Angry Young Men and Old Fools.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I thank Akshara for having this note read out verbatim on my behalf. I was ready to turn back half way from Honnavar to do this myself, as I consider Ninasam too important a part of my life to have left it with the feelings I had yesterday.

I will start by saying this. I found every moment of the feedback session to be useful in the extreme – as I said to Akshara, “this session was a real life experience for me”.
On my part, I had much to share about discoveries I made in the process of directing Othello - discoveries which pertain directly to the topic of this year’s Culture Course. But I didn’t. Actually, what happened turned out for the best, as it gave me a much greater clarity on the inter-generational problems I faced when directing Othello.

I was shocked into silence by the last comments made about my production, and the perfect timing in the delivery of those comments - namely about my exploiting the Ninasam Actor. When my moment came to speak, I was robbed of any ability to articulate myself. This well timed low-blow is an old rhetorical trick used in debating and debilitating your opponent - and it was deployed with devastating effectiveness. I know it well, I have used it myself.

The result of this, was that it closed off any desire for me to respond at all, my anger and rage would not have allowed for any kind of dialogue, and I would have engaged in a knee-jerk response and come off as the angry young man who simply says, "Old fool, what do you know?"

AND THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE TRAGEDY. The young man would be too angry to see that the old man was not a fool, and the old man would just dismiss him as being an angry young man not willing to listen to any sense at all. It does neither generation any good - and it definitely stands in the way of a conference centered on the young generation.

Now, I can exercise my right of final response as the director, coolly, calmly and in the sprit it is intended, to open rather than close dialogue.

Just so you know, staying calm and considered in such times is something my Grandfather taught me, so it’s not as if we don't listen to our elders. The question I ask here, is do our elders listen to us?

I invoke my grandfather as it gives me my first example of the dynamics at work when trying to understand younger generations. I am always touched and honored at the consistent allusions to my relationship to my grandfather, and I thank Aithal’s and Atul's when they bring up the connection. It helps me keep his memory alive, and I am truly grateful for that.

As is Gopi Deshpande, when people recollect who his father is (A famous Ninasam actor in his own right). But consider this. In the well- intentioned act of relating to us through our fathers and grandfathers, do you not lose sight of seeing Gopi for who he is? Or me, Jehan for who I am? How do you get to know about us for whom we are? Rather than whom our fathers were?
I argue that the act of looking at us through the connection of our lineage is a symptom of constantly trying to relate to us on terms and connections that you are comfortable with, rather than trying to relate to us as who we are.

But we’re all a generation above the next one, as Gopi and I found out. This is what I wanted to share with you yesterday.

Both of us had a major problem throughout our process with the Tirugata actors. All theatre requires a group-cohesion and an ensemble sensibility. We constantly felt like we were struggling to inculcate this into the actors – we struggled with our need for them to ‘get it’. To understand us and our point of view.

They just didn’t seem to hold our values on how to build this unity. My biggest anxiety was centered on this inability of mine to communicate this rudimentary sense of what I rightly or wrongly call tandatva - to the group.

When I shared this anxiety with others at Ninasam, they would tell me about the changing dynamics of the Tirugata troupe across generations. About how it was becoming more and more challenging to work with them. What did we not understand about them? Why could I not get through to this new generation of actors?

Yesterday’s session answered this for me. I’ll tell you how. After hearing the positions of the generations above me – I realized with much greater certainty that I indeed knew what I was doing.

This meant that the Tirugata actors, a generation below me ALSO knew what they were doing. It was never for Gopi or me to try to understand anything about what makes them tick, as individuals or as a group.

Ultimately, in-spite of our struggles, group cohesion did exist amongst the troupe … and that was clear in the actors work on both plays. What I realized yesterday, was that the New Generation’s ensemble dynamic is driven by entirely different values from the ones that drove mine or Gopi's. Their dynamic is theirs and theirs alone, and for all intents and purposes, it works, even if it remains opaque to us. In fact they would get irritated when we tried to suggest how they improve group dynamic.

I carried this unnecessary anxiety for 30 days during rehearsals, and it was a relief yesterday to realize it wasn't mine to carry in the first place. I left the feedback session, called a meeting with the actors and told them, you know, Gopi and I still don't understand you guys entirely - this new generation of yours - and we probably never will. But you seem to have become a group in-spite of us not being able to get you there. They looked at me, "we know". I felt like the Old Fool.
Which brings me to my last and briefest point, about the production itself, of Othello, and OUR version of the play.

I say this in all humility, and in the honest desire that you just use this example to reflect upon the positions from which you speak when talking to other generations.

You effectively and eloquently covered everything there is to say about Shakespeare, what his intentions were, and the many themes that Othello stood for, other authoritative productions that you have seen, and what you expected that our production of Othello should have attempted to tackle.

But I ask, did you give yourselves a chance to see and look at what OUR production of Othello was TRYING to be? What WE, me and this next generation of Tirugata actors were trying to say? What story we intended to tell?

This production was formed from the actor’s responses to the text. From what about this story captured their imagination, and what they felt about the story that motivated them to want to share it with an audience.

In our case Iago was the prime fascination, and his unrelenting and unrepentant nature (not to forget the fact that this is the only Shakespeare play in which the villian has more lines than the title character). Thus, "Iago" not "Othello" was what WE wanted to communicate, and I thank you for corroborating our position by stating equivocally and across the board that this play was not Othello.

And here’s the rub. I cannot help but compare what you were doing to Shudra-Tapasvi . Your invocation of the scripture that *is* Shakespeare, and what Othello should be about, was really not so different from the Brahmin telling Ram how the scriptures are the main authority on who should and should not do Tapasya. You run the danger of dismissing us and our authority to invoke our own interpretations.

You deny us our voices; you end up with us denying yours.

We must speak to each other, and we must do while taking into consideration the subjectivity of our own positions, and the need for flexibility in our own points of view.

For the younger generations this is important, so as to learn from our elders and to build upon that knowledge and better ourselves, we have a lot to gain from them…

and for, the older generation…

… it’s so that they do not run the risk of being forsaken by the generations below, abandoned in the wilderness, with nothing but a fool for company.

Sabers of Paradise.

All I know is that I finally got to see Fuji. After seven weeks of being in Japan, and at least driving or taking a train past it 10 times, looking out the window, impolitely disturbing the driver and passengers all of whom reacted to me like an inconvenience they should pity. I would point and gesture out of the many wide-view windows and ask, “Simimasen, Fuji-san doko des-ka?”

Show me this mountain that you all are so spiritually connected to, show me this mountain that can be seen on a clear day from as far away as Tokyo, show me this mountain that you all revere that lies at the heart of being Japanese.

The frustration of looking in every direction, out of all the windows, as we sped past exit after exit, or station after station, each with Fuji in the name. She would never reveal herself through the low clouds that blanket Japan during the monsoon.

I was staying in Matsumoto, a city in the foothills of the Japanese Alps. “It’s so provincial" my grant officer would say to me every time I met her in Tokyo. I suppose I agreed, as I would put myself on a bus or a train out of there every time I had a chance to. But it was beautiful, and I loved it - not just Tokyo, which for the most part was just another example of many people negotiating a big city – but all of it, every single bit of Japan, at least, that’s what I would tell anyone who asked me.

“What is it like for you?”

I would answer with phrases that could be expected from anyone going through this experience; “interesting”, “eye opening” , “a new perspective” never really satisfying them with any specifics. “I saw a shrine today”, “I went for an Onsen”, “the students taught me to cook ramen.”

“But how does it feel?”

When pressed, I would answer, “I’m just taking it all in, and I guess I’ll know after it’s over”.

Yet, when it was, and I returned, conversations didn’t fare much better. They would start and... peter out… moving on to more present things, of being back, what things needed doing, concerns of life and returning home. There was no storytelling over drinks, no transporting anyone vicariously to the place I had just been. Everything I articulated about what I had seen or done seemed so… hollow.

For the most part, those who asked, got a disappointing sense that I hadn’t really been affected by my trip to this entirely different new world and new people. Not once could I answer questions about Japan with any excitement, or with feeling that suggested I might been touched somewhere, somehow. I mean, how could it not? How could anyone be so untouched?

I still wonder about it. Did I even go? If it wasn’t for some souvenir, a pair of chopsticks, nice shoes, a small piece of technology, the photographs, which all insist that I had actually been there, I’d say no.

What happened to the experiencing of seven weeks? Of directing a play with 30 Japanese students, where working with each one was, at least in my rational mind, a unique and meaningful interaction in and of itself. Of exploring and engaging with this incredible culture in so many different ways, walking somewhere new each day, of seeing, tasting , smelling, touching, feeling? The memories of experiencing continue to elude.

Except one, which I still find hard to share with people, the only visceral memory I have of Japan, the only experience which I know and feel was real for me, that actually tells me that my entire being was, if only for a moment, actually there. Even now, each time I think of it, I am as overwhelmed as I was the first time it happened.

Flying out of Narita, heading south along the eastern coastline of Japan, I looked out of my window, and there she was, her single flat peak clearly visible above a sea of clouds.

you wanted to see me,

all this time,

now as you leave,

look, here I am,

this is what you leave behind.

Mangalore Airport - 9W 434

Right.

So remember how I said its a good idea to take a train to Ninasam because it gives you the overnight time to switch gears, cultures, and slowly go into a mode where you're ready to spend 25 days in a village, eating vegetarian food (differently cut squash mostly), and living at that general pace of life?

Well. For some reason I've decided that in order to go back to civilization and urbanity, the only way to do that is fast injection. Therefore, the 4 and a half hour drive to Mangalore airport (thank god it was in Gods own vehicular gift to India - the ambassador - which is basically two 3 seater sofa's on wheels with great suspension. I got to sleep or semi-sleep across the back one from 3.30 am till 8am. Now, I'm here at Mangalore airport, (first time out of heggodu in 3 weeks) with all sorts of cosmopolitain looking people, advertising hoardings, announcments, people, people, and more people (first time in three weeks). There's a machine here that wraps bags in plastic, in front of the row of cushioned chairs (first time in 3 weeks) and it seems like such an INSANELY profligate waste that I'm actually feeling offended by it, and look rather rudely at each person.

Its also the first time in three weeks that more than 3 people in the immediate vicinity speak english (But I want to speak my 5 words of Kannada!! WHY ARE YOU SPEAKING TO ME IN ENGLISH!!!!???!!!)

There's a shop in the airport selling books, there's a shop in the airport offerring me nice dress shirts to buy. What am I going to do with those? Oh, and row upon row upon row of soft drinks. Sprite, Coke, Red Bull (I know I've heard of these before).

Whats going to happen to me when I hit Bombay? I suppose this won't last too long. It better not, given that I've created a compay that insists that one can have an intense level of theatre practice INSPITE of being in bombay. A center of advanced stage capitalism running wild. (No, I'm not a commie - and any of you who decide to lable me lefty or whatever it is you did the last time I did one of these sojurns - you're not listening, and you're prejudging and this time I will smack you silly if you even try to put me in a conceptual box of ANY kind). But its interesting to see what people actually NEED to get by, or to get by and live enriching lives. Suddenly, everything that is being sold in this airport has an element that seems totally unneccesary and unproductive. Ah.. i'm not going to do this, everytime I do, I get told I'm ranting, and they all laugh and wait for me to reacclimatize to city life which is invariably - what happens. But I'd like to keep some of this perspective with me this time, and not loose it. I don't think I can preach it, but it'd be silly for all my friends to not try it out, at least once. (no, not direct a play in a village, but something similar.

I mean, the village of heggodu is one of the most cosmopolitain thinking villages I've ever seen, all because it has a theatre and cultural center that brings excellence - and sometimes not so much excellence - from all over the place. Where else do you see an amazing Japanese actress - highly trained in the suzuki method, come in, and enthrall an audience of kannada speaking arecanut farmers, with a play that was devised around a malayalam temple festival and the elephants that are involved?). What we really NEED rather than what we all are made to WANT.

On the way down here I kept dreaming of various changes I should think of making to the play, and one of the things that keeps hitting me, is this play - can never be done in English. Ever. Nothing of what it says would remain in that translation. I've been thinking of solutions to this, but so far none have come, and everyone that presents itself simply oversimplifies the issues in the play too much. Irony? A play about the hegemony of sanskrit, never being able to be done in the new sanskrit?

I think this play is going to be screaming new layers at me for a long while. So you can expect this blog to go on for a little while longer.

Will post pictures and video as soon as I can get back to better technology infrastructure in Bombay. (Yes, yes, I know. I know, but that doesn't vindicate you from thinking about what I've said.)

Comedown.

Comedown.

Right. So now I'm still at Ninasam - attending a management workshop for the arts that Ninasam is hosting, They're looking at giving artists/arts organisations the concepts and vocabulary (all a bit vague to start out with, but i'm sure once its in thier subconciousness, helpful) to organize and manage themselves more effectively.

The night the play finished was great, I just went into relaxed jelly mode.

I attended day one of the workshop - switched gears, did it suprisingly seamlessly, and it helped me remember all the long term theatre to-do items I have on my list.Second day, I started feedback work with the students from 7am to 9am.

Then, went to attend the workshop. I just couldn't get into it. I found myself listless, un motivated. Went around the campus in the early afternoon and hunted down the students who i found out were doing nothing because of the workshop, and took a class with them. Still have to crack one or two more skulls before I leave here on Monday (Yes, monday people, I fly back to bombay).

But now, its midnight, and I have spent the whole evening absolutely exhausted. I can feel a comedown - like all the energy has been sapped from me.

I have some more feedback to give tomorrow. Have had many good discussions about the content of the play, and the way I've chosen to stage things, or the aspects of the story (and it turns out i've succeeded at planting the seed of an onion with many layers). But I have to now let it grow - so its going to gestate in my head for a while.

One of the things the play did, was to really prompt debate around the question of what would possess Gunadhaya to destroy his work. Many ideas have come up around that: the dichotomy of the court culture vs. the tribals in the forest, the culture of knowledge organisation and management that bhramins (I believe esp. bhramins from the south) practice, though in opposition to that, it has pointed out by the wonderful classical sanskrit and kannada trained Smartha (kota) Bhramin who gave the play its final dialogue - (remember I said it was being done fastidiously and with great deliberation?) that indeed, Vyasa, Kalidasa, Gunadhaya, none of these historical literary giants were bhramin. So for eg. if I were to use his Bhramin way of thinking, that the collecting of knowledge is the be all and end all, the very essence of his life, then it helps build a case for why he burns the stories at the end. But my version of the play also seeks to 'de-arayanize' (yes I know this term has inherent problems), the story as it is in the Katha Pitha, so having him be a bhramin goes against that. Since it is highly likely that he wasn't one.

Anyhow many thoughts, many exhaustions. So I sleep. Wake up at 7 on sunday morning to keep going with the students and their feedback.

Goodnight.

Second Day. Better Play.

Second day. Better Play.

Well, turns out I had no reason to be terrified. What I did need to do, was learn one more simple thing. How to part ways with the cast as a director. (No, not some kind of "that was crap! I abdicate!").

They came back rested, and at 10 we started a class sitting outside under sunny skies, in the dappled shade of a few arecanut trees in front of the theatre, and we discussed a concept that I really wasn't sure I could explain to them. As in, its something you have to experience, not talk about.

It was that of energy. Keeping the energy on stage crackling, the tension between actors alive, there is always something, some kind of energy that exists between actors in a performance. (when its good, and they aren't just zombies giving thier lines on cue).

So after a rather long discourse on how to keep the energy up, how it changes hands, how the focus of energy shifts, how you can add energy, how you never take energy away, but just hold on to it, change its quality, and give it back into the scene (or your next entrance).

At exactly that point, everyone was focused on what I was saying, and suddenly, behind us, a crow sat on the insulation earthing point of an electricity crow, and the resulting blzzzttthhhttt sound (rubbish approximiation) and all of us, in one millisecond, turned to look. Some got up and ran to see because I think a child had seen it and screamed out in fright, so we thought the worst had happenned.

After realising it was fine, everyone came back with an its fine, no no , just all right, and sat down again.

I love how these moments just seem to happen at the right time - a lot of the time. It was a perfect example of what i was talking about. Thier energy was focused on me... and then it was focused on a single point outside, so strongly that some ran to give that moment attention, then they took that energy that had heightened, and each brought back a piece of it to the circle in a different form... no no, its ok, nothing happened, I didn't even see the crow, that gave me a fright, and they all settled in and discussed it with each other and then as I stood thier (waiting dictatorially) for them to return thier attention, they did.

So I basically explained that whole sequence of what happenned with that energy to them, and they so got it.

We reblocked the major group scene where Gunadhaya is foiled by Sarvavarman in the court, then ran it with them keeping an awareness of the energy, and how we were looking for an electricity between the two, that was added to, in different ways by the other charachters play around them. They saw it.

Then lunch, then return, and did a small exercise based on what Michael Chekov uses called Staccato Legato. I use it a a great all around skill reviewing exercise. It takes a series of 6 simple movements - of giving energy (in one sense) to the left, right, forward, backward, up and down. They have to do the movements repeatedly, in cycles of 2 slow, 2 fast, 1 slow, 1 fast, keeping a complete concentration on going from a zero state in the center each time, to 100 percent. The entire movement controlled. But all the energy channelized in on eof the six directions. Eventually after they got the movement, and the idea of total concentration in the movement, we did the cycles, and then the last one. which is one of each cycle but only inside thier bodies and heads. To just have a memory and a total impulse to move in each of the directions, inside them while standing still.

The afternoon session we fixed the ending to work smoother, I worked with Arun (our musician and percussionist) to provide a score that kept the energy up rather than slowed it down... yesterday that was a small part of the problem. Then I let them go.

They assembled at six. I ensured that thier principal was sitting in the auditorium somewhere 'corner of thier eye visible', and then put a bit of a fear into them.

"Today, is a test. Its the day you decide whether you are students at a theatre school, and want to remain that, or if you want to be a professional company of actors."

Was the basic upshot of the talk - I told them this was the last time I was talking to them as their teacher. I would maybe do a bit of touch up work with them and leave them alone. Arun would lead thier warm up and prayer, and I would be done in exactly 10 minutes. I ran the opening scene, touched it up and removed a few things that I thought slowed its tempo and took away from the establishment of the story, and then ran it, and let them go one or two individual notes to actors, that had to do with music cues, and then I was gone.

Last night - thier performances were nothing short of brilliant. Brilliant.

I was thrilled. I actually could sit back and WATCH the play. Enjoy it. Laugh, and be an audience member. And we recorded it! (though i looked a ta bit of the recording last night.. and I tell you... its just never the same... i have looked at any taping of a show of mine in the past. and now i know why.. the beauty lies in its ephemerality, that one performance.. done.. gone.. and to the next... )

But we sat down after the play.... Just so I could give them a shawl each - which I did, and thank them. But really they came in eyes bright from a really great performance, and a strong feeling of what it was like to really nail it.

You see what that felt like?
Was it not brilliant?
Now do you see the reward for all this work and pressure I've put you through?
THIS is what its like to do theatre.
THIS is why we work our butts off, for this moment, for THIS feeling. Is it not the sweetest thing you've ever felt?

Much approval.

And I? I ate, lay down in bed, and felt every milligram of tension of the last 3 weeks just dissipate from my body as I just turned into one relaxed puddle of happy jelly.

*ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...............................*

And the show goes on....

Well... that went well.

Its 11pm. I'm exhausted. Let me tell you why.

We had our technical dress run this morning - at 7am for the first act, and for the second act from 10 - 12.30. Then the students had to disband so that they could move out of thier rooms into a dormitory style accomodation in the school next door ( in order to make room for incoming Theatre people from across the country who are coming to Ninasam for a Theatre Management Conference this week)

Then they had lunch, and worked with me from 3 for about an hour. Then I thought I'd make things easy for them, and just let them sit and do a line run of the whole play. Which took them 2 hours (not good, I thought to myself - we're now at 5.30. They needed to have tea, come back, prepare for the play and do a warm up and hit the stage for a 7.15 performance.

The play - it went well. They pretty much did everything I had asked them to as a director, and in some cases more, and in general it was a strong set of performances with moments that dwindled in and out, but it lasted 2 hours! (Its supposed to be 2 acts of 40 minutes each - maximum). I was sitting in the back watching the audience (who were not responsive) thinking - oh boy.

Personally, I was at a loss. I couldn't figure out what it was that was wrong, why was everything dragging. The scenes were clear, the actions were clear, the actors gave themselves to it. They were doing everything right.

I was hit with a silent little terror because when I thought to myself, what do I to make this work better, to have the scenes run with a flow, a sense of strong forward motion, yet with time for the audience - there was no balance to be found.
(remember me worrying earlier about the play not taking a moment to breath earlier, and just rushing to the end. Well in this case, it was like watching a patient on a very slow life support respirator.)

I was stumped. I had no answer. What do I do as a director to get the flow right? To get the overall pacing right? The answer was not in the small details, it had to be an over all directors note, or an exercise we could go through - to make it work better. I had no answer!

Terror. Have I reached my limit? Is this where I fail? At the last step, they were the ones who were going to ask me 'what can we do better?' and I had no answer.

So after the run (which was beautiful, and told a story - though it was utterly slow) we sat down in our circle, and I asked them, what were your observations...

And the actor playing Sarvavarman, someone who does it well, and has really risen to the challenges I have given him - said... I couldn't find 10 minutes of continuous energy or concentration in me.

And I thought to myself - Jehan, you're really the stupidest idiot on the planet. It is 9.50pm. They've been at it for 14 hours straight. Of course they're going to give all they have, but I'd already taken it all away from them before the run.

So, giving them solace in the fact that they have come a long way since we began, and being very proud of them for the fact that at the end of 14 hours they were all still THERE, standing, (sittting actually) and alive.

I told them while it was my fault that they had run 14 hours straight. It was a good thing. Cause they're all stronger for it.

Still think I was a jackass. Tomorrow, we start at 10am. Its going to be a light day, full of interesting learing exercises, and plenty of time for them to rest before the show.

And it'll be a good show. I can feel it in my bones.

------

On another note, I just realised - today, that I've written my first play.

:-)

------

The Story of Gunadhaya Part 4.

Here you go, the fourth and final installment. With notes as to how we're treating it on stage.

Once again I reiterate - this story is an adaptation - based on the Katha Pitha Lamba in Somadeva's Katha Sarit Sagar - I use the english versions from C W Tawney's Ocean of Stories and Arshia Sattar's Kathasaritsagara. I was inspired to explore this story based on a humanistic (non-divine) retelling of the same by Mrinal Pande over coffee at the India International Center two years ago.

Looking like a tribal himself, with long matted locks, and an overgrown beard, Gunadhaya trudges back to the city of Pratishthana, the court of the great Satavahana. In this production, his hair just turns white... instantly... on stage as he runs his hands through his hair (with white paste in it) in a sort of exhaution yet satisfaction that the job has been done... after the writing of the stories.

He arrives, and after dealing with getting the guards to realise who he is, enters the court. The King welcomes him.

"Oh Gunadhaya, it is so good to see you."
Gunadhaya responds (in our play, he vows not to speak court languages for six years - not his entire life).

The kings sankrit is polished and fluent. Gunadhaya's is a bit rusty.

"And you as well Maharaja"
"Its been seven years... I suppose now that your vow of not speaking the court languages is over, you're happy to be back? We could use your wisdom amongst us here"

"Maharaja, where is the Queen?"

"She died 3 years ago."

Satavahana briefly thinks about the fact that she figured out that this was all a sham, and rarely if ever spoke to him again after Gunadhaya went into exile. Both for decieving her, and makign her loose a dear friend.

"Even though I learned Sanskrit, she just... stopped talking to me after a while. I never completely understood her. "

"But Gunadhaya, " he switches...
"Its truly good to see you. Its been a while since we've had pundits of yours and Sarvarman's calibre in our midsts."
Sarvavarman, of course, died happy and of old age, and the only pundits in the court, are his students, all of whom wield thier knowledge of sanskrit as a tool of superiority and power.

"Whats this you've brought with you. Asks Satavahana.

Pulled out of his distraught shock, of hearing about the Maharani's death. The inability to share with her these amazing stories, his work of the last seven years.. Gunadhaya answers almost mechanically...

"Oh, these, these are stories of your subjects from the hills and forests. I spent the last 7 years documenting them, and collecting them. They are said to be the stories of all these people, and of generations before them, all of whom have collected stories from across the known world. "

He has no use for them now...

"If you would like to take them and share them with the world, please do so."

"Thats impressive!" he indicates to one of his Bhramin pundits to take the seven bundles, each containing a lakh of shlokas in them. The pundit, reluctantly accepts this bundle of smelly blood soaked skin, with strange broad strokes on them...

He enquires with his colleague..

"The script seems somewhat familiar.."
"But the language....?"

Satavahana looks over thier shoulder.

"Paisachi!!"

"Sir? You know this language?!?"

"What? Huh? No. No. " And indicates to have it handed back to Gunadhaya.

Gunadhya, not surprised at the Raja's little revalation, looks at him enquiringly,

"Raja, I know you know the language... I have just spent the past seven years amongst the same tribes you grew up in. These are thier stories."

The Bhramins intercede. "Raja! The court awaits you. The pundits from the neighbouring kingdom have gathered to do discourse In Sanskrit (they emphasise to Gunadhaya) with you. We must not keep visiting dignitaries waiting. "

The Raja hesitates.

"Raja". Presses the Bhramin.

"Gunadhaya, this seems very laudible work, but we only speak Sanskrit in this court, even the other court langugages that were in use during your time are frowned upon. There's no place for something like this in our world. "

Gunadhaya takes the bundles and starts to prepare to leave. While being looked upon with utter malice and spite by the two Bhramins (who by the way were Sarvavarman's consipirators in the plan to oust Gunadhaya in this play).

"Gunadhaya" says the Raja, "Stay, we can have long conversations together, my sanskrit is very good now, you and I can debate in Sanskrit! "

The only person Gunadhaya ever enjoyed debating with in Sanskrit... is dead.

"Raja, there is no place for something like this (pointing at himself) in your world."

They part ways ... though not for the last time.

Gunadhaya returns to the forest. Realising the foolishness of his early years, and the stupid pride he had in court as a Bhramin pundit who only respected sanskrit, distraught about the fact that the person he wanted to share the stories with his long dead, and the only other person who could have read them, so easily chooses to reject such a collossal heritage. (*)

He sees the inevitability of change, and his mind, the fact that it is futile to try to share the stories of kanabhuti's people with a world that woudl not have them.

He sits at a clearing in the middle of the forest, and begins to make a fire.

Kanabhuti seeing his unhappiness... enquires...

"What happenned? how did you end up coming back so soon?"
no reply. as he silently gathers the shlokas near the fire.

"Did you get to share these stories with your friend?"
"She's not here any more."

"Oh.."

"But what are you doing?"
"I'm burning these."
"Why? This is all your work. All the stories that you said you wanted to collect. Why would you burn them?"

"Apart from me, there's no one on this planet who is able or willing to read them. None of your people can read, the concept of reading is alien to them. These shloks I have written have no place in this world."

Kanabhuti's old belief in the power of stories is reaffirmed (*)

"But you can teach my people Paisachi!"
"I am too old now... I don't think I am going to live for much longer. "

Kanabhuti concurrs...

"Stories are best told to each other, not read from a book."
"Gunadhaya! Before you burn them, at least, read them out loud to me one last time."

Gunadhaya thinks...

Then he starts to read...

As he reads each page to Kanabhuti, he then consigns it to the flames...

Slowly, as he continues to do this, story by story, the actors playing tribals (all 16 of them) who have gathered in a Kollatta dance in a circle around him, only humming the tunes of the stories... , start to dissapear in the smoke of his fire, pair by pair. Until it is only him, and Kanabhuti left... and the flames, and the smoke, and an empty stage...


(*) Both of them. This is the central reason for Gunadhaya burning the stories. Its still... - not brilliant, in my mind. He's ot a likeable protagonist given that he ended up bieng so
-------------

"What?? Cries the queen! SOMDEVA, tell me he burt all the stories!"
"Wait my Queen, I haven't finished."
-------------------
Somdeva continues to read..
(He reads the following passage from From Tawney's translation... with the bit about Shiva and Ganas as its his story to tell now...)

And while he was reading out and
burning that heavenly tale, all the deer, boars, buffaloes
and other wild animals came there, leaving their pasturage,
and formed a circle round him, listening with tears in their
eyes, unable to quit the spot.

In the meanwhile King Satavahana fell sick. And the
physicians said that his illness was due to eating meat wanting
in nutritive qualities. And when the cooks were scolded
for it they said :

" The hunters bring in to us flesh of this
kind." And when the hunters were taken to task they said :
"Ona hill not very far from here there is a Brahman reading,
who throws into a fire every leaf as soon as he has read it ; so
all the animals go there and listen, without ever grazing ; they
never wander anywhere else ; consequently this flesh of theirs
is wanting in nutritive properties on account of their going
without food." When he heard this speech of the hunters
he made them show him the way, and out of curiosity went
in person to see Gunadhya, and he beheld him, owing to his
forest life, overspread with matted locks that looked like the
smoke of the fire of his curse, that was almost extinguished
Then the king recognised him as he stood in the midst
of the weeping animals, and after he had respectfully saluted
him, he asked him for an explanation of all the circumstances.
That wise Brahman then related to the king in the
language of the demons his own history as Pushpadanta,
giving an account of the curse and all the circumstances
which originated the descent of the tale to earth. Then the
king, discovering that he was an incarnation of a Gana,
bowed at his feet, and asked him for that celestial tale that
had issued from the mouth of Siva. Then Gunadhya said
to that King Satavahana :
tc O king ! I have burnt six tales
containing six hundred thousand couplets ; but there is one
tale consisting of a hundred thousand couplets, take that,1
and these two pupils of mine shall explain it to you." So
spake Gunadhya and took leave of the king, and then by
strength of devotion laid aside his earthly body and, released
from the curse, ascended to his own heavenly home. Then the
king took that tale which Gunadhya had given, called Brihat
Kathd, containing the adventures of Naravahanadatta, and
went to his own city. And there he bestowed on Gunadeva
and Nandideva, the pupils of the poet who composed that tale,
lands, gold, garments, beasts of burden, palaces and treasures.
And having recovered the sense of that tale with their help,
Satavahana composed the book named Kathapitha, in order
to show how the tale came to be first made known in the
Paisacha language. Now that tale was so full of various
interest that men were so taken with it as to forget the tales
of the gods, and after producing that effect in the city it
attained uninterrupted renown in the three worlds."

Somdeva continues...
"Queen, (I think her name was Suryamati- no time to go back and check now.. ) I have found these documents from the court of Satavahana, from over 200 years ago, and have adapted and compiled them for your entertainment - in Sanskrit. I call this, the Kathasaritsagar"