Urmila - The Dilemma

Just a few days back, I saw the play “Urmila”, produced by Adishakti, staged at Kerala Fine Arts Society Hall, Kochi. I had to cross several hurdles to watch it. The cab which had confirmed my ride, turned and rode the other away without so much as the courtesy of cancelling the ride. Well, that left me sour, to put it mildly. So, mind you, I didn’t cancel the ride either. And I dashed to the auto stand to catch a rick to board the Metro to alight at a station closest to the venue, which was still not close enough.

To cut the long story short, I reached the venue 15 minutes late – “only”. By the way, I had made use of the time on the Metro to complain about the cab service and the driver on all possible platforms. In the end, the play was worth all the r’s – the wrath, the revenge, the rush, the rick, and the relay rides.

The play was well through its intro by the time I settled into my seat. But my spirit was not dampened in the least. I had done my homework well. The play was about Urmila Nidra or, rather, Urmila’s sleep. Apparently, Urmila had received a boon of sleep, by virtue of which her husband Lakshman could spend his fourteen years of exile wide awake, taking care of his brother Ram and bhabhi Sita every minute of it. That Urmila never asked for the boon, nor wanted it, was another matter. Yes, the play addresses gender issues and some of the many ethical dilemmas raised by the epic Ramayan in the casual reader’s mind.

However, what is most incredible about the play is the medium used by Nimmy Raphel, who enacts Urmila. Her body, the medium, in a state of sleepy wakefulness, carries the message of the play. And as the play unravels, you see the medium merge with the message. And you watch in awe, as Urmila continuously swings between sleep and awakening.

Sleep is not always synonymous with peace, as we have always been led to believe. In the play, the boon turns out to be the bane, no less, of Urmila’s life. Thanks to the "gift of sleep", as she sarcastically calls it, not only would she have to live her life for a full fourteen years without her newlywed husband by her side, she also has to drift through the entire time in slumber. No, the boon was never her choice. Nimmy Raphel as Urmila is amazing as she wades through her semi-conscious state, all the while holding out against the unfairness of it all.

Raphel’s acting is praiseworthy for her attention to the tiniest of details. In her woozy state, as she tries to find her feet, she quite literally tries to find them, as though wondering if they are in their rightful places at all. She even lifts up her foot and looks at it as though she’s surprised to know that it’s right there, where it should be, after all.

Raphel uses up the full length and breadth of the stage as she struggles to stay awake, staggering, swaying and faltering, and trying to fight the sleep warriors who try to push her back into the infinite abyss of sleep. Time and again, Urmila slips and falls, every time flailing her arms and legs in her effort to float upwards, to wakefulness. The inappropriateness of her carriage, the lack of propriety in her movements, and her sheer helplessness even as she is aware of the state she’s in leaves the audience stunned at the spontaneity of Raphel's acting.

Nimmy Raphel has scripted the play, and directed it as well. So it's no wonder, she is visibly in control of the whole act. In the visual conception of Urmila’s subtle state of suspense between sleep and wakefulness manifests Raphel’s brilliance. We have all experienced this state of being at least once, albeit for a fraction of a second, just before falling into deep sleep or right before turning fully awake. Raphel’s representation of her stupor is so palpable that she keeps the audience perching on their seats, almost still, for the full duration of an hour and a half. Sleep is not always peaceful. Not when it comes unwanted. And then, it is full of disquiet.

One cannot but wonder at Urmila’s dilemma. What could she have actually chosen? To wake up to the harsh reality of the life of a new bride estranged from her husband, by default, for a long fourteen years? Or to languish in the numbness of sleep, until the return of her husband who never considered for once that she could have had a choice in the matter in the first place?

The performances of Vinay Kumar and Sooraj as the warriors of sleep maintain the focus and enhance the experience of the play. 

The stage setting, the lights, and the costumes have all enriched the play. This audience looks forward to seeing more from Raphel and her team Adishakti.

[Pictures Courtesy: Adishakti Website, Social Media]

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The Finale

The heart stops midbeat
The rhythm pulsates, lingers
The music plays on.

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Ecdysis

 

The red and the blue,

the green one too,

and this pretty beige –

they all have to go

from my wardrobe

bursting at the seams

overflowing with clothes

new and old

and some over-worn,

for, when comes the time

to shed the garb

of fleshy yarn

and bloody weaves

in which I was born,

why leave a litter

of abandoned skins

like hollow shells

that, though once pretty,

would be empty

and mere debris?

 

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[Image by pngtree.com]

[This poem was first published by Madras Courier.]

The Story-telling Room

A room as simple as the man. A man as simple as his writing. His writing as simple as his way of life.

The room mentioned here is a study. A study that used to belong to the Indian novelist known for being the simple genius that he was and his novels known for their simple Indian flavour. Through his pen was created an entire fictional village on the banks of a fictional river, close to a fictional forest, with a charming fictional railway station to complete the setting. And peopled by characters so close to real that the reader wished they could visit the place. Yes, I am talking about R. K. Narayan, one of the most illustrious Indian writers in English.

To visit R. K. Narayan’s house had been a strong wish since the day it was known to me that the house is being maintained as a museum. The house has been restored and kept just as the author had left it. The spartan interiors of his home is filled with the vibes from a past – a past filled with charming tales of ordinary people and their unpretentious lives. The house, especially the study, is reverberating with, perhaps, his thoughts that still linger unborne, unformed, unshaped by his unassuming style of writing.  His narratives are so incredibly simple that it was considered a flaw, a shortcoming, by some, the poster walls say. Surely they may not have recognised the complexity involved in his simple writing.

RKN’s writing is soaked in the spirit of the region where his stories happen. The alienness of the language he writes in does not mar the pristineness of the world of his characters. The regionalism of his tales does not come in the way of the grace of the language he writes in. Or else, Graham Greene himself would not have taken the initiative of getting RKN’s books published.

This unique raconteur’s stories took form while he was on his walks down the street. His characters took shape as he stopped to exchange pleasantries with the shopkeepers, the roadside vendors, the shoppers, and the random passersby he might have chanced upon on his casual strolls.

As a reader and a hopeful writer, one feels it’s easier to be laborious in one's writing process than be effortlessly engaging. For, simplicity has to flow naturally. Like it did from this great storyteller’s pen.

His study has many windows. So had his mind, which opened out into the world. And his thoughts would have soared the skies. Some would have flown away into the horizon. Perhaps some are still there perching on the trees. Swinging on the boughs. Rustling the leaves. He would have recalled them into his study had he lingered longer in this world. Had he lived longer, he would have ushered them in, put them together, strung them one to the other to form charming tales, and treasured them between the leaves of his books forever. Had he lived longer.

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[PC: SW, Interiors of  RK Narayan's House, Museum in Mysuru]

Tangents

Time speeds forward. Through light and dark. Regardless of the bright days or the starry, sometimes dreary, nights. Through hues and greys. Sweating up the highs and tumbling down the lows. At times warmed up by the shine. Often scorched by the heat. Bare to the nightly chills. Startled by the dawns. Anticipating the dusks. Time races on. So does life. At a matching pace. Shooting off at a tangent to every expectation.

life a shooting dart
time a tangent on its own
hope still circles though

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[Picture: On the way to Phillip Island, Melbourne]