From the outrageously patriarchal world, unshrinking in its views of ‘chaste, pure and unsullied’ woman, to the concluding recitation of C. S. Lakshmi’s poem exhorting the female perspective, ‘Aham Sita,’ conceived and directed by Gowri Ramnarayan, comes full circle.
A cocktail of poetry, dance, music and theatre, Gowri’s multi-disciplinary, inclusive approach draws inspiration from literature and music of different genres and languages; the sophistication of classical music contrasting with folk ditties making for variety that sustained interest.
A few earlier dance theatre attempts have portrayed an affronted Sita questioning the unfairness of constantly having to validate her fidelity, while Rama illogically lays claim to both her children as his heirs. But here Vidhya Subramaniam as Sita is the central figure, offset against Gowri’s commentaries and soliloquies speaking for Urmila, Ahalya, Mandodari and Shoorpanakha. Rama, with all his virtues, harbours a perennial need to reaffirm his ‘paurusha’ and haloed Ikshvaku lineage. Janak accepts and treats Sita found in a furrow ‘as a gift from heaven’, while his biological daughter, Urmila, remains overlooked, a shadow, married to Rama’s brother Lakshmana.
As the pampered Sita secures permission to accompany her husband on exile, not even when she berates Rama for daring to think he could break his marriage vows by going without her does Sita or anyone else for that matter think of Urmila’s rights. Abandoned for 14 years, ‘Aham Urmila’ comes off as one of the best of Gowri’s tragically humorous moments.
Bewitchingly beautiful, Ahalya, wed to a curmudgeon and unpredictable rishi, succumbs to seduction, or is duped, by Indra disguised as her husband (Gowri leaves this unspecified) and is cursed to become a stone, battered by sun, wind and rain till restored to womanhood by Rama. Witness to a tender Rama-Sita exchange, Ahalya is convinced that this love can never have pitfalls – alas, little does she know.
‘Aham Shoorpanakha’ portrayed the generously endowed, audaciously sensual, woman of the forest who did not hide her sexual urges, which the urban royalty termed promiscuous. Did her act merit such obnoxious disfiguring?
And then there is Mandodari, who wonders what her husband Ravana, whose countless wives didn’t matter once he married her, saw in Sita that he did not see in her?
Vidhya with flawless laya and expressive face put in her best efforts.
The overall conviction notwithstanding, odd moments revealed the dance, so strongly tailored, trying to keep from lapsing into the margam-abhinaya mode, when a regular lyric from the repertoire such as ‘Yeppudi manam tunindado’ becomes part of the libretto. So too in the song ‘Kahanki… kaun gram ki vasi’. The dancer portrays a tribal whose heart is won (‘mera man haar lio’) by urban dweller Rama, who has taken to the forest to fulfil ‘mataki vachan suno’, but the tribal image seemed forced.
The music by Savitha Narasimhan, with Gowri’s experienced help, was excellent with Savitha’s fine singing and evocative solo interventions on violin by Iswar Ramakrishnan, flute by Sruti Sagar, mridangam and konakkol by Sheejith.
As part of the Sabha’s festival at Sivagami Pethachi Auditorium, this production needs to be seen without the glitches in lighting and sound devices attached to the body, with the audience shouting, “louder please” for the spoken bits, preventing the actors from giving their best.
