Sports and theatre. The mere thought of coupling these two could invite dismissive sneers or even a ‘chalk and cheese’ counter, even from those who are familiar with the idea of physical theatre. But for the Athlete Kayika Nataka Vedhi, a theatre group based in Palakkad, it is the very reason for their existence.
“Sports has enough theatrical elements in it. Ours is an experiment in combining the theatrical element of sports and the physical elements of theatre,” says K. Aliyaar who directs the group’s plays. The first of their ‘sporty plays’ to be staged was ‘Penalty Kick,’ based on N.S. Madhavan’s classic story ‘Higuita.’
Over the years, they have done a couple more, with mostly youngsters being the actors. At the National Theatre Festival, the group has moved a bit away from the usual sporty theatre, combining with the Chemparathy campus theatre group based in Government Victoria College, Palakkad, to stage ‘Oru Enthinu Enthinu Penkutty.’
‘The Why-Why Girl’
Based on Mahasweta Devi’s ‘The Why-Why Girl,’ the play is a commentary on contemporary Indian reality, where asking uncomfortable questions is actively discouraged.
“It’s a beautiful book by Mahasweta Devi, who uses pictures here to tell the story. It is about a little girl called Moyna, who constantly asks questions. She starts from simple questions like ‘why fishes don’t talk.’ Later, she asks why they do not have enough to eat, about why they have to do all the hard work of rearing the sheep, why can’t the zamindars and their sons contribute,” he says.
Aliyaar has taken the basic story and placed it in a tribal village in Palakkad. It works because, he says, the story can be placed in any tribal village in India.
The nature of Moyna’s questions naturally changes too, when she reaches Palakkad. For instance, she asks, “You call us the children of the soil, the children of the forest, but where are our lands and our forests now?”. The play for most parts uses the Irula- Muduga language, used in the tribal hamlets of Palakkad.
Shadow puppetry
“We also use shadow puppetry to signify the forest, which has become a shadow of its former self. There has also been an attempt at ‘civilising’ the adivasis, by destroying their lifestyle and their food habits, including Ragi and Chama. So, it’s in a way a critique of the top-down developmental model, which does not understand the needs of the people here,” says Aliyaar.
Just questions
But, in the end, the play is all about the need to ask questions, the comfortable, the uncomfortable, and the truly disturbing ones, of the need to speak.
