Dr.Satyabrata Rout

ON THE CROSSROADS OF THEATRE

2012-02-05T19:56:00.000-08:00

Author: Satyabrata Rout

Published by Vijaya Books, Delhi,
ISBN no: 978-93-81480-25-0

ON THE CROSS ROADS OF THEATRE is published recently by Vijaya Books, Delhi.The book broadly covers my 30 years work experiences with many personalitiesalong with academic informations. The foreword and introduction is written bySri Ratan Thiyam and Prof. D.R Ankur. The cost of the book is Rs. 750.00. Butthis will be available to the theatre students and Rangkarmis (Theatrepractitioners) with 40% concession. If anyone interested in this book pleasewrite to me.

Email-id:--satya00191@yahoo.co.in

Mob. phone: +91-9959807901

FOREWORD

Sri Ratan Thiyam wrote...

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Satyabrata Rout’s On theCrossroads of Theatre strives to present a survey of Indian Theatre with aflavour of transnational modernity and transitional identities. It is also arare retrospective of his journey in the world of theatre and serves as amulti-cuisine for those who are travelling with performing arts. There areunforgettable moments in some of the chapters where the author describes hisown learning process of swimming in theatre with his own skills. The problemsand sufferings he was going through to attain an artistic satisfaction is a fascinatingexperience.

While depicting many technical aspects including production and designin Indian theatre he doesn’t leave behind covering of the pace of change whichhas been accelerated by twenty-first century in the making of Indian theatre.What happens in the closed doors of theatre making always remains a mystery andtrying to share some test of those happenings calls for an appreciation becausea spectator really knows very little of the process of theatre making.

I have enjoyed immensely while going through this book which is notmerely technical information but also a portrayal of individualresponsibilities, human relationship and challenge in Theatre.

Ratan Thiyam

Chairman ChorusRepertory Theatre, Imphal

INTRODUCTION

Prof. D.R Ankur wrote...

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Veryfew practitioners in Indian theatre have ventured into writing about their ownwork expriences and theories. Satyabrat Rout is an exception. He is apractitioner as well as a teacher, therefore, his first book titled Onthe Crossroads of Theatre is a combination of both of his qualities– theory and practice. There is a third part also which needs specialattention. This deals with his long time association with B.V. Karanth. In away, this book is like gurudakshina by a pupil to his teacher. It is needlessto state that all the different shades of karanth have been minutely portrayedin a touching way.

Atthe same time his writings on space, masks and scenic design are also worthstudy for a student as well as a research scholar. For me, reading the book waslike going down the memory lane as I myself have been associated with all thepersonalities, happenings and productions mentioned and discussed in the book.The book also presents a long journey of 30 years covered by the authorhimself, first as a trainee and then as a full-fledged practitioner. No doubtthe author has made an identity of his own through his work as a designer and adirector all these years. His personal viewpoint towards different concepts andpersonalities is very strongly reflected in his writing again and again. At theend, we have a picture of a person who has gone through all kind of phases –good or bad in his life and acquired a maturity which could dictate him to puthis ideas into writing.

Theauthor Satyabrat Rout was earlier known to me as a student, then as anassociate designer and now as a person who has tried to theorize and memorizehis practice and experience in theatre. I whole-heartedly welcome his maidenattempt in this direction.

Prof. Devendra Raj Ankur

Ex-Director

National School of Drama

New Delhi

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

i. Truth is like a Glow worm

ii. Lest I should forget...How shall I create?

CHAPTERS

1. Turning Point

2. Another Space...another Time

3. Reminiscence

4. Scenic design in IndianTheatre

5. You don’t need a space to tellthe story

6. What is your Colour

7. Rangmandal: The Paradise lost

8. Mask: A face in disguise

9. Blind men and the Elephant-It’s all about Perception

10. TheBio-Dramatic Experience of finding one-self

11. The saga of Indian Theatre

12. The Karanth Factor

EPILOGUE

i) TheIssue of Postmodernism in Indian Theatre

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2012-01-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

COVER DESIGN OF MY NEW BOOK

IF ANY ONE INTERESTED TO BYE PLEASE CONTACT ME AT:
satya00191@yahoo.co.in

रंगविमर्श: मैं इसे प्रति रंगमंच क्यों कहता हूं- सत्यव्रत राउत

2011-12-04T18:20:00.000-08:00

रंगविमर्श: मैं इसे प्रति रंगमंच क्यों कहता हूं- सत्यव्रत राउत

2011-11-28T00:25:00.001-08:00

WhyI call it Anti-theatre

Satyabrata Rout

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Indian theatre has beenradically revolutionized in the recent years. This revolution is welcomed, not forthe cause of destruction but for the constructive mindset and forsocio-cultural up-liftment. A revolution of this kind was necessary to set anothervision and rectification in the age old system. But unfortunately the changeswept away our people’s theatre to an unseen danger. Anything and everything isproved to be right in the name of experiment and postmodernism. Nowherein the world except India has cornered its culture and tradition in the contextof postmodern. Rather the very concept of the term ‘postmodern’ standson the strong foundation of modernity which is scientific, logical andrational. It can’t be completely free from its parental form, it can’t surpassit fully rather can make modernity its root on which it grows. As Nick Kaye inhis book “Postmodernism and performance” indicated; “In this case,postmodern can’t be said to be properly free of the modern. For the modern itis the ground on which the postmodern stands, a ground with which it is indispute and on which it is able to enter into dispute with itself.” Noconcept in ‘Art’ is born to destroy its parental structure rather useits potentiality and strength with new outlook. Postmodern is also not anexception. We can’t destroy the old culture in the name of new-culture. Wecan’t wipe out tradition to establish something radical by giving an excuse of postmodernism.

In these recent yearswe are taking a departure from the tradition by saying proudly that we don’t needany tradition to express our art. By saying this, deliberately we are imposing anothertradition, because anything that is practiced for years develops into atradition. And this new-tradition which we are establishing willdefinite going to be baseless and rootless. By projecting ourselves ‘postmodernist-in this sense’, we are clearly taking an exit from the society and from those elementswhich flourished in the society; art, literature and culture. In thisway we are also departing from “People’s Theatre” and establishing a newone which I call “The Anti-Theatre”.

In India the trend ofpracticing anti-theatre is growing mindlessly day by day. It has beennourished by those few hands those have nothing to do with the society, cultureand tradition. Even they don’t have any moral and emotional tie-up with thetime and space in which they live. From the very beginning of the civilizationtheatre has served our society in many ways. It has the power to bind andmotivate people for cause and awareness. It remained as the most powerfulcommunicative medium. Theatre has nourished and flourished within the societyby the people and for the people. History witnesses, whenever and wherevertheatre tries to alienate itself from the people, it surely met its end. Ourcountry is passing through this ordeal of theatre in these few years. It is goingaway from the common people to become the slave in the hand of a few elite-intellectuals,who never associate themselves with the common mass so as their art. Theybecome responsible for the death of theatre and the promoter of Anti-theatre.

Let’s have a look tothe recent theatre academic activities in the institutions and Universities. Weall know that theatre training remained different than other academic subjects.It is a topic which founds its completion in practice only. All the studies,research and academic activities are to be channelized to theatre practice;which means presenting the art in front of the audience on a stage. InNatyashastra this presentation was related to the actor’s body, voice andintellect which in Sanskrit is termed as “Shariranubhuti” (Experience throughbody); means learning through experience and this is considered as the bestlearning process in the parameter of education. In the ancient schooling systema guru or guide was deputed to lead the students to go through their personalexperiences and this type of training is always essential in a practical mediumlike theatre. But unfortunately our theatre academic system in those few hands (the self-styledelite-intellectuals) are becoming more research oriented than practiceoriented. The conventional class room teaching method is substituted by assignmentprogrammes and panel discussion curriculum. These new waves of teachingprogrammes may have their own positive motivations. With the help of newcommunications (computer, internet, multimedia etc.) we could do wonders. Butunfortunately the students are taking wrong advantage of these gazettes. Theyare undoubtedly gathering lots of information from these sources but with lack ofknowledge and understanding and think themselves knowledgeable and educated! Theteachers in those institutions and departments feel themselves more elite andintellectuals. They misinterpret information into knowledge. They should knowthat knowledge comes out of experience where as information not. In this wayour artistes, those who are working continuously in the field are moreknowledgeable than these armed-chair-academicians because they have practicalexperiences with them. But unfortunately this handful of teachers and theirfollowers are thinking them superior and moulded everything accordingly. Theythink they are the only visionaries who have been deputed to think, visualizeand decide the future of Indian theatre. They want everyone to thinkaccordingly, to feel according to them and to see only through their eyes. Andif someone thinks and does differently he has no space in this new-wave cultureand becomes outcaste. Because these people by their power of intellectualcunningness have moulded the political power with them and through othercompromising means are occupying the highest positions in the social hierarchyand leading Indian arts and theatre, the common people’s voice is been smearedout.

As I discussed, thesefewer people for which our popular theatre is suffering in these years hasnothing to do with art, culture and tradition. They have no emotional link withthe society and social activities. I am sure they might not know the basicgrammar of the art form which they are practicing. Without the fundamentalunderstanding of the form how one could establish a new one? Whatever he willcreate will become alien to others and that is the only reason why their artremained alienated to the rest of the society. Even sometimes this kind oftheatre arts, which we are encountering in these years in big cities likeDelhi, Bombay and Bangalore, need an explanation to clarify the interpretationand the purpose of doing the play. Shamelessly these intellectuals have takenthe liberty to include a post production session as a part of the playwhere they make others fool by imposing their vague ideas and concept of makingthis play. The objectivity of theatre is now confined to the subjectiveapproach of an individual’s ideology. Hopefully some basic factors areresponsible for this anti-theatre practice.

1. Lack of basic understanding of tradition

2. The egocentric approach

3. Releasing personal frustrations

4. projecting one’s intellectual idealism

5. Confusion of life and understanding.

As I discussed, our self styled visionaries hasnothing to do with India, its tradition and culture. They definitely have neitherexperienced human sufferings nor tragedies nor have they seen life in the nookand corner of the country. They live in the urban cities and have neverexperienced poverty. Then how in their arts, the common life reflects? Thislack of life experience led them to practice something unusual which seemsalien to most of us. Every Indian production in the name of postmodernseems to be satisfying one’s personal ego. By projecting something unusualwhich remained beyond understanding (sometimes even to the person who createsit-the director), we feel ourselves special in the crowd. But we should beaware of the fact that art with ego centric complex show the way to disasterand destruction which will surely lead to mass revolution one day. We have noright to feel others inferior in front of us. Sometimes our personal frustrationscome in to our work which makes us slave in our creation. This process ofmaking the art is growing day by day in the cosmopolitan cities. The region isobvious. Our social life is being segregated into smaller compartments.Machinery interactions are dominating over live interactions. We closedourselves in a tiny chamber both physically and mentally. Obviously ourfrustration will be reflected in our art since art reflects our ownpersonality. Involvement of machineries, multiple splitting space andpersonality of character, random and mindless use of modern electronic gazettesand deliberate breaking of the special and temporal rhythm of the production inthe name of postmodernism is nothing but the outcome of our personalfrustration. It only creates a form without soul. Off course these abovefactors are the fundamentals of postmodern performance but it shouldn’t be imitatedmindlessly in our country. Every ideology is the product of thesocio-economical-climatic conditions of the reason. Can one explain why realismand abstract-realism developed and flourished in Europe and not in India or inany Asian countries? The answer is simple. It is the temperament of our societywhere there is no space for this hardcore concept. The foundation of Indian artwas based on the metaphorical ideology of life where everything moves in circlelike life moves in rotation; one follows the other...! Theatre is not anexception which couldn’t accept the concept of realism so as our people.Similarly this new-theatre will not be accepted until it merge intoIndian temperament and till then it will remain isolated and will be criticisedirrespective of its propagation by the mighty hands.

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Dr. SatyabrataRout/Associate Professor; Dept. Of Theatre Arts, University of Hyderabad/India

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2011-08-31T06:20:00.000-07:00

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The Indian Avant-garde Theatre

A nice blend of tradition and modern aesthetics.

______________________

Dr. Satyabrata Rout

The Performance tradition in ancient India:

There is a saying goes: “The countries heritage is not judged by its wealth but by its culture”. The overall progress of the country depends upon its age old tradition which develops into culture over the years. India being the ancient spiritual land became the torch bearer of this age old tradition, education and civilization of the world and remained inspiration for the people across the globe for centuries to come. Even also after centuries of turmoil, war and degeneration of human values, the fragrance of Indian culture and aesthetics has not been faded away with the wave of fake modernity, rather it has been expanded and extended into different socio-cultural mindsets and has influenced modernity in many ways. Our Natya shastra the ancient dramaturgy not only taught us to practice Natya (drama, dance and other allied performing arts), rather it opens our insight to understand life in different perspectives and angles. The high aesthetic value that Natya shastra has set is practiced globally as performance studies In these recent years. In a way the whole world is looking into Indian culture and accepted it respectfully.

Indian performance tradition and the ancient practice of drama in India which became the spinal cord of Natya shastra is always based on two strategy. 1: Vachana Parampara , 2: Stylization. Even after thousands of years of social cultural and economical changes and modernization our contemporary Indian theatre has retained its moral and aesthetic value and is known for these specific oriental characteristics. Much before the formal theatre practice was introduced in the form of classical drama, Katha Vachan tradition was highly popular in the Indian communities. A story was being told in the form of narration which was expressed through the body gestures and postures to a group of people who could also actively participated in the presentations time to time (They have been named as Rasika in Natya Shastra).With the help of music and rhythmic body movements and with the bits of percussions our Katha Vachana tradition remained as one of the unique presentation style which became the pioneer of the performance tradition of the oriental theatre. Even today the Vachana tradition can be traced out in many Indian traditional forms viz. Terukootu, Pandavani, Pala and Dashkathia etc.

Another major feature of Indian performance tradition is its way of presentation. Unlike western occidental culture Indian theatre never follows the linear movement of plot, action and time. The spatial and temporal relationship of the performance every time juxtaposed and interweaved during the performances. Shifting the action to past, future and again coming back to the present situation is the characteristic of Indian drama. The main plot gives rise to many sub plots and again merges down with the main action. To not to divert from the main stream of action, a unique character was introduced to the performance practice in the name of Sutradhara. Slowly with the passing of time this prototype character in the Indian performance tradition carried away the vital responsibility in the presentation. Not only it kept the storyline and action intact but also most of the visual imageries and the scenic elements are being narrated orally by this character so as to avoid the technical complications on stage. This made Indian theatre more lively and immediate. This instant live presentation of Indian theatre is unique in itself, specific and symbolic. With the help of Hasta mudras and Gati (Chari) the Indian actors were able to communicate the situation, environment and the characters they were portraying. This kind of representation of the action broke the boundary of realistic illustrations and able to enter into the world of metaphor and pave the way to stylization which turned out to be the synonym of Indian drama.

The classical Indian performance tradition met its end towards 9^th- 10^th Century. The reason was obvious. Apart from Socio-political factors, many other issues were responsible for the decline of Sanskrit drama; the major aspect was the language. Though Sanskrit was practiced in the official set up, most of the Indians preferred other dialects like Apavransh and Prakrit. Towards 11^th – 12^th Century many new Indian languages occupied the centre stage pushing aside Sanskrit to the background. These native languages were born out of the socio-cultural conditions and the geographical structures of the regions. Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Telugu, Bengali, Hindi, Oriya, Ahamiya, Gujurati, Abadhi, Pahadi, Punjabi and many local dialectical languages were formed based on the native cultures. The artistic and cultural expressions became more and more predominant in their original mother languages. New art forms and different style of expressions were created out of the new tradition the country was passing through. These artistic expressions didn’t out rightly reject the ancient performance culture and its aesthetics rather the performance tradition which was set by centuries old practice was restructured, transformed and adapted into these new language based cultures which we know as the traditional Indian theatrical forms. Though these traditional forms were based on the rich heritage of Indian Classical theatre, it kept its contemporary value along with the present time. These forms are modified and restructured with the changing values of political, ideological, economical and cultural systems of the natives and the society. May it be the Jatra of Bengal and Orissa, Nautanki of Uttar Pradesh, Yakshgana of Karnataka, Dasavatari of Maharastra, Koodiyattam of Kerala, Bhand pathar of Kashmir or Bhavai of Gujrat, they have retained the classical tradition to some extent where as they are more flexible and contemporary. The specialty of narrative Indian theatre became the life line of these artistic expressions. The Sutradhara or Nata of Indian performance tradition found its way to these traditional forms to maintain the contemporary value of the performance. He worked as an intermediary between the performers and the audiences. We can mark their presence in different names in different traditional forms, viz: Niyati in Jatra, Rangila in Bhavai, Bhagwat in yakshgana, etc.

Another major issue that influenced our age old tradition is the foreign invasions into India. 11th – 16^th Century witnessed many foreign invaders from faraway lands into India to rule the country. They brought with them their tradition and culture which was mixed with our indigenous tradition and became the part of Indian culture. Similarly religion also played a vital role for the diversification of culture and became highly responsible to influence Indian performance tradition. Whatever may be the reason for the decline of Sanskrit drama and the origin of native theatre, the age old Indian aesthetics and presentation Style, set by Natya Shastra was so deeply rooted into our performance tradition that it became the characteristics of Indian drama; the stylization, metaphor and the narrative verses.

The Colonial and post colonial Indian Theatre:

Unfortunately no experimentation was done on these indigenous forms during the colonial India. Original Indian culture was diverted by imitating the British. The Indian elite and upper class people spent their money and energy by adapting the western modern culture. Speaking in English and adapting western culture became the fashion among those “Bhadra Samaj” (noble society) which is still continuing in India and became a parallel culture to ours. Shakespeare was introduced to Indians through the British and became more popular among those elite classes. The plays of Shakespeare, Moliere and some of the Indian plays written by the influence of these playwrights were widely presented in India particularly in the urban cities like, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. With the presentation of these plays Proscenium theatre was also crept in to our country. Play houses were built in those cities for privileged audiences and better presentations. At this turmoil point of time our culture was also politically manipulated by those “Bhadra Samaj” (elite class). A definite sect was created to witness the English-Indian plays which were in no ways related to our native culture. Our Indian traditional forms that born out of our own aesthetics and culture stayed remained isolated in the rural and village proximity and were practiced by the native people. Some of the forms couldn’t deal with the changing time thus faded away gradually like Moughl Tamasa, Dakshini nata of Orissa. That happened because of inattentiveness and negligence of the people and authority. Though efforts were given to bring out our rich heritage and performance culture to the lime light by Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) during the time of National movement, not much experimental work had been done in this regard until India’s independence. Still then IPTA movement holds the responsibility to bring out new meaning and contemporary values to our folk and traditional culture.

The age old tradition of the performance culture of India was evaluated in the light of modern aesthetics in the post-colonial period. The first seminar on theatre was organized in 1956 which was inaugurated by S Radhakrishnan, the then vice-president of India. As Aparna Bhargav Dharwadker rightly pointed out;

“The seminar was the first sustained exercise in historical self-positioning— an early postcolonial reflection on the singular problematic of a multilingual theatre tradition that had classical and pre-modern as well as colonial antecedents, the emergent modernity of which was synchronous with colonialism.”

The objective of the seminar was to conceive the future of Indian theatre as it should develop in independent India. It was formally recommended in the seminar that, the regeneration of the Indian theatre can only be possible by revitalizing the traditional and folk theatre so as to narrow the gap between the dramatic forms that have developed during the last hundred years and the survivals from the past. The Seminar recommends that adequate steps be taken not only for the careful and scientific study of the performance culture of the past in different parts of India but also for preventing their decay and disappearance and for giving them recognition and new life.[1]

During these fifty odd years after the seminar organized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, plenty of experimental works have been undertaken to apply the classical, semi classical, folk and traditional forms into modern and contemporary theatre to give rise to an indigenous Indian theatre tradition which flourished and nourished during the second half of 20^th Century and became one of the major aspects of modern Indian theatre. The purpose of this new research on theatre methodology was not only to bring out our old and traditional heritage into practice, but also to focus on interweaving modern theatre aesthetics into the indigenous Indian sensibility so as to bring out new meaning and interpretation to the performance culture.

Theatre groups, directors, intellectuals and academicians came up with new ideas to reshape our aboriginal theatre in free India. Institutions, organizations and academies were established to initiate these research programmes as a mission. Playwrights came up with new ideas and plays. A kind of avant-garde theatre was established in modern India. Badal Sircar, Girish Karnad, Habib Tanveer, Vijay Tendulkar, Dharmaveer Bharati, Chandra Sekhar Khambar, Manoranjan Das, Sankar Shesh and many other playwrights wrote plays by blending Indian myths and folklores with modern sensibility. These Indian urban-folkloric plays were come up parallel to the modern realistic plays which were influenced by the western realism. This new genre of plays left tremendous scope for interpretation and experimentation which attracts the play directors to present in their own ways and styles.

Out of many objectives of this new research some major aspects are;

1. To understand the true Indian values and aesthetics.

2. To experiment with the traditional heritage of the particular region to bring out total aesthetic expressions.

3. Total experimentation with the native forms to interweave into the modern theatre sensibility.

4. The visual aesthetics and new experimentations in the light of tradition.

Among the directors and scholars who took initiatives to develop this new research into tradition are; Habib Tanveer, Kavalam Narayan Pannikar, B.V Karanth and Ratan Thiyam. They became the fore runner experimentalists to establish “Indian poetic realism”. Pannikar succeeded in re-establishing the age old Sanskrit drama and Classical Indian tradition by interpreting them in to modern contemporary sensibility. Kathakali, Koodiyattam, Theyaam, Kalaripaitu and many other traditional and semi-classical theatrical forms which were either losing their identity or isolating themselves from the society because of the changing time, found new meaning and existence in Panikkar’s productions. Panikkar’s experiment on Indian classical tradition revitalized the Sanskrit theatre. The ancient Indian playwrights came to the limelight with new interpretations by the effort of Panikkar. Bhasa, Kalidasa, Bhababhuti were revived and got new life because of his experimentation. Panikkar not only explored the possibilities of the forms, he gave new meaning to the language also i.e. Sanskrit. He opened the door to understand and re-interpret the true Indian value and its aesthetics.

Habib Tanveer did it in a completely different way. Unlike Pannikar, Habib Sahab experimented on Loka-Dharmi Rangmanch (Folkloric theatre). Vachana or narrative tradition of our Indian performance culture found its place in his works. That perhaps is the reason why Habib Tanveer’s production gives ample space to poetries (Shero-Shairi), songs and narrations. Being a playwright by himself Habib Tanveer explored all the possibilities of Chattishgari folk culture in his writings which becomes the lifeline of his productions. Deviating from the classical tradition, he came closure to the audience by breaking the convention of the performance space which made his production more flexible and contemporary. Irrespective of the social status, position and dramatic action, his characters speak the people’s language and dialects of the region he belonged to. I remember one of his productions of “Matigadi” (Mrichhakatikam) which was so carefully casted into his own style that it seemed to be more Habib than Shudrak. The purity of the Sanskrit language and its classical tradition in Mrichhakatikam was as it it transfermed into the purity and simplicity of Chhatishgadhi folkloric forms. The similar kind of experimentation is seen and sensed in all the major productions of Habib tanveer; Agra Bazar, Charan Das Chor, Hirma ki Amar Kahani, Gaonr nam…., Kamdev ka aapna…, Jin Lahor na Dekhya…, Dekh rehn hai nain…, Visarjan and others. Habib tanveer set the true examples of experimenting on the traditional heritage of the region in bringing out aesthetic expressions.

Another experimentalist of modern Indian theatre who left no stone altered in exploring his expressions through his creative genius ability is B.V Karanth. Total experiment with the native forms to interweave into the modern theatre sensibility is always credited to him only. Karanth broke all the rules, laws and pre conceived conventional dogmas of theatre and established the trend of true avant-garde Indian theatre. From south to north and east to west, he has travelled extensively to understand the inner and deeper meaning of Indian tradition and the theatrical expressions. Music was his weapon to achieve that idiom. He established many ideology and has pioneered new organizations including Bharat Bhawan Rangmandal, Rangayan etc, but left them after some time. Decentralization of theatre, applied theatre and children theatre was some of his creative contributions to Indian theatre. He always used to say, “I can’t stick to a particular kind of life for a longer time. I get bored at certain point. My throat choked and I long for fresh air. I can’t create any thing if I wouldn’t travel. I want to see the world, people, life, landscapes, mountains, temples, Mosques, gurudwara, Churches, tribes, rituals and everything that a man can see in his life time. I want to do mistakes and rectify it by my own experiences. I want to learn anything and everything that I could do”. He became a traveler throughout his life. He didn’t follow any particular style or form. Where ever he went he adapted the native forms and converted them into his own creations. The major segment of modern Indian theatre tradition; performance culture of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kashmir, Himachal, Rajasthan, Gujurat, Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, Assam, Manipur, Tripura and almost all the south Indian theatre practice was highly influenced by the style of Karanth; “the Karanth factor”. His eyes, ears, heart, mind and soul was transformed into a big truth of Theatre; “the holy theatre”. Practicing theatre was the greatest celebration for him and it reflects in every moment of his productions; the celebration of life; the Utsav dharmi tradition.

Much before the success of ‘Chakra Viyuha’ Ratan Thiyam, the master artiste of the North east hills has proved his genius in some of his earlier productions of Urubhangam, Andhayug and Imphal-Imphal. With the presentation of Chakra Viyuha he confirmed the sayings of Natya Shastra that; “There is no vocation, grammar, art, business and social studies left which is not found in Natya Shastra”. He incorporated all possible skills of art forms into his creations. Not only he adapted the oral tradition and culture of Manipur into his productions, he brought into his plays the scenic visuals and picturesque beauty of the north-east valley many time in many ways. The interplay of the colours of our community life plays a vital role in his productions. Be it Chakra Viyuha or Karna Bhare, Ritu Samhar or Uttar Priyadarshi, when we dead awaken, the colours of the island enhanced the aesthetic sensibility of his production which sometimes evaluate his productions as visual arts and paintings. This became possible because of his higher sensibility towards visual medium. Somehow Thiyam worked on the similar track as Panikkar did but in a different approach. His productions are highly stylized ritualistic and based on Natya Dharmi principles.

New Experimentations:

The ice has already broken by the able hands towards 70’s. New wave of theatre creates new air and oxidized Indian drama to set a new performance tradition. Many young and creative theatre activists came forward as second liner to carry out the Indian avant-garde theatre. During the year 1984 Central Sangeet Natak Akademi came up with a new project towards the experimentation with tradition in the name of “Assistance to young directors”. The project continued for 10 years and it proved to be the most successful affair in the history of Indian Drama. The purpose of this programme was to bring out young and aspiring talents to the frontier of modern theatre those who engaged themselves with the native traditional and folkloric forms. Indian regional and rural theatre was identified collectively. The possibilities and potentiality of these forms enriched our modern Indian theatre tradition. With few exceptions, all most all younger generation of artists, designers, actors and directors are the result of this project. Ironically Ratan Thiyam’s legendary production “Chakra viyuha” is the outcome of this project. Apart from Ratan Thiyam, Bansi Kaul, Bhanu Bharati, B. Jayasree, Alakh Nandan, Parvez Akhtar, Waman Kendre, Satyabrata Rout, Mustaq Kak, Manumita Baradi, Kewal Dhariwal, Vasaba Lingeya, K.G Krishnamurthi, Balwant Thakur, Suresh Sharma, Avtar Sahani, Ravikant Kamu, P.S Chari are few among the directors who have proved their potential ability with their path breaking productions and continuously employed themselves in the process of new experimentations. A list of their productions and the form in which they worked under the project is given bellow.

Name of the Directors	Name of the play	Language of performance	Presentational forms
Ratan Thiyam	Chakra Viyuha-1984	Manipuri	Manipuri Rasa and Thangta
Bansi Kaul	Ala Officer-1984	Hindi	Nata kala of Ujjain
Bhanu Bharati	Pashu Gayatri-1984	Rajasthani	Bhil tradition
B. Jayashree	LakshapatiRajarKatha 84	Kannada	Yakshagana
Alakhnandan	Chanda Bedhni-87	Bundeli	Bundeli folk tradition
Waman Kendre	Julwa-86	Marathi	Dasabatari and other folkloric tradition
Satyabrata Rout	Jhimiti Khela-88	Oriya	Chhau natya and Dashakathia.
Parvez Akhtar	Mukti purb-88	Bihari	Bidesia and other narrative forms
Mustaq Kak	Devyani	Dogri	Bhand Pather
Vasaba Lingeya	Kushum Bale	Kannada	Bhagwat tradition
Balwant Thakur	Baba Jito	Dogri	Traditional forms of Jammu
Nilammansingh Chaudhury	Raja Bharthari	Punjabi	Punjabi Folk
Suresh Sharma	Mohana	Himachali	Narrative tradition
Kewal Dhariwal	Luna	Punjabi	Khayal
Ravi Kemu	Uskite Gopayel	Kashmiri	Kashmir traditional
Avtar Sahani	Uljhan-92	Hindi	Local pahadi culture

Apart from this project there are few talented and creative directors who have done quite unique and experimental works and contributed to the main stream theatre in many ways. To name some of them are; Prasanna, H. Kanheyelal, Robin Das, Anamika Hakshar, Surya mohan Kulshretha, N.K Sharma, Arvind Guard, Bapi Bose, etc.

Post modernism in Indian Theatre:

Indian theatre has experienced its’ glorious phase with these creative and talented artistes and youngsters. These artistes were able to expand the horizon of modern Indian Theatre; the Indian avant- garde theatre. But with the advent of globalization and western post modernism, the form of Indian theatre has changed drastically during the last decade which becomes a matter of concern to decide the fate of futuristic Indian theatre. Indian performance tradition which finds its root from the age old ancient practice is losing its linking thread. The new wave of theatre which is spreading its air along with globalization is always welcome but not in the cost of social traditional and ethnic values which should be a serious matter of concern among the artistes, academicians, intellectuals and people.

(The postmodernism in Indian theatre could be another topic for debate which is deliberately not discussed in this essay.)

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(Dr. Satyabrata Rout is a contemporary theatre director, designer and a teacher working as an associate professor of Scenography in the Dept. of Theatre Arts, University of Hyderabad. He is a theatre practitioner constantly engaged in this expression for the last two and half decades.)

© Important: The article is copyright reserved. Nobody should try to use full or part of this article without the permission of the author.

[1] “Recommendations of the Drama Seminar,” Sangeet Natak 38.4 (2004), 128.

2010-11-13T20:38:00.001-08:00

…And why it happens!

Dr. Satyabrata Rout 14.11.2010

We had our show of IPHIGENIA at Vrittyanam open air theatre and there was a power cut from the afternoon. We were in great tension. By the evening there was utter chaos in the green room as we couldn’t prepare ourselves for the show in time. Nobody had done their makeup, wear the costumes and arranged the property while the audiences were waiting in the gallery to witness the play. Finally we requested the audience to wait patiently till the lights come. This was a helpless moment that no one could do anything except waiting. Finally lights came at 7 pm. It wiped away all the depressions from us and we engaged in our preparation in hurry. We made an announcement to start the play within 15 minutes and thanked the audiences for their kind cooperation and patience. I informed my team to check their props, costumes and make up urgently and wait for the final bell. Then I rushed towards the lighting booth to start the show…Then I don’t know why, but my legs led me towards an unnoticed dark place back of the audience gallery which was not the way to the lighting cabin. Before I could understand why I went there at this crucial moment of time where we are already late for more than half an hour, I hit upon an object and fall down. In the complete darkness I found that object is nothing but a wooden block which is used in the play as an important property lying abandon here. “It must have been left behind from the previous day after the show was over. What could happen without this object which fulfills many actions during the show?” I thought. I picked it up and kept it on its place and started the play.

The show went on but at every moment I was thinking of the incident. Many unsolved questions started disturbing me related to this topic. Why I went there while that was not my way to the lighting cabin? More over it was not the proper time to go there at this crucial moment. Did I hear an inner voice of that object calling me? Or it is telepathy? Is it my intimate and honest association with the medium that made it possible? I couldn’t find any logic to that. I got emotional and tears rolled down from my eyes. Yes! This is nothing but pure love in between me and my medium. Be it props, costumes, set or lights, be that animate or inanimate; love always bounces back. Sometimes it remains beyond logic.

Theatre, which is my first love, pays me back everything in double. The respect, love affection and intimacy, I got through the medium remain the biggest asset for me which can’t be compared with money and wealth. During my freelancing days I spent numerous chilled nights covering myself with wings and borders inside the auditoriums, wiped out my tears on the curtains and cyclorama in the hour of my frustrations. Sitting alone in the rehearsal hall I have waited hours for my actors. Painted the sets and hanged the lights without sleeping for continuous nights. Then how could the medium betray me?

Perhaps these are the reasons why I heard the inner voice of that wooden block lying abandon alone at the back of the audience gallery, crying for help…!

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Dr.Satyabrata Rout

2010-10-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

Dr.Satyabrata Rout

2010-10-29T21:58:00.001-07:00

Vrittayanam

Now we can say we have Vrittayanam with us.

Dr. Satyabrata Rout

Life without air, Fish without water and Theatre without a performance space! As oxygen is essential to live, a space is important for a Theatrewala (Ranga karmi). Unfortunately we didn’t have one. When I joined the Theatre Department at the University of Hyderabad, I was astonished to find no proper space for the performance. Usually the student performances were held at the DST (Dept. of Science and Technology) auditorium which was primarily constructed for conferences and meetings. It is a luxurious air conditioned auditorium without a proper stage. It has a narrow and long dais hardly any wing space and lighting grids. Presenting a play at DST means having spoiling the show. We had another space, the famous G.B Hall. It is also not appropriate for all kind of performances. It is a close hall used for our acting classes. When I joined in this department, I felt it necessary to improvise a space for performances and scene works. I kept on looking in the surrounding until I found an area adjacent to our old S.N School building. With the help of Prof. Bhikshu we developed two shades there for design practice and created a small space yard for performances. It was environmental friendly and surrounded by lots of trees and greeneries. It was a nice performance place but totally informal and improvised. My students developed a small garden around and we called it “Udyaana Rangam”. It came up in December 2007. Many class room exercises, scene works and major departmental productions were presented in this space. King Oedipus, Hayavadan, Antigone, A Caucasian Chalk Circle and so many student productions were produced here. Then came Robin Das, the famous visualizer of Indian theatre. He also found a space nearby our old dept. for his scene works. But regretfully as soon as we moved to our new campus we couldn’t able to take care of these spaces. Slowly the forest engulfed them.

Our new SN School campus definitely is a gorgeous and beautiful complex that no Indian University has acquired. Here we have everything but a performance space. We have ac staff rooms, practice halls, studios,nice and decorative class rooms but no auditorium. I felt frustrated after having shifted to this new building. What shall I do with these ac rooms and corporate infrastructures while we don’t have a proper space to practice with my students?

By this time I have been assigned by my department to direct a Greek play with our 2^nd year students. Our first year students were also engaged in a Parsi play “Rustam O’ Sohrab” under the guidance of Kanheya lal Kethwas from NSD. I choose Euripides’s “Iphigenia”. But where to present these plays? In the beginning we planned to present these plays at G.B Hall. But that was also occupied by our third year students. They were practicing a realistic play with Prof. Bhikshu. So we did not have any virtual space to present our plays. Having no space to perform we planned to improvise another space somewhere around. We found one. I designed my play accordingly. Initially I planned to use our platforms to erect a stage there. But came to know that they were already been utilized by our Third year students for their play in G.B Hall. Now I have no choice. I got upset and thought to convert the show into demonstration. Kanheya also planned to culminate his work as a class room exercise. By that time one of my students, Govind Raju did a design scene work in a place behind our new campus adjacent to a wall corner. By seeing his work an idea clicked in my mind. “Why can’t I construct a permanent structure here in this particular place as our performance space? This could be a nice place for a stage”. Surrounded by lots of greeneries on one side and the latterite wall corner on the back, the space impressed me for a suitable mini open air auditorium technically as well as artistically. I decided to construct an environmental friendly permanent performance space there.

Financial constrain was the major hindrance for this artistic creation. There was absolutely no money to build an infrastructure in the University system. Our head Prof. Anant Krishnan showed his inability for any financial help but assured to help us later. But there is a saying goes, “Where there is a will, there is a way”. One of my students Amit Roshan contributed some money for the cement and sands. I purchased stones and the construction work started. Prof. Ananth Krishnan perhaps observed the good will of our students for this creative work and agreed to spend some money from our production budget. Initially there was no proper lay out plan except a vague idea of a circular space. Gradually during the process of construction ideas were kept on adding and finally it was ready somehow for the shows, our “VRITTAYANAM”; The circular performance space.

Sitting on a chair in the audience gallery yesterday I was watching our inaugural show “Rustam O’Sohrab” in my dream space “Vrittayanam”. Tears rolled down in my eyes with the first entry of the actors. I was recalling the days when we were desperately longing for a performance space month ago. Now my students will learn the fundamentals of acting and design. They can prepare their scene works here. It will be their personal working space. No University has such an actor’s friendly performance space that we have here in our department at Hyderabad University. We can do miracles. But we are on the mid way. We require funds to retain the stage and the gallery. I don’t know from where we get it! But my inner voice always responds from my within, “The dreams are always fulfilled”.

This is a purely my personal experience which I need to share with everybody.

I am thankful to all my faculty, my Head Prof. Ananth Krishnan and above all the Theatre art students and specially Kanheya Lal Kethwas whose physical contribution and labour made it possible.

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Dr. Satyabrata Rout/29^th October, 2010/Hyderabad University.

2010-10-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

You don’t need a space to tell the story;

Third Theatre from academics to practice.

Dr. Satyabrata Rout

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I read a story somewhere. “Four intellectual scholars were going near by a river while they saw a man drowning. He was screaming for help. These four intellectuals heard the scream and ran towards the river bank. They tried to find a means to rescue the helpless man. They started discussions and plundered the books to find out a mean to rescue this helpless man. In this way they engaged in debates. The drowning man was continuously crying for help. A farmer who was grazing his cows in the nearby field heard the screem and immediately jumped in to the river and dragged that drowning man to the bank. When these four scholars came out with a solution the man had already gone home”. What I mean to say through the story is that our knowledge should be practice oriented. We must apply our academics with our experiences to find out a solution to the problem.

While working with Badal Sircar 30 years ago, I found him more academic so as his concept of “Third Theatre”. Perhaps that happened because of my limited and confined knowledge of theatre during that period. By that time Badal Sircar had already written a number of plays and was enjoying the merit of an intellectual modern Indian playwright. His most popular and path breaking play “Evam Indrajit” had already acclaimed as one of the most important Indian plays and was bestowed with Sahitya Akademi award. Many important Indian directors had already experimented with this play including B.V Karanth and Badal Sircar himself. By then he had already came up with his new intellectual concept “The Third Theatre”. But I did not quite agree with his working method.

He was invited to work with us when I was a student of 2^nd year NSD. He had just finished writing “Basi Khabor” (Old news) and wanted to present it with us. Before approaching to the play we had to undergo a rigorous process through a workshop based on his theory. It seemed very difficult for all of my batch mates to digest a new concept much different than the kind of drama we had practiced previously. Some of my class mates did not attend the workshop by giving different reasons. But I know why they have quitted. It was the time of exploration to a new kind of theatre. Badal da explained us the meaning of Third Theatre.

“There are two types of theatre exist in India. 1. The conventional theatre (Practiced in Maharastra, West Bengle, Orissa and other parts of India). 2. Folk and traditional theatre (India is enriched with this cultural heritage). Third theatre is a kind of theatre which did not reject the 1^st and 2^nd one completely, rather barrowed the spirit of the high- emotions from the conventional drama and improvisational ability from the folk and traditional theatre. It adapts the flexibility of peoples’ theatre and the audience participation. With the amalgamation of these two kinds of Indian theatre, the Third Theatre is born”.

His actors never require a conventional space, a typical scenic design and lights to present the shows. They can perform any where, even in the audience gallery. They can directly establish communication with the audiences and talk to them. Badal da rejected all the technicalities including spot lights, properties; make up and a specific stage to present his play Basi Khabar with us. As I recall; we performed the play in the passage in between the audiences inside the circulation unit at NSD; now known as studio no-1. The auditorium light went on glowing throughout the show, to mark the presence of the audience and to establish their active participations. Towards the end the actors talked directly to the audiences with tears in their eyes; “Jara sochie…. (Just think). The play was followed up with a discussion among actors, Badal Sircar and the audiences.

It was a wonderful experience for all of us. But I couldn’t understand the relevancy of this kind of theatre at that particular time period. For me, it was over dramatic. It might enhance my academic knowledge but in no way it will help in my practice. It was just an Indian version of Grotowski’s “The poor theatre” and nothing more than that. For me theatre was something different. Idealistic thoughts, beautiful designs, spot lights, characters with suitable costumes and make up completes a drama. Why to involve the audiences in our personal affairs? Let them watch a play and appreciate. It would become cruelty to make the audience involve actively in the production. The audience should be a passive observer but should not be an active member in a presentation. These were the reasons of my resentment for Badal Sircar and his working method at that particular juncture of time.

Slowly and steadily with continuous practice in the medium, I have to undergo with many kinds of performance styles. I faced different types of problems and tried to find immediate solutions to them. Sometimes I succeeded and many times failed. Working with different directors, artistes, theatre groups in different situations I got answers to many unsolved questions which troubled me during my student career. Still then I couldn’t agree with Badal sircar’s kind of theatre and perhaps that was the reason why I didn’t attempt his plays till I did “Evam Indrajit” recently.

I have my own reasons of doing “Evam Indrajit” after so many years of its creation. First of all I wanted a change for myself. I wanted to come out of my own spell; my own method which can found its root in Karanth, Habib and Ratan Thiyam’s working process. If somebody has ever seen any of my productions can very well understand the style I adapted in my presentations. Be it Passa, Nagamandal, Baji, Orubhangam, Rashomon or Karna Katha; the visual imageries and the exploration of spatial compositions provide maximum aesthetic experiences to the viewers in my plays which remain the most important dominating factors in my productions. The physical idioms of the actors along with the visual expressions of the scenography (Set, Mask, Props, Costume, etc.) every time become the driving forces of my productions. The reason is obvious. My working knowledge on the Mayurbhanj Chhau dance and my sensibility towards visual designs take the leading part in my creation which is purely Oriental and Indian from its foundation. In addition to it by assisting B.V Karanth for a longer span of time (more than 20 years) I imbibed an artitude towards music and rhythm which also become an integral part of my productions. That may be the cause of my initial resentment towards the “Third Theatre”.

That does not mean that I am too much stubborn and rigid to appreciate other forms. Many times my illusion has broken in many ways during my journey in to theatre. I have seen the horrified death of Safdar Hasmi in the midst of a street play in a suburban locality at Sahibabad near Delhi. That very moment I questioned myself, “Is theatre so powerful that it can lead to mass violence?” It was an extreme example of “Theatre of impact”. For the first time Badal da seemed relevant to me. After the Bhopal gas disaster, Ms. Tripurari Sharma wrote a play “Banj Ghati” (The barren Island) which was produced by Rangmandal, Bharat Bhawan, Bhopal, with all amenities and facilities. But unfortunately it was rejected by the native audiences where as we got appreciation in other parts of India. It disturbed me mentally. “Why it got rejection in Bhopal while we have tried our best to make the play as authentic as it could be nearer to the human tragedy? We have done thorough research and gathered references from the localities that were highly affected by the Union Carbide Gas. Our presentations were also genuine.”… I got the answer from my within… “No art is bigger than human experiences. It falls shorter against our own life”. That was the reason why the people of Bhopal rejected our production where as it was accepted in other cities. The people of Bhopal have experienced the tragedy physically and mentally. They don’t want to watch a play born out of their tragedy in which they just became the passive audiences. That was the day when Badal Sircar again became closure to me through his words “the audience participation”. In the year 1996 I conducted a theatre workshop with the actors of Voice of Maldives at Male Island. To my utter astonishment 75 percent of the participants presented the same story, “Three days captivation under the Srilankan Army”, in an improvisation given to them. The reason was very clear. The native people of Maldives have undergone a mass tragedy in the recent years that was still haunting their psyche which reflects in every human action, even in a small improvisation. Working with Barry John in the TIE (Theatre in Education) company of National School of Drama during early 90s I was exposed to school children in different levels. From posh Delhi Modern School to the Dipalaya society and Government schools at Govindpuri in west Delhi slums, I had the opportunity to interact with students of different socio-economical backgrounds with varied mental and psychological ability. I have got the privilege to work with mentally retired and physically challenged children. Ultimately what I found was that, “Theatre is not only a mere means of telling a story to a group of people rather it carries a huge load of responsibility towards the social reformation, human values and identity. It could be the best way to educate people and above all it can be used as a medium to recognize one’s own self. Now I realized why Badal Sircar was so much concerned for the true human values which he had tried with us 30 years ago. I felt guilty for not understanding this great personality whose heart was thrubbing for the people and society long ago.

India has experienced a drastic change in the human values during the 1^st decade of 21^st Century. Our life style has changed. Political, social and economical factors have revolutionized radically. Globalization is responsible for all shot of transforms. The age old traditional Indian value has paved the way to enter into the modern Mall-culture. Living in present became the modern day’s philosophy. The thoughts of Gandhi, Nehru and Patel left behind as yester year’s story. In this cutting age of time we all are undergoing the changes which start from our home to the public sectors. Unlike the past, Indian youth is not struggling for a secured job in government sectors. There are many opportunities lying before him. The focus of life has shifted leaving no room for stability and self realization. In a way our 21^st century generation is misguided and delusioned by the hex of Globalization. Badal Sarcar’s “Evam Indrajit” targeted to a bunch of Indian youths and their tryit with destiny. Our cutting age Indrajit surrendered all his ideologies and thoughts in front of the globalization. He let himself flow with the flow of the time and compromised with the situation. He left for America to study Software engineering and came back to India to work in a Multinational Company at Hyderabad like a machine, working with machines.

While working with my students in different situations, observing my children at home, seeing young and aspirant youths working in MNCs and other private sectors, I felt the necessity to react against a defocused modern society which gave me the impulse to undertake “Indrajit”as my mission project. The script required lots of modifications and amendments to bring out the contemporary value. Evam Indrajit was written in late 60s and it was the demand of time for that period which forced Badal Sircar to script this play. But now the situation is different. We have many opportunities and avenues lying in front of us. But what are the qualities and moral standards of these opportunities? As I said earlier diversification and degeneration of human value crept into our nerves. Our society is becoming defocused. We don’t have time for ourselves what to talk of others? A new conceptual script was created out of Badal Sircar’s play keeping the demand of the contemporary time.

The production was prepared for an arena kind of theatre with audiences sitting on three sides to watch the play. I tried to bring the third theatre elements in to the production but couldn’t fully concur with Badal Sircar’s philosophy in the beginning days of our rehearsals. We did not want to involve our audiences in an active participation as is the prime goal of Third Theatre. But slowly we came under the spell of Badal Sircar. Our actors made the audiences involve in the presentation which opened new horizon for interpretations. The performance area was slowly extended into the auditorium leaving behind the conventional space, primarily used by the actors. Each performances left behind one memorable event which is added to our life’s experiences. The theoretical concept led by Badal da on his Third Theatre which was immaterial for me for the last 30 years became the spinal cord of the production. By practicing on the floor I tried to understand the meaning of his concept.

Something happened to us in our recent show at Lamakaan open air theatre that enforced us to adapt a true kind of Third Theatre and made us aware of the fact that Theatre always remain in practice and not in academic activities like the story of those four scholars I naratted in the beginning. Presence of mind, dealing with the situations, improvisational ability would help you to deal with the conditions but not the bookish knowledge of academics.

We had the show of “Evam Indrajit” at Lamakaan theatre which is not a conventional space rather an improvised open air suitable for certain kinds of experimental works. With an audience capacity of 150 this place provides a lovely environment for small kind intimate theatre. On 26^th September, 2010 we were expecting a good number of audiences for our show because of Sunday. The sky was clear and there was no trash of rain. But around 6 pm the weather changed and clouds clotted in the sky with thunders and lighting. We got disheartened. By the time we start the show the weather situation became worse. We opened the show with 60 odd numbers of audiences. Just after 10 minutes of the show begun, rain started pouring in and lights went out. Since Lamakaan has no generator facilities we couldn’t pull up with the show further. I requested the audiences to wait for few minutes till the electricity comes. But it was raining and the audiences had already started moving here and there… some of my theatre colleagues advised me to stop the show and request the audiences to leave. Some also suggested me to wait for few more minutes. But it was getting late and there was little chance of electricity. Ultimately we decided to stop the show. I approached the audiences to leave and take back their ticket money. They were almost wet and leaning against the walls to get rid of the rain. Perhaps they did not want to leave without seeing this play. Someone from the audience gallery proposed me, “Why don’t we run the show up stair in the cafeteria”? But our actors became hesitant to present the performance there. It was a small hall filled with chairs and tables. Even if we clear ever thing and arrange it for the show it can at best accommodate 30 people properly. Moreover our well designed play would be spoiled because of the lack of suitable space. Before I could take any decision I found the audiences getting them adjusted into that small confined hall leaving no other option for us but to perform. Within seconds we mentally prepared to present the rest of the play in that cafeteria in the up stair. I instructed my actors to forget the set design, definite entry and exit points etc. while playing. The only thing that could save us from this disaster is the total conviction of the characters we were portraying. At the same time we have to create an emotional bond with the audiences by sharing their positive energies. I advised to keep control over our voices since it was a small, close chamber and not the open air.

There was a challenge lying in front of us. Presence of mind and the ability of improvisation what we have learn from our life will help us to overcome the situation. When we went up stair it was jam packed with people hardly leaving any space for us to perform. Interestingly some of the audiences were holding candles in their hands ready to watch the show. We requested them to give us a little space so that we can arrange our things to perform. Believe me we share a space with the public which was not even enough for a solo presentation. We put candles here and there just to have some lights and continued with our play. We improvised and reshaped the production during the presentation. There were moments where it could become difficult to distinguish the audiences from the actors. There were complete participations and intimacy among both the teams (the audiences and actors), much needed for this kind of play “ Evam Indrajit” as conceptualized by Badal Sircar in his “Third Theate”. The play ended with a different note than usual. It was a new test which we shared that day with the audiences. One of the audiences passed a jock at the end of the play, “You don’t need even a space to tell the story!”

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Dr.Satyabrata Rout/Dept. of Theatre Arts/SN School/University of Hyderabad/India

2010-09-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

He ignited fire in me

(In the memory of Prasanna Mohanty)

Satyabrata Rout

It was the year 1975 when I joined as a under graduate student at Ravenshaw College, the most prestigious academic institutions of the then Orissa, now a University. I had to come to Cuttack to stay in the college hostel from my ancestral village. The college had opened many other avenues for its students. The college cultural society was very popular at that time. There were so many activities going on parallel to study. Literature club, sports club, gym, dance n’ music club and dramatic society were established to express and ignite the young minds. But unfortunately these organizations were dominated by the arts and commerce students. The science students’ seldom joined in these clubs. Being a science student I got strict instructions from my teachers and parent not to take active participation in those cultural activities as it may disturb my study. But I had a different mind. I had a keen interest in literature and art. So I joined the dramatic society without the knowledge of my guardians. Every evening some of the likeminded students gathered together and use to discuss about Oriya theatre, cinema and other cultural activities that were going on around the city. In this way I got involved with cultural activities and came to know about contemporary Oriya theatre. That year our senior students presented Arthur Millar’s “All my Sons”. I did not do any role but they gave me the job of a prompter. Slowly I was exposed to a wider world of Theatre. I came to know about the playwrights and plays. I learnt the production process. I interacted with spot lights, wings, flats and I was thrilled. The play was directed by one of the leading Oriya theatre and cinema actor Hemanta Das (He expired in April this year). A memorable Oriya film “Sesa Shrabana” (The last monsoon) was released by then and got popularity among the Oriya people. Prasant Nanda and Maheswata Ray became a house hold name because of this film. Hemant Das was doing a major role in that film and got lot of appreciations. So working with a man of that stature was an opportunity for me. Hemanta babu got impressed with my work and I came close to him. One day he brought me a proposal to attend a theatre workshop organized by Bharatiya Natya Sangha at Kalasri Theatre auditorium. He insisted on theatre training to become a good actor and for that the workshop is essential. I also did not want to miss the opportunity. I have already made up my mind to become an actor by then.

I collected the address and reached Kalasri Theatre. It was late afternoon. There were few young people gathered around. I did not know any one of them so I sat quietly inside the hall. That was the first day of the workshop. I heard from someone talking about acting and performances. They were discussing about the play they saw last evening. They were talking about the director of the workshop who has come from Delhi. He will select actors for his theatre group which he has established recently at Tulsi Pur, a kaswa in Cuttack. I have no idea about any theatre groups till then. Though I had the experience of doing drama in my village club during the summer vacations where I used to gather my village friends and directed a couple of plays, I had no experiences of modern and contemporary theatre and the groups. So I got exited to become a member of a theatre group. At 7.30 pm dot in time, a dark complexioned man entered into the hall. He was short height but looked very smart with a red tie hanging from the neck. He was well dressed up. At the very entrance he passed an impression of slenderness and dominance. Everybody stood up from their place and all the gossips stopped. I couldn’t stop my curiosity and whispered in some body’s ear to know about him. A young man stood nearby me spoke in a low voice, “He is Prasanna Mohanty; the director”. After brief introduction he did some theatre games with us. I liked the way he made us relaxed. He worked with us for 7 days. Every evening he started the workshop rights at 7.30 not even a minute late. In the beginning there were 15 students but after 2-3 days the number was reduced to 6, perhaps because of the strong discipline and hard work he incorporated. Prasanna bhai taught us the importance of time in theatre and in life as well. “The time that passed will never return. If you come late you will loose. More over Theatre is a group activity. Everybody has to depend on each other as one can’t do drama alone. If one person does not come in time rest of the team suffers.”

Time passed by. Every day I was waiting eagerly for the evening to come. This was my first exposure to contemporary world of theatre. I learnt many creative games, exercises and improvisations during those days. I also made many friends. To our utter disappointment the workshop was culminated after seven days. As we all finished the class, Prasanna Bhai called and told me to come to his residence at Tulsi pur. I was waiting for that. The next evening I reached his residence in the stipulated time. I found many young new faces gathered along with some workshop students and Prasanna bhai was addressing about his new theatre group, “The Theatre Movement”. He introduced me to others. There I found one young man little elder than me with whom I made friendship. He was Hara Pattanaik, who adapted to Oriya cinema in later years and became a house hold name. We all became the members of the group and marched forward for a committed theatre movement. Our first venture was “Jwala”, an Oriya play written by Dr. Basant Das. Hara Pattanayak did the lead role. I just played a minor character in that play. I had a liking towards the offstage activities so I involved myself in lighting and stage design under the guidance of Prasanna Bhai. By observing my keen interest in theatre he advised me to join National School of Drama, New Delhi from where he had already studied theatre. I came to know about this famous Institution from him only. He told us many stories about Ibrahim Alkazi and his dictatorship in theatre. I learnt about the legendary productions of Andhayug and Tughlaq at Purana Qila and Firoz Saha Khotla in Delhi. They were like fairy tells to me. In my imagination I started mapping a new horizon of theatre completely different from my village drama. It was a myth to me during those days.

Slowly I was exposed to many qualities of Prasanna Mohanty. He was a painter and a trained scenic designer. He joined Oriya Doordarsan and posted at Tulsi Pur very recently. I saw many of his design works and sketches of productions during his NSD time which inspires me to adapt design as a career. I learnt sketching from him. He was a big brother to me during that phase of time. We did number of plays during that period in our Theatre Movement group. While involved with Prasanna Bhai and his theatre group I could not give much time to my study. My father’s dream to make me a doctor was shattering. I could not do well in the final year examination. Fortunately my honours was retained and I got a seat in a medical institution at Bhubaneswar. I had to leave Cuttack but I couldn’t cut off myself from Prasanna Mohanty. We met each other occasionally till I joined NSD in 1980.

He was my inspiration. He ignited the fire in me to adapt a wider world of theatre. He is no more with us now. He left for the heavenly abode on 12^th September, 2010. I did not know about his death until I got a phone call from Surya Mohanty from Bhubaneswar. I couldn’t believe it at that moment. I couldn’t even accept his death. But it is true. His health was reducing like anything during the recent years because of his drinking habit.

……………….May his soul rest in peace.

__________________________________________________________________ Dr.Satyabrata Rout/Associate Professor, Dept. of Theatre Arts, University of Hyderabad

2010-09-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

He; who opened my eyes.

Moment-1

Dr. Satyabrata Rout

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He opens our eyes; removes all the darkness from within us and helps to acquire the light of knowledge. He inspires us to follow the right path in life. He makes us special and fills us with positive energy. He is always connected with his students and all his deeds are for the betterment of his disciples in long run. From the outer view he may be harsh and rude but his heart must be pulsating for his students in every moment. He is the most selfless man who loves to give and share his experiences and teaches us life. He is my GURU.

I am going to narrate some of my experiences with my beloved teacher who shaped my thoughts, ideas, personality and above all my perception towards this wonderful world. Yes I am talking of the legendary Guru Sri B.V Karanth and intend to share my experiences with all.

Something happens in somebody’s life that twists his path and makes him someone he never thought of. I am talking of myself. I had never dreamt to be an artist. Though passion for art was always there from childhood, I never ventured to adapt it as my profession. I was studying medicine and wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to lead a life that most of the common individual cherished for. But something happened to me in my 3^rd year of medicine that changed my life and made me focused to a different perspective. It happened because of Sri B.V Karanth.

First time I met him in 1979. He was giving a talk on Indian theatre at Bhubaneswar. I didn’t know him before but I can’t forget that moment when I saw a man with kurta and black beard talking in English mixed Hindi to a huge gathering of Oriya audience. The language I couldn’t follow but his expressions and aura was so powerful that dragged me under his spell. At that moment I decided to learn theatre from him. I expressed my desire to study at National School of Drama to him. (Karanth was the director of NSD during that time). But to my utter astonishment he started shouting at me and refused to talk. I remembered I was shivering and trembling like a leaf by his harsh loud words. I came back to my hostel and spent a sleepless night, every moment recalling his wide beard face. His words disheartened and upset me from my within; “I will not select you in NSD. You are not born for that. Continue your study and be a doctor”.

At that very moment I promised to join in National School of Drama in the ensuing academic year and told my friends that, “nobody can stop me joining there nor even B.V Karanth”. I prepared myself thoroughly for theatre. I read books related to plays and literature. I learnt Hindi and read Mohan Rakesh’s “”Ashad ka Ek din and “Adhe Adhure”. I applied for NSD in 1980 and called for an interview in Delhi. I met Karanth there. At my first appearance he shouted at me, “Oh! Oriya boy! Why did you come? I am not going to take you.” Again I was discouraged by his ruthless words. I couldn’t do well in the interview. I came back Bhubaneswar with broken heart. The next couple of days went very badly. I got irritated towards friends. I did not talk to anybody properly. I got very angry with Karanth. For me he was a villain. I was so frustrated that I thought to discontinue my medical study and go back home. Ultimately I fell ill and was hospitalized. I blamed Karanth for all my sufferings and cursed that moment when I met him first time in Bhubaneswar. I was almost at the point of breaking down.

I got cured but my disappointment was increasing day by day. Almost a month passed by. One day the post man handed over a registered letter to me. I opened it and could not believe my eyes. I was selected for NSD with condition that I have to submit a no objection certificate from my parent.

And the rest is history……

Contd………………………………….

2010-09-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

----------Remembering my Guru on his 8th death anniversary

1st September, 2010.

Karanth ; A rendering yogi (Baba)

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I have seen a rendering yogi in him who is always in search of something, something new, something modern and at the same time original, indigenous, pure and connected with the roots at every time and in every moment. He remained an experimentalist and blessed by the supreme to create new all the time of his creations. Music was his weapon to achieve the truth. With the help of music he was always hooked up with the waves of cosmos. He has never associated with any organizations, repertories or groups for long. He had the tendency to leave and renounce at the pick of its maturity. As he always used to say, “I can’t stick to a particular kind of life for a longer period. I get bored after certain time. My throat choked and I long for fresh air. I can’t create any thing if I wouldn’t travel. I want to see the world, people, life, landscapes, mountains, temples, Mosques, gurudwara, Church, tribes, rituals and everything that a man can see in his whole life. I want to do mistakes and rectify it by my own experiences. I want to learn anything and everything that I could do”. (Once I found a book on “The art of cooking” in his book self). So he became a traveler throughout his life. He didn’t follow any particular style or form. Where ever he went he adapted the native forms and converted that into his own creations. That became the style of Karanth (Karanth effect). He has never followed the grammar rather created his own. His eyes, ears, heart, mind and soul was transformed into a big truth of Theatre; the holy theatre. Theatre became a celebration for him which was reflected every time in his productions; the celebration of life; Utsav dharmi. He had a tendency to forget. He forgot everything very easily. Even some times he asked for my name and felt very much embarrassed for that deed. It became a part of his personality. But it is obvious for Karanth Ji. For him, “If I will not forget, how can I create?” He never repeated anything in his life. There was no look back even. Many times he forgot his own compositions which he had created few hours ago and made something new. We had to make him remember the original one. In this way he had created many compositions for a piece of music or a scene. Even at times he himself rejected his own creation by saying it was not done by him. This nomadic yogi has achieved and acquired that others couldn’t. A sense of satisfaction and dissatisfaction were found always in his gestures at the same time and same moment; satisfaction for his achievements and restlessness for new creation. He gave up everything so he was pulled off with many things.

Baba…………!!!!!!!!!!!You have opened my eyes and ears towards a wonderful world of creation and ignited all the senses to receive. I salute you on the occasion of your death anniversary and the forth coming Guru divas (Teacher’s day).

Bless us all.
Yours loving
Satya

2010-08-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

Me and my self; A Spiritual Journey

Dr.Satyabrata Rout (India)

Chapter-6

Continued……

………………….The night passed by with open eyes. At about 5 PM the students started waking up and prepared themselves for the morning class. (The students were staying in the same hotel). They started their power walk towards la Maloca. Cantara came to picked me up from the hotel as it became very difficult for me to climb up the mountains. After she opened the circle with a welcome note to the Monkey according to the Maya calendar, I took over the session. Last evening before the class was finished I wrote them the Guru Vandana in Sanskrit and told to remember or at least read it thoroughly so that they can repeat after me. So to start with we recited the Sloka as a mark of offering to our Guru.

“Om…Om…Om… Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Gurudeva Maheshwar, Guru sakshat Param brahmam, Tashmai Sri Gurabe Namah… Om…Om…Om”

I have explained them the importance of Guru in the life. The parents give birth; the guru opens the eyes to the world. He who removes all the darkness within and shows the path of light is called Guru. That is why in India we regarded Guru as our second father and performed all the duties for him as we do to our own father. A student asked me what the difference between Teacher and Guru is. To answer to his question I said, “Teacher is not the exact translation of Guru in English. We can’t translate a culture in to other languages, we can adapt it. Teacher is an adapted word of Guru. A teacher teaches but a Guru inspires. A teacher teaches about the subject but a Guru teaches about the life. A student while learning from the Guru adapts many things from him. He carries away the tradition from the Guru and becomes an extension of his master. In India we touch the feet of our Gurus every day before the class starts. It is scientific. By touching the feet we accept and surrender ourselves under him to accept his learning. More over the positive energy of the Guru passes from him to his student which is very much essential to start the work. Guru gives ashirwad (blessings) to his students and without the blessings of the Guru no knowledge could be achieved. That is why we placed him in the position of God”.

After the Guru Vandana, we start the voice exercise classes. We did humming exercises with different body gestures. We worked on resonators and tried to find our suitable resonator in different moods and situations viz. love, fear, anger etc. Then we meditate for some time with a Buddhist chanting. The forenoon session was dedicated to mother earth. We did many exercises related to earth and tried to gain energy from the soil. I divided the class in to four groups and told them to improvise the topic keeping strong relationship with nature, environment and earth. The topics should be derived from myth of your land or even they can create myth. After an hour and half they showed me the work which after group discussions and rectification is decided to be presented as a piece of demonstration on the final day of my class. I also suggest them to do a piece from Guayasamin and handed over the book to them which I have kept with me.

Post lunch session was devoted to the discussion and discourse. I have brought with me many recorded versions of Indian classical and folk dances which I played for them. Afterwards I told them about Indian Classical Drama and the origin of Natya Shastra. The students took more interest on the Indian mudras and movements. This way the day’s work was over.

For the next couple of days I worked with them on the oriental gestures of the body realization and its reaction on different emotions. I explained them how to achieve the Rasa. We did many exercises on voice culture. Once the whole night we spent on fire exercises. One day was devoted for water and the body realization. On one Saturday morning we went to the nearby weekly market at Villa de Leyva for observation. On the foothills of this colonial town there were temporary shades for the market which opens once in a week. It was a chilled morning with showers of rain. I rapped myself with worm cloths and started for the market along with the students. We spent nearly half a day there till lunch hour. The market was full of with colours. People with different gestures, postures and facial expressions were busy in the market. We had our lunch at outside that day and I remember Pilar one of the participant of the workshop invited me for a typical Colombian food in a restaurant in the market plaza. After our return from the market the students prepared an improvisation based on the observation of people in the market place.

The time passed like a flying bird. My time slut for the classes came to an end. The students were so much involved in the process that they continued the practices after the dinner till late night every day. Perhaps we all were in search of something unique and special. We are learning about life during these days. We were connecting us with our own self. On 18^th July the students present one demonstration show based on the knowledge they acquired during these days. It was inspired by the oriental view I have injected them. The work of Guayasamin which was a part of the demonstration was a unique experience for me.

The next two days we went on a study tour to Rakira Mountains. It happened to be a spiritual journey for me. We took a bus from Villa de Leyva to Rakira, a town 40kilometers away from Villa de Leyva and is known for local handicrafts. While travelling through a bus on the hilly roads of Colombia I interacted with the typical Colombian mountain ranges for the first time. Though I had been her for so many days, I was busy in my work and could not find time to see nature perfectly. Here through the window of the bus I saw the wavy sky lines formed by high rising mountains around the horizon. There were rows of Cyprus trees rising high on the both sides of the road. It reminded me the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, a 19^th century Scottish painter who had an obsession to paint the country side landscapes with full of Cyprus trees. This particular highway had a strong resemblance with the European landscapes. Out of curiosity I asked someone sitting beside me to know more about this landscape. To my astonishment I came to know that these Cyprus trees were not the native flora and fauna of Latin America. They were brought by the Spanish from Europe. These vegetations adapted America as their home land and grew copiously throughout the mountains in the country over the years. One very important thing was revealed during our discussions regarding these mountains. Millions of years ago these landscape of Boyaca was under the sea. During the course of time the level of water went down and the mountain range was revealed. That is why large numbers of fossils of the ocean animals were available in the mountains. I came to know that there is a big fossil museum established by the government in this locality near Villa de Leyva. A life size fossil of a Cronosaurs is kept there for public viewing. I took interest in it and planned to see the museum one day during my stay here………………………..

Continued…………………………………..

Satyabrata Rout/University of Hyderabad/ India.

2010-08-30T09:13:00.003-07:00

Me and my self; A Spiritual Journey

Dr.Satyabrata Rout (India)

Chapter-5

Continued from chapter-4

…………………..Post lunch session was devoted to theories and discussions. I opened the session with the basic understanding of Indian culture, religion and its geographical conditions. I started my discourse with the invasion of Aryans to this land and called it‘The Aryavarta’ (land of Aryas) and how the native pre vedic culture of the land was mixed with the new civilization and gave birth to a religion named as “Sanatana Dharma” (it was recognized as Hindu Dharma in the later stage). In my conversation I told them that,

“India which we know is the native lands of the Hindus, not in the sense of religion but in the sense of geographical structures. The people who were living on the eastern side of the mountain range of Hindu-Kush were called themselves the Hindus.It became their mother land. The social and cultural life of those people gave birth to two unique civilizations much before the Greek or Mesopotamia; The Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa civilization which were flourished more than 15,000 years ago. These ancient people believed on 5 elements of nature (Earth, air, fire, water and ether) and started praying and invoking these elements. That becomes the foundation of Hindu religion. Rituals and festivals were performed to establish a harmonious balance between the earthly and the spiritual life. Sanskrit became the language of culture among the people of this region. Vedas were written in Sanskrit language. It became the first inscription of the Hindu literature. It decided the Dharma of the people and the deeds to achieve that dharma. Slowly with the advent of time myths and stories were added into the life style and became popular among the society. It gave rise to a strong tradition which is popularly known as “Vachana Parampara” (narrative tradition). By this time two famous mythological books became popular in the Indian society; “The Ramayana” and “The Mahabharata”. Ramayana was written on the back drop of Indian social systems. It must be written during the time when the cultural crossing of Aryans with the native Dravidians was happened. There was a clear indication of the co-existence of Aryans and Dravidians in Ramayana as well as in the Mahabharata. The monkeys and other animals like bear and Eagles were the mythical representations of the native Indians who were living in the forests or caves near by the seas. Even some of these characters were dwelling in the islands inside the Indian Ocean like Bali and Java. Bali, the monkey king was also a character in Ramayana. These monkeys and bears including the mighty Hanumana, Angada, Bali, Sugriva and Jambavana helped Rama, the great Aryan king of Ayodhya to fight with Ravana, the king of Lanka (Sri Lanka) to rescue Queen Sita the wife of Rama who has been kidnapped by Ravana from the Jungle of Panchabati. The presence of Dravidians and their co-operation with the Aryans can be trashed in the Mahabharata Also. By the time of Mahabharata the social system of Hindu religion was already set up. The cast system which is the back bone of Hindu religion divided the society in to four distinct segments; Brahmana, Kshtriya, Vishya and Sudra. In the beginning the cast system was not a hierarchy but a duty to maintain the social order. This became the tradition of Indian life and the tradition is continuing till today that the son of a Brahmin will be a Brahmin and the son of a Sudra will be a Sudra and their professions and duties towards the society was prescribed clearly in Vedas. That is the reason a Hindu religion can’t be adopted rather it is a gift by birth.

The Ramayana and Mahabharata became the life line of Indian society. These two epics of India which is full of with stories, events and characters, told us how to lead an ideal life and practice morality in order to get liberation from this earthly world. They depict us how truth and honesty triumphs over injustice and dishonesty. The stories from these two great epics were narrated by the Brahmins who worked as mediators between the microcosm and the microcosm. They are allowed to speak, read and write in pure Sanskrit where as others are debarred from learning and spoke in different languages other than Sanskrit. There are evidences in the Mahabharata where a Sudra (Ekalavya) wants to learn archery from Guru Dronacharya (a Brahmin teacher who taught the knowledge of war to the Pandavas and the Kauravas) who rejected him to be his student because of his cast and punished him so that he can never pick up a bow and arrow in his life time. As the story goes; Ekalavya didn’t leave the idea of learning from him and started listen to the teacher from a distance and practice archery in the jungle in front of an idol of Drona whom he had made out of clay. He became a master of archery in the due course of time. When Drona came to know about his fame, he wanted to take a test from Ekalavya so as to prove his knowledge and proficiency. Ekalavya became succeeded in the test and win. Drone asked him for his teacher. In answer Ekalavya said, “My Guru is standing in front of me from whom I have learnt archery”. Then he narrated his story of learning. Drona got furious by listening to this and asked for Dakshina (a price one has to pay to the teacher for the knowledge) i.e. the thumb of the right hand. The thumb was to be offered to the Guru as a price of his learning. Ekalavya cut his right thumb and offered to his guru whom he adores to. In this way he is debarred from knowledge forever. These kind of stories with full of morality and education were being narrated, sung and performed in the form of parables to maintain the order of the social system. Thousands of years of practicing the story narration gave birth to a presentational form “Vachana” or narrative oral tradition.

Indian myths and stories never indicate to a particular person, situation, character or subject. It never talks of history rather speak in symbols and metaphors. That is the reason Indian culture is based on philosophy rather than facts. The tradition of narrating the stories continued from generation to generation orally. Many new stories and events were added in to the main text. That is why many versions of these epics are available in India and are practiced till today in different forms and languages.

India had a tread relationship with many nearby countries viz. Ceylon, Bali, Indonesia, Malaysia, Java, Borneo, Maldives and to the far west countries of Rome and Greece. The culture also made its journey along with these traders and people. Some of the Indians also started leaving in those countries and made them their home. But they couldn’t forget their own culture. Perhaps that may be the reason why the performances of Indian myths are very much popular in those islands. The Ramaleela of Bali and Java is world famous. We have also borrowed many things from west. Like the use of curtains (yavanika) in theatre is a western practice. The Europeans taught us how to use the curtains during the changing of scenes in theatre. We leant scene paintings from the Italian painters and from the Bibiana family.

With the passing of time the Brahmins became very powerful because they had knowledge and wealth. Sanskrit being the official language was practiced by them only. Rest of the society became a kind of slaves in the hands of the Brahmins. They only discharged their duties and serve the Brahmins. The social system which was set by the elders was got misbalanced. People found fault in the infrastructure of the social system. The major fault was lying in the casticism at the same time they also found that the cast system in the Vedic Hindu philosophy is its back bone upon which the whole religion stands. If it would be changed the total religion would be destroyed. To protest against the social system some other sects were launched. Some reformations were made and new religions were established. Like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism etc. These religions became more popular among the oppressed and many numbers of Hindus joined in these sects. Out of all these religions Buddhism became more popular as it was easy to practice. The Sanskrit language was re modified in to Prakrita and Pali which were the mixture of Sanskrit and the other local dialects. Buddhism discarded the age old cast system of Hinduism. An equal social order was established. New testaments were written based on Vedas and other religious inscriptions. Buddhism didn’t rejected Hinduism completely, adapted many age old practices of the Hindus like prayers and offerings. Like Hinduism Buddhism also believed in the 5 elements of nature and preyed those elements to keep balance between nature and life. Buddhism taught us to give respect to self and to others. It helped culture and education to grow rapidly. So during its practice in India many numbers of stupas, viharas and monasteries were formed. Universities were formed to impart education and became the centre of knowledge. Out of many numbers of universities two became very famous, the Nalanda and the Taxila university. Scholars from all over the world were attracted towards these centers and joined. Scholars like Huensung and Fi-han from China became the students and learnt Buddhism and also Sanskrit language as well. Alexander, Salukis and the great philosopher Aristotle from west also attracted by the culture and education of India and came here. In this way a strong cultural bonding between the west and the east was established. Our literatures were translated in to other foreign languages and culture was adapted in other countries. But unfortunately many of our old and ancient inscriptions and literatures were stolen and taken away by these foreigners and invaders.

The progress of the religion, education and culture of India couldn’t be digested by the Brahmins. They started revolt against the Buddhism. They killed many Buddhists and burnt away their monasteries. Out of fear for life the Buddhists either left the countries and took shelter in other nearby countries or kept hide themselves in the mountains near Himalayas. Some of the Buddhist scholars even crossed the Himalayan range and ran away to far-east countries and took shelter there. It happened to be a blessing in disguise. Indian culture, tradition and religion became popular in those countries with the help of these Buddhists who took shelter in different eastern Asian countries. People from the other parts of the world understood the philosophy and meaning of Buddhism and adapted it as their prime religion. In this way Indian religion was spread in other countries. Japan, China, Korea, Sri lanka and Tibet were among the major countries where Buddhism got nourished and flourished. With the extension of the religion, Indian culture, art, literature and education became popular and were adapted by the people of those faraway lands. In this way India became the torch bearer of knowledge and Buddha is regarded as the Light of Asia”.

After completing my talk I look at my students. A line of satisfaction was there in their faces. They were exposing slowly and gradually to a new culture and tradition. They were trying to relate the culture of Occident with Orient. They were trying to find a linking thread between these two civilizations; India and America. Quite for some time there were pin drop silences in the Malokha. Then Sol a student got up .He wanted to say something to me. He was trying to draw a link between the Maya civilization and Indian philosophy. I told him to speak about Maya as I have very little knowledge about that civilization. He revealed me a very interesting link between Maya and Indian civilization. Thousands of years before a civilization was developed in Mexico in Central America, this is known as Maya civilization. The people of Maya also believed in the elements of nature and pray those elements for their well beings. He narrated me some sentences in Latin and translated it into English which means;

“Earth my body, Water my blood, Wind my breath and fire my spirit.”

I got astonished by listening to the verse. I couldn’t imagine that two different civilizations with pole apart can think in the similar way? It was something very new for me. I told him, “Yes it seems to be very similar as if both the civilizations have some spiritual connection. In India also we strongly believe and practice in the same way. We believe the human body consists of with the 5 elements. It is constructed by borrowing these elements from the nature. It remained as an obligation on us in our life time. So after the death we offer the dead body to the fire as a matter of pay back. The body goes back to the fire, the smoke goes to the ether where it can be converted into the clouds and mixed with water in the form of rain. Air goes to the air and dust goes back to the earth. In that way we complete our life cycle in this earthly world without debiting anything.

Then somebody asked me to know more about a Hindu’s way of living according to Vedas. I answered him;

“The life of a man according to Veda is divided into four major segments; the Valya-Shrama (Childhood), the Gurukulashrama (phases of education), Grahyasthashrama (Family life) and the Vanaprasthashrama (Old age). Every stage of life has its Karma or duty to discharge. The period of childhood which continued up to 7-10 years are meant to learn the discipline and tradition from the family and friends. This period of time works as the foundation for the whole life. Then the boy has to be sent to a Guru and stay there for a certain period of time up to his young age to take education and learn about life. The house of the Guru was an Ashrama where disciples from all social status and walks of life (except Sudras) were used to come and stay. This is the best part a student learnt to stay in groups, to study together and to share the life with others. This is the time when a student learns to strip out his human ego. The students had to work in the fields, grow crops and he had to look after the cattle and other animals of the ashrama and he has to obey the order of the Guru and Guru Patni (Wife of the teacher). After the completion of education, with the permission of the Guru, the student comes back home and started his family life. In this phase of time he has to discharge the duties towards society, towards parents, to wife and children to the gods and to himself. The discipline which he has learnt throughout his career is now applied in to practice. This becomes the most important part of his life which may continue for a longer period.

The last phase of life is called Vana prastha or renunciation. At the old age the man has to reject and donate everything he has collected and gathered during the whole life time which includes wealth, family and knowledge and left for the jungle to die alone or can stay alone in a designated place waiting for the death.

After his death as I told his last rites were performed by his community which completes his life cycle on this earth and the soul, which was liberated from the body, starts its journey in search of a new one. Again it will take birth and die during the course of time. The process of birth and death continues until the soul gets salvation and merge with the Supreme which is called Nirvana in Sanskrit language. Indians believe in rebirth and re incarnation. Those who take birth in the earthly world will die and again will take a birth to fulfill his karma until the purpose of the life will be served. Once the purpose of the life is achieved, the soul dissolves into the oblivion. The human life takes a circular journey always egger to meet the centre. (This circular motion of life influences our culture, art and religion. I will discuss it on the next day.)

Death in Indian religion is not treated as tragedy like the Egypt’s or Greeks. They wanted to keep the bodies for the final judgments. So they preserved it by the process of mummification. But for Indians, after the soul gets liberated, the body has of no use. So we return it back to the source out of which it was created. After the death of the person we perform his last rites and pray the supreme for a better new life for him. The last rituals continues for 10-13 days and during that period the relatives of the person wears white cloths, eat simple foods (vegetarian) to mention purity and pray to the God.

The session continued for a longer period. Many questions and inquiries were aroused to know more about Indian religion and philosophy, Indian yoga, tantra and mantra. How religion influences the tradition and culture? Etc… I kept these quarries for the next days. It was already dinner time so Cantara closed the session.

Coming back to the hotel and lying over the bed I was thinking of the last session. How much keen these students are to know about a different culture! They were taking notes and were ready to understand more and more about Indian spiritualism and philosophy. But in India we don’t care for it. We couldn’t understand the value of our culture and tradition. We got it so easily! It lost its value at our hands. Whereas here in another country, they don’t have any ethnic tradition of ancient history, spiritualism and philosophy, they are so egger to know and adopt it in to their practice! Some of my students here I found are the disciples of some Indian yogis like Yogi Satyananda or S.N Goyenka. Some of them are practicing yoga for many years like my voice of India Luisa. She has a cherished dream to go to Rishikesh to learn yoga from one Indian teacher. One student was learning Vipasana meditation. Later on I visited some Colombian families and in every house I came across with something related to India and its tradition; even a book on Indian Yoga or meditation, Spanish version of Gita and Mahabharata or even a photograph of a god or a Sadhu. Osho is so popular in this country that almost all his discourses and books have been translated into Spanish and many people have already read them. Here lies a country that is waiting eagerly to adopt and accept Indian philosophy and we the Indians have either forgotten or could not develop an understanding towards our own culture. We always looked towards West to become modern and advanced. I have never heard in India people talking about yoga, meditation and philosophy. We should really feel ashamed of it. We have no right to call ourselves Indian until and unless we know India and its age old rich tradition from the root. How unfortunate I am! Knowing my own country from the mouth of others! Sitting in the other part of the globe I am trying to understand my mother land!

The whole night I couldn’t sleep. Every moment a sense of guilt disturbs me. For the last 20 years I am giving education to my students. I am preparing a generation which will control the country politically, economically and culturally. Never ever in my life one of my students has asked me to know something more about our culture and tradition and I am sure these students don’t know the ABC of India. We are becoming materialistic day by day. We started evaluating everything in the context of money; even our own self. As it is rightly said, “The value of the country is judged through its culture”. If our future generations will not understand the value of our culture, I am sure we will lose our identity within a couple of years. The priceless property which has been handed over to us by our ancestors through traditions will be lost forever. It must be the prime matter of concern among the people of India as well as the government. We the teachers can take a step forward to retain our cultural heritage by giving moral education to our students…………….

Satyabrata Rout/Hyderabad University/ India

2010-08-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

La Maloca (The ceremonial house)

Me and my self; A Spiritual Journey

Dr.Satyabrata Rout (India)

Chapter-4

Continued from Chapter-3

La Maloca:

It reminds me our Nam Ghar of Assam or Akhada Ghar of Orissa or Bengle where we do a kind of rituals or practice something. It is like the village community centre where the elders meet. Malokha is an old muisca name given by the tribes. It was their prayer hall. They prayed and were connected with the cosmos inside the malokha keeping fire in the centre. This concept of Malokha was adapted here for the practice room. It was a round hall with 12 feet diameter made up stones. The roof was conical. There was an opening on the top of the roof which was opened to the sky. On the line of that opening on the ground, we can find a round pit having 2.5 feet diameter and 4 feet deep. Sometimes they fill the pit with water depending upon the requirements. Most of the Bio-Drama productions are presented here. At the time of presentation they cover the pit with wooden planks or use it creatively. During the prayer they lit up candles inside the pit. In this way this pit has a multiple use. One can find many conical glass windows on the walls of the Malokha to supply enough lights and air inside. Towards the north of the hall there was a huge fire place for warship. I found a very small door may be 4 feet height for entry and exit. This was the only door leads to outside. One thing I observed that anybody taking entry to the hall comes in back foots by bending down bowing through the door. I asked somebody to know the reason. He cleared my confusion. According to him, “The door opens to the east. In the eastern side of the Villa de Leyva there is a hill called the Sacred Mountain. Muisca people were living near by the hills. These ancient tribes used to pray the mountain. So when they enter inside the Malokha they entered facing the mountain and the Sun for good furtune. This is a kind of ritual everybody has to practice while go inside”.

This seemed interesting to me. Now days we are forgetting the rituals and prayers which was a regular practice among our ancestors. By doing this and offering prayer to the spirits they always achieved positive vibrations from the ether which kept their mind and body in balance. Indirectly it used to solve one big human problem which becomes the most problematic condition of the world now, i.e. stress and tension. It happens to be the root of all human trouble and disorder now. At least at Malokha they are mentioning the concept!

I came to know that malokha has been used in many ways in different productions. Sometimes they present plays inside while the audiences sit in a circle or in three sides like arena theatre. Occasionally they also use the roof of Malokha for the acting area when the audiences sit or stand and watch the play from a little distance. This multiple use of the space interests me much. As a designer Space is something that hunts me always. Every time my eyes are in search of some new and innovative space. While moving here and there during these days I have selected some spaces for my work and now I added Malokha in the list.

On 10^th July Wilson gave the demonstration. A few people from nearby areas were invited to watch the programme. The presentation was held inside the Malokha towards the afternoon hour. The main focus of the presentation was on the body dynamics of the actor. How a human body reacts and behaves in different situations and time was the subject. Though this kind of work is not new to me but it seemed to be interesting particularly the last two exercises. 1. The flow of water, 2. Breaking the sticks. They were new to me. Both the exercises were related to sound. In the water exercises an actress started pouring water from one container to the other not evenly but in an uneven manner. The group of actors started reacting to the sound of the water pouring. They presented the exercise through the body. With different sounds created at different times of water flow the actors behave accordingly. In the 2^nd exercise an actor brought a dry tree branch and started breaking the sticks from it which created sound; tuk…….tuduk….. All the actors by closing the eyes started reacting to the sound came out of the break; sometimes hard and sometimes soft. There was another exercise which hold my interest is the actor and space. Here in this game music was played and an actor fixed himself inside a very tight and closed chamber. He started moving his limbs inside the chamber which was really very small to be played. The actor moved inside that tight space and tried to use all his joints to keep his mobility. Since the exercises were related to human body, no voice was employed into that. After the demonstration all the actors sat on a circle inside the Maloka and narrated their experiences with Wilson during these days. What I found in the discussion that the students tried to discover the possibilities of the human body in the context of movement and the relationship of the body in a given space. One or two students tried to link the body with the universal space and time but to me it was nothing but a brain exercise. At the end Beatriz gave thanks to Wilson who was suppose to leave the next morning. Then she closed the circle with the word of the day. For me this word of the day was a new concept. I tried to ask her but kept quite at that moment.

Now it was my turn to lead and continue the workshop for another one week for which I was preparing myself for a long time after getting the invitation from Cantara 5 months ago. Doing a workshop was not a quandary situation for me. Most of my career is spent on traveling and conducting theatre workshops in different regions of India and sometimes in the nearby countries viz. Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh and Mauritius etc. I have also come once to Bogota, Colombia to carry out a workshop that led into a full-fledged production. Doing a workshop is always easier than teaching the students in institutions and Universities because those who come to attend a theatre workshop are either fresher or practitioners without any theoretical knowledge. So generally we teach them the basics of theatre, the ABC of drama which becomes enough for a workshop situation. Sometimes we directly jumped into a production and the students learn through practice. But here the situation was bit tricky. I came here to contribute to Bio-Drama, a new concept and idea that we in India don’t practice or we may have practiced in some other names. In the beginning I was confused. I searched in the net and other sources to know more about this terminology but unfortunately I couldn’t gather much informations. At the beginning I related this concept with Mayor Hold’s “Bio-mechanism” and prepared a number of exercises related to the topic to be carried out with the students here at Colombia. During those days I came across with a short biography of Beatriz Camargo in a book in which I found that this lady is working far away from the city in an environmental situation. Something clicked in my mind. “To practice Body mechanism, it is not essential to go to an open environment inside the mountains and jungles. It must have something related to nature, atmosphere, open sky, sun, moon, stars, air and cosmos”. Slowly my research process took a U turn towards my own culture and heritage. I found out our oriental, particularly Indian tradition is much closer to the ethereal vibrations than the western culture and tradition. In our Vedic Richas and Mantras we always found a strong bonding of pulsations with cosmos and ancestral waves. Indian dance, music and theatre constantly indicate towards liberation, salvation and the union of the soul with the supreme. Our ancient practices of rituals, festivals, yagyans and offerings prepare us to stay in balance with the harmony of nature and with its 5 primary elements (Pancha Tatwa); the earth, the fire, the water, the air and the ether. Our human body consists of these five elements as well as the other forms of nature irrespective of animate and inanimate. We should find a linking thread between these elements with our own soul in order to live harmoniously with the cosmos. “To get into the meaning of life through the medium of theatre could be the purpose and the sense of Bio-Drama”. After discovering the concept and the philosophy behind the project I decided to prepare a syllabus based on the theories and practice on Natya Shastra and other ancient Indian scriptures viz. Vedas, Vedanta and myths. The focus of my project turned towards Satwikavinaya (The spiritual performance).

In the month of February I had to go to my ancestral village in Orissa to see my allying aunt (She expired after some days). There at my village I had a strong interaction with nature. I used to go to the fields every day in the early morning to glimpse the due drops above the grasses. The rising sun and the reflection of its golden rays on those drops and the presence of seven colours inside it made me moved from within. These colours inside always kept changing with the reflected rays. It seems to me the eternal dance of Lord Siva. Then I would travel to our firm nearby to see the groundnut plantations, my uncle had planted which were in their growing stages. I fall in love with the natural almond green colours of the ground nut leaf. The sweet fragrance of the mango flowers, the sound of the buzzing bees, the changing colours of the morning and evening sun and above all the spiritual silence and serenity of my village awakened my mind to understand the meaning of Bio-Drama. During my stay in the village once I happened to visit my Father in Law’s house five kilo meters away from my home. The village is situated on the bank of the river Baitarani, a mythical name derived from Hindu belief. While crossing the river by a small boat I became attached to the water. “Like the waves created by the movement of the boat on water which reach the bank one after the other, similarly our human mind must have generated vibrations that must be reaching somewhere, may be in the ether. It means we are always connected with the universe through electromagnetic forces as the boat is connected with the river bank through the waves. The memories which we acquire in one life span are an extension of thousands and millions of years of our ancestral memories obtained by our great grand fathers. We bring in our blood all these ancestral memories with us which we called traditions or “sanskara” in Sanskrit language”, I thought. Slowly and steadily I tried to establish a link between our custom, tradition and ancestral memories.

Coming back to Hyderabad I started noting down my experiences of my village and prepared a project based on “Body memory in relation to the space and its elements”. After reached here at Colombia I was astonished to found that Beatriz Camargo is working on the same track for the last 22 years with much clarity and conviction. Followed by so many experiences of life during these days and after a thorough discussion with Cantara I was fully prepared to go through a complete spiritual experience with the students of the Bio-Drama. I told Cantara to work with the students from morning 7 am to late evening and it will be a continuous process for a week. We will start the morning class with the voice practice. The forenoon session will be focused on human body and abhinaya. The afternoon will be devoted to conceptual discussions which will be followed by video screening of any productions related to Indian culture and traditions. She said, “Wonderful!”………………..

We started about6.30 morning towards the Malokha from the hotel. In the previous night it was raining heavily but by the morning the rain had stopped and the sky was almost clear. The sun has already come up behind the mountains and started shining on the drop of waters that were yet sticking on the tree leafs. But the roads were slippery and muddy. The students made a straight line. Manuel, the team leader announced each one must follow the foot prints of the other. One shouldn’t look here and there except the heels of his/her precedor and they all started walking. I was at the last. I asked my front students to know more about this but he couldn’t give any answer and kept quite. We all were walking down the street like a chain. After a while we left the main road and started climbing the hills. There was pin drop silence among the team. I saw a student who was leading the line came back behind me. I was so exusted by climbing up that I told him to walk on leaving me behind and came out of the chain. Now I moved along with them but on my own. In each succession the boy/girl who was leading the team came to the back. Now I understood it was a game of theatre which we call “follow the leader”. It took 40 minutes to reach the Malokha. I was so tired by walking that I did not go to Malokha with them. Rather I preferred to have a cup of tea at Beatriz’s residence. Beatriz was preparing herself for the class. By seeing my condition she laughed but I got little irritated. I told her that, “It was impossible on my part to walk on to Malokha every day. If I would be tired like this I couldn’t teach. My purpose wouldn’t be solved”. “But it was your choice”, She told. “I didn’t know that it became so difficult to climb up the hills to Malokha” I argued. (From then every day she picked me up in the morning by her jeep from the hotel) While drinking tea I told her about the chain walk. She explained, “It is called the power walk. It transmits energy from one person to the other and becomes one unit. It takes lesser time to climb up. During the time of Spanish rulers they made their slaves to walk like this to climb the mountains”. I thought, “After 200 years of independence also the slavery yet remained somewhere in the blood”. But I kept quite. “We were getting late for the class” By saying this she led me to the class.

We enter into the Malokha through the hurry door. By that time all the students were gathered there and sat in a circle. A big candle was burning in the centre. Cantara placed herself on a kushan designated for her. I sat next to her and by my side the Colombian girl Luisa positioned herself for the translation. It was a fine morning as if the sun was waiting for me to share its energy which I would be going to transmit the students for the next couple of the days. Cantara opens the circle with the thought of the day. It is a practice which appears to be completely new for me. Afterwards I came to know that it is a regular practice by her to offer a positive world to the circle so that everybody can contribute their thoughts to the idea in a sentence. That day it was Sun. After the ceremony is over Cantara handed over the group to me and told me to elaborate my project and explain my idea behind that. Since I have already prepared a written project in English, Lusia, my voice of India, translated into Espanol immediately. Then I told the students the concept behind my project. I told them clearly that all the work in this week will be based on oriental theatre and philosophy. I recited them the opening sloka from Natya Shastra:

“Angikam Vubanam yashya, Vachikam Sarva Bangmayam, Aharyam Chandra Taradi, Twam namah Satwikam Sivam”

……………(Natya Shastra)

I explained them the meaning and concept behind these shastras. I told them about the kinds of Abhinaya according to Natya Shastra which can be practiced separately and together also. Since it was break time I called them to be gathered after the breakfast.

The fore noon session was devoted to the voice practice. I started the class with “OM” and told them to repeat the sound for many times. After a while I stopped them but these American students were very much interested to know what this sound is. Then I started my topic with Nada. I told them, “when the universe was formed and there was a great explosion out of which all the galaxies, stars, planets and moons were formed which we called “The Big-Bang theory”, at the very moment there must be generated a huge amount of sound as a result of that explosion which we called Nada or Nada Brahma in Sanskrit language”. I demonstrated it by hitting a brass gong, hanging over there. Then I explained, “When we hit some object with another object or when air is being obstructed by some kind of objects, it generates sound. The sound spreads in waves and while hits our ears we are able to listen to it which is called Ahada Nada. Sometimes our ear couldn’t listen to a particular sound but feels its existence in the ether. Our ear is conditioned to certain decimals of sound. Any sound that does not fall within that decimal couldn’t be audible to our normal ears. That doesn’t mean that there is no sound beyond the reception of our ear. There exist huge quantities of different sounds which human ears may not receive. It is termed as Anhada nada. One can think on this way that when a motor bike or a car crosses nearby us; we can hear a clear sound of friction that comes through the contact of the vehicle with the air. Similarly when the earth and other planets move in their orbits must be creating enormous sounds that our ear can’t receive due to many scientific reasons. But the sounds are there and some of them travel through ethereal waves. Our fore fathers and grand fathers, the rishis and yogis of India, were able to listen to the sounds through the process of dhyana and Yoga. They have discovered that every time there is a constant vibration of waves that comes from the cosmos which is received through our body. If you close your eyes in silence you even can listen to that sound or at least feel the presence of it. It is called the voice of silence. It needs a lot of concentration to receive the vibration. OM is that vibration that constantly coming from the ether. It is the primordial voice of the eternal power that governs everything. This sound is the mother of all the energy and creation”.

After giving a clear description of “OM”, I started with the basic voice training. I told them about the resonators and how it works in different situations. We have 5 points in our body which becomes responsible for voice reproduction. They are 1. Naval point, 2. Chest, 3. Throat, 4. Nose, 5. Talu or brain. In different emotions a particular resonator gets tensed and gives pressure on the vocal cord to produce a kind of sound similar to the situation like in fear our throat and nose get resonated while in love the chest vibrates. Naval centre becomes responsible for producing the base voice. At the time of Humming and high pitch we take the help of our brain. As a student of theatre we must be aware of our resonators to modulate properly. After giving a brief note on sound resonators we did some exercises related to the topic (Breath control, contraction and expansion, relaxation etc.).

After a small break we go on for some kinds of exercises related to theatre. This time we gave emphasis on body and movements. Start and stop, look and walk, making human bond with the designated numbers, contact with objects, and group activities with objects were among some of the games we played to open up our imaginations and awareness.

Post lunch session was devoted to theories and discussions. I opened the session with the basic understanding of Indian culture, religion and its geographical conditions. I started my discourse with the invasion of Aryans to this land and called it‘The Aryavarta’ (land of Aryas) and how the native pre vedic culture of the land was mixed with the new civilization and gave birth to a religion named as “Sanatana Dharma” (it was recognized as Hindu Dharma in the later stage). In my conversation I told them that…………………………

Continued………………………………..

Satyabrata Rout/Hyderabad University/India

2010-08-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Me and my self; A Spiritual Journey

Dr.Satyabrata Rout (India)

Chapter-3

Continued from Chapter-1………….

…………………The next few days were just to know the place, the city, the locality, climate and Beatriz Camargo. Every day she used to pick me up from the hotel around 9am to her work place and sent me through a taxi back to my hotel at night. I used to interact with the students regularly in the dining hall and during their off hours. By then I came to know many students. They have come from different parts of the America and Europe to attend the workshop; from Argentina, Ecuador, Amazon, Mexico, Canada, Italy and off course from Colombia. I have never experienced with students from different countries in a workshop situation. So this is going to be a unique one. Beatriz told me if I want I can read and take rest in a room just adjacent to the kitchen. There were some selves with video cassettes of her productions and posters kept on a table. A small bed was placed there for rest and a table to work. Framed posters of her old productions were hanged on the walls. Among them was a framed photo of Goddess Saraswati. I got curious to know how and why she has kept this photo. She smiled and told that this photo of Saraswati was presented by one of her Indian friends. She knew that Saraswati is the goddess of Art and knowledge. So she kept this image in her library and named the room, “La Casita De Saraswati” (The Saraswati Hall). I was astonished to see her love and respect for Indian culture.

Quite after some time I have marked that all the students were calling her by the name “Cantara”. In the beginning I couldn’t understand but after listing to the word regularly, I ask her one day to know why she is being called Cantara? She kept silent for a while. After a few seconds she began, “Cantara in Spanish is the earthen pot. We human being are like the earthen pot which breaks and mix with the earth every time. While at France I fell ill and I was almost dying. I couldn’t adapt their culture and life. Every moment I felt my throat was chocked. I was longing to breathe fresh air, the smell of my soil. I was completely disconnected from my soul, from my ancestral memory. One research scholar from Sri lanka who was doing his research on Tamil literature there, cured me by applying ayurveda technique. After coming back from Europe I changed my name to “Cantara Abasensuca. Cantara means the earthen pitcher that becomes empty every time. I have many things within me which I want to share and become empty again to be filled again. Abacencuca means sweet in Muiscas language. It means “The sweet earthen pot”. During the course of time I forgot my parental name and became Cantara. I had a strong inclination for language so I went to study it from the National University of Bagota. But I couldn’t express my feelings after completing my course in Language. I wanted to become an actress so that I can express my feelings in my own language. I joined in the National School of Dramatic Art at Bogota and studied theatre for three years. I learnt all the grammars of modern theatre. After I complete my study at NSDA, I joined as an actress at “The teatro La Candalaria” one of the most modern and biggest theatre company of Colombia ran by Santiago Gurcia, the father of modern Colombian Theatre. At the same time I started teaching at the NSDA, Bogota. But after some time I felt restless. I did not want to speak the language of common theatre, the language created through technology, by modern arc lights, high-tech stage designs, etc. I want to speak the language of earth. I want to be connected with the people, with the cosmos. I wanted to speak from within the earth. I wanted to understand the myth and the philosophy leys behind the mystery of the nature. I felt suffocated in a black box with electric lights flooded you every time. I don’t want the audience to be kept in dark all the times. I wanted to go outside far away from the city into the mountains. With the help of one of my student, Barnando Ray I found a land here at Villa de Leyva suitable for my kind of theatre and started doing lots of experiments related to my concept and theory. My students prepared plays and presented in many places over the country and abroad. But slowly I discovered that my plays are not meant for the so called common audience. It is for those who understand the meaning of life, those who can connect themselves with the spirituality and with the nature. So I restricted my plays for the rural and original people. It was received well and my Bio-Drama school, “Teatro itenerient del Sol” started. I became popular by the name “Cantara Abacencuca”. You can also call me in the same name”.

After listening to all these things from her, I felt little embarrassed. In this modern age where theatre has reached its zenith with the help of technology and so called gimmicks, round the world, who will try to miss the opportunity of losing the techniques? There are lots of money and work for those who have adapted theatre in its advanced form. It is a wave that engulfs the whole world of theatre of 21^st century. The design, the technology, use of multimedia and intellectual interpretations! (If is there any) are becoming so common in the name of post-modernism that the real self of the actor and soul of the total production is left behind miles away from the heart of the audience. The simplicity and the aesthetic beauty of the production, taught by our grand fathers, are buried under the glamour of the machinery. In today’s India this kind of theatre is a common practice. Everybody is applying this technique into theatre without understanding the concept and thoughts behind it. Rather they have been pumped and aired to do so. The people who fooled the society by doing this are gaining name and fame, publicity and honour. On the contrary yet there is a kind of people living and practicing theatre from its root and trying to find a connection between the souls to the soul.

As Grotowisky has rightly said in his book “Towards a poor theatre”;

“An actor is nothing but a courtesan or a prostitute till he covers himself with so many glamorous objects, like a public lady applies cosmetics on her skin to cover up her age. By doing this she lost her soul and spirituality. Rather an actor should be like a piece of sculpture which comes out with utmost flagrance by stripping out the unnecessary things on and above it. Give away means we are coming nearer to the soul. This is spiritualism. It gives immense pleasure to the audience as well as the practitioners. This is like a prayer anybody can practice but the process is really difficult”. (Georzzi Grotowisky)

If this is the situation, how can we find people who are ready to give away? In this materialistic world, money, glamour and publicity are everything that counts. Yet, as I told there live a few in this world like Cantara and others those who are ready to give away anything in search of the soul. Though In India we have forgotten the meaning of spiritualism which once accepted as a major part of performance in Natya Shastra (Satwikavinaya), still we can name a few who really tried to go to the deepest root of culture, tradition and confront their audience with simplicity, purity and with utmost dignity.

I recall sitting in the other part of the world the works of my teachers, Ankur Ji, Ratan Da and my beloved Guru Sri B.V Karanth. The glamour of materialism did not pollute these pious souls of my country. These great sons of our culture knew how to give away and achieve the spirit of high energy. Ankur ji populated the narrative form of theatre which was a common practice in the ancient and medieval India. We have the age old tradition of Katha Gayan and Katha Vachan parampara (singing and narrating the stories). The whole story was presented with the help of songs and narrations. It was an improvised form of presentation where the singer/narrator told the story with the help of gesture and mime in front of the audience. Ankur ji adapted the energy of the narrators from our traditions and adapted it in the context of the modern stories. Without the help of modern technology, lights, sets, costumes and objects he succeeded in conveying the story to the audiences. He stripped away almost everything except the three prime elements of theatre; the story, the actors and the audiences. He is the man who made stories and novels popular in common masses. Or else who has the time and patience to read in this hour of time! Because of him only all modern writers became popular in the society.

Ratan thiyam returned back to the root after completing his course from National School of Drama, India. From the very beginning he understood that, the culture of India lays hidden under the soil of the region. A hand is needed to scratch the earth; it would burst out like a stream of water in its purest form. After his return to his home town in Manipur in 1975 from NSD, he purchased a small piece of land, the money he saved for his lively hood and started his theatre; “The Chorus Repertory theatre” which during the course of time flourished into a huge banyan tree and became the Macca of modern Theatre. It attracts theatre practitioners and scholars from all over the world. The campus of The Chorus Repertory Theatre vibrates positive energy all the time and always stay connected with all the elements of the nature and the ether. It becomes a land of spirituality, sanctity and serenity. The “serine” indoor Theatre inside the campus proves these words. A Thi architectural auditorium, designed by Rattan Da himself with motifs of tantric arts from Buddhist manuscripts all ways pulsates with positive energy with the rhythm of the nature. He is the man who really gave away everything in search of the soul of the mother earth. In all of his productions we can smell the sweet fragrance of the landscapes of Manipur. The rhythm of the common life, the gentle flow of the bridge coming from the seven hills, the cristal clear water of the Loctak Lake, the orchid flowers, the air waves inside the corn fields and above all the culture of vaisnavism spread by the great Indian saint Sri Chaitanya Dev in the eastern and north-east valley during 17^th Century, reflect in his productions every time and every moment; sometimes in the physical forms and sometimes as the undercurrent, the force that drives his productions to the correct path. Ratan Da has achieved in getting his ancestral memory in the time, space and creation.

While thinking of these masters, I was connected to a man whom I always adore to; my loving guru Sri B.V Karanth. I learnt life from him and theatre is a small segment of life. Whenever I have started writing on him I couldn’t write, not even a single line. My thoughts jumbled up and waves intersect each other. Every time I got sentimental with my eyes full of tears on his memory. I know that man so much that I could write nothing about him. Many people insisted me to write a memoir on his death. But I couldn’t. I did not want to bind him in words. He should be formless. He should be worshiped in silence. I didn’t want to limit him. (One day I will write on his philosophy of life and work. The time has not come. This will be a tribute to that great soul, my guru). I have seen a rendering yogi in him who is always in search of something, something new, something modern and at the same time original, indigenous, pure and connected with the roots every time and every moment. He remained an experimentalist and blessed by the supreme to create new all the time of his creations. Music was his weapon to achieve the truth. With the help of music he was always hooked up with the waves of cosmos. Unlike Ratan Thiyam he never associated with any organizations, repertories or groups for long. He had the tendency to leave and renounce at the pick of its maturity. As he always used to say, “I can’t stick to a particular kind of life for a longer period. I get bored after certain time. My throat choked and I long for fresh air. I can’t create any thing if I wouldn’t travel. I want to see the world, people, life, landscapes, mountains, temples, Mosques, gurudwara, Church, tribes, rituals and everything that a man can see in his whole life. I want to do mistakes and rectify it by my own experiences. I want to learn anything and everything that I could do”. (Once I found a book on “The art of cooking” in his self). So he became a traveler throughout his life. He didn’t follow any particular style or form. Where ever he went he adapted the native forms and converted that into his own creations. That became the style of Karanth (Karanth effect). He has never followed the grammar rather created his own. His eyes, ears, heart, mind and soul was transformed into a big truth of Theatre; the holy theatre. Theatre became a celebration for him which was reflected every time in his productions; the celebration of life. He called it Utsav dharmi. He had a tendency to forget. He forgot everything very easily. Even some times he asked for my name and felt very much embarrassed for that deed. It became a part of his personality. But it is obvious for Karanth Ji. For him, “If I will not forget, how can I create?” He never repeated anything in his life. There was even no look back. Many times he forgot the compositions he had created few hours ago and made something new. We have to make him remembered about the original one. In this way he had created many compositions for a piece of music or a scene. Even at times he himself rejected his own creation by saying it was not done by him. This nomadic yogi has achieved and acquired that others couldn’t. A sense of satisfaction and dissatisfaction were found always in his gestures. Satisfaction for his achievements and restlessness for the new search were always encountered in him. He gave up everything so he is pulled off with many things.

Sitting in my hotel room I was thinking of these great souls of my mother land and comparing themselves with this western lady Cantara. She renounced almost everything to achieve something intangible. How much Indian she is; in thoughts and actions? My eyes fall on the books lay on my table. I picked up one; “America my brother, my blood”. It was a collection of paintings of Guayasamin and Pablo Niruda’s poems. While looking in to the pictures I was thinking of that man and his keen observation of human struggle and sufferings. How we talk of religion and politics, how we long for power when the common human being is suffering under the sun and dying? How we claimed to be educated and modern when people of my country do not have a single time meal to eat? How can we smile and sleep quietly while my brothers and sisters have no roof over their heads and suffer the whole cold and chilled nights? Did we close our eyes or go blind? Are we deaf so that the scream of my brothers can’t reach our ears? Guayasamin put so many questions in front of us. He is a common man’s painter who must have seen life from all the angles. His way of expressions, bold and strong lines and selection of colours clearly depicts his anguish and passion for humanism. With each of his works I found a related poem of Niruda. This great Latin American poet was banned in the capitalist countries because he wrote for the common man, because he spoke in a common man’s voice, because he told the truth! It is very difficult to digest the truth. His poems definitely have taken away the sleeps of the bloody rulers…………….

While going through the work I found that both the works of these masters complement each other and seams inseparable though they were created at different time and space. I went through the book thoroughly. My eyes stuck at one of the works of Guayasamin and the related poem by Niruda. In the painting, piles of disfigured, grotesque human bodies were laying scattered with crumpled hands, legs and heads. There on the other side written a small poem by Pablo Niruda;

“Thousands of corpses lie there. Murdered hearts laid out pulsing. Opening the moist pit where they tend the trickle of that day. (They entered killing on horseback, they cut off the hand that offered its tribute of gold and flowers, they closed off the plaza, exhausted their arms until they were numbed, killing the flower of the kingdom, plunging up to their elbows in the blood of my startled brethren.)”

I was so much moved with these works that I wanted to present it into a piece of theatrical expression with the students of bio-Drama. So I kept it for my future work.

One day I went to observe the classes of Wilson, the choreographer from Ecuador. I have never gone to the class rooms before. So I was lead by one of the students of the workshop. He took me inside the trees to a place where they were practicing. Wilson was busy with the students. They were doing some exercises related to body. I sat for sometime there to observe. The works which he was doing was not very much new to me. In India we are very much accustomed to these kinds of works. Our choreographers, Bharat Sharma, Sangeeta Sharma and others sometimes do better and innovative works. So it didn’t attract me very much, except the intensity of the work of that Ecuador man. One thing that caught my attention was the space where they were working. They call it Malokha; the ceremonial house.

Continued………………………

Satyabrata Rout/Hyderabad University/India

2010-08-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Me and my self;

A Spiritual Journey

Dr.Satyabrata Rout (India)

Chapter-2

Continuation of Ch-1

……………..Just before the dawn I got up from my bed and came out of my room to see where I am! It was going to be morning.. Rain had stopped from the mid night but there were dense cloud in the sky. I looked around. The hotel main gate was still locked and nobody woke up from their bed. I planned to have a walk around inside the hotel. It was a huge old colonial building nicely maintained with antique design and furniture, fireplaces and an old piano kept at one corner of the lobby with plants, flowers and tree all around. The narrow path inside the hotel was built with stones which lead to different rooms. I looked up to see the age old style of colonial roof which was built by terracotta tiles. I liked the atmosphere. In the mean time the hotel boy has opened the main gate and I left for a morning walk. Villa de Leyva is one of the oldest colonial town established by the Spanish conquerors during 16^th- 17^th Century. As I walk down the streets, I saw houses on both sides of the roads on straight row. They were continued till I can see and meet at a point which reminded me of perspective. The valley was surrounded with mountains all around. By the time the sun was coming up the mountain peaks. The old street was signing with the rays of the morning sun. I saw of people walking down the streets. A few numbers of shops were just opened and the shop owners were arranging their goods for sale. Some people were waiting outside the cafeteria for a cup of tea or coffee. A group of small kids in uniform crossed me and ran away. Perhaps they were going to their schools. I saw one or two people riding horses passed by my side. People were started going to their different works… I walked down straight to the market squire. It was an old complex perhaps situated at the centre of villa de leyva. All the street roads lead towards the squire. But the market was not opened so early. I didn’t try to go further as I might lose the way, so I returned back to my hotel. It was seven o’ clock by then and I searched the hotel boy for a cup of tea. After getting fresh I sat with my computer and surf in the internet. It was evening in India and many of my friends there were connected through net. I started chatting with some of them especially with my son whom I was missing at every moment. I talked to my wife. I asked her about my dog Polli who must me missing me like anything. My wife was worried about my lost baggage. She has packed some new dresses for me and a brand new pair of shoes in the luggage. That was her matter of concern. I came to know from her that the day I left my son didn’t even open his study book. Every time he glued with computer or television. She told me to write a letter to him making him convinced that this is his final board examination year. So I mailed a strong letter to him. I was very much hungry by then but waited for Beatriz to come.

About 10 am Beatriz Camargo came to the hotel. As I didn’t have much interaction with her I just say hallo to her. She asked about my comfort in the hotel and gave me the news that my luggage has already arrived at Bagota. Someone will be bringing it to Villa de Leyva by afternoon. I was very happy by getting the news. She led me towards an old jeep standing outside the hotel. It was really very old. Beatriz told me to sit and started driving the jeep. She perhaps understood my hesitation and told in a very deep voice “Don’t worry doctor! This is the only property I have, the only good friend in this hill town. This is a 71 model Spanish jeep, I purchased in 95. It is very much suitable for this kind of roads. More over I don’t have money to buy a new one. I don’t work outside. Once I was a professor at National School of Dramatic Arts; Bagota till it was closed by the government in 1985. I didn’t opt for any job after that and started leaving here in this old town ship alone. I have spent all my money to purchased a piece land at the hill top to start my Bio-drama school and lived there alone… let’s start we are getting late.”

She hold the steering wheel. I saw two strong and big black dogs that were sleeping on the road side started running with the jeep side by side. “They are Romero the male and Almendra the female one; my only companion in this whole world”, she added. The jeep left the main street and started climbing up the hills. After few minutes we enter into the campus. Yesterday night when I came here couldn’t make out anything because of darkness and rain. But today I could see a beautiful hill scape adorned with lots of trees around of native origin. Two to three huts were also visible inside the trees. Beatriz told me, “22 years ago in 88 when I shifted to this place, there was nothing here, not even a grass. It was a barren land, the ancestral home of our native people; the Mueisca people. They were buried under this earth. The conquers killed them and destroyed their culture. Their women were raped. Children were killed and became slaves. All the bloods were mixed. The bloods of my ancestors are flowing in my body. Only to connect myself with the routes, I choose this place for my kind of drama, i.e. the “Bio-Drama”. I got a vibration from her which we generally experience in India but never care for; the Spirituality. I sensed a positive rhythm which flows in her thoughts very nearer to my energy and test. She loves and lives in nature. I became interested to know more about her and the concept of bio-drama so that I can focus my work to interact with her and the students. But it was too early for an interactive session, so I kept quite.

Beatriz took me to her house for breakfast. Her house was on a higher level surrounded by plenty of trees. It was a small one room house with tiled roof. I saw one easel and colours kept at one side of the veranda while one or two incomplete paintings kept against the wall. It seems to me to be her own work… We entered inside the house and the dogs waited outside for their mistress. I passed a glance around . A number of paintings were hanged on the walls with women as the subject. She appeared to be an accomplished painter… The formation of the lines and the application of colours clearly narrate the struggle and sufferings of women in the world. “She must be a feminist”, I thought. By the time she prepared coffee I moved around the hall. It was a rectangular place having old and antique expressions. The kitchen was placed near by the entrance door. There was a bed towards the left. The room was having lots of glass windows to interact with nature. The other part of the room was meant for her living and reading. I went to that side and sat quietly for some time. In front of me was a glass self with full of books. I got up to see them. I found Da Vinci, Vangogh, Goya and other painters in the book self. There were lots of Spanish books which I couldn’t make out. They must be the books on theatre. All on a sudden my eyes caught hold of a book lying at one corner down the self. It was “Savitri”, by Sri Arovindo, the great Indian philosopher. Then I discovered books on Indian religion and philosophy. A Spanish adaptation of Srimad Bhagawat Gita, Yogananda’s books on Yoga, books on “Sri Maa”, Krishna Murthi’s “Mahabharata”, discourses of “Bhagwan Rajnish”, books on “Gandhian thoughts and philosophy”, a complete volume of Ravindra nath Tagore and many other Indian books, kept in that self. “She must have read all these. She must be a spiritual lady. She must have known India more than myself.”……….. I picked up Arovindo’s “Savitri” out of curiosity. By that time Beatriz came with some bread and coffee. We sat on the sofa for breakfast. “Do you know Arovindo?”She said. “Yes very well”, I answered. “He was one of the greatest philosophers of our time. I admire his thoughts and his Krishna consciousness”….. “I am a follower of Arovinda. He was an intellectual of all the times.” She added . Then she narrated Arovindo’s vision for life, his self realization, meditation and achievements. She told me how Arovindo went to England to study law and after his return back to India he was offered a civil service in the British government which he discarded immediately. How he became a revolutionary and jailed where his self realization started and he met lord Krishna inside the prison which converted him to one of the greatest philosopher of the world.” I was astonished. “A lady from the other part of the world was talking me about my country and philosophy which I didn’t know much about”. I felt ashamed of myself. By that time I have already understood that she has an in-depth knowledge and study. She added how “The mother” came from France to join his mission. I shared my school days experience when I went on a red-cross tour to Pondicherry where I got the chance to have a glance of “The Mother” from a distance. We shared many thoughts over the coffee. She wants to know more about the connection of Gandhi and Bhagwatt Gita. For her it was a contradiction. How a man of non violence admires and followed the principles of Gita which was written on the backdrop of a great war? I intervened. “Gita never talks of war neither it provokes violence. It teaches us to do our “Karma” for which we came to this world. It teaches us how to maintain balance in different situations while discharging our duties. It shows us the path of liberation from this earthly world to the world of wisdom. That should be the Dharma of mankind. It never teaches violence and blood shade.” Then she wanted to know the difference between Dharma and Karma. I told her, “Those who take birth in this earth must follow certain principles, rules and regulations. As a human being our duty is to help others, to spread brother hood and love. We must be kind towards the sufferers. We must know how to maintain balance and harmony with the rhythm of the nature so as to lead a healthy life. This is our religion; our Dharma. The saints, Rishis and philosophers in the course of time has analyzed and interpreted this law of nature in different ways which we named them as religion or sects. No religion in the world talks of violence and promotes war. Karma is the deed. What we do to sustain the law of nature becomes our Karma. Man is judged by his karma. It is the action which decides our fate. If you do good for the mankind you will be liberated and if you do bad deeds you will be suffered. Gandhi has interpreted Gita in the context of non violence. It was the spirit of Gita that gives inner strength and courage to Mahatma Gandhi to conduct a great war of independence without a drop of blood shade against the mighty British rules. But now the globalization is wiping out Gandhian thoughts and his philosophy from the young Indian brains. It is really pity that the young generation in India is forgetting the ideologies set by our ancestors and saints”. “Yes…You are right” she added. “My country also is suffering with the same kind of problem. We have already forgotten the struggle for freedom by our leaders from the claws of the Spanish tyranny. We have forgotten Simon Bolívar, the father of our country. We became again slaves at the hand of the capitalists. We have resources, we have mines but we almost produce nothing. Our raw materials exported to the foreign countries and return back in the form of products. We became slaves again. We lost the link from our ancestral memory. We stopped thinking of the struggle of our grand fathers, fore fathers; the Muisca people who had laid their lives under this earth for the cause of the mother land. Their bodies were lying right here under this mountain. To understand the biological connection of our ancestors with the universe, to realize the natural harmony of human being and the nature, to identify with the memory of the body in space, time and creation and to establish a bond with those ancestral memories, I started this Bio-Drama School 22 year ago after my return from France. I choose this land so as to get positive vibration and energy from the ancestors. I read all these philosophical books to become more spiritual not in my behaviour but in my action. I knew that India is the only country where the spirit of energy is yet remained positive. No British, Moguls and other invaders could be able to destroy its purity, sanctity and culture. Your’s is a spiritual land. I invited you to establish an association between two different cultures seems to be pole apart but too similar in practice and behaviour. I called you to transmit the oriental energy in to the mind and soul of my students who are coming from different parts of America. We all will try to find the route of our memories that is flowing in our blood for thousands of years. I am preparing a play on the “Mother earth” for which your contribution towards the body memory will be essential”…………….

I found her so excited and emotional that tears rolled down from her eyes. Her throat chocked and voice vibrated. She couldn’t spoke more. I could understand her emotion and feelings so I wanted to conclude the discussion. It was almost noon and our lunch was ready. I told her, “ I will be with you for the whole month. We definitely will share our culture and philosophy with each other. I will try to contribute maximum to your mission. She gave me some painting books to go through. Among them there was a book on Guayasamin; the famous Latin American revolutionary painter. I have heard about him but never interacted. The book; America my brother, my blood, was based on the poetries of Pablo Neruda, one of the most outstanding communist poets from Chili. This fascinated me and I kept the book on priority.

The dining hall was an improvised small hall with the kitchen at one side. When we reached, the students were taking their lunch. Beatriz introduced me to the students. All the students got up from their places and greeted me. Though I couldn’t understand a single word of what they were saying but I could guess that they were well aware of me. Beatriz must have told all about of me. Beatriz narrated all of my sufferings to reach there. She introduced me to a man there who was taking his lunch there. “This is Wilson; a famous choreographer from Ecuador. Wilson works on body-elastics. He comes here for a week to teach dance movements to the students.” We greeted each other. Then she introduced to me a young lady; Luisa and told me, She will be my interpreter. “Luisa knows English well. Her husband is a boy from Belgium. He is a good musician. Luisa practices Yoga and wants to go to India. Here she is learning Bio-Drama. So she can assist you in your class”, she said. After my lunch she called a taxi for me and I returned to my hotel. I was very much tired of my journey and I slept. By the evening my luggage were arrived from Bogota. It was intact and nothing was lost. The airport person who brought it to the hotel at Villa de Leyva told me in his very bad English that the luggage couldn’t be board at Sao Paulo as I changed to a different air lines from there. But I was happy that I got my baggage. My night meal was served at the hotel itself………………

Continued…………………/Satyabrata Rout/Hyderabad University/India

2010-08-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

Me and my self: ASpiritual Journey

Dr.Satyabrata Rout (India)

Chapter-1

The day seems to be much longer, as if we are chasing the sun. Time always moves in its own speed. But the speed of my mind is much ahead of the time. My excitement is crossing the limit but I have to keep it in control every moment. I was bit nervous not that I am going abroad for the first time but going through such a route that people usually avoid. This is the longest route to travel to Colombia, the far western countries. It is always easy to go to Latin America through Washington or Paris. But unfortunately I couldn’t get an USA transit visa. There is a long queue for USA. Everybody wants to go USA. It is a wealthy country with full of brains. It knows how to manipulate the world resources. So it becomes the point of attraction for everyone. My travel agent told me to wait for another 6 months to get an USA transit visa. But my schedule was fixed. I have to reach Bagota by 7^th of July as my work is starting from that day. I have been invited by Beatriz Camargo, one of the pioneer of Colombian theatre and the director of “Bio-Drama School, Villa de Layva” to attend an international theatre workshop as an expert from India, organized by the school from 6^th July-6^th August, 2010. Though I have been given classes from 12^th onwards, I decided to be there from the beginning as I want to observe the other teachers who are coming across the globe (Ecuador, Africa, Italy, Argentina, Maxico and Colombia etc.). So reaching there became important for me no matter how difficult the travel route is. My agent made out a route plan avoiding Washington and Chicago. But it was a long route with much higher ticket fare than my budget. The route covers Arab Emeritus, Qatar, Kuwait, Brazil, Ecuador, Pirogue, Uruguay, and Chili, Peru which includes almost all the seas and Oceans covering more than half the world. I got exited. In my childhood I have read about the stories of “Sindhbad; the sailor” and “Around the world in 80 days”. To my child’s brain they were mere fantasies (off course I enjoyed and felt as if I am the protagonist who is on the adventurous tour) not the reality. But after crossing almost 40 years of childhood days, these fantasies are going to be reality! I was thrilled from my within and decided to choose the longest route on which no one prefers to travel. My route plan was finalized. From Hyderabad I have to go to Dubai on an Emeritus air craft where I will change the flight to Sao Paulo airport at Brazil. From there I have to take Lan air ways to Lima, the capital of Peru and again I have to change flight at Lima to my final destination; Eldorado international airport at Bagota, Colombia.

Much before the departure, I reached Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Samshabad. I checked in my luggage directly for Bogota and got the boarding card. After immigration check up I waited for the boarding call in the airport lunge. The flight was in time. It took off exactly at 4.20 AM for Dubai. Hyderabad to Dubai took 3hrs.30 mnts. And in the fine morning of 6^th July I arrived at Dubai Airport. It was my first visit to Dubai airport. A beautiful city with high rising buildings across the Arabian sea was revealed slowly and clearly with the golden rays of the morning sun as the flight coming down to the run way. But it was impossible for me to go out of the airport area and there was enough time for my next flight to Sao Paulo, I planned to have a look around the airport. It was morning and people from all parts of the world were waiting for connecting flights to reach their different destinations. The airport lounge was almost full with people. Some passengers were even sleeping on the floor as we do in our railway stations in India. Some of the children, may be from Brazil or Chili, were playing games as their parents were leaning against their luggage.

The duty free shops at the DXB airport are the biggest in the world. Full of with the modern needs the shops always attract the tourists. From Branded liquors, Cigarettes, Cosmetics, electronic gazettes, mobiles, laptops, and cloths to all kinds of consumer goods are showcased for sale in the shops. The lighting effects add to the glamour. One must have a look at all these modern amenities to update the test but near impossible to purchase by a person like me. They are very costly at least for me. So I thought to take a little rest and wait for my flight.

At around 10 Am the boarding call for Sao Paulo was announced. As I have already my seat card collected from Hyderabad, I entered into the flight with no trouble. It was a huge aero plane with more than 300 seating capacity. It took off at 10.30 Am for Sao Paulo. I got a window seat and again interacted with Dubai’s sky view. This time the view was not so attractive because of bright sun light. Breakfast was served immediately after the belt sign is off. I was offered a Hindu breakfast, parontha, omlet and fruit salad. Most of the people in the flight went to sleep after the breakfast.It takes 15 hours from Dubai to Sao Paulo and it was a nonstop flight. Fifteen hours constant sitting at one place without much movement is really a hard task. One can enjoy the trip and spent hours in a train interacting with nature but in a flight! Ohh……….. So best thing is to read and sleep. I had kept some books with me for the journey and started reading one book “Prabasi Bharatiya ki Kalam se….” written by Badal Sircar one of the legendary theatre philosopher of our time. The book couldn’t hold me back for long time. I felt asleep. The air hostess woke me up for lunch. This time it was rajma rice with pieces of chicken on it. Next to me was sitting a young man of 30s from China. He was on a business trip to Brazil. He looked at my meal and said, “What is this?” In response I said, “ it is an Indian meal I have ordered while booking my online ticket”. “Are you an Indian”…. “Yes” I said. He stared at me a while and made a bow to me with folded hands, “So you are from the land of Buddha. I am a Buddhist but never gone to India. But I heard a lot about your country. One day I will visit India may be on a business deal”. He started eating. I saw the man who was talking of lord Buddha just before few minutes, eating hams and sushes happily. He offered me some but I refused. At last he gave me some cakes to eat. Our flight crossed the north part of Africa and started flying above the South Atlantic Ocean. The air above the Atlantic was not quite always and generates low pressure time to time. Though our air craft was flying above 13000 meters above the sea level, still then it could not surpass the bad weather above the sea. So time and again the pilot has to give the signal of seat belt sign. It was a thrilling experience for all the passengers. Almost for 5 hours there was utter silence inside the space ship; no murmuring and no movement inside. At around 10.30 night local time the city lights of Brazil is visible and when the flight landed at the Sao Paulo international airport the whole flight was vibrated and filled with the sound of clapping, whistling and wild noise to mark the sign of relief….It was really a heart throbbing experience.

It was already 6.45 pm local time when we landed at Sao Paulo. My next flight to Lima is at 7.35 evening; as if no time left for my transit. I felt complexly nervous. I couldn’t understand what to do. More over I am very much new to the air port. Gaurulhos International airport, Sao Paulo is one of the largest airports of the world. Besides it was jam packed because of World cup match at South Africa. Arrival and departure gates are totally different. I was dead sure of missing mu flight and no one can even do that. “Oh’ God! What will happen now? My whole schedule will become upside down now. I am in the mid way and a stranger here. I have no spare money to spend on my ticket rebooking”. Many ill thoughts came to my mind. Every second seemed to be longer for me. Since the flight was full and my seat was towards rear, it took me another 20 minutes to come out of the flight. Now there was only 30 minutes at hand for the flights to take off. I ask at the help desk for how to transfer but the person deputed there refused me saying, “No English please”. I looked at him as if I am the most illiterate fool of the world. There stands a family perhaps searching for the same flight. He was holding his kid on his solder. He looked at me and perhaps understood my pain, spoke me in very bad English, “Are you a Pakistani?” I simply answered, “No, Indian”…. “Are you going to Lima?”…….. “Yes”. I just hold his hand tightly and begged him to help me. He told me, “Don’t worry. I am also going to Lima. My wife is from Peru. She is going home to see her ailing mother. I am French. We both work at Kuwait. Perhaps we will miss the flight but they will take care of us. Please wait here.” I was little relieved but the problem still continued… “If they will send us in another flight in the next day what will happen to me at Lima? There also I have to board a different flight to Bagota. How can I contact my hosts there and convey my plight? Somebody must be coming to the airport to receive me there. He will definitely left back. Who cares for whom in this world?”… To give a break to my thoughts a lady officer came in and spoke something in Brazilian language. The man translated for me, “The flight to Lima is delayed for an hour and she is asking to follow her towards the boarding gate”. …A sign of relief spread over my face. “Thank God. Now I can manage. At Lima the usual transit time between two flights is 2hr.30mnts. I can manage in One and half hours. Lan air handed over me both the boarding card for Lima and Bagota and promised to take care of my luggage which will be handed over at final destination.

I was very much tired of the day and hectic journey. As soon as I board the flight I fell asleep. The air hostess woke me up for the night dinner but I was so tired to take my meal so I refused. Lan air is not as good as Emirates. Comparatively it is a small air craft and congested sits. By that time my legs were paining like anything. I was only waiting helplessly to arrive at the airport. While landing at Lima International airport it was 11.30 local time. I had more than an hour for re- boarding.

Lima pe is a small but very neat and clean airport. It is not at all busy or chaotic like Sao Paulo or Dubai. An airport authority was waiting to make the passangers transferred those who are to exchange flights for their destinations. She led me to the boarding gate for my next flight to Bagota. I sat at the lunge with other passengers and wait for the boarding call……

About 0.30 am of 7^th July we took up for the final destination. Usually it takes 3 and half hours from Lima to Bogota in a flight. Peru is the nearest country adjacent to Colombia and they also share the comon culture and language. Not only Peru, almost all Latin Americans speak Spanish. The countries were under Spain domination for centuries. The countries have seen blood shades, horror, civil wars, poverty, rape and human massacre. Perhaps these are the reasons the Latin Americans look to the world in a different angle and perspective. They don’t want others to share their economy and resources inside their countries… The flight took a turn towards the Pacific. For the next couple of hour it would fly over the largest ocean of the world. But on the contrary to the Pacific, my mind was restless. Last time when I came here with the invitation from the University dad Javeriana, I made some friends here. One of them was Prof. Juan Monsalve whom I have already informed about my arrival at Bogota airport and instructed him to come to the airport to receive me. But he is an old man and it was dead part of the night; if he couldn’t make so to reach in time … then! All these ill thoughts jumbled up in my mind… The pilot switch on the seat belt sign which was followed by an announcement, first in Spanish then in English. We are about to land at the Eldorado airport.

It was a cold night with showers of rain in the city. After fulfilling the formalities regarding my embrakment in to the country, I was followed by the co passengers to collect my luggage. I stood there for almost an hour but there was no sign of my luggage. It has not reached. All the passengers had already gone and I am alone standing and waiting for my bags. I got nervous. In an unknown country I am “Ek Mushafir beashwab”. At last I caught hold one ground duty officer standing there and told her about my plight. He couldn’t understand anything and talked me in Spanish. I couldn’t understand what to do. I was almost at the verge of crying. Besides my cloths I have brought with me a lot of collection of Indian culture to present here. My hard drive which is full of with my long span of work and research was there in the baggage. Apart from that I brought with me some Indian traditional music instruments as a mark of gift to Beatriz Camargo, the lady who invited me. Who is complete unknown to me only knew me through internet and corresponded through email… Tears rolled down my eyes. The officer perhaps understood my situation and left me for a while. She came back with a man who knows English. They now inquired about my luggage and after a long search found that they were not be able to transfer at Sao Paulo because I changed to a different air ways. A flash of relief passes through my mind and I was relaxed. They promised me to hand over my luggage within 48 hours and fulfilled the formalities. The interpreter asked for my address at Bagota so that they would be able to hand over. I showed him the invitation where everything was written.

While coming out from the airport it was almost 6 o’ clock. There was still rain outside. The city was just awakening. While I was looking here and there, I heard a sound of calling someone to me by my name. Prof. Monsalve was standing at a distance with an umbrella and weaving his hands. I rush towards him and we hugged each other. We are meeting each other almost after 7 years, the last he came to Delhi to work with NSD in 2003. I looked at him. He seems to be old now and tired. He laughed at me and said, “You look as usual, like before! Where is your luggage! I passed a smile and said they are coming in the next flight.” …

I found a young man with Juan. He introduced him to me. “This is Sabastiano; an accomplished graphic designer now studying theatre design at Argentina. He came to Colombia only to attend your workshop. Sabastiano will take you to his mom’s house at Bogota where you can take rest for awhile. You must be very tired of the journey now. In the afternoon Sabastiano will lead you to”Villa de Layva”, a hill lock old colonial town, 3 hours from here. Camaro lives there inside a forest and conducts her Bio-drama School there. I will join you latter…”. Prof. Monsalve left us. Luckily Sabastiano speaks a little English though not fluently. He stops before every words, then fumbles and utters carefully as if spoke wrongly. But it solved my problem. I can join the words, gestures and his thoughts and frame the structure in my mind. I looked around as if searching for something. He perhaps understood me and spoke in his Espanola voice, “ Do …ou ned … an…thingin..? (Do you need anything?)”… “Yes …a cup of tea”, I said. “ you..not..fin…d ..mmmm…tea….here…….home….tea only.”… We started for his mom’s home by a taxi.

It was almost morning at Bagota. But since there were clouds and rain it seemed to be early dawn. There was no body on the road, no traffic, so we reached the city soon. Sabastiano’s mother lives at the 26^th floor of an apartment in north Bogota. She must be nearly 50 and works in a theatre company formed by her ex-husband (Sabastiano’s father). While we reach there she was ready to go to the rehearsal but waiting for me. The tea was ready for us. After little introduction with her, we 3 sat together with our cup of tea. The test was very bitter for me. Her mother added sugar to my cup saying, “We have no custom of red tea here. More over we don’t take milk with tea like your country, it spoils the test. You will be habituated to this drink slowly.” She left for the rehearsal and I was thinking of the test…….. In India we generally take tea or coffee with milk. That is our custom. But here people like tea without milk…. Test also depends upon tradition!.......................

Something jumped on my back and holds me tightly. I was shocked. Sabastiano laughed at me and said, “Nothing to be worried. It is Ophelia, our cat. It wants to make friendship with you.” The cat slowly came down from my back and sat on my lap and coiled her tail inside. While patting the little creature I asked Sabastiano curiously to know about the name of the cat. He smiled and said, “While my mom was doing the roll of Ofelia in “Lear” 2 years back, one day she got this cat roaming around alone in the rehearsal hall. She picked up it to home and named her Ofelia”…. “Wao’….it is interesting”, I said. By that time the rain has stopped and the clouds were fading away slowly. The cityscape of Bogota was emerging slowly out of the mist. Sabastiano opened the window of his living room where we were sitting. Ofelia suddenly jumped from my lap and sat on the parapet through the window. She was looking down every time and tried to jump down. Out of my curiosity I moved towards the window and looked down. The cat was sitting almost at the edge of the window shill and looking down continuously. I also looked down to know her intention. I couldn’t resist my laugh what I saw down. A group of peson was resting on the parapet of the down floor. I made a clap and they flew away. Along with that Ofelia also disappeared.

It was 8 am in the morning and I was feeling very much tired. Sabastiano went to the kitchen to prepare something for me and by the time I went to the wash room to get prepared. After breakfast I went to sleep on his bed.

At about 1 pm I wake up by the knock on the door. Sabastiano came in and invited for lunch. At the drawing room I saw a bearded middle aged man with a boy and Sabastiano’s mother waiting for me at the dining table. The man got up and hugged me by introducing himself, “I am………………….., Sabastiano’s father. I have my company and we are now preparing a Spanish play. Without any hegitation he continued, “Myself and Sabastiano’s mother are not living together. I got married to another actress from my group. This is her son”. He pointed out to that 8 year old boy who was playing with a rocking horse. I was thinking of my age old tradition by the time. What a difference in ideology, attitude and convention! We can’t think of this in India.

……..The bus left for Villa de Leyva at about 3 pm. I was told by Sabastiano that, Villa de Leyva is a small old town established by the Spanish Colonials. It is situated towards the north of Bagota in the province of Bayaca. Tunja was the old capital of the state. Villa de Leyva is known for fossils…… The bus left the main city and took the express way. The hills and landscapes were revealed on both the sides. The bus started climbing the hills. The landscapes reminded me of the road to Dharmasala from Simla in India. As the bus climbed up, I felt very cold. While coming from Bagota Sabastiano’s mom gave me a blanket and I wrapped it around. By passing through so many curves, ups and downs the bus arrived at Villa de leyva by the evening. It was complete dark and raining heavily. Street lights were not enough to support our eyes. But I can guess a medieval old town ship resting in the darkness. Sabastiano called a taxi and we climbed for the Bio-Drama school on the top of a hill. We reached there in a few minutes. Astonishingly I could not find any lamp post on the way to Teatro itinerant del Sol. It was dinner time and as I saw about 20 people were gathered in a small hut and taking their dinner and a big candle was burning in the middle. Everybody got up and greet me as I arrived as if they were waiting for me. They served me some food. Though I was hungry I didn’t like the test. It was prepared by olive oil. There were d very low lights here and there in which you can’t recognize any thing. Moreover one can experience mud everywhere. So I waited inside that small dining- kitchen for Beatriz Camargo.

While I was looking around I felt a human figure coming nearer from a distance. She approached me and everybody stood up at her presence. She hugged me tightly quite for some time. She is Beatriz Camargo, the leady who runs the school. She must be 7o year old with white hair but looked much stronger to me. At the first glance she reminded me the “Mother Courage” a strong lady from Brecht’s play. But why she leaved here on the hill top, alone, completely away from habitation and it was almost a jungle! I couldn’t get the answer and it was not the right time to ask all these to her. So I kept my queries for the next time and passed a smile to her. She spoke me in clear English, “Did you finish your dinner? We eat early. Exactly at 9 pm the bell will ring and all the lights will be off. There will be Sacred Silence in this hill top. We will start the class at 7 am tomorrow. You must be tired of the journey. Go to your hotel. I will meet you there tomorrow around 9.30 morning.” She called a taxi and instructed the driver to drop me at the hotel Mesopotamia.

Contd…………………..

Satyabrata Rout/University of Hyderabad/India.

2010-06-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

A dreadful night…

Satyabrata Rout

I was an artist at Rangamandal, Bharat Bhawan, Bhopal during the year 1984-89. I was very much present at the dreadful night; 3rd December 1984. I was living somewhere in the old Bhopal area near by the Union Carbide gas factory. At around 1.30 AM in the night I got up from the bed as I felt irritation in my eyes. Before understanding what had happened, I saw people running on the road covering themselves with blankets. Nobody knew what happened. The burning sensation was so painful, I suddenly opened my door and ran away leaving behind my wife and my new burn baby "Lucy". On the road I saw people running, crawling, dying and dying. Life had no value in that moment. I ran towards Samla Hills. Our own life became very much precious at that moment. People were only running and running and dying on the road. I forgot about my baby and wife. At around 5.30 morning, there was an announcement that, "the gas has stopped leaking and everything is normal now. People can go back their home.” The fact that my wife and baby was not with me came to my mind. But where can I found them. Back home I saw only dead bodies lying scattered on the roads, my wife and child were not among them. Can one imagine what could be my mental state in those fateful hours? They came back around 12 noon. They ran towards Sihore, the nearby town.

We worked under a volunteer organization in the J.P colony, the most affected gas area and tried to clean the dead bodies and put them to their last rites. Tripurari Sharma, an activist and alumni of National School of Drama joined us from Delhi. She wrote a play based on this human tragedy "Banjh Ghati" (The barren land) and we presented it in Bhopal under the direction of Alakh Nandan. I can't forget that dreadful night and the Human tragedy I experienced in my life that took away thousands of innocent soul. I shared my life experience with you all. I strongly protest the court order and stand along with the gas victims. The culprits must be punished.

Colours in past, present and future…

2009-11-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

Every artiste has inclination towards certain grade of colours. This happens because of our socio-religious circumstances. Open the art books and have a look upon the paintings of the great masters. The renaissance artistes used to fill their canvases with lemon yellow, golden yellow, Burnt amber, Burnt sienna, crimson and different shades of brown. That was the time when the painters spent maximum time to understand the human figure in great details; the anatomical structures and proportions of the human body. More over the subjects were related to the parables of bible which is full of with human characters. Little work has done on the other aspects of art, i.e. the nature and the outdoor scenes in those beginning days. Shades of blue, green and magenta are not exercised commonly in the period of renaissance. It was the religious circumstances that decided the fate of the art world as well as colours. In the work of Michel Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Pissarro, Rembrandt we can find a great resemblance of the colour schemes.

Time changed and the artists gradually stepped in to the outdoor nature. The tint of blue, green, magenta and other associated colours found their place in the artistes’ canvas. Many new shades felt its presence in the palette of the artists. Cobalt blue, Ultramarine blue, Persian blue, Almond green, sap green, aqua green, olive green, leafy green, cadmium yellow, deep chrome yellow, lemon yellow and a number of other hues were formed. Paul Cizen, August Renoir, Clod Monet, Edward Manett, Vincent Van Gogh and other great impressionists of 19^th century have found new meanings and interpretations to these colours through their canvases.

Came 2oth century and we entered into a different kind of world. As we became more civilized, and modern we started losing the sanctity, serenity and purity of colours. We have seen two great wars in the first half of the last century. The second half of 20^th century including the 1^st decade of current one was dominated by human violence, terrorism and vandalism which strongly affects the human psyche. Human behaviour changed along with the changing society. Man cut of all the links with the outer world and lives in isolation. He became more individualistic than before. Destructions, devastations and globalization, faded away all the colours from our life. The whole world faded into gray. Natural colour shades are slowly wiped out from the canvas of the artistes; especially in the urban cities. Still then in the lap of nature there left a tint of colour in its natural form especially in the rural and tribal regions because of the surroundings. But for how long this will sustain? We are cutting down the trees, deforesting the environment, destroying the mountains and hills and constructing high rising sky scrapers. We are solely responsible for de-colorization.

When we are lossing colours from our life, how can we expect it in art? The works of modern painters, designers and visual artistes are suffering with this trauma from the past century which is growing up day by day. If this pain, anguish and distress will not be stopped, all the colours from the artists’ pallet will be wiped away and by the end of this century our future generations will be left to see a world of black and white...... Just think for a while...

Dr. Satyabrata Rout, Hyderabad University/7.11.09

A Theatrical Journey...or...A Journey in Theatre!!!

2008-08-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

Traveling around the street corners of Delhi at the outbreak of monsoon in the year 1983, i was desperately in search of a job. By then I had passed out from the Drama School, and got married soon. It was my responsibility to take care of my family. But in a profession like Theatre, who is going to give me a job? I was desperate enough and was completely frustrated. Though I was a good student and passed out with a highest score in my specialised subject, it was taugh for me at that time to bag a job in Theatre in a cosmopolitan city like Delhi which had no room for a budding theatre practicing who had come from a rural background. every day, I used to sit near by the Fruit corner, adjacent to the Drama School campus and looked at people, their behaviour and body language with a hope that somebody may turn up to me and offer me some work. Drama School repertory did not accept me because of linguistic barriers. I am talking of the day when Naseeruddin Shah was just getting a leap in his career; Om Puri and Anupam Kher were struggling for their lively hood in Bombay. Somebody advised me to go to Bombay, meet them and look for a career in films, but I forced myself at the last moment not to get into films as I was not convinced with the life style of that medium. Moreover, it was always Theatre that gave me a kick than films and above all the cultural difference is a huge gap which I failed to bridge with.

My days went on sitting near that fruit stall or hanging around the tea shop near by Mandi house area. I was left with no job other than introspecting and waiting for a helping hand who could come and give a shape to my career which was almost at docks. The burden of my family was mounting as ever and forced me to borrow money from friends. Adding on to the woes was my smoking habit for which I had to borrow cigarettes from the betel shops.

Standing nearby a pan shop at Sankar Market, I was smoking and staring at the wide open sky with blank eyes until they got stuck with an old torn hand written advertisement depicting " Actors Required for Delhi Art Theatre". And the next thing I did was to move into the repertory, located there only, with a hope of getting the job. My eyes caught up with an old Lady with closed eyes, very calm and composed, sitting alone in an old wooden chair, perhaps waiting for her actors to come. Seconds of look on her made me scared. don't know for what reason, I did not have the audacity to go near her and enquire about the job. At the same time, I had no option of coming back without meeting her too. So, I waited for her out side with a hope that my destiny might click there. Eventually, actors started coming in and the rehearsal started. They were rehearsing Faiz Ahemad Faiz's "Dard Ayega Dabe Paon..." in Punjabi. Sometime later I discovered that She was the famous Shila Bhatia, the age old lady of Punjabi Theatre and the pioneer of Indian Opera.

She called me as soon as the rehearsal was over. It was almost late night and I have been waiting for about more than four hours. She gazed at my face, smiled and asked me, "You are looking tired. How long have you been waiting?" "For about four hours" I answered. She stared at me and said "You must have got bored. But look I have been sitting in this chair, waiting for my actors to come for the past twenty six years! I have never seen the sun set for such a long period. So don't be disheartened. Wait until you achieve your goal... You are selected...". To my utter astonishment, she did not even interview me. Later, I got to know that she had been observing me from the rehearsal hall for the past four hours.

There started my journey of Theatre. I acted, Designed and Directed Plays for her repertory. I learnt Punjabi from her. In her production "Tere Mere Lekh" (Punjabi adaptation of Lorca's 'Blood Wedding' ) I perform the roll of a woodcutter and spoke three dialogue in Punjabi. I also designed sets and lights for this mile stone production. I became popular among the young and aspirant designers of Delhi Theatre.That was my first professional venture. In her Punjabi Opera version of Dard Ayega Dabe Paon..., Omer Khayyam, Jeevan Raag, and in Mansarover ( short story collection of Munsi Premchand ), Mitro Marjanni, I explored myself at length as an actor, Designer and directed Haya-Vadan and Rashoman for her repertory. I discovered the warmth of a new language (Punjabi) and its culture. So many Punjabi actors including the famous punjabi singer Ms. Madan bala Sindhu ( Maddi Ji as we call her ), Abhay and Kiran Bhargav, Hali Vatts ( Shila ji's husband ) became my friends. My horizon expanded. Shila Ji could not pronounce my name properly; instead she would call me "Satti"...

During the course of my professional journey, I had to leave for Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, again came back to NSD after six years, spent time on travelling, exploring myself and teaching Theatre, but my relationship and work with her continued till the Delhi Art Theatre got closed in 1997. The oldest repertory of Delhi came to an end due to her bad health. We could hardly meet again.

I got to know about her illness and was planning to meet her. However, she passed away in between.

Salute to the Great Lady of Indian Theatre who made me what I am today.

______________
End

I am worried...

2008-07-21T07:12:00.001-07:00

I have been invited by Ranga Yatri, Allahabad to present my play 30 Days in September in Nandu Thakur Theatre festival on 18th Aug.08. I started my rehearsal today. I was bit worried as some cast has to be replaced. The play is difficult and issue based. But I have a faith on myself and God. He will help me and lead me to give a meaningful production.

Model of Greek Theatre

2008-07-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

This Model of Greek Theatre is prepared by the students in a Theatre workshop at Trivandrum organised by NSD.Feb.08.

Morning Hue...

2008-07-20T01:42:00.000-07:00

I woke up much before the sunrise, managed to make myself fresh. With the help of one of my friend I started for "Sangam" at Allahabad. I had to capture the morning mood of the river and the Ghat through my lens. We reached at the river bank as the Sun was spreading his golden hues in the sky. It was June and the clouds are all set to pour onto the earth. Tearing the thick blanket of dark clouds, the Sun god smilled at me and made me bath with his golden rays. I felt so proud of having him in my camera.

2008-07-07T02:21:00.000-07:00

Metaphorical Image of Mala in 30 Days...

2008-07-07T02:19:00.000-07:00

30 days in september-a play in English

2008-07-07T01:20:00.000-07:00

A still from

30 DAY IN SEPTEMBER

Written by Mahesh Dattani

Design and Direction

Satyabrata Rout

Produced by SN School, University of Hyderabad

30 days in September- a play in English

2008-07-07T00:49:00.001-07:00

This photograph has been taken during the show of "30 days in september" directed by me with the students of University of Hyderabad. This photograph captures a very dramatic moment of the play when Uncle VINAY is exposed completely by himself.

today's morning thought

2008-07-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

To day morning my alarm bell suddenly rang at 5.30 A.M.I get up from my bed. I was feeling very uneasy as I slept very late yesterday. My daughter who is studying in cl.10 th, got up for study. My wife prepared for a morning walk, but I was feeling sleepy. I did not go for a walk. my joints we paining. I slept at my bed and looked upward. I thought of myself. To my astonishment I saw my whole life ( A long journey to self) moved like a picture in front of me. I lost in that journey until my wife came back from her morning walk and prepared a cup of tea for me....What a horrified experience...?