Decline of theatre

Last week I happened to go to watch a play that claimed itself to be "inspired by true incidents showing how women ensnared by rituals, superstitions, taboos and social mores result in being trapped by men who exploit their vulnerability and ignorance. They are brutalised through religion and societal norms, abandoned by divorce and bigamy."

The socio-economic and political emancipation of female is usually restricted by male-dominated society in India. Also, there is no doubt and this remains a universally acknowledged fact that Indian remains one of the worst places on Earth to be born as female. For an artist, to portray this social dysfunction in his work remains quite a challenging task, especially for a playwright and play directors. Enticed by the curiosity to witness a work of art dealing with the serious topic related to feminism on stage seemed to be an interesting invitation that I could not resist.

The 85-minute play included around 20 minutes of audio-video presentation on a large screen in the beginning and the end of the play. Maybe the director intended to be placidly expressive by using a visual presentation and maybe many of the audience found it to be innovative as well. As a serious theatre loving person, I saw it as a failure of creativity. By all means, creativity must be expression of originality. The use of technological innovations such as lights and sounds are happily-accepted and intrinsic part of a play on stage, but using visual presentations, i.e., a documentary film, to convey the message that a play director should ideally do through his actors appeared to be a serious treachery by the director not only to the audience but to his own artistic integrity as well.

Child marriage, sexual repression of married women by their husbands, miscarriages being seen as social stigma and miserable conditions of widows are some unsmiling subject matters in need to be carefully dealt in works of art, particularly in a country like India. The play touched all these topics, though in a cluttered, beclouded and inarticulate manner that made its plots look broken, failing to give a clear message to the audience. The writer-cum-director of the play, showing off his strong hold over Urdu language, was brilliant in his narrative, but badly faltered in knitting up various separate plots together.

My idea is not to criticise (that is why I have not mentioned the name and director of the play, as well as the venue where it was staged), but to personally ponder about the motive and relevance of theatre as a mass media today. Amid the glory of internet, high popularity of Hollywood, Bollywood and several other suffixes ending in 'wood' representing various film industries and satellite televisions forever willing to feed us all sort of entertainment, theatre as a mass media remains limited to a handful of intelligentsia in our society. Irrespective of what age groups they belong to, urban and even rural settlers find more comfort today in going out to movies, gluing themselves to TVs and engaging in other sort of entertainment than giving even a thought over watching a play in a nearby theatre.

Despite its occasional creative failure in applying innovations and experimentations that I mentioned in an example above, theatre still remains today a healthy medium of procuring aesthetic delight and clean entertainment that intellectually enrich the audience. However, depressingly empty theatre halls lacking applause these years somehow drearily underline the fact that theatre is no more a viable product of mass communication.

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R
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Tears on a Lotus - dhrupad music album review

The clock ticks towards midnight, a time when I spontaneously move to a routine desperation for my usual brain cleansing session -- reading bedtime poems and listening to some soulful music.

Tonight's music pick is "Tears on a Lotus", one of my most favourite Dhrupad albums, by the Gundecha Brothers. Despite a couple of hundreds of rewind and forward, I remain smitten with the album's persisting melodic nuance since I heard it for the first time two years ago. 

Being the most ancient form of Hindustani classical music that still remains beautifully intact, Dhrupad has not only gloriously survived in India over the centuries, but has also enthralled Indian classical music lovers across Asia, Europe and North America for several decades. Going by the innate nature of Dhrupad, which is spiritual and aimed at inducing the feeling of contemplative meditation to the listeners, the Gundecha Brothers -  desciples of prominent Dhrupad exponents Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar and Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar - have done full justice to "Tears on a Lotus." 

Whether it is Raag Gaoti Alap or Raag Gaoti Dhrupad or Raag Shivranjani Alap, each of the seven tracks is an absolute meditative delight, transporting the listeners to a realm of trance. The last track of the album is my personal favourite evening raga Shivranjani Dhrupad, which is usually known to evoke the pensive mood of sorrow and romance. However, the Shivranjani sung by the Gundecha Brothers is a hymn to the Hindu goddess of power Shakti, and the following beautiful Sanskrit couplet used in it makes the dhrupad recital more spiritually touching: 

"Sandhya sanjivani sur samadhi rupini

Gayatri trivarg dhatri savitri trilok yatri

Mahamantra mahayantra mahatantrini

Rahoyaga krimaradya rahstarpini

Om lum vam ram rhim yam.

Sandhya sanjivani..."

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Eternal Mewar

Photograph taken from the roof of City Palace complex, Udaipur, during a past trip of mine to the city.

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R
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