where my eyes meet yours

Times of India, Mallipoo Pakkangal

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Times of India, Mallipoo Pakkangal

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Times of India, Mallipoo Pakkangal

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Desi Pulp Fiction is here

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Published in The Hindu, Literary Review, July 06th 2008

BY PRADEEP SEBASTIAN

More middle brow than low brow, and not as noir-ish as American pulp fiction, the stories in the anthology represent what is popular today in Tamil writing.

A willingness to take risks: The founders of Blaft.

The cover was half Anandha Viketan, half Quentin Tarantino: a bespectacled girl in a sari carrying a gun. TAMIL PULP FICTION it read in orange-yellow bold. And, above it, in smaller font: The Blaft Anthology of –‘. Blaft? Who or what was blaft? It was odd to see that particular cover illustration — which I was more used to seeing in Tamil weekly magazines — on a book cover. You can’t miss it in bookstores; its striking cover beckons at you from the shelves. On closer inspection, it turns out to be the first anthology of Tamil pulp fiction to be translated into English. Selected and translated by Pritham Chakravarthy and edited by Rakesh Khanna, it features 17 tales of crime, romance, science fiction, and detective stories. This was certainly good news: I had always wanted to find out what Tamil pulp read like, and Blaft, a new, independent publishing house in Chennai, had magically conjured up just such a book to fulfil the wishes of several pulp addicts like me. Blaft figured it was high time these stories were made available in English.

“Mad scientists! Desperate housewives! Murderous robots! Scandalous starlets! Sordid, drug-fuelled love affairs!” screams the lurid back cover of The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, in the tradition of all those trashy American pulp paperbacks. What is also fun about the book is that it includes the original illustrations and cover art for these stories from the magazines and novels they first appeared in. (Check out the book’s jacket illustration by Shyam, and the sketches by Jeyaraj inside.) The writers included here are all the Tamil pulp legends, but for many of us unfamiliar with their work, they would just be names — but for Tamil readers they are not just household names but literary gossip at the tea kadai (chai stalls) and bus stand. It was here at these tea stalls that Rakesh Khanna first discovered them. “I’ve been madly curious about this literature since I first moved to Chennai.” Rakesh told me, “and started noticing them on the racks at the tea stall. My Tamil is pretty lousy but I can at least read when they write English words in the Tamil script, and looking at titles like ‘Super Mega Detective Novel: Night of Blood’ over a photoshop montage of Iron Maiden album covers, I was hooked.”

Closer to genre writing

He roped in two other book lovers, Rashmi Ruth Devadasan and Kaveri Lalchand, and embarked on a project to have these stories translated in English. They founded Blaft, a publishing house that grew from their desire to make Tamil pop culture more widely known. Reading the stories, however, I discovered they were more popular than pulp, more middlebrow than lowbrow. They are not that brand of exploitative, over stylised, hardnosed pulp fiction. These stories are closer to genre writing: horror, sci-fi, mystery and the thriller. The themes that run through them are artificial intelligence, corruption, slimy politicians, the supernatural, vigilantes and the modern, liberated woman. Once you settle down to the idea that it’s not going to be pulpy in that noir-ish American way, you relish how stripped to the bone these stories are. They swiftly get to the point. Pritham Chakravarthy’s translation gives the stories directness, wit, and precision. You find yourself riffling the pages in quick, easy pleasure.

Rakesh agrees that the stories represent what is most popular in Tamil writing. But not like Sujatha or Stella Bruce popular, who are widely translated writers found in mainstream bookstores and considered literature. But closer to being the bestseller on the racks of tea kadai stalls. “We wanted to include the current bestsellers, who are Ramanichandran in the romance category, Rajesh Kumar in crime and sci-fi, Indra Soundar Rajan in supernatural/mystery, and Pattukkottai Prabakar and Suba in the detective genre. We went through a lot of Tamil “chick lit” before deciding on the Vidya Subramaniam stories to represent that genre — many of the other writers indulge in long rambling discussions of household finances and family politics that would have taken up half the book.”

My favourite story here is “Matchstick Number One”, by Rajesh Kumar (as prolific as 1,250 novels! 2,000 short stories!). Its clever, suspenseful plot would make a nice Vijaykanth vigilante movie where he is judge, jury and executioner. I wasn’t as impressed by the story that represents Suba (the pen name of Suresh and Balakrishnan), “Hurrican Vaij”. Suba’s stories feature a young sleuthing couple from the Eagle Eye Detective Agency and their assistant John Sundar. One author’s identity here remains a mystery, even the publisher is in the dark. Blaft feels that the South Asian writing being published in English all fall in a really narrow range, mostly aimed at one particular type of reader, and very unrepresentative of what most South Asians actually read themselves. They want to bring out translations of popular fiction, as well as more experimental, cutting-edge fiction by authors in all Indian languages, including English.

Exciting work

Blaft is also keen on bringing out graphic novels and art books. Already out are Zero Degree by Charu Nivedita, transgressive fiction that is a “mad patchwork of phone sex conversations, tender love poems, and numerology” and when this key sketch, by Chennai-based artist Natesh, which is a “collection of some seventy ink drawings of surreal combinations of hands, women, fish, tigers, eagles, and rhinoceroses that showcases the amazing things Natesh can do with a simple black line”. Currently in the works are a collection of short stories and flash fiction by Kuzhali Manickavel, a book of highly surreal Tamil folktales by Kee. Rajanaryan, and even some Bengali and Urdu thrillers. The presence of Blaft is great news for readers and writers, who can expect independent publishing houses like this one to take chances on (and believe in) writers and manuscripts that others won’t.

Stark Narratives

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Published in The Hindu, Metro Plus Bangalore, July 10th 2008

She opened a door into child sexual abuse in the domestic sphere, revealed the joys and pains of becoming a transgender and the drama of being a devadasi turned film star. Theatre performer, activist and researcher Pritam Chakravarthy briefly delved into three lives in an exploitative world of patriarchy in “Nirvanam” and “Mirror”, organised by Masrah and the Alternative Law Forum and supported by the Artists’ Ensemble India Forum, Maraa, Centre for Education and Documentation (CED).

Enacting roles from a pre-adolescent girl sexually abused by her maternal uncle, the personal journey of a transgender and the a film star , the Chennai-based Pritam sketched the roles in an intimate atmosphere. Sitting at a desk, Pritam with no special effects of lighting, props or costume, performed the role of a pre-adolescent with child-like enthusiasm and wonder. The laughter and shouts of a pre-adolescent enjoying her maternal uncle’s company, were both convincing and realistic. It paved the path for the uncle to take advantage of the trust. The performer drew you into the narrative gradually.In the discussion that followed, Pritam pointed out that child abuse does not only take place between a young girl and an older man.

“Nirvanam”, which traces the journey of a transgender from childhood, revelation to the final day of celebration, is quite an experience. Pritam’s raw and uncomplicated acting is pervasive.

The child-like fear of seeing transgenders in the local train, to sexual experimentation of cross-dressing and finally the painful but liberating experience of “Nirvanam” or the biological act of becoming a transgender was enacted in stark simplicity. The humour was subtle but sharp, which complimented the revealing narratives.

“Mirror” forayed into the desperate world of the devadasis. Pritam cleverly poked fun at Victorian morals of abolishing of the devadasi system and the very existence of it — of men living two lives and controlling female sexuality. The life of the devadasi, interestingly, draws similar parallels to the life of a female film star. Enrobed in a rich zari sari, Pritam begins this narrative facing the audience as if it’s a mirror. This could be looked as an interesting medium as the mirror becomes a reflecting medium of voyeuristic curiosity and audience pervasion. As she paints together the lives of multiple stars into one single narrative, Pritam briefly explores the issues of female sexuality, pregnancy, the imperativeness of having a mother and father in a family and the notions of class and caste. She uses humour, sometimes anger or sorrow to look into these aspects of a woman who might be the goddess of a film industry, but who perhaps chooses and is forced to be restricted by the patriarchal framework of her gender, caste and class.

As she bored into your eyes with statements and questions of the female body, of the woman trapped in a man’s body and of unequal relations, you only had to stare back with equal clarity and recognition of some of these facets.

by AYESHA MATTHAN

Theatre Festivals

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Participated in:

International Human Rights Conference 2001

Edinburgh International Festival 2002

The Other Festival 2003

Kuttu Festival 2005

Park’s The Other Festival 2005

Bangalore Habba 2005

Roshini-Fulbright International Women’s Day 2005

Natarani 2006: Festival of Non-violence and Peace, Ahmedabad.

The Hindu Metro Theatre Festival 2006

Nigaah Queer Festival, New Delhi 2008

Fellowships

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Ashoka Innovators Fellow 1995-96

:Research on Child Sexual Abuse

Fulbright Fellow 2002-2003

:University of Wisconsin, Madison

:Research on Sexual Minorities

Charles Wallace Fellowship February 2007

:SOAS, London

:Research on Mahabharata and development of the play, Dushala

SARAI Independent Fellowship March 2007

:Research on Sabha Drama

:Presentation: One woman performance, Behind the Curtains

Artists in Residence, Tata Institute of Social Studies, September 2008

:Workshops on Storytelling as an art, technique and culture

A Road with No End

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Paper published in The Journal of National Folklore

A paper of Theatre Activism by Pritham K Chakravarthy

Growing up in a Brahmin ghetto, studying in high-walled convent school, with no men but my own kith and kin I began in cloistered surroundings. Though training in dance and music was a part of it, performance was never thought of as an option. So when I faltered into Sabha drama at the behest of my maternal uncle, it was only seen as child’s play. For some time, they thought, and then she will let it go. But I did not. Never thought of it.

Though I have been involved with Tamil theatre for over 20 years now, to evolve my performing style into a specific form came about in 1996 by default when Gnani, a senior amongst Chennai theatre activists, was making a television serial on 50 years of independence. The script involved a dramatic performance of about 4 minutes. Gnani had done the script based on recordings of Rathnabai set in the early part of the last century and revolving around the stigma faced by middle class widows. When he called me to do it; time was limited and I had no clue about how I was going to do it. It evolved during the shooting, as a kind of ’sit-down-and-I-shall-tell-you-my-story.’ Even then it had not a definite form and was still in its maiden stage.

In 1998, my involvement with Voicing Silence, gender wing of MSSRF took this form into yet another level of maturity. A. Mangai, [a woman theatre director based in Chennai had returned full of ideas after her Fulbright scholarship. She had three interviews with women, done as a student project at the University of Madras, Department of Tamil, which fascinated the two of us from the word 'go'. But reading out one of the scripts to friends did pall our energy, to take it up as a performance script initially. The narration is linear; there is nothing dramatic or dynamic. What is fascinating about an old Dhobi woman talking about her life and donkeys? How do you term this theatre?'

The doubts raised were so loud that Mangai for the premier at Dalit Kalai Vizha [Dalit Arts Festival] decided at the last moment to add song, a chorus and possession dance. I went on stage at 11.30. The piece was preceded by an Oppari [traditional lamentation] performance and to be followed with a Thappattam [a folk drum dance]. We had no idea how our piece would be received. What followed was a surprise to all of us. The piece initially planned to last about 30 mins. took all of 45 minutes when I got off stage. The women in the audience were right on line with me adding to my performance with loud nods and crackling their knuckles. When they actually followed me out into the rain to give me a hug and demand when am I going to do it in Pervakottai, in front of the real Marudhayi [the name of the Dhobi woman], I felt several inches taller. Truly Marudhayi makes me feel like a giant even today every time I speak her words. That play has now traveled a variety of audiences including feminist groups and hard-core theatrephiles.

That led to a long search to read more than what my own femininity limited me with. It was a chance viewing of an, ‘Oh! Feel sorry for us’, type of a film on the aravanis [hijras], which prompted me to go in, and explore that community, which I had selectively forgotten. But, hesitancy of experimenting with my body for a subject like this deterred me for a while.

In mid-2000, I personally interviewed six aravanis and came up with a 45 minutes story about a generic aravani, Nirvanam, which was then shaped by members of the Thamizhnadu Aravani Association. Once I had met my aravani sister in a church and started talking to her over a cup of coffee in a roadside stall, things fell gradually into place. It then took five months of meetings with six different aravanis, in my own house, often in the presence of my daughters, sometimes by appointment, sometimes by-chance, in suburban trains, on the beach, at tea stalls, sometimes recorded on tapes, sometimes recorded in memory, but always documented with mutual trust that gave shape to what ‘Nirvanam’ is today. The promise to retain their dignity, portray not just their pain, but their determination and sturdiness in withstanding it, their pleasure in coming into their womanhood, finding solidarity with fellow travelers, and daring to exist against all odds; molded both the form and content of my performance. Being invited to perform at The Edinburgh International Festival 2002 was perhaps the acknowledgment the piece needed to be vindicated.

On my return from the US after my Fulbright, I have been following a similar interview-tell a story pattern to address two major issues along with two NGOs working on those: Domestic Violence, along with PCVC [Prevention of Crime and Victim Care] and Child Sexual Abuse along with Ashreya. In both cases I conducted extensive interviews with victims, psychologists and legal experts before putting my story together. The stories were then dry run amongst experts and in the case of DV victims too. Hands Off and Hit Me Not are today being circulated amongst factory workers, school parents and corporate agencies to create awareness on these issues both in English and Tamil.

In December 2003, Venkatesh Chakravarthy, the person I am married to, was invited to script a play for me based on the behind-the-scene scenario of film actresses in the Tamil Cinema for the ‘Amman and Avenging Women in Tamil Cinema’ seminar. The script of Kannadi, as the piece came to be called, travels from the early 1930s when the Devadasi women, after the drafting of the Abolishment of Devadasi Act in 1934, move to the city to find employment in the Tamil cinema-a process that went on well into the 80s when middle-class anxieties and pressures started acting on them. After its premier at the seminar itself, in English, the play has travelled widely within the city both in English and Tamil and has recently been invited to be performed at the Conference on Post-colonialism and Popular Culture at Stella Maris College, Chennai.

The decision to only tell stories, stories about womanhood, was a conscious one. In 1996 I thought it was only a natural progression to my own evolution. But then the stories I started saying were not mine, though the way I said them were mine. Immaterial to who got the story, from where, I had to find my own comfort zone in putting forth the story which did not have classic Greek literary structures, which were linear, but real, to make the characters true, dignified, and not caricatures. I made false steps. Fell on my face, got up, dusted it and started all over again.

With five full-length one-woman acts, three scripted and performed by me, it seemed that, perhaps, I have there was little new to say on gender. That was when Maitri Gopalakrishna called asking for an appointment. I had not yet heard of the Kuttu Festival 2005. I have been briefly acquainted with Hanne M. de Bruin and P. Rajagopal, but know not much of their working style. We, as the curators of the festival would like you to come up with a one-woman piece exploring the Mahabharata from a contemporary, feminist point of view.’ The call was huge and daunting.

I had just two months in which to cover at least five versions of the epic and at least two different commentaries and the themes already taken up for performance by other traditional and modern south Indian theatre, puppetry and dance groups and then zero in on what I would like my piece to cover. Also this was my sixth venture in preparing a text for myself. I had the onus of keeping the piece in line with my agenda of preference, that of ‘performing gender’. When stumbling on to Irawathi Karve’s Mahabharata text, Yuganta, that helped. Then watching the way Vinapani Chawla had spring-boarded from the same text Yugantha for her script on Bhima helped me to arrive at a convincing script based on the life of Dushala.

The emergence of Dushala as a play is embedded into a long Indian history of the treatment of the girl child. In fact, it was the absence of Dushala that made my script. To be born as the only sister of the Kauravas, growing up in the beautiful city of Hastinapur, having watched the entire epic unfold under her eyes, being as much a victim of the circumstances, but remaining a passive agent to all fascinated me. In all the versions I read during my preparation, I could find her mentioned just four times and in all cases only her name. I decided to watch all the other women through the eyes of this silent spectator. Girl child neglect weaved itself into the text with ease. Next came working out the performance itself.

In all my scripts I have given particular attention to clothing and props. While Nirvanam is consciously performed with the clothes I am in on that day and keeping all else to a stark, bare minimum, and keeping in mind to erase my sexuality, Kannadi works on real excess. For Vellavi, the script about the old Dhobi woman, it was colors spread across the performance area. For Dushala I had the choice of recreating the said regal costumes normally used for Mahabharata performances or come up with something more contemporary. Though I had the floor plan of the performance area, I decided to wait until the day of the show itself to work out my style. Two saffron screens already available with the organizers decided it for me. I decided to use black as my beginning and end colours adding a green scarf. The sackcloth skirt, which the Festival’s costumer Margot van Dam, designed became my own stage costume to which I added a mud pot and a long cycle chain. I try not to impersonify the character, but keep both the teller and told separate from each other. That way it avoids the traditional identification with the character and allows her to unfold on the performance.

If gender everywhere is a social construct, then do I choose my gender to be performed for the day like I choose my costume for the day from my wardrobe? If its other- the masculine-[ only] defines the idea of feminine how do I understand ‘feminism’ -as a transgressive way of life? If culture is not limited to geographical or linguistic distinctions, how do I come to terms with my own past, and thereby function in the present and future? Is my past my own or does the community I emerge from have a claim to it also? Is it then limited by how other communities view this past? Is every deed of mine defined by some dark secret from my past? If all identity is already assigned as something unchangeable, then when do I begin to question the ‘I’ itself and the way my body is circumscribed by this culturally constructed identity? What if, if I let my body break the shackles of these knots; no matter how badly it is hurt in the process and to recognize that I am not alone?

Definition of how I see gender, sexuality, culture, and identity have shifted greatly in this last decade. I have come to understand that all these are fluid and that each one of us operates under very split conditions. Ideally it is this split condition that I would like to explore in future. While reading [the same], I began to expand this idea of split condition to all avenues from where we gather all our conditionings my own studies, my history, my chauvinism of holding my first 30 years with a pride of being Tamil, then understanding my upper caste identity splinters it no matter how much I de-brahminise myself, my first academic step into learning about gender then spreading into more organic expressions of the same in everyday life, my comfort zone of story-telling as opposed to more traditional acting, and my activism is what I would like to marry into my forthcoming performances. Thus they can become not a mere personal journey, but a human journey that can be taken up to study any situation by anybody in the future.

Theatre, Storytelling and Activism - a bag of tricks

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Published in Maara.in, June 27, 2008

Pritham K Chakravarthy is a theatre performer, activist, playwright and an independent researcher. She specialises in single woman performances focusing on gender and sexuality. Her piece on transgender community of Chennai, "Nirvanam" was featured in The Edinburgh International Festival 2002 and has travelled extensively in the USA and UK during her Fulbright Fellowship. "Kannadi/Mirror" [2003] "Hit Me Not and Hands Off!" [2004] have travelled to a variety of audience, from theatrephiles to factory workers. The only ensemble theatre she is working in right now "Orientations" [2003] premiered at Watermans, London and is expected to tour from next summer. Besides the Edinburgh Festival, she has been a part of the Other Festival 2003 and Kuttu Festival 2005 where she premiered her "Dushala/The Last Matriarch."

And she was in Bangalore, to workshop with Masrah, a theatre group based in Bangalore, perform two of her best plays for Bangalore and release her book titled "Tamil Pulp Fiction." In all three the common thread being storytelling. It comes naturally to her. From playing with points of view, paying attention to detail to short, crisp sentences and adapting to her audience – the words flow like as real as a conversation.

Pritham hardly conducts workshops, but Masrah was lucky to have her conduct a workshop on theatre and storytelling with the central theme as sexuality. Three main points to remember with her kind of theatre: B. Good actors have to be real on stage. B. If you fall on your face, get up, dust it and continue C. ‘Feel’ your cues; they are not merely responses to stimuli. It took some digging up from the past, lots of courage and trust and willingness to share and learn through the course of three day workshop. Pritham introduced a new concept of "repetition" to realize the seizure or breaking point through exchange of redundant questions and answers. Repetition helps concentrate deeply and not lose momentum. It is about rhythm and finding new perspectives to your state of mind. With a preempted emotion, repetition demonstrates rapid shifts in emotion with gradual exchange. There is always one person in control/power of the situation and this resurfaces the vulnerability evidently. The workshop also touched upon telling personal stories, discovering each one’s sexuality at it’s peak through stories, retelling others stories with different points of view, making up stories – all this was? A new experience and great learning for Masrah as it was one of those has a different approach to theatre, since story telling is about being grounded, yet taking off, here and there!

On July 5th, Pritham was all set to perform. Nirvanam, for the 300th time in her life. "Nirvanam (Liberation) refers to the act of liberating oneself from the male body and transforming oneself to a female. This narrative bears witness to the tumultuous journey towards a reinvented self hood, a journey fraught with violence, exploitation, affection and courage. The pains, pleasures and dilemmas of becoming the ‘other’ is the motif of the film. Weaving together performance, life histories and everyday life, it problematises the divides between ‘us’ and ‘them’."

It was tiring, watching her! The play is not melodramatic, tragic or sympathy seeking. The punch lines, the cultural context, the humor and the turn of events are timed brilliantly. With no costumes, sets, make-up or props, Pritham takes us through the lives of Aravanis , without shedding a tear. The performance has some high points which are difficult to comprehend, but she doesn’t shed a tear, instead takes us through her unique style of storytelling, which is personal, relatable and real. Her references to stereotypes that are bound to coincide with almost anyone makes the performance a real experience. The play was exhaustive. It was evident to see that the script was carefully researched and crafted to celebrate sexuality in the true Aravani style. She was gracious as a man as well as when she became a woman. This has been performed for the Aravanis, who critiqued, improvised and directed some parts of the plays.

With just a ten minute interval, Pritham returned with a broad zari border silk saree. She looked at the mirror: the audience.

Mirror is a monologue on the Feminine in Tamil Cinema, which highlights gender roles and stereotypes in the film industry, and focuses on star suicides, specifically of female actors. Mirror, a one-woman solo performance attempts to interrogate our assumptions about female narcissism; in the context of social conditions, that often cause the suicidal deaths of female stars. The narrative outlines the lives of 2 women. The first is a young, lower middle class woman of contemporary times, who commits suicide at the peak of her fame and stardom. The second, the protagonist of the narrative, is the female star of a bygone era, a person who enters the film industry when the Devadasi system is abolished. Voices of other women, including that of the narrator, produce other interlocutions.

It was interesting to listen to the audience laugh, sigh, feel sympathetic and get agitated. The vibes filled the space, as Pritham continues to sway the wand of theatre on us. Directed by her husband, Venkatesh Chakravarthy, she took us through the yesteryears of Tamil Cinema. The play dwells on how cinema has evolved but some things still haven’t change since the 30s. "Mirror" reflects upon the role of women, inside and outside the film; the similarity between reel and real and how ‘her’ way of life meanders, through different stages,over the years and as ’she’ ages. As ’she’ dresses up in front of the mirror with the required symbols that represent womanhood, she thrives respect, celebrates her sexuality, switches from one role to another, grows up like a child from innocence to experience. The performance is exhaustive for ‘the woman’ in the performance and Pritham makes it a point to follow her performances with a discussion to separate herself from the characters in the performance. One may or may not know the history of Tamil Cinema, yet there is a sense of universality about the play in spite of being specific to the sequence of the changing roles of in the history of Tamil Cinema.

Many leave thinking that she is an Aravani , or a devdasi , simply because she is so real when she acts, it’s hard to differentiate. Storytelling is about convincing your audience with your story. Pritham’s performance transports you to the place where such ‘acts’ take place and it takes a while to return to your reality.

Pritham redefines theatre and its use through techniques like storytelling, monologues, fiction, multi-lingual, use of stereotypes and cultural symbols to convey different perspectives about the themes she chooses to talk about. She strongly believes in community theatre and uses theatre to discuss child sexual abuse in schools, breast cancer and domestic violence for different communities.

Both the theatre workshop and the performances were supported by Actors’ Ensemble India Forum. Maraa and Masrah (the theatre group) co-hosted the performances at Centre for Education and Documentation (CED). Maraa, is looking at using such spaces to promote theatre, discussions and film screenings.

She has recently translated Tamil Pulp Fiction , a compilation of stories written by Tamil authors, published by Blaft . "Tamil Pulp Fiction" . These stories, while popular with the people, are not considered good enough for literature. Falling in to the category of pulp, these highly entertaining stories truly reflect the times they were written in. Detectives, gadgets, sex, guns, murders, suspense, underworld, James Bond settings – takes us through the parallel world we coexist with. Available at all book stores for Rs. 395/- It’s one of a kind- rare and real.

Now, ON STAGE

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Published in At A Glance, August 2008 Issue

There is no wise maxim, no learning, no art or craft, no device, no action that is not found in drama.” The Natyasastra; Chap 1 ascribed to Bharata Muni.

“It has been found in all times and in all countries that no greater stimulation could be supplied to excite the passion of mankind than that supplied by means of drama.” The Dramatic Performance Act, 1879.

THEATRE in a developing, impoverished country like India can never be what it means to the rest of the world – mere mindless entertainment; not that it is only just that there too. It needs to have both a social consciousness and energy to build a support network. In fact, it was these two that triggered the first ever play to rock the freedom of free expression, till this date. In 1860, Dinabandhu Mitra scripted his play “Niladarpana” [The Mirror of Indigo Planters] based on the 1850 revolution of the indigo planters against the British rulers. It was first staged in 1861 in Dacca and translated into English the same year by Reverend James Long, which resulted in The Dramatic Performance Act in 1879; which is yet to be repealed.

Besides the traditional performances of song and dance, enacted by the traditionally stigmatised members of the devadasi (women married to the deity of a temple) community, those were the times when female roles were still performed by men. In the late 30s, after the passing of the Anti-Devadasi Act of 1934, the domains of dance and music were taken over by women of upper caste/class background and members of devadasi community were moving towards cinema and other forms of performance. Thankfully, the unified Left opened out a different stage for women of political conscience to perform.

It was Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), founded in 1943 that opened the gateway of politically committed families to allow their wives and daughters to be a part of the performance arena. Motivated by Anti Fascist Writers & Artists Association – impassioned by the Bengal famine of 1943, IPTA staged its first ever production Nabanna [Bountiful Harvest, 1944], directed by Sombhu Mitra.

Taking a leaf off the left ideology, Miranda House College in New Delhi staged “India 69” in 1970, wherein they lampooned Jana Sang for the Mien Kampf in their logo and had Indira Gandhi (the then Prime Minister) chant nursery rhymes in defense of nationalisation of banks.

The eighties was the benchmark of women’s participation in theatre. Both theatre activism and women’s movement joined hands with the staging of “Om Swaha”. Three strong women; Anuradha Kapur, Rati Bartholomew and Maya Rao, who formed the Theatre Union addressed burning issues, that were the telling tales of human sensitivities of that time. After that, several issues have been taken up for reevaluation by women directors and actors across the country. They have broken away from predictable ‘patriarchal’ and linear streams of narratives and have shattered traditional definitions of what the actor and the audience positions are. Incorporating various forms of storytelling, they have broken the rigid proscenium wall.

Morgue Keeper

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CHARU NIVEDITA

(Translated from Tamil by Pritham K Chakravarthy )

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 01, Dated January 09, 2010

All characters in this story are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE SEVERED head of a man, about 37, lay by itself on a table. On examination, it was determined that the head had been cut between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae; the hyoid, the surrounding nerves and blood vessels, the oesophagus and the medulla oblongata had all been cleanly snapped.

I was introduced to your writing very recently. We have become best of friends — our friendship is one that can never be broken. I still can't believe that I can count you as my friend. Sometimes I pinch myself to make sure it's not a dream. The first time I saw your letter, it was like I lost myself.

Laceration 1.5 cm x 1.5 cm, bone deep, about 3 cm below the eyebrow on the right cheek. Several other deep incised wounds nearby, cutting through nerves, veins, and muscle.

Contusion in left medial periorbital region. 2 cm laceration below right eye. Above and below right eyebrow a bell-shaped abrasion with a base of 1.5 cm and 1.25 between base and dome. 1.5 cm laceration adjacent to superior medial margin.

In Chenthatti, a tiny town in Sankarankoil district in Thirunelveli, there is a Muppitathi Amman temple, which Dalits are not allowed to enter. Two Dalits who demanded to be let in were subsequently murdered. An exhaustively researched report on this was prepared, and when it reached the editor’s desk, the editor decided to flesh out the story by digging up further details on the murder of Melavalavu Murugesan. Murugesan was a young man who had been hacked to death 12 years earlier in Melavalavu, a village near Madurai. Perumal thought it would be wiser not to rake up the case at this point; at most, they might publish the old post-mortem report.

I was telling my friend about what was going on at the newspaper. The next day he came down hard on me. He was complaining that I had scratched him like a cat and that his body was covered with my nail marks. That I had broken through that fair skin of his and drawn blood. Poor fellow! He can’t even pronounce your name. He is a green-eyed Dutchman. We looked at each other for a while, full of sorrow. Miserably, he asked me, “Are you developing a soft corner for Perumal?” I couldn't answer right away. Deep laceration on the left side of the neck, 5 cm below the jaw, about 4 cm long.

“His writing is like flowers,” I told him, “It's more beautiful than tulips. It's almost as beautiful as the aurora borealis.” He just stared at me for a while; then he smiled his special smile and said, “No problem, dear.”

After four rounds of Absolut vodka, Perumal was sloshed. In his drunken stupor, he wasn’t quite sure where he was — whether he was still in his office, or fast asleep in bed at home.
It started in a chat room. She introduced herself as Chandini, a first year college student. Shit! Yes, she said she was only 17.Fuck, people will start calling me a paedophile! Really. That’s what she said her age was. Perumal lacks the imagination to have made all this up himself. Whatever he wrote, whether it was reportage or fiction, it was always based on the truth. Perhaps, if he had waited a year before writing this story, he would have escaped blame.

Despite her youth, Chandini already had a boyfriend. Perumal was her second. He had been honest with her from the start. Listen, he had told her, I'm even older than your father.

Who cares how old you are; I want you, came her melodramatic reply, and nothing more was ever said about the issue of age. He guessed that she was probably really more like 35, deceptions of this sort being quite common in the era of hi-tech. You never knew how old an online acquaintance would turn out to be until you saw her in person. But when he finally did meet her, he realized that everything she had said in her chats with him was absolutely true.

Meanwhile, Perumal’s wife Meera was “healing” a 17- year-old boy. She held her magic wand, touched the end of it to the boy’s head, and began to chant. She went on for a good five minutes. Then she removed the wand. But the boy no longer seemed to be conscious. For over half-anhour he just sat there, still as a Buddha statue, and Iswari, the boy’s mother, began to panic. She had never seen him sit this quietly for even five minutes. Iswari’s heart beat fast, and she prayed that he would regain consciousness before he suffered some sort of permanent damage.

What does an Indian middle-class housewife do with her day? Make frequent trips to the ration shop. Bargain for vegetables at the street vendor’s cart. If she’s a working woman, then she stands at the section officer’s desk, sheepishly explaining her late arrival to work. In PTA meetings, she nods her head vigorously to anything the teachers say, like one of those fortune-telling bulls that bob their heads to the beat of a drum. She does the same thing when her husband is verbally abusing her. Perhaps she can pick a quarrel with him once in a while; there’s no ban on that.

Imagine if 4,000 such women were gathered together, made to sit through one of Acharya's spiritual training programmes, then put on a stage and told to preach to an audience. How many of them, after that, would have any respect left for the institution of family? Perumal had no doubt that if all the middle-class housewives were introduced to this eminent spiritual leader, they would all run off behind him.

THE WAR was drawing to a close. The last remnants of the liberation force were using thousands of civilians as human shields. The military advanced, firing. A mother stood in a narrow street, clutching a child to her breast in desperation. The child was already dead. The mother knew she would not be able to make it all the way to her home; but she did not want to abandon the child here in the street, either. She did not know what to do.

There were lakhs and lakhs of people scrambling to rush out of the town. Finally, she discarded the child on the street and was carried off with the crowd. She had to leave the body behind and go.

She had no other option.

Though he had sworn that he would never resort to spirituality, Perumal finally did arrive at it in his fiftieth year. He could have at least kept it to himself, you might think, but no; instead he told Meera about his spiritual guru. And that was it. In an instant, Meera converted to spiritual activism.

Activists — whatever kind of activists they are — have no concern for individuals. Once, Perumal was down with viral fever, and there was not a soul around to care for him. When he messaged Meera at the ashram, she messaged back saying, “Pray to god; he will take care of you.” But neither came, neither god nor Meera, and he had to wait to recover.

Twenty-five years ago, Perumal had been a communist sympathiser. He lost faith in the cause later, but that was a different issue. Back then, he zealously tried to get his first wife to drink deeply of the essence of communism. And the moment she tasted it, she became a communist activist, and left him.

Eventually, he realized that activism — whatever sort of activism it was — had the end result of separating himself from his partner.

Today, his mindscreen was bursting with images of corpses. There was the leader of the Tamils, his face shaved clean, the back of his skull split with an axe. This was the same leader who, to chase his promise of an independent Tamil homeland, had consumed the lives of thousands; but the second he felt the shadow of death flash across his face, he had shaved his cheeks and gone to surrender, carrying a white flag.

In 1996, the presidential post of the village panchayat was reserved for Dalits. Murugesan and others had filed their applications for the post on 10.9.96, but had later withdrawn them because of threats from the upper castes. Then there was a peace meeting. But in the elections that followed, several ballot boxes were stolen. There was a re-polling on 31.12.96. The upper castes boycotted. Only the Dalits cast their votes, and so Murugesan was elected. On 30.6.97, a gang of thirty people murdered six Dalits, including Murugesan. The one who chopped off Murugesan’s head forced the other Dalits to drink the blood that spurted out from it.

Perumal, I get the same pleasure spending time with you as I do playing in a gentle drizzle: the same peace, the same beauty, everything. Sometimes your flawless love, affection, and truth infuses me with the beauty of nature bathed in rain.

It’s the same ecstasy I felt walking in rain while strolling through the tulip gardens.
Tamilarasan was an old friend of Perumal’s. Twentyfive years ago, they had both been so penniless that they had to beg for money to buy a single cup of tea. That was around the time they translated Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge together. After that, Tamilarasan joined a political party and made it as an MP in his very first attempt. A rumour began circulating around the state media that he had earned over 800 crores in a single political deal. The deal was actually worth 10,000 crores, and 800 crores was his kickback — or so they said. Of course, there was no substantiating evidence of corruption, so it wasn't presented as actual news. It just stayed a gossip tidbit.
Hacking wound at the level of the umbilicus, 5 cm x 1.5 cm and slicing through the intestine. 1.5 cm x 5.5 cm laceration with contused margins, 4 cm below the umbilicus, curved at the left end, piercing through to the bowel. Stab-wound triangular in form, 2.5 cm x 1.5 cm, in the left lumbar region.

This generated some animosity against Tamilarasan among the senior politicians of the party. They had been politicking their entire lives, but had never reaped anywhere close to this amount. “Look how much this chap made in a single deal!” they fumed. But the party president and the chief minister had a soft corner for him. “He drops unpronounceable names like Foucault, and writes articles in the Economic and Political Weekly. Doesn’t the party need a person like him?” they said.
On Saturday, the military raided Valignarmadam, Mullivaikaal, Irataivaikaal, Amabalavan, Pokkanai, Maathalan, and Idaikaadu, attacking mercilessly and relentlessly. A seventeen-year-old boy, Santhan, was huddled in a trench with corpses raining down on top of him. The corpse of a child, the corpse of an old hag, a man, a woman… after a point he couldn’t tell the difference. He stayed there squashed between those corpses for a whole day and night, until the relief team arrived and saved him.

MEERA WAS admitted to a government hospital. She had been caught in the crossfire when a gang that had it in for Perumal had broken into their house. Luckily, Perumal’s dog Writer had started barking and creating havoc; otherwise Meera’s story might have ended that very day. Those thugs were massive mountains of muscle. But Writer was not a people- friendly dog. Even when friends dropped in, he would bark away, loud enough to quake the street. He had torn the thugs apart.

She had a large bruise on her neck. One of the thugs had banged her roughly into the wall.

An incised wound 8 cm x 3 cm x 2 cm over the back of the right side of the chest. First and second right ribs chipped in many places.

The air conditioner in the morgue would often stop working. Just the day before, instead of presenting this fact in its own column — for he did not think it very important — he buried it in at the bottom of a page in the classified section. He never imagined that he would feel the effects of this carelessness so early. Meera was attacked the very next night. As it was a police case, she had to be treated in a government hospital.

There was an unbearable stench emanating from the morgue, so Perumal decided to check it out. There he met Kadiravan. Perumal had known him back when he was a communist sympathiser. Kadiravan had stayed in Perumal’s room once, when he had gone underground because he was suspected of involvement in a bank heist.

Perumal knew that Kadiravan had later been nabbed and sentenced to five years, but after that he had lost track of him.

Now, he learned, Kadiravan had two kids. His family was staying in the village. He had driven an auto for a while; then he'd got this job in the morgue, through the recommendation of a former comrade, and had stuck with it. There was a time when he had digested all of Engels and Mao, when the revolution was all that he lived and breathed for. No matter what he started talking about, he’d end up with dialectic materialism. Perumal was in despair, seeing his comrade now reduced to a morgue keeper.

Was this a sacrifice, and if so, for what? Perumal had no objection to sacrificing one’s life for human freedom. But, he thought, so often, we spend our lives on the wrong path, and then we look up to find we’ve already reached our middle age. Here was Kadiravan, ten years younger than Perumal, a mere forty-six years old. And yet to look at him, he seemed ten years Perumal’s senior.
Laceration 7 cm x 3.5 cm x 2 cm over the outer side of the left elbow.Kadiravan told him he sometimes wished he had kept driving an auto. The morgue room could properly accommodate only thirty corpses, but there were around a hundred in it: accident deaths, suicides, anonymous corpses... and several other types, he said. Apparently accident deaths were the majority. “But when actresses commit suicide... things are different. I think maybe I should keep this job just for that, Perumal…”

What he said was, before an actress’ body could be handed over to the family, he would come under pressure from many people who were desperate to have sex with it. “They come here with approval from the dean of the hospital, and offer me bribes in thousands… it’s hard to refuse.”
Perumal, I have seen the world. I dream about going to the moon and watching the earth rotate on its axis. That's the reason I’ve been studying and earning… Valentina Tereshkova, the documentary camera-woman, circled the earth 48 times.

We should see it, this blue globe, glittering in the darkness. What an incredible experience it would be, to gaze on the only place we know as ours! Let’s go around it once, visit its satellite — the moon — and then return.

Are you beginning to suspect she’s loony? Because she talks about seeing the aurora borealis, or orbiting the earth in space?

BUT IT wasn’t Tamilarasan’s writing skills that had made him the darling of the party higher-ups. It was simply the fact that he would happily lick the bum of anyone who happened to be in power. He would shamelessly fall at their feet. He had fallen at the feet of the chief minister so often that people started calling him the chief minister's adopted son. Tamil politics abounds with adopted sons; they are seen as some sort of cultural necessity.

Yes, the leaders were on his side; still, it doesn’t help to make enemies of the seniors, does it? Tamilarasan realized that his 800 crore windfall had sparked envy in everyone’s eyes. He tried to stay away from active politics. He dusted off his fossilised poems and soon had them published in an anthology.

He started nagging Perumal over the phone to attend his book launch. Irritated, Perumal demanded, “Are we intellectual prostitutes?” Just because he entered politics and made it rich and now he’s publishing his poetry to give himself intellectual credibility, I’m supposed to go there and speechify for him? First, decided Perumal, let me figure out how many zeros there are in ten thousand crores. Then we can discuss poetry. So he dismissed Tamilarasan’s invitation. To avoid Tamilarasan, who didn't seem to tire of calling, Perumal asked for a donation of one lakh for his website. After that, the calls from Tamilarasan stopped.

Dusk scatters
at the sound of our whispers.
The ears of night,
fearing our fierce kisses,
seek the comfort of dawn...
at the dreams of
the snail-paced day, and celebrate…
Nudging time with
a single finger,
Love
makes our world
beautiful.

Millions of words like this from Chandini — or maybe a zillion. Perumal didn’t know how to react to it all. She told him she was born and grew up in Norway. Perhaps teenage girls from all over the world send the same sort of messages.

Suddenly, one day, an urgent call came from Chandini. He went to see her, and found that her hands were trembling violently, like the hands of a drug addict. The doctor said it was a symptom of SMS addiction. He even had a name for it. Only I forget it, now…

Writing Board

2010-01-02T02:39:00.001+05:30

Articles & Essays:

2009 – Achcham Thavirpaaraa? An analytical article on Kamal Hasaan, India Today [Tamil]

2002 – co-authored Innum Ethanai Kaalam Thaan – a critical analysis on the growth of Tamil cinema along with Venkatesh Chakravarthy for Nakeeran, January 1

2000 – Ippadiyaga – critical article on the stardom of Rajnikanth, the Tamil film super star, India Today [Tamil], Chennai in India Today

1996 – Phe-nominal Women – a critical essay on the representation of female sexuality in Tamil cinema, Deep Focus, Bangalore

1994-95 – Film & Television critic for Salanam an alternative journal of Chennai Film Society

1985-2002: translation of short stories of important authors like Satyajit Ray and Gabriel Garcia Marquez for various literary Tamil magazines like Subamangala and Kalkudhirai

Working Papers:

Obsession with Marriage – For Duke University Press, Editor Selvaraj Velayudham

AVM, The Last Surviving Major [co-written with Venkatesh Chakravarthy] - For 24 Frames, Wallflower Press, UK Editor Dr. Lalitha Gopalan

[Longer version to be published in SARAI e-journal]

The Self-Image of the Middle Classes in Chennai: Its Shifting Contours in Contemporary Times [co-written with Venkatesh Chakravarthy, Institute of Development Studies, Editors John Harriss & Chris Fuller]

Theatre Resource

2010-01-02T02:32:00.000+05:30

Directing:

1999 - Directed a street play - Kurangatti - a play on adolescent pressure for students of Ollcott Memorial School

1999 - Directed an open air play - King and the Little Boy - a play for age group 5 - 9, students of AMM After School

1998 - Directed Game of Dice [Peter Brooks] Chettinadu Vidyashram

1997 - Directed Narkalikarargal [Na. Muthusami]- Chettinadu Vidyashram

Theatre & Gender Related Studies & Workshops:

2004-05, Tell your own story, a continuing workshop with Kattaikootu Gurukulam, Kancheevaram along with Connecting of the World

March 2004 – Team Building – Ollcot Memorial High School, Chennai

March 2004 – Leadership and team building – Sangamam, AICUF House, Chennai

January 2001 – Study on Changing Masculinity, Institute of Developing Alternatives, Chennai

February 2001 – Alternative theatre Forms, Stella Maris, Chennai

March 2001 – Developing Oral Techniques, Voicing Silence, Chennai

September 2001 – Second part of Tea and Alternatives, British Council, Chennai

December 2000 – Relearning from rote learning, Ollcot Memorial High School

Acting

2010-01-02T02:30:00.001+05:30

2006 –Can Care [Early Breast Cancer Detection] Mahesh Memorial Trust

2005 – Dushala/The Last Matriarch, Kuttu Festival 2005, Kancheevaram

2005 – Dushala/The Last Matriarch, Park’s The Other Festival, Chennai

2004 – Nirvanam – Natak, Theatre Festival for College, Max Mueller Bhavan

2003 - Orientations, a cross-cultural play by Border Crossing, UK. Launched at Watermans, Brentford, UK. Touring India and UK in 2004-05

2003 – Mirror – at Pragirthi Foundation, Written by Venkatesh Chakravarthy

2003 – Vellavi – at The Other Festival

2001- Surya Mukkam – dir., Prassanna Ramasami

2000 - Meendum Meendum - dir., Prassanna Ramasami

1999 - Karupu Kuthirai Sadukam - dir., Prasanna Ramasami

1998 - Senora Carrara and Her Rifles - dir., Bagirathi Narayanan - Madras Players

1998 - Vellavi [One Woman act]- Coordination, A. Mangai - Voicing Silence

1990 - Balu En Tharkolai Saidhukkodaan [Baakhi Ithihas] - dir., Gnani - Pareeksha

1996 - One Woman Act - dir. Gnani – Gnanabanu

1995 - Chandramohan - Gnani – Pareeksha

1994 - Mazhai - dir., Gnani – Pareeksha

1993- Porvaai Poothiya Udalgal - dir., Vaidyanathan - Yavanika

1992 - Sarala - dir., A .S. Padmavathi - Manasi

1991 - Balloon - dir. Gnani - Pareeksha

1990 - Balu En Tharkolai Saidhukkodaan [Baakhi Ithihas] - dir., Gnani - Pareeksha

1987 - Vellai Vattaam [Caucasian Chalk Circle] K. S. Rajendran - Koottu-p-pattarai

1984 - Aurangazeb - Dr. Rudran - Yavanika

1984 - Kamala - dir., Gnani - Pareeksha

1980 - Meendum Indrajit [Evam Indrajit] dir., Gnani - Pareeksha

1981 - Munniyan - dir., Gnani – Pareeksha

1980 - Meendum Indrajit [Evam Indrajit] dir., Gnani - Pareeksha

1979 - Thedungal [Mirchil] - dir., Gnani - Pareeksha

Books

2010-01-02T01:31:00.006+05:30

The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction - Volume 2
Translated by Pritham Chakravarthy

Where Are You Going, You Monkeys? — Folktales from Tamil Nadu

by Ki. Rajanarayanan
translated by Pritham K. Chakravarthy
ISBN No : 9788190605649

The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction

selected & translated by Pritham K. Chakravarthy
edited by Rakesh Khanna
ISBN No : 9788190605601

Zero Degree

by Charu Nivedita

translated by Pritham K. Chakravarthy and Rakesh Khanna

ISBN No : 9788190605618

Research Experience

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2007-08 - Bio-medical Waste Management – Dr Sarah Hodges, University of Warwick

2005 – Politics & Representation Of Urban Poor – Prof John Harriss, London School of Economics & Political Science

2004 – Consultant for ‘Globalisation & Satellite Television’ – Madras Institute for Development Studies, Chennai

2004 –Globalisation & Call Centres’ Director Dr. Radha Hegde, New York University

2003 – Research Associate, Politics of Temple Entry, Director, Dr. Anupama Rao, Barnard College, Columbia University.

2000- 2002 – Research Associate for ‘Continuing Unity – Nation and State’; directors Milton Israel and Dipankar Gupta; University of Toronto

1998-2000 – Resource associate Satellites Over South Asia, directors David Paige and William Crawley; A Media South Asia project organized by the University of Sussex; Sage Publications, Delhi.

1998 – Research assistant ‘Politics of Organ Transplantation’; Dr. Lawrence Cohen; University of Berkeley

1997 – Research Assistant and resource person Seminar on Tamil Cinema and Culture; organized by Madras Institute of Development Studies

1996 – Research associate on Tamil Cinema, Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, New Revised Edition, (Eds.), Paul Willemen and Asish Rajyadaksha, a British Film Institute effort, Oxford University Press

Theatricals

2009-12-27T19:42:00.009+05:30

VERGAL

Vergal is a television show directed by Gnani Sankaran, with vignettes of powerful stories of women who participated in the Freedom Movement in India. A recording by Pandit Ramabhai on upper-caste widows in Benares was scripted as a solo-performance and filmed as part of it.

VELLAVI (The Laundry-woman)

This is the story of a traditional laundrywoman in remote Tamil Nadu. The script was based on the documentation by K. Parthiban and was developed as a collaboration with Mangai Arasu. It was creating of the Dalit Kalai Vizha by Voicing Silence in 1998. It grew from a chorus production into the solo first-person narration of the story of a seventy-eight year old dalit dhobi woman talking about her expertise, tradition, the Vannan (the launderers) community, and the rigid caste system in Tamil Nadu. After the Kalai Vizha, it was staged at many other gatherings, and mainly at The Other Festival, Chennai in 2003.

NIRVANAM (Imancipation)

This is a personal journey to tackle one's own and another's sexuality. It began with inviting a variety of transgender individuals into a home, talking with them, and learning about their lives. Many remarkable human beings like Noori and Aasha Bharathi involved themselves by becoming a part of the family, cooking meals, sharing recipes, and telling stories to the children. In 2000, this developed into its own story, as true and honest as it can be. No sympathy, no politics, but a story of their self, their journey, and their imancipation. The play was performed to many groups of Aravanis and it continues to grow. They always have different stories to add, to alter, to share, and create. Nirvanam is a family play. Actually, it is not anymore just a play, it is an ongoing process.

Performances include:

Panchagini Human Rights Conference 2001
The Other Festival, Chennai - 2001
Edinburgh Theatre Festival - 2002
Toured the United States of America - 2002 - 2003
Ahmedabad Natarani Festival - 2005
Delhi Queer Festival - 2006
Bangalore Hubba Festival - 2007
Trivandrum Queer Festival - 2007
Bangalore Queer Festival - 2008
Goethe Zentrum Hyderabad, Sexual Awareness Week - 2008

MIRROR

“I knew many of these gracious women and their families in Chennai”, says Venkatesh Chakravarthy, "and was very disturbed by the series of suicides of young stars around the 80s. It’s an attempt to understand what drove these girls into that and also show the present generation the kind of independent and accomplished women the Devadasis were.” Scripted by Venkatesh Chakravarthy, this one woman performance engages the audience as her reflection, her mirror, and her window to reality.

Performances Include:

Pragrithi Foundation, Chennai - 2003
The Metro Theatre Festival
CED, Bangalore - 2008
The Madras Terrace House, Chennai - 2009

HIT-ME-NOT

This particular script was drawn from a range of interviews of domestic violence victims and counsellors for PCVC. It was widely performed in factories for lower-class women employees from 2004 to 2005. The story framework was deliberately kept loose to allow the women to engage with their own stories and involve in counselling. However, after a period of time the subject became to heavy to handle personally and was thus brought to a halt.

HANDS-OFF

This is the story of a young girl who searches for security, while she experiences sexual abuse deliberated by her own uncle. It was carefully written after a variety of interviews with child psychiatrists and legal experts for Ashraya in 2004-2005. This was largely performed in government and government-aided schools. It was evolved as bridge between the counsellor and the children.

CAN-CARE

In 2006, for the Mahesh Memorial Trust a series of interviews of doctors and breast cancer survivors was undertaken in order to evolve a performance. The story is of a forty year old woman who discovers that she has breast cancer. She tries to deal with telling her family about cancer, which is immediately tabooed in society. She survives, and discovers strength to pull her family out of shock, and goes on to celebrate living.

DUSHALA (The Last Matriarch)

The one and only sister of the Kauravas, Dushala, herself is conceived as a forgotten and mute character in history. In fact, the journey of unravelling the story of the only sister of the Kauravas in the Mahabharata began. The performance is a vengeance filled resurrection of this forgotten sister, the only surviving member, a 'silent' spectator who watched the men and the women of the Mahabharata through the times.

Performances include:

2005 - Koothu Festival, Kancheevaram
2006 - The Park's Other Festival, Chennai
2007 - Natarani Arts Festival, Ahemedabad
2007 - Madurai University - Theatre Day
2007 - SOAS, London
2008 - Other Spaces, Pune

BEHIND THE CURTAINS

As part of SARAI Fellowship (2007), the Research Presentation was performed as an one-woman piece instead of a written thesis. It grew from twenty interviews of middle class women who participated in Sabha drama, battling negotiations with family and profession. The story ends with this woman getting a chance during the advent of TV serials. Ultimately, the family draws the line and she withdraws from acting.

DUSTILY YOURS

Requested by Madras Musings and Mylapore Times, this one woman piece was written for the 2009 Chennai Week, and was performed on August 18th '09 at The Madras Terrace House. Yet again, this is a first person narrative and an experiment in storytelling. It is the story of North Madras and the groundwater plans of Madras/Chennai. This involved hours at the Corporation Library and the Metrowater Library, and nights of shifting through history books, fiction, and recipe books.