On Saturday, 05-Oct-2019, I read a review of a play called "Rage and beyond: Irawati's Gandhari" in the newspaper. In the afternoon, I asked my wife: "The tickets for the play are available online. Shall we go?" Her reply was spontaneous: "It is rare that you say you want to see a movie or drama !. Let us go !" I feel that the word "play" is a misnomer for "Rage and beyond: Irawati's Gandhari". It is injustice to call such a creative performance "only" a play. I prefer to call it a dance enriched drama instead, in this blog post. At around 7:05 p.m., we found ourselves claiming the tickets booked online at Ranga Shankar. Soon, we were allowed upstairs.
We sat in the centre, in the left end of the row. There must have been around eighty of us as audience. Directly in front of us on the stage, illuminated by a red stripped hue of spotlight from above was a neatly folded blindfold. Curiously, this was placed outside the marked stage area. Was it symbolic, to suggest that there were no boundaries ?! On the right edge of the stage, almost in the dark, was a stool with a guitar kept on it. Just this piece of cloth and the guitar would be the only "props" used in the dance enriched drama - and I am unsure if the guitar even qualifies as a theatre prop, as it is used as a musical background to set the mood ! The dark pink blindfold looked almost fluorescent with the reddish light that was over it.
The dance enriched drama began with the music composer and guitarist Hitesh Dhutia silently approaching the stool, taking the guitar, sitting on the stool and strumming a tune on the guitar. The music was first class: it made me feel contemplative, setting the mood for a performance that made me think.
Soon, the solo performer Sanjukta Wagh stepped on the stage. For the next hour or so, she was mostly Gandhari, wife of the blind king Dhritarashtra. I have seen only a handful of plays until now. In my limited experience, Sanjukta Wagh's performance in this dance enriched drama ranks among the best that I have seen, if not the best. Three scenes stand out for me: The way she expressed the carefree nature of the young Gandhari, the sorrow conveyed at the loss of a hundred sons, the feeling of being boxed in by societal norms. The use of the blindfold as a prop came to the fore in the middle of the dance enriched drama. It became a weapon in the Kurukshetra battle and it served to bind Gandhari like a rope. At one point, I thought Gandhari walked with the blindfold similar to Jesus carrying the burden of the cross ! Sanjukta Wagh's solo performance of acting, dancing and singing was just superb !
After the dance enriched drama ended, I asked my wife: "What did you like best in the play?". She replied: "I like the way she conveyed her emotions using her eyes and hands." I agree with my wife completely ! One normally believes that it is the eyes which express emotions. In this dance enriched drama, Sanjukta Wagh uses her limbs almost as much as her eyes to emote. Her hands were used to cuddle her children ; they mapped out the contours of the vast plains of Hastinapur ; her feet jingled as she danced while she was a young princess.
It would be unfair to the musician Hitesh Dhutia to say that her performance is the only highlight. The music of the guitar by Hitesh Dhutia sets the mood exquisitely during the dance enriched drama. This is a key element of the appeal of the dance enriched drama.
Similarly, just as important was the lighting, designed by Deepa Dharmadhikari. I have already explained how the light accentuated the blindfold to me even before the dance enriched drama began. Once it began, it was the lighting that illuminated the path which Gandhari would take in her final march towards a forest fire. When Gandhari loses her hundred sons, it is the lighting that focussed my gaze on Sanjukta Wagh's fingers and toes as she brought out her sorrow. If there is a symbolism here, it was lost one me though ! Just like the music, the lighting admirably heightened the appeal of the dance enriched drama.
The premise of the dance enriched drama is interesting. It narrates the Mahabharata from Gandhari's point of view. In the Mahabharata that I am familiar with, Gandhari wears a blindfold out of love and respect to her blind husband Dhritarashtra. In the dance enriched drama, it is suggested that Gandhari is unaware of the blindness of Dhritarashtra initially. When she learns of it, she dons the blindfold as an act of rebellion against a society that sanctioned the wedding of a young princess with a blind man.
Sanjukta Wagh states in https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/gandharis-lament/ that her dance enriched drama is inspired by author Irawati Karve’s interpretation of Gandhari from the writer’s groundbreaking work Yuganta. In that book the author Karve apparently suggests that Arjuna's burning of the Khandavaprastha forest is an act of colonialism. I use the word "apparently" as I have not read the book myself. In "Rage and beyond: Irawati's Gandhari", Sanjakta Wagh refers to this incident and also the destruction of the Naga race by Arjuna as questionable deeds. As Gandhari, she asks the question about who decides that the Pandavas are victors while her son Duryodhana is portrayed as a villain.
To me, this is the beauty of Mahabharata ! Nobody in the tale is perfect: not Arjuna who is guided by Krishna to let an arrow fly from his bow against Karna struggling to cope with a chariot wheel stuck in the mud ; not Yudhistira who gambles his wife away and is willing to tolerate slights from his cousins and not even Krishna who exhorts the Pandavas to cross the moral line in the Kurukshetra battle on more than one occasion. When Gandhari asks who decides that Duryodhana is a villain, the question made me pause and think about the characters in the Mahabharata epic. I suppose the answer is that one has to choose who is "relatively better" rather than one who is "absolutely good" ! There is no one character who is "absolutely good" in the Mahabharata, though Yudhistira and Vidura come close in my opinion ! Certainly, with his ruthlessness and selfishness, Duryodhana is far from being a hero !
Yet, it is shown in the dance enriched drama, that the only joy for Gandhari was her children. When Dushasana and Duryodhana attempt to disrobe Draupadi in the Hastinapur court, Gandhari says that she understood Draupadi's shame and pain, but she did not do anything as she is "the empress with the blindfold". This phrase summarises the theme of the dance enriched drama well ! Gandhari is aware of the failings of her son. However, she literally turns a blind eye to those failings, imposed by the blindfold that she herself chose to wear ! She suggests that perhaps things may have been different had she chosen to keep her eyes open and act as a guide for the blind Dhritarashtra.
To me, that is an unconvincing argument. In the Mahabharata, there are too many possibilities for "What if" type of scenarios ! What would have happened if Devavrata had not taken a terrible vow, transforming himself into Bhishma ? What would have happened had an innocent Kunti not have used a sacred mantra to summon Surya, the Sun God, thereby resulting in the birth of Karna ? What would have happened if the queen Ambika had not closed her eyes at the sight of the frightening looking Ved Vyasa, which resulted in the birth of the blind king Dhritarashtra ? These "What if" scenarios are pointless, because the changes that result from those questions in a tale like the Mahabharata are too many !
At the end of the Kurukshetra war between the Pandavas and her hundred sons, it is Gandhari who suffers the most. Each of her hundred sons is killed by Bhima. This is not shown, but Sanjukta Wagh depicts Gandhari's sorrow and her subsequent anger with Krishna.
Gandhari's dream is to see Duryodhana as a king, which would redeem her lost existence, in a sense. Before the Kurukshetra war, she wants her son to be invincible. Using the strength of her prayers, she removes her blindfold and sees her son for the first time in her life. Whatever parts of his body she gazes on become like an armour, invincible against all weapons and blows ! To her consternation, Duryodhana has covered his nakedness. She learns later that it is Krishna who taunts Duryodhana about his nakedness, shaming Duryodhana into covering himself up. While the rest of his body becomes armour like, the area below the waist is still ordinary, much like Achilles' heel in the Greek tale ! https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/achilles-heel.html narrates the origin behind the phrase "Achilles' heel" in brief. Ultimately, triggered by Krishna, Bhima hits Duryodhana below the waist, unfairly. Duryodhana passes away and Gandhari's last dream is left unfulfilled.
After the war has ended, Gandhari, Dhritarashtra and Kunti head to the forest. In the end, instead of the woman following her husband to funeral pyre according to the "sati' custom, there is a role reversal of sorts in Gandhari's case ! It is she along with Kunti and her husband Dhritarashtra who are together consumed in the forest fire.
The dance enriched drama ended on that note. During the dance enriched play, I had no idea of what the time was. At one point, my wife took her mobile phone out and that is when I saw that it had been almost an hour since the dance enriched drama had started ! I had simply not noticed how the time went, as I was so absorbed in the performance ! At the end, when we stepped out of the theatre, both my wife and I agreed that the time was well spent. The important message from the dance enriched drama was that just like Gandhari, all of us may be wearing self imposed blindfolds. We may be overlooking failings of loved ones and encouraging growing lawlessness among us as a result !
Is the dance enriched drama perfect ? No, I see a couple of areas of improvement : for example, in the newspaper article https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/gandharis-lament/ it is brought out that there is komal (dissonant) note in Gandhari's wail of sorrow. Due to my ignorance of classical music, this was completely lost on me. Similarly, there is one dramatic scene in dim light whose symbolism I did not understand. In that sense, the dance enriched drama can be considered as too complicated for certain audiences (like me !). However, if I were Sanjukta Wagh I would not change the dance enriched drama on this count. People like me probably need to learn more about classical music and dance !
The other area of improvement is more philosophical: Gandhari questions as to why the Pandavas are considered heroes when Khandavaprastha was destroyed to make way for Indraprastha. She also questions why Arjuna destroyed the Naga race. In my view this is an improper way of looking at incidents. One cannot use today's definitions of colonialism in an age that existed thousands of years ago : values do change over time ! At one point of time, it was perfectly natural that a king like Dasharatha had three wives. In today's India, that would be illegal ! So does that make the king Dasharatha an outlaw ?! I don't think one can legitimately use today's standards and values for a different age. Who is to say whether Sachin Tendulkar is "better" than Sir Donald Bradman in cricket ?! Is that even a fair question ? If not, in a similar vein, Gandhari's remarks about the Pandavas in the dance enriched drama appear unfair.
Still, these are minor points of improvement that have come to me only now, a week after watching the dance enriched drama. What I prefer to remember instead is the dance of the playful and young Gandhari, the almost fluorescent blindfold, Hitesh Dhutia's music and the lighting design by Deepa Dharmadhikari. Also, the message that stays with me now is the phrase "the empress with the blindfold". Dhritarashtra was blind at birth and I used to consider him an unfortunate man. How much more unfortunate is Gandhari who chose to deprive herself of sight ! Extending the same idea, do I even know what metaphorical blindfolds I wear ?! That is a stimulating question thrown up by Sanjukta Wagh's dance enriched drama "Rage and beyond: Irawati's Gandhari" ! In conclusion, this is amazing artistic creativity, which I applaud.
We sat in the centre, in the left end of the row. There must have been around eighty of us as audience. Directly in front of us on the stage, illuminated by a red stripped hue of spotlight from above was a neatly folded blindfold. Curiously, this was placed outside the marked stage area. Was it symbolic, to suggest that there were no boundaries ?! On the right edge of the stage, almost in the dark, was a stool with a guitar kept on it. Just this piece of cloth and the guitar would be the only "props" used in the dance enriched drama - and I am unsure if the guitar even qualifies as a theatre prop, as it is used as a musical background to set the mood ! The dark pink blindfold looked almost fluorescent with the reddish light that was over it.
The dance enriched drama began with the music composer and guitarist Hitesh Dhutia silently approaching the stool, taking the guitar, sitting on the stool and strumming a tune on the guitar. The music was first class: it made me feel contemplative, setting the mood for a performance that made me think.
Soon, the solo performer Sanjukta Wagh stepped on the stage. For the next hour or so, she was mostly Gandhari, wife of the blind king Dhritarashtra. I have seen only a handful of plays until now. In my limited experience, Sanjukta Wagh's performance in this dance enriched drama ranks among the best that I have seen, if not the best. Three scenes stand out for me: The way she expressed the carefree nature of the young Gandhari, the sorrow conveyed at the loss of a hundred sons, the feeling of being boxed in by societal norms. The use of the blindfold as a prop came to the fore in the middle of the dance enriched drama. It became a weapon in the Kurukshetra battle and it served to bind Gandhari like a rope. At one point, I thought Gandhari walked with the blindfold similar to Jesus carrying the burden of the cross ! Sanjukta Wagh's solo performance of acting, dancing and singing was just superb !
After the dance enriched drama ended, I asked my wife: "What did you like best in the play?". She replied: "I like the way she conveyed her emotions using her eyes and hands." I agree with my wife completely ! One normally believes that it is the eyes which express emotions. In this dance enriched drama, Sanjukta Wagh uses her limbs almost as much as her eyes to emote. Her hands were used to cuddle her children ; they mapped out the contours of the vast plains of Hastinapur ; her feet jingled as she danced while she was a young princess.
It would be unfair to the musician Hitesh Dhutia to say that her performance is the only highlight. The music of the guitar by Hitesh Dhutia sets the mood exquisitely during the dance enriched drama. This is a key element of the appeal of the dance enriched drama.
Similarly, just as important was the lighting, designed by Deepa Dharmadhikari. I have already explained how the light accentuated the blindfold to me even before the dance enriched drama began. Once it began, it was the lighting that illuminated the path which Gandhari would take in her final march towards a forest fire. When Gandhari loses her hundred sons, it is the lighting that focussed my gaze on Sanjukta Wagh's fingers and toes as she brought out her sorrow. If there is a symbolism here, it was lost one me though ! Just like the music, the lighting admirably heightened the appeal of the dance enriched drama.
The premise of the dance enriched drama is interesting. It narrates the Mahabharata from Gandhari's point of view. In the Mahabharata that I am familiar with, Gandhari wears a blindfold out of love and respect to her blind husband Dhritarashtra. In the dance enriched drama, it is suggested that Gandhari is unaware of the blindness of Dhritarashtra initially. When she learns of it, she dons the blindfold as an act of rebellion against a society that sanctioned the wedding of a young princess with a blind man.
Sanjukta Wagh states in https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/gandharis-lament/ that her dance enriched drama is inspired by author Irawati Karve’s interpretation of Gandhari from the writer’s groundbreaking work Yuganta. In that book the author Karve apparently suggests that Arjuna's burning of the Khandavaprastha forest is an act of colonialism. I use the word "apparently" as I have not read the book myself. In "Rage and beyond: Irawati's Gandhari", Sanjakta Wagh refers to this incident and also the destruction of the Naga race by Arjuna as questionable deeds. As Gandhari, she asks the question about who decides that the Pandavas are victors while her son Duryodhana is portrayed as a villain.
To me, this is the beauty of Mahabharata ! Nobody in the tale is perfect: not Arjuna who is guided by Krishna to let an arrow fly from his bow against Karna struggling to cope with a chariot wheel stuck in the mud ; not Yudhistira who gambles his wife away and is willing to tolerate slights from his cousins and not even Krishna who exhorts the Pandavas to cross the moral line in the Kurukshetra battle on more than one occasion. When Gandhari asks who decides that Duryodhana is a villain, the question made me pause and think about the characters in the Mahabharata epic. I suppose the answer is that one has to choose who is "relatively better" rather than one who is "absolutely good" ! There is no one character who is "absolutely good" in the Mahabharata, though Yudhistira and Vidura come close in my opinion ! Certainly, with his ruthlessness and selfishness, Duryodhana is far from being a hero !
Yet, it is shown in the dance enriched drama, that the only joy for Gandhari was her children. When Dushasana and Duryodhana attempt to disrobe Draupadi in the Hastinapur court, Gandhari says that she understood Draupadi's shame and pain, but she did not do anything as she is "the empress with the blindfold". This phrase summarises the theme of the dance enriched drama well ! Gandhari is aware of the failings of her son. However, she literally turns a blind eye to those failings, imposed by the blindfold that she herself chose to wear ! She suggests that perhaps things may have been different had she chosen to keep her eyes open and act as a guide for the blind Dhritarashtra.
To me, that is an unconvincing argument. In the Mahabharata, there are too many possibilities for "What if" type of scenarios ! What would have happened if Devavrata had not taken a terrible vow, transforming himself into Bhishma ? What would have happened had an innocent Kunti not have used a sacred mantra to summon Surya, the Sun God, thereby resulting in the birth of Karna ? What would have happened if the queen Ambika had not closed her eyes at the sight of the frightening looking Ved Vyasa, which resulted in the birth of the blind king Dhritarashtra ? These "What if" scenarios are pointless, because the changes that result from those questions in a tale like the Mahabharata are too many !
At the end of the Kurukshetra war between the Pandavas and her hundred sons, it is Gandhari who suffers the most. Each of her hundred sons is killed by Bhima. This is not shown, but Sanjukta Wagh depicts Gandhari's sorrow and her subsequent anger with Krishna.
Gandhari's dream is to see Duryodhana as a king, which would redeem her lost existence, in a sense. Before the Kurukshetra war, she wants her son to be invincible. Using the strength of her prayers, she removes her blindfold and sees her son for the first time in her life. Whatever parts of his body she gazes on become like an armour, invincible against all weapons and blows ! To her consternation, Duryodhana has covered his nakedness. She learns later that it is Krishna who taunts Duryodhana about his nakedness, shaming Duryodhana into covering himself up. While the rest of his body becomes armour like, the area below the waist is still ordinary, much like Achilles' heel in the Greek tale ! https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/achilles-heel.html narrates the origin behind the phrase "Achilles' heel" in brief. Ultimately, triggered by Krishna, Bhima hits Duryodhana below the waist, unfairly. Duryodhana passes away and Gandhari's last dream is left unfulfilled.
After the war has ended, Gandhari, Dhritarashtra and Kunti head to the forest. In the end, instead of the woman following her husband to funeral pyre according to the "sati' custom, there is a role reversal of sorts in Gandhari's case ! It is she along with Kunti and her husband Dhritarashtra who are together consumed in the forest fire.
The dance enriched drama ended on that note. During the dance enriched play, I had no idea of what the time was. At one point, my wife took her mobile phone out and that is when I saw that it had been almost an hour since the dance enriched drama had started ! I had simply not noticed how the time went, as I was so absorbed in the performance ! At the end, when we stepped out of the theatre, both my wife and I agreed that the time was well spent. The important message from the dance enriched drama was that just like Gandhari, all of us may be wearing self imposed blindfolds. We may be overlooking failings of loved ones and encouraging growing lawlessness among us as a result !
Is the dance enriched drama perfect ? No, I see a couple of areas of improvement : for example, in the newspaper article https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/gandharis-lament/ it is brought out that there is komal (dissonant) note in Gandhari's wail of sorrow. Due to my ignorance of classical music, this was completely lost on me. Similarly, there is one dramatic scene in dim light whose symbolism I did not understand. In that sense, the dance enriched drama can be considered as too complicated for certain audiences (like me !). However, if I were Sanjukta Wagh I would not change the dance enriched drama on this count. People like me probably need to learn more about classical music and dance !
The other area of improvement is more philosophical: Gandhari questions as to why the Pandavas are considered heroes when Khandavaprastha was destroyed to make way for Indraprastha. She also questions why Arjuna destroyed the Naga race. In my view this is an improper way of looking at incidents. One cannot use today's definitions of colonialism in an age that existed thousands of years ago : values do change over time ! At one point of time, it was perfectly natural that a king like Dasharatha had three wives. In today's India, that would be illegal ! So does that make the king Dasharatha an outlaw ?! I don't think one can legitimately use today's standards and values for a different age. Who is to say whether Sachin Tendulkar is "better" than Sir Donald Bradman in cricket ?! Is that even a fair question ? If not, in a similar vein, Gandhari's remarks about the Pandavas in the dance enriched drama appear unfair.
Still, these are minor points of improvement that have come to me only now, a week after watching the dance enriched drama. What I prefer to remember instead is the dance of the playful and young Gandhari, the almost fluorescent blindfold, Hitesh Dhutia's music and the lighting design by Deepa Dharmadhikari. Also, the message that stays with me now is the phrase "the empress with the blindfold". Dhritarashtra was blind at birth and I used to consider him an unfortunate man. How much more unfortunate is Gandhari who chose to deprive herself of sight ! Extending the same idea, do I even know what metaphorical blindfolds I wear ?! That is a stimulating question thrown up by Sanjukta Wagh's dance enriched drama "Rage and beyond: Irawati's Gandhari" ! In conclusion, this is amazing artistic creativity, which I applaud.
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