The Story of Gunadhaya part 1.

The story of Gunadhaya (a quick modernized version) by Jehan Manekshaw

adapted from C W Tawney's Ocean of Stories and Arshia Sattar's Kathasaritsagara. Inspired by an oral retelling of the same by Mrinal Pande over coffee at the India International Center two years ago.

In the Kingdom of Pratishthana, in the court of the great king Satavahana, there was a courtier by the name of Gunadhaya. Gunadhaya was loved by all the Kings subjects and most of the Kings court, where discourse in the various grammars and the three court langugages was popular sport. Gunadhaya was the most knowledgeable and erudite of speakers, and his travels across the country from a young age, studying under sages from the four corners of the kingdom gave him. His ability to engage people in the highest quality of discourse and debate endeared him to the queen, let us call her Vaishnavi, who herself had been trained from childhood in the great Sanskrit dialectical traditions that existed in her own father's court. When you are popular, you have enemies, and it was no surprise that another wise and learned courtier, Sarvavarma, didn't appreciate Gunadhaya's undue influence in the court, even though he was rather clever.

All would be well and lovely if not for one problem, Satavahana, the king, wasn't the most eloquent of Sanskrit speakers, to put things mildly. It was not that he was unwise; it's just that his wisdom was of a more worldly kind, which was useful in matters of ruling the kingdom, but seemed irrelevant in a court that was much more interested in the great traditions of Sanskrit discourse and the high culture associated with it. Satavahana's lack of Sanskrit knowledge and a better understanding of the common tongue came from the fact that he was a feral child, from the forest discovered by the previous king of Pratishtanha, a childless widower, during a hunt. Satavahana was riding on the back of a Lion. Taking this as a good omen the king Killed the lion and adopted Satavahana as the heir to the throne. It didn't help his current standings in the court that he was brought up by the palace slaves, and that too mainly in the kitchen where all the fresh game was brought in from the hunt.

Things came to a head one hot summer afternoon when the King, while playing with his queen in the pool was getting the better of them in the water splashing department. The queen, tired of the drenching, "her bosoms sagging under the weight of the water in her blouse" asked the king in well constructed Sanskrit to stop throwing water on her. Modakang dehi' - ma udakang dehi - don't give (throw) water. The king, hearing this, mistook it for a similar sounding Sanskrit word that meant sweets ('modakam dehi' - give me sweets), and possibly slightly confused by the strange requests that women make, ordered sweets to be brought, and started pelting her with them. Highly irritated, and at the end of her tether about having a husband who spoke like a common palace servant, the queen finally lost her cool, and in front of all their attendants ridiculed his inability to differentiate a common place noun-verb conjugation from an entirely different word. Red faced, Satavahana, the man who would use a Lion as his vehicle , stormed into his inner sanctum and proceeded to give instructions to not be disturbed by anyone. We like to call this the Royal Sulk

While the king continued to hiding in his inner sanctum, court matters started piling up in front of the Queen. We should mention here, that she was also secretly feeling a bit sheepish about her loss of composure and her insulting of a man who was by all other accounts, wise, wonderful and smart and knew a thing or two about dealing with Lions. Thus motivated, she ordered Gunadhaya to attend to the king and get him out of his chambers at any cost.

Enter Sarvavarman, a chief courtier and now very much in favour due to the necessity of assisting the Queen in matters during the Royal Sulk. Privy to the conversation, Sarvavarman manages to ride on the coat tails of Gunadhaya as he uses his infinite wisdom to sneak past the Royal Guard into the Kings chambers and attend upon the King.

"Oh great King, the Queen misses you, we ask for you to Grace us with your presence once again", begins Gunadhaya.

"Oh great King, the Court misses you, please, come back and attend the matters of state that you are so good at" adds Sarvavarman.

"I'm not going to bring my royal presence in front of a Queen nor a Court that only cares about the fact that I can't speak properly. They make me feel like I'm an Idiot! No one respects me!"

"That's not true oh King, you are the son of Lions" says Sarvavarman, taking the initiative.

"Not true? So its normal for people to ridicule the son of a Lion! You can go to hell!"

Gunadhaya reasons. "King, you are wise, you are smart, from living in a forest you learned how to rule a Kingdom, give me some time, I know the three great Grammars of the world, usually one learns Sanskrit in 12 years, I could teach you Sanskrit and make you a master of the toungue in six."

Not to be outdone, Sarvavarman counters, "King, we are all wise men here, some wiser than others, what Gunadhaya claims he can do in six years,with you, I know I can do it in six months!"

"Six Months?"

"That's impossible Sarvavarman," argues Gunadhaya, "none of the methods of Grammar that exist today allow you to take command of this language in Six months. None. You can't do it. If you can, I swear I will stop speaking all three of the court languages for ever."

"Oh, well if I can't do it, I swear I'll walk with your slippers on my feet for the next 12 years!"

"Umm excuse me. I'm still here."

"Oh sorry Sire." Say both, slightly flustered.

"So between the two of you, I'll either learn Sanskrit in Six Months, or Six Years."

"Yes sire."

"Ok. Lets do it, in the mean time, I better get back to running things."

Gunadhaya and Sarvavarman leave.

Sarvavarman, distraught at the unneccesary bravado displayed by him as a result of his seethign jealousy and ambition. Stops to pontificate. "Oh boy, I'm in it now."

.... next episode. Sarvavarman figures out how to really do it. With a little help.

A journey begins

Ninasam is far away from the rest of the world. I speak of course of
the new geography, the one that is not measured in distances, miles,
time taken to get there, but the one that is measured in terms of
accessibility, and connectivity, and proximity to 'centers' and 'hubs'
like Bombay - which today is suffering for being such a hub - but more
on that later.

You can get to Ninasam a variety of ways, by Air to Bangalore and then
an overnight bus, by air to mangalore, and then a 5 hour drive, by
train to Honnavar, on the Konkan railway, an hour past Goa (oh the
temptation to get off the train there!) and then a 2 hour drive to the
Taluk headquarters of Sagar, and 10 km down the road to Heggodu. In
the middle of Arecanut growing country, farm country and plantations
that extend for 100 km in all directions, and in the middle of all of
it, a theatre. 750 seats, proscenium arch, 24 channels of dimmers for
lighting, and a beatiful stage space upon which to perform. This is
the flagship of the Ninasam Theatre Instititue, where each year, a 100
applicants vie for 20 seats to train in the best of contemporary
Indian stage craft. This is where I am.

I chose to get here by train, all in all, its the most direct and
straightforward way here from Bombay. It also gave me something
crucial for any one coming from the city to a place like this. Time to
switch gears. I was embarking on a theatre project with thier
students, half way through thier course, to devise from scratch the
tale of Gunadhya, only documented in Somdeva's Kathasaritsagar or the
Ocean of Stories. Not even having a script in hand, but just a story
from the opening section of a compedium of stories - reputed to be the
oldest collection of Indian stories on hand.

If that wasn't enough of a challenge. I'm here, directing a play for
performance, in Kannada. For someone who speaks only english, gets by
in Hindi, and knows a smattering of words from Tamil and Malayalam,
how exactly is this going to work?

I also needed the sleep, because the night before I got on the train,
I spent up, filming. For some reason unknown to me and generally not
in my great plan of life, I found myself playing a Gay, Coke-snorting,
South Bombay Parsi Socialite in a film. Nice detour?

14 hours of train and 2 hours of car later, I found myself in Heggodu,
a quiet, orderly village, whose center piece is the NTI Theatre.

In that absolute silence, which was quite deafening after months of
incessant city noise, hours of trian rattles, and then a taxi, I
walked through the small campus to find the students - on all fours,
extending thier bellies downward and then arching thier backs in time
with thier breath.

So this was them, young, in thier late teens early twenties, here was
something I'd been dying to engage with ever since I got back to
India. Actors. Complete total, actors. People who are training and
doing, and living and breathing this craft. (In this case, at the
begginning of thier careers).

Language be damned, its going to be a non-issue in ten minutes of our
communicating and getting an idea of what is to be achieved.

The idea. Is to tell this story.