The female characters of our mythology are often the choicest themes for an artiste to interpret from a 21st Century point of view. So it has been with Ahalya, the wife of rishi Gautama. The purists put her down in a prayer as the head of Panchakanya or list of five virgins who are to be venerated; feminists unearthed her and made out a case of gross injustice; the more moderate made her out to be a woman misjudged for mild misdemeanour. Whatever be the case, Ahalya has elicited lot of interest to explore her character and present it, each time with a fresh perspective.
Exploring complex character
Bharatanatyam dancer Arupa Lahiry’s “Ahalya” is unique in more than one sense — unlike others, it does not take recourse to drama to take the story forward; she used only ‘vachika’ (monologue) as a narrative technique and that too very briefly. She chose the ‘margam’ format which sounds daunting to any sceptical dance aficionado and instead of her personal inference, the dancer took interpretation of Rabindranath Tagore of Panchkanya and explored this complex personality called Ahalya within her dance genre. The end result was a crisp presentation very convincing in terms of exposition, brilliant in terms of dance and impressive in terms of narrative flow. No judgements made, no condemnations and no bias — it lay bare the suffering of a woman wronged for human frailty, where the penalty far exceeded the crime and the final redemption that is the natural outcome of a justice that looked beyond the subjective.
Appropriate raga
What enhanced the production was the music — the apt choice of raga. The Amritavarshini raga with which the Anjali opened was in keeping with the character with lord of Devas, Indra who is represented as thunder and lighting preceding rain. ‘A-halya’ in Tagore’s terms was “a ground unploughed”. It needed rain to cause fertility. The known facts of this mythology are that Ahalya was Lord Brahma’s choicest creation adorned with beauty, brains and breed. She was gifted to sage Gautama who eventually married her despite disparity in age. A dutiful wife that she was, nevertheless, falls a prey to the wily Indra, thereby incurring her husband’s wrath that curses her to turn into a stone till Lord Rama accidentally redeems her. Arupa’s invocation used the imagery of the untilled land, depicting the central character to draw an outline of Ahalya. It was followed by Indra alarippu, a brisk, rhythmic delineation of Indra. Her depiction in varied stances of the god’s might like his mount, Airavat (white tusker), the blinding lightning that cuts across the sky and earth was indeed compelling and in keeping with the racy Indra. Her footwork to jatis established her as a fine dancer.
The prelude to Varnam in English is a first person narrative where Ahalya describes herself as being created by a man (Brahma), nurtured by another man (rishi Gautama) and seduced by yet another man! This critic found it little odd for Brahma is depicted in latter day mythology as creator/father and not just a human being. The Varnam brought out Ahalya, the woman in full, the episode of succumbing to Indra’s charms. At this juncture, Arupa’s abhinaya of a woman, unable to face the light of life having been cloistered in pitch darkness as a choice, was very touching. However, she could have brought forth the underlying reason for Ahalya being categorised as one (leading the list) of the Panchakanyas worthy of worship.
The solo show was hosted at Sangeet Shyamla in New Delhi .
