and struts with an almost primeval energy. At some point the Bird jumps on to the table with the laptop and becomes an archaic omnipresence. Later, it gets transformed into Ravana, who first appears in a savagely human form, as he mimes pulling out guts from his stomach, stretching them to his teeth, while creating the strings of a veena. Gradually, endowing the musical instrument with life through the power of his breath, Ravana sits in regal silence as the master rudra veena guru, waiting for Sita in the forest.21

SOUND 9: VEENA 1 (M. goes to T-​shirt triangle and sits.) They sat like that for days on end Facing each other not saying a word Sometimes a change of the place of the hand Shift of the weight of the leg A look in the eye The fold of the cloth . . . a bead of sweat . . . on the forehead And between them lay the veena So who would speak first In this story full of longing and forgetfulness? (end music) Will you teach me to play the veena, father? (takes her hand and places on veena . . . makes plucking mudra) let’s start here . . .

21 This episode is inspired by the short story of Ambai (C.S. Lakshmi) titled “Aṭavi” (2006, 145–​ 178). There, in a haunting encounter, set after familiar accounts of Ramayana have ended, Sita meets Ravana in the forest where he is playing the rudra veena. Maya’s text and Lakshmi’s story are subtly different. See the commentary in the following section to identify these differences.

Ravana as Dissident Artist  157 As the performance culminates in a concentrated nucleus of energy, the Actor/​Ravana sits center-​stage in what Maya describes as a position from which she cannot budge—​an āsana-​like sitting posture, a tucked-​ in padmāsana, with the buttocks supported on one of the bent legs. To snatches of haunting sounds, repeated slowly and austerely, she evokes Sita and Ravana recognizing each other. Their meeting seems to transcend filial relationality as they focus on the single most important object that serves as the ground of their reunion—​the veena. I ask Maya, “Who is sitting and holding the ground?” Unhesitatingly, she answers, “Ravana.” It is he who takes Sita’s hand and gets her to pluck the veena. This contrasts sharply with Ambai’s short story Forest, in which an aging Ravana and Sita meet each other, beyond time, almost beyond the narrative contours of Ramayana. They stare at each other in silence, with the veena in between. In Lakshmi’s story, it is Sita who takes the veena from Ravana and places it on her own lap. Maya chooses not to perform this feminist inflection of Sita’s agency. What matters to her is the recognition that the veena provides the ultimate medium for a “real” beginning. Her last words are: “Let’s start here.” Whose voice are we hearing? Is it Ravana’s or Maya’s? Or is it that of the Actor who has been trying to bring closure to Ravanama? One way or the other, such is the magical resonance of the last moment, that when the Actor disappears into the darkening recesses of the stage, it seems that another beginning could begin all over again.

SOUND 9: VEENA 2 (T-​shirt on shoulder, M. walks away, closes laptap, etc., goes off . . . door shut . . . black out . . . sound fade out after 9–​10 seconds.)

END A Final Note Both Ravanama and The Tenth Head may or may not “work” for all their spectators, insofar as they engage closely in the phenomenology of their performances with the aesthetics of failure. One is reminded of that ultimate apostle of failure in world theater, Samuel Beckett, whose cheerful advice was,

158  Interrogating the Anti-Hero “Fail, fail again, but fail better.” In a world of coercive entertainment where “failure” is designated as the prerogative of “losers” and risk-​taking is systematically being censored in favor of “safe” performances, it is encouraging to note that there can be experiments like The Tenth Head and Ravanama, which dare to “fail better” with each new performance. That the figure of Ravana should catalyze this readiness to fail might seem ironic or ominous, depending on one’s relationship to the most archetypal anti-​hero of diverse Ramayanas. Yet Ravana, in whatever incarnation he may be envisioned, is an inspirational figure for a wide spectrum of artists precisely because his catalytic and imaginative power works against norms to precipitate new modes of creative dissent. In this sense, he can be claimed with due respect as the most troublemaking, yet irresistible, dissident artist and contemporary of our times.

Bibliography Ambai (C. S. Lakshmi). 2006. “Aṭavi,” translated into English by Lakshmi Holmstrom as “Forest.” In In a Forest, a Deer, pp. 145–​178. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Artaud, Antonin. 1958. “No More Masterpieces.” In The Theater and Its Double, trans. Mary Caroline Richards, pp. 74–​83. New York: Grove Press. Gokhale, Shanta. 2014. The Theatre of Veenapani Chawla: Theory, Practice and Performance. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Iyengar, K. R. Srinivasa. 1983. The Epic Beautiful. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Narayana Rao, Velcheru. 1991. “A Ramayana of Their Own: Women’s Oral Tradition in Telugu.” In Many Rāmāyaṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 114–​136. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ramanujan, A. K. 1991. “Three Hundred Rāmāyaṇas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation.” In Many Rāmāyaṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 22–​49. Berkeley: University of California Press. Srinivasan, Doris Meth. 1997. Many Heads, Arms and Eyes: Origin, Meaning and Form of Multiplicity in Indian Art. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

PART IV

PE R F OR MING G E NDE R

9 The Making of RāmaRāvan.   ā Reflections on Gender, Music, and Staging Hanne M. de Bruin

RāmaRāvaṇā, commissioned for the Adishakti Ramayana Festival 2011, was an experiment at many different levels. It was written and directed by P. Rajagopal, a Kattaikkuttu actor from a family of hereditary performers, with conceptual and dramaturgical input from myself, a Western-​educated Indologist living in India and working for the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam. Based in rural Tamil Nadu, with a wide popular outreach, Kattaikkuttu can be described as a Tamil language-​based form of “total theater” which derives its name from the fact that principal male, heroic characters wear the characteristic kattai (kaṭṭai) ornamentation, namely, head, shoulder, and breast ornaments made out of wood.1 Rajagopal was trained by his father, Ca. Poṉṉnucāmi vattiyar (vāttiyār),2 and other principal Kattaikkuttu actor-​ teachers in the style (pāṇi) of Rajapopal’s father’s troupe in Perungattur.3 Some of the unique characteristics of this style are its open-​throated, high-​pitched singing; meticulous attention to the production of its musical sound; and the rhythmical footwork of the actors. Kattaikkuttu’s musical score derives from the classical Karnatic system of music (with adjustments for the stage) yet is produced in a much more organic fashion. A typical Kattaikkuttu adult male voice Perungattur style carries far in the stillness of the night, and has a distinctive, emotive, yet raw quality that may be enhanced even further by the musical repetition provided by the mukavinai (mukavīṇai), a high-​pitched, oboe-​like

1 The theater is also known by the name Terukkūttu or simply Kūttu. For a discussion about the name of the theater, which has been the subject of debate, see Bruin 2000. 2 The title given to an experienced actor and teacher, from Sanskrit upadhyaya (upādhyāya, “teacher”). 3 Perungattur is the name of the village where Rajagopal was born. It is located in Tiruvannamalai District in Tamil Nadu, about 25 kilometers from the center of Kanchipuram Town. Hanne M. de Bruin, The Making of RāmaRāvaṇā In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0009

162  Performing Gender wind-​instrument. Rajagopal’s deep immersion since the age of 10 in this very specific style of performance through extensive exposure, training, and his long career as a leading actor, company manager, and, more recently, teacher and artistic leader of the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam, critically defines his idea of what Kattaikkuttu is or potentially could be.4 Having accepted the invitation to create a play on the Ramayana story for the Adishakti Ramayana Festival, Rajagopal saw himself faced with critical challenges.5 First, the Festival’s 90-​minute performance slot compelled him to consider how he could condense the format of Kattaikkuttu’s all-​night plays without sacrificing the theater’s distinctive and elaborate performance idiom. This challenge was not new to Rajagopal, who has composed and directed condensed performances of traditional pieces, as well as original shorter plays, on other occasions. However, in this case, not knowing who his audience at the Adishakti Ramayana Festival would be, or how this audience might react to his treatment of the Ramayana story, was a challenge of a different kind. All-​night Kattaikkuttu performances are characterized by a considerable degree of flexibility within a well-​defined structure. Normally, this allows performers (and a director) to adjust performances to the demands and expectations of local spectators, a provision not applicable in the Adishakti context. Flexibility and the availability of an all-​night time frame allow performers to fully develop and expand Kattaikkuttu’s textual and vocal distinctiveness. Moreover, flexibility is pivotal in sustaining overnight shows without having to memorize an entirely scripted text. Therefore, creating a new production within a much shorter time slot, for an unknown yet presumably critical and elite audience, required a critical assessment of Kattaikkuttu’s usual performance practices, such as elaborate stage entries, transitions between episodes, and improvised comedy. A second creative dilemma that Rajagopal faced was presented by the freedom the organizers had given him to interpret the Ramayana story 4 For a more elaborate description of the theater and its performance contexts, see Frasca (1990), Hiltebeitel (1988), and Bruin (1999). 5 Rajagopal and I thank Rustom Bharucha and the late Veenpani Chawla for commissioning the work. I also thank the International Research Center/​Interweaving Performance Cultures for supporting me while writing this chapter and Phillip Zarrilli, Rustom Bharucha, Paula Richman, and Craig Jenkins for commenting on earlier drafts. The Tamil text of RāmaRāvaṇā was published as part of a collection of P. Rajagopal’s plays by Kalachuvadu (Rājakōpāl 2014). Quotes from the published text will be referred to hereafter as RāmaRāvaṇā, followed by the page number(s). The names of South Indian ragas in this chapter are given in anglicized form, but readers unfamiliar with them should consult Pesch (1999).

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   163 in whatever way he felt appropriate. This request prompted him to consider whether and, if so, how he could “translate” the Ramayana story into Kattaikkuttu’s heroic, Mahabharata-​dominated theatrical language. In addition, he needed to select a critical perspective for his treatment of the epic story. In the local context in which Rajagopal normally works, Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, and Hanuman tend to be epitomized as ideal characters, whereas their antagonists, Ravana and his sister Shurpanakha, are rakshasas and have concomitant demonic behaviors. In contrast, Kattaikkuttu’s principal Mahabharata characters are far more ambiguous, to the extent that almost all of them appear to possess a demonic core irrespective of whether they represent the “good” or the “bad” side in the narrative.6 For Rajagopal, the challenge of translating the Ramayana story into Kattaikkuttu’s Mahabharata-​oriented paradigm appears to have compelled him to rethink the question of how Rama and Ravana and Sita and Shurpanakha straddle the conventional divides between good and bad and the divine and the demonic. As I argue in the following discussion, the production demanded some radical rethinking, in particular with regard to representing gender within the Kattaikkuttu tradition. This chapter highlights episodes in which male and female behaviors are interrogated and re-​envisioned in relation to Kattaikkuttu’s conventions of music and staging. In reinterpreting the Ramayana story, Rajagopal refused to focus on the epic’s violent war scenes; RāmaRāvaṇā has none. His understanding of the narrative’s principal hero, Rama, as problematic and ambivalent, made him unfit to be shown as a typical kattai character. The category of kattai characters (or kaṭṭai vēṣam) features characters (usually male), who wear kattai ornamentation, signaling their royalty and valor. Kattai characters enter the stage behind a curtain (tirai pravēśam), where they perform a set routine of songs and movements. In contrast, Kattaikkuttu’s female characters and other, less heroic characters, such as Krishna, do not wear kattai ornamentation, nor do they use the curtain for their stage entries. Unable to find some of the nuances of characterization, agency, and text he had in mind to define his principal male and female protagonists, Rajagopal turned to other, locally available performance sources with which he was familiar. Historically, Kattaikkuttu has favored the Mahabharata as a vehicle to express the heroic (vīram), the ferocious (rauttiram), and the tragic (cōkam) through the embodiment of its male kattai characters and its music. In this 6 For example, see Bruin (1999: 137–​138, 292–​299).

164  Performing Gender way, Kattaikkuttu distinguishes itself from its closest rival, Drama (Ṭirāmā) or Nāṭakam. Drama is stylistically quite different from Kattaikkuttu. Modeled on Parsi theater, it uses a combination of indigenous and imported, Western, Victorian stage conventions, including the proscenium, stage lighting, and other technological “stage effects.” Drama rose to great popularity in the first decades of the last century, and also provided an input for the emerging Tamil film industry. Unlike Kattaikkuttu, Drama does not feature kattai characters or entrances behind a curtain, while its movement vocabulary is less physical than that of Kattaikkuttu. It also uses, particularly in its earlier form (where contemporary film tunes and songs had not yet pushed out Karnatic music), a somewhat different set of ragas, in addition to possessing a Ramayana repertoire—​on both of which Rajagopal decided to draw.7

Sources Rajagopal used textual and musical elements from the full version of the Ramayana story called Sampurṇa Rāmāyaṇa as performed in the Drama style with which he was familiar from his earlier work with a group of Drama performers.8 Another source of reference and inspiration was Kamban’s 12th-​century poetic text, Irāmāvatāram, more generally known as Kamparāmāyaṇam. In addition, Rajagopal drew on childhood memories of melodies and song texts that he had heard and performed as a child-​actor in his father’s company, where he had played small roles, including selected episodes from the Ramayana. A final source that went into the making of RāmaRāvaṇā, unearthed by Rajagopal and myself as part of our research into the recent history of the Tamil rural stage, was the now extinct rural Devadasi tradition from which Rajagopal salvaged a suggestive song, which he used to characterize Shurpanakha. In the Kattaikkuttu tradition, and also in the Tamil linguistic tradition, a “text” is not limited to words and semantics; it also includes music and

7 For an initial attempt to historicize the emergence and rise in popularity of Drama and related hybrid theaters in India during the last decades of the 19th century and early decades of the 20th century, see Bruin (2001: Intro, 56–​74). For an excellent analysis of Special Drama in the Madurai region, a form akin to Drama in north Tamil Nadu, see Seizer (2005). 8 On the initiative of the Kattaikkuttu Sangam, in 1998, Rajagopal helped colleague-​Drama performers resurrect an all-​night Sampurṇa Rāmāyaṇa performance. Credits for writing the prose passages (vacaṉam) for this Rāmāyaṇa production in Drama style go to the late Caka. Ceyaraman, and credits for retrieving some of the songs to the late Padur K. Bhupati.

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   165 the potential to create visual imagery. By far the most important source for Rajagopal’s “scripting” of RāmaRāvaṇā was, therefore, a large pool of different types of songs, conventional musical scores, formulaic textual and visual building blocks, and performance principles, stored in what I have called Kattaikkuttu’s “oral reservoir” (Bruin 1999: 163–​165). The oral reservoir is a mental-​physical storage place for dramatic scores and a pool of diverse verbal, aural, and visual materials underlying actual performances. Its porosity allows influences from other (adjacent) performance forms, including Tamil cinema, to enter its storage and potentially be used in live performances. The oral reservoir is owned by the community of Kattaikkuttu performers and, usually in a less active form, by Kattaikkuttu’s local spectator-​connoisseurs (racikars). Rajagopal’s access to the oral reservoir as an experienced actor enabled him to draw on the stored materials therein to assemble and use them in new constellations, new contexts, and with new semantic connotations in relation to gender and issues of political power, thus activating and expanding Kattaikkuttu’s inherent scope for innovation.

Composing a Script When Rajagopal began to write for the Kattaikkuttu stage about thirty years ago, one of his uncles, also a performer, discouraged him and warned him not to experiment with language because the choice of a wrong word could bring about the destruction of his entire family. Clearly, writing involves responsibility, individuality, and guts, in particular for a subaltern actor, since it might be perceived as an act of subversion, even among members of the profession. Rajagopal’s first impulse in adapting the Ramayana story for the stage was to break the linearity of the epic. From a dramaturgical point of view, he found the narrative’s temporal progression of events uninspiring; they also seemed to facilitate familiar, stereotyped interpretations of the Ramayana story, which he refused to take for granted. By disrupting the natural sequence of events, he could let his imagination travel more freely through the epic as he picked, combined, and juxtaposed scenes set apart in time and place. In the end, he settled for five episodes involving Sita, Lakshmana, Ravana, Shurpanakha, and Hanuman as their main characters, with Rama making a single appearance in the last scene. All these roles were performed by young women—​a significant departure from the traditional practice in

166  Performing Gender Kattaikkuttu, where all roles are played by men. Most radically, some women in RāmaRāvaṇā were also playing male roles, a reversal of the usual practice where men are expected to play female roles as well. At the onset of his creative process, Rajagopal briefly contemplated the extreme idea of producing a Ramayana without Rama. The notion of Rama’s virtual absence from the epic evolved from his reading of part of Kamparāmāyaṇam that deals with the aftermath of Sita’s liberation from captivity. Rama summarily dismisses her, stating that he no longer has any use for her now that Ravana has been killed. The gods descend upon Lanka to question Rama’s treatment of Sita. They enlighten him about his divinity—​ a condition he has forgotten or does not know. This passage in the literary Tamil text, in combination with Rama’s seemingly inexplicable behavior, led Rajagopal to perceive Rama as a void, a person without a solid identity or a person suffering from amnesia, unable or unwilling to express his own feelings or empathy toward others and, therefore, difficult to dramatize within Kattaikkuttu’s heroic idiom.9 In the final production, Rajagopal captured the evasiveness of the divine, its incomprehensibility to human beings, and even to itself, in the title song “rāmā rāvaṇā rājyam āḷavē tēṭukiṉṟōm uṉait tēṭukiṉṟōm aṅkum iṅkum eṅkum iruppāy eṅkaḷukku arūḷ ceytiṭuvāy” (“Rāmā [and] Rāvaṇā we seek your rule over this realm [or kingdom]. We seek you wherever you hide. Grant us your sight [or blessing]!”). The same song was repeated at the very end of the play—​set, however, in a different raga to indicate the changed mood of the narrative (RāmaRāvaṇā: 89, 111).10 Visually, Rama’s absence in the play was made present by the Kattaikkuttu crown (kirīṭam) that hung over the center-​back of the stage—​a symbol open to multiple interpretations, including that of Rama’s (and Ravana’s) lost and/​ or future kingdoms. Yet Rajagopal refused to use Rama’s amnesia as an excuse to indemnify him from responsibility for his deeds. Instead of elevating him to a divine level or opposing him to a demonic Ravana, Rajagopal decided to draw a parallel between Rama and Ravana by focusing on the effects of their interlinked actions. 9 Rama’s amnesia is documented in both Valmiki’s Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa and the Tamil Kamparāmāyaṇam (see also Shulman 2001: 90–​95); in Valmiki’s version, Rama’s identity crisis is made even more explicit when he asks the gods who he is. 10 The song “rāmā rāvaṇā” is based on the Telugu song “rāmā rākavā rājippalōcaṉā” used in Kaṭṭaikkūttu performances to erect the hand-​held curtain across the stage prior to a character’s curtain-​entry (for the text of the song, see Karna’s Death translated by Bruin 1998: 6). For the opening of the play, “rāmā rāvaṇā” was set to the Tēvāram pan (paṇ; melody type) “pūvār malar” often used in the off-​stage sequence of Arjuna’s Penance and invoking a devotional mood; for the closing song, Rajagopal used raga desh. The production’s title derives from the initial words of the song; the final ā indicates a vocative form.

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   167 In Kattaikkuttu’s Mahabharata repertoire, Duryodhana is often seen as offering the greatest scope to embody Kattaikkuttu’s heroic qualities, in spite of the fact that he represents the enemy side and is believed to possess (or to become possessed by) a demonic nature characteristic of a rakshasa. If not Rama, Ravana could be another logical choice as the chief character of the new production. Yet, Rajagopal opted not to highlight Ravana’s heroism, nor his perceived demonic nature, because he did not want to eulogize war or endorse the epic’s persistent “othering” of demons, monkeys, and other nonhumans. At the same time, to turn Ravana’s protagonists, Rama and his younger brother Lakshmana, into typical kattai characters appeared problematic, too, not only because of Rama’s absentmindedness, but also because both brothers spent most of their time in the forest as ascetics. Such a “disguise” did not lend itself to the performativity of a typical kattai character and its heroic/​demonic associations, nor to an elaborate curtain entrance, which such a character requires. Furthermore, among Rajagopal’s emerging ideas for the production, Lakshmana’s cruel mutilation of Shurpanakha, at Rama’s behest, and the provocation of her return to Lanka catalyzed a chain of events around which his version of the epic story began to revolve. The assault on his sister causes Ravana to believe that he must kidnap Sita, if he is to protect his honor. Thus, in Rajagopal’s critique of patriarchy, men in power retaliate by using their opponents’ women as catalysts to invoke war, thereby perpetuating a never-​ ending cycle of violence and terror. Sita and Shurpanakha are pawns, used by Rama and Ravana to realize their desires and actions. The women are also symbols used to define the virility and honor of these men and to legitimize violence. Rajagopal’s bold juxtaposition of Rama and Ravana eliminates the possibility of their being seen as opposites and of Ravana being seen as the demonic other. Like other Kattaikkuttu scripts, RāmaRāvaṇā’s script was not conceived as a written text to be read in silence. Rather, while composing the script, Rajagopal imagined the specific pitch and diction of words and the aural, visual, and kinetic shape they could take when embodied by characters onstage; above all, he imagined ways to bring these different elements together to reveal and enhance the play’s aesthetic and semantic sense. During the process of developing the script, music was never far from his mind and, indeed, often appeared to inspire his writing. Songs are the backbone of Kattaikkuttu performances. Not only do songs structure and pace the performance, their ragas and rhythms set the dominant mood of an episode.

168  Performing Gender These musical scores and modes are as crucial as words in infusing the sung texts with emotion and meaning. In some instances of Kattaikkuttu’s performance praxis, words, and their almost musical mode of production, are used not for their semantic content, but rather to set a specific mood. An example is Ravana’s entrance song in RāmaRāvaṇā. It contains a curul (curuḷ) passage, the internal rhyme of which, when sung in a fast pace, produces a rhythmical staccato beat that sounds very much like present-​day rap. Such high-​speed rhythmical renderings are meant to heighten the dramatic impact of a song, while the words often become inaudible. A curul passage privileges words as musical rather than semantic entities. Against the inseparable integrity of words and music, Rajagopal drew on songs, not only to define specific moments or functions, like a character’s entry or a tarkkam (discussion, debate, duet) between two characters, but above all to capture different moods—​from somber to sensual and ecstatic—​interweaving the aural and semantic levels of the performance. For most of RāmaRāvaṇā’s songs Rajagopal opted for one of Kattaikkuttu’s two dominant modes of expression, that of pattu (pāṭṭu) or sung verse that has both melody and rhythm, and viruttam. A viruttam is a musical verse of four, eight, or sixteen lines. It is free-​flowing and melodic but has no rhythm; therefore, it is a particularly apt form to bring out the emotional quality of a raga and define the mood of a character. The last line of each four-​line stanza of a viruttam is followed by a musical and rhythmical interlude called a jati, which is performed by the entire orchestra. In Rajagopal’s Perungattur style of performance, these jatis offer an actor scope to perform a set of rhythmical dance steps (aṭavu) and arm/​body movements, the conclusion of which should coincide with the rhythmic drum flourish provided by the mridangam player (Bruin 1999: 226–​231). Moreover, in the production of a Perungattur style viruttam, the actor’s lines are repeated by the mukavinai, Kattaikkuttu’s high-​pitched wind instrument, or by a single voice from the chorus, thereby enhancing its melodic beauty and emotional impact. Interweaving Kamban’s classical Tamil text and Kattaikkuttu’s viruttam mode, Rajagopal set the poet’s evocative, lyrical description of Ravana to a viruttam in nattai, a typically heroic raga. This established Ravana’s royal power and splendor, in addition to demonstrating the fluidity between Kattaikkuttu’s musical language and the language of classical Tamil poetry.11 11 RāmaRāvaṇā: 96; the text of the viruttam is from Kamparāmāyaṇam, āraṇya kāṇṭam, ceyyuḷ 3, toṭar eṇ 560.

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   169 In contrast to the viruttam mode, a pattu has both melody and rhythm. A pattu may contain any number of lines. An actor on stage, referred to as muṉṉaṇi, sings the lines of a pattu, which are then repeated by the entire chorus or piṉṉaṇi (piṉpāṭṭu). In regular Kattaikkuttu performances, the division between onstage actor-​singer and chorus is usually left flexible. However, during the dramatization of RāmaRāvaṇā, this division needed to be fixed, because of the shorter running time of the production and the aural-​aesthetic content that Rajagopal wished to create. Furthermore, as a major innovation, we decided to have the entire chorus onstage with the singer-​actors occupying both sides of the performance area, facing each other diagonally and leaving open a central space for action. This contrasted sharply with the convention in regular Kattaikkuttu performances where the chorus stands center-​back stage, just behind the bench on which the musicians are seated. Another innovation in our use of the chorus was their identical costuming in unicolored, unadorned, straight versions of Kattaikkuttu’s expansive skirts, combined with simple head ornamentation. The chorus in RāmaRāvaṇā consisted of 12 members, with Rajagopal joining the musical ensemble as a vocal soloist. Its onstage presence required the 12 young chorus members to master the difficult task of standing for long periods of time and refraining from body movements or facial expressions. In addition to singing in the chorus, the actor-​singers took on minor male and female roles opposite RāmaRāvaṇā’s five principal characters and acted as building blocks for onstage “props,” such as Ravana’s chariot or the fire which Sita enters. Their similar costumes provided freedom of movement and a neutral look that allowed chorus members to shift easily between singing in the chorus, playing a minor character, or becoming part of the chariot or fire. A final word is required with regard to the vacanams that Rajagopal provided in RāmaRāvaṇā’s script. These prose passages are extremely brief and often reverberate between characters in response to or completion of what has been said. As became clear during the dramatization of the script, the wording of these prose sections could not be changed without affecting the flow and semantic sense of the performance. Their specificity left little scope for improvisation or extrapolation in the form of lengthy prose explanations or embellishments that would have occurred in all-​night performances. Similarly, Rajagopal scripted the comedy routines, thereby restricting their potential for improvisation that characterizes regular, all-​night Kattaikkuttu

170  Performing Gender performances. The exact dramatic form, length, and timing of these comedy routines were worked out and fixed during the rehearsals. Two young comedians, P. Moorthy and M. Duraisamy, play the Clowns (Kaṭṭiyakkāraṉs) in RāmaRāvaṇā. The Clowns appear in the disguise of two Dāsari or non-​Brahmin Vaisnavite religious mendicants, Govinda and Gopala, who make a living from begging. Rajagopal used the Clowns to comment, somewhat subversively, on the Ramayana story itself as well as on the machinations of society. The Clowns criticize inflated, egoistic heroism while mocking religiosity. They comment in particular on the exploitation of women, who are used as marionettes (often in the name of male “honor”) to legitimize or fulfill the desires of the (male) establishment. In all-​ night performances, comedy often emerges from the collaboration between a heroic-​royal protagonist and the Kattiyakkaran, who also responds to reactions in the audience. Such comic interpolations can be totally unrelated to, and even disruptive of, the principal storyline. While such free improvisation was not possible within the dramaturgical structure of RāmaRāvaṇā, the dramatic exuberance of the two comedians conveyed a strong sense of the comic potential of Kattaikkuttu.

The Performance Before beginning to describe the performative dynamics of some key episodes from RāmaRāvaṇā, I focus on the crucial area of casting the production and the role played by gender. While Rajagopal’s training of male and female students is equally vigorous and intensive, he decided, after ample consideration, to cast five of his young female students in the principal roles of RāmaRāvaṇā because he considered these young women to be the best fit for these roles at that moment in time. As a teacher and director, Rajagopal’s dream has always been to have a Kattaikkuttu stage where the actors are judged on their talent and performance—​and not on their gender. He has pioneered opening up Kattaikkuttu to women, not only to ensure greater gender equality and to give women a voice on the stage, but also as a way to safeguard the theater’s future. The liberty he takes might seem unusual and unexpected for a traditional practitioner of a subaltern theater form—​and perhaps it is. Yet, his insight into an actor’s suitability and capacity to embody a specific role has always guided him in his casting decisions, and so has his willingness to teach girls and women without holding back professional knowledge.

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   171 Sita, played by R. Mahalakshmi, and Shurpanakha, played by P. Thilagavathy, were the two roles in RāmaRāvaṇā where biological gender and staged gender coincided. Thilagavathy has a family background in rural theater. She is Rajagopal’s oldest female student, has more experience and maturity than his younger students, and has performed outside a village context. This made her a good choice to portray Shurpanakha’s sensuality—​an aspect of acting that remains difficult, if not a “no-​go” area, for most of her younger female colleagues. Feisty Mahalakshmi’s own personality coincided well with her epic role of Sita as portrayed in RāmaRāvaṇā. Sita’s costume, hairdo, makeup, movement, and gestures fulfilled conventional expectations existing in popular, rural performance genres with regard to such female roles, but Rajagopal endowed both Sita and Shurpanakha with vigor, self-​ awareness, and (sexual) independence. Their agency was detached from any demonic or judgmental overtones, a particularly striking aspect of the way in which Shurpanakha was portrayed. While she usually is accused of provoking Lakshmana’s assault on her and is “othered” as the bad woman (the opposite of the good Sita), Rajagopal has not presented the open expression of her sexual desire as wrong or worthy of such an attack. Furthermore, RāmaRāvaṇā prominently featured S. Tamilarasi in the opposite gender role of Ravana. Tamilarasi is a physically strong, agile performer whose body speaks the kattai language—​precise in rhythm and footwork, with high leaps and fast pirouettes (kirikkis), and an extremely efficient use of her kinetic energy. Other styles of Kattaikkuttu may emphasize the anger and demonic nature of kattai characters differently, for instance through a heaviness of movement and voice, audible breathing, rolling eyes, and sticking out of the tongue. Instead, Rajagopal envisages Kattaikkuttu’s heroic dance movements as light and elegant, using the available space and, where necessary, at high velocity—​indicating extreme, yet contained, anger as a typical quality of a male heroic character. The way Tamilarasi held the stage in full male regalia during the performance of RāmaRāvaṇā at the Kattaikkuttu Sangam’s Annual Performing Arts Festival in 2012 created an excited murmur among rural—​both male and female—​spectators. Here Rajagopal’s casting overthrew the Kattaikkuttu convention and rural audiences’ expectations that only men can perform the roles of such heroic, male characters. But he went still further in his gender bending when he had a group of young men, including the two Clowns, perform a tillana (tillāna)—​a rhythmic piece that is generally part of a classical Indian dance performance—​in quasi-​Bharatanatyam style. The dance piece

172  Performing Gender serves as a transition between Rama’s rejection of Sita and her imaginary journey back in time to Mithila, where she and Rama first laid eyes upon each other. We deliberately did not try to hide the fact that all the dancers were adolescent males. They were not technically perfect and sometimes had “unwilling” bodies (as well as minds), making it impossible for them to be as elegant as trained women dancers of this typically female dance style would be. Let me now discuss representations of gender in five sequences in the actual performance of RāmaRāvaṇā: Ravana’s kidnapping of Sita; Ravana’s second entry; Shurpanakha’s appearance in his court to recount her mutilation at the hands of Lakshmana (performed in a flashback); an unusual and emotional tarkkam (debate, duet) between Ravana and Sita; and, finally, Rama’s entry and his refusal to accept Sita as his wife after she has been released from imprisonment at Lanka.

Ravana Kidnaps Sita After the introductory song “rāmā rāvaṇā,” the play opens with the sounds of the forest produced by the chorus, which are suddenly disrupted by Maricha’s scream, imitating Rama’s voice. This brings an anxious Sita onstage and is followed by a wordy exchange between her and Lakshmana. Convinced that no harm will befall Rama, Lakshmana refuses to go in aid of Rama and break his promise to never leave Sita unprotected. Sita accuses Lakshmana of not taking action, implying that he is not caring enough for his older brother because “he is the son of the other mother” (māmaṇavāḷukku maṟṟattāy makaṉaṉṟē, ām ataṉāl cummā niṉṟīr (RāmaRāvaṇā: 90). She threatens to go in search of Rama herself. Confronted with this predicament, Lakshmana feels he has no other option but to leave and find out what has happened to Rama. This turning point in the plot is marked by a viruttam, an evocative verse that highlights the melody, in which Lakshmana expresses the emotional turmoil of being torn between the demands of the two people he loves most. Before leaving, he draws a magic circle around Sita, the lakshmana rekha (lakṣmaṇa rekha), which is supposed to protect her from harm. Instead of narrating the action in an extensive vacanam, which would have been closer to the standard Kattaikkuttu practice, the chorus members form the physical building blocks to create the lakshmana rekha. After Lakshmana has

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   173 “activated” the rekha by touching each member of the chorus with an arrow pulled from his quiver, they start moving one by one using Kattaikkuttu’s steps, half and full leaps, and fast pirouettes. Restraining their speed, they lie down, forming with their bodies a protective circle around Sita. Before he leaves, Lakshmana instructs Sita not to step outside the circle, “whatever happens.” In contrast to Lakshmana’s idea that the circle is a protective device, Rajagopal leaves the symbolic meaning of the lakshmana rekha ambivalent: it both protects and traps Sita within patriarchal conventions that, according to the Clowns, “have been stuck onto us from our great-​grannies’ times.” And in a general aside, it has one of them wonder: “When will all this change?” After Lakshmana’s departure, Ravana appears in his full glory and majesty, introduced by the song “māyaṉuruvē” (“What a magical body!” RāmaRāvaṇā: 92–​93). The song in the heroic raga mohanam is sung in slow tempo by Rajagopal, while the actor Ravana (Tamilarasi) enters and moves diagonally across the stage. Approaching Sita, enclosed within the lakshmana rekha, King Ravana transforms himself into a stooped mendicant ascetic. By way of self-​introduction, he holds the curtain pulled together in his right hand. During the song that accompanies his majestic appearance, he takes the curtain in both hands and draws it open in front of him, before two assistants from the onstage chorus take it from him. In contrast to regular Kattaikkuttu performances, the curtain is transparent and is held diagonally across the stage so that the spectators can see both Ravana and Sita. The assistants lower themselves onto their knees and fold the curtain in half to reduce its height, while Ravana bends down behind the lowered curtain. The unfolding of the curtain (the opposite of it being whisked away, as occurs in a regular kattai character’s entry) signals Ravana’s transition from “self ” to sanyasi. The curtain is pulled away at the moment that Ravana grabs Sita’s hand. This apparently minor detail gave rise to some intense discussion revolving around the degree of agency displayed by Sita. It converged on whether Sita should step out of the circle to offer Ravana-​as-​ascetic food or whether Ravana should pull her out of the circle. In the final production, the chorus/​lakshmana rekha starts to rise—​ in an attempt to protect Sita?—​at the same moment that she moves toward Ravana. The moment that Sita lifts her foot to step across the line coincides with Ravana seizing her hand and pulling her out. The small drama of their physical contact was underscored when a copper vessel

174  Performing Gender with food, that she had intended to give to Ravana, fell on the floor with a loud clatter and rolled away. At this point, Ravana discloses his real identity through the song “nāṉē rāvaṇaṉ” (“I am Rāvaṇaṉ”) (the song in raga bhairavi, rupaka talam is from the Drama repertoire, RāmaRāvaṇā: 93). Boasting in proper Kattaikkuttu fashion, he promises Sita a much more comfortable way of life than Rama can afford as an exile in the forest. Sita resists the abduction and his presumptuous arrogance.12 Telling him that his bragging in front of a woman shows the paltriness of his heroism, Sita asks him: “Who are you to invite me, rakshasa?” (“yār nī eṉai aḻaikka arakkaṉē”; RāmaRāvaṇā: 94) This song is sung in raga surutti, expressing Sita’s strength and directness. In the subsequent verbal contest, Ravana in turn calls Rama “a heinous rakshasa who has come to do evil. Don’t think your lover will protect you!” Labeling Rama a rakshasa draws him even closer to Ravana’s likeliness (and the other way around), in fulfillment of Rajagopal’s idea that the behavior of both is virtually identical when confronted with a challenge to their power and honor. Circling each other, Sita tries to dodge Ravana, but eventually is caught in his sky chariot. The chariot is formed by all members of the chorus. Using acrobatic techniques, they form an ascending bridge across which Sita, followed by Ravana, walks up to stand on the shoulders of two members of the chorus positioned at the front, symbolizing the high platform of the chariot. The chariot moves across the front and then off the stage, while a desperate Sita removes her bangles and throws them down to leave a sign of her presence as she is being kidnapped. As soon as the sky chariot has moved offstage, the Clowns appear and comment on witnessing a man abducting a woman. Declaring that they will not stay idle upon seeing such a dreadful scene, they conveniently put the burden on Lord Venkatesa through a song in which they also wonder what fate would befall a country when desire and power come together. Then they set out to Lanka in hot pursuit of the kidnapper—​by flight!

12 RāmaRāvaṇā does hint at the delicate possibility of a relationship between Ravana and Sita, as acknowledged during the post-​performance discussion at the Adishakti Ramayana Festival. R. Mahalakshmi, the young actress who acted the role of Sita, seemed to confirm this hint when she said that if she were Sita, she might have considered taking Ravana up on his offer rather than facing the hardships of staying in the forest.

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   175

Ravana’s Court After the curtain has been whisked away, the spectators get their first full view of King Ravana, played by Tamilarasi with resplendent power, sitting in state, one leg crossed over the other, hands folded along the crossed knee and holding a wooden sword. Ravana’s large-​open eyes and facial expression show his self-​confidence and majesty, something which is enhanced by the accompanying characters executing a series of rapid pirouettes to visually enhance (alaṅkāra, “adorn”) the powerful atmosphere that pervades his court. Ravana’s curtain entry is followed by the entry of the two Clowns who here double as guardians at the King’s court, as is customary in Kattaikkuttu. A dialogue ensues between Ravana and the Clowns who ridicule the King’s supposedly flawless reign, misinterpreting his words as referring to contemporary corrupt practices, including the selling of adulterated alcohol. Ravana concludes his entry with a porri viruttam (pōṟṟi viruttam). The singing of such a viruttam, a chant-​like verse, here in praise of Shiva, is a conventional Kattaikkuttu practice, yet the song has no connection to the story. The porri viruttam is set in raga bhairavi. Normally, it would signal the transition from the entry phase of a character or characters to the further development of the narrative plot. However, in RāmaRāvaṇā, it is followed by a comic-​critical viruttam sung by the two Clowns: Govinda: All those who claim to be highly educated Should read the Kāmasūtra; All those who claim to be ground-​breaking Should smash every single place of worship. Gopala: All those who drink Should get drunk from liquor packets;13 All those who love violence Should not shy away from publicly beating up their own mothers. (RāmaRāvaṇā: 98)

13 Sold under license of the government to counteract the local production of spurious liquor, and often said to finance a sitting administration’s election and other expenditures.

176  Performing Gender Govinda’s and Gopala’s sarcastic viruttam parrots Ravana’s preceding porri viruttam because it is set in the same raga. Through its sung lines, Rajagopal alludes succinctly to several complex political issues that bear upon and have myriad implications for India’s contemporary reality. Because raga bhairavi is a weighty (gambhīra) raga, expressing greatness, respect, and devotion, it provides an additional, satirical meaning to the Clowns’ absurd counsel. Govinda uses the jati, the rhythmical passage which follows the sung lines of the viruttam, to act out the aggressive behavior of a drunken man—​not an uncommon sight in the streets of Tamil villages and towns—​while Gopala tries, unsuccessfully, to restrain him. Through their physical slapstick, the Clowns succeed in completely undermining the heroic-​majestic and devotional impression that Ravana intended to establish, in addition to transforming it into an image and experience of everyday life.

Flashback: Shurpanakha and Lakshmana The grandeur of Ravana’s courtly darbar, displaying his might and talent as a classical singer admired by his courtiers, is violently disturbed when, suddenly, Shurpanakha enters the stage from the audience side, weeping desperately. Unlike some other Ramayana performance traditions, in this play she is a beautiful, independent woman without an obnoxious, demonic other. She wears a simple, bright red, long skirt and sleeved top; her head is covered by a red shawl. She is so severely mutilated that Ravana does not recognize her at first. Only by lifting the shawl and looking at her maimed face does he realize she is his sister. In a flashback, we witness Shurpanakha’s encounter with Lakshmana. Thilagavathy, playing Shurpanakha, uses the shawl that earlier hid her mutilated shape to mark the transition from Ravana’s court to the flashback. Swirling it around while turning to face the audience, she holds the shawl diagonally in front of her, using it as a seductive tool to slowly reveal her eyes and then her face to the spectator’s gaze in an explicitly sexual manner. Although women actors have now entered Kattaikkuttu’s male territory, playing out issues of sexuality still remains incredibly difficult and tricky for them, both on and off the stage, especially if their roles subvert stereotyped female “ideals.” To let Shurpanakha express her desire for Lakshmana, Rajagopal used the song ācai tīravē eṉṉai aṇaintālum ākātō

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   177 (“Would it hurt when you would satisfy my desire?”). He reclaimed this expressive and sensual song from the repertoire of P. R. Kamalambal (ca. 1910–​1972), a rural Devadasi from Padur village, and coached Thilagavathy to express the seductiveness that Shurpanakha requires in her role.14 While male kattai characters, such as Kichaka, can express their erotic feelings, śṛṅgāra (erotic) rasa (mood) expressed openly by a female character is absent from regular Kattaikkuttu performances. Moreover, it is even more unusual to have it performed on the Kattaikkuttu stage by a female actress, rather than a male actor impersonating a female. Lakshmana, played by a very young M. Venda, responds to Shurpanakha’s sensual overtures with a stiff refusal. Pointing out that it is not right for a woman to disclose her desire in public (articulating, as a woman performer, a typical male, patriarchal point of view), he describes her beauty as “fake” because it is driven by kāmaveṟi (lust or the madness of lust) (RāmaRāvaṇā: 102–​103). In return, Shurpanakha asks him what is wrong with speaking one’s mind openly. Initially, she stalks Lakshmana. However, reversing roles, an irritated and increasingly angry Lakshmana chases Shurpanakha and both disappear backstage. Shurpanakha’s agonizing howl and her trademark shawl, which is flung back onto the stage, leave the spectator to imagine her horrendous fate.

Ravana’s and Sita’s Tarkkam At the center of RāmaRāvaṇā is an unusual song duet (tarkkam) between Ravana and captive Sita in Lanka. The scene highlights the emotional state of mind of each character; they appear back to back on the stage at one of the defining moments in the play, sharing similar emotions, even though they are antagonists. Pervaded with a gloomy sadness, the scene shows Ravana in a vulnerable mood quite atypical of the heroic mode of Kattaikkuttu and his conventional epic portrayal. The duet starts on an introspective, almost lamenting tone, using a viruttam set in the meditative raga sivaranjani. Occupying adjacent spaces on stage, Ravana and Sita are dramatically invisible to each other. However, their sung lines transcend the invisible barrier

14 The song was reproduced for us by Kamalambal’s son, the late P. K. Bhupati (Bruin and Rajagopal 2001, video interview with P. K. Bhupati).

178  Performing Gender that confines them to their own onstage areas, each caught in situations against their own will. The lines speak to each other and to the audience, reflecting the private sorrow each antagonist experiences in isolation, while the two are oddly united in their sense of loneliness. A deeply saddened Ravana laments the terrible fate of his sister, Shurpanakha; yet, simultaneously, he legitimizes his abduction of Sita, claiming that it would allow her to live in comfort in Lanka. In the response stanza, Sita addresses Rama, in her imagination, expressing her loneliness and fear of not knowing how long she will be held captive in Lanka. The subsequent part of the tarkkam, set to raga madhyamavati, takes on a more combative tone. Herein, Ravana criticizes Rama’s and Lakshmana’s “heroism,” demanding to know what is so heroic about mutilating his sister: What guts did it take Petty Rama and Lakshmana To mutilate my sister Without knowing her Ignoring the fact that she is a woman? Yours is the handiwork of despicable people! (RāmaRāvaṇā: 103)

To this a captive Sita retaliates sarcastically by questioning Ravana’s own heroism since he kidnapped her when she offered him food as alms. At the end of this song sequence, Sita turns around to realize that all this time she was not alone. Shocked by Ravana’s presence in her private sphere, she orders him to leave her alone: The kind of malice you have committed The world has not yet seen. Don’t stand there—​ Get out of my sight! (RāmaRāvaṇā: 104)

Ravana, likewise caught by surprise and fearing that Sita may have witnessed his vulnerability, turns abruptly and leaves the stage. This intimate scene is a total innovation in the Kattaikkuttu tradition and quite rare in the telling of the Ramayana story as well. It shows both Ravana and Sita in emotionally vulnerable, “unheroic” situations where, unknowingly, they share their most intimate feelings of grief and injustice.

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   179

Sita and Rama In the last scene of RāmaRāvaṇā, Rama makes his only, extremely brief stage appearance. Played by V. Logeshwari, Rama wears blue makeup, conventional kattai ornamentation including a small crown signaling his royal descent, a peacock blue costume with a short, straight skirt in a light golden color. Despite appearing as a kattai vesam, his behavior on stage is the exact opposite of what one would expect from such a heroic, vigorous character. His movements are slow and his facial expression is frozen, giving him a static, puppet-​like, other-​worldly appearance. This dramatic portrayal was Rajagopal’s solution to the incompatibility of Rama with Kattaikkuttu’s heroic kattai vesams. In this final scene, members of the chorus carry Sita on a palanquin as she proceeds toward meeting Rama. After descending from the palanquin, she approaches her husband, addressing him expectantly as “Cuvāmi”—​“My Lord.” When their eyes meet, Rama’s face momentarily shows a profound joy—​a dramatic moment that Rajagopal insisted upon during all rehearsals that hints at Rama’s genuine feelings—​upon seeing Sita after their long separation. Immediately thereafter, Rama’s gaze darkens, and he utters the terrible words that inspired Rajagopal’s script-​writing, quoted literally from Kamban’s Rāmāyaṇam text: eṉaik kākka uṉai mīṭṭēṉ. rāvaṇaṉaik koṉr̲atu uṉakkāka alla; nī eṅku vēṇṭumāṉālum pōkalām I redeemed you to protect myself; I did not kill Ravana for your sake. You can go now, wherever you wish! (RāmaRāvaṇā: 107)15

Distraught Sita responds, “Is that you who speaks?” She is unable to understand how the man in front of her uttering these harsh words can be the same person she had once fallen in love with. Linking two separate, yet analogous experiences, the dramaturgy here plays out through the gaze. The gaze links the transition from Sita’s and Rama’s meeting, looking at each other for the first time after their long separation, to the flashback of their first sight of each other in Mithila when they fell in love. An energetic tillana, performed by the male members of the chorus and the Clowns, musically ignites Sita’s memory of Mithila, where she

15 See Kamparāmāyaṇam, yutta kāṇṭam iraṭām pakuti, ceyyuḷ eṇ 64, toṭar eṇ 3989.

180  Performing Gender and her girlfriends are witnessing the arrival of prospective bridegrooms. In the dramaturgy, Sita stands on a low stool, indicating her elevated position on a balcony.16 Upon seeing Rama, Lakshmana, and the sage Vishwamitra enter the street below her, she bursts into a joyous tokērā (a viruttam progressing into a rhythmical pattu mode in raga anandabhairavi) describing Rama’s beauty to her girlfriends and wondering who this handsome man is.17 Sita descends from the stool and approaches the imaginary rail of the balcony to have a closer look at the “miracle” below. At the end of this song, her gaze meets that of Rama. Facing each other, they freeze, caught in the emotion of their mutual attraction. At this moment in the performance, Rajagopal lends his voice to a love-​struck Rama in a song set in an ecstatic raga todi, which plays only in Sita’s memory. In it, Rama visualizes Sita in conventional poetic terms, as the girl with the face of the moon, admitting that “if he were blinded this instant, he would still be able to picture her in his heart.” Vishwamitra looks at the two frozen figures and understands what has transpired. Taking Rama by the hand, he leads him away. This concludes the flashback and allows both actors, Sita and Rama, to revert to the exact positions they occupied just prior to the start of the flashback. Sita’s and Rama’s reciprocal love songs in the flashback create a jubilant atmosphere that has an alluring touch of eroticism. This atmosphere stands in stark contrast to Sita’s opening viruttam in the final episode, marking the return from her sentimental journey into her memory to the harsh reality that Rama has rejected her. The viruttam, “Whatever I say, it wouldn’t reach your heart. I would be like a fool babbling, withering away” (RāmaRāvaṇā: 110), is set in a slow tempo and a sorrowful raga mukari with a long musical elaboration (alāpaṉai) Perungattur style. Brusquely, Rama turns away from Sita to look straight into the audience. Lakshmana and Hanuman stare at Sita, looking dazed as if in shock. Realizing that no argument will change Rama’s mind, Sita commands Lakshmana in the second verse of the viruttam (and repeated in the vacanam) to prepare a fire, there and then. And, rather sarcastically, she adds: “So that he (Rama) 16 The flashback has been inspired by the famous “balcony scene” as performed in the Drama Ramayana tradition. The tillana is from the Kattaikkuttu play Hiraṇya Vilāsam, where it is sung by Prahlada. Choreography and training for the tillana were done by Sangeeta Iswaran. 17 “Matiyāṉaiyaippōl ōr vitamāṉa naṭaiyuṭaṉ” (“Who is this man with the walk of an elephant in must?”) from the Drama Ramayana repertoire (RāmaRāvaṇā: 109).

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   181 can prove to the world what an excellent woman I am . . .” (uttami eṉṟu eṉṉai, ulakiṉil yāvarum colla, RāmaRāvaṇā: 110). The scene’s final song invokes Rama’s amnesia of his wife’s unending love for him and of his own divine status and his presumed divine responsibility. Sung by Rajagopal, it addresses Rama, asking him why he is so angry with Sita “who has suffered greatly, too.” But by that time Rama has left the stage, after indicating with a nod of his head that Lakshmana should kindle the fire. At this point, members of the chorus move center stage to create a circle of fire. They use Kattaikkuttu dance steps, which merge into jumps and pirouettes reminiscent of the first scene of the play when the chorus created the lakshmana rekha. However, the dramaturgy here suggests that Sita steps out of a restrictive male patriarchal dominance or oppression into her own autonomy. The fast movements and wildly fluttering arms and hands of the chorus now symbolize the fiery flames of the fire. Sita slowly walks into the circle of fire, while the bodies of the actors repeatedly close in on her, moving outward and inward, performing high leaps. Finally, they fall to the floor; Sita proves hotter than the flames, which cannot endure her (or, in an alternative reading, Sita is cooler than the flames so that she extinguishes the fire). Emerging untarnished from the fire, Sita walks off the stage. As she reaches the crown suspended over the opening center-​back stage, she pauses for a moment underneath it, turning and looking straight into the audience, before walking off into an unknown future. The crown symbolizes worldly power and royalty. The play’s closing imagery prompts the question as to who is crowned: a virtually absent Rama whose behavior is incomprehensible and dubious, a politicized Ravana elevated to the status of “war martyr,” or Sita emerging from the scorching fire alive and whole, pausing for a moment before she steps out of a violent patriarchal space into an unknown realm? Above all, the empty crown suspended at the far horizon of the stage is a suggestive imaginary of a void that can be filled, as you like, with or without spiritual presence, female autonomy, freedom, or any other alternative interpretation. Through this haunting cosmic image, Rajagopal juxtaposes his criticism of Rama’s and Ravana’s worldly actions and their lust for power with their emblematic, conventional images as god and anti-​god and with their subjective presence or absence. The play ends as it began, with the song “rāmā rāvaṇā.” However, this time it is sung in Hindustani raga desh with its somber feel, playing to our desire for some closure:

182  Performing Gender RāmaRāvaṇā, we seek you to govern the realm. Here, there, wherever you are—​bless us with your sight! You are the Beginning and the End. You rule the three worlds! May this song fulfil our desire: help us attain your golden feet!18 (RāmaRāvaṇā: 111)

Concluding Thoughts From the moment Rajagopal accepted the responsibility to produce a play based on his interpretation of the Ramayana story, he was keenly aware of the challenge of producing something new, meaningful, and evocative within or through the confines of the epic narrative and his own theater tradition. His professional praxis as a Kattaikkuttu actor decrees that every performance should respect the wish of the village—​in actual practice, the principal patron who commissions the performance. Following this unwritten rule, and as a creative and thinking person for whom acting is a calling and not, or no longer, a feudal right-​cum-​obligation, Rajagopal wanted to respond seriously to Adishakti’s invitation by producing a critical version of the Ramayana story true to our times. But what exactly does critical mean in this context—​ for him as a subaltern Kattaikkuttu actor, director, and playwright, and for others, such as the spectators at the Adishakti Ramayana Festival, many of whom would have been unfamiliar with Kattaikkuttu as a theater form? Critical as compared to what and from whose perspective? Some might want to compare RāmaRāvaṇā with the authorized versions of the Ramayana story; others with different, subversively dramatized versions of the story, or with contemporary Tamil plays that have been inspired by Kattaikkuttu’s traditional idiom or its Mahabharata repertoire.19 Here I would like to offer my personal views on what Rajagopal considered pivotal in his interpretation and adaptation of the Ramayana story. For a start, I would say that Rajagopal refused to take conventional ideas, interpretations, and dramatic forms, including his own performance style,

18 The second verse of the song “uṉṉaṭi vaṇaṅka nāṭukiṉṟōm, poṉṉaṭi kāṇa pāṭukiṉṟōm” (“We bow before your feet that we seek and hope to attain”) is a conventional metaphor for the desire to attain moksha (mōkṣa) or liberation from the cycle of rebirth. 19 For instance, Na. Muthuswamy’s Paṭukaḷam and S. Ramakrishnan’s Aravāṉ, a solo theater piece directed and performed by K. S. Karuna Prasad and featured at the Kattaikkuttu Sangam’s 15th Annual Performing Arts Festival in 2005.

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   183 for granted. Apart from this general attitude, he identified two interrelated insights or moments of inspiration, which compelled him to question and reinterpret the Ramayana in relation to today’s world. His first inspiration emerged from his scrutiny of the passage in Kamban’s literary text, Irāmavatāram, in which the poet describes Rama’s rejection of Sita. This verse led him to probe Rama’s character and the paradox presented by his “divine righteousness” and the act of rejection of Sita, which appears cruel and unjust (at least from a human perspective). The second insight, he told me, grew out of his aversion to “othering,” both within and outside the epic, in addition to the general perception in South India that Ravana is a highly cultured, devout person and great hero, thus making him a much less demonic, and a more equal protagonist to Rama. Taking this a step further, Rajagopal eliminated their opposition, on the grounds that Rama’s and Ravana’s actions and reactions basically follow similar patterns, especially when their positions and honor come under pressure. He conceptualized the two protagonists as mirror images of each other, or as a single, composite personality having interiorized shades of both “good/​divine” and “bad/​demonic” that conventionally are thought to distinguish Rama from Ravana. Significantly, Rama did not figure as the play’s hero. His subjectivity had no place in the play, not even in the poetic love song describing Sita as the girl with the face of the moon—​which constituted only Sita’s imaginative visualization of how Rama might have seen her. This underlined Rama’s virtual absence, or his “minimalist presence” in the form of a frozen character, lacking a personal identity, a virtual void symbolized by the empty crown suspended throughout the play at the back of the performance area. In contrast, the other principal characters are endowed with agency, and we get a glimpse into their emotional states during the performance. Ravana’s and Sita’s back-​ to-​back encounter at the heart of the play reveals their inner turmoil and grief, which is so starkly missing from Rama’s minimal presence. Given the existence of an oral reservoir referred to earlier in this chapter, I do not see RāmaRāvaṇā as a creation, ex nihilo. Rather, I view it as a personal, imaginative reshaping and rearticulation of the Ramayana story within and through the idiom of Kattaikkuttu, which facilitated the foregrounding of gender issues and the critique of patriarchy. In addition to Rajagopal’s more than 40 years experience as an actor, during which he memorized and played multiple roles, including male and female characters as well as the role of Kattiyakkaran (Clown), he has also worked in more recent years as a director, writer, and teacher of both female and male performers, handling a

184  Performing Gender running repertory of 25 all-​night plays. This vast experience enabled him, in my view, to create RāmaRāvaṇā and to reflect, through the production, on authoritative and non-​authoritative versions of the epic and its relevance in today’s world, most specifically in relation to gender issues and the violence of patriarchy. After its premiere at the Adishakti Ramayana Festival in 2011, RāmaRāvaṇā had two other commissioned shows in Puducherry and Chennai, but no press reviews. We performed RāmaRāvaṇā for a large, receptive rural audience as part of the all-​night Annual Performing Arts Festival organized by the Kattaikkuttu Sangam in 2012. At the end of the performance, spectators were visibly moved by the play. Some of them came backstage to compliment Rajagopal on his creation and the performance of his young actors. However, the most pressing question these aficionados of Kattaikkuttu had on their minds was why RāmaRāvaṇā was not an all-​night play. Could Rajagopal expand on it to create an all-​night show so that they could commission it for a temple festival—​where it would be highly welcomed, since everybody loves to see the Ramayana? That request remains, as yet, an open invitation.

Tamil Bibliography Kamparāmāyaṇam. 2006. Ed. and com. Vai. Mu. Kōpālakiruṣṇamāccāriyār. Chennai: Uma. Rājakōpāl, Peruṅkaṭṭūr Po. 2014. Pāṟkaṭal, Viṭuttal, Rāmarāvaṇā: muṉṟu kūttu pritikaḷ. Nagercoil: Kalachuvadu.

English Bibliography Bruin, Hanne M. de. 1998. Karṇa Mōkṣam or Karṇa’s Death: A Play by Pukaḻēntippulavar. Publications du Département d’Indologie 87. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry, École Française d’Extrême-​ Orient, International Institute for Asian Studies. Bruin, Hanne M. de. 1999. Kaṭṭaikkūttu: The Flexibility of a South Indian Theatre Tradition. Gonda Indological Studies 7. Groningen: Egbert Forsten. Bruin, Hanne M. de. 2000. “Naming a Theatre in Tamil Nadu.” Asian Theatre Journal 17:1 (Spring): 98–​120. Bruin, Hanne M. de. 2001. Seagull Theatre Quarterly 31 (September 2001). Special issue on “Hybrid Theatres in India,” ed. and intro. by Hanne M. de Bruin. Calcutta: Seagull Foundation for the Arts.

The Making of RāmaRāvaṇ ā   185 Bruin, Hanne M. de, and P. Rajagopal. 2001. In Their Own Words: The Unheard History of the Rural Tamil Stage as Told by Four of Its Professional Exponents (video documentary). Leiden: International Institute for Asian Studies. Frasca, Richard Armand. 1990. The Theatre of the Mahābhārata: Terukkūttu Performances in South India. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Gopalratnam, V. C. 1981 (rpt. 1956). “Tamil Drama.” In Indian Drama, pp. 119–​126. Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. Hiltebeitel, Alf. 1988. The Cult of Draupadī. Vol. 1, Mythologies: From Gingee to Kurukṣetra. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pesch, Ludwig. 1999. The Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Seizer, Susan. 2005. Stigmas of the Tamil Stage: An Ethnography of Special Drama Artists in South India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Shulman, David. 2001 (rpt. 1991). “Fire and Flood: The Testing of Sita in Kampaṉ’s Irāmāvatāram.” In Many Rāmāyaṇas, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 89–​113. Berkeley: University of California Press.

10 Writing Her “Self ” The Politics of Gender in Nangyarkuttu Mundoli Narayanan

The Ramayana has played a significant role in the evolution and formation of Kerala’s literary and performance culture. Historically, it has served as a site for the articulation of several major shifts and transformations in the cultural sphere, appearing time and again as a text that gets revisited and renegotiated in the light of changing paradigms of politics, language, culture, and identity.1 It is within this conceptual framework that one must consider the establishment and growth of Nangyarkuttu, popularly known as the “sister form” of Kutiyattam. A women’s solo performance tradition, Nangyarkuttu is primarily performed by the Nangyars, the women of the Nambiar caste assigned by convention to play female roles in Kutiyattam. This essay focuses on the role played by contemporary performer Usha Nangiar in rearticulating the codes and conventions of Nangyarkuttu through her striking interpretations of specific Ramayana episodes. Even as her intervention is a crucial development in the Kutiyattam performative domain, it is also inspired by a set of cultural concerns that are profoundly inscribed by a contemporary politics of gender, although expressed in a frame and form that are ostensibly traditional. Until the 1970s, the term “Nangyarkuttu” was used in a limited sense to denote the specific segment in Act II of Kulasekhara Varman’s Subhadrā-​ Dhaṉañjayam [The Wedding of Arjuna and Subhadra], where Kalpalatika, the female handmaiden (cēṭi) of Subhadra, Krishna’s sister and the heroine of the play, enters and enacts the stories of Krishna. The enactment is part of the nirvahanam (niṟvahaṇaṃ), a unique feature of Kutiyattam, stretching over many nights, in which a detailed exposition of characters and events 1 Readers interested in the Ramayana narrative in the context of Kerala can consult Paniker (1998) and George (1968).

Mundoli Narayanan, Writing Her “Self” In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0010

Writing Her “Self”  187 prior to the actual enactment of the play is performed. The components of a nirvahanam are of vital importance, especially for the later development of Nangyarkuttu, and are worth recounting here. After her purappat (puṟappāṭ; entrance with attendant customary rites), Kalpalatika indicates that she is on her way to find the gātṟika (upper garment) of Subhadra, on which is inscribed the 10 names of Arjuna, whom she loves secretly. The garment was lost when Subhadra was abducted by the demon Alambusan and subsequently rescued by Arjuna, without the two realizing each other’s identity. As she starts on her search, Kalpalatika recollects incidents from the birth of Kamsa, Krishna’s uncle, to the abduction of Subhadra, in accordance with nirvahanam conventions. First, a series of questions are asked that progressively travel back in narrative time from the play’s present (the point at which the play and nirvahanam start) to the earliest point to be recollected. The aṉukramam (“following the order,” though in reverse) proceeds like this: “So, once upon a time, how did Kalpalatika speak in this manner? Before that, how did Subhadra send Kalpalatika to fetch her garment? Before that, in what manner did Arjuna rescue Subhadra when she was being carried away by the demon? Before that, on hearing of the virtues of Arjuna, how did Subhadra come to desire him?” and so on until, “Before that, how was Krishna born; before that, how was Balabhadra born; before that, how was Kamsa’s sister Devaki born; before that, how did the court of Mathura come to be established?”2 Following the preceding questions is the samkshepam (saṃkṣēpam; summary of events) in which the Nangyar enacts in linear chronology all the incidents from the earliest point to the narrative present, through the mode of āṅgikābhiṉaya (gestural and bodily acting) and pakarnnattam (pakarnnāṭṭam; one actor taking the roles of different characters).3 Again, as in Kutiyattam, the enactment is based on a specific text of 217 shlokas (ślōkas; four-​line verses) of Śrīkrṣṇacaritam [The Story of Krishna] and a few others.4 These verses are recited by the accompanying Nangyar who provides

2 See P. K. Narayanan Nambiar (2015: 11). 3 Pakarnnattam (transference of character) is a technique in which an actor representing one character instantaneously changes into another who is featured in his/​her narration by a simple change in the arrangement of the costume. He proceeds to perform as the second character, and then changes back into the first, thus making it possible for an actor to represent several characters at the same time. 4 The other shlokas are taken from Bhāgavatam [Story of Lord Krishna], Kaṃsāvahō [Kamsa’s Demise] of Ramapanivadan, Gīta Gōvindam [Song of Govinda], and Act I of Subhadrā-​Dhaṉañjayam (Nangiar 2001: 84).

188  Performing Gender the rhythm on cymbals for the performance, with each segment of the enactment being followed by the shlokas that pertain to it. Legend has it that King Kulasekhara Varman (ca. 9th–​11th centuries), author of the plays Subhadrā-​Dhanañjayam and Tapatī-​Saṃvaraṇam of the Kutiyattam repertoire and considered a major influence in its evolution, initiated the practice of Nangyarkuttu. The story goes that the king fell in love with a Nangyar on seeing her performance and took her as his wife. This marriage, however, contravened the rules of caste, and the Nangyar and her children were excommunicated from the Nambiar community. On seeing her plight of being unable to carry out her community duties to perform, the king introduced the entry and nirvahanam of the handmaiden in Act II of Subhadrā-​Dhanañjayam, wrote an acting text for it based on Śrīkṟṣṇacaritam, and ensured its regular performance in the temple theaters (kūttampalams) under his control (Nangiar 2001: 87–​88). Until the 1970s, Nangyarkuttu was essentially a part of the larger performative system of Kutiyattam. It drew entirely upon the same repertoire of conventions, practices, techniques, and places of performance as Kutiyattam. In terms of its three-​part structure of entrance, questions in reverse order, recounting of previous events, and adherence to specific assigned texts and techniques, it follows the exact pattern of the nirvahanam. Even more, several instructions and descriptions of acting segments, and the very terms and language that are found in the attaprakarams (āṭṭaprakārams; actors’ manuals) of Kutiyattam are found in the attaprakarams of Nangyarkuttu as well. Although part of the culture of Kutiyattam, Nangyarkuttu also had a quasi-​independent existence as a stand-​alone solo performance. It had ritual significance as a regular performance in kuttampalams (temple theaters); it also served as a debut performance in the career of a Nangyar. A crucial feature to be noted is that all the other nirvahanams are of male or female characters detailing their own or their masters’ stories.5 Only in the case of the handmaiden in Subhadrā-​Dhaṉañjayam is the previous story that of a third person—​neither the character herself nor her master/​mistress. Thus, the Nangyar playing the handmaiden is a neutral narrator, functioning in her original capacity as an actor without any constraints of being a character.

5 The nirvahanam of Sankukarna in Tōraṇayudhāṅkam [The Battle of the Tower Pillars Act] of Abhiṣēkanāṭakam [The Coronation Play], in which the exposition is not of himself but of Ravana, is an instance of a character narrating the pre-​history of his master.

Writing Her “Self”  189 Thus, her identification as a “Nangyar” per se led to the act itself being called Nangyarkuttu.

The Disappearance of Female Presence Any history of Nangyarkuttu is essentially a history of women practitioners and of female roles in Kutiyattam. That history, however, prior to its redefinition in the late 20th century, has been a history of unrelenting marginalization and decline. Strong evidence in historical inscriptions, literary texts, and stories handed down through the generations indicate that in its earlier history women actors and women characters enjoyed a reasonable status in Kutiyattam. If not equal to that of their male counterparts, this status was at least in proportion to the scale of their prominence in the plays being staged.6 As Usha Nangiar points out, there are several plays in which women had significant roles in the form of extended acting segments comparable to those of the lead male characters. The attaprakarams and kramadipikas (kramadīpikās; production manuals), prescribing entries, exits, and routines employed by the characters appearing in each play, show the significance of Nangyars (see Nangiar 2001: 63–​64, 74). This evidence indicates that a culture of women actors had once thrived in the region in connection with Kutiyattam. Yet, by the mid-​20th century, what remained of a once extensive repertoire of women’s presence on the Kutiyattam stage had dwindled into a pale shadow of its former self. Most female characters on the Kutiyattam stage had effectively disappeared, except for a few roles such as Subhadra of Act I of Subhadrā-​Dhaṉañjayam, the heroine Malayavati and her companion in Nāgāṉandam [Joy of the Serpents], or Lalita of Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam [Surpanakha’s Act] from Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi.7 Even the few roles that were staged without any elaboration and in the most perfunctory manner were retained only because the performance could not proceed without them. As a result, all artistry and performative complexity disappeared from female

6 The Thiruvalla edict, of the 12th century ce, the epistolary poem Uṇṇunīli-​Sandēśam [Message to Unnunili] of the 14th century ce, and several legends attest to this presence. 7 It is generally the case in Kutiyattam that the play texts and performances that form the core repertoire are not known by the names of the plays, but by the names of acts, because presentations are rarely of entire plays but of single acts that themselves take days to be enacted.

190  Performing Gender performances and they became mere rituals and procedures divested of artistic value. Two factors contributed to the disappearance of the female presence in Kutiyattam. First, along with the absence of women-​centered plays and the predominance of heroic male characters, the convention of kēṭṭāṭal (“listening and acting”) became stronger. According to this convention, a primary character acted as if a second character were present (even if absent from the stage) and then responded as if having heard what that second character has said. This practice contributed in no small measure to the progressive attenuation of women characters by making them practically redundant. Second, and even more significant, the stricture against presenting the panchakanyas (pañcakaṉyās; “the five virgins”) on stage played a huge role in the shrinkage of women’s presence in Kutiyattam. The oral tradition of Kutiyattam specified that it was inauspicious to perform the five characters—​ Ahalya, Draupadi, Tara, Sita, and Mandodari—​which effectively meant that these characters were denied entry to the stage even when they had significant parts in the plays being performed.8 In this context, the revival of women’s presence in Kutiyattam and the establishment of Nangyarkuttu as an independent form in the late 20th century assume great cultural significance. Painkulam Rama Chakyar provided the initial impetus for revival in 1949 by almost single-​handedly bringing Kutiyattam out of temple precincts and making it known to the world at large.9 Rama Chakyar also revived female characters such as Sita and Tara, who had gradually disappeared, back to the Kutiyattam stage.10 He also refined the female āhārya (costume and makeup), giving it a pleasing form and beauty that had hitherto been absent. Subsequently, when a department of Kutiyattam opened at Kerala Kalamandalam (the state institute for the arts) in 1965, with Rama Chakyar 8 Ahalya is the wife of Sage Gautama, Tara of Bali, Sita of Rama, and Mandodari of Ravana (all of the Ramayana), and Draupadi is the wife of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata. 9 The 1949 presentation outside temple precincts of pṟabandham kūttu, the narrative form related to Kutiyattam, was followed in 1956 by the first-​ever presentation of a Kutiyattam performance outside the temple. In the 1960s, there were performances outside Kerala, in Madras, Varanasi, Ujjain, New Delhi, and other cities; and in 1980, Kutiyattam came to be performed outside India, for the first time, in Paris and Warsaw (see Poulouse 2006: 234–​235). By the 1990s, Kutiyattam performances at secular venues outside the temple were no longer an exception or a rarity. 10 Besides reintroducing Sita in Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi’s Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam and Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam [Act of Jatayu’s Slaying] and Tara in Bālivadhāṅkam [Act of Bali’s Slaying] from Abhiṣēkanāṭakam [The Coronation Play], Rama Chakyar also redesigned and brought back to the stage Bodhayana’s Bhagavadajjukīyam [The Hermit and the Courtesan] and Act II of Harsha’s Nāgānandam, both containing significant female presences (Nangiar 2001: 78).

Writing Her “Self”  191 as its head, several female students trained there in the female roles of Kutiyattam without facing restrictions relating to caste or community. In 1980, training in Nangyarkuttu started at Ammannur Gurukulam, under the leadership of Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, and with the scholarly assistance of Venu G. and Nirmala Paniker. An actors’ manual of Śrīkrṣṇacaritam was recovered, which was rewritten by Madhava Chakyar in 1981, including extensive acting segments that were used for the training of Usha Nangiar. Performances of Nangyarkuttu in the Thrissur Vadakkunnathan Temple were revived; complete performances of Śrīkrṣṇacaritam, primarily by Usha Nangiar, took place there annually.11 By 1992, the nomenclature “Nangyarkuttu” came to include not just the handmaiden’s performance in Subhadrā-​Dhaṉañjayam, but also other stand-​alone solo performances by female Kutiyattam artists.12

The Work of Usha Nangiar In a sustained, path-​ breaking intervention that has lasted more than 30 years, Usha Nangiar, Ammannur Madhava Chakyar’s disciple, created a core repertoire of characters and solo performances for Nangyarkuttu, which she performed on a variety of unconventional stages, thus carving out an independent space within the contemporary cultural and performative spheres of Kerala.13 In a period of 10 years from 2003 to 2013, she recovered 11 In 1984, P. K. Narayanan Nambiar, miḻāvu (copper drum) maestro, son of Mani Madhava Chakyar, and Rama Chakyar’s colleague at Kerala Kalamandalam, published the actors’ manual of Nangyarkuttu under the title Śrīkrṣṇacaritam Naṅṅyārammakkūttu. In 1988, Nangyarkuttu performances and training started at Margi, Thiruvananthapuram, and Ammannur Madhava Chakyar prepared and provided new actors’ manuals for training there, on the basis of earlier ones in the Ammannur repository. These included the purappat, nirvahanam, and parts in the play for the role of Lalita in Parṇasālāṅkam, as well as for Sita’s roles in the acts Parṇasālāṅkam, Māyāsitāṅkam, and Agnipravēsāṅkam, all of the Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi (Venugopalan 2009: 35). In 1992, Nirmala Paniker published Nangyarkoothu, a study in English on the antecedents and culture of the form. In 1999, indicative of the inclusion of new content into the form, Margi Sathi, disciple of Painkulam Rama Chakyar, published Śrīrāmacaritam Naṅṅyārkūttu, which drew upon the Ramayana and dealt with the story of Rama, primarily on the same lines as Śrīkrṣṇacaritam. 12 The application of the term “Nangyarkuttu” to all solo performances by female Kutiyattam artists and the establishment of Nangyarkuttu as an independent form coincided with the time when women who were not Nangyars by caste came to train in the tradition. No longer was this the community prerogative of Nangyars, as training came to be conducted not within the confines of Nambiar families but instead in institutional, non-​familial spaces such as the Kerala Kalamandalam, Ammannur Gurukulam, Margi, and so on. 13 Using the first name is a regular practice in Kerala, and since “Nangyar” is a name used to denote all the women of the Nambiar caste, it will not be appropriate to use only that last name to refer to a specific person. Hence, Usha Nangiar (a variant spelling of “Nangyar” that is used in Usha’s official name) will be referred to by her full name or only as Usha in the rest of the chapter.

192  Performing Gender and reinstated several major female characters who had disappeared from the Kutiyattam stage: Lalita in Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi’s Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam (which had an actors’ manual, but was no longer staged); Mandodari in Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi’s Aśōkavaṉikāṅkam [Act of the Asoka Grove] (for which Usha prepared a new actors’ manual for the entrance and nirvahanam); Kartyayini of Subhadrā-​Dhaṉañjayam; Draupadi of Veṇīsaṃhāram [The Tying of Hair]; and Sakuntala of Abhijñāṉa Śākuntaḷam [The Recognition of Sakuntala], all of whom she presented in the form of stand-​alone solo performances.14 Usha also introduced and developed extended acting segments for female characters who had hitherto never enjoyed any presence on stage, such as Ahalya of Ramayana (who does not appear in any Kutiyattam play), for whom she formulated a full solo performance. Finally, Usha also performed Devi (Goddess Durga), drawing upon the poetic text Dēvīmāhātmyam [Glory of the Goddess], inspired by a reference in the 15th-​ century text Naṭāṅkuśa.15 Trained primarily by Ammannur Madhava Chakyar at the Ammannur Gurukulam from 1980 to 1997, Usha regularly accompanied him on stage as a co-​actor for performances in kuttampalams and on contemporary stages for years.16 In the process, she became aware at a very early stage of the unequal status of women performers and women characters in Kutiyattam. She developed a fervent urge to perform as men did, enacting an equal range of emotive and performative possibilities. Usha has stated: Seeing on the Kutiyattam stage the radiant Bali, the haughty Bhima, the arrogant but imperial Ravana, or the epitomes of brotherly love, Sugriva and Lakshmana, I have always felt the intense desire to lose myself to the stage, forgetting everything. I have felt sorrow on being born a woman, and prayed that, in the same way that kuttu and Kutiyattam came to be taken out of the temple theaters, a time may come when women can play male roles, at least with partial, if not full, acceptance. I have never given much thought to whether I would be able to act as men do, but felt an uncontrollable kind 14 Lalita is the benign, beautiful form of Surpanakha, the sister of Ravana, as she appeared before Rama and Lakshmana, in the attempt to woo them. 15 Dēvīmāhātmyam is a Sanskrit text describing the Goddess as the supreme power and creator of the universe, part of the Mārkandēya Purāna, and estimated to have been composed in the fifth or sixth century. Naṭānkuśa is an anonymous work on dramaturgy that severely criticizes the practices and conventions of Kutiyattam and has thus become a veritable repository of information regarding the state of Kutiyattam in the 15th century. 16 As is the case with most trainees, Usha was trained initially by Ammannur Kuttan Chakyar, Madhava Chakyar’s nephew, while her advanced training was with Madhava Chakyar.

Writing Her “Self”  193 of longing whenever I witnessed scenes of high emotion, lucid and swift dialogues, or varied moments of powerful drama, at least to experience the self-​fulfillment that a practitioner derives when performing such scenes. (Nangiar 2001: 9)17

However, since Kutiyattam does not permit women to play male roles, Usha’s desire was not destined to be fulfilled.18 Hence, Usha started looking for ways to enhance and recover roles of women in the repertoire that would offer her more opportunities for performance. While training to perform Śrīkrṣṇacaritam Nangyarkuttu, Usha read and copied actors’ manuals of plays, as is the practice with trainees. She began to formulate questions that interrogated the received oral and performative traditions of Kutiyattam on the strength of evidence from Kutiyattam’s own written texts. For instance, while discussing the stricture against bringing the panchakanyas on stage, Usha says, “It is probably the suggestion of the writer of the kramadipika that ‘in Abhiṣēkanāṭakam [The Coronation Play],19 the female characters are not usually enacted,’ that has served as the rationale for the prohibition of Tara from the stage. However, what the writer actually suggests is that ‘female characters are not usually enacted,’ not that they are prohibited from being enacted” [emphasis mine] (Nangiar 2001: 75). An incisive critical intelligence, inscribed by an intuitive politics of gender, is at work here. In a personal interview, she recounted the occasion when she took this question to Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, her guru, known to be somewhat conservative and a stickler for ritual propriety and tradition. His first response was the rather impatient and dismissive retort, “Where did you dig this up from?” Knowing her guru, she did not pursue the point then, but waited a few days and posed her next question, an even more radical one: “If it is said that it is not usual to enact the female characters 17 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from Malayalam to English are the author’s. 18 Ammannur Madhava Chakyar did toy with the idea of getting Usha to play male roles, and once even got her to don the chutti (cuṭṭi; the rice paste and paper rim that forms the border for the face for the male characters’ makeup) “just to see how she would look in that make-​up.” However, the regime of strict restrictions that bars any such gender crossovers in Kutiyattam effectively prevented Madhava Chakyar and Usha from actualizing that dream. It is also interesting that later Usha did don the rice paste chutti in performance, not for a male character, but for the character of Kārtyāyani in Kārtyāyani Purappāt, as an innovative device to indicate the character’s divinity. 19 A play in seven acts based on the latter part of the Ramayana story, from the killing of Bali onward, attributed to Bhasa, but whose attribution is also strenuously contested. Together, Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi [The Wondrous Crest Jewel], Pratimānāṭakam [The Statue Play], and Abhiṣēkanāṭakam cover almost the entire story of Ramayana, with some overlaps and differences among them.

194  Performing Gender of Abhiṣēkanāṭakam, couldn’t it be an indication that female characters—​ panchakanyas included—​used to be enacted in the other plays? Otherwise, why should such a direction be there in the first instance?”20 Though there was no immediate verbal response from Madhava Chakyar, he came to accept Usha’s argument, as is shown by two actions which speak volumes not only about his fondness for the creativity of his student, but also his historical farsightedness. First, shortly after the preceding incident, on Madhava Chakyar’s initiative and quite contrary to established traditional practice, Usha presented the character of Mandodari when Aśōkavaṉikāṅkam was staged over 16 days at the Irinjalakuda Kutalmanikyam Temple’s kuttampalam in 1982. Second, in 1985, he started training Usha in key male roles of the repertoire, with a rather cryptic gloss that “it may come to be of use to you, some day.” Since such gender crossovers are not permitted in Kutiyattam, Madhava Chakyar’s acts can only indicate that he had an instinctive foreknowledge that his disciple would effectively redefine the contours and history of Nangyarkuttu, that he fully approved of it, and that he was equipping her with the performative arsenal that would aid in her venture. Usha then undertook incisive research about female characters in Kutiyattam, combating received notions at each step with the ammunition of documented evidence. Her work spans the entire gamut of possibilities in the recovery of female presence on the Kutiyattam stage: from revival of segments and characters that had withered away, through reconstruction of the texts and performances of lost segments, to the induction of new characters that had never before been featured on stage or even figured in the plays of the Kutiyattam repertoire. In particular, she critiqued and demolished the notion that it was inauspicious to perform the panchakanyas, the five “virgins” of puranic lore: Ahalya, Draupadi, Sita, Tara, and Mandodari. Her rigorous study of the attaprakarams and kramadipikas succeeded in revealing that the panchakanyas were indeed presented on stage at an earlier point of time. Far from prohibiting such presence, the written manuals offered irrefutable evidence of their enactments in definitive stage directions and acting guidelines. The evidence that she has gathered in her book Abhiṉētṟi [The Actress] can be summarized as follows: the kramadipika for the Ramayana plays (Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi, Pṟatimānāṭakam, and Abhiṣēkanāṭakam) stipulates the 20 Unless otherwise noted, all quotes from Usha Nangiar are from a personal interview conducted over two days, January 1, 2018, and January 15, 2018. Translation mine.

Writing Her “Self”  195 remuneration to be paid to the Nangyar who plays the role of Mandodari; the kramadipika for Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi’s Aśōkavaṉikāṅkam [The Asoka Grove Act] directs that there should be a separate entrance and nirvahanam for Mandodari, with instructions on which shlokas should be enacted; the kramadipika for Abhiṣēkanāṭakam suggests that the female characters are not usually enacted, without prohibiting it, thus allowing Tara to be brought on stage; in Aśōkavaṉikāṅkam, though Sita does not appear on stage, a lighted lamp placed on the stage represents her, and her dialogues are delivered by the Nangyar sitting stage right; in Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi’s Aṅgulīyāṅkam [The Finger-​Ring Act], the Nangyar who sits stage right dons an uttarīyam (a scarf-​like cloth draped across the upper body) and comes on stage as Sita, in the segment where Sita receives the aṅgulīyam (ring) from Hanuman and returns the cūdāratnam (the crest jewel); in Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi’s Māyāsītāṅkam [The Illusory Sita Act], Shurpanakha (disguised as Sita) appears on stage beside Rama; in the coronation scene of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi, Sita sits alongside Rama (Nangiar 2001: 74–​76).21 Thus, she concludes that the panchakanyas were either “lost over the course of time or deliberately excluded” [emphasis mine] from the stage (Nangiar 2001: 74). A crucial development in Usha’s personal life that had far-​ reaching implications for her professional life should now be considered. In 1997, because she chose to marry a man from the Nair community, V. K. K. Hariharan, an exceptionally gifted player of the mizhavu (a copper drum used as an accompanying percussion instrument in Kutiyattam), who greatly expanded its evocative and performative potential, Usha was effectively “ostracized” from performing in kuttampalams. Yet, the loss to the kuttampalams turned out to be a blessing for Nangyarkuttu. The necessity of performing on “secular,” contemporary stages played a pivotal part in Usha’s redefinition of the form, pushing her to dig ever deeper into older materials and develop new content as well. Indeed, it would seem that history was being repeated, albeit in a somewhat different register: Nangyarkuttu originated with the plight of a Nangyar who was ostracized from carrying out her customary duties of performance due to a marriage that transgressed the rules of caste; 10 centuries later, here was another Nangyar being ostracized from performing in temple theaters 21 Usha also questions the contention that Sita is not presented because she is ayōnija—​not of vagina born (of divine origins)—​with the counter that Menaka of Tapatī-​Saṃvaraṇam and Mandodari in the Ramayana plays, both not of vagina born, are accorded extended acting segments (Nangyar 2001: 76).

196  Performing Gender for similar reasons. In the first instance, if it was the husband’s intervention that led to the formation of Nangyarkuttu, in the second, it is the Nangyar herself who takes up the responsibility of redefining the form and providing it with an independent status on par with other contemporary forms. A closer look will reveal that Usha’s outlook and approach is informed by a critical methodology that is quite modern in nature. She employs methods that form part of modern empirical research based on objective facts and specific evidence, rather than legends or hearsay. This is least surprising because Usha was a student of science, with a bachelor of science degree in Statistics, before she took up full-​time training in Kutiyattam. Moreover, in her interrogation of received tradition, she pits written, recorded evidence against oral testimony, utilizing a unique element that distinguishes Kutiyattam from other performance traditions: its practice of recording in detail the onstage performance in kramadipikas and attaprakarams. Usha’s work does not depart from tradition, but rigorously returns to it by unearthing and adhering to its recorded textual domain and its erstwhile practices. Thus, her modernization of Kutiyattam proceeded not by bringing in new or foreign elements to the form, but by effectively returning to the history of Kutiyattam with renewed rigor.22

The Politics of Gender in Usha Nangiar’s Work What distinguishes Usha’s work as modern and contemporary is the specific strain of gender politics that she brings to it. In response to a scholarly spectator who asked whether she was a feminist, Usha retorted that she is not “feminist,” but “female.” Though she does not identify with the term “feminist,” what inspires her primarily is a deep-​seated concern for the representation of and by women, as well as finding ways to give form and voice to women, within the contours of her own practice. Two aspects of immense cultural significance stand out in Usha’s approach, defining its particular political tenor: innovation and individuation.

22 This approach puts her in the company of several other modernizers of Kerala society and culture, such as Narayana Guru and P. S. Varier, whose attempts, quite different from most Western enterprises of modernity, did not constitute a total rejection of tradition. Instead, Usha produced something that, while quite new in its modernizing effects, resulted from renegotiating certain aspects of tradition that Usha selected.

Writing Her “Self”  197 Even while it constitutes a veritable return to the earlier practices of Kutiyattam, Usha’s work has been remarkably innovative. After being ostracized from temple theaters in 1997, Usha’s recourse to other performative spaces that featured contemporary forms, it would seem, provided her with the necessary impetus to innovate. Other forms, such as contemporary theater, featured suitable novelty and offered a context in which she felt encouraged to bring in new content, such as new characters and situations hitherto unknown to Nangyarkuttu. It has resulted in the institution of a new aesthetic which, even when relying primarily on the language, traditions, and performative systems of the older form, has a different set of foci and priorities, and is more open to contemporary concerns and interpretations. Moreover, her radical revisioning of tradition and of the role of women actors and women characters also coincided with the new attention given to gender in the rise of a culture of women’s writing in Malayalam.23 At one level, Usha has parted ways with earlier Nangyarkuttu culture, where the actress appears merely as a relatively neutral narrator telling the story of personages greater than her, and in whose story she has no real subjective role or presence, as was the case with the handmaiden in Subhadrā-​ Dhaṉañjayam. In contrast, Usha’s performances are primarily concerned with constructing a character on stage and portraying a subjectivity that develops and unfolds through narration and enactment inscribed by a first-​person perspective of the character. Thus, Usha’s performances are statements of individuation in which a character “tells herself.” She selects for her performances those characters who offer scope for such individuation and pointedly avoids those that have little potential for it. Usha also stresses that she only chooses characters whom she “gets” and with whom she can identify. For example, Usha has performed Sita only a few times, as minor roles in Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam and Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam [The Killing of Jatayu Act]. She attempted to perform Sita’s nirvahanam only once because, as she explains, Sita is not really present in it: “There is no place in it for Sita to stand as herself. It is only the Ramayana story being told by Sita and so I hesitate to call 23 From the mid-​1980s, Kerala has been witness to tremendous cultural upheavals, inspired by new identity movements and subaltern perspectives relating to gender, sexuality, caste, and environmental concerns, prompting many writers to reassess and rewrite earlier cultural and literary texts. Of particular note in this turn has been the rise of a distinct culture of women’s writing, probably best represented by the work of Sarah Joseph, whose Putu Rāmāyaṇam (2006), translated into English as Retelling the Ramayana (2015), and Ūrukāval (2007), translated into English as The Vigil (2016), are both radical feminist/​subaltern retellings of the Ramayana story.

198  Performing Gender it Sita’s nirvahanam.” Usha also says, “Probably it is because I have other ideas about Sita, but I have never been able to get the character of Sita [as it is represented in Kutiyattam]. . . . For instance, in Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam, Sita knows nothing. She merely accompanies [Rama]. In many places, one even feels pity for her. She knows nothing. Just a dumb girl who walks behind [Rama].” What is strikingly apparent here is Usha’s need to be able to connect with the characters she portrays and to see herself in them. Usha inscribes her own subjectivity in the characters that she performs as an individual and as a woman. In keeping with the larger culture of solo theatrical practices of the day in which the performer’s identity, experience, and perspectives play a notable role, Nangyarkuttu, with Usha’s interventions, departs from the established traditions of Kutiyattam. The performance becomes not only the performance of a character and her narrative, but of the individual artist as well. That it fell to Usha to explore and exploit this possibility latent in Kutiyattam is a telling comment on the politics of the venture. She is a woman who writes her “self,” while at the same time writing herself into culture and history. That such writing also gave visibility, presence, and voice to characters who were subordinated and muted in traditional narratives compels one to draw parallels again with a number of texts in contemporary culture that have attempted to recover female or subaltern voices in puranic texts, especially the Ramayana.

Contemporary Nangyarkuttu and the Ramayana Tradition Clearly, Ramayana and its re-​visionings have played a significant role in Usha’s work, and through it the contemporary history of Nangyarkuttu. On a general level, this prominence can be traced to the unchallenged prominence of the plays Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi and Abhiṣēkanāṭakam in the Kutiyattam repertoire. Specifically, Usha’s recovery and reconstruction of female characters have been based primarily on her critique of the myth of the panchakanyas, among whom all but one are characters of the Ramayana. The reclamation of the characters of Ahalya, Sita, Tara, and Mandodari was thus also the reclamation of the female voices of the Ramayana and their reinterpretation in a contemporary context. While Sita and Tara were minor characters whom Usha restored to the play’s enactments, her reclamation of Mandodari and Ahalya and the

Writing Her “Self”  199 formulation of their purappat and nirvahanam as stand-​alone performances not only epitomize the contributions of Usha Nangiar, but also mark a contemporary trajectory of Nangyarkuttu and its future potential. If Mandodari was a case where Usha discovered that a segment had been lost from the attaprakaram and arranged its reconstruction based on the kramadipika, Ahalya’s case was one of veritable invention. Ahalya does not figure in any play from the Kutiyattam repertoire, and the solo performance of her nirvahanam was formulated without the assistance of any acting manuals, but was purely based on her story in Thunchath Ezhuthachan’s Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam. With Mandodari, Usha also breaks away from Nangyarkuttu’s convention of presenting the story of an eminent personage through a neutral narrator. Instead, she presents an individual on stage who tells her own story. These efforts reach their consummation in Ahalya, where Usha’s focus is entirely on the character and subjectivity of Ahalya. A brief description of the two performances will be in order here, to enable a discussion on them. Staged first in 2003, Maṇḍōdariyuṭe Niṟvahaṇaṃ [The Nirvahanam of Mandodari] follows the kramadipika of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi’s fifth act, Aśōkavaṉikāṅkam, which stipulates a separate purappat and nirvahanam for Mandodari, with clear directions at what points of the story the nirvahanam should start and end (in terms of the first and last shlokas that were to be enacted). However, only the first lines of the first and last shlokas were extant in the attaprakaram. For the missing shlokas that were stipulated in the kramadipika, Usha turned for help to K. V. Vasudevan, a Sanskrit scholar and Kutiyattam connoisseur, who composed the absent shlokas, faithfully adhering to events of the previous acts of the play and Mandodari’s story, as told in the Uttarakāṇḍa of Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa. Thus reconstructed, the five-​day performance presents the pre-​histories of Ravana and his consort Mandodari up to the point where Aśōkavaṉikāṅkam begins. In the first segment of the purappat, Mandodari enters and, after the customary rituals, briefly describes the situation at the beginning of the act: Shurpanakha, her sister-​ in-​ law, had attempted to woo Rama and Lakshmana, but they had rejected and mutilated her. In retaliation, Ravana had abducted Sita and brought her to the Asoka Grove in Lanka. Mandodari is deeply sad and fearful because the night before she had a prophetic dream: she saw the oceans dry up and the goddess of widowhood—​a terrible woman with dusty hair, a deformed face with no ears and most teeth lost, cruel eyes that glowed like coals, and a body with the complexion of an earthen pot—​come and embrace her tightly. Not only that, she also saw a

200  Performing Gender happy Sita holding the hand of Rama and departing on Ravana’s grand aerial chariot, wearing silk robes, her breasts smeared with sandal paste, and her hair adorned with jasmine flowers. Then, in the anukaramam, the first part of the nirvahanam, Mandodari starts by questioning why she is sad, and then goes backward in the story, step by step, posing a series of questions that travel back in narrative time from the present to the origins of the asura race. Following this, in the samkshepam, in which the questions of the anukaramam are answered, she enacts a narrative that starts with the origins of the asura race and culminates at the point of the story where the act commences: Maya, the divinely gifted asura sculptor and architect, and his wife Hema, an apsara in Indra’s court, pine for a daughter. Meantime, Madhura, another apsara, prays fervently to Lord Shiva for a valiant husband, and on her visit to Lord Shiva at the conclusion of her prayers, Shiva “inadvertently embraces” her, thinking she is his wife Parvati. Parvati, on coming to know of this, curses Madhura to turn into an ugly frog in a well in the wild. On Madhura’s plea of innocence, Parvati promises her that after 12 years she will be released from the curse, turn into a girl child, and in due time have a valiant husband. After those 12 years, Maya and Hema discover the child, name her Mandodari, and bring her up. Meanwhile Ravana is born, he receives boons from Lord Shiva through severe penance, conquers Lanka and assumes its throne. He then meets Maya and Mandodari while on a hunt in the forest and takes Mandodari as his wife. Ravana, then, defeats Vaisravana (his half-​brother) and acquires the Puṣpaka Vimāṉa (the celestial chariot); he juggles with Mount Kailas, the abode of Lord Shiva, and Shiva blesses him with the divine sword Candrahāsa. Subsequently, he conquers all the three worlds. Following this, Shurpanakha is mutilated by Lakshmana. In retaliation, Ravana abducts Sita. Ravana persistently woos Sita, but she rejects his advances. Mandodari fears that the asura race will be destroyed because of Sita. Thus, with Mandodari’s expository narrative having come full circle to the point where the act begins, her handmaiden enters and Mandodari relates to her the dream of being embraced by the evil goddess of widowhood, and a happy Sita departing with Rama. Thereafter, upon learning that Ravana is on his way to the Asoka Grove to woo Sita, together they proceed to the garden with the purpose of hiding themselves and observing Ravana’s antics of desire.24

24 For the detailed attaprakaram of Maṇḍōdariyuṭ Niṟvahaṇaṃ, see Nangiar (2001: 154–​178).

Writing Her “Self”  201 If Maṇḍōdariyuṭe Niṟvahaṇaṃ strictly adheres to all the conventions of Kutiyattam, Ahalyāmōkṣam [The Salvation of Ahalya], first performed in 2013, departs from these conventions, primarily because Ahalya is a character without a play. With no precise narrative context or a specific sequence of previous events as they appear in the earlier acts, the two-​hour stand-​ alone solo performance lacks the purappat and the anukramam, and features only the samkshepam, which primarily draws upon the story in Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam. The narrative thus presented starts with Ahalya, created by Brahma as the most beautiful woman on earth, living as a young girl in Sage Guatama’s hermitage as his wife. She faithfully serves her strictly celibate husband, collecting material for his rituals, providing him with food, and keeping the hermitage clean. Though she is deeply respectful and deferential to her husband and takes care of his every need, there is little love or warmth in the relationship, with Gautama so fully involved with his saintly duties that he has no time or concern to spare for Ahalya. It is when he is away from the hermitage or when she is alone that Ahalya becomes her natural self, turning playful and brimming with wonder and joy at the beauties of nature. Her only friend is a young fawn which follows her around and which she plays with in childlike innocence. One day, Indra, the lord of the dēvās (celestial beings), sees her and is overcome with lust for her. He frequents the hermitage, spying on Ahalya and plotting on how to seduce her. Realizing that Gautama goes to the River Ganges every day before dawn for his morning rituals, one day, Indra produces the sounds of the dawn much before the actual time. Gautama wakes up and immediately leaves for his morning oblations. Indra then enters the hermitage in the form of Gautama and approaches Ahalya. Ahalya, though surprised and taken aback at first, joyfully accepts Indra, thinking that he is Gautama. In the meantime, Gautama, on reaching the river, realizes that it is not yet dawn and returns to the hermitage only to find Indra and Ahalya in each other’s arms. Furious with their deceit, Gautama curses Indra that he shall have a thousand vulvae all over his body,25 and Ahalya that she shall be turned into stone. On Ahalya’s plea for redemption, on the ground that she had not knowingly committed any sin, Gautama declares that she shall be released from the curse when Rama’s feet touch her.26 25 These were turned into a thousand eyes, after Indra underwent severe penance on Brahma’s instructions and thereby earned the grace of Shiva. 26 Usha’s narrative largely follows the Ahalya narrative of Ezhuthachan’s Malayalam Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa which is quite familiar to Kerala audiences.

202  Performing Gender Ahalya then turns into a rock in the open, unable to move or talk, able to see and hear but not be seen or heard, fearful of her surroundings and the wild beasts that roam around, enduring the ravages of the changing seasons, and suffering the pangs of hunger and thirst. As she lies there, enduring terrible pain and distress, waiting for the arrival of Rama, her mind slowly turns to devotion and she becomes immersed in the most severe and single-​minded of meditations. Finally, after a long time, Rama arrives there and immediately senses that there is something special about the place. On learning of the story of Ahalya from Sage Vishwamitra, who is accompanying him, Rama addresses her as “Ahalya Devi” (Venerated Ahalya) and proceeds to touch her with his feet. Ahalya, then, regains her original human form. On opening her eyes, what she sees before her is not the human Rama, but Lord Vishnu incarnate and, singing his praises, she prostates herself at his feet. There are several remarkable parallels between the narratives of Mandodari and Ahalya. Both characters are essentially victims of the actions of men; in the case of Madhura (Mandodari in her pre-​life), she is involuntarily caught in the “inadvertent” advances of Shiva, and in the case of Ahalya, she is prey to the lust and guile of Indra. Both are cursed and punished for transgressions that they did not commit knowingly, and ones that they couldn’t resist in any manner, given their particular situations. They are both condemned to long years of waiting and suffering for deliverance from the punishments meted out to them while the men who were actually responsible for the sins remain relatively unscathed. Even while adhering almost entirely to the narratives as they appear in the plays and in the Ramayana, these performative narratives are of an entirely different order. The simple fact that the stories are told/​ enacted from the first-​person perspectives of Mandodari and Ahalya, with their actions, emotions, experiences, and responses taking center stage, transforms the stories entirely, if not in content, certainly in their form and their focus. In these acts of “telling herself,” what comes out in both Mandodari and Ahalya is a form of female subjectivity that stoically undergoes the waiting and the suffering, and in the process discovers an inner strength that gives them the power to overcome their misfortune and transform themselves into something greater, something infinitely more enduring. Undoubtedly, this is the Ramayana, but a Ramayana overwritten by a contemporary female sensibility that sees Mandodari and Ahalya not as ancient, mythic women but as “every woman” who through the ages, and even now, endures male-​inflicted

Writing Her “Self”  203 suffering through their self-​discovered reservoirs of inner strength. And that woman is, more than anyone else, Usha herself. In a most telling remark, Usha asks, “Why do I play all these characters? It is a search for answers to questions such as ‘Where am I?,’ ‘Where am I located?,’ ‘What am I?’ But they cannot be acted, can they?” At the same time, there is also a marked advance from Mandodari to Ahalya in the focus on the individual’s life situations and experiences. Probably because the performance is unfettered by a play context, and hence free from considerations of previous events or current circumstances, as would be present in the enactment of a play, there are fewer events and characters dealt with in Ahalyāmōkṣam. Consequently, there is much greater freedom available for Usha to focus on the character of Ahalya. Such a departure from the dramaturgical culture of Kutiyattam, especially the absence of a dramatic text upon which it is based and the consequent possibility of performing any character whatsoever, raises serious questions about the form and identity of Nangyarkuttu and its future trajectories. In fact, it was one reason why Usha had serious reservations about doing Ahalya: At first, I didn’t want to do Ahalya because she is not in any of the plays, not even a single one. . . . It [Ahalyāmōkṣam] does not have a basis [in a play]. That was why I was very reluctant to do it. . . . It means that we are going to cut the cord [from Kutiyattam]. It will come to a situation where anyone can present any story as they like.

However, it was precisely the absence of a play text that enabled Usha to conceive of her performance with such subtle detail and to usher in aspects of character informed by contemporary sensibilities that communicate powerfully to contemporary audiences. Even after she decided that she should do Ahalyāmōkṣam, Usha had other grave reservations about it: At that stage, the big question was: what was the point in enacting it? It is a story we all know well. That beautiful girl lives with Gautama, Indra comes and sees her, disguises himself and makes love to her, Gautama comes and curses her, Rama comes and saves her. There is no point in doing it that way, because it is only the enactment of a story. Though Ahalya is the character in the story, there is nothing in it with which Ahalya could be developed. There is nothing to see in it, except the clean enactment of a story.

204  Performing Gender Her description of the subsequent process reveals the kind of questions and quandaries that a contemporary performer faces when conceiving a performance out of a mythological narrative: Thinking that I shall do it my way, without writing an attaprakaram, I read the Ramayana a lot. That was during the month of Karkkiṭakam when the Ramayana is recited aloud from the temple nearby.27 While hearing it, I used to listen closely to the words. One day, I was listening to it, while standing at the washing stone behind the house.28 That was when I heard the Ahalyāstuti.29 All through its first part, she is merely called “Ahalya, Ahalya.” It is only after Rama places his feet on her that she is addressed as “Ahalya Devi” by him. Till that point, everyone calls her merely Ahalya, it is only after that that the word “Devi” is joined to it. It is then that I started thinking how Ahalya came to be included among the panchakanyas. She must also have experienced something like the others. It is probably not only the ostensible fact that she had to take two husbands.30 There must have been other problems that she suffered. It is when that suffering carries her mind to another state that she becomes deserving of the status of “devi” [the venerated].

This line of thinking prompted Usha to look more closely at Ahalya’s condition: One thing is that Gautama was doing his tapas (austere meditation) in the hermitage under the severest vows of celibacy, and that was where Ahalya was made to live. That is the most hateful thing that can be done to a woman. But, then I thought, that must not have been the only situation

27 Karkkitakam is the final month of the year according to the Malayalam calendar, usually falling in August-​September of the Gregorian calendar. Traditionally, it is regarded as a month of austerity and piety, being also the time when food supplies run short in the agrarian cycle. There is a long-​ standing tradition in Kerala of reading Ezhuthachan’s Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam from the beginning to the end during the month of Karkkitakam. Though it can be a personal activity, there is also the practice of people congregating in temples and reading aloud, which of late have come to be amplified with loudspeakers so that the reading can be heard over a larger vicinity. 28 One can’t help but marvel at Usha’s reference to the washing stone not only because Ahalya was turned into a stone, but also because of how it epitomizes the bondage and thankless labor that are usually the lot of women, even in this day and age. 29 Ahalyāstuti [The Praise of Rama by Ahalya] is the second part of the Ahalya narrative in the Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam, the first being Ahalyāmōkṣam [The Deliverance of Ahalya]. 30 The first being Gautama, whom she had wed, and the other being Indra, whom she received as a sexual partner.

Writing Her “Self”  205 that Ahalya had to suffer. Then I started reading the Ramayana. When you read it several times, certain words make you think. . . . That is when I suddenly realized that Gautama’s curse is that she shall be turned into stone. One concession that he gives is that no wild animals shall harm her. But, all alone, without eating food or drinking water, suffering all the seasons, she has to lie there waiting till the time Rama arrives. If she lies there “suffering” so much, then there must be life inside; otherwise how can there be suffering? If she had been merely a stone, there would have been no suffering. But, here, she is cursed to lie there suffering. Then, she is a stone only in appearance. Inside it, there is the woman. But, no one knows what Ahalya was when she lay there as a stone, and what she suffered then. It is from this thought that I felt like doing the act and developing it.

In keeping with these thoughts, Usha formulated the act in three segments, the first where Ahalya is shown as a young girl in the hermitage, the second where Indra gets captivated by her beauty and seduces her by guile, and the third where she lies as a stone undergoing terrible suffering and becomes transformed. In the first segment, which serves to establish the character of Ahalya, the formal and somewhat fearful reverence with which Ahalya treats Gautama contrasts starkly with her playful ways when she is alone or in the company of the fawn. When alone, she wonders at the beauties of nature, frolics with gay abandon in the company of the fawn, arranges her hair and (with no mirror or companion available) asks the fawn if it looks becoming, and turns bashful with youthful feelings of ardor at the sight of bees drinking honey from the flowers. In contrast, when Gautama enters the hermitage, she suddenly dons an air of seriousness, is timid and hesitant while serving him, and is anxious whether he is happy with the food served. This contrast deftly captures the rather pitiable predicament of Ahalya as a young and joyful girl totally out of place in the hermitage. The utter incompatibility between the exuberant young girl and the celibate old saint thus becomes a major motif in the act. Usha is unambiguous on this point; to her, the marriage of the young girl with a celibate old man “is the most hateful thing that can be done to a woman.” Indra’s deceit is played out in the second segment and Ahalya’s acceptance of Indra appears to be the most natural thing in the world. Usha emphasizes that Ahalya did not commit the sin knowingly, while subtly suggesting that Gautama is responsible for the situation since he never treated Ahalya as a

206  Performing Gender wife and offered her the joys of conjugality. When Indra approaches her in Gautama’s guise, Ahalya is at first doubtful if it is really Gautama, but then she has no way of distinguishing that because she had never known him conjugally, and in the circumstances, as would be expected from a dutiful wife, she accepts him. Thus, when Gautama proceeds to curse her, despite her fervent pleas for mercy, Ahalya appears as a victim wronged on all sides—​by her husband, by Indra, and by fate. The subsequent focus on endurance and transformation in the third segment is probably the most compelling aspect of the performance, and marks a pronounced shift from Maṇḍōdariyuṭe Niṟvahaṇaṃ, where the theme is only a somewhat submerged strand. As Usha explains, the question of how Ahalya became “Ahalya Devi,” how she is transformed from an ordinary woman to a venerated personage, was a major concern not only in the performance but in the very process of conceiving it. As a woman trapped in stone, Ahalya is at first overcome by sorrow and anger at her fate as she undergoes terrible physical torment and mental distress. As she passes through her travails and becomes progressively immersed in her total devotion for Rama, the metaphor of the four seasons is evoked to indicate her passage from a state of utter anguish to one of complete tranquility. As Usha states, We always say that this person has suffered a lot, or that person has suffered a lot. But, what should emerge from that suffering is an important matter. If the suffering turns one to violence, then all is lost. Or, if it turns one into inaction, then also all is lost. To acquire a tranquility that comes out of the suffering, to be able to focus it on one single point, that is what is needed.

At the end, after she is liberated from the stone and assumes her original form, Ahalya appears as someone who has triumphed over her fate, as much through her devotion to Rama as through her own perseverance and inner strength. She is not a victim anymore, but a woman who has come into her own. This ending is at variance with the conclusion of the Ahalya story in Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam, where, as all “good stories” end, Ahalya lived happily with Gautama.31 But Usha had serious reservations about that ending, which 31 The lines in Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam say, “Having been permitted by Rama, the Lord of the world, Ahalya, the daughter of Brahma, departed pure, joined her husband Gautama, and lived with him free from all sorrow” (see Ezhuthachan, 72).

Writing Her “Self”  207 she expresses in unambiguous terms, literally putting herself in Ahalya’s position: “I did not at all like to go with Gautama. Why should I go? The actual ending is that ‘she lived happily with Gautama thereafter.’ Even at the time of the curse, Gautama says, ‘When in tṟētāyuga, Rama arrives, you will get your real form back. After that you can again live with me.’32 But, how can Ahalya go with him after all that had happened? That is what made me angry. So, I ended it there. Had there been a play, it would not have been possible. But, since there was no play, I could do it as I wanted.” For Usha, a similar unease looms large about the later fate of Mandodari as well, though it never figures in her performance directly because the situation of the nirvahanam is before the war. As Usha details: Mandodari is not seen after Ravana’s death. No one knows where she went. After Ravana’s fall, there is the lament of Mandodari on the battlefield. But, after that, Mandodari’s story is not told. I’ve felt terribly sad about Mandodari. After having stood with such a great man, a man like Ravana. . . . It is said in several places that Ravana used to consult with Mandodari even in matters of state. Ravana addresses her, “nītijñe” [one who knows justice]. Even towards the end of the war, Ravana asks Mandodari about what is to be done. It is only before her that Ravana bows his head. However, after all that, it is not known where Mandodari went. What is sad is that this woman became nothing after her husband’s fall. After all, she was the “first lady,” wasn’t she?33 But, no one says anything about where she went, what happened to her, or whether she continued to stay in Vibhishana’s Lanka. It is the woman’s condition that after everything is done, she has no place or position. These women are lauded and placed together with great men, in the interests of the world, for it to appear just. But, then after these men are gone, there is nothing; they are then like smoke or thin air, not even that.

32 Tretayuga is the second of the four yugas, or ages of mankind, in Hinduism. It follows the Satyayuga and is followed by the Dvaparayuga and Kaliyuga. “Treta” means “a collection of three arousing things,” and is so called because during the Treta Yuga, it is supposed that there were three incarnations of Vishnu, viz. Vamana, Parasurama, and Rama. In Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam, Gautama’s words are: “The day you are touched by Rama’s feet all your sorrows shall end. Then, when you pay respects to him with devotion, circle him in the proper manner, and with folded hands and full reverence bow to him and sing his praises, you will be freed of the curse. Thus, when you are pure of mind, you can again serve me” (see Ezhuthachan, 62). 33 Usha used the specific English term.

208  Performing Gender Here Usha is pointing to the fate of the woman in a man’s world, her lot to be used and then discarded when no more of use. At the same time, Usha’s resentment is also leveled at how narratives are constructed with such masculine values informing them through and through. This deep unease with the latent culture of the narratives is reflected in her perspective on the later fate of both Mandodari and Ahalya. With one, she doesn’t have to perform that later fate, but it looms large in her mind. With the other, she refuses to perform it. Through her conscious “performative silence” about the later fate of the two characters—​one implicit and the other quite explicit—​the performances thus become prefaces to the unperformable, categorical critiques of mainstream Ramayanas and contestations of the masculine ideology inherent in them. To conclude, Usha’s observation on her performance of Ahalyāmōkṣam, that “it is a product of a re-​reading of the text,” can be seen as a gloss for her entire performative venture and its female politics. In retrospect, it appears to be one continuous and consistent effort at re-​reading and re-writing not only the traditions and priorities of Kutiyattam, but also the latent creed of patriarchy present in the Ramayana, from a contemporary woman’s standpoint. In the process, she inscribes herself into the histories, interpretations, and meanings of both Kutiyattam and the Ramayana, mediated through her own personal engagement with the predicament of women today.

Postscript On January 17, 2019, a little after this paper was completed, Usha Nangiar presented Cintāviṣṭayāya Sīta [The Pensive Sita], a Kutiyattam adaptation of the celebrated poem of the same name by Kumaran Asan, the social reformer poet of Malayalam of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Written in the form of an extended reflection by Sita on her life in Vamiki’s hermitage after her banishment, and depicting her final self-​chosen departure from the world by returning to her mother, the Earth, Cintāviṣṭayāya Sīta has a special place in Malayalam literature as a work that radically questions the ways of patriarchy. Staged at the Sree Sankara University of Sanskrit, where Usha is a member of the faculty, the performance commemorated the 100th year of the poem’s composition. Although it was a first staging of a work-​ in-​progress, some features stand out with striking clarity. Her introduction of a Malayalam poem into the textual repertoire of Kutiyattam in such

Writing Her “Self”  209 a venture is a pointer to future possibilities of such adaptation. Further, in going back to Sita, a character about whom she had serious reservations, especially in the way in which she is represented in Kutiyattam, Usha succeeds in depicting her as a thinking woman, who despite her deep love for Rama does not shrink away from recognizing him to be the epitome of male pride and arrogance. She proceeds to disassociate herself from him by a fully conscious act of removing herself from his world. This resolute Sita takes upon herself the onus of deciding her own fate. In the process, she delivers a resounding judgment of Rama and his patriarchal creed, moving forward from her representation of the suffering Mandodari and the stoic Ahalya to a decisive affirmation of an independent Sita.

Sanskrit and Malayalam Bibliography Āśān, Kumāran. 2017. Cintāviṣṭayāya Sīta. Calicut: Poorna Publications. Eḻuttacchan, Tuncat. 2012. Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam. Vyākhyāṉasahitam [Interpretation] by K. P. Śaṅkaran. Kottayam: Manorama Books. Kulaśēkhara Varman. 1987. Subhadrādhaṉañjayam. Śṟīśivarāmakṛtavicāratilakāra-​ vyākhyāsametam, ed. T. Ganapati Sastri. Delhi: Nag Publishers. Kulaśēkhara Varman. 2001. The Wedding of Aṟjuna and Subhadrā. The Kūṭiyāṭṭam Drama Subhadrā-​ Dhananjaya. Text with Vicāratilaka Commentary, Introduction, English Translation and Notes [ed. N. P. Unni and B. M. Sullivan]. Delhi: Nag Publishers. Nambyār, P. K. Nārāyaṇan. 2015 [1983]. Śṟīkṛṣṇacaritam Naṅṅyārammakkūttu. Cheruthuruthi: Kerala Kalamandalam. Naṅṅyār, Uṣa. 2001. Abhiṉētṟi: Nāṭyavēdattile Stṟīpaṟva [The Actress: The Female Chapter of the Theater Veda]. Mumbai: Keli. Paulōs, K. G. 2001. Kūṭiyāttam: Abhiṉayattiṉte Tuṭarccayum Valaṟccayum [Kutiyattam: The Continuity and Growth of Acting]. Tripunithura: International Centre for Kutiyattam. Śaktibhadra. 1967. Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi. Śaktibhadramahākaviyuṭe Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi nāṭakavum atiṉṯe abhiṉayattiṉuvēṇṭi racicciṭṭuḷḷa kramadīpika, āṭṭaprakāram, tuṭaṅṅiya āṭṭakrama viśadīkaraṇaṅṅaḷum, ed. K. P. Nārāyaṇa Piṣāroṭi. Thrissur: Kerala Sangita Nataka Akademi. Śaktibhadra. 1984. The Wondrous Crest-​Jewel in Performance: Text and Translation of the Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi of Śaktibhadra with the Production Manual from the Tradition of Kūṭiyāṭṭam Sanskrit Drama [ed. Clifford Reis Jones]. Introduction and translation of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi by V. Rāghavan. Translation of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi Kramadīpika by D. Līla A. Nambūdirippāṭ. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Śaktibhadra. 2009. Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi. Sampūrṇṇamāya āṭṭaprakāravum kramadīpikayum, ed. P. Vēṇugopalan. Thiruvanantapuram: Mārgi. Vēṇugōpālan, P. 2009. “Abhiṉayatiṉte Dhvaṉipādham” [Śaktibhadra]. Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi. Sampūrṇṇamāya āṭṭaprakāravum kramadīpikayum, ed. P. Vēṇugopalan, pp. 17–​39, Thiruvanantapuram: Mārgi.

210  Performing Gender

English Bibliography George, K. M. 1968. A Survey of Malayalam Literature. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Paniker, K. Ayyappa. 1998. A Short History of Malayalam Literature, 5th edition. Trivandrum: Kerala State Information & Public Relations Department. Paniker, Nirmala. 1992. Nangiar Koothu: The Classical Dance-​Theatre of the Nangiar-​s. Irinjalakuda: Natana Kairali (Documentation of Kutiyattam Series, 2). Poulose, K. G. 2006. Kūṭiyāṭṭam Theatre: The Earliest Living Tradition. Kottayam: DC Books.

PART V

C ON V E R SAT IONS A ND A RGUME N T S

11 Reflections on Ramayana in Kutiyattam David Shulman, Margi Madhu Chakyar, and Dr. Indu G., in conversation with Rustom Bharucha

Located in the village of Moozhikkulam in the Ernakulam District of Kerala, the Thirumoozhikkulam Lakshmana Perumal Temple is one of the few Indian temples where devotees worship Lord Vishnu in the form of Lakshmana.1 Among many legends about the temple’s origins, one pertinent to this volume deals with the episode where Bharata arrives with a large army near the dwelling where Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana have settled in the forest. Lakshmana assumes that Bharata has now ascended the throne in Ayodhya and has arrived to challenge any rival claims to it. Impetuously, he wants to attack his brother. Bharata, however, leaves his army behind, walks to Rama, falls at his feet, and beseeches him to return and rule Ayodhya. Realizing that he has misjudged Bharata, Lakshmana renews fraternal ties with him; the two are said to have worshipped together at Thirumoozhikkulam. This legend affirms the restoration of affectionate bonds between the four brothers, which is commemorated in an auspicious one-​day pilgrimage to four temples (nāl ambalam), each of which is dedicated to Rama, Bharata, Lakshmana, and Shatrughna. Not only is the Thirumoozhikkulam Lakshmana Perumal Temple an integral part of this pilgrimage, it is also known for its long history of Kutiyattam performances enacted in the kuttampalam (kūttambalam; temple theater). Just around the corner from the temple, one is likely to hear the haunting beats of the mizhavu (miḻāvu; copper drum) emanating from the premises of Nepathya,2 an institution devoted to the study of Kutiyattam and related arts. Nepathya is the ongoing project of Margi Madhu Chakyar and his wife Dr. Indu G., who are steeped in a rigorous lineage of Kutiyattam, taught to 1 It is one of the 108 temples invoked in the Tamil hymns of the Vaishnavite Alwars. 2 The word nēpathya literally means the dressing-​room in the backstage of the kuttampalam. David Shulman, Margi Madhu Chakyar, Indu G., and Rustom Bharucha, Reflections on Ramayana in Kutiyattam In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0011

214  Conversations and Arguments them by the legendary guru Ammannur Madhava Chakyar. Today Nepathya has become a hub for Kutiyattam aficionados from India and across the world who congregate to watch full-​length enactments of single acts from the Kutiyattam repertoire, which extend over 10–​12 all-​night performances. Professor David Shulman, one of the world’s leading Sanskritists and Tamil scholars,3 has been bringing his students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem annually to Moozhikkulam since 1998 to watch Kutiyattam. They are expected to know the Sanskrit text by heart before getting on the plane to India. The performance demands “deep seeing,” which stimulates the intense concentration and imaginative surrender that this tradition so richly demands.4 Along with other Kutiyattam scholars, graduate students, and spectators from India, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere, Nepathya’s audience constitutes a particularly nuanced and intimate form of global academic cosmopolitanism. What follows is a diptych of an interview with David Shulman and another with Margi Madhu and Dr. Indu G., where some insights into the Ramayana tradition through the performance of Kutiyattam will be shared in a spirit of conversation.5 While Shulman dwells more on the philosophical dimensions of Kutiyattam, through his uncanny sensitivity to details of performance interrelated with the nuances of texts and concepts, Madhu Margi and Indu G. speak as practitioners who have an in-​depth knowledge of what they are attempting to do in Kutiyattam performances, even as they remain open to its enigmas and ceaseless moments of discovery. The catalyst for the interviews is the last act of Shaktibhadra’s Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi [The Wondrous Crest-​Jewel], which was completed shortly before the interviews were held, following several nights of intense performance. In this period of rest, while the performance was still in the process of being internalized, we reflected on some manifestations of the Ramayana tradition in Kutiyattam. —​RB

3 See Shulman (2012, 2000, 1991) for his diverse readings on different Ramayana texts. 4 The performances at Nepathya differ strikingly from the short, highly abridged, productions of Kutiyattam for tourists and local audiences in Kerala. The research of Shulman and his graduate students has been supported by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Humanities Fund of the Planning and Budget Committee of the Council for Higher Education, funded by Yad Hanadiv, with additional funding from the German-​Israel Foundation for Scientific Research and Development. 5 The interviews were recorded at Nepathya on January 3, 2018, with the assistance of Courtney Kain and Nepathya Srihari Chakyar, and later transcribed by Samik Dasgupta. The first transcript has gone through many drafts with detailed corrections provided by David Shulman, Margi Madhu Chakyar, and Dr. Indu G., and translations of words and passages by Rizio Yohannan.

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  215

David Shulman in Conversation with Rustom Bharucha Rustom Bharucha (RB): I would like to structure this conversation in the form of a nirvahanam (nirvahaṇam; flashback) in which you play the role of the protagonist and go back in time to retrace critical moments in your life, only to come forward to the very point from where the journey had started. Unlike most scholars, particularly those steeped in pre-​modern literature, you are perhaps the only Sanskrit scholar I am aware of who has spent hundreds of hours immersing himself as a spectator in seeing Kutiyattam performances.6 Let me begin by asking you a question inspired by your book More than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India (2012). In this book, you talk about “imaginative praxis,” where imagination actually does something; it brings things into being and makes them concrete. Imagination is a crucial faculty if you are reading a text as a scholar or seeing a performance. However, there are different modalities of imagining. It is not something that emerges automatically; you have to work at it and surrender to certain disciplinary protocols. Since you have read and written about Ramayana texts by Valmiki and Kamban, among other pre-​ modern poets, and you have watched almost all the acts of Shaktibhadra’s Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi being performed in Kutiyattam, how do you think the imagination works differently when you read a text and when you see the same text being performed? David Shulman (DS): I think one of the problems endemic to the textual study of pre-​modern South Asia is an aspect it borrows from the Western tradition of textual studies. In the scholarly tradition there, you tend to regard the written text, published in a book, as “the” text. Something that exists on the shelf of a library is regarded as the definitive text. There was a man called C. P. Brown (1798–​1884), a Telugu scholar and British administrator in India’s southern states, who boasted foolishly that he had “revived” Telugu literature when it was, in actuality, active and vibrant at that time. How had

6 Shulman promptly reminds me of other scholars who have combined scholarship and practice: both Heike Moser (2008) and Virginie Johan (2014) have published substantial dissertations on Naṅṅyārkūttu in German, and Kutiyattam in French, respectively. Other more accessible studies of Kutiyattam in English include a succinct monograph by Raja (1964), and, more recently, Sudha Gopalakrishnan (2012) and Oberlin and Shulman (2019). For more detailed references in Malayalam and English, see Mundoli Narayanan’s Chapter 10 in this volume on Nangyarkuttu and its relationship to Kutiyattam.

216  Conversations and Arguments he revived Telugu literature? By bringing out printed versions of Telugu books that could be placed in libraries. Yet, when you are dealing with a text like Kamban’s, or almost all literary texts in pre-​modern South Asia, you have to ask what the text is. It’s not like a song printed in a manuscript; it’s not signs or marks on a page. The living text that is recited, sung, or performed offers the best starting point toward understanding the text in the South Asian context. One interesting thing about Kutiyattam in this respect is that in pre-​ modern South Asia, abhinaya (abhinaya)—​the language of hand gestures in empty space, and of eye movements—​is the most consequential and durable form of writing. If you want to write down something that really matters, it is through abhinaya. That’s not the only reason why performers enact abhinaya, but it is one of the functions that abhinaya serves. Now going back to the argument about imagination, how does it work? There is such a thing as disciplined imaginative praxis. If you read the famous Tantric poem Saundarya Laharī, for instance, you will find that it’s a manual on how you are meant to move from each imagined bodily part or attribute of the goddess to the next, in the course of which you turn yourself into the goddess. There are other ways in which imagination works on your receptivity. Some things happen in more immediate, more bodily, more tangible ways, which are not fully conscious. RB: When you read these pre-​modern texts, do you read them silently or aloud, or do you intone them? DS: I usually sing them, sometimes silently. Unless I am in a noisy environment, I sing them to myself. My students also have internalized this method. RB: I think that makes a huge difference. Silent reading is what we are expected to do while reading novels. It is a modernist reflex, if not a convention. But in many parts of India, not necessarily related to traditional contexts of performances, contemporary and modern poetry is sung. DS: South India is still very alive to that practice and so is Sanskrit. In Kutiyattam, the shlokas (ślokas; Sanskrit verses) are sung and have their own ragas. Among the different tracks in any Kutiyattam performance by which the text is communicated to the audience, one primary track is the drum (mizhavu). Even though the scripted text is enormously important, the drum plays a crucial role. I don’t know whether Madhu or Indu will agree with this, but in my experience the first thing in a performance that reaches into you before anything else is the drum beat. Every single time, at the beginning of a new performance, the first drumbeat is thrilling; it sets your entire body alive.

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  217 Let me note an interesting point here. The end of the seventh act (that we saw last night) of Shaktibhadra’s Āscaryacūḍāmaṇi, known in its own right as Agnipraveśāṅkam [Act of Entering the Fire], is an attempt to bring the whole narrative together. There are various ways of doing this, as, for example, through the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam, which is a précis of the whole Ramayana story that students of Kutiyattam learn at a relatively early stage of their training. Within the Āscaryacūḍāmaṇi, in the sixth act, Aṅgulīyāṅkam [Act of the Ring], the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam is performed twice. That’s one kind of Ramayana, somewhat different from both Shaktibhadra’s and Valmiki’s. Among the various competing versions encompassed within the Ramayana tradition, which together create a vast chorus with intricate interrelationships, there is the character of Jambavan. This character, who turns up in the seventh act of the Āscaryacūḍāmaṇi, is the only one who knows the whole story of the Ramayana epic. South Indian traditions identify him as a bear-​faced monkey. In the Aṅgulīyāṅkam, there is this critical moment when the monkeys are looking for Sita, they can’t find her, they despair, think they are going to die, get stuck in a cave. At that moment, the vulture Sampati comes, but his wings won’t work; and Jambavan tells him the Ramayana story as it has unfolded until that point. Listening to that story enables Sampati to grow back his wings. There is something consequential about hearing the story, which is a feature of the Ramayana literature in general. Now the reason I am mentioning this episode is that Jambavan is a drummer. He is the one entrusted by Rama with the task of informing everybody in all 14 worlds that Ravana is now dead. He is an old monkey who can’t bring himself to travel to all the 14 worlds. He beats the drum like a person in the village spreading the news. The point is that the only one who knows the whole story is the drummer. This offers a primacy to the texture of drumming in Kutiyattam. RB: This takes me back to the text of Bhavabhuti’s Uttararāmacarita where Valmiki is a character in the narrative of the play.7 Does Valmiki really know the whole story? DS: After the miraculous utterance of the first shloka which he recounts to Bharadvaja, he receives a yogic vision where he sees the entire epic story of the Rāmāyaṇa. Later Brahma gets him to write the text of the Rāmāyaṇa. 7 Shulman (2000).

218  Conversations and Arguments Valmiki’s life only partially overlaps that of Rama, but he knows it all in the sense that he is himself embedded in the text; this is a form of effective knowledge. He shares the story selectively, depending on what the hero or the listener needs to know. RB: So he is a good performer since he pays selective attention to his listeners. DS: He is an astonishing figure. Returning to drumming, in a multimedia performance like Kutiyattam, the musical/​rhythmic side of the performance is critical, even as the drumming is partly de-​semanticized. You can’t easily translate the drumming into neat discursive sentences. RB: Yet, it is capable of differentiating all kinds of nuances, such as the sound of the pestle pounding the grain, which could be dry or wet. DS: You can’t exactly decipher the drumming, even though you can decipher the abhinaya. Of course, the verbal text is totally semanticized. In contrast, the drumming is minimally semanticized, setting up a dialogic exchange with the actors. RB: There are other elements of Kutiyattam (like costume, color, makeup, gestures) which cumulatively contribute toward the semantic structure of the performance. DS: Yes, I love the costumes, especially the multiple reflecting surfaces. However, there are two crucial things for me in Kutiyattam. One thing that is characteristic of this genre is its extreme characterization or extreme personalization. I have never seen a theatrical tradition other than Kutiyattam that offers such a subtle, detailed portrait of the character as an actual person. That’s what the nirvahanam is for, insofar as it opens the character’s mind. The character is not exactly himself. More precisely, the nirvahanam is all about the character seeing himself as someone else. Most human beings fail to arrive at this state of awareness, but in Kutiyattam it is absolutely central. By the time you are through with the nirvahanam (five or six nights, in some cases 20 nights), everything in the consciousness of the character—​memory, fantasy, dream life, bits and pieces of knowledge—​all these elements have been externalized on the stage. The reason I mention this extreme personalization is because to even see this happen, you have to liberate yourself from orthodox Sanskrit poetics. The traditional alaṅkāra poetics is all about the depersonalization of the spectator and a kind of abstraction of the character. If you recall the Abhinavagupta way of thinking about artistic experience, it’s simply not relevant to Kutiyattam.

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  219 RB: In the aesthetics of Abhinavagupta, the spectator is expected to reach a state of sādhāraṇīkaraṇa, a universalized, shared form of being and cognition. DS: Whereas in Kutiyattam, it is just the opposite. Velcheru Narayana Rao and I have called it vyaktīkaraṇa, “personalization.” It’s a theater of extreme individualization. Kutiyattam, I would suggest, is built around a strong notion of the individual, the singularity of a unique subject; this in itself needs to be historicized. We know that this notion of the individual crystallized in a new form in the 15th and 16th centuries in South India.8 Kutiyattam is an art form that is set up in such a way as to enable this extreme characterization, in the course of which the spectator, instead of dissolving into some kind of ethereal, abstracted being, is awake, alive, cognitively engaged on many levels. RB: Otherwise, the performance doesn’t work. DS: Right, it doesn’t work. Only when there is a sensory and cognitive engagement with the performance does it become so moving to the spectator. When Ravana is killed, we feel that we know this guy, we know him inside out, we’re almost in love with him. The Ravana of Aśokavanikāṅkam [Act of the Ashoka Grove], that is, Act V of the Shaktibhadra play, reveals his own self-​awareness under the most amazing circumstances. I have to say that the Aśokavanikāṅkam is one of the great masterpieces of the Kutiyattam repertoire. Sita is held captive, and Ravana is trying to talk to her and to persuade her to love him; he is very much in love with her. It is heartbreaking to see him, on the final night of performance, offer her gifts such as saris, bangles, ornaments, and even toothpaste (felt to be a particularly intimate offering). Sita observes these gifts and rejects them one by one, causing Ravana to collapse in despair. At the very end of this final night, Ravana loses patience and becomes very angry—​he is almost ready to kill Sita, but Mandodari intervenes and stops him. During a discussion on the morning of that culminating moment, I remember my son Misha, who is a playwright and actor, asking Madhu, “So what’s this play all about?” And Madhu said that the play is about love. RB: For me, your emphasis on the predicament faced by Ravana highlighting his self-​awareness ties up with words that you have been using,

8 Shulman discusses this point at some length in his book More than Real (2012); he and Narayana Rao have also made similar arguments in various works, including the afterword to their translation of Pingali Suranna’s Prabhāvatīpradyumnamu, The Demon’s Daughter (2006).

220  Conversations and Arguments like “extreme personalization,” and “individualization,” which, in many readings of traditional performance in India, would be taboo. I welcome your intervention in this regard, but I am trying to link it with the reservations that Madhu and Indu have sometimes expressed in relation to the actor becoming one with the character. I think this happens, but not consistently; rather, actors are always moving in and out of character. DS: Madhu says that he doesn’t become the character; he internalizes the character in his imagination. Indu used to say that two weeks before a performance, Madhu would be in a different space. One could ask if that’s always still the case, but Madhu makes a categorical distinction between actor and character. RB: There is also the narrator who may not necessarily be the actor. There are all these different roles. DS: You have the narrator, who is superimposed on the character. You have the actor; the poet who wrote the text; the Chakyar who provided a kind of commentary in the attaprakaram (āṭṭaprakāram; acting manual), handed down in the families of the actors. And you have the spectator. The relations between them are very subtle, fascinating, and highly interactive. RB: You said there were two things that mattered to you in Kutiyattam. The other . . . ? DS: Another thing inherent in the medium is the temporal mode, which is interestingly tied up with a notion of causality. Let us pause for a while and ask: What is Kutiyattam time? When we talk to people in Kerala, we hear them describing it as very long. When I was flying into Kerala to see a full performance for the first time, in 2008, knowing that the performance would be 60 hours long, I asked what I had got myself into. But when I saw Kutiyattam, I have to say that there was not a single moment when I was bored, even though in my present viewing of Kutiyattam I do find some parts of a performance too long and drawn out. Believe it or not, I feel Kutiyattam is in fact quite fast-​paced and action-​packed. There is so much happening at any one moment. Except in some notion of Newtonian time, where time is divided into uniform discrete units, Kutiyattam is not really very long in duration. It has a very different kind of temporality. If you give the artists the opportunity to perform without cutting anything, they will not compromise the inner temporal mode of the performance. This is the only thing I have seen in my entire life where something—​a performance—​is allowed to run its natural, organic course without any interference. We never do that in our everyday lives; we seem always to be rushing toward our death. But in Kutiyattam, the

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  221 artists will not compromise the organic rhythm natural to this art form. It’s a very therapeutic thing to see, also because that organic rhythm is probably how human beings are meant to live. The principle is: however long it takes—​even for a single gesture, a single movement of the eyes to achieve completion—​that’s how long it will be. A movement unfolds in its own inner rhythm, as does a thought or an emotion or a spoken sentence. If you try to squeeze any of these into a preordained time-​scheme, you kill it. That is the story of our lives. RB: Let’s talk a bit about the attaprakaram, which is yet another textual mode embedded in a Kutiyattam performance. DS: There are today five main Chakyar families (including sub-​branches within each of the major family lines). Each has its own handwritten notebooks that are passed down from generation to generation. These texts could be regarded as the natural habitat of Kutiyattam. To be sure, there is variation among them, just as there is variation in other things as well, such as the way the actors perform some elements of abhinaya. One problem is that attaprakarams that we find today in printed form do not always match the family notebooks. At the level of translating the notebooks into performance or into a printed manual for performance, there is an irresistible urge to fill in the lacunae—​but these new segments are only rarely marked as such. On the other hand, the attaprakarams are also organic, in the sense that they, too, are constantly growing, assimilating new contents, new bits of text, new emphases. We have ourselves seen many examples of this process, which has its own logic. The problem that I have mentioned really exists for the most part in the transition to modern printed texts, in which the layering of contents, including large chunks that have been added by the editors, is invisible. RB: So would it be accurate to say that actors create their own attaprakarams while drawing on older ones? DS: In a sense, that is true. The performance text is never a mechanical replica of the performance manual. There are different forms and practices that can be distinguished and analyzed. For example, Madhu recently wrote an attaprakaram for the first act, or a part of the first act, of Śākuntala. We have no surviving attaprakarams for this famous play, which apparently disappeared from the repertoire at a very early stage; there is even a story within the tradition that explains why the Kutiyattam Śākuntala is not performed. (They say it is because an actor once went blind when showing the back-​and-​forth eye movements in the opening scene where Duṣyanta is

222  Conversations and Arguments chasing a deer.) Keep in mind that, in general, the attaprakarams you are looking at present a skeletal scheme for a specific performance. But there is something else that we haven’t yet talked about: the underlying textual model that is generating performances in this tradition—​what people now call “textuality.” I would say that the textuality of Kutiyattam does not suit what I sometimes call the Mediterranean model. The Mediterranean textual model, which is dominant in Western Europe and in my part of the world, both assumes and relies on an original text, the mula (mūla) or root-​text, which expands and evolves through elaborations, commentary, sub-​commentaries, and so on. I don’t think that this model works well with many Indian literary texts. One could argue that it’s not the primary textual mode in Kutiyattam, where usually we see an intricate, mutual constitution or determination of both mula and performance text. You cannot derive the latter from the former. These two, in fact, create one another and are embedded in one another. One might say, for example, that in the case of the Shaktibhadra play, the author presupposes a rich textual and intertextual world that is condensed into the verbal skeleton-​text that we have on our shelves. In many instances, one feels, and sometimes knows for sure, that what one sees on stage is not an elaboration of the Sanskrit root-​text but rather some preexisting textual material that has itself generated the root-​text and determined its present form. In other words, a simple genealogical model—​parent text that becomes performance text—​will not adequately describe this kind of textuality. Moreover, once you have seen a performance of, let us say, a particular verse, unpacked over an hour or two on stage, you are never able to read that verse again in the printed text without seeing how it was performed. RB: When I read the Shaktibhadra text, my dramaturgical instinct tells me that it has been written for performance. DS: Yes, it’s written exclusively for performance, and specifically in Kerala, in some kind of proto-​Kutiyattam style. Only three of the acts survived in the continuous, living performance tradition into recent times: the second (Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam), the fifth (Aśokavanikāṅkam), and the seventh (Agnipraveśāṅkam). This last act used to be performed not so long ago (maybe a hundred years or so); the kramadipika (kramadīpika; production manual) for it, and indeed for all the acts of the play, is still available, but the attaprakaram (acting manual) is missing. The great artist Ammannur had to compose the attaprakaram for this act on the basis of available material. RB: What are some of the criteria that go in the making of an attaprakaram?

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  223 DS: A lot of things have to be considered, including the division of the performance into nightly segments, the place and manner of performing vistāra (elaboration), which is the ubiquitous device of branching off from the main text of the act and the storyline, expanding some hint or passing reference to several hours of performance. This would include the movement of the actors onto and out of the stage; the relation of performance text and its particular order of events to the way the recorded Sanskrit text unfolds; particular ways of walking or dancing or moving; the intricate interweaving of acting and drumming, and so on. The real challenge of producing, and understanding, the attaprakaram is to imagine the larger logic of the dramatic organization. Kutiyattam almost never follows a linear logic. In this regard, this seventh act is a bit unusual. The full performance lasts for 10 nights, and in the last five nights (four plus one), the actors follow the printed text of the play in the order in which the lines are written. This linear sequencing is rare. More often, in a Kutiyattam play, the first night picks up a verse from somewhere in the act, and then the nirvahanam will move from this verse backward in time and then forward again until it ultimately reconnects with this opening verse, in the present time of the performance; meanwhile, other bits of text from the act will appear, sections from other acts will be inserted, there will be quotations from many possible sources, and so on. There is a nonlinear logic that governs these performances throughout and that is codified in creating an attaprakaram. RB: Earlier you had mentioned to me that there were some really moving moments in the seventh act. What is it that touches you so much about Kutiyattam? DS: I am touched by beauty, great beauty. The first act of Śākuntala, which Nepathya recently performed at the University of California at Davis in November 2017, moves toward a famous verse: a bee is disturbing Shakuntala, and Dushyanta thinks that this is the right time for him to emerge from the bushes and assert his presence. You witness this moment of falling in love, which is very striking. It unfolds, in Kutiyattam time, to the point where Dushyanta and Shakuntala are standing side by side, overflowing with desire for each other. The drums are hushed; in that moment, you can see in their stance, their eye movements, the mudras (mudrās), and the tremendous emotional saturation they show us, the whole tragedy that will eventually be played out. You can see Dushyanta’s failure to recognize Shakuntala. This prefiguration of the play in all its subtlety and complexity is intensely moving. There’s a lot to think and feel about in such moments.

224  Conversations and Arguments RB: After 10 years of watching Kutiyattam, you must have internalized a lot of these moments. How have they altered your reading of the epics by Valmiki and Kamban when you return to them? DS: It’s like reading a good translation. Once you read a good translation, you will read the original in the light of that translation. A good translation will bring out something in the original that you have never noticed. These acts in Shaktibhadra’s play give you a certain perspective on the entire spectrum of Ramayana literature. For instance, at the end of Act I, the Parṇaśālāṅkam, we have already seen Lakshmana build the parṇaśālā (forest hut) multiple times, meticulously, in all its details, rafter by rafter. On this final night, there is an enactment of the moment where Dasharatha mistakenly kills a Brahmin boy. This is enacted through the persona of Rama in conversation with Lakshmana. The interesting question is: how did Rama and Lakshmana know about this story? Was it common knowledge in the palace of Ayodhya? Did Dasharatha himself reveal the story to them when they were young boys, or when they matured? There are different ways in which you could talk about this, surmising one thing or another, but you could also say that Rama and Lakshmana know about it because they have seen Dasharatha’s killing of the child being performed in Kutiyattam. Or maybe they have read about it in Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, or in the attaprakaram for this act. In other words, the knowledge of the story preexists in the consciousness of the characters. Once you grasp that point, it sheds light on the entire corpus of Ramayana literature. One of the diagnostic features of the Ramayana corpus is that it continuously embeds the whole story in a new telling. In Valmiki, it is always like that. Hanuman crosses over the sea, finds Sita, and he doesn’t know how to start talking to her. If he starts speaking in flowery Sanskrit, she might die of shock from meeting a Sanskrit-​speaking monkey. So, he starts by saying, “Once upon a time, there was a kingdom called Kosalā. . . .” Slowly, she begins to understand the story. The Ramayana as a living being has to tell itself to itself many times over. This embedded knowledge of the text that is internal to the text could be regarded as its primary defining feature. RB: Let us return to your formulation of the imagination as More than Real (2012). For me, the elusive word in the title is “real.” What is “real”? Is what you see on stage “real”? DS: Let me elaborate with an example from Kutiyattam. On the final night of Aṅgulīyāṅkam, the Act of the Ring (Act 6 in Shaktibhadra), Hanuman creates imagined images of both Rama and Sita in the empty space of the

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  225 stage, from head to toe. Are these images real? Yes—​by virtue of the fact that they are imagined. Kutiyattam amazes us in the way that it deals with something you could call the hyper-​real, and in doing so, it also touches on a special kind of knowledge gained by watching a performance. There is knowledge gained by intellection, from conversations or books or the internet; but the kind of knowledge one gains by watching full performances of Kutiyattam is something that exists in each of us in latent form and that the performance may somehow, almost magically, activate and bring into awareness. It could be that this preexisting knowledge is one of the true goals of Kutiyattam performance. RB: Earlier you talked about cognitive processes, but we know that’s not the only way by which one can imagine performances. Would you see the faculty of imagination in Kutiyattam as primarily sensory? DS: Highly sensory, though this does not exclude rich cognitive processes. It’s a full-​body experience, insofar as the mind is also part of the body. There were so many amazing things in last night’s performance, but I am not sure that all of it reached me. The amalgamation of the verbal text, chanting, abhinaya, drumming, has a visionary dimension. No one can give a definitive interpretation of such a performance, although there are some consistent things that could be said about it and that would elicit agreement from many attuned spectators. There are meta-​messages embedded in the text that are not explicit, but if you watch and listen closely you may begin to approach them. We have just been speaking of various forms of knowledge. One of the great ideas that we saw in this last act’s performance is that a certain kind of knowledge provides certainty without any dependence on external criteria. In the final act, we see that Lakshmana actually drives Rama to conduct the test-​by-​fire for Sita. Rama is stuck, perhaps torn in a profound way, and Lakshmana says to him: devyāḥ parīkṣyā bhāva-​śuddhatā, “The Queen’s purity of feeling must be put to the test” (verse 12).9 But when Sita passes the test, and the two lovers face one another again, the first thing Sita says to Rama is: “My lord knows what is true” (āryaputra eva paramārthato jānāti). This statement raises a question: just how does Rama, or any character, know what he or she knows? A moment later, Sita is asked to step into the Puṣhpaka vimāna, the same chariot that Ravana used to kidnap her;10 she hesitates,

9 See Shulman (1991) for the episode’s treatment in Valmiki and Kamban.

10 The aerial chariot that Ravana appropriated from his half-​brother, Kubera.

226  Conversations and Arguments no doubt recalling her earlier trauma. Rama smiles and says: “I’m the real Rama, not Ravana in disguise. . . . And to prove it, you have that ring on your finger”—​the ring has the magical property of revealing the true identity of whoever is touched by the person who wears it. Sita responds in what I take to be bitter irony: “Lucky for us that we have these jewels. Otherwise, how could I tell my husband from a demon?” Considering how Rama has been treating her, it is an apt question. That is, knowledge gained from external tokens like the ring is rather suspect in comparison with knowledge that she says, and believes, Rama has inside him. RB: At a philosophical level, from where do you think this “knowing” emerges? Are there any schools of thought which come into play here? DS: In Kutiyattam there is a particular kind of advaita built into the structure of meaning. It’s not the classical Shankara advaita but a special, Kerala kind of non-​dualism. For instance, in the Naṭāṅkuśa—​the late-​medieval diatribe against Kutiyattam composed by some (anonymous) Brahmin purist, in the form of an argument between the author and a philosophical opponent (pūrvapakṣin)—​the author challenges the Chakyar by asking, “In order to know what a pot is, do you have to become a pot?” And the Chakyar says, “Yes.” I think many actors would agree. This statement implies some notion of what one might think of as a realistic, worldly non-​dualism. In the last night of performing the seventh act of Shaktibhadra’s play, there is a Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam, a précis of the Ramayana, enacted on the surface; scrape away this surface and underneath it you will see that the Kutiyattam world, though rife with conflict and tension, like the Ramayana story itself, holds the totality of being and knowing within it. RB: Significantly, it is Sita who is in touch with this philosophy of “knowing” while the others around her are trapped in their doubts and search for verification. DS: Yes, it’s a strong and beautiful moment when Rama tells Sita that she, and he, have some technical tool in the form of the ring that can provide certainty about identity and undisguised reality—​but she immediately mocks this statement. She thinks that even he has a better way of knowing what is true, though, like all the rest of us, he mostly fails to use it. It’s almost as if she were telling him that to find in himself that certain knowledge—​which she, as you have said, has steady access to—​the best thing he could do would be to watch a complete Kutiyattam performance, assuming, of course, that he would stay awake until the end. She might recommend, for a start, that he go to see Act VII of Shaktibhadra’s play.

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  227

Margi Madhu Chakyar and Dr. Indu G. in conversation with Rustom Bharucha Rustom Bharucha (RB): As performers, you have access to performance knowledge, a specialized knowledge which you have embodied through long years of performance and training. In that light, I would like to ask you a fundamental question: When one sees Kutiyattam, who is the person on stage? I would imagine that there is an “actor” on the stage. I am not quite sure whether this actor corresponds identically to Madhu or Indu. At times this actor becomes a “character,” who could be called Rama or Sita. While performing the character, you could shift to another character. At times there is yet another persona on stage who could be called the “narrator.” It seems to me that in Kutiyattam that you play several different roles and, inevitably, you have to be very conscious about what you are doing on stage. Madhu, you once mentioned to me that Kutiyattam has no scope for trance or spirit possession that one witnesses in Teyyam and other ritual performances. Within the nomenclature of Kutiyattam, what are the Malayalam words for “character,” “actor,” and “narrator”? Margi Madhu Chakyar (MMC): In Malayalam we refer to the character as kathāpātram, where kathā means “story” and pātram means “person.” For actor we use the standard vocabulary of naṭan and naṭī. I think that even when we are present as a character on stage, the narrator (sūtan) is present inside us. We are never fully in character. RB: So, would you say that every character has an in-​built narrator? MMC: Yes, that used to be the case for traditional styles of acting in earlier times. Today, as performances of Kutiyattam are becoming shorter, we are imbibing concepts of Western theater and that’s why we see the character becoming a dominant figure on the stage. It has now become the norm. But keep in mind that when Ravana, for instance, gets down from the chariot, it is the actor/​narrator who places the stool in the appropriate place and sits on it. This person is not Madhu or Ravana. RB: When you shift from playing one character to another, what do you need to keep in mind as an actor? MMC: The key concept to understand here is that characters have to return to a central point before any transition to a new character can take place. RB: Is that a neutral point? MMC: Since we don’t have a system of learning theoretically, we don’t use that word. But during the training process, it happens unconsciously. You

228  Conversations and Arguments consciously break the character and, in the process of shifting to another character, the central point is discovered. It is something that happens unconsciously when you merge with the narrator. RB: To what extent has this kind of shift from character to narrator been formulated in shastras (śāstras; treatises) like Nāṭyaśāstra? MMC: Our guru, Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, used to say that you should never read the shastras before you become an actor. When you have trained for seven to eight years as an actor, only then can you cross-​check what you are doing on stage with the shastras. I had no idea for the longest time, which gesture has been taken from which text. RB: During your training process, did you learn all the names of the gestures? MMC: Those names exist, but, traditionally, you never teach the names of the gestures to students. You have basic gestures (hastas, mudras), but, in actuality, you learn the gestures of Kutiyattam by performing a summarized text of the Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam.11 Keep in mind that one of the early demonstrations of Kutiyattam was organized in the 1980s in Chennai (Madras) by L.S. Rajagopalan, a Kutiyattam scholar and musicologist. He knew the names of these gestures and asked Kuttan Chakyar to demonstrate them. Kuttan Chakyar could perform all the gestures but he didn’t know their exact names. RB: In the scholarship on Kutiyattam, almost everything about the tradition is assumed to be written and named but, as you have pointed out, that is not the way in which Kutiyattam performers may acquire knowledge about these terms. MMC: Even the music of chanting is not recorded in notation.12 It is only through the oral instruction of the guru that one learns the music in the first place. The guru starts chanting and we then repeat the chant after him, learning the progression of the notes.

11 See the translation into English in Chapter 3 of the Nepathya rendering of Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam, as transmitted to Margi Madhu Chakyar and subsequently to his son, Nepathya Srihari Chakyar. 12 One should qualify here that while the actual transmission of chanting and music in the training process may not explicitly draw on terminology, there are clear indications in the attaprakaram about the ragas to be used for reciting each shloka. As Mundoli Narayanan notes, “For example, it would be said, ‘ślokam mūdhanil chollu’ [recite the shloka in mūdha], where the word mūdha is the name for a particular raga in Kutiyattam” (correspondence with Mundoli Narayanan, May 13 and 14, 2019).

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  229 RB: Does this embodied process of learning extend to your knowledge of stories and narratives? How did you first get to read Shaktibhadra’s play Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi? MMC: We don’t study plays like a Sanskrit scholar. First, we learn the attaprakaram (āṭṭaprakāram) which includes the dialogue in a particular act. But this attaprakaram does not alert us to the fact that this is Shaktibhadra’s play. There is no reference to his authorship as, indeed, there is no attempt to connect a particular act to the larger full-​length play. RB: It seems that individual acts by Bhāsā existed in the attaprakaram form before his plays in their full-​length form were “discovered” in 1911.13 Do those attaprakarams mention Bhasa’s name? Dr. Indu G. (DIG): No, never. RB: How did the publication of Bhasa’s plays affect the performance of Kutiyattam? MMC: Up until the tenth or eleventh year of being at Margi, I did not know about Bhasa. The first time I learned about him was while attending K.N. Panikkar’s Bhasa Festival in 1987. He asked me to recite a shloka from Toraṇayuddham. People heard that shloka and I was told that it is to be found in Bhasa’s play. I was not aware of this until that moment. RB: Now, as senior performers in your own right, do you read Shaktibhadra’s seven-​act play as an entity? MMC: No, not at all. Even now, we read the individual acts of Shaktibhadra’s play as separate plays in their own right. RB: Do you find it difficult to read all the acts sequentially in the form of one single play? MMC: No, the problem is that when you conceive it as a full play, you are bound by the development of the character, according to the plot of the play. The subtleties that can be explored by examining the character in just one act are lost. RB: When you perform these individual acts, do you think of the other acts in the play? MMC: No. 13 In 1911, T. Ganapati Sastri discovered 13 plays that many scholars have attributed to Bhasa in what is today the Oriental Research Institute and Manuscripts Library in Thiruvanthapuram (Trivandrum). While the authorship of Bhasa for most of these plays remains controversial, the number of acts of plays from this collection that have been produced by Chakyars over the centuries is large. The noted connoisseur-​scholar of Kutiyattam, D. Appukkuttan Nair, lists 36 titles of acts allegedly linked to Bhasa’s plays that have been part of the traditional Kutiyattam repertoire. See Varadpande (1987: 42–​43).

230  Conversations and Arguments RB: Would you then say that the most important thing in Kutiyattam is playing the moment in a particular act? MMC: Yes, but it’s very difficult for an actor to play the moment after listening to a scholarly discussion of the character, which defines all its emotional contours in some logical progression. Instead of succumbing to a particular ideal of how a character should be, I prefer to perform the character as a human being with many contradictions, as they get expressed in the moment. RB: David Shulman, a long-​time spectator of your work, has said that Kutiyattam involves extreme personalization. It seems like an astute insight that counters a widespread perception that traditional Indian theater is impersonal. DIG: Kutiyattam is very personal. Not just now, but even in the history of Kutiyattam, we see how the personalities of gurus like Ammannur and Painkulam shaped their performances. MMC: Painkulam’s approach to teaching and performance had an affinity toward beauty and subtlety while Ammanur’s was deep and strong. DIG: What I am saying may not be true of other actors, but my experience of the personalization of the acting style in Kutiyattam has both advantages and disadvantages. Those who are not ready to bear the pain of performance should keep in mind that the personal does not mean that the overall structure of the performance can be taken for granted. Short-​cuts can disturb the structure of the performance. An extremely personalized mode of acting doesn’t mean that one doesn’t have to spend long years in training and learning the basic grammar and vocabulary of Kutiyattam. It is false to assume that, if one has a certain physical flexibility, one has automatically mastered Kutiyattam. Instead, one has to absorb the entire structure of the performance before one can be spontaneous. RB: When David Shulman was calling attention to extreme individualization, what he had in mind is that this specific kind of individualization associated with Kutiyattam comes with discipline, technique, rigor. Would it be correct to say that your relationship to the attaprakaram as performers is deeply personal and that you create it individually? MMC: Not quite. The attaprakaram is what the actors create, but one should also keep in mind the attaprakarams written by Ammannur in 1987. One should also keep in mind that the attaprakaram is not like the Holy Bible. The poet and cultural theorist Ayyappa Paniker used to say that for whatever purpose it was written, one needed to overcome that hurdle. The written text

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  231 of the attaprakaram is just the basic level on which other things need to be added. Very often I add something to a performance which did not exist in the original attaprakaram. I create it on the stage. RB: Did you know before the performance began that you were going to create something new on stage? MMC: It could be that when I was practicing a particular piece that I had tried out something new. But I had not fleshed it out completely. This happens only in performance. RB: Did you tell your co-​actors that you were going to try out something new? MMC: Only the drummers knew about it. DIG: The text of the attaprakaram can be increased by adding shlokas. In the nirvahanam, you can add to the text, but in the main part of the performance, you are compelled to chant the playwright’s words. One cannot edit the words of the playwright, but in the nirvahanam, the actor has the freedom to add and modify the words. RB: Are the shlokas in the text chanted after its enactment has been rendered or before? MMC: In the play, the shloka is chanted before the enactment with the last part chanted again after the enactment. This is like a full stop indicating the closure of the shloka and providing a cue for the next part of the enactment. DIG: But in the nirvahanam, the opposite takes place. The enactment takes place first and then the shloka is chanted. RB: Whose nirvahanam did you perform while enacting the seventh act of Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi? MMC: It was Sri Rama’s recapitulation, which is performed over two nights. First comes the discussion with Mandodari, after she intervenes in the order of things. DIG: This sequence of events starts very late in the performance. After Ravana gets defeated in his first confrontation with Rama, he goes to Mandodari. The nirvahanam starts with the conversation between Ravana and Mandodari. This takes more than nine hours. MMC: Then comes the fight scene, followed by Mandodari seeing the dead body of Ravana in the battlefield. RB: Do the clues for performing the nirvahanam come from earlier attaprakarams? MMC: They come from attaprakarams and kramadipikas (krāmadīpikas; production manuals), which instruct you how to go from one shloka to the

232  Conversations and Arguments next. Attaprakarams are the actor’s notes; the kramadipikas are the directors’ notes, including instructions about stage directions, props, costumes, entries and exits. RB: What do the actor’s notes contain? MMC: They contain instructions as to how each dialogue is to be elaborated. RB: Are the attaprakarams and kramadipikas written in Malayalam or Sanskrit? MMC: They are all in Malayalam. Some palm-​leaf manuscripts exist in Sanskrit. Some argue that this language choice reflects an earlier stage of Kutiyattam performance, but I feel that the scholars who notated those performances were more comfortable recording their texts in Sanskrit. DIG: What needs to be kept in mind is that the chanting of Sanskrit shlokas follows the grammatical laws of Sanskrit, but when these lines get elaborated through gesture, then a Malayalam syntax is used. RB: That’s a crucial point. As I was trying to read a hard copy of the text of the seventh act while watching it being performed in the bharatavākyam, where each and every word in the act is vocalized and elongated with gesture, I observed that there were slight differences between the words on the page and the chanting of the text. Is this a purely linguistic difference? DIG: Keep in mind that there is no one version of any text in its printed version. There could be several versions. MMC: The crucial difference lies in the fact that, when you are reading, you are just absorbing the meaning of the word. However, when you are performing the word, you must bring out the full significance of the word. Reading the word “Devi” on the page, and hearing Rama call out lovingly to Sita as Devi on the stage, involve two different kinds of actions. RB: I understand. The timing will be different, the emotions will be more detailed, each and every syllable will be pronounced in a particular way. DIG: Not just the syllables, but also the gestures indicated in specific stage directions, which have to be followed exactly as indicated by the playwright.14

14 There are at least three levels of chanting in Kutiyattam: “The first occurs when the words of the text are chanted in the exact order as in the text, accompanied by gestures for each word. The second, when the śloka is broken down into segments and placed in proper grammatical order (subject-​ object-​verb). . . . Finally, the last part of the śloka is again chanted with gestures serving as a cue” (correspondence with Mundoli Narayanan, May 13, 2019). In this reading, there is a linguistic base to the emotive rendering of words and lines, with a Malayalam syntax coming into play for gestural elaborations which complement the use of Sanskrit in the text.

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  233 RB: How did you learn all this? Did Ammannur teach you all these details of movement, gesture, emotion, and chanted syllable? MMC: I learned to perform Kutiyattam gradually after a period of 10 or 11 years. We had to familiarize ourselves with the ragas through the shloka, which we had to learn by heart. Then we tried to grasp their meaning. Even today, on my bike, back and forth from my home in Moozhikkulam to the university in Kaladi where I teach, I practice the text by repeating it over and over to the melody of the raga. RB: Learning by heart is, then, an integral part of the training process of a Kutiyattam performer? MMC: Yes, even attaprakarams have to be learned by heart. DIG: Only if you have “by-​hearted” the text will the guru proceed to teach you how to perform it. MMC: A relevant concept here is āṭṭaprakāram pāṭhiccu marakkuka, which means you first learn the attaprakaram by heart and then you forget it entirely. What is important to keep in mind is that while Ammannur taught us the basics of our art, he never encouraged us to merely copy him. We have had to rely on our own experience to acquire the emotional layers in our performances. RB: Is there something like a body memory that enables you to translate your training process into performance? DIG: Yes. In our training process in Kutiyattam, there are more than 500 nirvahanam shlokas which we have to remember. When I had just started my learning with Madhu Chakyar and his father, I repeated those shlokas hundreds of times. I can’t remember those shlokas consciously, but when I chant them, they are automatically remembered. However, if there is a disturbance on stage and something blocks my concentration and interrupts my chanting, I start forgetting the shloka to be chanted. If it is a shloka that I have learned very close to the time of a performance, I can imagine the lines in my mind. But if it is one of the most familiar shlokas that I had learned during the earliest stage of training, I do not always remember the words. That is why I am usually tense when I render these shlokas. If I forget a very familiar shloka during a performance, I just have to stop. MMC: I feel that even if I am lost on the stage, I can always find a way of weaving back to the moment that has been momentarily forgotten and needs to be played. DIG: As a “Nangyar” when I sit, I experience this challenge. I am expected to be both the character and the narrator. She (the Nangyar) will be in the

234  Conversations and Arguments enactment mode for some time and then she will be expected to break the silence by chanting a shloka. These are very risky moments especially when she has to render 40 to 45 shlokas in the course of a single performance. RB: Let’s try and link these insights to the performance of episodes from the Ramayana tradition. MMC: Kutiyattam is heavily dependent on the Ramayana story. RB: And not Mahabharata? MMC: There are relatively few narratives from Mahabharata that get performed. RB: Why do you think this is the case? What is it about the Ramayana story that makes it so popular? DIG: We need to remember that even though Kutiyattam was performed within the temple complex in earlier times, its performance tradition was not directly affected by Vaishnava Bhakti when Vishnu’s avatars proliferated all over India. Rama still remained human and it was possible for Sita to question him. Kutiyattam remained an independent performance tradition relatively unaffected by different religious movements. Its focus has always been on performance and character.15 MMC: The other thing, I personally feel, is that the characters in Ramayana have more intense relationships than the characters in Mahabharata. DIG: I would say that they speak to us with their own confusions. RB: In the Ramayana repertoire of Kutiyattam, the most frequently performed play is the Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi. MMC: One reason might be that Shaktibhadra is often considered to be a poet from Kerala who is believed to have lived around the 9th and 10th centuries. I am surprised that a poet from that time could visualize and write such a contemporary play for the stage. His writing is unimaginably sophisticated and progressive for its times. The play has very sharp dialogue. RB: But ultimately, it is the actors who have to make the dialogue come alive. This brings me to the vital question of breath in performance. How important is breathing to acting in Kutiyattam? MMC: Breathing gives a kind of intensity to the acting. Different kinds of breathing mechanisms are practiced, you even learn how to stop breathing. 15 In making this statement, Indu is clearly aligning herself against those positions which persist in highlighting the religious context of Kutiyattam. A scholarly analysis supporting her position can be read in Mundoli Narayanan’s (2006) critique of the “over-​ritualization” of Kutiyattam, which calls attention to the religiosity that some scholars read into the tradition at the expense of historical evidence.

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  235 What is important to keep in mind is that breathing should not become purely technical. Breath cannot be separated from the emotion in your mind. RB: Can you give me a few examples? MMC: The erotic sentiment for Sri Rama is different from that expressed by Ravana. In the case of Rama, you take very light breaths, whereas for Ravana, you use more heavy, intense breaths. In the case of the monkey-​ lord Bali, the breathing reflects a kind of self-​confidence in his personality. His brother Sugriva’s character doesn’t emanate confidence. I perceive Sugriva to be very cunning, while Bali is strong and confident. However, when I read Bhasa’s Abhiṣēkanāṭakaṃ [The Coronation Play], I find the dialogue between Rama and Bali to be very strange. I have discussed this matter with other performers and Sanskrit scholars. When I tried to question Rama on stage through the character of Bali, it was a failure. I don’t think that the question-​and-​answer debate between Bali and Rama is suited for Kutiyattam. Maybe this is more appropriate for modern theater. However, we need to keep in mind that when Ammanur played Bali, it was not just the question-​and-​answer technique that mattered, but the sublime way in which his control of breath enabled him to convey the act of dying. RB: How do you hold the attention of the audience while Bali is dying? MMC: I imagine that when a person is dying, he looks back over the life that he has lived. RB: Is this like enacting a nirvahanam in the mind? MMC: Yes, in the mind. RB: Is this written in the attaprakaram? MMC: No, Ammannur created these moments. It’s the Kodungallur style of acting. The past and future are not important for the performer. Only the present moment matters. Somebody has referred to Ravana as the dhīroddhata (haughty) type of hero. He never cries. But when I am on stage with Sita, I cry at the last moment. It comes from the feeling of loving and wanting Sita. DIG: After watching Ammannur’s Ravana, the famous Kutiyattam scholar D. Appukuttan Nair commented, “Why is Sita not accepting Ravana? There is so much śṛṅgāra [erotic sentiment] in Ravana, Sita must be a fool to deny Ravana.” RB: So, on a more personal note, why do you think Sita denies Ravana? DIG: I do not see any nobility in Ravana. He may profess his love for Sita with great intensity, but will he leave his throne and kingdom to her? He has

236  Conversations and Arguments no capacity to give unconditionally and unconditional giving is the mark of a noble person. Also, the violent way in which he abducts Sita cannot be seen as an expression of love. It is his greed that comes through in his action. He is a power-​hungry man who wants the best things in the world. So, in loving Sita, he is actually desiring the best woman around because he wants the best for himself. In contrast, I feel more affinity for Rama because, although he is weak-​minded, he is not power hungry. As I see it, his love for Sita, though not his willingness to keep her as his wife, is unconditional.16

Bibliography Gopalakrishnan, Sudha. 2012. Kutiyattam: The Heritage Theatre of India. New Delhi: Niyogi Books. Johan, Virginie. 2014. “Du je au jeu de l’acteur: Ethnoscénologie du Kūṭiyāṭṭam, théâtre épique indien.” Ph.D. dissertation, Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle-​Paris 3. Moser, Heike. 2008. Nannyar-​ Kuttu: Ein Teilaspekt des Sanskrittheatercomplexes Kutiyattam: Historische Entwicklung und Performative Textumsetzung [Nannyar-​ Kuttu: A part of the Kutiyattam Sanskrit Theatre Complex: Historical Development and Translation of Performance Text]. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Narayana Rao, Velcheru, and David Shulman, trans. 2006. The Demon’s Daughter: A Love Story from South India. Albany: State University of New York Press. Narayanan, Mundoli. 2006. “Over-​Ritualization of Performance: Western Discourses of Kutiyattam,” TDR/​The Drama Review 50:2 (Summer): 136–​153. Oberlin [Moser], Heike. 2016. “Nangiar-​Kuttu: The Changing Role of Female Performers.” Nartanam Journal 16:3 (July–​September): 107–​134. Oberlin, Heike, and David Shulman, eds., in cooperation with Elena Mucciarelli. 2019. Two Masterpieces of Kūṭiyāṭṭam: Mantrāṅkam and Aṅgulīyāṅkam. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Poulose, K. G., ed. 1993. Natankusa: A Critique on Dramaturgy. Tripunithura: Sri Ramvarma Sanskrit Government College. Raja, K. Kunjunni. 1964. Kutiyattam: An Introduction. New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi. Shulman, David. 1991. “Fire and Flood: The Testing of Sītā in Kampaṉ’s Irāmāvatāram. In Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 89–​ 113. Berkeley: University of California Press; rpt. 1992. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

16 Indu’s position in relation to Rama offers a sharp contrast to the more critical attitude expressed by Usha Nangiar, whose own ambivalence in playing Sita at different points in her career is explored by Mundoli Narayanan in Chapter 10 in this volume. What comes through in any such comparative analysis of different interpretations of the same role is the complex subjectivity that underlies the rigorous training of any performer in Kutiyattam and Nangyarkuttu. The conventions and protocols of inheriting specific roles in the tradition cannot stop individual performers from speaking through these roles in highly personalized ways.

Ramayana in Kutiyattam  237 Shulman, David. 2000. “Bhavabhūti on Cruelty and Compassion” In Questioning Ramayanas, A South Asian Tradition, ed. Paula Richman, pp. 49–​82, 366–​370. New Delhi: Oxford University Press; Berkeley: University of California Press. Shulman, David. 2012. More than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Varadpande, M. L. 1987. History of Indian Theatre, Vol. 1. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications.

12 Questions around Rām Vijay Sattriya in a Monastic Tradition Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami with Parasmoni Dutta, Paula Richman, and Rustom Bharucha

Introduction This interview was held by Parasmoni Dutta and the editors of this volume with Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami, the sattrādhikār (head abbot) of the Natun Kamalabari Sattra in Majuli, Assam, on November 23, 24, and 25, 2013. Not only did Dutta organize the interview with the very busy and venerable scholar, he played a pivotal role in translating and annotating the interview transcript, in addition to contributing his own questions to the discussion. Sri Goswami is widely recognized as one of the leading authorities on Sankaradeva (1449–​1568), who is credited for pioneering the proselytization of Vaishnavism in the northeast region of India in the late 15th to 16th centuries. Sankaradeva also established the institution of the sattra (monastery) within which the devotional practice of Sattriya (monastic performance) developed and continues to this day. Monks from different sattras celebrate the deeds of Lord Krishna through song, dance, and enactment to venerate the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as a central practice of bhakti (devotional worship). These rituals and performances occur in the namghar (nāmghar), the traditional prayer-​house, which is yet another of Sankaradeva’s multifaceted innovations, and which still plays a vital role in the socio-​religious life of Assam today. The namghar is an oval-​shaped space in a larger oblong architectural structure with two rows of pillars running along the two longer sides of the structure. Also known as kīrttan-​ghar, this space is used for performances and the collective singing of kīrttans (devotional chanting that builds at an incremental pace toward a climax through repetitive and rhythmic patterns of singing). At one extreme end of the namghar, there is an annex which serves Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami with Parasmoni Dutta, Paula Richman, and Rustom Bharucha, Questions around Rām Vijay In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0012

Questions around Rām Vijay  239 as the sanctum sanctorum. In this most sacred space of the namghar, one can find a seven-​tiered wooden pedestal on which the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is placed. This holy text is the primary focus of devotion to which the monks direct their attention in the performance of Sattriya. Apart from the namghars to be found in each sattra, there are also namghars in every village of Assam today, which serve as meeting places for entire communities to celebrate social events and to discuss matters of common concern. Today Sattriya has been recognized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s leading national institution of the performing arts, as the latest addition to the so-​called classical Indian dance tradition. In the process, the devotional practice of Sattriya as performed by male monks (in celibate and non-​celibate orders) within the precincts of the sattra is now being supplemented with a new form called “Sattriya dance,” which is performed primarily by women on proscenium stages in cities and metropolitan centers. While Sattriya, as performed by troupes of monks, is also performed outside the precincts of the sattra, the subject of this interview is Sattriya as it continues to be practiced in the monastic context, with Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami providing a free-​ranging series of thoughts on the history of this tradition. The catalyst of this interview, around which the discussion develops, is Sankaradeva’s play Rām Vijay (1568), pronounced “Ram Bijoy.” The last of six plays that he wrote for the Sattriya repertoire to disseminate bhakti among all sections of society, Rām Vijay is the only Ramayana-​based play. (The other five plays focus on Krishna and his diverse manifestations of play). While the 41 ślokas (shlokas; metrical Sanskrit verses) in the text of Rām Vijay are in Sanskrit, all the dialogue between the characters and the Sutradhara (sūtradhāra; stage manager) are in Brajabuli. A summary of Rām Vijay, which focuses mainly on Ram’s deeds in his youth, appears in the next paragraph to provide background for the reader of the interview. The play begins with a scene in which Sita laments her unfulfilled communion with Lord Vishnu in her previous birth. The following scenes show Ram and Lakshmana being taken by the sage Vishwamitra to kill the asuras (demons) who have been interfering with the rites of ascetics on his ashram. The brothers defeat the asuras, thereby enabling the sages to complete their rites. Vishwamitra then takes the brothers to Sita’s swayaṃvara where Ram breaks the bow and Sita accepts him as her husband. Ram then overpowers the other royal contestants who challenge Ram’s marriage with Sita. Janaka, Sita’s father, sends a message to Dasharatha, who then arrives for the wedding. Vishwamitra solemnizes the wedding ritual, after which Ram, Sita,

240  Conversations and Arguments Lakshmana, Dasharatha, and Vishwamitra proceed to Ayodhya. On the way, Parashurama blocks the road, challenging Ram to a confrontation. Ram subdues Parashurama, and the party continues to Ayodhya in triumph.1 While Rām Vijay is the take-​off point for the interview that follows, much of the exchange focuses on the aesthetic and theological discourse of Sattriya. This discourse provides the framework for the propagation of Vaishnava bhakti in Assam through the enactment of Sankaradeva’s plays by the monks. ***

Interview with Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami Rustom Bharucha (RB): First, we want to thank you for sharing your time with us and for allowing us to ask our questions about the Ramayana in Assam. Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami (NCG): Human beings are all students; no one has been able to be the Master. There are many things to be learned. Anāntaśāstram bahuveditāyam/​Alpaśca kālo bahavaśca vighnāḥ/​ Yatsārabhūtaṃ tadupāsitavyaṃ /​Haṃso yathā kṣīramivāmbumiśraṃ. [Endless are the scriptures to be studied. Brief is the life span, numerous are the hurdles. The essence needs to be practiced like the swan separating the milk mixed with water.] Thus, you, me and we all are students. We must be like the swan, separating milk from water. *** RB: Among the six plays written by Sankaradeva, five of them focus on Krishna while the last play, Rām Vijay [The Victory of Ram], focuses on Ram. Do you see any significance in this? What do you think is the difference in Ram as protagonist, not Krishna? NCG: It seems that Sankaradeva never had any plan to write plays focusing on Ram. He wrote Rām Vijay only at the request of Cilarai Dewan.2 1 Sankaradeva uses the names of Koushika and Bhargava interchangeably with Vishwamitra and Parashurama, respectively. For the purpose of the interview in this volume, we will use the names of Vishwamitra and Parashurama because they are more readily identified in the Ramayana tradition. 2 Cilarai (1510–​1577), younger brother and the military general of King Naranarayana (r. 1540–​ 1587), led the territorial extension of the Koch Empire. A trained Sanskrit scholar, he also provided patronage to Sankaradeva, whose niece Kamalapriya he married. In Rām Vijay he is identified as Sukladhvaj in the closing shlokas of the play, where he is invoked as a connoisseur of the arts and devotee of Lord Krishna. Sankaradeva’s later support and protection by Koch King Naranarayana

Questions around Rām Vijay  241 Sankaradeva is not Ram-​centric but Krishna-​centric. Of course, Ram too has been accepted as divine by both Sankaradeva and his disciple Mādhavadeva. Madhavadeva accepts Ram as god in the Ādi Kāṇda and Sankaradeva does the same in his Uttarā-​kāṇda. Yet, their god-​of-​worship (upāsya devatā) is not Ram but Krishna.3 Parasmoni Dutta (PD): What changes do you observe in the plays? What is the significance when Krishna is replaced by Ram? NCG: Well, although Rām Vijay deals with Ram, it shifts in the direction of Krishna. Ram is one of the thousand names of God. However, he is recognized as one of the many forms of the Supreme God, Krishna. Let me give an example: During one of his pilgrimages, one disciple asked Sankaradeva to talk about Ram and his līlā (play). Sankaradeva then narrated the various incidents of Ram’s life but, when he described the killing of Tataka, he shifted his focus to the episode of the killing of Putana (who came to feed Krishna in disguise and was subsequently killed by baby Krishna). The disciples then asked Sankaradeva why he had abruptly jumped from the story of Ram to the story of Krishna. Sankaradeva then replied that he had been deeply touched by Krishna and that his Ram was never of special significance except as a part of Krishna. This incident is described in the Guru Carit Kathā, a collection of oral biographies of Assamese Vaishnava saints.4 RB: Did Rām Vijay differ from his other plays structurally and dramaturgically? Or did it follow the same pattern? NCG: Rām Vijay is different since it was written during Sankaradeva’s last years. It is a more mature play. People say Pārijāt Haraṇ [Robbing of the Pārijāt Tree] is Sankaradeva’s best play and Rām Vijay is his second best. RB: What are the criteria for assessing the greatness of a play?

and Cilarai proved crucial to the successful spread of Vaishnava faith and practices in Assam. This was in contrast to his earlier acrimonious relations with Suhungmung (1497–​1539), the Ahom king. Although Brahmin priests in the Koch kingdom challenged Sankaradeva, his scholarship and charisma won their respect. King Naranarayana also provided administrative and material help that enabled Sankaradeva to establish a sattra in Madhupur (Nath 1989: 174). 3 Madhava Kandali composed the first Assamese retelling of the Ramayana story in the 14th century, which closely followed Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, but only the middle five kandas (kāṇḍas; books) were extant a century later. Either he only wrote five or the other two were lost. Sankaradeva then composed an Uttara-​kāṇḍa, which focuses mainly on Sita’s banishment. Sankaradeva’s chief disciple, Madhavadeva, composed a Ādi [first]-​kāṇḍa, which also contains some post-​Valmiki materials found in Bengali retellings of the narrative (Smith 1995: 27–​28). 4 This comprehensive account of Vaishnava saints is believed to be compiled from oral sources in the 17th century.

242  Conversations and Arguments NCG: It can be evaluated on the play’s deployment of rasa (aesthetic flavor, taste) to lead the audience ultimately toward bhakti rasa. In doing so, a play may in its course invoke rasas like shringara (śṛṅgāra; the erotic sentiment) but its ultimate goal must be bhakti. It is also crucial that the play be identified by its audience as reflecting their social realities. In Pārijāt Haraṇ, the realistic portrayal of pastoral life and the emotions shared by a husband and wife effectively help in drawing audiences toward bhakti, as can be seen in Satyabhama’s dialogue in that play. Such expressions and incidents may not appear in earlier texts from which the story has been borrowed. Yet such creative innovations should be considered in assessing the greatness of the play. RB: Was bhakti rasa a specific contribution of Sankaradeva to rasa theory? How did he come to engage with the rasa theory that already existed? NCG: It should be kept in mind that Sankaradeva’s bhakti is Bhāgavad-​ Gītā-​centric.5 Here, the idea of rasa is little different. Hari Bhakti Rasāmṛte Sindhu [Eternal Ocean of the Nectar of Devotion], written by Rupa Gosvami (1470–​1557), Caitanya’s disciple in Bengal, suggests that the idea of bhakti rasa developed in eastern India before Sankaradeva composed Rām Vijay. PD: Were Sankaradeva’s ideals of bhakti similar to those in the Bengali text? NCG: It cannot be put like that. Sankaradeva seems to have accepted only the bhakti part of Hari Bhakti Rasāmṛte Sindhu, but he developed a different perspective on the concept and methods of bhakti. Essentially, the center of his entire faith is to be found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Nine different forms of bhakti are mentioned in the Prahlād chapter: śravaṇ (listening to names and stories of God); kīrttan (chanting God’s names and deeds); smaraṇ (recollection of, mediation upon, God); vandan (singing praises of God); padaseva (serving God’s feet); dāsya (developing subservience toward God); archa (practicing intricate rules of worshipping God); sākhya (developing a friendship with God); and ātmaniveda (surrendering to God). Of these nine, Sankaradeva emphasized only two: shravan and kirttan, with kirttan surpassing shravan in importance. Sankaradeva’s faith in bhakti has been drawn from episodes like Prahlād Carita and Bali Calana in Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s seventh and eighth chapters.

5 Bhāgavata Purāṇa and Bhāgavad Gītā cannot be dissociated from one another in Sankaradeva’s work. “Śañkaradeva relied almost solely upon the purānas and the Bhāgavad Gītā, and tenets of his faith are firmly based on the Bhāgavata and Bhāgavad Gītā,” writes Neog (1965: 223). Sankaradeva constantly refers to Bhāgavata in his literary and dramatic texts, but Bhāgavad Gītā remains a vital philosophical source.

Questions around Rām Vijay  243 The idea of bhakti, with its nine varieties, is different from the nine rasas of classical rasa theory. However, on many occasions, it has been noted that bhakti has been described as a kind of rasa. Notice the title of the book: Hari Bhakti Rasāmṛte Sindhu.6 PD: And what do you think about Sankaradeva’s acquaintance with Nāṭyaśāstra? NCG: Sankaradeva knew Nāṭyaśāstra, but nothing about bhakti appears in Nāṭyaśāstra. RB: Some theatrical conventions found in Nāṭyaśāstra also appear in ankiya nat (aṅkīya naṭ; the traditional Assamese one-​act play), such as nandi (nāndi; benedictory verse), natyadharmi (nāṭyadharmī; stylized mode of representation), lokadharmi (lokadharmī; mode of representing the real world). Where did Sankaradeva derive his influence for the use of these conventions in his plays? NCG: Sankaradeva was familiar with Nāṭyaśāstra. He was also familiar with plays written by playwrights like Kalidasa, where conventions like nandi are used. It is true that Sankaradeva followed these works but never blindly, embracing the distinctiveness of Assamese performance traditions as well. While he seems to have accepted the names of conventional categories from Sanskrit drama, he did so selectively. For example, there are ankiya nats that contain no nāndī gīt (benedictory song). Thus, while Sankaradeva accepted some structural conventions from Sanskrit drama, he never followed them rigidly. RB: When Nāṭyaśāstra becomes a kind of hegemonic text, an omniscient master-​text, it appears to provide a code or formula for everything in all regional performance traditions of India. This has the potential to undermine creativity and adaptation at local and regional levels. NCG: Let me interrupt to say that plays of Sankaradeva and Madhavadeva were lokadharmi in nature. For instance, Nāṭyaśāstra prohibits scenes of battles, death, eating, etc., being enacted on stage, but Sankaradeva and Madhavadeva did not adhere to this prohibition. There are scenes of battle and death in Sankaradeva’s plays; and one play of Madhavadeva, Bhojan behār [A Meal Shared], focuses exclusively on eating. 6 Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra does not include bhakti among the rasas. Later commentators like Abhinavagupta (950–​1016) referred to bhakti as a bhava (emotion). The status of bhakti as a rasa remains controversial, but scholars of the Gaudiya Vaishnava school rigorously explored the idea; profound scholar Rūpa Goswamī, known for his Bhakti Rasāmṛte Sindhu, treats bhakti as the crucial rasa in which all other rasas are embedded.

244  Conversations and Arguments After Nāṭyaśāstra appeared, many authors wrote different sañgīt śāstras (authoritative scriptures on performance) in different places. These authors did not follow all the conventions of Nāṭyaśāstra. We need to keep in mind certain issues pertaining to different local contexts in which Sankaradeva’s works were nurtured. Therefore, although bhakti is Bhāgavata-​centric, it has many localized manifestations. The Assamese version, shaped by Sankaradeva, is predominantly lokadharmi in nature. This feature of Sankaradeva’s faith is visible in many practices, including his plays where many natyadharmi elements have been abandoned. RB: My work in Guruvayur on Krishnattam, a bhakti performance tradition, made me aware of the very sensitive dynamics between bhakti and lokadharmi through the use of ordinary gestures and humor. The performance idiom is direct, reaching out to people in an intimate way, dealing with aspects of everyday life. For me the lokadharmi dimension of Krishnattam is its most significant aspect, not just dramaturgically but in terms of its personalized devotion to Krishna.7 NCG: I fully agree with you that such a relationship does exist between bhakti and lokadharmi because performances must be accessible to everyone in society at large. Nāṭyadharmī does not fulfill this function. Paula Richman (PR): Let’s turn to Rām Vijay. Various texts describe Sita’s background and birth in different ways, although most agree that King Janaka found her in a field. Rām Vijay begins with Sita recalling her previous birth in which she did tapas (penance, asceticism) to gain Vishnu as her husband. Why might Sankaradeva have begun his play this way? NCG: Sankaradeva’s plays are constellations of resources and issues taken from diverse sources. Although Sankaradeva’s plays are Bhāgavata-​centric, he has incorporated many elements into his plays from other sources. He also exercised his own creative impulses in telling the story. In addition to the previous birth of Sita, the fight between Vishwamitra and Parashurama in Rām Vijay is another episode which you will never find in so-​called mainstream Ramayana texts.8 Sita’s tapas during her previous life can be interpreted as establishing the extraordinariness of Ram by conveying that Sita, by her own wish, had practiced intense bhakti to marry Ram. By stressing this at the beginning of the play, Sankaradeva calls attention to Sita’s love toward Ram and 7 See Bharucha (1993: 165–​191). 8 Vishwamitra provides an element of humor in Rām Vijay. The sage falls unconscious at seeing Sita’s beauty, even though he has been practicing tapas for long periods. He also shows cowardice when Parashurama accosts Ram.

Questions around Rām Vijay  245 shows the efficacy of the name of Ram: if one continues one’s bhakti toward God patiently, one can successfully reach God, as Sita did. PR: Why would Sankaradeva, who wanted to make Vaishnava stories of Ram accessible to Assamese people to spread bhakti, write in Brajabuli, which was not understood by most people? NCG: Brajabuli was a pan-​Indian language, not merely a local language of Assam. It is a mixture of Sanskrit, Hindi, Mathili, Odiya, and Assamese, which was supposed to be understood by a wide audience. Further, language was not the only means by which Sankaradeva conveyed his belief in bhakti. Santāvalī, a collection of biographies of saints written in post-​Sankaradeva times, declares that language is not the only means of communication: there are shlokas for the pundits, music for the elites, Brajabuli for the rural masses (grāmīṇ), and masks for the unlettered.9 Also Brajabuli was conceived as the language of Lord Krishna, since it was the language of Braja dhām (the site of Braj); Krishna is central to Sankaradeva’s bhakti. PR: Rām Vijay depicts Ram subduing Parashurama, who is furious because Ram broke Shiva’s bow. Does Ram’s victory over Parashurama imply that Ram subdues Shiva’s devotee? NCG: Yes, that is true. More than that, Vishnu’s avatars are not equal. Ram is suryavamśīya (born into the solar dynasty) whereas Krishna is candravamśīya (born into the lunar dynasty). The solar dynasty has 12 phases and the lunar dynasty 16 phases. So, Krishna is the highest and most complete avatar (purnāvatāra) of Vishnu because he has 16 phases of maturity. On this scale, Parashurama’s score is much lower: he has eka kalā (one phase of maturity), which is why he possesses flaws like anger, revenge, violence, and intolerance. And among the trio of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, Vishnu is higher than Shiva—​a fact shown symbolically in Rām Vijay. PR: The play depicts Janaka giving a dowry at Sita’s wedding. It is said that, in Assam, there is bride-​price, not dowry. If so, why is dowry mentioned in the play? NCG: The idea that there was no dowry in Assam may not always have been true across its diverse communities and localities. It may not have been as demanding and elaborate as it is today, but perhaps it was practiced in some form.

9 Sri Sri Dwārikānāth Dvīj wrote this text in Assamese verse in the late 19th or early 20th century.

246  Conversations and Arguments PR: Vishwamitra is shown as a humorous character. At times, he displays laughable human weaknesses. Is it for humor’s sake or does it have another significance? NCG: This humor emphasizes the contrast of Vishwamitra with Ram. Vishwamitra is very human so he has all the human tendencies, whereas Ram is God. Therefore, Ram never deviates or slips in his action. Another dramatic function of this scene is to ascertain the beauty of Sita—​at the face of whom even a controlled man like Vishwamitra could not remain composed. PD: After reading Rām Vijay, I felt that the shringara (erotic) rasa is more dominant than the vira (vīra; heroic) rasa. The play begins with Sita’s love for Ram and ends with their successful union. In between, there are at least two benedictions (praises in verse sung during the play) on Sita that call attention to her beauty. So, isn’t shringara a significant sentiment in the play? NCG: Yes, it is there. And among the nine rasas, shringara is the most important (pradhān). RB: I am curious about the absence of Radha in Sankaradeva’s Vaishnavism. How can we reconcile these two things: elimination of Radha and celebration of shringara in the plays of Sankaradeva? Also, how does this shringara relate to the monastic life of celibacy? NCG: There are three varieties of shringara: dharma, artha, and kāma. The kāma (lustful) shringara is nonexistent in Sattriya tradition. The dharma (virtuous, dutiful) shringara is very much part of Sattriya tradition. RB: Whose classification is this? NCG: It appears in Vishvanatha’s Sāhityadarpaṇa, an authoritative 14th-​ century treatise on Indian aesthetics. PR: In Rām Vijay, at first Ram is extremely humble. He even fears that he might not be able to pick up Shiva’s bow. But once he breaks the bow, he becomes rather arrogant and asserts his authority over the other kings. What is your interpretation of this transformation? NCG: The ajagawa bow was an extraordinary bow; it was made of the horns of goat (aja) and cow (gawa). Ramachandra [Ram] remained very humble to Vishwamitra because it is customary to remain humble before gurus. But he becomes arrogant when he is ridiculed or challenged by the other kings or by Parashurama; none of them are gurus. PR: In India, Ram is often viewed an ideal man whom others should emulate. Sankaradeva was devoted to Krishna, so do Vaishnavas in Assam also view Ram as an ideal king and warrior?

Questions around Rām Vijay  247 NCG: Ram is respected in Vaishnavism and the Sattriya traditions here. He appears in the writings of Sankaradeva and Madhavadeva. Yet, we are not Ram-​bhaktas. We worship Krishna only, without Radha. Thus, Krishna is the complete avatar, surpassing Ram. Even when we consider Ram to be ideal, we are confronted with some of his misdeeds, especially his disowning of Sita. In his Uttara-​kāṇḍa, Sankaradeva criticized Ram through dialogues with Sita. Here, Sankaradeva is closer to today’s feminists when he makes Sita scold Ram for his utter disrespect to women.10 He also disowns Lakshmana. PR: Will you tell us the incident in which Lakshmana is disowned? NCG: In Sankaradeva’s Uttara-​kāṇḍa, Kala [Time] comes to meet Ram. Kala says that he wants to talk to Ram alone, and no one else should be allowed to interrupt their conversation. Kala makes Ram promise that whoever disturbs their conversation will be disowned by the king. Ram agrees and asks Lakshmana to guard the door, telling him strictly that whoever enters will be disowned. While Lakshmana is guarding the door, the angry Sage Durvasa comes to meet Ram. When Lakshmana tells him about Ram’s restrictions, Durvasa threatens to burn up Ram’s entire family, unless he is admitted to Ram’s chamber immediately. Fearing the loss of his entire family, Lakshmana decides to enter Ram’s room to ask him about Durvasa’s arrival. However, Ram keeps to his promise, disowning Lakshman when he enters. PR: In Sankaradeva’s plays, there are Sanskrit poems in some places; in other places, there are dialogues of the characters. There is also narration by the Sūtradhāra (stage manager, director). Is there any specific convention that certain dialogues are to be uttered by the Sutradhara and that others are to be uttered by other characters? When does the Sutradhara take over the narration? NCG: The Sutradhara communicates in shlokas, gits (gīts; song), and sutras (sūtras, literally “thread”). By “sutra,” I mean he controls the thread. He tells which character should perform the dialogue next. When he says “Rām bolā,” it means Ram will speak now; when he says “Viśwamitrā bolā,” it means that Vishwamitra will speak now. In this way, he controls and narrates the play. RB: Tell us about how Sankaradeva spread Vaishnavism in Assam.

10 See Smith (2004) for an exposition on the “Wrath of Sita” in relation to Sankaradeva’s Uttara-​kāṇḍa.

248  Conversations and Arguments NCG: Even before Sankaradeva, Vaishnavism was there in Assam but in a much-​subdued form, without much influence in society. Shaivism and Shaktism were more prominent. RB: Does Sankaradeva allude to these earlier traditions at all in his writings on bhakti? NCG: Yes, but with covert references in the form of hints only. Because of the power of kings, and especially the Śākta counsels of the kings, Sankaradeva has only hinted at the flaws of Shaivism and Shaktism. PR: You’ve told us how Sankaradeva used songs and plays to spread Vaishnavism. Is that because he cared not just about kings but also about in spreading bhakti among ordinary people? NCG: Yes, but we have reason to believe that Sankaradeva didn’t like kings, except the Koch king, Naranarayana. Several incidents in the oral biography indicate this. One such incident took place in Majuli when Sankaradeva, along with his chief disciple Madhavadeva and son-​in-​law Hari Bhuyan, came to preach Vaishnavism. Some conspirators managed to get an order from the Ahom king specifying that Sankaradeva should be entrusted with catching wild elephants here. The king also ordered that if the elephants escaped, the chief of the team would be punished. However, Sankaradeva did not like to kill animals unnecessarily. For example, when he was on a pilgrimage, he found a deer caught in a hunter’s net. After releasing it from the net, he left one coin on the net for the hunter. When the hunter returned to his net, he found the coin. In this way, he came to know about Sankaradeva and later became his disciple. Therefore, Sankaradeva chose to defy the king, saying that animals were not to be caught unnecessarily. Thus, the elephants escaped and the king, after learning what had happened, sent his army to catch Sankaradeva. Madhavadeva and Hari Bhuyan advised Sankaradeva to flee from Majuli. After he left, Madhavadeva and Hari Bhuyan were taken to the king’s court. The king spared Madhavadeva since he was a celibate and the king believed that a celibate would have no one to shed tears at his death. Sankaradeva’s son-​in-​law, Hari Bhuyan, was beheaded. Another incident unambiguously reveals Sankaradeva’s disapproval of the Ahom king. While conversing with a visiting ascetic, Sankaradeva asked which king could be regarded as a good king. The ascetic told him of a kingdom where he had encountered a good king. Then Sankaradeva described to him an incident that demonstrated the stupidity and cruelty of the Ahom king. A fruit-​seller gave the king a jorā tengā (a local citrus fruit)

Questions around Rām Vijay  249 and he found it very sweet. He was satisfied with the fruit-​seller and was about to give him some reward for the quality of his fruits. But one minister pointed out that the sweet fruit had been enjoyed only by the king, while the king’s forefathers did not get to enjoy the taste of such sweet fruit and asked whether the king should share this fruit with his forefathers. So, the king buried the fruit-​seller alive in the graveyard of his forefathers, along with the seeds of the fruits, thinking that as a result, the fruit would be available to the dead forefathers. This story indicates that Sankaradeva preferred to distance himself from the kings. PR: Might the story’s point be to show that Sankaradeva saw the king as using his power in an arbitrary way when he killed the fruit-​vendor; in contrast, Sankaradeva used his power as a compassionate person to avoid letting the hunter starve because his trap failed to contain the deer. Would that be an appropriate interpretation? NCG: Yes, the power of the king and the power of Sankaradeva are different. One is a royal power and the other is the power of a religious guru. The religious power is, by default, about tolerance and humanism. But these are not perhaps essential for royal power, which concerns securing the throne and subduing the subjects of the kingdom. RB: In Sankaradeva’s time, there was Shakti worship and Shaivism in response to which Sankaradeva was trying to introduce something else. It was obviously a big struggle. Who was Sankaradeva’s guru and how did he get initiated? NCG: In Sankaradeva’s own words, his guru was the bhaktas (devotees). Once, a Brahmin sought to undermine Sankaradeva’s credibility by asking one of his disciples who Sankaradeva’s guru was. The disciple could not give a proper reply to the Brahmin, so he came and asked Sankaradeva for a clarification. Sankaradeva replied that his guru is the bhaktas. As there is no difference between the air and the sky, there is no difference between him and his bhaktas. PR: This suggests that Sankaradeva felt he could learn from anyone who was sincerely devoted to Vishnu, a stance which seems to undermine the system of the guru-​śiṣya paramparā (lineage of knowledge transmitted from guru to disciple). Would it have been radical at that time? NCG: Yes, it was exceptional at that time. No one else had spoken in that way. None of the other Indian gurus had said that kind of thing. RB: Shifting the focus to the performance tradition of Sattriya, can we say that Sankaradeva created the sattra system, and out of the sattra system

250  Conversations and Arguments something like the Sattriya performance tradition emerged? Is this an accurate assessment? NCG: Yes, he was the initiator. He started all these institutions, but his disciples gave them their final shape. Let me give an example. Have you noticed how temples or schools are started in villages? Initially, a few people start it by erecting a structure made of wood, bamboo, and straw. When this structure becomes visible and begins to function, other people start to contribute bricks, cement, and iron bars. With such contributions, the building becomes a concrete permanent structure. Now tell me, who can be called the creator of the building? It is the same with the Sattriya system. Sankaradeva indeed founded it, but his structure was not the concrete one that we see now. And, by the way, to create a building, you need to clear the ground first: you need to prepare the plot of land by clearing the vegetation. Sankaradeva cleared the forests, prepared the ground, and built the raw structure of the sattra. RB: Which disciple of Sankaradeva’s gave the final shape to the Sattriya structure? NCG: Sankaradeva’s chief disciple, Madhavadeva, contributed a lot, as did Damodardeva. RB: What about Sattriya? When did that come into being? NCG: The evolution of Sattriya performance is similar to the emergence of sattra institutions. Sankaradeva composed 140 bargits (bargīts; great songs) for Kamalā Gāyan, a singer from Barpeta, who took those written songs from Sankaradeva to practice them. However, the manuscripts of those lyrics got burned in a fire and 34 songs could be recovered from the memory of the devotees, but others were lost. Sankaradeva became upset. He told Madhavadeva, “I composed those songs with so much labor, but they have been burned. I can’t create anymore. You do the rest.” So, Madhavadeva started writing songs. Along with writing lyrics, the raga (rāga; melodic mode) and tala (tāla; rhythmic cycle) for each song were also arranged. Therefore, in a way, you can say that the performance of Sattriya was founded by both Sankaradeva and Madhavadeva. They created 8 talas and 34 ragas, as well as the key texts for the Sattra institution and Sattriya performances. RB: How did the dramatic tradition of Sattriya come into being? NCG: Sankaradeva started with the play Cihna-​Yātrā.11

11 The first drama composed by Sankaradeva, and staged under his direction with painted scenes depicting the seven celestial abodes.

Questions around Rām Vijay  251 PD: When we refer to the performance of Sattriya, doesn’t it include both the bargits and the bhaonas (bhāonās; enactments)?12 NCG: Yes, it includes them all. PR: Wasn’t the first play mostly paintings, and then the songs came next. So, does that mean that the drama was putting together the visual and the musical? NCG: Yes, it was a novel experiment with audio and visual elements. PD: The music and drama went together. In fact, there are songs within the plays which are now called ankiya gits.13 RB: Is there a difference between bargit and ankiya git? NCG: Yes, there is a difference. The lyrics of the bargits are philosophical in nature, loaded with bhakti. But the ankiya git are more natyadharmi, appropriate to the stylized presentation of a play. The specific raga and tala for each ankiya git are mentioned in the plays, but you may not find much about the talas of the bargits in early manuscripts. Only much later were talas prescribed for all the bargits. RB: What were some of the influences on Sankaradeva when he wrote his plays? Was he influenced by Kalidasa or the tradition of Oja-​pali (Ojā-​pāli)?14 NCG: Sankaradeva did study the plays of Kalidasa as well as Bhasa. So, he was enriched with a prior knowledge of dramaturgy. However, he created bhaona with our local technology and resources. Sankaradeva got the tāl (cymbals) prepared by bell-​metal artisans in Raha (central Assam). He got the khol (drum) developed by the local potters. He himself contributed to the ghun (the black round smearing on both sides of the drum) on the membrane of the khol. RB: I want to get back to Oja-​pali.

12 Usually, the script of the play is called nāṭ and the enactment is called bhāonā. While Sankaradeva and later saints composed and wrote stage plays in Brajabuli, later such plays began to be written and performed in colloquial Mātribhāṣā Assamese. Both varieties of bhaona are characterized by the presence of a Sutradhara, in addition to sequences of dances and songs. The prayer-​hall (nāmghar) of the village and that of the sattra (kīrttanghar) are the traditional sites where bhaona are performed at night on various occasions. 13 Ankiya gits are songs which were written not as stand-​alone songs but as parts of ankiya nats. 14 Oja-​pali is a folk performance tradition which existed before Sankaradeva began to propagate his new faith and cultural practices. Performed by a small troupe under a master called Ojā and his accompanying performers called pāli, the performance revolves around a narrative which is performed through choral singing, dancing, hand-​gestures, and the playing of cymbals. There are two varieties of Oja-​pali: “one that accompanies Manasā worship and sings songs celebrating the serpent goddess; and the other which represents stories from the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and the purānas” (Neog 1965: 251). Several elements of Oja-​pali infused later Sattriya performing arts.

252  Conversations and Arguments NCG: Oja-​pali was very much there during Sankardeva’s times, but we do not know in what form it existed at that time. What we do know is that it took on a new form with Sankaradeva. He wrote padas (lyrics) for Oja-​pali for scenes in Prahlād Caritra, Kamsa Vādha, etc., which are mentioned in orally transmitted biographies. PD: What kind of influence from Oja-​ pali do you see in Sankaradeva’s drama? NCG: There may be influences of Oja-​pali on Sankaradeva’s drama. He was like a honey bee who fills the hive with nectars from different flowers. It is not that Sankaradeva is indebted for taking elements from Kalidasa, Bhasa, or Oja-​pali, just as a honey bee is not indebted to the flowers. And this is not the case with Sankaradeva alone. Ever since pre-​Sankaradeva times, things have been happening in this way—​one influencing and inspiring the other. PD: No, the question of being indebted does not arise. Out of academic curiosity only I am asking whether you see any kind of similarities between Oja-​pali and Sankaradeva’s drama. NCG: The abhinaya (acting) element of Oja-​pali has come to Sankaradeva’s bhaona (performance). PD: Could there be similarities between the Oja of Oja-​pali and the Sutradhara of bhaona? NCG: Yes, there can be some connections between them, but the idea of the Sutradhara was there in Nāṭyaśāstra and the works of Bhasa and Kalidasa. RB: What about the Sutradhara’s costume. It’s a flowing kind of robe. There is a belt. And there is the interesting tupi (ṭupī; headgear, cap). What is it made of? NCG: The tupi is the product of several ingredients such as cloth, clay, paper, and glue. Regarding the kind of clay used in the making of the tupi, it should not be sandy. Rather, it should be a tight, sticky clay. Otherwise, potter’s clay is also used. The clay mold is used to give the stiffness of the tupi. If it is felt to be too heavy, then paper also is used instead of clay. PD: Is the Sutradhara a male or a female? NCG: It is neither male, nor female, not even a eunuch. The positive side of this ambiguity is that, in the performance, the Sutradhara can take on the role of any male or female character if necessary. RB: I believe that there are two kinds of Oja-​pali. NCG: Yes, Sukanānni is Shakta; Vyāh gowā is Vaishnavite. Ramayana elements appear in both.

Questions around Rām Vijay  253 PR: In the Sattriya tradition, which Ramayana texts do you draw upon? NCG: The only Ramayana texts which can be called canonical in the Assamese Sattriya context are those of Madhava Kandali, Sankaradeva, and Madhavadeva.15 RB: What is characteristic of Madhava Kandali’s retelling of the Ramayana story? Is it a translation? Was he working from Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa as his source? NCG: You can call it a loose adaptation of Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa. There are several elements added and created by Kandali himself. RB: When you adapt something, you select certain things and exclude others. What does Madhava Kandali stress? PR: For example, would you call it a bhakti Ramayana? NCG: Shakta influence is there. Texts like Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, and Kandali’s retelling of the Ramayana story are all kāvyas (ornate, elaborate narrative poems). These are stories of the deeds of kings and warriors. You cannot call them bhakti shastras (śāstras; treatises) because there is no philosophical and interpretative abstraction in them. For example, the Gītā is a bhakti shastra extracted out of Mahābhārata. Similarly, Bhāgavata is a bhakti shastra. PR: Would you consider Pārijāt Haraṇ a bhakti kind of play? NCG: Yes, you can call it a bhakti kind of play. But this is a play only, not a philosophical and interpretative treatise like Bhāgavata or Ratnāvalī, which we place on the pedestal of our sanctum sanctorum (inner shrine) of the namghar. PR: Moving to another subject, can you tell us how you were initiated in the monastic order? NCG: In fact, my whole life has been spent inside the sattra. I was born in 1942 in the Cāmaguri Sattra.16 I was taken to this Natun Kamalābārī Sattra in 1950. PR: Why did you change your sattra? NCG: We have celibate and non-​celibate sattras. In non-​celibate sattras, the household families are devotees, and successive generations continue. 15 See note 2 in this chapter. 16 The Camaguri Sattra of Majuli was established by saint Cakrapāni Ᾱtā in 1663. Later, it split into three branches, all of which are now located in Majuli. Camaguri sattras are known for traditional expertise in mask-​making for ritual bhaonas. The Kamalabari Sattra was founded in 1673 by saint Padma Ᾱtā, a disciple of Madhavadeva. It also split into three branches, two of which are now located in Majuli. The Kamalabari Sattra school, whose monks are celibate, is renowned for specialized skills in various fields of sattriya performing arts.

254  Conversations and Arguments But in celibate sattras, such as this one, you need to bring devotees from somewhere else. Thus, I was brought here when I was eight years old. PR: What was the training like in the sattra? You have a scholarly mind. Were you trained in the monastery to study history and literature along with your training in music, dance, and drama? NCG: My academic studies developed by virtue of my personal effort and interest, not as part of mandatory Sattriya training in the performing arts and other topics. In my youth, I studied with my Sattrādhikār (head of the monastery, abbot). PR: Did everybody in the sattra learn Brajabuli? NCG: Yes, that is the language of the plays. In monastic training, you need to memorize and perform the plays, so you learn the language that way. RB: How is it learned? Does a senior monk read the manuscript, and others repeat the lines? NCG: No, it is not like that. When rehearsals of a play start, the dialogues of different characters are distributed to the respective monks who will play the roles. Each monk-​actor will then approach any senior specialist monks for personalized improvisation to enact his assigned role. RB: Is it a one-​to-​one training, with each actor trained by one specialist monk? NCG: No. Three or four masters conduct the whole rehearsal training. PR: You have developed your knowledge in studying and interpreting texts. Are there others who specialize in fields of performance? NCG: Yes, you can put it that way. The bargāyan (master in vocal music) and barbāyan (master in drumming and general performance) are designations for specialists in performing arts. RB: Is there any specific time of day when performances are learned and practiced? NCG: Most are learned during the rehearsals of the plays, which are staged on various occasions. Some devotees study singing and playing instruments regularly, so it is a daily activity for them. PR: Are plays performed at certain times of year or on occasions like festivals? NCG: The most crucial occasions for performing plays at our sattra are the anniversaries of Sankaradeva, Madhavadeva, and our founding Sattradhikar, all of which fall in the month of Bhāda (mid-​August to mid-​ September). Sankaradeva’s plays are performed on the anniversary of his death; Madhavadeva’s plays on his death anniversary, and so on.

Questions around Rām Vijay  255 PR: Are all six plays of Sankaradeva performed on his death anniversary? PD: No, not all six, but any one of the six can be performed. PR: If you are invited to perform outside the sattra, how do you decide which play to perform? NCG: Sometimes the organizers choose a specific play. Otherwise, one is selected by us. RB: Do you remember the first role you played and the feeling you had? NCG: I have no experience of acting in plays. Sattradhikars like me are not allowed to take part in performances. A Sattradhikar should study, manage, and lead the sattra in preaching our ideals. RB: You have seen performances by other monks. Returning to an earlier question, what do you think about the connection between these performances and the bhakti-​centered life of a celibate monk? The monastic life involves control and discipline of human feelings, whereas abhinaya explores and demonstrates these feelings and senses. How do these seemingly divergent paths meet to achieve bhakti? NCG: Performances are temporary moments, but real life extends much longer than a performance. The enactment of the plays is a kind of technical exercise within the learning process. It doesn’t involve any conflict with real life. For example, in the sattras we are not supposed to exercise shringara in real life, but the monks need to enact the sentiments of Sita or Satyabhama. It is done as a technical exercise, as part of monastic discipline only. PD: More than that, the plays may have sentiments like shringara or vira, but at the conclusion, each play invariably comes to the point of bhakti. NCG: Yes, in a way, all our plays are encapsulated in the larger context of bhakti. RB: What are the criteria for evaluating the bhakti of a performance? NCG: It is evaluated according to the basis of the connection established with the people, the audience. If the audience is convinced and satisfied that “yes, this is the Krishna or Ram I imagine,” the performance is a success. RB: When an actor plays a role like Krishna or Satyabhama, does the actor become one with the role? Or does he remain conscious that he is only playing the role? NCG: When he plays the role of Krishna, he becomes Krishna. People touch his feet. That bhakti is the prime element of the whole exercise. RB: How does an actor imbibe this oneness with Krishna? NCG: It is through makeup and training. Audience responses to him in his surrounding also help him to achieve this oneness.

256  Conversations and Arguments

Bibliography Barua, Hem. 1965. Assamese Literature. New Delhi: National Book Trust. Baruah, S. L. 1977. “Slavery in Assam.” Journal of Historical Research II:1 (March): 73–​82. Bharucha, Rustom. 1993. “Preparing for Krishna.” In Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture, pp. 165–​191. London and New York: Routledge. Nath, D. 1989. History of the Koch Kingdom (c. 1515—​1615), 1st edition. Delhi: Mittal Publications. Neog, Maheswar. 1965. Śaṅkaradeva and His Times: Early History of the Vaiṣṇava Faith and Movement in Assam, 3rd edition [1998]. Guwahati: Lawyer’s Book Stall. Sarma, Satyendra Nath. 1966. The Neo-​Vaiṣṇavite Movement and the Satra Institution of Assam, 1st edition. Guwahati: Department of Publication, Gauhati University. Smith, William L. 1994. “The Wrath of Sītā: Śaṅkaradeva’s Uttarakāṇḍa.” Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies 2:4: 5–​15. Smith, William L. 1995. Ramayana Traditions in Eastern India: Assam, Bengal, Orissa. 2nd revised edition. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

13 Performing the Argument Ramayana in Talamaddale Akshara K.V.

As a contemporary theater practitioner, I have been watching Talamaddale performances for over 30 years. I am not a Talamaddale performer, but as an audience member I respond to the form as intensely as I do to other contemporary theater performances, and sometimes more intensely.1 Experiencing Talamaddale makes me aware of the crucial role of verbal art in performance and the resources available to cultivate the vachika (vācika; verbal) aspect of theater. Equally pivotal, over the last two decades, I have revisited the narrative landscapes of stories relating to Rama and Sita, the Pandavas and Kauravas, and Krishna’s deeds by watching Yakshagana and Talamaddale. Doing so has yielded insights that have aided me not only in my work as a theater practitioner, but also in deepening my understanding of the social dimensions of performance in relation to argument and debate. Finally, in its own modest way, Talamaddale helps me to make sense of my own traditions, and negotiate with them, as part of my identity-​building process in our troubled times. Drawing on features of the Ramayana tradition that play out in Talamaddale, this essay explores how the form has engaged me in reflecting about performance, verbal art, tradition, and argument. Originating around the 15th–​16th century, Yakshagana is the name that is usually used to refer to the theater form popular in the western part of Karnataka, mostly in present-​day districts of Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Shimoga, and Uttara Kannada. Talamaddale is often described as a sub-​genre of Yakshagana since it looks like a Yakshagana performance without costume and dance. Yet both forms have undergone major changes with each form

1 The name Talamaddale comes from two instruments used during its performance: tāḷa are small metal cymbals and maddale is a drum. The precise meaning of Yakshagana is less clear. Some scholars define gāna as “singing,” and yakṣas are semi-​divine attendants of Kubera, God of Wealth.

Akshara K.V., Performing the Argument In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0013

258  Conversations and Arguments going its own way since the 1950s. In this essay, I examine how Talamaddale has created its own set of discursive, vocal, and physical strategies for innovative arguments while illuminating a set of Hindu narratives. Today, Yakshagana is a developed performance genre, with its own distinct style of music, costumes, choreography, and dance, that enacts prasangas (prasaṅgas; play-​texts, “episodes” in verse) from puranic (purāṇic) narratives as well as fictional narratives. Although most traditional troupes are nominally attached to temples, their performance is not part of temple rituals, nor does their funding depend on temple sources. The relatively traditional bayalāṭa (open-​air) Yakshagana troupe is not ticketed and is often sponsored by the village community. After the 1950s came the “Tent Mela” troupe, which has a huge tent with props, costumes, and musical instruments that are transported from one performance to the other and assembled at the venue. The audience sits on three sides and the musicians—​a bhagawata (bhāgawata; singer) and two percussionists, one playing tala (tāḷa; cymbal) and the other playing maddale (drum)—​sit at the back of the stage. The bhagawata sings verses set to a variety of ragas and talas, and actors (called vēṣa-​dhāris, literally “bearers of the character”) dance to the music. Between two such songs, the actors take the story forward with impromptu dialogues. Characters such as rakshasas, kings, princes, queens, and young warriors wear elaborate, stylized costumes and makeup; characters such as ministers, mendicants, and servants wear less elaborate attire. Specific dance patterns conventionally denote certain actions, for instance, a character’s entry, travel to a new place, or battle.2 In contrast, in Talamaddale, the actors (called arthadharis; artha-​dhāris, “bearers of the meaning”), squat on the small stage, and take the story forward, mostly with verbal exchanges. Talamaddale usually takes place indoors, in almost any space. The narrative unfolds with the bhagawata singing the prasanga parts, followed by actors playing the respective characters, who elaborate upon the situation through extempore dialogues and debate. Though it looks like a story told in a dialogic manner, that is only its basic skeleton. Most of the audience knows the plot already, especially for the Ramayana narrative, so the theatrical experience of Talamaddale consists of how actors handle a known situation in each performance by using their verbal skills. The actors, while advancing the plot as narrated in the written 2 For a more detailed introduction in English to the history and theatrical form of Yakshagana, see S. K. Karanth (1997); Ashton and Christie (1977); Bapat (1998); Bilimale and Chaudhuri (2000).

Performing the Argument  259 prasangas, also contextualize each situation in the larger puranic context, while interpreting the characters and their actions based on shastras, puranic texts, philosophical texts, and literary works. Thus, a powerful Talamaddale performance always presents a new “twist” to the known plot, a fresh reading, and its rebuttal, without changing the overall flow of the puranic narrative. Talamaddale actors, it is often caustically remarked, do not “play” the role—​ they “advocate” it! What kind of an advocacy is this? And what constitutes the crucial theatricality of the Talamaddale form that differentiates it experientially from Yakshagana? In this essay I argue that in Talamaddale, advocacy is not for or against a specific character, or a specific interpretation of an incident (e.g., was it right for Rama to kill Vali?), but about the act of embodying the argument itself. In other words, this form does not just present before us a theatrical argument between characters or attitudes; the argument itself is theatricalized. Talamaddale has diverged from Yakshagana by eliminating angika (āṅgika; body movement) to a large extent and aharya (āhārya; costume, ornaments, and makeup) altogether. And these eliminations have contributed toward the theatricalization of performing the argument in Talamaddale. This essay illustrates how this distinctness is achieved within Talamaddale and, thus, how it essentially differs from Yakshagana.

Talamaddale and Yakshagana: Symbiosis and Divergence Both Yakshagana and Talamaddale were mostly all-​night performances until almost the 1970s. Since then, both forms have begun doing limited-​ duration performances, lasting between two and five hours. All-​night shows have become less frequent in Yakshagana and very rare in Talamaddale. Both Yakshagana and Talamaddale have sustained themselves without any financial support from either the government or other funding agencies.3 The 3 Prithviraj Kavattar, a journalist and Yakshagana artist currently working with and writing about these forms, has provided a very rough estimate of the statistical data today. For Yakshagana: number of professional actors (exclusively male): 1,000. Number of performances per year: over 3,000 (professional) and more than 10,000 (non-​professional). More than 1,000,000 people watch Yakshagana every year. For Talamaddale: professional actors (exclusively male): around 100; actors in the community-​ based non-​ professional circuit: more than 1,000 (90%–​ 95% male). Number of performances per year: 1,000 (professional) and 3,000 (non-​professional). More than 500,000 people watch Talamaddale every year.

260  Conversations and Arguments first phase of Talamaddale developed between 1915 and 1950. Before 1925, the records from available memoirs indicate that a Talamaddale show was mainly a narrative rendering of a prasanga, accompanied by simple prose explanations. Some of the first-​generation Talamaddale actors were also scholars of pre-​modern literature, and many were Kannada and Sanskrit pandits, exposed to modern institutions of learning and scholarship. Their training probably prompted them to modify the rudimentary format of Talamaddale by intensifying the dialogic portions through verbal skills and argument.4 The first wave of Talamaddale’s popularity is marked by the advent of two major actors, Sheni Gopalakrishna Bhat (1918–​ 2006) and Malpe Shankaranarayana Samaga (1911–​ 1999), who gained exclusive fame as Talamaddale stars in the coming decades. Strikingly, both were Harikatha performers, and brought a multidimensional dramatic presentation into the Talamaddale form.5 Both also concentrated professionally on Talamaddale performances, but also performed in mainstream Yakshagana shows. They often played together in Talamaddale, usually as the main dialogic opponents (such as Rama and Bharata, Rama and Vali, or Rama and Ravana) and the performances began to look like verbal matches. Both men were quite well-​ versed in puranic texts, mythological characters, multiple source texts, and traditional Indian debating methods.6 With these resources, they became Talamaddale icons who were emulated by later generations.7 Many of these later practitioners followed the Sheni-​Samaga style but developed different approaches to move the verbal art forward. With this new generation of performers, a new identity of Talamaddale was forged, gaining recognition as a performance genre in its own right, instead of as a subgenre of Yakshagana.

4 Deraje Seetaramayya was one such scholar who brought his pandit training and sensibility to Talamaddale. Others who shaped the form’s development include Narayana Kille, Kirikkadu Vishnu Mastara, Venkappa Shetty, Polali Shankaranarayana Shastry, Advocate Balakrishna Rao, Puttanna Gowda, and Arkula Subrayacharya. 5 Also known as katha kālakshepa (spending time with a story), Harikatha is a one-​person performance, in which the storyteller explores a puranic theme. The performance includes dramatic shifts between singing, storytelling, and reciting poetry, at times incorporating movement. 6 In traditional Indian Nyaya parlance, debates fall into three types: vāda, a debate where both the parties seek right knowledge; jalpa, where one party attempts to win; and vitaṇḍa, where a contender tries to defeat his opponent, even at the cost of losing his case. Sheni and Samaga, as well as most of the major Talamaddale actors later, indirectly use all these modes of argument. 7 In the next three decades, scores of actors emerged, who focused exclusively on Talamaddale, including Prabhakara Joshi, Ramadasa Samaga, Perla Krishna Bhat, Kumble Sundar Rao, Mudambail Gopalakrishna Shastry, Tekkatte Ananda Mastara, Manjunatha Bhandari, Uduvekodi Subbappayya, and Kerekai Krishna Bhat, to name a few.

Performing the Argument  261 Meanwhile, between 1950 and 1990, Yakshagana flourished and expanded its outreach. Many new prasangas were written and added to the repertoire, which included many kṣētra-​mahātme (literally “the greatness of sacred places”), episodes dealing with deities, pilgrimage sites, and specific temples. This was followed by texts that dealt with purely fictional plots, and even adaptations of popular film stories. The parallel—​and at times competing relationship between Yakshagana and Talamaddale during this period—​forms the crux of a symbiotic bond that was mutually beneficial: While Yakshagana was trying to incorporate new plots from history, fiction, and popular mythology to fit into its conventional presentational mode, Talamaddale stuck to conventional puranic plots, exploring innovative ways of reading those plots. Eventually, by the mid-​1980s, Yakshagana had become a new popular theater which purist connoisseurs condemned as “deterioration.” In contrast, Talamaddale practitioners perceived their powerful verbal theater as a popular philosophical debating tradition which traditionalists viewed as mere “exaggeration” of the vachika dimension of performance. Around the turn of the 21st century, the second wave of Talamaddale brought new developments in its relationship with Yakshagana, impelled by shifts that influenced the status of both Yakshagana and Talamaddale: the expansion of the middle classes, the increased role of money (as opposed to land ownership) in determining economic status, the shifting of many agricultural laborers to the craft sectors in rural areas, and the phenomenal increase in the number of television channels. Consequently, some common changes occurred in both forms. For example, the duration of the performance decreased, since the audience consisted of smaller nuclear families, whose members could not afford to stay away from home for the whole night. Thus, after about the year 2000, all-​night Yakshagana performances became less frequent and all-​night Talamaddale shows had almost disappeared. With the increased role of a cash economy, the actors in Yakshagana and Talamaddale began to receive higher payments. Some of them now could make a living from this income. In contrast, running huge professional Yakshagana troupes became much more complicated and financially risky and some major troupes folded. Talamaddale seems to have more successfully taken advantage of these sociocultural changes than Yakshagana, as is suggested by the sustained entry of new performers and young audiences to Talamaddale. While Yakshagana became more flexible in accepting changes not only in plots and costume, but also in dance and speech, Talamaddale confined itself strictly to the puranic domain. Some versions of Yakshagana

262  Conversations and Arguments became so grossly commercialized that one could not even discern the basic Yakshagana postures in the performers’ bodies. A Talamaddale show with a non-​puranic story, however, is rare. Second, the young actors who entered Talamaddale in this period developed their talents in distinctly different ways than their predecessors, like Sheni and Samaga, whom I have mentioned earlier. These younger stars of Talamaddale developed their “specialist” identities for which they are appreciated in the performance domain today. To give my own, somewhat subjective view of these identities, Jabbar Samo, a young Muslim performer, excels in performing emotional situations;8 Umakanth Bhat Kerekai uses his knowledge of the shastras, logic, and linguistics to interpret characters; Radhakrishna Kalchar incorporates a simple everydayness in his portrayal of puranic roles; Sunnambala Vishweshwara Bhat brings Yakshagana theatrics into his verbal renderings; and Vasudeva Rangabhat draws extensively on shastras and epics. Naturally, with such specialized skills, the audience also became more selective in what they chose to see and expected the performers to offer new interpretations of their roles.

Talamaddale as Performance In this section, I illustrate the three layers of text that characterize any Talamaddale performance with examples from the Ramayana narrative. The most stable layer is the prasanga text, a written sequence of songs (sometimes with brief prose passages as well), which works like a literary dramatic script. The other two texts are largely improvised during the performance but are bound by the conventions of the form. The second text is the musical rendering of songs chosen by the bhagawata, from the large collection of songs about each incident found in the prasanga. The third is a completely extempore verbal text consisting of presentations made by the actors during the performance. This verbal text is not written down, nor memorized, not even pre-​planned. For instance, when professional Talamaddale actors are invited individually to do a performance, none of them knows (or even cares 8 Jabbar Samo is one of the very few Muslim actors in this Hindu-​dominated form, and that seems to be one of the points of attraction for audiences. Radhakrishna Kalchar, one of his frequent co-​ actors, told me in an interview, that what I call the “second wave” begins with Jabbar’s entry into the field. Others suggest that a younger than usual audience was interested in the unusual experience of watching a Muslim speaking eruditely about Hindu mythology.

Performing the Argument  263 to know) which character in which prasanga text they are presenting until they meet—​minutes before the performance. They do not discuss plot or characters, only how they will edit the prasanga, namely, which portions will be the focus and which they will omit. As mentioned earlier, Talamaddale has only retained the vachika dimension from Yakshagana performance and has dropped angika and aharya elements. However, as any theater actor knows, separating the body, the mind, and the voice is an impossible task, and Talamaddale actors also use, albeit subconsciously, many elements of angika. Their sitting posture, their hand movements and gestures, the subtle movements of neck and shoulders not only complement, but also often form the physical basis of the verbal characterization that they build. The musical text is created and controlled by the bhagawata, singing the songs in specific ragas, accompanied by instrumentalists playing the maddale and caṇḍe (a high-​pitched cylindrical drum, beaten on only the top side). Prasanga texts often mention the raga in which a specific song is to be sung, but experienced bhagawatas may sing it in different ragas in different performances. Based on their theatrical instinct, they may even change the raga at the last minute, when the actors give the cue for a specific song. Even when the ascribed raga is followed, the bhagawata has scope to explore it freely. For instance, he has all the freedom that a classical musician has; he can infuse it with emotions, devise musical elaborations, and respond to rhythms creatively. A musician’s improvisations are often influenced by the verbal text, which is simultaneously being created by the arthadharis. On the other hand, although the arthadharis’ verbal text is technically independent of the musical text, they also are influenced by the musical inflections given by the bhagawata and adapt their emotional tenor in relation to it. Thus, in Talamaddale, the role of the main singer goes far beyond just providing music. Compared to the musical text, the verbal text provides much more scope for improvisation, but it too is bound by several conventions. The linguistic register and tonality used for characters differ by social rank; rakshasas, kings, ministers, sages, and servants have specific conventional modes of speech and, since women are mostly played by men, female speech is always distinguished from male speech with a different tone and texture. In addition, by convention, even when the actors drift away from the main story in their interpretative arguments, they must link them to the words sung by the bhagawata.

264  Conversations and Arguments Let me give an example. Parti Subba’s Ramayana prasanga, titled Pañcavaṭi, starts with the following well-​known song, which is a simple poetic verse with no heavy, ornamental words. It sets a picturesque and quiet background for all the heightened drama that follows, such as the entry of Ravana’s sister, the illusion of the golden deer, and Sita’s abduction. Nōḍi nirmala jalasamīpadi māḍikoṇḍaru parṇaśāleya Rūḍhipālaru pañcavaṭyada kāḍinoḷage.9 On seeing the clear waters, the rulers built their house of leaves in the panchavati forest.

Soon after this song, convention prompts the actor who plays Rama to perform nirūpaṇe, exposition of the plot. To do so, he sets up the situation for the audience, closely holding on to words and meanings from the song. If the player is a novice, he simply narrates the same things sung in the verse, adding a few sentences describing the beauty of the forest. In contrast, seasoned performers welcome this opportunity to do much more. For example, one Rama-​actor may pick up the word nirmalajala (clear waters) as his starting point, and proceed to describe the environment in detail, mentioning how it differs from Rama’s capital city, Ayodhya, and how values differ between city and forest. This leads him to reflect on his present state as a blessing in disguise, since he will learn a lot from encountering a different culture and its ways of living. Another Rama actor may pick the word rūḍhipālaru (literally “the convention keepers,” or rulers) and narrate how Ikṣvāku kings, into whose lineage Rama was born, have long set their own distinct rāja-​dharma (kingly code of conduct). Using quotes from texts such as Kalidasa’s Raghuvaṃsa [Lineage of the Raghus], he may reflect on how the dharma developed by each of the previous kings was transmitted to his royal successor. Another similar convention, followed in all Talamaddale shows, occurs when a major character enters and gives a pithike (pīthike; preamble). In a typical pithike, an actor accomplishes several things: he recapitulates the story for those without detailed knowledge of the text. He draws out a specific line of interpretation of the role he is playing; he also suggests the intertextual connections that this episode has with many related plots. 9 Quotes from prasangas by Parti Subba are from the edition by K. K. Bhatta (1975: 114).

Performing the Argument  265 This convention will demand of the performer a vast knowledge of the source texts and the knotty web of relationships among the characters, including those from their previous births! An example is the preamble of Ravana’s character, as presented by Sheni Gopalakrishna Bhat. In Parti Subba’s prasanga Śūrpaṇakhi Mānabhaṅga [Shurpanakhi’s Humiliation], Shurpanakhi goes to Ravana seeking his help, after being humiliated and disfigured by Rama and Lakshmana.10 At this point in the Ramayana prasanga narrative, we first encounter Ravana. Here is how Sheni introduces himself as Ravana: After the city of Lanka was constructed, and I became its emperor, I have been hailed by people as Rāvaṇō-​lōka-​rāvaṇah (“Most terrible among the terrible in all worlds”). People with eyes are seeing it and people with ears are hearing it—​that this place has really become a Tri-​kūṭā-​cala [Three-​ Peaked Mountain] today; inhabitants from the three worlds [earth, heaven, and the underworld] now live in this city. I, the eldest of my mother’s three sons, am ruling it; all the major leaders of the three worlds are under my power. . . . My spiritual achievement makes me a Brahmin, my worldly politics, a Kshatriya, and the confluence of the two makes me Ravana. . . . What do you think is the real meaning of a 10-​headed character? Today, even if a Vedic scholar comes and recites the scriptures, I have enough scholarship to discern the mistakes that he makes—​to attain that wisdom I have imbibed six shastras and four Vedas in my 10 heads! . . . . The four heads of Brahma, the five heads of Shiva and add to it, the single head of Narayana—​you get the number 10. The four arms which Brahma used for creation, the 10 arms of Lord Shiva, and Narayana’s four, and add two of my own—​together they become my twenty arms. I earn from twenty arms, eat from 10 mouths, and I digest all that in a single stomach, and stand on only two legs! Look all over the universe, and you will not find anyone like me. Such is my achievement.11

This is from Sheni: a tricky but attractive preamble. Simultaneously, he does two things. He is playing to the gallery with his witty play on numbers, and



10 Śūrpaṇakhi is the Kannada name for Ravana’s sister.

11 These are excerpts from a long pithike, transcribed from a performance (Hegde 1993: 86–​89).

266  Conversations and Arguments at the same time, playfully hinting at the vast puranic canvas of gods, and extending their iconography to himself. He is, in fact, suggesting that he encompasses all the gods. Sheni would do this kind of a playful speech at this point in the Ramayana story, because Ravana here is still sportive, enthusiastic, hopeful, and his life has not yet turned toward his fatal act, the abduction of Sita. When he comes to another pithike, in the middle of Rāvaṇa Vadhe [The Slaying of Ravana], the last prasanga where Ravana appears, Sheni’s portrayal of him completely changes. A servant has just told Ravana of Rama’s valor in battle, saying he seemed like God incarnate and he answers, “Rama was not understood by even Dasharatha himself! The mother who gave birth to him did not know him either!” Then he continues: But here in Lanka, even a servant tells the king that Rama is another form of the absolute, the Parabrahma! Be that as it may, it is remarkable that the people of Lanka understood him despite the fact they were rakshasas. However, at this point in the war, now is not at all a moment of happiness for me. . . . But despite this, I feel happiness inside. If someone were to ask today: “What has Ravana accomplished during such a long rule?” everyone would know the answer. There was a time when my people feared coming into the open. They were despised as uncivilized rakshasas wandering around only at night. . . . In my rule, rakshasa power spread in all four directions. The heavens shook; the nether worlds trembled. . . . Alas, Lord Shiva! All this, which had come to me unexpectedly, is leaving me, even before my breath leaves my body. I am not worried about anything else but this. That which is leaving me is my own earnings. Even with such losses, all I have lost is my profit. My capital remains. I remember my mother; her sari tied to the branches of a tree was our cradle; she rocked us and sang a lullaby. Later when we rested, we had to sleep on the grass, and when we sat, we had to sit on stone.12 My life started from that state. Now that my life is ending, I have returned to almost the same state. . . . Now, setting aside all those stories, I must think about myself. I must enter the battlefield in the morning. I think and think, unable 12 The informed Talamaddale audience would also recognize here the reference to Sheni’s autobiography, within the portrayal of Ravana: Sheni lost his father at an early age, and his mother brought him up in poverty. Whatever fame he gained later as a performer resulted not from family support but through his own initiative.

Performing the Argument  267 to sleep, I toss and turn on my bed. . . . Like an old man who has lost all his household wealth and relatives, I cannot do anything now, except wait for the morning.13

Here, he is an old monarch, depicted as if in a Shakespearean tragedy. Another major verbal tool employed in Talamaddale is samvada (samvāda; the dramatic exchange). It consists of a series of short and crisp dialogues, and hence is the toughest for actors to perform. Serious, comic, or even matter-​ of-​fact, a samvada is always witty and dramatic, employing puns and word play, as well as oblique allusions to contemporary issues. Here is an example from Sītāpaharaṇa [The Abduction of Sita], where Ravana approaches Sita disguised as an ascetic, and calls out a Saiva greeting: “Jai Śankara!” [Victory to Shiva]!” Repartee begins in which Ravana speaks cryptically to Sita, who earnestly tries to understand his words and show proper respect to this wandering sadhu. At the same time, Ravana’s comments allude to the fact that, beneath his disguise, he is 10-​headed Ravana. For example, he tells Sita, “Give alms to the ascetic . . . not to me!” The audience knows that Ravana is a false ascetic, which contributes to their appreciation of the samvada’s humor. The dialogue continues for a good half an hour, playing on the theatricality of the situation. Both actors address two audiences simultaneously, and their words can be interpreted in at least two ways—​one meaning is conveyed to the co-​actor, the other to the audience.

The Prasanga Texts After this quick tour into the theatrical elements of Talamaddale, let me now turn to the actual prasangas that are available in written form, which provide the basic framework of the narrative for this theatrical form. Until around the middle of the 19th century, these texts were always based on the Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, Bhāgavata (and a few other puranic) texts. Among more than 2,000 prasangas composed from the 17th century to the present, only 75 are based on the three puranic texts which a traditional bhavagawat was expected to memorize. Of these, around one-​third come from Ramayana tradition.14 Parti Subba (ca. 17th century) is the most prominent author

13 Hegde (1993: 190–​204). 14 P.V. Bhatta (2006: 2).

268  Conversations and Arguments of prasangas that are used most often for Ramayana-​based performances in Yakshagana and Talamaddale even today. Many of the later prasanga authors view themselves as indebted to Subba in terms of dramaturgy and style. Significantly, Subba never sourced his plots directly from Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, instead drawing on two prominent Kannada retellings: Torave Rāmāyaṇa (written in the 16th century by Narahari, also known as Kumara Valmiki) and Jaimini Bhārata (by Lakshmisha, 15th–​16th century). Subba’s choice of prasanga sources initiated a pattern followed by most of the later prasanga authors; incidents, character traits, and sometimes whole lines of verse are taken from one of the two sources in most existing prasangas. Some later authors have expanded this tradition of relying on “local” sources to include regional texts and minor poetic narratives as well. An intriguing prasanga is Paṭa Sandhi [Portrait Chapter], based on a local ballad attributed to female author Heḷavanakaṭṭe Giriyamma.15 Shurpanakhi plays a key role in the prasanga, which begins after Rama’s coronation. After surviving the war in Lanka, she plans to take revenge on Sita, whom she identifies as the reason for her suffering. Assuming the disguise of a koravañji, a fortune teller, she comes to Sita, now queen of Ayodhya, and asks her to draw a picture of Ravana. Sita tells her that, although Ravana came to see her many times, she always kept her eyes down when he visited her. Consequently, she never saw Ravana at all, except for his one toe. So, the fortune teller instructs Sita to draw that toe. Sita draws such a perfect toe that the fortune teller easily completes the rest of the picture, asks Sita to give life to it, and departs. Sita hides the portrait under the bed because she expects Rama to visit her soon. Soon Rama enters and sits on the cot, which breaks, revealing the portrait underneath it. Seeing it, Rama suspects that Ravana remains in Sita’s mind. Thus, in this account of Uttara Rāmāyaṇa, the portrait provides the reason for banishing pregnant Sita to the forest.

Talamaddale and Puranic texts Appreciating a Talamaddale as a theatrical experience with its multilayered texts can, in my view, only take us halfway along the journey to understand the form; it does not adequately unravel the mystery of its cultural 15 The story about Sita drawing Ravana’s portrait also circulates in Telugu and Kannada, as well as in a women’s song from North India. See Richman (2008: 201–​202).

Performing the Argument  269 rootedness. My experience of watching Talamaddale performances with fellow villagers over the years points to a deeper level in which this form operates, a level that is probably the source of its essential strength and its sustained existence even in adverse times. That level, I propose, is its mode of handling the Indian puranas, the “creative commons” of the communitarian world in which Talamaddale operates.16 Let us begin with the fundamental basis of Talamaddale’s relationship with the puranas. The source text for a Talamaddale performance is technically the prasanga, but actors frequently go straight to its puranic source. Yet, they ensure that they remain within the frame of the prasanga; they do not change the generally accepted flow of the larger narrative. Also, there is always a plurality in the way Talamaddale performers conceive of their “source.” In a performance based on Ramayana incidents, for example, Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa is not the only—​or not even the most dominant—​ source. In addition to already mentioned source texts Torave Rāmāyaṇa and Jaimini Bhārata, performers may draw on local Ramayanas or even Kuvempu’s Rāmāyaṇa Darśaṇa [The Vision of Ramayana], a substantially reworked version of the Ramayana, published in 1949.17 Other later writings from the Ramayana tradition could also serve as reference points for arguments.18 However, for Talamaddale, the puranas serve as more than sources of stories to improvise, or to offer alternative characterizations; they also are a marker of Talamaddale’s flexible boundaries. A Ravana-​actor may interpret the character as he wishes; he may even give an alternate interpretation of a particular situation. But the performer cannot change the fact that Ravana dies at Rama’s hand, or that he is a rakshasa. Nor can he defy the internal logic of the puranic narrative by asking questions such as, “How can humans and monkeys build a bridge to the ocean?” Paradoxically, this seemingly watertight restriction itself provides the characteristic freedom in Talamaddale to play with puranic narratives. Consider a somewhat comic anecdote that

16 I use the word purāṇa (collection of old stories) here, for the lack of a better term, to describe the corpus of Indian texts such as Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, and Bhāgavata Purāṇa, that have been sources for performance and literary traditions in India. Sanskrit literary scholars classify Rāmāyaṇa as the first Sanskrit kāvya (ornate literary work), Mahābhārata as an itihāsa (historical work), and Bhāgavata as a purana. In popular usage, however, “purana” refers to all of these texts. (The English word “epic” does not adequately represent the diversity of materials in Indian puranas.) 17 “Kuvempu” is the pen-​name of the famous Kannada poet Ku. Vem. Puttappa. 18 Quoting other puranas is also permissible, except that one can quote from the Ramayana tradition while presenting a Mahabharata episode, but not vice versa.

270  Conversations and Arguments I heard from a friend about an unusual Talamaddale performance arranged by farmers in a tiny village tucked in the interior of the Western Ghats. After deciding on the Pañcavaṭi episode, they invited a well-​known professional performer to play Rama. Other roles would be played by local people, most of whom were reasonably experienced with the form. The one playing Sita was the best and he hoped to test his strength against the professional guest. During the performance, when the Sita-​actor spots the golden deer, she asks Rama to catch it for her and the argument begins. Sita gives reasons to justify her attraction to the deer. Using a set of logical and emotional reasons, she cajoles Rama into going to capture the deer. Soon, the guest artist realizes that the Sita-​actor is trying to compete with him, and hence he begins defending his position with more arguments from texts on dharma as well as puranas. The actor playing Sita now realizes that he cannot possibly outshine the professional in arguments from such sources, and says: “Fine, I take back my request to have the deer.” The baffled guest actor, at first silent, soon recovers and says: Good, Sita, I understand what you mean. Your buddhi (intellect) says you should give up; but the passion with which you argued for the deer lingers in your eyes. It suggests that in your bhāva (emotion), you want it. In a marital relationship, since emotions are more important than the logic of a situation, I will now go and get the deer.

And so, the narrative was saved.19 Though unusual, this Talamaddale performance is by no means exceptional. What constitutes a good Talamaddale prasanga? Which part of a puranic plot has the resources to become a prasanga? I hypothesize that in incidents from the Ramayana and Mahabharata narratives, we see a seamless flow of stories—​and stories within those stories–​that take the larger narrative smoothly onward. But, at critical points, we have “fissures.” In the Ramayana tradition, for instance, we stop at points when such questions as the following emerge: why did an ideal king, like Dasharatha, listen to his queen Kaikeyi and banish Rama to the forest? Or, why did Sita, such an obedient wife, insist on getting the golden deer? Why did Rama, an embodiment of dharma, kill Vali, hiding behind a tree? Why did he have Sita undergo a trial by fire even



19 Quoted from Akshara (2011: 182–​183).

Performing the Argument  271 though he never doubted her? These are the questions that purana narratives open up, but do not answer. In any popular Talamaddale script, you will find at least one such fissure at its core; the major part of the performance is an attempt to fill it. If such a fissure does not exist, performers will create one.20 Yet, intriguingly, the nature of those fissures are such that any attempt to fill one creates more fissures than before. As a result, a Talamaddale performance text produces more texts and more complexity, but in different ways. Thus, each Talamaddale show can be viewed, in an intertextual sense, as a “response” to some other Talamaddale that was performed earlier. This is true of both the performers and the spectators since they keep making connections across performances, as they keep watching the same prasanga again and again. And so, rather than a single frozen “traditional argument,” I argue that the genre of Talamaddale serves to create and continue a “tradition” of a body of arguments.

Ramayana Arguments Some examples from Ramayana prasangas will show how the theatrical elements within Talamaddale and its metatheatrical conventions of dealing with puranic texts combine to make it not only enjoyable theater but also a means to converse and argue with a textual purana tradition. I begin with Bharatāgamana [Arrival of Bharata], the well-​known prasanga that contains the most important theatrical exchange in the early part of the Ramayana story: Rama has gone to the forest, relinquishing his right to the throne, when Bharata visits and tries to persuade him to come back and rule. The scene has a predominantly emotional mood because Bharata is seeing Rama for the first time since his departure from Ayodhya. Bharata also brings news of Dasharatha’s demise. And most pivotally, he has come to use all his brotherly affection to convince Rama to change his mind and return to Ayodhya. Rama does not agree to come and convinces Bharata to carry on the work of ruling the kingdom. In Subba’s script, all these emotional and intellectual exchanges are condensed into four short verses.

20 Sheni’s reversal of the role of Ravana, referred to earlier, provides an excellent example of such a fissure. By emphasizing that he was half Brahmin and learned in the Vedas and shastras, Sheni created the question: “Why then did Ravana commit a heinous act such as abducting Sita?” and his whole characterization became an attempt to fill that fissure.

272  Conversations and Arguments Yet, in a Talamaddale performance—​remember that this is one of the most prominent prasangas—​although performers fully exploit the emotional highpoint, the logical argument takes the upper hand. Performers turn it into an elaborate debate for and against Bharata’s proposal. It almost plays out like a court case, where all possible “evidence” from scriptures, ethical treatises, and texts on statecraft, are cited. Actors playing Bharata and Rama argue almost like advocates, with the additional dramatic irony that Bharata advocates that Rama should rule the kingdom and Rama advocates that Bharata should rule. To illustrate, I list points that a typical Bharata actor would put forward: • Kaikeyi does not have the right to ask for the kingdom, which is legally inherited by Rama, the eldest son. Even if she asks for it, Dasharatha does not have the right to give it to Bharata, because even a father does not have the right to change inheritance rules. • Dasharatha had given this promise to Kaikeyi sometime in the remote past even before Rama was born. Therefore, he cannot act in the present based on the logic of a past utterance, which was made completely out of context. • Lovers and spouses make several promises as part of their relationship, and those promises cannot claim legal standing. • Even if the promise has legal validity, Bharata does not have the requisite capacity to rule the vast kingdom of Ayodhya and, hence, must not be the king. This argument implies that Rama has that capacity and must rule. • The father’s behavior clearly indicates that he wishes Rama to be king, while Kaikeyi clearly expresses her preference for Bharata. In such conflicts, some treatises on dharmas indicate that the father has more authority. Then Rama presents his responses, which are again contrary to his own interests: • I have made a decision and will not reconsider it. If I were going to reconsider it, I should have done it before leaving Ayodhya. If I were to change my mind now and return to rule, the people would justifiably doubt my capacity to make the right decision and would not have full faith in their king.

Performing the Argument  273 • For descendants of the Raghu clan, truth is the seed and our dynasty is the dharmic tree that has grown from it. If we deviate from truth and dharma, and think only with dry logic, we go against the traditions of our clan. • In dharmic treatises, the most important value espoused is pitṛvākya paripālane (following the father’s decree). Thus, dharmic treatises support my decision. • The promise that Dasharatha gave Kaikeyi was not a verbal transaction between two ordinary individuals; it was an exchange between a king and a queen. If we princes were to show lack of respect for an exchange between a king and queen, then even our citizens may start treating royal words with disrespect, and the institution of monarchy would begin to disintegrate. • At the emotional level, as well, one cannot say that one hates Mother Kaikeyi, disagrees with one’s father, but love’s one’s brother. That is a contradiction. If you really love someone else, then one must also respect his father’s words, and cannot hate Mother Kaikeyi. Let us now turn to the next complex episode in the Ramayana narrative, that of Shurpanakhi, a key character in the story. She links the two sets of stories and characters in the Ramayana narrative, one from Ayodhya and the other from Lanka. If you read Subba’s prasanga titled Pañcavaṭi, the entry of Shurpanakhi seems accidental, almost a coincidence. And, due to her sudden infatuation with Rama (for which the prasanga does not provide any motivation), she goes to him and requests that he marry her. The story then proceeds with a series of dramatic shifts: Shurpanakhi is made to go back and forth between Rama and Lakshmana, and then she is humiliated. In a Yakshagana performance, this suffices since the scene contains the requisite variety of characters, costumes, and dances, and is performed almost exactly as it appears in the prasanga. Yet, Talamaddale actors would consider that insufficient; they must look for motivations that led to Shurpanakhi’s act. To do so, they need to turn to past stories, taking a cue from Torave Rāmāyaṇa, in which Shurpanakhi had a son. Then they draw on an incident from Valmiki’s Uttara-​kāṇḍa (VI.24.20–​27), in which she had a husband whom Ravana accidentally killed in battle. In this way, they create a whole new set of power relations and frustrations and build a set of motivations that complicate Shurpanakhi’s situation. Here is an excerpt from a prologue by Shurpanakhi taken from a Talamaddale performance:

274  Conversations and Arguments Yes, I have entered with a howling roar! I was born from the womb of the rakshasi Kaikasi, fathered by Vishravas, a renowned sage; but despite having these parents, I became an orphan, I, Shurpanakhi! My desires are now in tatters, my hopes burnt to ashes, and despite all the powers of a rakshasa, my life is wasted, and filled with grief. Even an ordinary mortal in Lanka is cared for when he is in trouble, but I have none to go for solace. I too am Ravana’s mother’s daughter! God Kubera’s half-​sister! My fate has banished me from the city into the forest, eating wild fruits, wandering alone, and feeling lonely. Who is the culprit of all this? Who shattered my family? Who pushed me to this wilderness? No one other than my brother Ravana! He got me married, and as quickly killed my husband, and made me a widow, in the middle of my burning youth. . . . He wants all the beautiful women in this world for pleasure; but I am not even to stay in the capital. He only thinks about his happiness and his fame. . . . But who cares for me? I too have all the ambitions that he has. But, I am a woman! And, therefore, I howl and roar; and people call me a rakshasi. In a more acceptable disguise, I have even approached some sages, amidst their Bhagavata recital gatherings, and have asked their advice on what I could do. . . . Many do not approve of my wish to be in relationship with a man and have offspring. “If you were unmarried, then that would have been acceptable,” they say! . . . Alas, to punish this real defamer of the family, and to kill him, I need to have a son. Definitely, I desire a son! Searching for a suitable partner, I consulted several great sages in this Dandaka forest. They all say it is Sri Rama, the puruṣōttama, “the best of men.” I am told he is heading towards the south, and therefore, I stand here, waiting, every moment of the day.21

Despite this passionate outburst of Shurpanakhi’s predicament, the actor does not always develop her character so empathetically. Some actors, especially those who are used to playing the role in Yakshagana, play up the raw and wild characteristics of Shurpanakhi. And in such contexts, even Rama and Lakshmana are allowed by convention to play with a lighthearted jest, making Shurpanakhi run back and forth between them, and leading to her cruel humiliation. In one such Talamaddale performance that I saw, it was performed in that “wild and playful” way; but when the prasanga proceeded, 21 The hero of V.T. Sheegehalli’s Kannada novel Talegali speaks these lines in his prologue for a performance of Śūrpaṇakhi Mānabhaṅga (2010: 108–​111).

Performing the Argument  275 another actor took on the role of Rama. The actor who played Rama at this point in the performance was Umakantha Bhat, a Sanskrit scholar with an interest in philosophy, aesthetics, and languages. His response to the Dandaka forest episode included a veiled critique of the actor who played Shurpanakhi: We can never predict how situations will develop. Che! Something that I said in jest in the Dandaka Forest has led to so much controversy. I am of the belief that life and language go hand in hand. . . . Alas, why did I fall into temptation? All other temptations can be remedied, but the temptation of language invariably leads to controversies. This is something that the future generations must learn from history! Language grows out of bhāva, emotion. The word could mean an object, a person, or a state of being that leads us to the realm of rasa—​and that is the realm where language grows. Therefore, when the rakshasa Dushana abused me, I did not answer him through words, but with an arrow—​the arrow became my language! Which means, in its applied form, any action can become a language!

After these reflections, Rama turns to Lakshmana and says: Brother, we need to perfect our intent before indulging in jest. Being serious is neither a curse, nor is it a handicap. But jest is dangerous. We must indulge in jest only when we can draw the whole world into lightheartedness; otherwise, this emotion must be suppressed, for, one carelessly spoken jest can destroy all that has been passed on historically and traditionally.22

The actor here is arguing against the kind of jest which stoops too low, and which demeans not only Shurpanakhi, but also Rama and Lakshmana. But the most intriguing aspect for me is this: he is offering this critique both as Rama, and as an actor playing it. As Rama he is suggesting that “oh, that was a weak moment in our lives,” and as an actor, he is suggesting that employing hāsya (comic) rasa is an intricate task; and the actors must find better ways of dealing with that scene than continuing the “popular” way of making fun of Shurpanakhi.

22 This passage is transcribed and translated from the video recording of the performance titled Śūrpaṇakhi and Kharāsura, held at Ninasam, Heggodu, on July 31, 2013.

276  Conversations and Arguments The most popular Ramayana prasanga in Talamaddale, Vāli Vadhe, is also called Vāli Mōkṣa; its two names respectively, “The Killing of Vali” and “The Deliverance of Vali,” are not just two names for the prasanga, but two possible ways of performing it as well. The audience knows that when Rama reaches Kishkindha during his search for Sita, he first meets Sugriva, and as a strategy to win Sugriva’s support, Rama agrees to rectify the wrongs done to him. He battles with Vali who has usurped the kingdom and marries Sugriva’s wife. This is the toughest situation Rama encounters—​eventually, he must kill Vali by shooting him while concealed behind a tree. Such an action contravenes the dharma of a Kshatriya, a transgression especially alarming in the case of Rama, known as a paradigm of dharmic action. Thus, spectators find the first part of the prasanga, which contains a series of brilliant arguments, a treat. The actor who plays Vali, holding the arrow, which has pierced his chest, interrogates the justifications for Rama’s act. Vali in fact dismantles, one by one, all the adjectives that the tradition has bestowed on the hero: He has lost the title ārta-​rakṣaka (protector of the suffering), because he has inflicted suffering on Vali for no valid reason; he is not an embodiment of dharma, because he has shot from behind the tree, and so on and so forth. Some Vali actors take another step forward and attribute the motives of an Aryan (northern) conspiracy to Rama and criticize him for overt imperialism. Rama, of course, presents his own defense to all these points but, in this part of the prasanga, it is Vali who wins sympathy, although he loses the battle. However, the second part of the prasanga takes a different turn. After all the energetic diatribes and defenses, Vali begins to grow weak and realizes death is approaching. At that point, Rama offers to let Vali live if he changes his ways. Vali’s character suddenly shifts in emotional tenor, and turns into a “devotee” of Rama, the god incarnate. In performances that I have watched, this rapid shift from rebellious to philosophically submissive is hard to justify dramatically. The average actors finish it in a few minutes, but the best of the Talamaddale actors handle this with a higher level of maturity and sensitivity. Here’s an account about a performance by Prabhakara Joshi:23 It was a performance of Vali Vadhe decades ago; I was playing Rama, a young actor in front of the Talamaddale master Sheni himself, who was playing Vali. It was a full-​night performance, and, by the time the heated 23 This is not an exact transcript of Prabhakara Joshi’s words, but a summary of his experiences, as he narrated them to me in an interview (December 30, 2017).

Performing the Argument  277 debates ended, it was around 4.30 a.m., still an hour and a half before we could conclude. Sheni introduced a new twist to the narrative. As soon as I asked the usual last question: “Tell me Vali, do you still wish to live?,” Sheni became deeply introspective and philosophical. He listed a series of reasons why he did all this knowingly, and in full anticipation of his fate. He knew that the devas were reborn as monkeys in this age specifically to help Rama find his wife Sita, and punish Ravana; therefore, as a monkey king, he too had to help Rama. He had chosen to offer his support by opposing Sugriva. Finally, Sheni responded to Rama’s question by saying, “I would rather die.” Vali is Indra’s son, and it is through Indra’s handiwork that Vishnu came in the avatar of Rama to punish Ravana. Vali has now finished his assigned “act” in this cosmic theater and will leave the “stage” for Rama to take the act forward.

Indra was the representative of gods who went to Brahma and begged for a new avatar to curb the Rakshasas. Then Brahma asked Vishnu to take birth on earth to destroy Ravana. Finally, Vishnu decided to take on the form of a new avatar. From this perspective, Indra began the process by which his son, Vali, died at Rama’s hand. One could continue with more examples; but hoping that the point is made, let me conclude: Talamaddale is never just a storytelling exercise, but a form that “retells a story.” In this retelling, a good Talamaddale performance demands knowledge of the story and its allusions from the spectators, who act like avid listeners holding on to each and every word in the performance. The aim of the performance is not just to induce a dramatic immersion into a familiar narrative by creating an appropriate emotional ambience; rather, the performance provides a dramatic commentary on situations and stories so that their assumptions can be reviewed. Through this commentary, Talamaddale is neither like the Harikatha which aims to invoke devotion, nor like a customary ritualistic performance. As part of its cumulative effect, there is storytelling, drama, and devotional appeal, but more than all that, my experience of watching it suggests that Talamaddale is primarily a cultural forum for arguing with texts and previous performances. This argument encompasses the plot, the character construction, the values in texts, the interpretations, the reinterpretations, the subversions, the indulgences, the flights of imagination—​everything. Without seeking to accept or reject a particular point of view, it places everything up for an informed interrogation.

278  Conversations and Arguments I am indebted to Dr. M. Prabhakara Joshi, well-​known Talamaddale actor and scholar, for recounting his experiences to me and providing information related to Talamaddale; and Prof. M. A. Hegde, who drew my attention to many details related to the prasanga texts. I also thank Deepa Ganesh, Paula Richman, and Rustom Bharucha for their comments and editorial input.

Kannada Bibliography Akṣara, K. V. 2011. “Tāḷamaddale Kaṭṭuva Samskṛti” [Talamaddale That Constructs Culture or Culture That Constructs Talamaddale]. Heggodu: Akshara Prakashana. Bhaṭṭa, Kukkila Kṛṣṇa., ed. 1975. Pārtisubbana Yakṣagānagaḷu [Parti Subba’s Yakshaganas]. Mysore: Kannada Adhyayana Samsthe, Mysore University. Bhaṭṭa, Pādēkallu Viṣṇu, ed. 2006. Yakṣagāna Kṛtisūci [Yakshagana Directory]. Udupi: Yakshagana Kendra. Hegḍe, Gōpālakṛṣṇa, ed. 1993. Prasaṅga Darśana-​ Sheni Rāmāyaṇa [Viewing the Plots: Sheni’s Version of Ramayana]. Kumta: Sudarshana Prakashana. Śīgēhaḷḷi, V. T. 2010. Talegaḷi. Heggodu: Akshara Prakashana.

Performances in Kannada Sītāpaharaṇa. December 16, 2016. Ninasam, Heggodu. URL: www.sanchifoundation.org. Śūrpaṇakhi and Kharāsura. July 31, 2013. Performance at Ninasam, Heggodu.

English Bibliography Ashton, Martha Bush, and Bruce Christie. 1977. Yakṣagaana: A Dance Drama of India. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications. Bapat, Guru Rao. 1998. Yakṣagaana Performance and Meaning: A Semiotic Study. Udupi: Regional Resources Center for Folk Performing Arts. Bilimale, Purushothama, and Shubha Chaudhuri, 2000, eds. Special Issue on Yakshagana. Seagull Theatre Quarterly 25–​26 (March–​June) 2000. Karanth, Shivarama K. 1997. Yakshagana. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. Richman, Paula. 2008. Ramayana Stories in Modern South India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

PART VI

BEYON D E NAC TM E NT

14 Revisiting “Being Ram” Playing a God in Changing Times Urmimala Sarkar Munsi

Between 1981 and 2006, I played the role of Ram in Seeta Swayambara, an hour-​long, popular, dance-​drama directed by Shrimati Amala Shankar and staged by the Uday Shankar India Culture Centre in Kolkata (henceforth, USICC).1 It was performed at least 10–​15 times every year, in commissioned performances (“call shows”) requested from different parts of India and abroad. The long run of the production coincided with a time of intense political change in India and a turbulent time for me as well. I wasn’t the first Ram of Seeta Swayambara. Mamata Shankar played the role in the 1971 premiere at Rabindra Sadan, Kolkata, and continued to do so until 1981. I began playing the role of Lakshmana in 1974 and performed the role of Ram in 1981 as a substitute for Mamata Shankar for the first time as an M.A. student in Anthropology and a young bride adjusting to a new life after marriage. By the time that I stopped performing the role in 2006, I had shifted to Delhi and started teaching Dance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics in Jawaharlal Nehru University. I was also a single parent with a sense of achievement at raising not only my son but also two female cousins single-​handedly. In my youth, I had perceived Ram differently, as a young prince taught and trained to prepare for the responsibilities that he would bear in the future. As a young wife and mother, however, I now viewed him as an unfortunate son, burdened with responsibilities that repeatedly prevented him from leading his life normally. Later, as a battered and bitterly divorced woman, I thought often of the pain Ram inflicted on many women for many reasons, ones that have long been justified as necessary to carry out his royal duties, 1 The production was advertised in most of its brochures and publicity material as Seeta Swayambara and not Sītā Svayaṃvara. I will use the former spelling for the rest of this chapter. Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, Revisiting “Being Ram” In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0014

282  Beyond Enactment rather than acknowledging his rigidity and excessive concern for his image as a “just” king. Thus, 25 years of performing Seeta Swayambara had passed while I matured as a woman, dancer, and academic. Looking back, I see this period of my life as a classic example of the saying that “the show must go on”: dancers hear this over and over throughout their lives, to the point that they stop actively linking their artistic work to everyday life. Like many other dancers, I had become the product of my own practice. I wrote a short essay about this experience earlier but have found no closure to the experience of “being Ram.”2 In this essay, I delve deeper into my memories to make sense of two concurrent perceptions: a sense of achievement at having performed the role of Ram for 25 years, and a deep sense of dismay at having continued to play the role during the years that led to an extraordinary politicization of Ram as a mytho-​religious icon, used deliberately to polarize populations in India’s secular democracy. Today, I struggle to attain a closure on memories of “being Ram” during the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and subsequent riots, the Bombay blasts of 1993, the pogrom in Gujarat in 2002, and my insights as a volunteer in relief camps around Ahmedabad following the pogrom. To do so, I bifurcate my memories into social and performative realities, both of which are constructed through different socializations and processes of “becoming”: one within the social sphere of family, school, peer group, and a circle of activists, and the other in the learning process of dance training at an institution built on a revived and urbanized version of the guru-​śiṣya (teacher-​disciple) system. To confront my experience of “performing” and “being” Ram, I fall back on two types of memories: those of a dancer and those of a scholar reflecting on the experience with critical hindsight—​a task that necessitates rethinking the experience as structured by my present subjectivity. While it is possible that this venture may result in an unfinishable project of writing, I have chosen to write this essay in the first person because I want to confront a crucial question: Why did I continue “being” Ram until long after I was troubled by the distorted emblem of a political party with whose communal politics I did not agree as a person, scholar, or social/​political activist? As time passes, and my distance from the actual performance grows, these questions become sharper and more complex. They have led to a deeper understanding of a certain compliance in a dancer’s consciousness embedded in her training 2 Sarkar Munsi (2014: 160–​165).

Revisiting “Being Ram”  283 process, where critical independent thinking and questioning are considered a hindrance to the learning process and, therefore, are discouraged and eliminated from the dancer’s psyche. Was I complicit in the violence perpetrated in the name of Ram because I did not protest it vocally and performatively? While I gradually became uneasy about the turn of events around the ever-​increasing political appropriation of Ram over time, the change from “being” to “having been” Ram occurred in 2006 in Lucknow, after one specific performance, which was like any other. Although I would love to claim it as my political decision, it was just a coincidence. Although contemplating ways to discontinue playing Ram, I had not managed to say “no” when, each time, another show occurred. After my last performance in Lucknow, my costumes were folded and neatly packed among all the other costumes into trunks, and I headed back to Delhi. Since then, I have never been Ram again. Two more performances of Seeta Swayambara were staged after that, but I could not neglect my teaching responsibilities in Delhi, and hence, someone else replaced me for those shows. Performances of the piece became fewer as the USICC slowly moved toward closure. Amala Shankar focused mainly on teaching since the responsibility of running a performing troupe became too strenuous at her age. A last performance of Seeta Swayambara occurred in Kolkata in 2012, but I could not force myself to participate in it. The School (and troupe) closed in 2015, 50 years after its inauguration.

Training at the Uday Shankar India Culture Centre The USICC was established by the legendary dancer and choreographer Uday Shankar and his wife Amala Shankar in Kolkata in 1965. In 1970, the Centre’s Kathakali Guru, P. Raghavan, chose a group of USICC’s senior students for the premiere of Seeta Swayambara to be presented in 1971. The production starts when Vishwamitra asks King Dasharatha to allow Ram and Lakshmana to accompany the sage to the forest to defend sages against harassment by rakshasas during their sacrificial rites. The episode continues with Ram breaking the bow at the contest to win Sita as wife and ends with the couple’s wedding celebrations. Over the next 35 years, Seeta Swayambara became USICC’s most frequently performed show and for 25 of those years, I performed the role of Ram, after playing Lakshmana for seven years.

284  Beyond Enactment USICC trained girls as well as boys, but girl students far outnumbered the boys. Never was a male dancer considered for the roles of Ram and Lakshmana. According to Amala Shankar, female dancers were better suited for these roles because these characters were young boys, rather than grown men. Some roles of older males (Vishwamitra, Vashistha, Dasharatha) were allotted to male as well as female dancers over time. Guru P. Raghavan performed the crucial role of Vishwamitra until he retired in 2000. The roles of Maricha and Subahu were always given to male dancers. Except for one or two shows where a male dancer took on the role, strong female dancers were chosen to portray Tataka, the female demon. From the premiere until the last show, barring a few extraordinary circumstances, Amala Shankar herself performed the role of Sita’s father, King Janaka. A critical revisiting of the production reveals patterns in the choice of movements for male and female training. Classical Kathakali, Bharatanatyam, Kathak, and Manipuri dance forms were taught alongside “creative” dance in USICC. Most “male” movements were generated with the Kathakali grammar, while the Manipuri style of dance was reserved for female roles. Guru Raghavan was instrumental in creating the male roles in Seeta Swayambara. A quiet and low-​profile Kathakali dancer, remembered by most students as a strict but extremely affectionate teacher, this unsung hero of the institution shaped dance and body language for many at USICC. He trained us in the art of communicating with small but expressive body movements and facial expressions.3 He also taught us to embody specific roles with personal attention to building a character. Amala Shankar headed the institution, making the principal decisions and often receiving credit for directing or reviving most USICC productions: new productions,4 revivals of Uday Shankar’s original productions,5 and students’ showcases. 3 Guru P. Raghavan taught Kathakali at USICC. He joined Uday Shankar’s troupe while Shankar was shooting his film Kalpana in Chennai and remained associated with USICC from its establishment in Kolkata (1965) until 2008. His role in shaping USICC dance productions remains largely undocumented, as do his roles as dancer and Kathakali teacher. 4 New choreographic projects included Chidambara (made in 1968, based on poems of the poet Sumitra Nandan Panth), Vasavadutta (made in 1969, based on a poem by Rabindranath Tagore), Seeta Swayambara (1971) and Yuga Chhanda (made in 1972 about East-​West encounters in India), Kal Mrigaya and Chitrangada (made in 1973, based on Tagore’s dance-​drama scripts). 5 USICC also revived original productions created by Uday Shankar between 1976 and 1979, such as Snanam, Astra Puja, Village Festival, Rasa Leela, Kartikeya, and Labour and Machinery. It partially or completely restaged three major original dance productions of Uday Shankar: Ram Leela (recreated by Amala Shankar in 1983), a shadow play that brought huge recognition to Uday Shankar within India for its innovative use of behind-​the-​screen shadow performance; Samanya Kshati, recreated in 1983 (based on Tagore’s poem by the same name); and Mahamanav (recreated with new musical score in 1993), a shadow play on the life of the Buddha.

Revisiting “Being Ram”  285 While claiming legacies almost always becomes a major issue, especially in India, where gharānā or lineage remains one of the principal ways of legitimizing artistic credibility, here I call attention to our little-​known Kathakali guru’s contribution to the making of Ram in Seeta Swayambara. He contributed at USICC to structuring the grammar of male-​specific movement genres, based on but not completely determined by Kathakali. His contribution to the pedagogy for teaching gendered movements differed from those of institutions teaching only “classical” dance styles and was influenced by the conceptualization and embodiment of gender, based largely on Kathakali and Manipuri dance, as also developed by Rabindranath Tagore and taught at the Visva-​Bharati University. The guru’s pedagogic development was rooted in Uday Shankar’s choice of gender representations and movements.6 Let me now return to that pivotal moment when I moved from the role of Lakshmana to Ram. The shift of roles seems like a natural promotion, but it is much more. In Seeta Swayambara, Lakshmana plays a small role as a dutiful brother who remains totally in the shadow of Ram. In contrast, Ram is the central figure, the epitome of tolerance, obedience, consideration, and gravity. “Being Ram” brought a complete change in my perception of his character, and that change developed not only out of practiced replication of the taught movements, but also as I gradually developed an understanding of the character’s nuances. With performing Ram came the inevitable adage of “being Ram,” on stage, but sometimes also off-​stage in troubling post-​ performance circumstances. For me, the college-​educated offspring of a family created from a mixed marriage where both parents were atheists and communists, Ram was not perceived as a deity. Instead, he was a popular hero, who proved to be a just and able ruler but a weak and unjust husband. Thus, Ram’s story reaffirmed patriarchy in several ways. With several layers of misgivings and questions, 6 First in Almora (1938–​1944) and then in Kolkata, Uday Shankar propagated three kinds of training in dance and dance pedagogy, which were followed by USICC: the main elements of the “creative” style of dance were observation, improvisation, and composition. I have demonstrated in Sarkar Munsi (2008: 88–​89) that Uday Shankar’s dance institutions in Almora and Kolkata established a two-​pronged process of dance training by emphasizing the learning of established grammars of movements in addition to creating new movement patterns. Even though he has been dismissed as lacking in technique (see Khokar 1983: 79, Vatsyayan 2003: 21), Shankar was one of the first dancers to challenge the boundaries set by classicized aesthetics in dance in India and the overemphasis on grammar. Although compulsory learning of movement systems of three classical styles was a part of USICC training, the fourth and the most fascinating class focused on “creative dance,” which encouraged improvisation. A review of the daily routine of USICC Almora (Sarkar Munsi 2008: 89) clarifies that this was a process that continued and developed further from what Shankar called his “General Classes” in Almora.

286  Beyond Enactment this phase of “performing Ram” began. As I review Urmimala’s subjective experience at age 22 in the light of reactions that I have now, I perceive a distinct feeling of pride in being given the responsibility to perform the most coveted role in USICC’s repertoire, rather than any sense of devotional achievement in performing the role of Ram. Hence, in retrospect, I have a list of questions for myself: How did I get initiated into being Ram? What bodily attributes did I work on? And how did I think of the role? In other words, who was I becoming? And what aided me in this process when I was instructed to dance so that I could become the young prince, yet was never pushed to become hyper-​masculine in my portrayal of the role? I was given a long list of “dos and don’ts.” Or rather, I inherited those guidelines from my predecessor Mamata Shankar, the previous and first Ram in our troupe. From the beginning, while she went through the grueling task of learning the part, all the junior dancers who “could be” Rams listened avidly to the instructions and watched carefully. Ram had a special walk, a gait that should be confident yet not arrogant. The gait was not a dance but a form of step, yet it was not a natural one. Rather, it was deliberately heroic, but also not that of a mature man. The dancer constantly had to negotiate between being youthful but controlled. Ram had to have a smile, not one that was happy, carefree, and youthful, but one that signified his confidence, while also portraying the inner peace of a gentle, understanding, yet determined hero and prince. Ram would never hurry since he was always in control. His anger would always be direct, logical, rational, and fair. As opposed to Lakshmana, who had a hot temper, Ram would never act impulsively. His steps and inquisitiveness when he journeyed to new places would have the energy of youth, but never be childish or impatient. Even in his admiration and love of Sita, he would never be ruled by emotions. He was a true hero, we were told time and again, by our Kathakali guru. Once I was promoted to performing Ram, I painstakingly created my own embodied understanding of the body language that Ram needed to have, by first understanding all the things that Ram was not. I also learned to hold on to the essence of “being Ram” as soon as I began to think about the role. I started noticing that I held my spine straight, with my core strongly centered, and clenched almost constantly, even while I listened to instructions on performing the role of Ram. “Being Ram” had entered my everyday embodied practice. This continues even now: I inadvertently straighten my

Revisiting “Being Ram”  287 spine and sit straight, clenching my core, when I talk or write about my performance of Ram. The costumes made for Ram and Lakshmana also helped me to become Ram. These were not typical Kathakali costumes at all. Ram’s costume consisted of a long, white, fitted blouse with short sleeves and a white stitched dhoti, with an embroidered shining border, and a fan-​like attachment in front that spread decoratively whenever there was a stance with the Kathakali basic posture. This posture creates a square between the legs with knees bent and feet in parallel positions spread just beyond shoulder width. The ornaments consisted of metal upper-​arm and wrist jewelry and a waist-​ long, U-​shaped, beaded necklace (kazhutharam) somewhat like the one used as an ornament in Kathakali. It was tied to a necklace around the throat and around the waist to keep it in place and was worn over a golden cloth that covered the chest and was tied across the right shoulder to cover the waistline. Both Ram and Lakshmana wore a white garland ending at the navel. A broad and ornamented golden belt made of golden rexine, with decorative ornamental pieces sewn over it, defined the waistline and the dancing body. Simultaneously, the belt kept the body free for strong and powerful jumps and movements that were part and parcel of the role. My waist-​length hair was rolled up to create a shoulder-​length roll and capped with a golden crown that was adapted from the design of Balinese crowns made of golden rexine and ornamentation. The golden fan behind the crown accentuated the signature identity marker of the young princes. Both the belt and the crown looked as if they were made of metal but were lighter and more comfortable. Lakshmana had a smaller crown and a less decorated belt and wore a pale pink or yellow dhoti and blouse. There was neither an effort to create a male identity nor an attempt to hide feminine physical attributes or features. The costume lent freedom to the dancer’s body, leaving it able to move without constraint. As soon as the crown was in place and I held the silver bow (made of wood) and tied the arrow-​holder across my back, I felt transformed into the role of Ram. Seeta Swayambara begins in King Dasharatha’s court, where he and Sage Vashisth are talking about the two young princes, Ram and Lakshmana, when a messenger announces the arrival of Vishwamitra. On Vishwamitra’s insistence, the king with great reluctance agrees to send the two princes with Vishwamitra on a journey through the forests to protect the sages from the frequent attacks of rakshasas. The first part of this journey registers the experiences of the young princes as they encounter the wonders and dangers

288  Beyond Enactment of the forest. In the next scene, they face Tataka’s son Maricha and his companion Subahu, who were harassing the sages by interfering with their rites. Ram and Lakshmana first appear on stage when the king summons them to meet Sage Vishwamitra. The princes enter King Dasharatha’s court in unison, but after three steps on the stage, Lakshmana stands in one place, partially facing the king and partially facing the audience, while Ram dances his introductory set of movements. I was told that, during this first appearance, I had to mesmerize the audience. I also had to establish the youthful vitality of the young prince, who was at once filled with strength and confidence, but at the same time extremely respectful of his elders and hence conscious of princely comportment in their presence. This introductory dance solo not only establishes Ram as the principal character of the performance, but also portrays the young prince and warrior in the context of the story about to unfold. Hence, this is Ram’s pivotal moment as he commands attention on stage while Lakshmana, Dasharatha, and sages Vishwamitra and Vashistha remain more or less still. During his solo, Ram takes a specific stance while holding the bow and arrow in a striking posture, taking aim, and artfully displaying the strength and the artistic elegance of the body. After his solo, the elders raise their hands to bless the princes. At the end of this short piece, Ram takes a semicircular path from the front of the stage to the other side of it, and both he and Lakshmana bow to Dasharatha and the other elders present. Then the king introduces the princes to the sage and bids them goodbye as they depart on their journey to his ashram. Looking back, I realize the first entrance of the prince is one of the most crucial moments in the piece because the audience is forced to sit up and pay close attention. The music, the sudden brightening of lights on the stage, and the spectacular entrance are supposed to create a dazzling effect, meant to have a lasting impact on the audience and to evoke their rapt attention. At that moment, I also experienced a kind of transcendence: from young woman dancer to prince and hero who was, for reasons unexplored until then, larger than life. I felt no transcendence of Ram as a divine character. Instead, it was a moment when I felt unimaginably empowered because I had consolidated and transformed all the learned skills of “doing” the role of Ram into the state of “being” Ram. It was also the first coming together of representing and presenting Ram with a tumultuous immediacy. Along with becoming at ease with Ram’s gait and movements, I was also slowly perfecting the art of blessing the audience. It took a while for me to

Revisiting “Being Ram”  289 be able to bless people of all ages as part of my role as a prince and deity. Indeed, I struggled to feel comfortable with raising the right hand in a gesture of blessing one and all, while holding the bow in the left hand. I learned most of the gestures and movement structures by watching rehearsals of my predecessor. Teachers Amala Shankar and P. Raghavan provided specific instructions during rehearsals so that I could perfect the gestures and movements. In the process, the representation became a fully embodied subjective endeavor, as it invariably does when different dancers play the same role.

“Being” Ram: The Subjectivity of Embodiment Negotiating gender beyond socialized constructs of embodiment demands hard work. In this regard, the task of constructing the image of a heroic Ram through a regal presence and confident gait was hardly simple. The presence of Ram was to register as “male” but it was not meant to be overly aggressive at any point. Here, I acknowledge the complexity of transferred knowledge, embodied and otherwise; my predecessor in the role and I negotiated “maleness” in different ways. I inherited a structure already built from the teaching of our Kathakali Guru and then embodied by Mamata Shankar, the wonderful dancer who was my senior at USICC. Her Ram had been developed by almost nine years of experience dancing the role in Seeta Swayambara. Hence, it was not Ram that I was imagining. I was encountering a Ram, shaped through an already negotiated experience. While I could never be as fine a dancer as Mamata by simply imitating her, I was also not free to become a Ram that emerged largely from my own imagination. Nonetheless, I also found that negotiations crept into my being Ram at an involuntary level through my experience of maleness around me and my individual study and experiencing of Kathakali. Never did I want to compete with Mamata to be “more of a Ram” than she was, but we were certainly Rams in distinctive and individual ways. In her documentation and fieldwork among Balinese dancers, Sally Ann Ness stresses the role of context in formulating the different means and methods of embodiment of the same performative practices: “what was given for practice were patterns of bodily conduct that had transgenerational histories or regular articulation, patterns that had been made sense of in ways regarded as common by untold numbers of dancers in each culture.” She

290  Beyond Enactment notes, however, that “despite the common fact of their being body-​oriented, the knowledge imparted in these patterns was of very different sorts. In the Balinese case, the patterns were designed for the individual body of a person preparing to dance, in a highly codified movement technique, heroic character roles from epic based narratives.”7 My context consisted of continuing the role of Ram, which was initially designed for another performer in mind. What was tailor-​made for Mamata had to take its own shape in my body, first at a basic imitative level, and then through the specificities of my vision and understanding of a young male body and its energy, as shaped by my experiences of everyday social life. I tried to understand how a performance by a dancer can refer to a specific history of embodiment as the mind and body of an individual matures over the course of training; in the process, the experience of gendering and relating with the center of gravity (the core), the central strength within one’s own body, take on new meanings. No two persons experience and embody ideas or movements in the same way; even highly codified movements settle and adjust into a subjectively structured mold. Second, Ness’s reference to “patterns of bodily conduct” highlights the rather delicate subject of inhabiting a role inherited from a performer for whom a role was initially tailor-​made. In retrospect, I ask why in many semi-​ professional or amateur dance troupes in India, specific training as an understudy or substitute dancer is considered unnecessary, even if only for an emergency replacement in roles. It is assumed that junior dancers must prove their worthiness by training themselves invisibly. The need to “be attentive” and thus to ready oneself for all major roles, without assurance of being promoted to any specific role, was stressed in our institution, which focused on creating hierarchy-​less teaching based on the idea that all dancers are equal; no one was to ever take for granted that she or he was indispensable. Nonetheless, there were invisible unchangeable rules and an undeniable hierarchy. This hierarchy derived from certain hereditary privileges linked to the inheritance of legacies. In this case, Ram’s role was created for Mamata Shankar; she was the best choice for the role of Ram at that time due to her excellent body training. Possibly she was the best of all dancers when she was first chosen to be Ram. When I became Ram, since I had no hereditary claim to the role through familial ties, I had to earn it. Without any formal initiation into the role, my 7 Ness (2005: 134).

Revisiting “Being Ram”  291 only tool was to initially learn roles by viewing rather than performing. As a dancer trained to be humble and submissive, I feel uncomfortable even acknowledging the skill that I used to shape myself into the role of Ram. Initially, I used my training in Kathakali to understand, decipher, and imitate the movements that I saw Mamata carry out so skillfully. Yet, somewhere along the way, I also began to frame my imagined characterization of Ram. For example, I conveyed my sense of wonder at a chance meeting with Sita in Janaka’s palace garden with learned movements that were also crafted by personal experiences in daily life. Perhaps, through my experience of continuing to play cricket in my school years, supplemented by my engagement with extensive physical activities, my interpretation differed and thus my portrayal of Ram started bearing my own signature. Hence, the performance structure from my predecessor’s time was transformed even while I tried my best to submit to it. The inevitability of subjective interpretation of embodiment exists because bodies and socializations have long histories. They challenge other histories of traditions and create microcosms of organic embodiments that seem inevitable and, therefore, are better encountered if they are acknowledged. Much of our experience is through socialization. The experience or the idea of what it is to be “male” through bodily movements is framed by the taught grammars of “male” movements, but also by the social experience of growing up in specific circumstances, as we become gendered through school and college education, and through relationships within families and their structures of gender-​based hierarchy.8 The last layering of socialization comes from the way one starts speaking to the character one portrays; there began my conversation with Ram. I will never forget the first feeling of complete elation mixed with nervousness at being chosen to succeed Mamata and doing Ram almost without any plan; I replaced Mamata during one program, which she was unable to perform because of another commitment. That evening I must have been the perfect clone, not really “being Ram” at all, instead imitating what I had seen

8 My immediate family functioned with atypically complete equality between two communist working parents. That may have structured my ethics and politics, but it did not insulate me from patriarchal practices outside the home. Patriarchy-​driven socializations registered when I encountered male aggression, comments about effeminacy, the “right” kind of male/​femaleness, dress codes, and the appropriate way to walk. Also knowing the limits of male physicality came through my training in cricket and my desire to be a wicket-​keeper.

292  Beyond Enactment Mamata doing to perfection. Rightfully, all praises that day were about how exactly like her I was, not how much of an ideal Ram I could become. Soon I started enjoying “being Ram” on stage. I remember one thrilling moment of encountering the forest, the river, and the wild animals, while accompanying Sage Vishwamitra. Ram was learning how to jump across a stream by stepping on stones. First, he imitated the sage and then helped Lakshmana to cross the stream as well. In playing this scene, I (the sole child in my family) became aware of the control I could exert over a younger child, as the older brother commanding compliance and respect. By opening myself to the social experience of taking care of a younger brother in the scene, I gradually became comfortable performing the role of Ram. In contrast, the challenge of “being Ram” posed more problems and challenges. Among several incidents which expanded my understanding of the process of “being Ram,” the first occurred in Allahabad in 1982, on the day after we had performed at the Prayag Sangeet Sammelan Auditorium. The troupe took a boat trip to Prayag with all the female dancers clad in sarees and dressed in finery and arrived at the house of a Supreme Court judge for lunch. From the sprawling bungalow, the river could be seen from every room. In a relaxed mood, the troupe finished a leisurely lunch and prepared to return to the accommodation provided by our local hosts. While we waited for the cars outside the bungalow, the lady of the house, a principal of a school, asked our director and my mentor, Amala Shankar, to be introduced to the person who had played the role of Ram the previous night. I was called to be introduced to her. Suddenly I found her lying down supine on the ground and touching my feet! As a sari-​clad young girl of 22, I reacted in a very non-​Ram fashion by jumping away, feeling completely embarrassed, shy, and taken by surprise because my elder was showing so much respect just because I had acted the role of Ram in a performance that she had seen the previous day. This moment revealed to me the depth of respect that the role of Ram elicits in audience members, regardless of gender, age, or class, not only while acting the character but even while stepping out of character into everyday life. Another formative experience occurred numerous times, one that became less and less traumatic as I became more comfortable “being Ram.” In addition to proscenium performances, we were often asked to perform in huge gatherings such as open fairs organized by the government on occasions like Dussehra and Ardh-​Kumbh, special open-​air celebrations of big private business houses, and festivities of nongovernmental organizations. The final

Revisiting “Being Ram”  293 scene of Seeta Swayambara was a celebratory procession after Ram’s marriage, during which Ram, Lakshmana, and Sita moved through the audience and then returned to the proscenium stage again. Ram then took center stage with Sita and Lakshmana on either side of him, while the royal festivities went on all around them. The procession through the crowd gave the audience a chance to come close to Ram. Many members of the audience literally came for blessings, touched Ram’s feet, asked him to bless a child placed at his feet, or started dancing alongside the procession. Thus, Ram became a part of the crowd as a prince visiting his subjects, while the crowd was drawn into the celebration as participants in the wedding. As I look back and analyze my feelings at those moments, I identify a curious dichotomy of roles. On one hand, I was aware of being a woman, feeling vulnerable in the middle of the huge crowd, where many jostled to come forward and some touched my feet. On the other hand, as Ram, I had the responsibility to perform the act of blessing everyone: a fleeting movement between identification with Ram on the one hand, and a dissociated presence while “performing Ram” on the other hand. The desire to reach Ram and get his blessing produces, I imagine, an almost identical result across space and time among diverse audiences from different urban and rural contexts. Many performers from different traditional forms have similar stories to narrate about being or performing Ram.

Encountering Sagar’s Televised Rāmāyaṇ Engaging with the complexities of “being Ram” became increasingly more complicated when the televised Ram entered private mental universes and inundated everyday life with his presence. Much has been written about the tremendous impact of Ramanand Sagar’s weekly television broadcast of Rāmāyaṇ by Doordarshan, the Indian state-​run television channel, from January 1987 to August 1989.9 With these weekly broadcasts of a serial that brought the entire nation to a standstill, as millions of viewers sought darśan (seeing) of Ram as a god, there emerged a phase of ever-​increasing religious partisanship, with Ram becoming the symbol of a political campaign. Under

9 Rajagopal (2001).

294  Beyond Enactment the guise of promoting “Hindu” culture, strong fundamentalist codes were applied in the public sphere.10 The serial made darshan, a common Hindu mode of communion with a deity in sacred spaces, easily available. In front of television sets, Ram in the serial “gave” darshan and the devotee “received” darshan. In the process, Ram became a ubiquitous presence in the minds of many Indians. The early episodes, although laden with a populist and hyper-​patriarchal understanding of the epic, I would argue, follow the basic assumptions and tenets of Rāmcaritmānas by Tulsidas, supplemented by popular patterns of dramaturgy that appear in Rāmlīlā performances (Kapur 1990). However, as Sagar’s serial progressed, a need developed to show Ram fighting evil, which compelled him to grow as both a god and a dependable warrior, an amalgam analyzed by Kapur.11 Episodes 4–​10 of the Rāmāyaṇ serial, which deal with the same events as Seeta Swayambara, depict Ram turning from an obedient young prince into a hero, praised by all, including Sages Vishwamitra, Vashistha, and Parashurama, and even elders such as Janaka (Sita’s father), who washes Ram’s feet at his wedding, while looking in devotion and admiration at his son-​in-​law. Many Indians viewed the serial as spreading religious devotion (bhakti) to the vast multitude of its audience. Although it is impossible to know whether this mode of mediatized devotion had a clear political agenda at the serial’s start, it gradually became part of a religio-​cultural movement which fueled intense communalization. In the meantime, the Ram Janmabhumi (birthplace of Ram) movement grew in energy and scale. Hindu fundamentalist leaders and communal politicians utilized Lord Ram and the serial to establish public images of the “ideal” bhakta (devotee), the “ideal” strī (woman-​wife), the “ideal” vīra (warrior-​hero), the “ideal” rāja (king and protector), and by extension, the “ideal” militant Hindu. Performances of Seeta Swayambara continued to be performed, seemingly immune to the politicization of Ram. Nevertheless, its performances could be interpreted as unknowingly contributing to the preeminence of this figure so central to Hindutva polemic.

10 Space limitations make it impossible for me to comment here on secondary literature about the relationship between the serial and Hindutva’s resurgence. Instead, I focus on the serial in relation to the production of Seeta Swayambara. 11 Kapur’s “Militant Image of a Tranquil God” (1992) shows how Ram’s representation shifted over time.

Revisiting “Being Ram”  295 One such show was held in Murshidabad following the Babri Masjid demolition on December 6, 1992, and subsequent riots. The performance went well, but as soon as it concluded with the celebratory Ram Bhajan at the end of the performance, the stage was occupied by hundreds of young men dressed in saffron dhotis, with tridents (triśūl) and swords (talwār) in hand, shouting “Jai Ram.” The performance was patronized by the Bharat Sevashram Sangh, a Hindu social service organization based in Kolkata, to celebrate the yearly Hindu festival for a lesser-​known goddess named Basanti. It was not yet identified as a Hindu nationalist organization but had ties to groups who openly advocated Hindutva ideology. With no apparent link to Ram at all, the performance of Seeta Swayambara in honor of Basanti was utilized to infuse the beedi workers and their families in Murshidabad with rousing images of militant Hinduism. Even today, I feel ashamed and complicit with what happened that day because I was playing the role of Ram. On that day, no explicit reference was made to Hindutva politics, but one needed no direct reference to see how the performance of Ram functioned. We dancers discussed among ourselves and with others how such “use” should be resisted. Yet, the conventional ways that dancers are constrained in the name of tradition to voice their personal feelings proved so deeply rooted that Seeta Swayambara continued without a glimmer of protest, even after the Murshidabad experience. Until that moment, I did not know how our shows were managed. Dancers of USICC played no part in responding to invitations that led to subsequent contracts from private patrons, organizations, or groups. Arrangements for performances occurred in a separate space from the one in which dancers trained and rehearsed. In one space, the logistics of payments, travel, and promises of hospitality and accommodation were sorted out; in the other space, which we called “ours” with pride, performances were shaped and rehearsed, and roles were finalized. In fact, looking back on this arrangement, I suspect that keeping these two spaces separate derives from the limited space that the dancer is allotted in the structure of dance institutions in India, where master teachers or gurus control the management of performances. The dancers’ lack of agency is intrinsic to how shows are organized and carried out. This distance from decision-​making, I would argue, relates to the apolitical engagement with our dancing bodies. In the past, several leftist and liberal artists with links to the Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association (IPTA) and active leftist politics, such as Jyotirindra Moitra and Narendra Sharma, were involved with the famous performance

296  Beyond Enactment of Ramlila produced by Bharatiya Kala Kendra in New Delhi. Spectators remember their work with huge respect and pride as a part of the cultural history of India. One wonders whether these early stalwarts of modern Indian dance would have agreed to participate in productions with similar themes in the changed context of Hindutva. In later years, these same artists made different choices in their careers, going in different directions, as they distanced themselves from Ram’s story at Bharatiya Kala Kendra, despite the fame it had earned them. I realize now that certain themes and texts assume different political meanings and implications at different points in time. No artist has the right to participate in the legitimization of communal politics and fundamentalist violence with the excuse that she only focused on her performance. Speaking for myself, I am compelled to confront that while Ram was becoming the mascot God for right-​wing politics in its renewed effort to gain electoral strength, I continued to perform the role of Ram. Like many other dancers, I was safely ensconced in my apolitical cocoon of dance despite living in the politicized context of Left politics in the state of West Bengal. I was also probably wearing a pedagogical blindfold with my unquestioning faith instilled and enforced in the learning process of canonical dance forms in India. In retrospect, it appears that it was possible for me to bifurcate my conscious understanding of progressive politics from the world of dance, which overemphasizes the need to acquire skills in a highly rigorous manner. So obsessive was this drive that it seems to have compelled the dancer in me to focus on hard work, expertise, and excellence, at the expense of strengthening a critical response and social responsibility toward everyday political realities. This continued until I arrived at a point where it became clear to me that one could not be “innocently” apolitical in performing Ram. Although I packed away the Ram costume for the last time in 2006, memories of having been Ram remain a life-​defining and yet difficult reality for me to confront. Perhaps, I have no other option but to continue to probe the subterranean layers of this reality, complicating the artistic memories of “performing Ram” with the political unease of “being Ram.” This essay, therefore, remains unfinished as I continue to unravel its unrealized possibilities of fully understanding my performance in Seeta Swayambara in turbulent times between 1981 and 2006, whose contradictions have intensified in the present moment.

Revisiting “Being Ram”  297

Bibliography Banerji, Projesh. [completed in 1955] 1982. Uday Shakar and His Art. Delhi: B. R. Kapur, Anuradha.1990. Actors, Pilgrims, Kings and Gods: The Ramlila of Ramnagar. Calcutta: Seagull Books. Kapur, Anuradha. 1992. “Militant Images of a Tranquil God.” Reprinted in Politics of Confrontation: The Babri-​Masjid Ramjanmabhoom Controversy Runs Riot, ed. Asghar Ali Engineer, pp. 45–​48. New Delhi: Ajanta Books. Khokar, Mohan. 1983. His Dance, His Life: A Portrait of Uday Shankar. New Delhi: Himalayan Books. Ness, Sally Ann. 1996. “Dancing in the Field.” In Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture and Power, ed. Susan Foster, pp. 134–​156. New York: Routledge. Rajagopal, Arvind. 2001. Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sarkar Munsi, Urmimala. 2008. “Boundaries and Beyond: Problems of Nomenclature in Indian Dance.” In Dance: Transcending Borders, ed. Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, pp. 78–​ 98. Delhi: Tulika Books. Sarkar Munsi, Urmimala. 2014. “Being Rama: Performing Rama in a Changing World.” In Ramkatha in Narrative, Performance and Pictorial Traditions, ed. Molly Kaushal, Alok Bhalla, and Ramakar Pant, pp. 160–​165. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Aryan Books. Vatsyayan, Kapila. 2003. “Modern Dance: The Contribution of Uday Shankar and His Associates.” In New Direction in Indian Dance, ed. Sunil Kothari, pp. 20–​31. Mumbai: Marg Publications.

15 The Night before Bhor Ārti Play and Banarasipan in the Ramnagar Ramlila Bhargav Rani

The rationale for studying the idea of play in the Ramnagar Ramlila lies in the very word lila (līlā), found in the nomenclature of one of the most prominent ritual performance traditions in northern India. Lila, the Sanskrit word for divine play, refers to the philosophical attitude of perceiving the order of the universe as the consequence of the unmotivated play of the gods. Its conceptual breadth implicates the entire proceedings of the world in an expansive game of mytho-​cosmic proportions that the gods engage in for their own pleasure, that is, for the sake of the game itself. The concept of lila effects a peculiar equilibrium between structural adherence and playful transgression that holds the order and chaos of the universe in a dialectical tension. Nita Kumar characterizes lila as signifying “the idea of abandon but also control, playfulness but total application, freedom achieved through discipline, amusement coexisting with purposefulness, superhuman bliss and joy within the earthly mundane, divine presence evoked by human craft, ecstasy that breaks the bound of the self while celebrating the human senses.”1 Thus, be it the inadequate harvest that season or the inclement turn in weather, be it the birth of a child or a death in the family, be it that unexpected windfall or the drudgery of everyday life, these events are rationalized through the oft-​ quoted phrase, “Sab Prabhu kī līlā hai!” All is God’s play! This essay analyzes the distinctive shape of this dialectic of play and structure as manifest in the Ramnagar Ramlila, the most elaborate ritual enactment of the story of Ram in northern India. Ram’s lila performs the life of Ram—​an avatar of Vishnu—​whose descent to this earthly world was Vishnu’s lila to end the tyranny of Ravana. Thousands of Ramlilas are performed

1 Kumar, in fact, goes on to suggest that lila puts “the concept of dialectic itself to shame” (1992: 40).

Bhargav Rani, The Night before Bhor Ārti In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0015

The Night before Bhor Ārti  299 in northern India during September and October.2 Yet, the Ramlila of Ramnagar, still performed with kerosene lamps in open-​air, makeshift venues, and without microphones or electric lighting, distinguishes itself by the singularity of its dramaturgy, which imbues it with immense sacral significance. The five young boys (called the svarups [svarūps]) who play the parts of the five principal gods are believed to be the gods themselves for the duration of the ritual, and the enactment of Ram’s story constitutes a ritual reconstruction or a “making present” of Rāmrājya, the golden age of his reign. Temporally, the Ramnagar Ramlila is the longest of all Ramlilas, spanning an entire month, during which the narrative of Ram’s life unfolds episodically every day, with dramatic enactment alternating with verses from Tulsidas’s Rāmacaritmānas [The Lake of Ram’s Deeds] sung by Rāmāyaṇīs (chanters of Rāmacaritmānas), head priests of the Maharaja of Banaras.3 Spatially, the performance encompasses the entire town of Ramnagar. The main pilgrimage sites that feature in the narrative of Ram’s life are represented in distinct venues spread across town, and audiences move between venues for different episodes.4 This distinctive appropriation and production of space also incorporate pilgrimage into the ritual, with spectators perceiving their participation in it as tantamount to a pilgrimage of all of Ram’s tīrthasthān, pilgrimage centers, in India.5 In this essay, I argue that, while this elaborate dramaturgical structure distinguishes the Ramnagar Ramlila as a considerable endeavor that participants undertake to accumulate spiritual benefits, the everyday experience of the lila premis (premīs; literally “lovers of the lila”) is replete with frequent negotiations, subversions, and transgressions of the “normative” phenomenological paradigm implied in the ritual structure. Drawing on ethnographic studies of the Ramnagar Ramlila from 2011 to 2013, I explore this vast remainder of practices that slip through the margins and interstices 2 The 2015 international conference organized by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts explored many Indian Ramlila traditions. While the Ramnagar Ramlila is popular for its unique aesthetic and religious experience, other styles of representation (e.g., Jhanki Ramlila, the Nakkataiyya procession) also occur in Varanasi. Others include Ramlilas of Mathura-​Vrindavan, Ayodhya, and Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh), Almora (Uttarakhand), Sattna (Madhya Pradesh), Swang and Rasdhari Khayal (Rajasthan), as well as Nukkad Natak (street theater), small neighborhood Ramlilas in North India. Moving east, popular Ramlilas include Madhubani Ramlila (Bihar), Ram Jatra (Bengal), Daspalla, Bisipada and Boudh Ramlila (Orissa). 3 This text is often referred to simply as Mānas. 4 Schechner identifies the nine main “stations” in which the “unified sacred space” of the Ramlila is enacted: Ayodhya, Janakpur, Chitrakut, Panchavati, Rameshwaram, Lanka, Bharat Milap, Rambag, the Fort (1993: 137). 5 Sax (1990: 129–​153).

300  Beyond Enactment of its dramaturgical structure and analyze them through the broad theoretical rubric of “play” or “the ludic.” Thus, this essay draws analytic attention to that quick escape from the lila for a cup of chai and a paan (tobacco wrapped in betel-​nut leaf with condiments), that smoking of a chillum (a clay pipe) at the far end of the crowd or that unscheduled nap while waiting for the ārti (venerating svarups with offerings of flame), that purposeless stroll through the mēlā (the fair), or the feasting with friends during an evening’s lila. I begin this essay by analyzing the dominant scholarship to show that the discourse on the Ramnagar Ramlila has been inordinately concerned with experiences produced by its singular dramaturgy and sacral quality, what I call its “normative” phenomenology, at the expense of manifold experiences of play, or the “alternate” phenomenology, proliferating in its margins. I argue that both the dramaturgical structure with its sacrality and the practices of play in all their mundanity stand in a dialectical relationship, with each thoroughly mediated by the other. I begin with a thick description of the everyday boat ride of the lila premis from Banaras to Ramnagar, and evoke the ludic ethos that infuses their participation to establish its relevance as a theoretical category for understanding the nature of their experience. Then, I turn to the specific manifestations of play in the Ramlila, focusing on the character and significance of the sandhya (sandhyā; evening) break, when the Maharaja (known as Kashi Naresh) leaves the event to carry out his evening worship and the lila is suspended until his return. Over Ramlila month, this sanctioned ludic interstice in the ritual structure gradually increases to longer hours of play, culminating in the night of waiting prior to the Bhor Ārti on the penultimate day. Drawing on new ethnographic research, I curate a montage of the rich phenomenological textures that characterize this night of waiting and evoke the vibrancy of an extraordinary event of the Ramlila that has been largely ignored by scholars. In the second part of the chapter, I argue that an understanding of the politics activated in this affective spectacle of the Bhor Ārti demands a historicization of the Ramlila. Such a historicization locates the intense sacral quality of the Ramlila and its monumental ritual construction of Ramrajya in close proximity to the subjective formations of Hindu nationalism since the nineteenth century. In a dialectical relation to this history, I then argue that even the manifold practices of play that proliferate in the Ramlila are historical and invoke a cultural history of leisure and playfulness celebrated in Banaras as Banarasipan (literally, “Banarasi-​ness”). In other words, the Ramnagar Ramlila is an intensified experience and expression of Banarasipan. I end

The Night before Bhor Ārti  301 the essay with a description of the Rāvaṇ Vadh [Slaying of Ravana] from the 2013 Ramlila, when cyclonic storms washed away one of the most popular occasions for play in the ritual. This disruption in the smooth unfurling of the dialectic of play and structure, of ritual adherence and playful indulgence, provides a privileged window into the entrenched reciprocity of the two elements in their determination of the phenomenology of the Ramnagar Ramlila.

Play and Melā in Ramlila Scholarship The prevalent scholarship on the Ramnagar Ramlila has been largely centered on the “normative” phenomenology engendered by its distinctive dramaturgy. The most extensive literature on the ritual over the last three decades has been produced by Richard Schechner (1982, 1993, 2010, 2015). Schechner’s early expositions are located in the particular intellectual terrains of the 1970s that informed the development of performance studies as a discipline, particularly its intersections with anthropology. The Ramnagar Ramlila, with its protracted yet intensive experience of space, time, and the sacred, provided a fertile ground for a problematization of “performance” and an expansion of its signification to various aspects of the social world, particularly ritual. Schechner is thus primarily interested in the structures that define the performance of the ritual at the expense of the manifold ways of experiencing the Ramlila that bear only an incidental relation to its dramaturgy. He is of course aware of the vibrancy of these play practices that slip through the interstices of its structures.6 Yet, his turn to the category of “mela” (melā; Hindi for “fair” or “carnival”), due to its mainly commercial signification in his thesis, tends spatially and philosophically to confine the many play practices to the peripheries of the rituals; that move prevents him from appreciating the ways in which play seeps into the experiential fabric of the Ramnagar Ramlila.7 6 He, for instance, notes in The Future of Ritual, “The rasa of this dilation [that is, of space and time] is nowhere better tasting than during sandhya puja . . . [which] interrupts the dramatic action even while continuing the lila” (1993: 177); or in his more recent Performed Imaginaries, “The long break for sandhya puja is a time when the drama of Ramlila relaxes into a mela. While the maharaja prays, the people play” (2015: 129). 7 Schechner defines the mela as “the temporary assembly of food sellers, game hawkers, and merchants who gather near whatever Ramlila ground is in use” (1993: 161). There is an entrenched prejudice among lila “purists” against the world of the mela, deemed antithetical to the sacred world of the lila, and Schechner too fails to shed the weight of this rhetoric in his study. In Performed

302  Beyond Enactment Moreover, Schechner’s predilection toward the singularity of its dramaturgy allows for an analysis of the play practices only within the logic produced by the dramaturgy of the performance. As I demonstrate over the course of the essay, a close study of these play practices, what are often summarily dismissed under the rubric of mela, reveals the prevalence of another logic in their perpetuation, one that is external to the performative logic of the Ramlila and embedded in a larger culture of leisure and playfulness that Banarasis celebrate as Banarasipan. Thus, Schechner’s theoretical apparatus allows him to rightly surmise that, during sandhya, “Children cry, sleep, play. People go to the toilet. Even the police seem to relax. But during Ramlila all these ordinary happenings are charged with a special sensitivity. The values of the lila infiltrate the most common actions.”8 But at the same time, a study of the historical and cultural logic of these seemingly ordinary happenings allows for an understanding of the ways in which the lila itself is charged with a “special sensitivity” seeped with the values of Banarasipan. In contrast to Schechner, Anuradha Kapur (1990) locates her treatise on the Ramlila, the most elaborate account of the ritual to date, within postcolonial debates of the 1980s that were characterized by the “theater of roots” movement, the poststructuralist celebration of difference, and a contestation of Western notions of “an authentic Indian tradition.” Her work aims to resist the violence that she sees implicit in the imposition of a category like the “authentic,” that is both “so vast as never to be seriously violated” and at the same time one in which “eccentricities, changefulness, history, experience are summarily obliterated.”9 She thus engages in a Geertzian “thick description” of the multifarious “visual, aural, and even tactile signals” that the spectator might assimilate during the ritual to allow “for their heterogeneity to come through.”10 In the process, Kapur is deeply attuned to the phenomenological richness of the Ramnagar Ramlila, and her study is replete with evocative descriptions of the multitude of play practices that proliferate in the performance. However, in keeping with the broader intellectual climate of the time, Kapur refuses to abstract a theoretical structure of meaning from Imaginaries, he writes, “People attending Ramlila come for darshan but they also attend for the mela. In 2013, I noticed that the mela had invaded the northwestern corner of Lanka, extending outwards almost to Suvel, blocking the direct line between Ravan’s Qila and Ram’s camp. This, I felt, was wrong.” (2015: 111).

8 Schechner (1993: 177). 9 Kapur (1990: 1).

10 Ibid., 26.

The Night before Bhor Ārti  303 these rich descriptions. As a result, the play practices that she describes remain hermeneutically dispersed in her ethnography, and the historical and cultural logic underpinning their prevalence does not feature as a concern in her scholarship. Finally, both Schechner and Kapur presume that the performance spaces constitute the obvious thresholds for understanding the phenomenology of the Ramnagar Ramlila, and thus limit their ethnographies to the sacred and performative geography of the ritual. In contrast, taking the people themselves, rather than the spaces, as the principal denominator determining phenomenology, I follow the lila premis who, in their everyday business of attending the Ramlila, often take detours and diversions that activate spaces far removed from the sites of performances and weave experiences strikingly different from those produced by the dramaturgical structure of the ritual.

The Journey to Ramnagar A study of the ludic ethos that permeates the lila premis’ experience of the Ramlila must begin, not in Ramnagar, but on the Banaras ghats (ghāts; river banks), with their everyday journey across the river. The slow, upstream ride to Ramnagar that frames the receding Banaras ghats in a panoramic splendor has, for a large part of two centuries, formed the traditional prelude to an evening at the lila, although many now take the road as well. During my regular attendance of the Ramlila in 2011, I traveled every day with a large group of 15 lila premis on Kanhaiyya’s boat from Ahilyabai Ghat in Banaras. With all aboard by half past three, the boat set off with shouts of “Har Har Mahādev!” for its almost hour-​long journey upstream to Ramnagar. Conversations rarely ceased during the journey, as the lila premis joked, laughed, gossiped, abused, mocked, and constantly teased and ridiculed each other. A spirited banter prevailed among these close friends who have been attending the lila in each other’s company for decades. While my exposition of the experiences of the lila premis on Kanhaiyya’s boat is indeed meant to highlight the contours of a broader culture of ludic engagement that has come to define the audience experiences, the category of the “lila premi” itself is neither universal nor ahistorical. Among the Ramlila patrons, the prevailing conceptions of spectatorship identify the “lila premi” as an intermediate category between the “nemi” (nēmī; from niyamī, one who stands by a principle) on the one hand—​those who not only attend

304  Beyond Enactment the lila diligently every day for a month but also follow its performative progression with rigorous austerity, often carrying their own copy of the Mānas and chanting along with the Ramayanis; and the occasional attendee on the other—​constituted by those who attend only a few popular lilas in the month, largely indulging themselves in the mela and staying to take darshan (darśan; to behold a sacred sight) of the svarups during the concluding aarti. The “lila premi,” in contrast to these two, denotes those spectators who, for the most part, also attend the Ramlila every day but not with the same austerity as the nemis, often indulging in the ludic opportunities that the lila offers.11 The boundaries dividing these categories of spectatorship are, however, not rigid and are often blurred in practice. Moreover, even the composition of the lila premis has not remained static but has reflected the changing historical and political conditions in Banaras. Underneath the prevailing rhetoric in the Ramlila that takes one’s ability to attend the ritual in its entirety as reflective of the relative spiritual merit of the person, regular attendance is inextricably caught in the extant hierarchies of gender, caste, and class. As Veeru Sardar, a lila aficionado from Dashashwamedha ghat, once remarked, regular attendance of the lila requires three things—​“samay, swāsthya, aur sampattī” (“time, health, and wealth”)—​ thus, insinuating class and able-​bodies as the determining conditions for spectatorship. Moreover, in its current form, the ritual is patronized largely by men. Women can be seen attending the lila, sometimes in large numbers, but they are rarely accorded the status of nemis or lila premis. Nonetheless, they weave distinct experiences of play that cannot be contained in the prevalent categories of spectatorship and demand an investigation in their own right. In addition, while the early patrons of the Ramnagar Ramlila in the nineteenth century were largely composed of the emergent merchant classes and Brahmins, the social reorganization of Uttar Pradesh and Banaras from the 1980s and the concomitant rise in the political influence of the Ahirs/​ Yadavs also finds a clear reflection in the present composition of lila premis. Thus, on the everyday boat rides to Ramnagar, while there were an almost equal number of women on most days, the regular group of attendees identifying themselves as lila premis were mostly men, many belonging to the Yadav community. Just as the boat left the ghat, Mohan, Kanhaiyya’s older brother and the proprietor of a paan shop, began preparing his recipe of bhang (bhāng; cannabis) blended with almonds and black peppercorns,

11 Mehta (2010a: 245).

The Night before Bhor Ārti  305 grinding them tirelessly on a pestle and mortar. On reaching the Ramnagar banks, the lila premis helped themselves to the fine paste of bhang, before walking away into the distance with a pot of water to defecate. On returning, they washed their clothes before plunging into the river to bathe. The ritual bathing of the lila premis every day before the Ramlila was always a communal experience. The banter ceased only intermittently, when a lila premi would plunge into the river or offer evening prayers. As they completed their ablutions, the afternoon sun gradually made its way behind the stone edifices of Banaras, and the temperate cool of autumn evenings slowly descended on the ghat. The lila premis dried themselves with their cotton towels, and put on their immaculately clean and freshly pressed white kurtas with dhotis (dhotīs; long loincloths) or pajamas, often newly purchased for the Ramlila. While the lila premis went about the business of decking up for the evening’s lila, Ravi, always the quickest to finish his ablutions, busied himself with the meticulous process of getting the ganja ready. As he packed the chillum (clay pipe), the others donned their fresh clothes, smeared their foreheads with sandalwood and vermilion paste, generously daubed themselves with fragrant attrs (perfumed oils), and settled into a large circle on the boat. The sun had set and the sky was ablaze with the fiery shades of red and purple characteristic of autumn evenings as the lila premis shared a smoke on the boat. By the time the chillum was done and dusted, it was almost six. The lila had already begun at Chitrakut at five. The lila premis, however, remained blithely unperturbed, their demeanor betraying no sense of being “late” for the lila. Even when they finally disembarked from the boat, rather than rushing to Chitrakut, they ambled toward the Ramnagar fort and settled down at a shop selling chai and lassi, a yogurt-​based drink. Only after a round of lassis and more banter did the lila premis finally begin making their way to the lila. It was half past six by the time they reached Chitrakut, when the first half of the lila had already ended and the space was bustling with the ludic exuberance of the sandhya break.

Time of Waiting, Time to Play The phenomenology of play in the Ramnagar Ramlila is most palpable during the sandhya break. A feature of every evening of the Ramnagar Ramlila, the sandhya break is an interstitial period of waiting, embedded in the performative structure of the lila itself. At dusk, the Maharaja of Banaras returns to his

306  Beyond Enactment quarters, usually his residence at the Ramnagar Fort, to perform the sandhya puja, a customary daily ritual predominantly of the Kshatriya and Brahmin castes. In this absence of the Maharaja, who is esteemed as the representative of Shiva and the principal auditor of the performance, the lila is suspended until his return. It is a time when the usual modalities of experience during the lila, be it that of listening to the samvaads (samvāds; the dialogues) and watching the dramatization of the epic or chanting the verses from the Mānas along with the Ramayanis, are all suspended for the manifestation of a uniformly ludic experience of the ritual. In this parenthesis of narrative inaction, there breeds a profusion of playful action. During sandhya, the Ramnagar Ramlila transforms into a playground of ludic abundance, as the largest mela of the year proliferates in all its exuberance. Shopkeepers and vendors set up their merchandise in small erected tents or on wheeled carts or with just a cot and a couple of benches in the peripheries of the performance space. These stalls do brisk business as the lila premis generously indulge in sweet and savory snacks (called chaat) and jaggery desserts, serving dozens of people at a time during sandhya on important days. The local chai shops do a roaring business when the lila moves to their vicinity, as the premis throng to them by the thousands to gulp down small portions of refreshing, hot chai served in earthenware cups that are then smashed to pieces on the ground. The paan shops, usually adjacent to the chai sellers, are wrapping dozens of paans in betel leaves, occasionally pausing to hand out cigarettes and beedis, for the constant slew of customers. One also finds vendors selling toys, bamboo flutes, and balloons, surrounded by animated children peering at their curiosities and cajoling their parents for a new plaything. Some vendors sell imitations of Ram’s mythical bow and arrows made of arched reeds wrapped in gold and silver paper, and of Hanuman’s club, in multiple lustrous colors. It is not uncommon to see young children scuttling about the lila grounds during sandhya breaks, wielding these clubs and bows and taking on the roles of their beloved gods. A broad survey of the scene during sandhya shows lila premis lying down on spread tarpaulin sheets, sharing jokes and a chillum with friends, munching groundnuts or sliced coconuts, or catching a wink of sleep. Over the course of the month, the Ramnagar Ramlila progresses from long, intensive, and tiring episodes demanding strenuous rigor in its initial days to more relaxed, leisurely ones in the latter days. The initial days entail an enactment of substantial sections of the narrative and frequent movements between performance spaces and involve a chanting of over a

The Night before Bhor Ārti  307 hundred dohas (dohās; couplets) from the Mānas almost every day by the Ramayanis. But, as the lila reaches Lanka for the battle against Ravana, the dramatized content and the dohas chanted decrease significantly. This reduction in the performance content translates into longer sandhya breaks in the final days and fosters a general escalation of ludic activity in the spaces. While on some days, the lila ends early, between eight and nine, owing to the limited dramatized content, on the important days of Rāvaṇ Vadh and Bharat Milāp [Bharat’s Reunion], the sandhya break is prolonged to over four hours to accentuate the significant events of the evenings—​the burning of the effigy of Ravana and the reunion of the four brothers at the end of Ram’s exile, respectively. The popularity of these days summons vast crowds from all over the Banaras region, and the long sandhya breaks host the most vibrant expressions of play. Moreover, these ludic expressions in the final days also find ritual justification, for they are perceived to be in the spirit of celebration that befits Ram’s victory and glorious return. That is, the Ramnagar Ramlila constitutes the lila premis not as mere spectators to a performance of Ram’s tale, but rather as citizens of Ayodhya’s Ramrajya, rejoicing the triumphal return of their king from exile.

The Night before Bhor Ārti These ludic indulgences in the interstitial periods of waiting reach their crescendo on the penultimate night of the Ramnagar Ramlila, the night before the Bhor Ārti, a propitiation and celebration of the five svarups following the joyous episode of Ram’s coronation and the establishment of Ramrajya. Each day, the lila culminates in the aarti, when the svarups and other gods are made to stand in iconographic postures and are worshipped in unison by all the participants. Since the darshan of the svarups during the aarti is believed to confer spiritual benefits on the participant-​devotees, many lila premis attend the Ramlila every day only to watch the aartis. With Ravana’s defeat and Ram’s coronation, however, the forces of evil and chaos have been vanquished and order restored. The Bhor Ārti, thus, in offering an auspicious vision of the gods in their most regal, triumphant selves, stands as an occasion of paramount sacral significance. Unlike the aartis concluding every other evening’s lila, the Bhor Ārti is deferred until sunrise and is performed with the first rays of the rising sun illuminating the faces of the svarups. Popular belief dictates that taking darshan of the svarups during the Bhor

308  Beyond Enactment Ārti is tantamount to watching all the aartis of the Ramnagar Ramlila, and for this reason, the Bhor Ārti, known as a lakkhā melā (a mela attended by over one lakh people) in Banaras, is believed to summon an audience of over 100,000 people every year. However, its sacral significance aside, the interstitial period of waiting engendered by the deferral of the Bhor Ārti to the early hours of the next morning forms a particularly fertile ground for the manifestation of play. With the sandhya break prolonged to stretch the entire night, the ludic indulgences of the lila premis assume an elaborate intensity. What follows are selected vignettes of these ludic eruptions from my ethnographies from 2011 and 2013 of this night of waiting. The Ramnagar Ramlila, particularly the day of Raj-​gaddhī (Ram’s Coronation) and the final day, Sanak Sanandan (the episode of Ram’s teachings to Sanak and Sanandan), has always been a prime occasion for bahri alangs (bāhrī ālaṅgs; outdoor excursions or picnics), a central cultural feature of Banarasi leisure. With the Bhor Ārti being a much-​anticipated event every year, people gather in Ramnagar on the previous evening of Raj-​gaddhi in large groups, and apart from the customary bahri alang activities of bathing-​defecating, washing clothes, and consuming bhang, also cook some traditional recipes and enjoy them in the company of friends and family. After a night of play and waiting, followed by the darshan of the svarups during the Bhor Ārti the next morning, many remain in Ramnagar for the entire day again on bahri alang, to return home only after the final lila that evening. On this day, all the bāgs (gardens) and pokhras (pokhrās; community bathing spaces) in Ramnagar are host to the numerous groups of lila premis out on bahri alangs, feasting and basking in the shared joys of communal gatherings. At the Rambag pokhra, or Chitrakut in the Ramlila, smoke emanated from various quarters as groups of people stoked their fires of dung cakes and cooked their food. Most of them hadn’t even attended the evening’s lila of Raj-​gaddhi at Ayodhya, preparing for the feast instead. Thus, while Ram bade farewell to his committed entourage in Ayodhya, the lila premis at Rambag pokhra, stoking their fires, smoking their chillums, and sharing a meal, constructed a completely distinct experience of the night of Raj-​gaddhi. The night before the Bhor Ārti is also host to diverse cultural and musical performances that run all night and are attended widely by the waiting lila premis. In 2013, there were three concerts of Hindustani classical and folk renditions of Tulsidas’s Mānas. The first was at the Nandigram temple, adjacent to the Ayodhya of Ramnagar. Flanked between the white temple wall

The Night before Bhor Ārti  309 in the south and the sidewalk in the north, an open courtyard stood as the performance space, marked by two singers seated on either side of a small table with two, oversized copies of the Mānas. Dozens of people flocked around the performers, taking over the entire temple compound and spilling over onto the sidewalk. Singers from across the Banaras and Purvanchal region are known to come to Ramnagar to perform in these all-​night Mānas concerts. A man walked around the temple compound with a tray of lush green Banarasi paans and a heap of chewing tobacco, offering them to everyone. In the cool autumn air of the evening, the rasa of the paan blended seamlessly into the rasa of the music. As the performers sang sections from the Mānas to the accompaniment of a harmonium and cymbals, preferring verses that evoke the śṛṅgāra (erotic) rasa, the audience listened in rapt attention, their reveries broken only by an exquisite turn of notes by the performers soliciting exclamations and adulations. These Mānas concerts, however, were not the only kind of performances organized on this annual night of celebration. Just beyond the crossroads at Chowk, there was a concert of contemporary, popular Bhojpuri music. The singers were small-​time celebrities on a popular Bhojpuri reality television show, Sur Sangrām [War of the Voices]. The scale of the performance was much grander than the more modest Mānas concerts, with professional sound systems and large plasma screens live-​streaming the action on stage. The audience too was substantially larger, with about a thousand people seated on one side of the road or standing by the perimeter, mostly adolescent boys or young men in their twenties. With ostentatious showmanship, the performers embarked on long stories, recited poems and Urdu shayeri (shā’erī; couplets), flattered their audience, eulogized the Ramlila, sang paeans to the nation, shared their worldviews, philosophized about their existence, moralized, improvised, and interspersed all this with peppy Bhojpuri numbers. Ramnagar remained bustling with activity throughout the night before the Bhor Ārti. People started gathering in groups in Ayodhya hours before the aarti to secure the best spots. The Ramnagar Fort of the Maharaja was elaborately decorated with flickering lights that rhythmically changed colors. The lassi shops and the stalls selling pūrī-​sabjī (fried puffed bread and gravy) near the fort did a thriving business. Located just beyond the fort on the river banks, Balua ghat, removed from the noise and commotion of the streets, offered a different experience of play. About half a dozen stalls strewn all over the ghat remained open for the entire night, selling chai, paan, cigarettes, and

310  Beyond Enactment beedis. Some of these stalls rented television sets and a few plastic chairs for the night, playing successive episodes of Ramanand Sagar’s popular television adaptation of the Ramayana from the 1980s or other mythological films to rapt audiences of potential customers. The largest all-​night performance that I saw in 2013 on that night of waiting was the Birha in Panchavati, about three kilometers east of Ayodhya. Birha is a performance genre popular in Uttar Pradesh and parts of Bihar, primarily in the Bhojpuri-​ speaking belts. Stemming from the Hindi word birāh, meaning “separation,” it is a performance rooted in the social disruptions and emotional suffering caused by mass migration of unskilled workers from these states to larger towns in the nineteenth century. While Birha songs emerged as a cultural expression of the anguish of separation felt by women left behind by husbands and lovers, over time, it has evolved into a distinctive blend of song, music, storytelling, oratory, and humor that also serves as a discourse on local and national issues and political debates. In Panchavati, far removed from the principal ludic centers of the evening near the fort, the Birha produced its own distinctive experience of the night of waiting. In the same pavilion that hosts the mela on days when the Ramlila moves to Panchavati, a large, wide tent was erected as the performance space. The lead Birha performer, Devnath Yadav, stood on a wide dais accompanied by musicians playing a harmonium, mridangs (drums), and cymbals on his either side. Devnath regaled the audience with a narrative from India’s freedom struggle, beginning with the Jalianwallah Bagh massacre, Uddham Singh’s revolutionary rage and his quest for vengeance, his encounter with Bhagat Singh, his journey to London and assassination of the governor of Punjab, Michael O’Dwyer, and finally, his trial and hanging. The heroic saga of nationalist fervor, although narrated by Devnath dominantly in the veera (vīra; heroic) rasa, was generously interspersed with musical expositions, comic interludes, moral instructions, philosophical ruminations, and sexual euphemisms that made the performance thoroughly entertaining for its largely male audiences. At around 4:15 a.m., the audience that had been hanging onto every word, almost as if in tacit consensus, began getting up in unison to prepare for the Bhor Ārti, and Devnath too hastily concluded the Birha. The gathering of over 2,000 people deserted Panchavati and descended onto the road to Ayodhya in no time. This traffic multiplied exponentially after crossing the Chowk as people joined from the north and south ends of the intersection

The Night before Bhor Ārti  311 and collectively headed westward. On this one night of the year, all roads led to Ayodhya.

Between Mythical and Political Ramrajya Underneath this spectacular and deeply affective construction of a “mythical” Ramrajya, there also lurks the specter of a “political” Ramrajya, a vision that animates the political imagination of the Hindu Right in contemporary India. Any estimation of the intersections and divergences of these distinctive registers of a mythical and political Ramrajya and the ideological values engraved on the Ramlila demands a historicization of the ritual. The Ramnagar Ramlila, in its formative years in the nineteenth century, was deeply enmeshed in the social forces of the early period of Hindu nationalism and was in fact, as Schechner notes, “a main expression of it.”12 While Schechner draws this inference from Induja Awasthi’s suggestion that “Ramnagar was predominantly a Muslim population, and the Maharaja, in the 19th century, in a bid to restore the lost glory to the Hindus and to win them over, might have decided to accord state recognition to the Ramlila,” one can find many other entanglements that suggest a rooted intimacy between the politics of the ritual and the political project of Hindu nationalism.13 Banaras of the nineteenth century was presided over by a triumvirate of power consisting of the Maharaja of Banaras, the Brahmins, and the Hindu merchant banking houses. These lateral networks of power at a local level were themselves always in negotiation with the central administrative power of the British. It is in the interests of this triumvirate of power-​wielding groups and the colonial administration that, as Vasudha Dalmia argues, we find the “reinvention” of a Hindu tradition in the nineteenth century and the production of an exclusively Hindu, pan-​national subjectivity, with Banaras as the nerve center.14 Significantly, the Maharaja and the merchant classes also constituted the main patrons for several public festivals and celebrations, most prominent among them being the Ramnagar Ramlila. Inaugurated under the reign of Maharaja Udit Narayan Singh (1795–​1835), the ritual assumed



12 Schechner (2010 [1982]: 179).

13 Quoted in Schechner (2010 [1982]: 179). 14 Dalmia (1998: 63).

312  Beyond Enactment much of its present form under the patronage of Maharaja Ishwari Narayan Singh (1835–​1889) who employed his nauratna (“The Nine Jewels”), the leading literary and religious figures of Banarasi society in his court, to imbue the performance with a literary form and prestige.15 Among them was Bhartendu Harishchandra who, in addition to composing the samvaads for the Ramlila in collaboration with Raghuraj Singh (the Maharaja of the princely state of Rewa) and Kashthajihva Swami, was also a staunch proponent of the movement for “nationalizing” Hindu traditions.16 These entanglements of cultural networks and class interests reveal a crucial node in understanding the nature of the subjectivities that the Ramnagar Ramlila was designed to produce, and the slippages between the mythical and political variants of Ramrajya in it. While a historicization of the Ramnagar Ramlila suggests how the ritual originally took shape in and derived its political valence from a climate of nascent nationalism, much research is still needed to understand how the subjectivities produced by the ritual have responded to the changing aspirations of people and the shifting meanings of the nation over the course of the twentieth and twenty-​first centuries. Schechner touches upon this question only cursorily in early writings, but in his 1993 essay, published during the Hindu nationalist mobilizations that led to the demolition of Babri Masjid, when all roads indeed led to Ayodhya, he calls attention to the political potentialities latent in the Ramlila: What haunts Ramnagar Ramlila is India’s national dream of Ramraj, the divine rule of Rama in a golden age where the whole nation is united and strong. This vision demands size. To simulate all India—​merging the mythic past with the political present—​needs a big field of play. Mohandas Gandhi saw this—​he used imagery drawn from Rama’s story (if not Ramlila itself) to construct the mythos underlying the Indian struggle for independence from Moghul and British rule. Rama’s story concerns the emergent sovereignty of a heroic Hindu solar king. This mythos, so much a part of the Ramlila, combines religious devotion with nationalist fervor.17

15 Mehta (2010b: 169). 16 This can be seen in the number of satirical pieces he published on the British patronage of Urdu, or in his most extensive discourse on the progress of Hindi in 1877, “Hindī kī Unnatī Par Vyākhyān” [A Lecture on the Progress of Hindi]. See Dalmia (1998: 201). 17 Schechner (1993: 158).

The Night before Bhor Ārti  313 Although these slippages between mythical and political invocations of Ramrajya offer a valuable point of ingress into the politics of the ritual, Schechner’s discourse remains limited by strict adherence to the dramaturgical structures that define the ritual. As I argue in this essay, an estimation of the subjectivities that the Ramnagar Ramlila produces must move beyond the phenomenology prescribed by these dramaturgical structures so that it also accounts for the subliminal world of mundane, everyday practices that slip through its cracks and the specific cultural and political configurations that they perpetuate. Rather than conceiving these play practices as mere derivatives of an a priori structure that enjoys an ontological independence, it is productive to hold the two in a dialectical tension and analyze the ways in which each has been historically mediated by the other. In other words, just as a historicization of the ritual structures of the Ramnagar Ramlila insinuates a specter of Hindu nationalist politics into its performance, a close study of the ludic indulgences of the participants in their attendance of the ritual reveals the persistence of another logic in their reproduction, one rooted in an extant culture of playfulness and its attendant modes of subjectivity known as Banarasipan.

Performing Banarasipan in the Ramlila Banarasipan, literally “Banarasi-​ness,” signifying a way of being and living that premises itself on a distinctive urban identity, has come to be characterized as a celebration of the city’s zest for life, a poetics and ethics of pleasure, of mauj (joy), mastī (fun), and phakkaṛpan (a carefree attitude). Historically, as the self-​conscious cultivation and celebration of a distinctive Banarasi subjectivity, it takes shape at the intersection of new regimes of subjectivity produced under Hindu nationalism and the forces of capital in the late nineteenth century. Against the discursive and archaeological production of Banaras as the pilgrimage capital, the axis mundi of the Hindu cosmological world, there emerges the figure of a phakkaṛ (carefree) Banarasi who strives to subvert these hierarchies with an irreverent production of a rebellious self.18 This dialectical proximity manifests in its incipient form in

18 Madhuri Desai’s recent work (2017) analyzes the ways in which the iconic stature of Banaras, eulogized as the oldest living city in the world, was materially and imaginatively reconstructed between the late sixteenth and the early twentieth centuries.

314  Beyond Enactment the writings of Bhartendu Harishchandra who, in addition to contributing to the dramaturgy of the Ramlila and composing satirical pieces on the British patronage of Urdu, also paints a seamy portrait of a subversive Banaras in his poem, “Dekhī Tumrī Kāsī” [“O, I’ve Seen Your Kashi!”], from 1874. At the same time, Banarasipan also congeals into a philosophy of freedom and resistance in the figure of the Banarasi ṭhag (thug) who, in opposition to nineteenth-​century colonial constructs of criminality, was celebrated by the locals as the archetype of the phakkaṛ Banarasi, as evinced in the series of ghazals composed by the guṇḍā śā’er (hoodlum poet) Teg Ali and published in 1894 as Badhmāś Darpaṇ [An Ode to a Scoundrel]. During the independence movement, this philosophy of rebellion was often galvanized in the revolutionary struggles of freedom fighters (e.g., Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Chandrashekhar Azad) and articulated in anti-​colonial satires like Bedhab Banarasi’s Lieutenant Pigson kī Diary [Lieutenant Pigson’s Diary] from 1944. Over the second half of the twentieth century, the affirmation of a distinctive Banarasi subjectivity by a new prolific generation of hasya (hāsya; comic) and vyangya (vyangya; satirical) poets, many of them Muslim and from the lower classes—​ like Annapurnanand, Vishwanath Mukherjee, “Bhaiyyaji Banarasi,” “Bade Guru,” “Rashid Banarasi,” “Nazeer Banarasi,” “Chakachak Banarasi,” “Saand Banarasi,” among many others—​breathed new life into the tradition of kavi sammelans (poetry symposia), and produced a rich culture of satirical journals and aślīl sāhitya (profane literature) drawing on the everyday struggles of the common folk. As a mode of subjectivity celebrated as quintessentially Banarasi, Banarasipan has come to signify a characteristic set of cultural practices—​like the love for bahri alangs, paan, bhang/​ganja, thandai (a drink of almonds and coagulated milk), a tongue-​in-​cheek disdain for material pursuits, and a general ease and comfort at unperturbedly whiling away long hours of leisure in relative indolence and nonchalance. As the collective affirmation of a distinctive identity, Banarasipan also manifests in spectacular public celebrations of festivals and cultural events such the Ramnagar Ramlila.19 For the many lila premis, most of them Banarasis, who diligently attend the ritual in its entirety every year and participate in its rich phenomenological 19 Another significant public celebration of the Banarasi penchant for pleasure was Burva Mangal, believed to have been started by Mir Rustom Ali in the early 18th century. A three-​day festival of pleasure, it was celebrated with dance and music on decorated boats on the river. It thrived under the patronage of the rich Hindu merchant classes and the ra’īs (wealthy) of Banaras in the 19th century but lost much of its patronage and died down by the 1920s.

The Night before Bhor Ārti  315 textures of play, the Ramnagar Ramlila is an intensified experience and expression of Banarasipan; in addition to affirming faith and religious identity, it constitutes a spectacular occasion to perform and affirm the city’s celebrated penchant for pleasure. Specifically, for the thousands of Banarasis crossing over to Ramnagar every day for a month of mauj and masti, the Ramlila is a protracted, intensive experience of bahri alang, the cornerstone of Banarasi love of leisure. To quote Vishwanath Mukherjee’s comments on bahri alang for Banarasis: “Even today, if you ask any Banarasi what it is about Banaras that they hold with unbounded love then they would only say that one can find many things in India, but never the jouissance (almastī) of Banaras or the community (apnatv) of Banarasis, let alone the spring blooms of ‘bahri alang’ for which praises drip from gods’ tongues as well.”20 Bahri alang, in its historical form, refers to the once-​common everyday practice of Banarasi men taking a boat to Ramnagar early in the mornings and evenings for daily ablutions and bhang. These practices, in conjunction with stipulations on exercises in the akhādā (wrestling pit), on foods to consume, and the general privilege of time that they demand, locate bahri alangs within a broad discourse of masculinity, the self, and the body in Banaras. But at the same time, bahri alangs, in the form of outdoor picnics with family or friends collectively cooking and sharing a meal, are an immensely popular pastime among all sections of Banarasi men and women. Significantly, within popular discourse in Banaras, there are established gradations of spaces suitable for bahri alangs and recognized degrees of engagement of the participants, in which Ramnagar, particularly during the Ramlila mela, stands as the most favored location for bahri alangs and the lila premis emerge as its most expert connoisseurs.21 While the lila premis and their distinctive phenomenology of the ritual, when appraised within the context of the Ramlila, are often subsumed under conceptual frames of pilgrimage and worship pertaining to the nemis, when looked at against the backdrop of Banarasi cultural history, they are perceived as avid aficionados, śaukīn, distinguished for having both the means and the disposition to indulge intensely in a month-​long bahri alang every year. Thus, on the one hand, an investigation of the dramaturgical structures of the Ramnagar Ramlila within the context of 19th-​century social processes

20 Mukherjee (2013 [1958]: 35) [my translation]. 21 As Mukherjee notes, Ramnagar belongs to the “pratham śrenī” or “first division” of sites appropriate and popular for Banarasi picnics and bahri alangs (2013 [1958]: 39, 79).

316  Beyond Enactment and networks of power casts a long shadow of an incipient Hindu nationalism on the performance of the ritual. But at the same time, the Ramnagar Ramlila, insofar as it commands an affective power over a congregation that, in the spectral gaze of the aarti, briefly erases differences of identity and produces what Turner refers to as “communitas,” holds within it a small window of possibility for the materialization of an egalitarian, radical subjectivity.22 Almost every Ramlila scholar has remarked on the transcendental quality of experiencing the lila for the entire month and the crystallization of the sublime that it facilitates through its dramaturgy. Similarly, on the other hand, a close look at the mundane minutiae of play practices that proliferate in the Ramlila and their historicization against the sociocultural context of Banarasi life places it within a subversive tradition of everyday practice that is, at least in its form, fundamentally pluralist and egalitarian. As Nita Kumar notes, a central feature of the worldview propounded by Banarasipan is the “deliberate consciousness of all the people of Banaras as being equal. Everyone in Banaras is a Banarasi. Everyone speaks Bhojpuri. Everyone addresses others as “guru!” and “bhaiya!” ’23 But again, notwithstanding the ideality of its democratic conceptualization and the reconciliation of difference that it promises, in practice Banarasipan has remained largely the prerogative of men, and can congeal into a “far-​reaching discourse of power and control” that reproduces the patriarchal and gendered nature of leisure in Banaras.24 Thus, the main challenge in understanding the politics of the Ramnagar Ramlila and the nature of the subjectivities that it produces is to grasp the precise shape of this dialectic as it manifests in history. Rather than reify these polarities into essences and take either the nationalist subject of the participant-​pilgrim or the subversive subject of the carefree Banarasi as the absolute truth of the Ramlila, it is crucial to hold both the “truth” and the “untruth” of each pole of the opposition in dialectical tension. This means that the subjectivity of the lila premi which emerges as the middle term in the Ramlila is a product of the relative historical weight of each of these poles of Hindu nationalism and Banarasipan, even as both always exist as latent potentialities in reciprocal relation to each other.

22 Turner (1982). 23 Kumar (1988: 82). Both are terms of respect. Literally, guru means “teacher” and bhaiya means “brother.” 24 Kumar (1992: 43).

The Night before Bhor Ārti  317

Play and Subjectivity in Rāvaṇ Vadh While I have set out the dialectical logic that underpins the experience of the lila premis in the Ramnagar Ramlila, the material and affective force of this logic is sometimes best grasped when it is disrupted. In the way of a conclusion, I describe one such episode when a storm of contingency unraveled the seamless unfolding of the dialectical logic of structure and play in the ritual Rāvaṇ Vadh. Every year it falls on the auspicious day of Dussehra, when Ram defeats Ravana in battle. In the Ramnagar Ramlila, it features the enactment of the climactic episode of Ravana’s death and the symbolic burning of his effigy. Only a few samvaads are performed in the episode, and unlike other climactic junctures, it is enacted with little ceremony. After it, a four-​hour long sandhya break follows, when Ramnagar becomes host to one of the largest melas of year. Known as a lakkha mela, the day of Rāvaṇ Vadh is said to summon over 100,000 people from across the Banaras region. And Dussehra, being a public holiday as well, is a popular occasion for bahri alangs for many Banarasis. The mela flourishes in all its playful exuberance, and the shopkeepers and vendors come equipped to cope with the pressures of the most commercially gainful day of the month. The lila ends with a spectacular conflagration of Ravana’s effigy at night, followed by the aarti. While this account applies to the day of Rāvaṇ Vadh in most years, the experience of this popular lila was drastically different in 2013. Cyclonic disturbances in the eastern coastal regions of the country resulted in an inclement spell in northern India, and Banaras too fell under tempestuous weather. Torrential rains that persisted for many hours almost washed out the lila on Dussehra. The winds blew fiercely in the open grounds of Lanka, threatening to dismantle some less sturdily assembled stalls. Umbrellas proved useless against the strong gusts, and many lila premis hung on dearly to the large tarpaulin sheets in which they wrapped themselves. The less equipped struggled to brave the cold rain beating against them all night. Such weather was unusual around Dussehra, which is normally characterized by pleasant autumn evenings—​so much so that the final days’ temperate climate, coinciding with the change of seasons, is often hailed as a cosmic reflection of Ram’s victory and the triumph of order over chaos in the ritual. In the inclement circumstances of the 2013 Ramlila, the effigy of Ravana, customarily over 50 feet tall and wrapped in brightly colored papier-​mâché, could not be completed in time and was a mere skeletal torso of bamboo with no head or arms that refused to burn amidst the heavy rains. Only the

318  Beyond Enactment most devout nemis and lila premis remained until the end, utterly soaked and shivering for over 10 hours, to take darshan of the svarups in the aarti. While the evening’s episode was performed in deference to custom, albeit rather sloppily, thereby preserving the day’s dramaturgical and sacral integrity, the squalid weather killed most of the ludic exuberance characteristic of this popular lila, fundamentally altering the phenomenological possibilities of the evening. In material terms, an occasion that commands an audience in the tens of thousands annually was attended by a few hundred; on a single day, shopkeepers and traders in the Ramnagar mela cumulatively lost business worth millions of rupees. Such ruptures in the smooth unfurling of the dialectic of the ritual structures and the ludic interstices afford a particularly effective hermeneutic entry point for unpacking the production of subjectivity in the Ramnagar Ramlila. All that remained of that evening of Rāvaṇ Vadh was a flimsily executed structure and none of the usual possibilities for play. Yet, the washed-​out evening of Rāvaṇ Vadh, while aberrant in its distinct lack of the characteristic ludic exuberance, only served to underscore the centrality of play to the phenomenological fabric of the ritual and the subjectivities it produces. In the following days of the Ramlila, when the storm cleared up in time for Bharat Milāp, the handful of lila premis who had braved the inclement weather to take darshan of the svarups in every aarti assumed a distinct symbolic power. Those who missed a day or two of the lila due to the weather were dejected, sometimes even embarrassed, at their failure to accumulate the spiritual benefits believed to accrue from diligent attendance of all the aartis. They would have to wait a whole year before they could try their hand again at this elaborate trial of faith and perseverance. But as they say, “Sab prabhu ki lila hain!” All is God’s play! In contrast, for those who succeeded in attending every day, although their newly exalted stature stemmed from participating in an aarti that lasted only five minutes, that time was but a fleeting speck in a vast morass of pain and hardship they experienced during Rāvaṇ Vadh. While the aarti’s sacrality did indeed provide them with a certain social capital, their subjectivity and sense of self drew its breath almost entirely from their “heroic” efforts to find possibilities for play in a situation that seemed to adamantly refuse any such possibility. The stories they narrated in the days after the storm were a performance of a self that struggles tirelessly to redeem this abject interstice from its seemingly irredeemable despondency and experience, only for a few fleeting moments, the rasa of the evening. The subject produced by this

The Night before Bhor Ārti  319 rupture, this storm of contingency that upended ritual structure, was thus that of a phakkaṛ Banarasi, unabashedly settling down in one of only a few chairs in the shelter of a chai shop for hours, and cockily ordering a fresh cup every time the proprietor gave the disgruntled look of “customers only.” Its “heroism” lay in the image of a sādhū (holy man) striking a match from a box that he had miraculously kept dry to light a chillum for a Ramayani, as four lila premis tenaciously held on to two large tarpaulin sheets over their heads as a canopy against the wind and rain.

Hindi Bibliography Ali, Teg. 2002. Badhmāś Darpaṇ [An Ode to a Scoundrel]. Edited by Narayan Das. Banaras: Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan. Banārasi, Beṛhabh. 1935. Banārasi Ikkā Tathā Anya Kahāniyā [Banarasi Ikka and Other Stories]. Kashi: Sahitya Sevak Karyalay. Banārasi, Beṛhabh. 1961. Lieutenant Pigson Kī Diary [Lieutenant Pigson’s Diary], 3rd edition. Varanasi: Anand Pustak Bhavan. Chandra, Moti. 2015. Kāshī Ka Itihās [History of Kashi]. Banaras: Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan. Mehta, Bhānu Śankar. 2010a. “Kāshī Kī Ramlila.” In Kāshī: Nagrī Ek, Rūp Anēk [Kashi: Many Faces of a Singular City], edited by O. P. Kejriwal. New Delhi: Publication Division of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Mehta, Bhānu Śankar. 2010b. So Kāsī Saeyā Kas Nā. [Why Not Relish That Kashi], 2nd edition. Varanasi and Delhi: Pilgrims. Mehta, Bhānu Śankar, ed., 2015. Śrī Rāmnagar Rāmlīla. Ayodhya: Ayodhya Shodh Sansthan. Mukherjī, Viśvanath. 1958. Banā Rahe Banāras [May Banaras Be]. Bharatiya Jnanapeeth.

English Bibliography Cohen, Lawrence. 1995. “Holi in Banaras and the Mahaland of Modernity.” GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 2: 399–​424. Dalmia, Vasudha. 1998. The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bhartendu Harishchandra and Nineteenth-​Century Banaras. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Desai, Madhuri. 2017. Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Eck, Diana L. 1982. Banaras, City of Light. New York: Columbia University Press. Freitag, Sandria B., ed. 1992. Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment, 1800–​1980. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kapur, Anuradha. 1990. Actors, Pilgrims, Kings and Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar. Calcutta: Seagull Books. Kumar, Nita. 1986. “Open Space and Free Time: Pleasure for the People of Banaras.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 20:1: 41–​60.

320  Beyond Enactment Kumar, Nita. 1992. “Class and Gender Politics in the Ramlila.” The Indian Economic & Social History Review 29:1: 37–​56. Kumar, Nita. 1998. The Artisans of Banaras: Popular Culture and Identity, 1880–​1986. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sax, William. 1990. “The Ramnagar Ramlila: Text, Performance, Pilgrimage.” History of Religions 30:2: 129–​153. Schechner, Richard. 1982. “The Ramlila of Ramnagar.” In Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual, ed. Victor Turner, pp. 89–​106. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Schechner, Richard. 1993. The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance. London and New York: Routledge. Schechner, Richard. 2010. Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Schechner, Richard. 2015. Performed Imaginaries. London and New York: Routledge. Turner, Victor. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications.

16 The Challenges Ahead Researching the Ramayana Performance Tradition Rustom Bharucha

As we come to the end of this volume, we need to acknowledge that there can be no closure, no definitive synthesis in studying the Ramayana performance tradition. How, indeed, would it be possible to synthesize the vastly different grammars of the diverse traditions represented in this volume, from the austere monastic tradition of Sattriya to the robust interplay of song, dance, and dialogue in Kattaikkuttu, from the minimalist psychophysical rigor of Kutiyattam to the verbal improvisations of Talamaddale? While this volume has prioritized context-​sensitive readings of the Ramayana narrative in specific performance traditions, it is beyond its scope to trace how these traditions may have directly influenced each other, although one may trace “family resemblances” between Yakshagana and Talamaddale, Kutiyattam and Kathakali, Sattriya and Oja-​pali. Moreover, not only does the selection of performances in this volume amount to a mere sampling of the larger corpus of the Ramayana performance tradition, one also needs to acknowledge that any attempt to theorize such a wide spectrum of performances within a unitary framework would be misleading and reductionist. Individual essays in this volume have indicated that these performances come with their own theoretical implications, which are embedded in diverse regional histories, linguistic traditions, caste regulations, and modes of psychophysical and vocal representation. Performing the Ramayana Tradition has thematized clusters of association between diverse renderings of the Ramayana narratives through essential tropes like caste, gender, dissidence, and the modalities of debate and argument. Yet, the details, textures, and manifestations of individual enactments have complicated these tropes. I make this point to emphasize the complexities of interpretation which are inherent in enactments of the Ramayana story. Nonetheless, I also want to push the possibilities of thinking about Rustom Bharucha, The Challenges Ahead In: Performing the Ramayana Tradition. Edited by: Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197552506.003.0016

322  Beyond Enactment Ramayana performances beyond enactment because the phenomenon of the Ramayana tradition—​not just its spectrum of texts and narratives, but its archetypal history—​lives not just on the stage, but in everyday life. How does one begin to conceptualize the Ramayana(s) being performed in everyday life by ordinary people and politicians, on streets and in public spaces, within and outside the framework of social, cultural, and legal institutions and discourses? This is just one among many questions that alert us to the “unfinished business” of this particular volume. Both Richman and I, as co-​editors, coming from different disciplines of Ramayana Studies and Theater and Performance Studies, do not hesitate to acknowledge that this volume on the Ramayana performance tradition is by no means the last word on the subject. We recognize that all endings are provisional beginnings and that in the limitations of what does not get addressed in a particular narrative, there are limits that need to be crossed in the creation of future narratives. So, what are the possibilities that lie ahead in exploring the interstices of Ramayana Studies and Theater and Performance Studies? In this concluding essay, I reflect on some challenges in documenting, researching, and writing about Ramayana performance. I would emphasize that these reflections do not necessarily represent the views of all the contributors to the volume, but I trust that they will be of some use in outlining what remains to be done in pushing the boundaries of Ramayana research, with a focus on its performative possibilities. In Chapter 2, I had pointed out that the differences between the “dramatic text” and the “performance text” should not be upheld as a binary, and that it would be more useful to posit something like a dyadic relationship between these two “texts.”1 In actual practice, however, the documentation of the performance text, with all the contingent elements of performative circumstances, is less readily available than a printed dramatic text. How do we find new ways of attending to the contingencies of performance? Are they precipitated only by interruptions of the real, such as the cyclonic weather which disrupts the Ramnagar Ramlila, described by Bhargav Rani in Chapter 15? Or are they invisibly present within the inner mutations of any performance? The challenging task, as I see it, is to pay closer attention to what is always already changing at infinitesimal levels, either through

1 For a model of how the “dramatic text” and the “performance text” can be closely interrelated through a precise transcription and translation of a “live” performance based on a written play script, see Bruin (1998).

The Challenges Ahead  323 altered performative circumstances or psychophysical shifts of energy within the performances of individual performers. For example, Urmimala Sarkar Munsi’s essay (Chapter 14) on re-​creating the role of Ram examines how she inherited and first learned “the same role” from her predecessor and subsequently made it her own enactment. It is precisely the mutability of any performance, at times within the history of the same role, that needs to be highlighted in performance scholarship. A valuable example is to be found in two performances of Ravana from the Ramlila Ramnagar, as documented by Anuradha Kapur, in two successive years, on October 11, 1978, and September 30, 1979, respectively.2 Instead of essentializing the profoundly moving moment of Ravana’s defeat, Kapur points out how in the 1978 performance, Ravana was played by an “astonishingly frail” veteran actor, who touched the feet of Ram, played by a young svarup (svarūp), in a “quiet, decidedly untheatrical manner,” then disappeared into the multitude of spectators. Kapur interpreted this disappearance as a sign of Ravana being “absorbed into god’s bountiful presence.”3 In contrast, in the following year, Ravana was played by the old actor’s son, who swaggered and displayed his arrogance, even as his 10-​headed mask and 10 hands were summarily removed. No humility in sight, he walked toward Ram with “strides,” performed the obligatory gesture of touching god’s feet, and, instead of disappearing into the crowd, he returned to his place on stage, looking at the spectators “squarely in the eyes,” thoroughly “unrepentant.”4 This juxtaposition of performances indicates that the staging of the Ramlila, like any performance, is open to changes through differences of interpretation, even as the structure of the Ramlila’s dramaturgy continues to work within prescribed gestures, movements, exits, entrances, and culminating ritual moments like the ārti, in which the svarups are worshipped as gods. This “morphing” of distinct experiences of the Ramlila—​as, indeed, of any other Ramayana performance—​into one seamless narrative is what tends to be presented as “evidence” by most scholars in their descriptions of these traditions. In contrast, how do we find new modes of writing about Ramayana performances that are attentive to their multivalence in which individual actors shift the meaning of a particular text, whether it is a ślōka from Kutiyattam or a line belted out in a street theater performance in response to

2 Kapur (1990: 184–​187). 3 Ibid., p. 184. 4 Ibid., p. 187.

324  Beyond Enactment the tensions of the here and now? How do we work against generic readings of performance to arrive at more particularized readings? Another critical issue concerns the priority given across performance genres to the visualization of any performance over its vocal, acoustic, and sonic dimensions. Much of what I first “saw” in the Ramlila corresponded to what I already “knew” about it, primarily through Richard Schechner’s writings on the subject, notably the spatial dynamics, spectacle, and itinerant movement of the spectators as they shift from one location to another in and around the topography of Ramnagar.5 What took me entirely by surprise, however, was the profound intertextuality of my Ramlila experience. The profound sonic and acoustic quality of “listening” to the Ramlila remains my lasting memory of that experience. This act of listening cannot be separated from the two primary modalities of textuality in the Ramnagar Ramlila: the singing and chanting of all 12,800 lines of Tulsidas’s Rāmcaritmānas by a chorus of 12 Rāmāyaṇīs (reciters of the Ramayana), which could be regarded as the primary text of the Ramlila, without which the līlā could not exist; and the samvaads (samvāds; dialogues) recited by the characters on stage in a high-​pitched, sing-​song delivery. These two modes of textuality intersect in the same space and time. At one level, it might seem that I am calling attention to something that is axiomatic in the literature around the Ramlila. I “knew” about these two modes of textuality from my prior reading of the literature available on the Ramlila, but only when I first experienced the Ramlila did it become palpably clear to me that these textualities coexist at different locations in the same space, tuning into each other’s temporalities at specific junctures. The sonic and acoustic affect of this intertextuality contributed, in my experience, not only to following the story of Ram, but, more crucially, to sensing the devotional fervor of his journey by a multitude of līlā-​premīs who intoned the Rāmcaritmānas from their individual copies of the Mānas, some of them reading the text from their own smartphones. We need to pay due attention to this hum of voices intoning the Tulsi text, word by word—​not only to the semantics of what is being chanted, but to the tone, the rhythm, the cadence, and the multitude of vocal registers that constitute the collective, yet solitary, act of listening to the Ramlila.6 5 See Schechner (2015, 2010, 1983). 6 Bruin’s essay (Chapter 9) in this volume shows the value of musical affect in Kattaikkuttu. Also see Sarbadhikary’s chapter on “Listening to Vrindavan” (2015: 179–​213) for new constructs in theorizing the act of “listening” to religious performances, notably concepts relating to the corporeal, multisensory, and affective dimensions of listening.

The Challenges Ahead  325 As yet the research on most Ramayana performance traditions, I would submit, tends to undermine the auditory and sonic dimensions of the experience, which are vastly overwhelmed by the prioritization given to visual and kinetic spectacle.7 How do we find an appropriate critical language not only to address what is being enacted on stage at psychophysical levels, but to sense how this action is supplemented, questioned, and transformed through the dynamics of voice, song, chant, and recitative? This remains a challenge for future research on Ramayana performance traditions demanding a much closer attention to the multiple dimensions of language, not only at a denotative or semantic level, but in terms of rhythm, cadence, and musicality. Turning to the crucial issue of performance vocabulary linked to traditions going back centuries, one is compelled to raise the challenge of translation. Inevitably, in using categories like bhāonā (from Sattriya) or pakaṟnnāṭṭaṃ (from Kutiyattam, Nangyarkuttu, or Kathakali) or vēṣam (from Kattaikkuttu), what tends to get lost, as contributor Mundoli Narayanan has pointed out to me, is a sense of detail. Furthermore, many of these categories are polysemic insofar as they evoke different meanings in different contexts. The solution here is not to provide “one” meaning for the word in English and let go of its multivalence, or to assume that the category is untranslatable. In the obvious difficulties presented in providing awkward translations for those words which have no ready “equivalents” or “approximations” in English—​a challenge that was definitely faced in co-​editing this volume of essays—​there is a growing tendency in publications on South Asian Studies to minimize the use of “Indian” words or to cut them altogether. In contrast, our policy as editors of this volume has been to provide a translation, however rudimentary, for an Indian category when it first appears in a particular chapter, and then allow that category to resonate through its different usages in the chapter. We have also provided a Glossary that attempts to clarify concepts from different performance traditions, in different Indian languages. Shifting the focus from performance to spectatorship, much more work needs to be done in giving audiences their due. The proponents of Ramayana Studies and Theater and Performance Studies need to learn from each other in widening and complicating the somewhat too passive components of readership and spectatorship in their respective methodologies. All too often what

7 There are exceptions, of course, notably Lutgendorf (1991), whose focus on “performing the Rāmcaritmānas” in the kathā tradition compels him to “listen” to the Ramlila, not only to the verses of the Tulsi text, but to the samvaads as well (1991: 267, 333–​334).

326  Beyond Enactment one reads in commentaries on the Ramayana is a singularized perspective on a particular text or performance; the multiple, alternate, contradictory, and perhaps, dissident voices responding to a particular text or performance have yet to be adequately inscribed in our writings. In this regard, it would be fruitful to explore new collaborative modes of writing between scholars and performers, as I have attempted to do in my annotation (in Chapter 8) of the performances of Vinay Kumar’s The Tenth Head and Maya Krishna Rao’s Ravanama, where the juxtaposition of their performance texts with my commentary opens up dialogical possibilities of representation. Beyond issues relating to form and reception, there is a different kind of challenge in representing the Ramayana performance tradition which has less to do with intellectual and cultural capital than with the material conditions of livelihood. While Akshara K.V. notes in Chapter 13 that Yakshagana has remained economically self-​sufficient and takes pride in not needing support from the government, the same cannot be said of most other Ramayana performers, especially in the rural and subaltern sectors of “traditional performance.” More research is needed on the economic realities of earning a livelihood through performing Ramayana in any number of traditions. The meager earnings of performers in the Ramlila Ramnagar, for instance, subsidized by the Uttar Pradesh government, appear to be compensated by the ritual honor and social prestige of playing the roles of gods and mythological characters.8 More critically, there is the subsistence economy of the monks in the Natun Kamalabari Sattra in Majuli, Assam, whose sources of patronage have declined over the years. The harshest evidence of poverty among performers exclusively linked to the Ramayana performance tradition is to be found among those unemployed puppeteers who used to earn their living by performing Ravana Chhaya, the shadow-​puppet tradition of the Ramayana from Odisha. Documentation of their acute marginalization is represented in Shankhajeet De’s powerful documentary In the Shadow of Time (2016) where, in emotionally charged interviews, the performers express their bitterness and resentment against “Delhi,” which becomes a metonym for the cultural hegemony of the state, which enables some performers to prosper at the expense of others.9 8 See Schechner (1983: 284–​286) for an account of the salaries received by the actors of the Ramnagar Ramlila during his early field trips, which do not seem to have significantly changed in recent years. 9 For a critical reflection on the diverse modes of exploitation at work among the destitute sectors of Ravana Chhaya puppeteers, see Bharucha (2020: 166–​174).

The Challenges Ahead  327 Beyond the fractured tradition of Ravana Chhaya, there are other storytellers, balladeers, puppeteers, and itinerant performers from the most economically impoverished of lower caste groups who may no longer be able to sustain their livelihood by retelling the story of Ram. The relationship of poverty and caste in this context, particularly among hereditary caste performers from nomadic groups and “de-​notified tribes,” is a deeply challenging area of research. In my view, it will necessitate the creation of something like an “applied research” model whereby considerations of performing Ramayana need to be interrelated with questions relating to livelihood, social justice, and self-​respect. Finally, there are new political challenges that have to be faced in performing Ramayana which cannot be separated from the exigencies of political culture in India today, and more specifically, the increasingly assertive normalization of codes, laws, and rules of behavior associated with the political ideology of Hindutva.10 Under its dispensation, legitimized by the rise of Hindu majoritarianism, one could argue that the right to assert the pluralist dimensions of the Ramayana narrative is being challenged at both implicit and overt levels. In confronting this challenge, one has to take into account not just how the Ramayana is represented on stage at the levels of enactment and narrative, but how the very name of Ram being invoked in the public sphere can become a new kind of performative command. While the everyday greeting of “Ram Ram,” or “Siya [Sita] Ram,” or the salutation of “Jai Shri Ram” (Victory to Sri Ram) has been one of the most spontaneous exchanges in daily life, particularly in North India, this thoroughly non-​ sectarian manifestation of civility and conviviality between family members, friends, neighbors, and strangers as well, has been distorted and decontextualized over the years. Gaining traction during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement leading to the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, “Jai Shri Ram” was converted into a militant slogan and acquired the coercive threat of a “war cry.”11 More recently, during the bhūmi pūjan or land 10 While the final manuscript of this book was being prepared for publication, a historic judgment of the Supreme Court on November 9, 2019, had already been passed, authorizing the disputed land of Babri Masjid, demolished on December 6, 1992, to be returned to a trust formed by the government, which could supervise the building of a Ram Mandir on the alleged birthplace of Sri Ram (Ram Janmabhoomi). Significantly, one of the plaintiffs in the court case was none other than Ram Lalla, or the infant Ram, represented by the Hindu Mahasabha. 11 This was the view voiced by 49 prominent artists, filmmakers, writers, historians, and civilians in an open letter dated July 23, 2019, addressed to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Voicing their concern about the conversion of “Jai Shri Ram” into a “war-​cry,” the group called attention to the increased atrocities on Dalits and minorities at a national level. For a complete text of the letter, see

328  Beyond Enactment sanctification ceremony of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on August 5, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chanted “Jai Siya Ram” (“Glory to Sita and Ram”) and not “Jai Shri Ram” in his address to the nation—​a seemingly small but significant shift in the rhetoric of Hindutva, which received different interpretations in mainstream media.12 In this scenario, where the very name of Ram has been appropriated for political purposes in different rhetorical registers, what can the Ramayana performance tradition do? One possible intervention would be to reiterate the multiple ways in which the Ramayana story can be retold as a possible source of affirming not just the diversity of the Ramayana performance tradition, but its plurality as well. All too often the categories of “diversity” and “plurality” are conflated and read as synonymous, when, in essence, they are deeply interrelated, yet different.13 If “diversity” indicates that there are many different ways of telling the Ramayana story, it does not necessarily follow that these ways have to be in conversation with each other or that their inner differences need to be negotiated; diversities can coexist without any interaction at all, sequestered within the confines of their own contexts. Plurality, on the other hand, demands a negotiation of differences underlying diversities, which can be consciously articulated and shared in a common forum. Unlike diversity, which allows differences to be subsumed in an imagined harmony of coexistence or toleration, pluralism calls to attention the uncomfortable fact that diversities are often the product of social and economic disparities. So, for instance, Adivasi culture (or tribal culture, in Indian official nomenclature) has been represented as part of the larger diversity of India, when, in actuality, the poverty, neglect, and blatant exploitation of indigenous peoples and their resources are indicators of the differences between Adivasi culture and the nation-​state. Beyond these obvious differences, one also must acknowledge the micro-​contextualization of differences across specific Adivasi communities within a region, who may have their own distinct ways of telling and performing the Ramayana story. This becomes apparent, for instance, in the local density of oral narratives around the Ramayana in NewsClick (2019). A brief contextualization of “Jai Shri Ram” as a “slogan that changed political contours of India” can be read in Dutta (2019). 12 While readings by Krishnan (2000) and Sharda (2000) highlight the “subtle difference” between “Jai Siya Ram” and “Jai Shri Ram,” Bajpai (2000) highlights the “triumphalist” tone of Modi’s speech: “[t]‌he lips said one thing, but the voice, the tone and the physical bearing said something else.” 13 See Bharucha (2000b: 77–​78) for a brief analysis of the different inflections of “diversity” and “plurality” within the larger context of theorizing “culture” in the Indian context. For a reflection on “diversity” and “difference” in a performative context, read Bharucha (2000a: 63–​66).

The Challenges Ahead  329 the thickly forested Wayanad region of Kerala. In these narratives, which are linked at rhizomatic levels through a web of subterranean differences, one encounters the everyday dimensions of the Rāmākathā resonating with palpable immediacy and down-​to-​earth grit. In this narrative, Ram and Sita act like other members of the Adiya tribal community. Lamenting the leaking roof of her hut, Sita misses the luxuries of Ravana’s palace, while Ram rails against his wife for not being able to make a decent cup of coffee.14 These details of domestic discordance draw on the banalities of everyday life and household routine. While in some oral narratives from Wayanad, Ram and Sita work out their problems, with the village community playing the role of marriage counselor, in others Sita disappears into the earth, following the event as narrated in Valmiki’s Uttara-​kāṇḍa. However, there is a significant difference: Ram reaches out to her as she disappears into the earth, managing to hold on to a tuft of her hair. In other oral narratives from Wayanad, this detail about Sita’s hair gets metonymized as mani grass, which is used to make brooms.15 No household object in the Indian environment could be more familiar than the broom, so anonymous in its unobtrusive functionality that one almost takes it for granted without realizing its significance in providing a sense of order to everyday life. Moreover, Ram and Sita in at least one Adiya retelling of the Ramayana have a means of arbitrating their differences through their faith in the local village panchayat. What modes of arbitration may we find today in India’s turbulent political culture, where division, hate, suspicion, and mistrust permeate our unresolved differences? How can we create new structures of exchange and interaction to share different interpretations of the Ramayana story? The Ramayana Festivals at Adishakti, which had provided the stimulus for this volume of essays, provide one example in which a dialogue around Ramayana can be nurtured. More such meeting grounds need to be envisioned, bringing diverse groups of artists together from different regions

14 These details come from an oral retelling of the Ramayana by Kali Mathai, a traditional healer from the Adiya community of Trissileri in Wayanad district, Kerala, and are included in the vivid renderings of the oral narratives of The Ramayanas of Wayanad compiled by Azeez Tharuvana (2010: 12–​51). 15 Ibid., 45. This detail relating to the broom was communicated to Tharuvana by Kunjananthan Master, retired headmaster from Muttil.

330  Beyond Enactment and language traditions to highlight the intracultural dynamics of exchange, which are often lost in the emphasis given to national agendas.16 Returning to the example of the Wayanad Ramayana—​or, more broadly, Ramayanas—​I would affirm that in all these examples of grassroots performance and oral history, ordinary people insinuate themselves into the larger narrative of the Ramayana as enunciated by luminaries like Valmiki, Kamban, and Tulsidas. In the process, local communities make their own Ramayana, claiming its story but also prepared to transform it in order to speak to their own immediacies in everyday life. In this alchemy of grand narratives becoming local performance traditions, one finds evidence of the ways in which the dominant trends of politicizing the Ramayana at nationalist and monolithic levels can be countered—​or deflected—​at communitarian and micro levels. Indeed, the wide spectrum of Ramayana performances represented in this book testifies to the lived reality of local and regional contexts. It is through the details of these contexts that practitioners of the Ramayana tradition are animated by a deep sense of the right to retell the story one more time.

Bibliography Bajpai, Kanti. 2020. “PM’s Ayodhya Speech,” Times of India, August 8, 2020. Accessed August 25, 2020. https://​timesofindia.indiatimes.com/​blogs/​toi-​edit-​page/​pms-​ ayodhya-​speech-​it-​was-​technically-​pitch-​p erfect-​but-​t here-​was-​little-​t hat-​was-​ meditative-​and-​spiritual/​. Bharucha, Rustom. 2000a. The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre in an Age of Globalization. Hanover, NH, and London: Wesleyan University Press. Bharucha, Rustom. 2000b. “Thinking through Culture: A Perspective for the Millennium.” In India: Another Millennium?, ed. Romila Thapar, pp. 66–​84. New Delhi: Viking. Bharucha, Rustom. 2020. “Documenting Ramayan: Leela in Kheriya and In the Shadow of Time.” Special issue on Ramlila edited by Pamela Lothspeich. Asian Theatre Journal 37:1 (Spring), pp. 159–​178. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Bruin, Hanne M. de. 1998. Karna’s Death: A Play by Pukalentippulavar. Pondicherry: Institut Francais de Pondicherry. Dutta, Prabhash K. “Jai Shri Ram: A Slogan That Changed Political Contours of India.” India Today, July 13, 2019. Accessed January 2, 2020. https://​www.indiatoday.in/​india/​story/​ jai-s​ hri-r​ am-a​ -s​ logan-​that-​changed-​political-​contours-o ​ f-i​ ndia-1​ 568051-2​ 019-0​ 7-1​ 3. Kapur, Anuradha. 1990. Actors, Pilgrims, Kings and Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar. Calcutta: Seagull Books. 16 The concept of the “intracultural,” involving the exchange and negotiation of inner cultural differences within and across specific localities and regions, has emerged in counterpoint to my writings on “interculturalism” and “national culture.” See Bharucha (2000a, 2000b).

The Challenges Ahead  331 Krishnan, Revathi. 2020. “The Subtle Difference between Modi’s ‘Jai Siya Ram’ Greeting and ‘Jai Shri Ram.’” The Print, August 6, 2020. Accessed August 25, 2020. https://​ theprint.in/​theprint-​essential/​the-​subtle-​difference-​between-​modis-​jai-​siya-​ram-​ greeting-​and-​jai-​shri-​ram/​476227/​. Lutgendorf, Philip. 1991. The Life of a Text: Performing the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press. NewsClick. 2019. “Today ‘Jai Shri Ram’ Has Become a Provocative ‘War Cry’: 49 Celebs Write Open Letter to Modi,” www.newsclick, July 24, 2019. Accessed January 1, 2020. Sarbadhikary, Sukanya. 2015. “Listening to Vrindavan: Chanting and Musical Experience as Embodying a Devotional Soundscape.” In The Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-​Vaishnavism, pp. 179–​213. Oakland: University of California Press. Schechner, Richard. 1983. “Ramlila of Ramnagar: An Introduction.” In Performative Circumstances from the Avant Garde to Ramlila, pp. 238–​288. Calcutta: Seagull Books. Schechner, Richard. 2010. Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Schechner, Richard. 2015. Performed Imaginaries. London and New York: Routledge. Sharda, Shailvee. 2020. “UP: Why PM Narendra Modi Said ‘Jai Siya Ram,’ not ‘Jai Shri Ram.’” Times of India, Lucknow edition, August 6, 2020. Accessed August 25, 2020. https://​timesofindia.indiatimes.com/​city/​lucknow/​why-​modi-​said-​jai-​siya-​ram-​not-​ jai-​shri-​ram/​articleshow/​77382910.cms. Tharuvana, Azeez. 2010. The Ramayanas of Wayanad, trans. P.M. Dev and Dr. Senu George. Mumbai: Vikas Adhyayan Kendra.

Film In the Shadow of Time. 2016. Directed by Shankhajeet De. Produced by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi. 89 minutes.

List of Performance Traditions Bayalata Bhaona Birha Doddata Gombeyata Harikatha Kathakali Kattaikkuttu Kutiyattam Nacha Nangyarkuttu Natakam Nautanki Oja-​pali Ramanattam Ramnagar Ramlila Ras Lila Ravana Chhaya Sannata Sattriya Talamaddale Tamasha Terukkuttu Tirama Yakshagana

Bayalāṭa Bhāonā Birahā Doḍḍāṭa Gombeyāṭa Harikathā Kathakaḷi Kaṭṭaikkūttu Kūṭiyāṭṭam Nāchah Naṅṅyārkūttu Nāṭakam Nauṭaṅkī Ojā-​pāli Rāmanāṭṭam Rāmnagar Rāmlīlā Rāslīlā Rāvaṅ Chāyā Saṇṇāṭa Sattrīyā Tāḷamaddale Tamāśa Terukkūttu Ṭirāmā Yakṣagāna

Glossary abhinaya (abhinaya/​abhiṉaya/​abhiṉayaṃ):  a general category for acting as delineated in the Nāṭyaśāstra, including four components: āṅgika (body), vācika (speech), sātvika (inner sentiments), and āhārya (costumes, makeup). adavu (aṭavu):  dance steps. adivasi (ādinivāsī/​ādivāsī):  lit. “first inhabitant,” used along with the less common variant “ādinivāsī,” closely related to the modern legal category of Scheduled Tribe (ST), which refers generally to India’s tribal communities. aharya (āhārya):  costume and makeup; one of the four aspects of acting according to the Nāṭyaśāstra. alankara (alaṅkāra):  decoration, adorning. alapanai (alāpaṉai):  long musical elaboration. ankiya geet (aṅkīya gīt):  songs in the traditional, Vaishnava, one-​act Sattriya plays. aranya (araṇya): forest. archan (arcan):  practicing intricate rules of worshipping God. arthadhari (artha-​dhāri):  lit. the “bearer of the meaning”; the actor in Talamaddale. ashram (āśram):  A hermitage, typically in a geographically and socially isolated area, inhabited by sages. asura:  a class of beings or superhuman demigods, often identified as demons in ceaseless conflict with gods. atishudra (atiśūdra):  A collective term coined by the anti-​caste activist Jyotirao Phule in the nineteenth century, to refer to India’s most subjugated classes of people, including Dalits and Adivasis. attakkatha (āṭṭakkatha):  “enacted-​story.” attaprakaram (āṭṭaprakāraṃ):  actors’ manual in Kutiyattam with detailed instructions of all onstage activities. avarnas (avarṇas):  a collective term referring to any person who does not belong by birth within the four varnas, namely, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. bahri alang (bāhrī ālaṅg):  a picnic or an outdoor excursion undertaken in a traditionally Banarasi way. bargeet (bargīt):  traditional Assamese songs set to specific rāgas and tālas, composed by Sankaradeva and Madhavadeva.

336 Glossary bayalata (bayalāṭa):  lit. “play in the open”; any open-​air performance in Karnataka; a word that has become almost synonymous with Yakshagana. bhagawata (bhāgawata):  the chief singer in many traditional theater forms in Karnataka; also, one who performs the Bhāgwata Purāna, through song and narrative. bhajan (bhajan):  Any devotional song with a religious theme or spiritual ideas, in any of the languages from the Indian subcontinent. The term bhajanam means “reverence” and originates from the root word bhaj, meaning to “revere.” bhakta: devotee. bhakti:  devotion to a personalized manifestation of a deity. bhaona (bhāonā):  category of performance in Sattriya Vaishnavite traditional theater. bhava (bhāva): emotion. biraha (birāh): separation. Brajabuli (Brajāvalī):  a language incorporating early Assamese and Maithili, adopted by Sankaradeva to communicate his plays to ordinary people. buddhi: intellect. chandey (caṇḍe):  a high-​pitched cylindrical drum, beaten on only the top side, used in Yakshagana. curul (curuḷ):  song in the Kattaikkuttu tradition, whose internal rhyme when sung in a fast pace produces a rhythmical-​staccato beat. daasya (dāsya):  subservience toward God. Dalit: meaning “broken” or “ground down”; Dalits (formerly referred to as “untouchables”) are the most socially subordinated group within India’s caste system. By virtue of their perceived social and spiritual impurity, Dalits are considered by those in positions of social supremacy to fall outside the fourfold system of varṇas in Hinduism. darshan (darśan):  meeting of a worshipper’s eyes with those of the deity, or svarūps (impersonations of gods). desh (deś):  a person’s or a people’s native land. devadasi (devadāsī):  lit. “slave of god”; a term used to index a vast number of communities of women in South Indian states, who were temple dancers. dhaam (dhām): abode. dhobi:  lit. “washerman”; a jati in India. dhoti:  a traditional men’s garment worn in the Indian subcontinent, wrapped around the waist and the legs and knotted at the hip. gambhira (gambhīra):  deep, thoughtful, and serious. gharana (gharānā):  artistic lineage of specific schools in classical Indian music and dance.

Glossary  337 gotra:  a term commonly considered to be equivalent to clan. It broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. granth (granth): book. guru shishya parampara (guru-​śiṣya paramparā):  the tradition of spiritual relationship and mentoring where teachings are transmitted from a guru to a disciple. gurukulam (gurukūlam):  A type of education system in ancient India, which continues to be a point of reference today, referring to an intense transmission of learning from the teacher to student, who lived in the same house with or near the guru. hasta (hasta):  hand gestures. hasya (hāsya):  a Sanskrit word, used for one of the nine rasas or bhavas of Indian aesthetics, usually translated as humor or comedy. ilakiyattam (iḷakiyāṭṭam): elaboration. itihasa (itihāsa):  lit. “so indeed it was”; often translated as “history.” The Mahabharata is classified as an itihasa. jati (jāti):  a general term that refers to a social group (caste) wherein inclusion is based on parentage and occupation. kama (kāma): lust. kanda (kāṇḍa):  a term referring to distinct sections of the Ramayana narrative. kathavachak (kathāvācak):  reciter-​narrator of religious narratives and scriptures. katti:  name for the character representing the heroic but haughty warrior in Kathakali. kattai (kaṭṭai):  technical name referring to the wooden ornaments, such as crown and shoulder ornaments, used in Kattaikkuttu. kattai vesham (kaṭṭai vēṣam):  character, usually male, wearing the kaṭṭai ornaments, in Kattaikkuttu. kavi sammelan (kavi sammelan):  poetry symposium. kavya (kāvya): highly ornate Sanskrit poetics and literary style involving figures of speech and meters, usually applied to traditional subjects and themes derived from epic narratives. khol:  drum used in Assamese Vaishnava performances. kirtan (kirtan/​ kīrttan):  chanting God’s names and deeds. koravanji (koravañji):  a fortune teller. kramadeepika (krāmadīpika):  lit. “guide to the order of the plays”; in Kutiyattam, this refers to a “production manual” and/​or a “performance manual.” The manual indicates entries, exits, and actions to be employed by characters, in addition to the timing of performances and payment made to actors. laya:  speed, rhythm.

338 Glossary lila (līlā):  a philosophical worldview celebrating the unmotivated play of the gods; also refers to the performance traditions of Ramlila and Krishnalila, dramatic enactments of the “lila” orchestrated around the figures of Rama and Krishna, respectively. lokadharmi (lokadharmī): drawing on loka, which literally means “the world,” lokadharmi refers to that mode of representation in traditional Indian performance that deals with the worldly activity of people. manodharma (manōdharma): creativity. maryada purushottam (maryādā puruṣottam):  an epithet referring to Rama, meaning peerless among all men in the propriety of his conduct. masti (mastī): frolic. mauj: joy. maya (māyā):  in Hindu philosophy, it refers to the idea of illusion or appearance of the phenomenal world. mela (mēlā):  a public fair or a festival in a large open space with commercial activities and entertainment. moksha:  salvation or release from the cycle of death and rebirth. mridangam (mṛdaṅgam):  double-​sided drum which, in combination with dholak, is used in Kattaikkuttu. namghar (nāmghar):  community prayer-​hall in Assam. nandi (nāndī):  benedictory verse. nattai:  a typically heroic raga used in the Kattaikkuttu tradition. natyadharmi (nāṭyadharmī): a stylized theatrical representation according to the Nāṭyaśāstra, conventionalized with prescribed gestures, movements, expressions, postures, and gaits. nemi (nēmī):  from the root word niyami, meaning the one who adheres to principle. It denotes those lila aficionados who attend every day of the month-​long Ramnagar Ramlila, treating it as a pilgrimage and practicing rigorous austerity. nilavilakku (nilaviḷakku):  standing lamp used in Kutiyattam performances. nirvahanam (niṟvahaṇaṃ/​nirvaha   nam): a segment of the performance of an act in · Kutiyattam, where there is a days-​long detailed exposition of character and events prior to the actual enactment of the play. nukkad natak (nukkaṛ nāṭak):  street theater. paap/​paapi (pāp/​pāpī): Hindi terms commonly translated as “sin” and “sinner,” respectively. pacca:  name used for royal and noble characters in Kathakali. pakarnattam (pakaṟnnāṭṭaṃ):  “transferred acting,” an acting device in Kutiyattam where an actor playing the role of one character briefly takes the roles of other characters that figure in the narrative.

Glossary  339 panchakanya (pañcakaṉyās):  “the five virgins” is a group of five iconic puranic heroines –​ Ahalya, Draupadi, Tara, Sita, and Mandodari. parampara (paramparā): tradition. parnashala (parṇaśālā):  forest hut. pattu (pāṭṭu):  sung verse, also called taru, in Kattaikuttu. phakkarpan (phakkaṛpan):  a carefree attitude. pithike (pīthike):  the preamble that a character begins with in Talamaddale in which he introduces both the character and the narrative. prahasana:  one of the 10 dramatic works or rūpaka, relating to the comic mode. prasad (prasād):  an edible substance that is offered as a religious offering, consumed by worshippers after a prescribed ritual. prasanga (prasaṅga):  the text selected for performance in Yakshagana and Talamaddale. purappat (puṟappāṭ):  the customary entrance of a character with attendant rites and movements in traditional performances. ramayani (rāmāyaṇī):  The group of 10–​12 Brahmin priests who sing the Rāmacaritmānas in alternation with the dramatized episodes in the Ramnagar Ramlila. rangamancha (raṅgamañca/​raṅgmañc/​raṅgamañc): stage. rasa:  lit. “flavor,” the foundational principle of aesthetics in traditional Indian arts including theater, music, dance, poetry, and sculpture. rasanubhuti (rasānubhūti):  experience of the rasas. rasikar (racikar):  fan, connoisseur from “rasika.” sahridaya (sahṛdaya):  enlightened spectator. sakhya (sākhya):  one of many ways for a devotee to relate to God, as a friend. samay: time. samkshepam (saṃkṣēpam):  a brief summary of events in a narrative (e.g., Ramayana); performed as a separate piece or integrated into the niṟvahaṇaṃ in Kutiyattam. samvaad (samvāda/​samvād): dialogue, dramatic exchange. sattra:  Vaishnavite monastery in Assam. satvika (sātvika):  inner sentiments. savarna (savarṇa):  lit. “with varna.” It refers to people who belong to either any of four classes: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. See also varna. shaukeen (śaukīn): aficionado. shloka (ślōka/​śloka):  a verse form used in Sanskrit and other Indian languages which usually consists of four pādas (lines) or quarter-​verses and follows set metric and rhythmic patterns. shravan (śravaṇ):  listening to names and stories of God.

340 Glossary shringara (śṛṅgāra):  one of the nine rasas, usually translated as erotic love, romantic love, or as attraction or beauty. shrota (śrotā): listener. shudra (śūdra):  The varna category traditionally comprising people whose occupations are meant to serve the other three socially “superior” varnas (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas). In modern contexts, Shudras largely overlap with the legal category of Other Backward Classes (OBCs). smaran (smaraṇ):  recollection of, meditation on God. sphota (sphoṭa):  concept in the Indian grammatical tradition of Vyakarana, relating to speech production and how the mind orders linguistic units into coherent discourse and meaning. sutra (sūtra):  lit. “thread”; in Indian literary traditions, it refers to an aphorism or a set of aphorisms in a manual or, more broadly, a condensed manual or text. sutradhara (sūtradhāra):  stage manager, director. svarup (svarūp):  the young boy-​actor in the Ramnagar Ramlila who plays any of the roles of the five principal gods—​Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna—​who are believed to be gods themselves for the duration of the performance cycle. tapas:  austere spiritual practices including self-​discipline, asceticism, and meditation. tarkkam: discussion, debate, duet, as used in the performance vocabulary of Kattaikkuttu. tillana:  rhythmical, vibrant dance piece often performed at the end of a Bharata Natyam performance. tirthasthan (tīrthasthān):  holy site or pilgrimage. tolil (toḻil):  a Tamil word for work, and means of livelihood, extending to the profession of theater, music, and dance. trishul (triśūl): trident. vacanam (vacaṉam):  spoken word, as contrasted to sung parts in Kattaikkuttu. vacika (vācika):  the textual and vocal aspects of an actor’s performance. Vaishnavite (Vaiṣṇavite):  a person who worships Lord Vishnu in any of his incarnations. vakta (vaktā): speaker. vandana (vandana):  singing praises of God. varna (varṇa):  lit. “color”; a theoretical category of social stratification that serves to divide society into four general categories of social actors: Brahmins (priestly class), Kshatriyas (warrior class), Vaishyas (merchant class), and Shudras (servant class). varna bhed (varṇa bhed):  caste segregation. vesh dhari (vēṣa-​dhāri):  lit. the “bearer of the costume”; the actor in Yakshagana. vesham (vēṣam):  role, disguise; character in Kattaikkuttu.

Glossary  341 viruttam (viruttam):  type of free-​flowing song (usually consisting of 4, 8, or 16 lines) in Kattaikkuttu that highlights the melody or raga. vistara (vistāra): elaboration. vitanda (vitaṇḍa):  debating strategy where a contender tries to defeat his opponent, even at the cost of losing the case. vyakhya (vyākhyā): explanation.

List of Contributors Akshara K.V. is a theater director, writer, and publisher from Heggodu, Karnataka. He works with two organizations: Ninasam, a theater school and repertory company, and Akshara Prakashana, a publishing house in Kannada. He has published extensively on performance and cultural studies in Kannada, apart from translating seminal texts from English to Kannada. One of his recent publications in English is Kannada Theatre History 1850–​1950: A Sourcebook (2018). Rustom Bharucha recently retired as Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. A former Fellow of the International Research Centre/​Interweaving Performance Cultures in Berlin, Germany, he is the author of several books on interculturalism, secularism, and performance including Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture (1993), The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre in an Age of Globalization (2000), The Question of Faith (1993), In the Name of the Secular (1998), Rajasthan: An Oral History (2003), Another Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin (2006), and Terror and Performance (2014). He was the coordinator of talks for all three Ramayana Festivals at the Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Research, Puducherry, India, between 2009 and 2011, and the co-​Artistic Director of the Festival between 2010 and 2011. Margi Madhu Chakyar, one of India’s foremost Kutiyattam performers, is the Guru and Managing Trustee of Nepathya, a Kutiyattam cultural center based in Moozhikkulam, Kerala. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit. Known for his roles as Ravana, Arjuna, Bali, Lakshmana, and Rama in the Kutiyattam repertoire, he is presently envisioning a new production of Bhasa’s Pratima Natakam. Hanne M. de Bruin holds a PhD in Indology from the University of Leiden. Together with her husband, Kattaikkuttu actor, director, and playwright P. Rajagopal, she founded the Kattaikkuttu Sangam (1990) and Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam (2002), where she worked full-​time as a program director and principal fundraiser. Among her books are Kattaikkuttu: The Flexibility of a South Indian Theatre Tradition (1999), the first ever Tamil-​English translation of an all-​night Kattaikkuttu play, Karna Moksham or Karna’s Death (1998), and the co-​edited volume Between Shame and Fame: Performing Women & Women Performers in India (2011). Sudhanva Deshpande is an actor, director, and organizer with Jana Natya Manch, an editor with LeftWord Books, and Executive Director of Studio Safdar, Shadipur, New

344  List of Contributors Delhi. Author of Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi (2020), Sudhanva is editor of Theatre of the Streets: The Jana Natya Manch Experience (2007), and co-​ editor of Our Stage: Pleasures and Perils of Theatre Practice in India (2009). He is also involved in the first theater management course in India, SMART, as teacher and core team member. Parasmoni Dutta is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies, Tezpur University, India. His doctoral dissertation focused on “Concept of Ecomuseum: A Study with Special Reference to Majuli as a Heritage Site.” His articles have appeared in Asian Theatre Journal and Sage Journal of Creative Communications. Currently, he is working on a documentation project on cultural memories in northeast India. Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami was the Sattradhikar (head abbot) of the Natun Kamalabari Sattra of Majuli, Assam, which he joined when he was eight years old. He passed away in August 2020 while the manuscript of this volume was being finalized. One of the leading authorities on the writings, teachings, and devotional practice of Sankaradeva, he wrote more than 20 books and 200 articles, which include Sattra Saṅskṛtir Svarņarekhā [Outline of Sattriya Culture], Sattrīyā Nrityar Byākaraņ [Grammar of Sattriya Dance], and Brajāvalī Bhāṣār Byākaraṇ āru Abhidhān [Grammar and Dictionary of the Brajavali Language]. For his scholarly contributions, he received the Srimanta Sankaradeva Award from the Government of Assam in 2004 and the Sahitya Akademi Award from the Government of India in 2012. Dr. Indu G., a leading Kutiyattam performer, is the Secretary and main actress of Nepathya, a Kutiyattam cultural center based in Moozhikkulam, Kerala. She is known for her roles as Sita, Lalita, Tara, Kalpalathika, Shakuntala, and Gandhari in the traditional repertoire. She is presently working on a new production of Gita Govindam in the Nangyarkuttu form. Vinay Kumar is the Artistic Director and Managing Trustee of Adishakti, Puducherry. He is an actor, director, musician, playwright, light designer, composer, and teacher. He has played a number of roles from the Ramayana and Mahabharata in Adishakti’s productions, including the title role in Brihannala, Bhima and Duryodhana in Impressions of Bhima, and Bali and Ravana in Bali. Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, a social anthropologist and dancer/​choreographer, is an Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her publications include a co-​authored book, Engendering Performance: Indian Women Performers in Search of Identity (2011), an edited publication titled Dance: Transcending Borders (2008), and two co-​edited volumes on Traversing Traditions: Celebrating Dance in India (2009) and Moving Space: Women in Dance (2017). She is currently the President of World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific (WDAAP).

List of Contributors  345 Mundoli Narayanan is a Professor of English at the University of Calicut. His articles have appeared in The Drama Review, Comparative Culture, edited anthologies such as Dance Matters (2010) and Patronage, Spectacle and the Stage (2006), in addition to a number of Indian journals. He has published two books in Malayalam, Ormayute Utbhavam [The Origins of Memory] (2018) and Itam, Avatharanam, Kazchavazhikal [Space, Performance, Ways of Seeing] (2018). He was a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, between 2018 and 2020, working on a book project on performance space and ways of seeing in Kutiyattam. Bhargav Rani is a doctoral candidate of Theater and Performance at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). He defended his M.Phil. dissertation on “The Affirmation of Play: Transgressions of Structure in the Ramnagar Ramlila” at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in 2015. His current research lies at the intersection of performance in life and political theory to explore the nature of everyday experience in Banaras. Maya Krishna Rao, one of India’s leading contemporary performers, has been creating one-​woman shows for the last 25 years which comment on social and political realities in India. Some of her productions that she has performed in several countries include Khol Do, Heads Are Meant for Walking Into, Ravanama, The Non-​Stop Feel-​Good Show, Walk, and Loose Woman. Maya has taught acting/​performance techniques and applied theater at institutions and universities in India, the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Paula Richman, Danforth Professor of South Asian Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio, United States, recently retired after teaching the history of Indian religious traditions for more than 30 years. In addition to publications on Tamil literature, such as Extraordinary Child: Translations from a Genre of Tamil Devotional Literature (1997), she has contributed to and edited Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition (1991), Questioning Ramayanas, a South Asian Tradition (2000), and Ramayana Stories in Modern South India: An Anthology (2008). She has received research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, the American Institute for Indian Studies, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Aaron Sherraden received his PhD from the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas in Austin after completing his dissertation, “The Many Deaths of Śambūka: A History of Variation in the Rāmāyaṇa Tradition.” His publications include “Gṛhasthas Don’t Belong in the Rāmāyaṇa” in Patrick Olivelle’s edited volume, Gṛhastha: The Householder in Ancient Indian Religious Culture (2019). David Shulman, Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, is a specialist in the languages and cultures of Southern India. He was a student of John Ralston Marr at the School of Oriental and African Studies (1976). His most recent books include More Than Real: A History of Imagination in South India (2012),

346  List of Contributors Tamil: A Biography (2016), and Two Masterpieces of Kūṭiyāṭṭam: Mantrāṅkam and Aṅgulīyāṅkam (2019), co-​edited with Heike Oberlin. In the last 10 years he has been going to Kerala with his students to see full-​scale performances of Kutiyattam in Killimangalam and at Nepathya in Moozhikkulam. Omprakash Valmiki (1950–​2013) was a leading Dalit author and poet. Perhaps best known for his autobiography, Jūṭhan (1997), he also wrote numerous works of poetry including Sadiyoṃ kā Santāp (1989) and his short stories are published in Salām (2000) and Ghuspaiṭhiye (2004). Additionally, Valmiki also wrote several works about Dalit literature including Dalit Sāhitya kā Saundaryaśāstra (2001) and a history of the Valmiki community entitled Safāī Devatā (2009). Rizio Yohannan is a bilingual writer and teacher. Her works include three books of poetry, two novels, two academic volumes, and many translations from Malayalam to English and from other languages to Malayalam. She is the founder of LILA, a cultural think space based in India, and the executive head and publisher of India’s first magazine of the arts, Marg.

Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Abhinavagupta, 218–​19 abhinaya (abhinaya/​abhiṉaya/​ abhiṉayaṃ), 36, 139, 187–​88, 215–​16, 218, 221, 225, 252, 255 Abhiṣēkanāṭakaṃ, 188n.5, 190n.10, 193, 194–​95, 198, 235 Achhutanand. See Swami Achhutanand actor, 51–​53, 221, 227, 259–​60 as author of a manual, 221–​22 in Kutiyattam, 227 training, 50–​58, 161–​62, 170, 191n.12, 229, 233, 254 actress, 15–​17, 36, 174n.12, 176–​77, 194–​ 95, 197 in Kattaikkuttu, 163, 164, 170–​72 playing a male role, 171, 281–​93 revival of Nangyarkuttu, 190 training, 171–​72, 191n.12, 230, 233 Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa, 66n.3, 204n.27 Adi Dharma, 71 Adi Hindu, 66–​67, 68 Adishakti (Laboratory for Theatre Arts and Research) Ramayana Festivals, 29–​31, 43–​44, 47, 123, 161, 162, 174n.12, 182, 184, 329–​30 adivasi, 55n.11, 67n.7, 74, 328–​29. See also Original Inhabitants; tribals Adiya (in Wayanad), 329–​30 aesthetics, 7–​8, 9, 30–​31, 32, 38, 44, 102n.13, 141n.13, 157–​58, 167–​68, 169, 197, 218–​19, 240, 242, 246, 255, 274–​75, 281, 285n.6, 299n.2, See also Nāṭyaśāstra; rasa Ahalya, 16, 44–​45, 54–​55, 191–​92, 198–​99, 201–​7, 208 Gautama’s celibacy, 205 Indra’s deceit, 205–​6 as a panchakanya, 190, 194 transformed by suffering, 206–​7

Ahalyāmōkṣam, 201–​7 Ahalyāstuti, 204 aharya/​āhārya, 36, 99, 190, 218, 252, 259, 263, 287. See also costume Ahir, 78, 304–​5, 310 Ahom. See Assam “Ambai” (C.S. Lakshmi), 14, 156n.21, 157 Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, 7n.10, 16, 52–​53, 148, 190–​94, 213–​14, 222, 228, 230–​31, 233, 235. See also Chakyar families Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, 13, 111 Anantha, 54, 58 Andhra Pradesh. See Telugu Angada, 57–​58 āṅgika, 36, 52, 187–​88, 259, 263 ankiya nat/​aṅkīya naṭ, 243 gits, 251 (see also music) anti-​caste, 11, 23, 30, 46–​47, 63–​64, 65–​81, 83–​93, 112–13, 117–18 apsara, 16n.23, 55–​56, 200 Araṇya-​kāṇḍa, 5, 24–​25, 129n.6 arti/​ārti, 20, 21–​22, 46, 298–​319, 323–​24 Aryan, 66, 67–​71, 276 Asan, Kumaran, 16–​17, 208–​9 Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi, 7, 8, 9n.13, 16–​17, 18, 24–​25, 44–​45, 50n.2, 190–​ 91nn.10–​11, 193n.19, 198, 215, 217, 229, 231, 234 Agnipraveśāṅkam, 191n.11, 217, 222, 225–​26 Aṅgulīyāṅkam, 194–​95, 217, 224–​25 Aśokavanikāṅkam, 191–​92, 194–​95, 199, 219, 222 Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam, 190n.10 Māyāsītāṅkam, 191n.11 Parṇaśālāṅkam, 191n.11, 224 Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam, 189–​90, 190n.10

348 Index asceticism, 6, 9–​13, 18–​19, 24, 56, 63–​64, 65–​66, 69, 71, 75, 79–​80, 83–​84, 99–​ 101, 104–​5, 106, 116, 167, 173–​74, 239–​40, 248–​49, 267. See also tapas ashram, 52, 54–​56, 57–​58. See also forest ashwamedha, 54, 72, 304 Assam, 17–​19, 29–​30, 31, 33, 39–​40, 238–​ 55, 326 Atishudra, 66, 68, 89n.11, See also adivasi attakkatha/​āṭṭakkatha, 42, 44, 98–​99, 101–​3, 106, 107 attaprakaram/​āṭṭaprakāraṃ, 7n.10, 16, 43, 128–​29, 188–​89, 194, 196, 198–​99, 200n.24, 204, 213–​37 avant-​garde, 12, 13–​14, 32, 33, 43–​44, 47, 123–​58 avatar, 19, 38–​39, 89n.11, 115n.45, 136n.11, 234, 245, 247, 276–​77, 298–​ 99. See also Irāmāvatāram; Vishnu Awadhi, 22 Ayodhya, 21, 24, 26, 50, 53–​55, 58, 69, 83, 86, 90, 109, 113–​15, 117, 137, 213, 224, 239–​40, 264, 268, 271, 272, 273, 299n.2, 299n.4, 306–​7, 308–​11, 312, 327–​28 Ayodhyā-​kāṇḍa, 5, 24–​25, 52 Babri Masjid/​Ramjanmabhumi, 21, 85n.5, 282, 294–​95, 312, 327–​28 Bāla-​kāṇḍa, 5, 18n.25, 21, 22–​23, 24, 287–​88 Banaras. See Varanasi bargit/​bargīt, 250, 251. See also music Bengal, 3, 24, 39n.14, 68n.10, 241n.3, 242, 296, 299n.2 Bhāgavad Gītā, 242, 253. See also bhakti; Krishna; Mahabharata Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 238, 253, 267–​68, 274. See also bhakti; Krishna bhāgawata (vocalist) 19, 44, 258–​59, 262–​64 bhakti, 18–​19, 46–​47, 234, 238, 239, 242–​45, 248, 249, 251, 253, 255, 294. See also lila premi devotees as guru, 249 nine forms of bhakti practice, 242 propagating through performance, 238, 240

Bhandare, Sandesh, 88n.9 bhāonā, 7, 39–​40, 251 Bharat Milap, 299n.4, 306–​7, 318 Bharat Sevashram Sangh, 295 Bharata (author), 243n.6, See also Nāṭyaśāstra Bharata (brother of Ram), 5, 26, 55, 58, 213, 260, 271, 306–​7 Bharatāgamana, 271–​73 Bharatanatyam, 171–​72, 284. See also dance Bharatavākyam, 232 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 85. See also Hindutva; nationalism Bharatiya Kala Kendra, 295–​96 Bhasa, 9n.13, 193n.19, 229, 235, 251, 252 Bhat, Sheni Gopalakrishna, 260, 264–​ 65, 276–​77 Bhat, Umakantha, 262, 274–​75 bhāva, 36, 50, 51–​52, 127, 225–​26, 243n.6, 270, 275 Bhavabhuti, 12n.15, 68n.10, 217 Bhojpuri, 309, 310, 315–​16 Bhor Ārti, 20, 22, 46, 298–​320 Bihar, 11, 92, 299n.2, 310 Brahma, 101, 104–​5, 108, 120, 151n.18, 201, 201n.25, 206n.31, 217–​18, 265, 266, 277 Brahmin, 9–​12, 14, 38–​39, 58, 65–​81, 87–​88, 99, 102–​3, 112, 224, 226, 240–​41n.2, 245, 265, 274n.21, 304, 305–​6, 311 brahminical texts, 24, 46–​47, 66, 75–​77, 112. See also anti-​caste Brajabuli, 7, 35, 239, 245, 251n.12, 254 Brijesh, 43–​44, 72–​78, 79, 83–​93 caste, 8, 9–​12, 37–​38, 112–​13, 304, 327. See also jāti; varna Chakyars. See Ammannur Madhava Chakyar; Margi Madhu Chakyar; Nepathya Srihari Chakyar; Painkulam Rama Chakyar Chāndogya Upaniṣad, 85–​86 Chandravati, 3 Chawla, Veenapani, 29n.1, 162n.5 Chitrakuta, 55, 299n.4, 305, 308

Index  349 choreography, 19, 102n.13, 180n.16, 258, 283, 284n.4, See also dance cinema, 19, 33–​34, 88n.9, 108–​9, 110n.33, 110–​11, 163–​65, 261, 309–​10, 327–​28n.11 Cintāviṣṭayāya Sītā, 16–​17, 208–​9 costumes, 19, 21, 31–​32, 84–​85, 87–​88, 99, 102n.13, 103, 104n.19, 118–​19, 147, 152–​53, 169, 171, 179, 187n.3, 218, 231–​32, 252, 257–​58, 264, 273, 283, 287, 296. See also aharya cymbals, 187–​88, 251, 257n.1, 258, 310 Dabholkar, Bharat, 109–​10 Dalit, 10–​11, 30, 43–​44, 46–​47, 63–​64, 83–​ 93, 327–​28n.11, See also anti-​caste Dalmia, Vasudha, 311–​12 dance, 18–​19, 21, 46–​47, 98, 161–​62, 171, 258, 273, 282–​83, 284–​85, 288, 295–​ 96. See also choreography darshan/​darśan, 20, 269, 293–​94, 301–​ 2n.7, 303–​4, 307–​8, 317–​18 Dasharatha, 41n.19, 53–​54, 115–​16, 224, 239–​40, 266, 270–​71, 272, 273, 283–​ 84, 287–​88 Delhi, 11, 29–​30, 66–​67, 73n.15, 73–​ 74n.17, 84–​85, 92, 124–​25, 190n.9, 281, 283, 295–​96, 326 devadasi, 31, 164 dharma, 25, 69–​70, 75–​76, 118, 246, 264, 270–​71, 272, 273, 276 dhoban, 88–​89 dramaturgy, 8–​9, 30–​31, 32, 108–​9, 154–​ 55, 161, 192n.15, 241, 244, 251, 294, 299–​300, 313–​14 and Ahalyāmōkṣam, 201–​7 and comedy, 170 and dramatic text, 42–​44, 322–​23 and linearity, 165–​66 and Maṇḍōdariyuṭe Niṟvahaṇam, 199–​200, 206, 207 and prasanga texts, 267–​68 and RāmaRāvaṇā, 172–​81 and Ramlila, 298–​303, 315–​16, 323–​24 and Ravanama, 123–​26, 128, 151 and temporality, 44–​45 and The Tenth Head, 123–​26, 128

Dravidian, 35–​36, 67n.6, See also anti-​ caste; non-​Brahmin ideology, 112–​13, 117–​19 politics, 30, 113 Drona/​Dron, 63, 78–​79 Dussehra, 292–​93, 317 Eklavya, 63, 78–​79 enactment, 3–​49 of Ahalya, 44–​45, 201–​7, 208 of Mandodari, 44–​45, 199–​200, 207–​8 of Ram, 65–​81, 166, 179–​82, 234, 286–​ 87, 322–​23 of Ravana, 12–​15, 97–​120, 123–​58, 219, 235–​36, 265–​67, 323 of Shambuk, 65–​81, 83–​93 of Shurpanakha, 171 of Sita, 161–​84, 208–​9 films. See cinema forest, 103, 109, 111–​12, 167, 224, 250, 270–​71, 283, 292. See also asceticism ashrams in, 52, 54–​56, 100 natural beauty of, 24–​25, 47, 109, 264 Rama’s exile in, 24, 75, 114, 115, 116, 224, 271 Ravana as musician in, 14, 133, 144n.15, 156–​57 Shambuk in, 65–​82 Shurpanaka as widow in, 274–​75 Sita’s abduction in, 115, 116, 172, 174, 268 tribals in, 67–​68, 69, 83–​84 Ganga/​Ganges, 54–​55, 115, 153, 201 Gautama, 190n.8, 201, 203, 204n.30, 204–​7 gender, 15–​17, 30, 263, 289, 304, 321–​22 critique of, 281–​82, 285–​86, 315–​16 and dance, 282, 284, 288, 290–​91 disappearance of female roles, 189–​90 female subjectivity, 202–​3 and Kattaikkuttu, 164, 165, 172–​82 male inflicted suffering, 202–​3, 204–​5, 206 and Nangyarkuttu, 186–​210 and women’s equality, 23, 170 Ghosh, Kajal, 84 Giriyamma, Helavanakatte, 20, 268

350 Index Gosvami, Rupa, 242, 243n.6 Goswami, Sri Narayan Chandra, 18–​19, 31, 46–​47, 238–​55 Guha, 55, 115 Gujarat, 282 Gulāmgirī, 89n.11, See also Phule guru. See paramparā Hansen, Kathryn, 42n.20, 88n.9 Hanuman, 5, 14, 56–​58, 116, 123n.1, 153n.19, 162–​63, 165–​66, 180–​81, 194–​95, 224–​25, 306 Hari Bhakti Rasāmṛte Sindhu, 242–​43 Harikatha, 260, 277 Harishchandra, Bhartendu, 311–​12, 313–​14 Hashmi, Safdar, 84n.4, 89–​90 hasta, 50, 228 Hindi, 10–​11, 23, 35, 39n.13, 43–​44, 63–​ 64, 65–​81, 83–​93, 131, 245, 321–​31 Hindutva, 21, 85, 88, 90–​91, 92, 294n.10, 294–​96, 327–​28 humor, 11, 19, 87–​88, 90, 92–​93, 171–​72, 175–​76, 246, 275, 314 iḷakiyāṭṭam, 37, 101–​2, 102n.11, 106, 107 improvisation, 19, 32, 52, 258–​59, 263–​64 Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association, 295–​96 Indra, 16n.23, 54, 57n.14 Indrajit, 57–​58, 110–​11, 117 Indu G., 18, 43, 50n.1, 52, 213–​14, 227–​36 innovative interpretation, 269–​70 Ahalya’s life in the forest, 201–​7 contemporizing, 63–​64 in Hindi anti-​caste plays, 65–​82 infant Sita in the sea, 111 Parashurama attacks Vishvamitra, 244–​45 Ravana raises his mother’s status, 103–​6 Shurpanakha tests Rama’s fidelity, 115–​16 Sita and Shurpanakha as pawns, 175, 176 Irāmāvatāram, 3, 13, 16, 22, 23, 166, 182–​83. See also Kamban itihāsa, 40, 269n.17 Jabala Satyakama, 85–​86 Jaimini Bhārata, 267–​68, 269

Jain, 11–​12, 111n.38, 126–​27, 141n.14, 150n.17 Jambavan, 57–​58, 217 Jana Natya Manch [Janam], 11, 33, 43–​44, 79n.22, 84, 85 Janaka, 24, 50, 54–​55, 112n.39, 114–​15, 239–​40, 244, 245, 284, 290–​91, 294 Janaki. See Sita Jatayu, 55–​56, 57, 190n.10, 197–​98 jāti, 66, 74, 89, 168, 176. See also caste Jigyasu, Chandrika Prasad, 68–​69, 72 Joshi, Prabhakara, 276–​77 Kaikasi, 12–​13, 22–​25, 100–​1, 102–​6, 119–​20, 274 Kaikeyi, 54, 55, 270–​71, 272, 273 Kalidasa, 66n.3, 243, 251, 252, 264 Kamban, 8–​9, 13, 16, 22, 23, 34, 115n.46, 117n.48, 164. See also Irāmāvatāram Kannada, 7, 11–​12, 17–​18, 20, 35–​36, 37–​ 38, 257–​78. See also Talamaddale Kapalingattu Nambudiri, 12–​13, 24, 98, 101–​8, 120 Kapur, Anuradha, 302–​3, 323 Karnataka, 7, 19n.26, 35–​36, 37, 257–​58. See also Kannada Karni Sena, 33–​34 katha/​kathā. See Ramayana narrative Kathakali, 12, 14n.19, 37, 42, 44, 47, 97, 98–​108, 124–​25, 126, 135, 138n.12, 145, 148, 151, 152–​53, 154, 156, 283, 284–​85, 286–​87, 289, 290–​91, 321, 325. See also Rāvaṇodbhavam; Tapasāṭṭam kathāpātram, 227 Kattaikkuttu, 7, 15, 31, 35–​36, 37–​38, 42, 43–​44, 161–​84, 321, 325. See also Terukkuttu Gurukulam, 15, 17, 46–​47, 161–​62 representations of gender, 172–​82 Kausalya, 54 Kavattar, Prithviraj, 259n.3 kāvya, 39–​40, 253, 269n.17, See also Rāmāyaṇa Kerala, 8–​9, 15, 29–​30, 33, 35–​36, 43, 50–​58, 97–​120, 123, 124–​25, 138, 186–​209, 213–​36, 327–​29. See also Kathakali; Kutiyattam; Nangyarkuttu Khara, 56, 115–​16

Index  351 King of Lanka. See Laṅkēswaraṉ kīrttan, 238–​39, 242, 251n.12, See also music Kishkindha, 5, 26, 50, 109, 116, 118, 276 Kiṣkindhā-​kāṇḍa, 4–​5, 24–​25 Kolkata, 281, 283, 295. See also Uday Shankar India Cultural Centre Krāmadīpika, 7n.10, 16–​17, 50n.2, 189, 193, 194–​95, 196, 198–​99, 221–​ 22, 231–​32 Krishna, 8n.11, 19, 38–​39, 110–​11, 127, 135, 136–​37, 163, 186–​88, 239, 240–​ 41, 244, 245, 246–​47, 255, 257. See also Vishnu Krishnattam, 244 Kshatriya, 9–​10, 87, 112, 114, 276, 305–​6. See also caste Kubera, 12–​13, 100, 101, 102–​3, 105–​6, 132, 134, 228n.12, 257n.1, 274 Kumar, Nita, 298, 315–​16 Kumar, Vinay, 12, 13–​15, 23, 33, 43–​44, 123–​42, 325–​26 Kumbhakarna, 26, 58, 100n.6, 114, 115, 123 Kusha, 6–​7, 58 Kutiyattam, 7, 8–​9, 16, 32, 36, 186–​209, 213–​36. See also Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi and Nangyarkuttu, 188–​91 outside the temple, 190 and Ramayana tradition, 234–​36 kuttampalam/​kūttampalam, 192, 194–​96, 213–​14, 215 kuttu/​kūttu, 37–​38, 161n.1, 190n.9, 192–​93 “Kuvempu,” K.V. Puttappa, 12n.15, 20, 269 Lakshmana, 5, 11–​12, 13–​14, 15, 21, 34, 41n.19, 47, 52, 54–​57, 58, 86n.8, 114–​16, 118, 123n.1, 129, 144n.15, 162–​63, 165–​66, 167, 171, 172–​73, 176–​77, 178, 179–​81, 192–​93, 199–​ 200, 213, 224, 225–​26, 239–​40, 247, 264–​65, 273, 274–​75, 281, 283–​84, 285, 286, 287–​88, 292–​93 lakshmanrekha/​lakshmanrekhā, 129, 135, 136–​37, 172–​74, 181 Lakshmisha, 20, 267–​68, 269 Lalita. See Shurpanakha

Lanka, 3, 5, 12, 13, 14, 22–​23, 26, 50, 56–​ 58, 97, 110–​20, 129n.6, 132n.8, 137, 166, 167, 172, 174–​76, 177–​78, 190–​ 91, 199–​200, 207, 265, 266, 268, 273, 274, 299n.4, 301–​2n.7, 306–​7, 317 Laṅkēswaraṉ/​Ilaṅkēswaraṉ, 12, 13, 22–​23, 31, 43–​44, 97, 108–​20. See also Manohar Lava, 6–​7, 58 Left-​wing theater, 83–​93 lila/​līlā, 38–​39, 46, 241, 298–​300 lila premi/​līlā-​premi, 46, 299–​300, 302–​5, 306–​9, 314–​19, 324. See also bhakti; Ramlila listening, 29–​30, 40–​41, 57, 58, 133, 135, 144, 190, 204, 217–​18, 225, 230, 242, 270–​71, 277, 286–​87, 305–​6, 308–​ 9, 324–​25 Lothspeich, Pamela, 13 Lutgendorf, Philip, 39n.13, 40–​42, 325n.7 Madhava Kandali, 241n.3 Madhavadeva, 240–​41, 243, 247, 248, 250, 253, 253n.15, 254 Mahabharata, 8n.11, 34, 40, 99, 107, 109, 162–​64, 167, 180–​81, 190n.8, 234, 251n.14, 253, 267–​68, 270n.19, 270–​71 Maharaja of Varanasi. See Varanasi Maharashtra, 11, 24, 84–​85, 88, 92, 112n.39 Majuli, 31, 238–​55, 326. See also Assam Malayalam, 7, 8–​9, 16–​17, 23n.27, 35–​37, 50, 53, 53n.8, 98, 197, 204n.27, 208–​9, 227, 232. See also Kerala Mandodari, 14–​15, 16–​17, 22–​23, 24, 44–​ 45, 98, 101, 111n.38, 114, 115, 116–​ 17, 129n.6, 149, 190, 191–​92, 194–​95, 198–​201, 202–​3, 206, 207–​9, 219, 231 Maṇḍōdariyuṭe Niṟvahaṇaṃ, 198–​201, 202–​3, 206, 207–​8 Manipuri dance, 21, 284–​85. See also dance Manohar, R.S., 12, 13, 14–​15, 22–​23, 24–​ 25, 31, 43–​44, 108–​20, 150n.17, See also Laṅkēswaraṉ mantra, 10–​11, 54–​55 Margi Madhu Chakyar, 18, 43, 50n.1, 52, 213–​14, 219–​20, 221–​22, 227–​36. See also Chakyar families

352 Index Maricha, 56, 172, 270, 284, 287–​88 maryādā puruṣottam, 30. See also Ram Maya (father of Mandodari), 16n.23, 101, 200 māyā (illusion), 24–​25, 194–​95 Mayavi, 114, 117 mela/​melā, 11, 258, 299–​300, 301–​4, 306, 307–​8, 310, 315, 317–​18. See also Ramlila merchant, 9–​10, 108, 120, 301–​2n.7, 304, 311–​12, 314n.19 migration, 310–​11 moksha/​mōkṣa, 11–​12, 56, 101, 111–​12, 120, 182n.18 monastery. See sattra Moozhikkulam, 50, 52, 213–​14, 233. See also Kerala Moterām kā Satyāgrah, 90 Mṛcchakaṭikam, 87–​88 mudra, 9, 43, 44–​45, 50, 51–​52, 98, 102–​4, 147, 156, 223, 228, 232 music, 6–​7, 16, 42, 58, 247, 251, 252, 258 all-​night Mānas concerts, 308–​9 ankiya nat, 251, 325 bargit, 250, 251 bassa nova, 127–​28 bhajan, 295 Birha, 310 Kattaikkuttu, 164–​65, 166, 168, 172–​82 kīrttan, 238–​39, 242, 251n.12 Kutiyattam, 216, 218, 228 Michael Jackson song, 154–​55 Nangyarkuttu, 187–​88 Ramlila, sonic and acoustic affect of, 308–​9, 310, 324 Sattriya, 251 Talamaddale, 19, 24–​25, 257n.1, 258, 262–​63 women’s songs, 3, 20, 126–​27, 151, 269n.16 Muslim actors, 89–90, 262 poets, 314 population, 311 mythological drama, 12, 13, 31, 44–​45, 83–​ 84, 88–​89, 97–​98, 108–​11, 118, 120, 260, 309–​10. See also Laṅkēswaraṉ

Nambiar, 186, 188, 191nn.12–​13 Nambudiri, Kapalingattu. See Kapalingattu Nambudiri namghar, 19, 238–​39, 251n.12, 253 Nangyarkuttu, 15, 16–​17, 30, 33, 35–​36, 44–​45, 46–​47, 186–​209, 225n.9, 233–​ 34, See also Indu G. Narada, 9, 10, 22–​23, 83, 112–​13, 118 Narahari, 20, 267–​68, 269, 273 narrative, 3–​26, 40, 277. See also Ramayana narrative beginnings and endings, 3–​28 elaboration of, 24–​25, 41–​42, 101–​3, 106, 107, 223, 230–​31 flashback, 187, 199–​200 hagiography, 241, 245, 248–​49 katha, 40–​41, 325n.7 metanarrative, 113, 118 oral, 16, 31–​32, 41–​42, 126, 330 nata/​naṭa/​naṭan, 36, 51–​53, 227. See also actor nātaka, 31, 39–​40 nati/​naṭī, 36, 51, 52–​53, 227. See also actress nationalism, 21, 25–​26, 85, 88, 90–​91, 92, 294n.10, 294–​96, 300–​1, 310, 311–​14, 315–​16, 327–​28 Natun Kamalabari Sattra, 238, 253, 326 natyadharmi/​nātyadharmī, 127–​28, 244, 251 Nāṭyaśāstra, 36, 228, 243–​44, 252. See also dramaturgy Nautanki, 88, 92–​93. See also Hansen Nepathya, 8–​9, 18, 50–​58, 213–​14, 214n.5, 223, 229n.13 Nepathya Srihari Chakyar, 50n.1, 214n.5, 229n.13, See also Chakyar families Ness, Sally Ann, 289–​90 nirvahana/​nirvahaṇaṃ, 44–​45, 102–​8, 120, 186–​87, 188–​89, 191n.11, 191–​92, 194–​95, 197–​200, 201, 206, 207, 215, 218, 223, 231, 233, 235. See also Tapasāṭṭam; Kutiyattam; narrative non-​Brahmin, 66–​69, 71–​74, 77–​78, 80–​ 81, 112, 117, 120, 170. See also anti-​ caste; Dalit; Dravidian; Shudra

Nair/​Nayar, 102–​3, 106, 195 Nair, D. Appukuttan, 234n.15, 235

Odisha/​Orissa, 7–​8, 299n.2, 326 Oja-​pali, 31, 251–​52

Index  353 open-​air performances, 65–​81, 83–​ 93, 292–​93 orality, 6–​7, 9, 31, 40–​42, 51, 52, 53, 126, 216, 329, 330 Original Inhabitants, 67, 67n.7, 69, 70, 71–​72, 73–​74, 75, 76. See also adivasi; tribals Padmavati/​Padmaavat (film), 33–​34 Padukone, Deepika, 33–​34 Painkulam Rama Chakyar, 190–​91, 230 Pañcakanyā, 16, 46–​47, 190 Panchavati, 55–​56, 116, 129n.6, 264, 269–​ 70, 273, 299n.4, 310–​11 Paniker, Ayyappa, 230–​31 Paniker, Nirmala, 190–​91 Panikkar, K.N., 229 paramparā, 7–​8, 9, 15, 29–​31, 33, 46–​47, 50, 69, 78–​79, 102n.11, 126, 148, 161–​ 62, 190n.10, 193–​94, 228, 230, 246, 249, 282, 285, 290–​91, 295, 315–​16 Parashurama, 18–​19, 24, 54–​55, 239–​40, 244–​45, 246, 294 Parsi theater, 24, 42n.20, 163–​64 Parti Subba, 20, 25, 264n.9, 264–​65, 267–​ 68, 271, 273 Paṭa Sandhi, 268 patriarchy. See gender performance, 22, 29–​48, 224–​27, 255, 264–​65, 324–​25 acoustics, 40–​41, 134, 324 and breath, 234–​35 contemporary, 30–​31, 32–​33 (see also avant-​garde) economics of, 31, 259, 261–​62, 295, 306, 317–​18, 326–​27 embodiment, 52, 229, 233, 286–​87, 288, 289–​90 and everyday life, 22, 45, 262, 290–​ 91, 303–​7 experimentation, 31–​32, 124–​ 28, 157–​58 imagination, 215, 216, 224–​25, 250, 290–​91 methodology, 324–​26 non-​linearity, 32, 223 pedagogy, 50–​58, 254, 281–​96 personalization, 33, 218–​19, 230 plurality, 269, 315–​16, 328

politics, 26, 46–​47, 293–​96, 310–​ 13, 327–​28 state sponsored, 25–​26, 326 (see also Rāmāyaṇ television serial) studies, 45, 322, 325–​26 textuality, 22–​25, 42, 215–​16, 221–​22 time, 47–​48, 220–​21 translation issues, 224, 325 vocabulary of specific traditions, 30–​31, 35–​40, 325 performance text, 42–​43, 221–​22, 322–​ 23, 325–​26 Phule, Jotirao, 66, 67–​68, 72–​73, 89 Pisharoti, Kallaikulangara Raghava, 12, 44, 98–​108, 119–​20 pithike/​pīthike, 264–​67 police, 89–​90 Pollock, Sheldon, 5–​6, 12 Poṅgā Paṇḍit, 88 Prahasan, 88 prasanga, 19–​20, 25, 44, 257–​78 prati-​nāyaka, 12n.17, 99, 107, 120 Premchand, Munshi. 89–​90 prologue, 22–​23, 68, 68n.11, 72, 109, 110–​ 14, 118, 273, 275n.22 proscenium play, 11–​12, 31, 84, 85, 163–​ 64, 239, 292–​93 Puducherry/​Pondicherry, 124–​25. See also Adishakti purana, 101n.8, 109, 110n.31, 111, 194, 197–​98, 242n.5, 251n.14, 258–​59, 260–​62, 265–​66, 267–​ 71. See also Bhāgavata Purāṇa; mythological drama puṣpaka vimāṉa/​pushpak viman, 58, 100, 110, 132n.8, 225–​26 putrakameshti, 54 Puttappa, K.V., “Kuvempu," 12n.15, 20, 269 Rādheśyām Rāmāyaṇ, 23 raga, 135n.9, 136, 162n.5, 163–​64, 166, 167–​68, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177–​78, 179–​81, 216, 228, 233, 250, 251, 258, 263 Raghavan, Guru P., 283, 284, 289 Rajagopal, P., 15–​16, 23, 24–​25, 42, 43–​ 44, 161–​85 Rajagopalan, L.S., 228

354 Index Rajasthan, 29–​30, 34n.4, 299n.2 Rajput, 33–​34 rakshasa, 16n.23, 54, 100, 112–​13. See also Kaikasi; Ravana; Shurpanakha as katti, 99 lineage of, 112, 112n.42 tapas of, 101, 104, 105–​6 Rām Vijay, 239–​41, 244–​46. See also Sankaradeva Rama/​Ram banishes Sita, 16n.23, 247 birth, 4–​5, 54 blessing devotees, 21, 292–​93 coronation, 23, 307–​8 embodiment of, 21, 281–​97 (see also enactment) ideal ruler, 4, 5–​6, 10, 16, 25–​26, 30, 246, 281–​82, 298–​99 marriage to Sita, 18–​19, 24, 283, 292–​93 protecting ascetics, 24, 54–​55, 56, 75, 241, 284 Rāmakathā, 34, 40–​41 renounces throne, 272–​73 return to heaven, 4–​5 Shambuk, and, 65–​93 slays foe, 54–​55, 56, 75, 241, 266, 300–​1, 306–​7, 317–​19 stringing bow, 18–​19, 24, 239–​40, 283 warrior, 4, 24, 294 Rām-​Rājya-​Nyāy (Nāṭak): Śambūk-​Muni-​ Balidān, 68–​73, 73–​74n.17, 75, 76, 77, 80–​81 RāmaRāvaṇā, 15–​16, 23, 24–​25, 42, 43–​ 44, 161–​85 Ramasami, Periyar E.V., 67n.6 Rāmāyaṇ television serial, 11n.14, 25–​26, 293–​94, 309–​10 Rāmāyaṇa (by Valmiki), 4–​6, 9–​10, 12–​13, 16n.22, 22–​23, 65–​66, 68n.10, 72, 83n.1, 100, 113, 115–​16, 224 Rāmāyaṇa Darśaṇa, 20, 269. See also “Kuvempu” Ramayana narratives, 3–​4, 40–​45, 57–​58, 217–​18, 277. See also narrative ambiguities in, 17–​18, 123, 162–​ 63, 257–​78 arc, 3, 25–​26, 102–​3, 119–​20

arguments about, 9, 19–​20, 25, 29–30, 34, 44, 257–​278, 321–322 Assam, 241n.3, 253 challenges to, 22–​23, 47, 65–​81, 123 decolonization and, 25–​26 devotional, 18–​19 episodes, 3–​4, 52, 186, 257–​78, 298–​99 Hindu, 5–​6 Jain, 11–​12, 111n.38, 126–​27, 141n.14, 150n.17 Kerala, 100–​8, 190–​91 multiple narrative strands, 6, 7–​8, 11–​ 12, 257–​78 narrator, 88–​89, 188–​89, 202, 220, 224, 227–​28 organizational units, 4–​6, 24 printed text, 221, 222, 223, 232 selectivity, 3–​4, 52, 257–​78 summaries and condensations, 3–​4, 9, 50–​59, 200, 224 Rāmāyaṇa Saṃkṣēpam, 8–​9, 18, 45, 50–​58, 217, 226, 228 Rāmcaritmānas, 3n.4, 21–​22, 23, 40–​42, 83, 92–​93, 129n.6, 294, 298–​99, 303–​ 4, 305–​7, 308–​9, 324, 325n.7, See also Tulsidas Ramayani, 41–​42, 298–​99, 303–​4, 305–​7, 318–​19, 324 Ramjanmabhumi/​Babri Masjid, 21, 85n.5, 282, 294–​95, 312, 327–​28 Ramlila of Ramnagar, 3n.4, 7, 20, 21–​22, 23, 32, 38–​42, 45–​46, 141, 241, 294, 295–​96, 298–​319, 322–​24, 326 Ramnagar. See Varanasi Rāmrājya. See Rama Rao, Maya Krishna, 12, 14–​15, 23, 24, 33, 47, 123, 128–​29, 142–​57, 325–​26 rasa, 52, 56, 126–​27, 132, 134, 136–​37, 152, 176–​77, 242–​43, 246, 275 rasānubhūti, 52 Rāvaṇ Vadh, 300–​1, 306–​7, 317–​19 Rāvaṇa Vadhe, 266 Ravana, 12–​15 abduction of Sita, 26

Index  355 as ancestor, 23 as anti-​hero, 12n.17, 99, 107, 120 charisma, 23 as dissident artist, 12, 14–​15, 123–​58 effigy, 317–​18 iconography, 14–​15, 265–​66 as ideal ruler, 13, 23, 113, 175 self-​presentation, 102–​3, 265–​66 slaying of, 266, 300–​1, 306–​7, 317–​19 veena player, 14, 111–​12, 156–​57 Ravana Chhaya, 47, 326 Ravanama, 142–​57. See also Rao, Maya Rāvaṇodbhavam, 12, 44, 47, 98–​108, 119–​ 20. See also Pisharoti Rishyasringa, 54 Sagar, Ramanand, 11n.14, 25–​26, 293–​94, 309–​10. See also Rāmāyaṇ television serial Sāhityadarpaṇa, 246 sahṛdaya, 52 Samaga, Malpe Shankaranarayana, 260 Śambūk kā Kaṭā Sir, 63–​64 Śambūk-​Vadh, 43–​44, 67n.6, 72–​78, 79, 83–​93 Saṃkṣipta Rāmāyaṇa, 9 Sampati, 57, 217 samvaad/​samvāda, 41–​42, 267, 305–​6, 324–​25 sandhya, 300, 301n.6, 302, 305–​8, 317. See also Ramlila Sangeet Natak Akademi, 239 Sankaradeva, 8–​9, 18–​19, 24, 44–​45, 46–​47, 238–​55. See also Rām Vijay and Brajabuli, 245 efficacy of Ram’s name, 244–​45 guru, 249 plays, 250–​51 and Sita’s banishment, 247 and Vishnu’s avatars, 245 Sanskrit, 5–​6, 16–​17, 37–​38, 41n.16, 68, 85–​86, 128, 166n.9, 192n.15, 247, 259–​60. See also Rāmāyaṇa in Kathakali, 98 in Kutiyattam, 7, 8–​9, 216, 218, 224, 232, 236n.16

and performance vocabulary, 35, 36, 101, 298 in Rām Vijay, 238–​56 Satchidanandan, K., 16–​17 sattra, 17–​19, 46–​47, 238–​55, 326 training in acting and music, 253–​55 Sattriya, 19, 31, 33, 35, 44–​45, 238–​55, 321, 325 sātvika, 36 Satyāgrah, 89–​90 Satyakama Jabala/​Satyakāma Jābāla, 85 Schechner, Richard, 7n.10, 39n.12, 41n.18, 45n.21, 299n.4, 301–​3, 311, 312–​13, 324, 326n.8 Seeta Swayambara, 20–​21, 24, 46, 281–​85, 287–​96, 297 Shabari, 38 Shaktibhadra, 7, 9n.13, 13, 44–​45, 214, 215, 217, 222, 224–​25, 226, 229, 234 Shaktism, 248, 249 Shambuka/​Shambuk, 6, 9–​12, 23, 24, 30, 43–​44, 46–​47, 58, 63–​93 as anti-​caste revolutionary, 73 as educator, 70, 76 as organizer of sainik dal, 74, 77 wife’s death, 71 Shankar, Amala, 281, 283–​84, 288–​89, 292 Shankar, Mamata, 281, 286, 289, 290 Shankar, Uday, 21, 24, 283, 284–​85. See also Uday Shankar India Cultural Centre Shiva, 37–​38, 110, 117–​18, 125–​26, 175, 200, 201n.25, 202, 245, 246, 265, 266, 267, 305–​6 bow of, 24, 54–​55, 112n.39, 114, 245 Shaivism, 248, 249 Shivakanth, 75–​76, 77 Shloka/​śloka/​ślōka, 98, 144–​45, 187–​88, 216, 229, 232n.14, 233, 236n.16, 239, 242, 245, 246, 323–​24 shravan/​śravaṇ, 242. See also listening shringara/​śṛṅgāra, 132n.7, 135, 147–​48, 152, 176–​77, 235, 242, 246, 255, 308–​9 Shudra, 9–​10, 63–​64, 65–​81, 83–​93, 112. See also anti-​caste; Atishudra; Shambuk

356 Index Shulman, David, 18, 43, 48, 213–15, 226​ Shurpanakha/​Shurpanakhi, 14, 15–​16, 24–​25, 33–​34, 56, 100n.6, 114, 115–​16, 118, 151n.18, 200, 264–​65, 268, 273–​75 in Kattaikkuttu, 162–67, 171–72, 176–178 as Lalita, 54–​55, 189–​90, 192n.14 in Talamaddale, 264–65, 268, 273–​75, 275 son of, 11–​12, 273–​74 widowed, 274 Singh, Periyar Lalai, 72–​78, 79, 80–​81 Sita, 4–​6, 109, 111, 115–​17, 126, 127–​28, 129–​30, 136–​40, 143, 147, 148, 150, 155–​56, 157 abduction of, 5, 13–​14, 26, 56, 118, 135–​38, 267 banishment, 14, 16n.23, 30, 88–​89, 247 birth, 3, 114 fidelity doubted, 14, 15–​16, 58 found by Janaka. 114 Hanuman, and, 57–​58 marriage, 54–​55, 114–​15 model of devotion, 18–​19, 294 painting, 150–​52, 268 return to Mother Earth, 58 tapas of, 244–​45 Valmiki’s ashram, at, 3, 11n.14, 91 Sītāpaharaṇa, 267 Sphoṭa, 51–​52 Śrīkrṣṇacaritam, 187–​88, 190–​91, 193. See also Krishna Stanislavsky, Konstantin, 43 Street theater, 11, 33, 37–​38, 43–​44, 84n.4, 299n.2, See also Jana Natya Manch Subahu, 54–​55, 56, 284, 287–​88 Subba. See Parti Subba Subhadrā-​Dhaṉañjayam, 186–​90, 191–​ 92, 197 Sugriva, 5, 16n.23, 26, 56–​58, 116, 123n.1, 192–​93, 235, 276–​77 Sumantra, 41n.19, 54 Sumitra, 54, 86n.8 Sundara-​kāṇḍa, 5, 24–25, 52, 117–​18, 153n.19 Śūrpaṇakhi and Kharāsura, 275 Śūrpaṇakhi Mānabhaṅga, 264–​65, 275n.22 sūta/​sūtan, 51–​53, 227. See also narrative

sutradhara/​sūtradhāra, 44–​45, 68, 239, 247, 251n.12, 252 svarup/​svarūp, 38–​40, 46, 298–​300, 303–​4, 307–​8, 317–​18, 323–​24 Swami Achhutanand, 67–​74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79n.22, 80–​81 Tagore, Rabindranath, 285 tala, 174, 250, 251 Talamaddale, 7, 8, 17–​18, 44, 258–​59, 259n.3, 262–​67, 271–​77. ambiguity or contradiction in, 20, 25, 35–​36 audience for, 8, 19–​20, 257, 258–​59 as cultural forum, 270–​71, 277 improvisation, 24–​25, 32, 263–​64, 271 practitioners, 259–​60, 262 textual resources, 261, 264–​65, 267–​70 theatricalized argument, 259, 260n.6, 261, 265–​66, 271 verbal repartee, 44, 267, 271 Tamasha, 86, 92–​93 Tamil, 3, 7, 8–​9, 12n.15, 12, 13, 14–​15, 18, 22, 23, 35–​38, 108–​19, 164–​65. See also Irāmāvatāram; Kattaikkuttu; Laṅkēswaraṉ bhakti, 213 classical poetry, 23, 168 fiction, 126–​27, 144n.15 film, 163–​65 ideologues, 23, 112–​13, 117–​19, 120 Kamban, 8–​9, 13, 16, 22, 23, 34, 115n.46, 117n.48, 164, 168 theater, 161, 163–​99, 182 Tamil Nadu, 35–​36, 37–​38, 161–​62, 164n.7 Tanvir, Habib, 84n.4, 89–​90 tapas. See asceticism Tapasāṭṭam, 12–​13, 14n.19, 22–​23, 98, 101–​8, 120 Tara, 16, 56–​57, 190, 193, 194–​95, 198–​99 Tataka, 54–​55, 56, 75, 241, 284, 287–​88 Telugu, 3, 12n.15, 14, 18, 67n.6, 126–​27, 151, 166n.10, 215–​16, 269n.16 temporality. See time Tenth Head, The, 12, 123–​42, 325–​26. See also Kumar, Vinay Terukkuttu, 30, 31, 37–​38, 192–​93, 321, 324n.6, 325. See also Kattaikkuttu textual seed, 10, 11, 24

Index  357 time, 44–​45, 47–​48. See also dramaturgy in Kutiyattam, 53n.8, 54n.9, 220–​21, 232, 254–​55 in Nangyarkuttu, 187–​88 Toraṇayuddham, 148, 188n.5, 229 Torave Rāmāyaṇa, 20, 267–​68, 269, 273 tribals, 55n.11, 66, 67–​68, 74, 78n.21, 328–​29. See also adivasi; Original Inhabitants Tulsidas. See Rāmcaritmānas Uday Shankar India Cultural Centre (USICC), 20–​21, 24, 46, 281, 283–​93 Urdu, 309, 312n.16, 313–​14 Usha Nangiar, 16–​17, 24, 25–​26, 33, 44–​ 45, 46–​47, 186–​209, 225n.9 Uttara-​kāṇḍa (attributed to Valmiki), 5–​6, 9–​10, 11–​13, 22–​23, 24, 65, 79n.22, 83n.1, 100, 105–​6, 117–​18, 199, 273, 329 Uttar Pradesh, 11, 66–​67, 69n.12, 71–​72, 73–​74n.17, 78, 88, 92, 299n.2, 304, 310, 326. See also Varanasi Uttara Rāmāyaṇa, 268 Uttara-​kāṇḍa (by Sankaradeva), 240–​ 41, 247 Uttararāmacarita, 12n.15, 68n.10, 217, 247 vācika, 36, 52, 257 Vaikuntha, 58 Vaishnava, 17–​19, 39–​40, 234, 238, 240–​ 41, 243n.6, 245, 246, 247, 248. See also sattra Vali/​Bali, 16n.23, 26, 56–​57, 118, 123n.1, 190n.10, 192–​93, 235, 260, 270–​71 debate with Rama, 276–​77 slain or liberated, 276–​77 and Sugriva, 20, 25–26, 276 Vāli Vadhe/​Vāli Mōkṣa, 20, 276 Valmiki. See also Rāmāyaṇa as ancestor of Valmikis, 10–​11, 63–​64 as author, 4–​5, 65 as character, 6–​7, 10–​11, 72–​73, 217 and recitation of his poem, 6–​7

Valmiki, Omprakash, 10–​11, 43–​44, 63–​64, 85n.6, 92n.13 Varanasi/​Banaras, 7, 22, 40–​41, 89–​90, 190n.9, 298–​320 banarasipan/​banārasīpan, 22, 298–​320 Maharaja of, 39n.13, 298–​99, 300, 301n.6, 305–​6, 309–​10, 311–​12 Varna/​varṇa, 9–​10, 65–​67, 69, 71, 73, 74, 86n.8, 89, 90–​91, 112–​13, 120. See also Brahmin; Kshatriya; Shudra Varuna, 58 Vashishta, 54, 90, 92, 284 Vatsyayan, Kapila, 7 Venu, G., 50–​51nn.2–​6, 190n.10 verbal art, 17–​18, 19, 32, 44, 257–​78 as argument, 271–​78 debating opponents, 260–​61 flexibility of, 269–​70 as performance, 259, 262–​67 vachika, 257, 261, 263 Vibhishana, 26, 58, 100n.6, 114, 115, 116, 207 Vimal, Ramnihor, 87 vira/​vīra, 132n.7, 135, 163–​64, 246, 255, 294, 310 Viradha, 55–​56 Visharat, Amar, 78–​79 Vishnu, 11–​12, 19, 38–​39, 54, 89n.11, 100, 136n.11, 202, 207n.32, 213, 234, 239–​ 40, 244, 245, 249, 276–​77, 298–​99. See also Krishna; Rama; Vaishnava Vishwamitra, 18–​19, 21, 54–​55, 179–​80, 202, 239–​40, 244–​45, 246, 247, 283, 287–​88, 292, 294, 314 Wayanad, 328–​29, 330. See also Kerala weapons, 40, 52, 54–​56 Williams, Joanna, 7–​8 women’s songs, 3, 20, 126–​27, 151, 269n.16, See also music Yadav, 78, 304–​5, 310 Yakshagana, 19, 25, 37, 257–​58, 259–​62, 263, 267–​68, 273, 274–​75, 321, 326 Yuddha-​kāṇḍa, 5, 24–​25