Venuvisarjana
Many months ago, I had the good chance of watching a play in the yakshagaana style, Venuvisarjana. Performed solo by Mantapa Prabhakara Upadhyaya; organized by the Ramateertha Foundation. Mantapa Prabhakara donned the role of Radha and charmed us by walking and talking like a woman. But this play was not just about a man wearing a woman's clothes and playing her role perfectly. There was more in store for us.
If it was a story about Radha and Krishna, it's a story about love, is it not? What else can it possibly be? Mind you, I didn't say love story... Venuvisarjana is a story about love, it reflected upon what love is, what Radha's love for Krishna was like and why it stands as exemplary for all times.
The play captured Radha's love for Krishna, her contempt for his pranks, their playful togetherness, the torment she faces in the small everyday separations from Krishna, knowing fully that he must just then be on his way to meet her and numerous such other small vignettes.
In all the different emotions involved here, Radha was like any other girl who could fall in love in the 21st century, sighing, weeping and missing Krishna for no particular reason at all. Jumping from one place to another in bouts of joy, weeping profusely, lying on her tummy along the banks of yamuna and thinking of no particular thing, but simply staying with the thought of her lover in her mind. My mother was slightly upset at the flimi-style representation of Radha running about here and there. But I saw hope in this too...a young man or woman watching this, and if s/he indeed identified her/himself with every pang of Radha's, and sat through to the end, then s/he would definitely understand that love is not just about those pangs but also about letting go when responsibility calls; that love is not about selfishness at all and that Krishna, more importantly, is not about selfishness: and so it was not all that filmi after all! Krishna is a man for lokakalyana and that that's what everything ultimately should be about. Even love, a soul mate, a husband, a lover, all relationships, all objects, simply everything...everything we gather for ourselves should finally be returned and given away, just so we might care about others. Otherwise, it becomes that selfish kind of love that one can intellectually ask questions about, play with and fall out of; it will wither away with time. If anything has to last, it just has to have the good-of-all as its intent, else time will erode it, sooner or later!
It is time for Krishna to leave for Mathura, to meet his parents, to kill the demon-uncle and become king, to render justice where there hasn't been. Radha's friends run to her to tell her about Krishna's departure, and from then on we see Radha debating within her as to what she should tell Krishna, what to ask of him...ask him to stay, to take her along for god's sake, to tell him she would die without him, to tell him not to forget her, to fight with him if he didn't take her-- and why, Krishna did you play on the Venu and steal my heart and why are you going now? I wept during the painful dilemma. Radha once says, "Krishna, I cannot live without you, life without you would not be life at all" and then she reasons... "but Krishna if I said I would die, that would be wrong too, but how can I live?" My aunt was thoroughly impressed by the confession "...but Krishna, if I said I would die, that would be wrong too". I wept non-stop; I am not particularly ashamed of shedding tears in public anyway!
Krishna appears before Radha, as if for a glimpse and before Radha can hug him just once, say bye, beg, fight, weep or fall at his feet, he has left, leaving in her hand his flute. Radha blows into flute and becomes the flute. Radha is the flute from then on. In some stories, Radha was liberated with that, in others she goes back to live with her husband! Krishna had left all that he loved, his parents, his friends, his Gokula, his flute, his Radha...who would perform the duties of lokakalyana otherwise? The play was written by Shatavadhani R Ganesh, the Sanskrit scholar of repute. Well, so there is the source of this angle to Radha-Krishna.
The play was performed nearly a year ago on a Saturday evening, I have felt so touched by it that I had to write about it, no matter how much later. Recalling the performance makes me want to weep all over again, for Krishna, for Radha, their sacrifices, and for all the lost loves of my own life--and more for those of us who never learned to love at all.
If it was a story about Radha and Krishna, it's a story about love, is it not? What else can it possibly be? Mind you, I didn't say love story... Venuvisarjana is a story about love, it reflected upon what love is, what Radha's love for Krishna was like and why it stands as exemplary for all times.
The play captured Radha's love for Krishna, her contempt for his pranks, their playful togetherness, the torment she faces in the small everyday separations from Krishna, knowing fully that he must just then be on his way to meet her and numerous such other small vignettes.
In all the different emotions involved here, Radha was like any other girl who could fall in love in the 21st century, sighing, weeping and missing Krishna for no particular reason at all. Jumping from one place to another in bouts of joy, weeping profusely, lying on her tummy along the banks of yamuna and thinking of no particular thing, but simply staying with the thought of her lover in her mind. My mother was slightly upset at the flimi-style representation of Radha running about here and there. But I saw hope in this too...a young man or woman watching this, and if s/he indeed identified her/himself with every pang of Radha's, and sat through to the end, then s/he would definitely understand that love is not just about those pangs but also about letting go when responsibility calls; that love is not about selfishness at all and that Krishna, more importantly, is not about selfishness: and so it was not all that filmi after all! Krishna is a man for lokakalyana and that that's what everything ultimately should be about. Even love, a soul mate, a husband, a lover, all relationships, all objects, simply everything...everything we gather for ourselves should finally be returned and given away, just so we might care about others. Otherwise, it becomes that selfish kind of love that one can intellectually ask questions about, play with and fall out of; it will wither away with time. If anything has to last, it just has to have the good-of-all as its intent, else time will erode it, sooner or later!
It is time for Krishna to leave for Mathura, to meet his parents, to kill the demon-uncle and become king, to render justice where there hasn't been. Radha's friends run to her to tell her about Krishna's departure, and from then on we see Radha debating within her as to what she should tell Krishna, what to ask of him...ask him to stay, to take her along for god's sake, to tell him she would die without him, to tell him not to forget her, to fight with him if he didn't take her-- and why, Krishna did you play on the Venu and steal my heart and why are you going now? I wept during the painful dilemma. Radha once says, "Krishna, I cannot live without you, life without you would not be life at all" and then she reasons... "but Krishna if I said I would die, that would be wrong too, but how can I live?" My aunt was thoroughly impressed by the confession "...but Krishna, if I said I would die, that would be wrong too". I wept non-stop; I am not particularly ashamed of shedding tears in public anyway!
Krishna appears before Radha, as if for a glimpse and before Radha can hug him just once, say bye, beg, fight, weep or fall at his feet, he has left, leaving in her hand his flute. Radha blows into flute and becomes the flute. Radha is the flute from then on. In some stories, Radha was liberated with that, in others she goes back to live with her husband! Krishna had left all that he loved, his parents, his friends, his Gokula, his flute, his Radha...who would perform the duties of lokakalyana otherwise? The play was written by Shatavadhani R Ganesh, the Sanskrit scholar of repute. Well, so there is the source of this angle to Radha-Krishna.
The play was performed nearly a year ago on a Saturday evening, I have felt so touched by it that I had to write about it, no matter how much later. Recalling the performance makes me want to weep all over again, for Krishna, for Radha, their sacrifices, and for all the lost loves of my own life--and more for those of us who never learned to love at all.
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