Shades of truth
| Koodiyattom On Margi Madhu’s interpretation of Ravana’s love. Soudhamini |
Margi Madhu.
Between August 16 and September 2, 2008, in the small sleepy village of Moozhikulam in Kerala, an epic unfolded. Margi Madhu performed ‘Ashokavanikankam’ for students of Hebrew University, Jerusalem. In accepting this commission, he and his small band of performers at Nepathya, including wife and co-performer, G. Indu, have been able to realise their dream of building a traditional Koothambalam full of light and air.
For the six students, two teachers – of Sanskrit and Malayalam – and for David Shulman, Head of the Department of Indology, this was a chance to experience the language they know intimately from books, as a living tongue capable of endless elaboration and interpretation.
As for me, I have been working with Madhu on a film based on the Ekalavya myth for the Prince Claus Fund in the Netherlands, and it was a thrilling experience to witness the range of this quiet, unassuming artiste.
Final overture
As I could only attend for a day, it was suggested I watch the performance on August 31, the 14th day and first evening of the ‘Udhayanapravesam,’ Ravana’s entry into the Ashoka grove to make his final overture to Sita. Every day until then, the performance had begun with the ‘Kesadipadam’ – the head to foot description of Sita. Today was the culmination. Set to Dhruva tala, Ravana, for the first time, pulling rank with all his royal accoutrements, enters the stage and glides forward over the next half hour or so with a barely perceptible movement, describing and savouring each exquisite feature of Sita’s.
Madhu, speaking of it the next morning, said that from about the third day onwards Ravana’s entire relation to Sita had changed in his mind. She was not just a pretty woman he was looking at erotically. She was now an integral part of Ravana. He felt it was because Ravana’s character was capable of such unconditional passion.
Has he portrayed any other hero in love, I asked. Yes, Arjuna in ‘Subhadra Dhananjayam.’ In the light of Ravana’s love, that is very superficial, quite male chauvinist. Even Rama never really expresses or explores the various dimensions of love the way Ravana does. The fact that Sita is never on stage, only represented by a flame, further heightens the abstraction.
A repeated refrain over the 15-day performance, as I saw from the Attaprakaram – the performance manual – was Ravana’s boast about his valour and his perplexity regarding Sita’s power over him. As his relationship with Sita changes, explained Madhu, it is not the fact that she is another man’s wife; it is not even her innate chastity, that binds Ravana.
It is because he has begun to acknowledge her individuality that he cannot reach out and touch her as a mere object of his desire. Through an inner conflict, which is honestly faced, Ravana overcomes his lust to reach true love – and it is this that stays his hand. Madhu’s own conflict lay in admitting that both the dictates of Koodiyattam grammar, regarding how a character is to be portrayed, and many of the original verses themselves, seriously limit this interpretation. Yet as a contemporary traditional artist this is his insight and he must express it.
Many thoughts pass through my mind. How it would be interesting to explore Sita’s state of mind during this same period? How our perception of others – men, women, rakshasas heroes – are all conditioned and politically implicated, even politically manipulated. And how as a thinking artiste Madhu was able to gently unhinge my set notions even about chauvinism and love.
Meanwhile life’s lessons seem very precious and need to be cherished and reflected upon, even as the actor looks deep into the undying flame and shares with us the eternal truths he sees reflected in it.
(The writer is a documentary filmmaker)
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