Habib Tanvir: The Making of a Legend

Tanvir's Naya Theatre works almost exclusively with folk actors. However, even his occasional productions with urban actors and for groups other than Naya Theatre -- such as, Dushman (Gorky's Enemies) for the NSD Repertory or Jisne Lahore Nai Dekhya Wo Jamyai Nai (Asghar Wajahat) for the Sri Ram Centre Repertory -- are marked by the style that he has developed through his work with the folk artists. Nonetheless, the theatre that Tanvir had developed was not a "folk theatre" in the strictest sense of the term. He is a conscious and highly sophisticated urban artist with a modern outlook, sensibility and a strong sense of history and politics. His interest in folk culture and his decision to work with and in terms of traditional styles of performance was itself an ideological choice as much as an aesthetic one, whether Tanvir himself was fully conscious of it as such or not. There is a close connection between his predilection for popular traditions and his left-wing disposition. His involvement with the left-wing cultural movement, an association which he maintains (no matter how loosely) to this day, already meant a commitment to the common people and their causes. His work in the theatre, in style as well as in content, reflects this commitment and can be seen as part of a larger (socialist) project of empowerment of the people.

Tanvir's fascination with the "folk" is not motivated by a revivalist or an antiquarian impulse. It is based, instead, on an awareness of the tremendous creative possibilities and artistic energies inherent in these traditions. He does not hesitate to borrow themes, techniques, and music from them, but he also desists from the impossible task of trying to resurrect old traditions in their original form and also from presenting them as stuffed museum pieces. Notwithstanding a popular misconception, his theatre does not belong within any one form or tradition in its entirety or purity. In fact, as he is quick to point out, he has not been "running after" folk forms as such at all but only after folk performers who brought their own forms and styles with them. The performance style of his actors is, no doubt, rooted in their traditional
nacha background, but his plays are not authentic nacha productions. For one thing, while the number of actual actors in a nacha play is usually restricted to two or three, the rest being stop-gap singers and dancers, Tanvir's production involve a full cast of actors, some of whom also sing and dance. More significantly, his plays have a structural coherence and complexity which one does not usually associate with the "simple" form of the nacha. Another important difference is that while in the nacha songs and dances are used largely as autonomous musical interludes, in Tanvir's plays they are neither purely ornamental in function nor are they formally autonomous units inserted into a loose collection of separate skits. On the contrary, they are closely woven into the fabric of the action and function as an important part of the total thematic and artistic structure of the play.

In other words, Tanvir does not romanticise the 'folk' uncritically and ahistorically. He is aware of their historical and cognitive limitations and does not hesitate to intervene in them and allow his own modern consciousness and political understanding to interact with the traditional energies and skills of his performers. His project, from the beginning of his career, has been to harness elements of folk traditions as a vehicle and make them yield new, contemporary meanings, and to produce a theatre which has a touch of the soil about it.

This rich interaction between Tanvir's urban, modern consciousness and the folk styles and forms is perhaps best exemplified by the songs in his plays. Tanvir's excellent adaptations of A Midsummer's Night Dream (Kamdeo Ka Apna, Basant Ritu Ka Sapna) and The Good Woman of Szechwan (Shaajapur ki Shantibai) could not be possible without this interaction. In these plays, he has worked close to the original text and written songs which reproduce the rich imagery and humour of Shakespeare's poetry and the complex ideas of Brecht. Despite this fidelity to the original texts, not only has Tanvir given his poetic compositions the authenticity and freshness of the original but has also fitted his words to native folk tunes with remarkable ease and skill.

One of the most outstanding examples of this kind of interaction is Tanvir's Dekh Rahe Hain Nain, based on a story by Stephen Zweig, in which he has successfully represented a complex theme without compromising the vitality and creativity of his folk actors. It was the moral dilemma embodied in the protagonist, a courageous warrior, who is tormented by the guilt of having to kill his own brother, which had attracted Tanvir to Zweig's story. However, in writing the play, he went beyond the story and invented new events, situations, characters and added dimensions and nuances which significantly enriched the story and made it more poignantly relevant for us today. The result is a play that traverses a complex gamut of motifs from the abstract, almost metaphysical, quest for inner peace to the concrete, material problems of the ordinary people in wake of a war, economic inflation and political corruption; from an idealist impulse towards renunciation of political power and towards an absolute solitude to an urgent sense of the necessity to get involved with others for a shared endeavour to change the world.

Tanvir is quite careful not to create a hierarchy by privileging, in any absolute and extrinsic way, his own educated consciousness as poet-cum-playwright-cum-director over the unschooled creativity of his actors. In his work, the two usually meet and interpenetrate, as it were, as equal partners in a collective, collaborative endeavour in which each gives and takes from, and thus enriches, the other. An excellent example of this non-exploitative approach is the way Tanvir fits and blends his poetry with the traditional folk and tribal music, allowing the former to retain its own imaginative and rhetorical power and socio-political import, but without in any way devaluing or destroying the latter. Yet another example can be seen in the way he allows his actors and their skills to be foregrounded by eschewing all temptations to use elaborate stage design and complicated lighting.

Thus in contrast to the fashionable, folksy kind of drama on the one hand and the revivalist and archaic kind of 'traditional' theatre on the other, Tanvir's theatre offers an incisive blend of tradition and modernity, folk creativity and skills on the one hand and modern critical consciousness on the other. It is this rich as well as enriching blend which makes his work so unique and memorable.

Part of an article written

By Javed Malick

This piece originally appeared in Samar 14: Fall/Winter, 2001

Javed Malick teaches English at Delhi University, and is a theater critic.

HABIB TANVIR

Tanvir's Naya Theatre works almost exclusively with folk actors. However, even his occasional productions with urban actors and for groups other than Naya Theatre -- such as, Dushman (Gorky's Enemies) for the NSD Repertory or Jisne Lahore Nai Dekhya Wo Jamyai Nai (Asghar Wajahat) for the Sri Ram Centre Repertory -- are marked by the style that he has developed through his work with the folk artists. Nonetheless, the theatre that Tanvir had developed was not a "folk theatre" in the strictest sense of the term. He is a conscious and highly sophisticated urban artist with a modern outlook, sensibility and a strong sense of history and politics. His interest in folk culture and his decision to work with and in terms of traditional styles of performance was itself an ideological choice as much as an aesthetic one, whether Tanvir himself was fully conscious of it as such or not. There is a close connection between his predilection for popular traditions and his left-wing disposition. His involvement with the left-wing cultural movement, an association which he maintains (no matter how loosely) to this day, already meant a commitment to the common people and their causes. His work in the theatre, in style as well as in content, reflects this commitment and can be seen as part of a larger (socialist) project of empowerment of the people.

Tanvir's fascination with the "folk" is not motivated by a revivalist or an antiquarian impulse. It is based, instead, on an awareness of the tremendous creative possibilities and artistic energies inherent in these traditions. He does not hesitate to borrow themes, techniques, and music from them, but he also desists from the impossible task of trying to resurrect old traditions in their original form and also from presenting them as stuffed museum pieces. Notwithstanding a popular misconception, his theatre does not belong within any one form or tradition in its entirety or purity. In fact, as he is quick to point out, he has not been "running after" folk forms as such at all but only after folk performers who brought their own forms and styles with them. The performance style of his actors is, no doubt, rooted in their traditional
nacha background, but his plays are not authentic nacha productions. For one thing, while the number of actual actors in a nacha play is usually restricted to two or three, the rest being stop-gap singers and dancers, Tanvir's production involve a full cast of actors, some of whom also sing and dance. More significantly, his plays have a structural coherence and complexity which one does not usually associate with the "simple" form of the nacha. Another important difference is that while in the nacha songs and dances are used largely as autonomous musical interludes, in Tanvir's plays they are neither purely ornamental in function nor are they formally autonomous units inserted into a loose collection of separate skits. On the contrary, they are closely woven into the fabric of the action and function as an important part of the total thematic and artistic structure of the play.

In other words, Tanvir does not romanticise the 'folk' uncritically and ahistorically. He is aware of their historical and cognitive limitations and does not hesitate to intervene in them and allow his own modern consciousness and political understanding to interact with the traditional energies and skills of his performers. His project, from the beginning of his career, has been to harness elements of folk traditions as a vehicle and make them yield new, contemporary meanings, and to produce a theatre which has a touch of the soil about it.

This rich interaction between Tanvir's urban, modern consciousness and the folk styles and forms is perhaps best exemplified by the songs in his plays. Tanvir's excellent adaptations of A Midsummer's Night Dream (Kamdeo Ka Apna, Basant Ritu Ka Sapna) and The Good Woman of Szechwan (Shaajapur ki Shantibai) could not be possible without this interaction. In these plays, he has worked close to the original text and written songs which reproduce the rich imagery and humour of Shakespeare's poetry and the complex ideas of Brecht. Despite this fidelity to the original texts, not only has Tanvir given his poetic compositions the authenticity and freshness of the original but has also fitted his words to native folk tunes with remarkable ease and skill.

One of the most outstanding examples of this kind of interaction is Tanvir's Dekh Rahe Hain Nain, based on a story by Stephen Zweig, in which he has successfully represented a complex theme without compromising the vitality and creativity of his folk actors. It was the moral dilemma embodied in the protagonist, a courageous warrior, who is tormented by the guilt of having to kill his own brother, which had attracted Tanvir to Zweig's story. However, in writing the play, he went beyond the story and invented new events, situations, characters and added dimensions and nuances which significantly enriched the story and made it more poignantly relevant for us today. The result is a play that traverses a complex gamut of motifs from the abstract, almost metaphysical, quest for inner peace to the concrete, material problems of the ordinary people in wake of a war, economic inflation and political corruption; from an idealist impulse towards renunciation of political power and towards an absolute solitude to an urgent sense of the necessity to get involved with others for a shared endeavour to change the world.
Tanvir is quite careful not to create a hierarchy by privileging, in any absolute and extrinsic way, his own educated consciousness as poet-cum-playwright-cum-director over the unschooled creativity of his actors. In his work, the two usually meet and interpenetrate, as it were, as equal partners in a collective, collaborative endeavour in which each gives and takes from, and thus enriches, the other. An excellent example of this non-exploitative approach is the way Tanvir fits and blends his poetry with the traditional folk and tribal music, allowing the former to retain its own imaginative and rhetorical power and socio-political import, but without in any way devaluing or destroying the latter. Yet another example can be seen in the way he allows his actors and their skills to be foregrounded by eschewing all temptations to use elaborate stage design and complicated lighting.

Thus in contrast to the fashionable, folksy kind of drama on the one hand and the revivalist and archaic kind of 'traditional' theatre on the other, Tanvir's theatre offers an incisive blend of tradition and modernity, folk creativity and skills on the one hand and modern critical consciousness on the other. It is this rich as well as enriching blend which makes his work so unique and memorable.

Javed Malick teaches English at Delhi University, and is a theater critic.

Bengali theatre mourns Habib Tanvir's death

A pall of gloom descended on this theatre-loving state today as the news of death of Padma Bhushan awardee Habib Tanvir, renowned playwright and litterateur spread.

Veteran theatre personality Habib Tanvir died in Bhopal early on Monday after prolonged illness, family sources said. He was 85.
Tanvir died at about 0630 hrs IST at the National Hospital, where he had been admitted about 20 days ago after developing respiratory problems.
Hospital sources said Tanvir later suffered kidney failure and his condition worsened.
The playwright's funeral will be held in Bhopal on Tuesday, family sources said.
Tanvir was a popular Hindi playwright, theatre director, poet and actor. He had written plays like Agra Bazar (1954) and Charandas Chor (1975). In 1959, he founded a theatre company called the Naya Theatre here.
He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1969, Padma Shri in 1983, Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1996, and the Padma Bhushan in 2002.
Tanvir was also nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha (1972-1978). His play Charandas Chor got him the Fringe Firsts Award at the Edinburgh International Drama Festival in 1982.

TWO POEMS OF MUHAMMAD SAMAD(BANGLADESH)

An elegy for Pluto

In childhood I used to see the stars and fireflies streak across the sky
and was delighted to imagine anyone of them as Pluto, Neptune or Mars.
Like siblings born at short stretches we grew up in warm camaraderie.
Pluto played much fun with us in those evenings!
Currently some astronomers have for no reason
determinedly set themselves against Pluto on the plea
that Pluto is incapable of swallowing up its neighbour;
every twenty years it crosses the orbit of Neptune:
it is supposedly dwarf in size and so is denied the status of a planet!
Since childhood it is our experience that
Pluto does not like to usurp anyone’s right or to tread on anyone’s corn.
It has Charon, Hydra and Nyx for neighbours.
They are tiny objects, comparable to Pluto’s offspring.
Is this relationship of love and compassion too censurable?
Do we not pay a visit to our aunt’s place?
If the simple and innocuous Pluto, for old time’s sake
enters Neptune’s yard, once in twenty years
what’s the harm?
The stars and planets too are elder or younger brothers and sisters;
Pluto is young in age.
I would say — we are wont to work our younger siblings’ shoe-laces
into floral designs, tie up the blazing-red ribbon into a beautiful knot
and send her to school, we take them for an outing to the park or the riverside ...
Does it then become us to deal such cruelty to Pluto
on a lame excuse like Iraq war?
For the few remaining days let us stay together in the earth and the sky...

Translated by Zakeria Shirazi


Crow

I find it difficult to make out the behavior of the crows of Ted Huges
They are anyhow post-modern
The crows of Bengal are eternal like my simple mother
All along they talk about our good and bad
Hold meetings for freeing the world from garbage,
And in the light of their understandings, they fly
and run in sun and rain; and
at the precise moment they place the forecasts of danger
So, I love the crows of Bengal.
All morning-crows are my younger sisters
They awaken my daughters and seat them at reading-tables
They send my father to eastern sky with plough
and call my mother to bow in prayer
And, shout out to the world and say…
Sister, get up and keep well – our throats are about to
burst crowing, right now those will bleed!

Translated by Kajal Bondyopadhyay

In Lieu of an Introduction

In Lieu of an Introduction

This is a collection of English translation of selected poems by Muhammad Samad (of Bangladesh) who has earned considerable fame here over time for both his poetry and various sorts of activism. As we know well, these two have their markedly separate domains, but are generally found to originate from common source-points, of passions, and to proceed interactively. That means these tend to influence each other. As a result, there’s a risk of one’s performance in both these areas suffering. Readers in Bangladesh have been keeping watchful eyes on Samad’s poetry, and now they feel relieved that his poetry has emerged as a rich volume.

As I myself perceived the situation, Samad’s activism, at least in the part of Jatio Kabita Parishad (an anti-autocracy movement and organization of poetry in Bangladesh), etc., rather exposed him to quality poets and their poetry. And, he rather learnt for sure that poetry and organizational activism cannot take each other’s place. Or, they haven’t got much to do with each other. Poetry has to be written in its own age-old ways of deep brooding, intense contemplation and technical perfection, etc., and activism cannot help one out in all these. It may rather create distraction and easy-sailing attitudes. Muhammad Samad pursued his two careers—of a poet and an activist—with equal attention, and thus gained in competence in both. His activism in liberal politics and culture, by honing and strengthening his passions, contributed to his poetry. Reversely, poetry contributed to his activism in some mysterious ways. Finally, ours is no loss in either area; we mark gains in both. Muhammad Samad from Bangladesh constitutes one rare instance of success in striding two boats or horses at one time. Sufficient awareness of the difficulties involved, passionate commitment to the two callings, which may have a unique meeting point in a person, etc., have already led to remarkable achievement for Samad and signal much more.

All these I mention; for, they are unforgettable in Muhammad Samad’s case. And, because one may feel shy of mentioning them for the particular time we are passing through. Now is the time in Bangladesh of turning your eyes in poems away from people or popular causes, of attending only to technicalities of perfection, being more wordy and less meaningful, and being ‘post-modern’ in some such ways. These are issues of later-time theory/ies, and Muhammad Samad, who started writing poems in the nineteen-seventies, appears to have cared little for them. His poetry crosses subtleties of theory-debates, and proves an orientation to what might much afterwards be called romantic revolutionism. And, Samad’s and many others’ kinds of poems prove theories, of any kind, redundant. They prove that creative works can do well by responding firsthand to life and by disregarding ideology or theory as compulsive or circumscribing guidelines. As Samad casually and frequently places so many myths from the Buddhist and Hindu puranas in his poems, to compare, evoke or explain, we get marks of his close acquaintance with popular life here, history of Bengal and the particularities of civilization here, much before we get his secularism or pluralism.

Then I, the son of Shuddhvudhan, will go to the forest,
to the bank of the river, Niranjana,
Shady places under the peapul,
Altar of black stone.
Cooking frumenty of your own hand
with milk, water, fruit,
treading on stormy forests
you will awaken me on the night of full moon of Baishakh
Then I shall become Bodhisattva, you, Budhagaya—Village Urubela;
Every one will come to know, the pretty daughter of the Milkman is another Sujata.Samad however proves enough knowledge of post-modernism, etc., and in a remarkable poem, “Crow”, hints at how the “theories” are rather imposed for Bangladesh’s poetry at present:

I find it difficult to make out the behavior of the crows of Ted Huges
They are anyhow post-modern
The crows of Bengal are eternal like my simple mother
All along they talk about our good and bad
Hold meetings for freeing the world from garbage,………………………………………………

All morning-crows are my younger sisters
They awaken my daughters and seat them at reading-tables
They send my father to the eastern sky with plough
and call my mother to bow in prayer
And, shout out to the world and say…
Sister, get up and keep well – our throats are about to
burst crowing, right now those will bleed!
Proper sensitivity of a poet makes Samad not only modern or liberal; he proves the balance of an opposition to fundamentalist violence in Bangladesh and imperialist menace in Iraq also. In a moving poem about Ali Ismail Abbas, an Iraqi child who has lost both his hands, Samad carries all the wind from the sail of the American war in Iraq; let me quote a portion:.

Maa,
this picture of a boy with his two hands chopped off, his body burnt,
his face distorted by pain; this picture is Ali's. What’s his fault
in the eyes of Bush and Blair? Why did they cut off his hands?
Maa, how will Ali now ride his bicycle?
How will he hold the stick on his ice-cream?
How will he enjoy the ride on the merry-go-round at the Children's Park?
How will he embrace others on the day of the Eid?
Or cut the cake on his birthday?
During the Puja or Christmas or the summer fair of Baishakh, Ali will
no more be able to go about holding the hand
of his parents and look for toys...

In translation, Samad’s original line-lengths and stanza-schemes have been kept in tact as far as possible. As his are poems rooted in Bangladesh’s age-old civilization, references and allusions are not few, requiring notes which have been placed in a glossary. And, this has been placed at the starting pages, for readers’ convenience. As a fellow poet from Bangladesh, I feel honoured in writing this prose-item which is never an Introduction proper; this is a friend’s contribution that began with translation of some of the poems.

Muhammad Samad (1958 ---)
Muhammad Samad, a leading poet and social scientist was born in the district of Jamalpur, Bangladesh in 1958. He did his PhD on People’s Participation in Rural Development from the University of Dhaka.
His poetry books include: Ekjan Rajnaitik Netar Manifesto (Manifesto of a Political Leader, 1983); Ami Noi Indrajit Megher Adale (I Am Not Indrajit Behind the Clouds, 1985); Porabe Chanda Kath (Shall You Burn the Sandal Wood, 1989); Cholo Tumul Brishtite Bhiji Let Us Go and Be Soaked in Rains, 1996). English version of his major poems entitled as ‘Selected Poems’ appeared in 2008.
He is currently professor and director at the Institute of Social Welfare and Research in Dhaka University.

FILM SOUTHASIA

Background on Film South Asia
Film South Asia, organised for the last 12 years by Himal Southasian, is one festival that takes in the sweep of non-fiction audio-visual productions being made across the Southasia. FSA has helped energise the development of the documentary genre, take it to a wider audience, as well as nurture new talent through the mixing of filmmakers divided by nationality, experience, technique and discipline.

FSA is held every two years at a venue in Kathmandu. The festival showcases films on Southasian themes or subjects. Documentaries cover any subject in the rage available to filmmakers: from people, culture, lifestyle and adventure to development, environment, politics education and history.

The only region-wide festival dedicated to the craft of non-fiction film, Film South Asia is a platform for filmmakers seeking to exhibit new works. The relaxed atmosphere, which has become the signature of FSA, brings together filmmakers, journalists, scholars and film enthusiasts into a comfortable interface, helping generate cross-regional friendships and projects.

Entry is free of cost. A selection of about 45 films are screened at the competitive section of the festival and monetary prizes, along with citations, are awarded for overall excellence to the directors of the three best films chosen by three-member Southasian jury.

Film South Asia ’09 is being held from 17-20 September 2009 in Kathmandu. This is the seventh edition of the biennial festival of Southasian non-fiction film. After FSA ’09, select documentaries will tour the world as part of Travelling Film South Asia.

Once again, we are looking forward to bring together the most creative and dedicated non-fiction filmmakers of Southasia to the festival venue in Kathmandu. With every festival we find more diversity in the films submitted. In September 2009, the celebration will continue.

New Filmmakers

There is an exponential expansion in the making of the documentary film—amateur and professional—due to the lower costs of filming and editing technology. In FSA ’09, we hope to seek out new filmmakers so as to add depth and variety to the films entered, selected and shown.

Travelling Film South Asia

A selection of up to 15 outstanding films from FSA ’09 will make up the Travelling Film South Asia, which will tour all over the Subcontinent and the world. Each of the past editions of TFSA has been to above 40 venues, where they have been received enthusiastically by dramatically diverse audiences. Within Southasia, the travelling festival helps build awareness and empathy among audiences across societies. We expect the forthcoming TFSA to go to more venues than ever, making connections and building on the increasing interest in our region. While there is a charge levied on venues overseas, TFSA festival organisers within Southasia are charged no fee for the package, which includes the films and promotional material. The organisers in Southasia are only responsible for dispatching the films to the next venue as directed by the FSA Secretariat.

Clearinghouse of South Asian Non-Fiction Film

The FSA Secretariat hosts the Clearinghouse for South Asian Non-Fiction Film, which markets documentaries from the region for non-commercial and non-broadcast purposes. An increasing number of documentaries are being sold by the Clearinghouse since it was launched at FSA ’01. The Clearinghouse works on the basis of non-exclusive agreements with filmmakers, and thus far has limited itself to films entered for Film South Asia. The Clearinghouse also works continuously to bring filmmakers together with all interested parties and with each other. http://www.filmsouthasia.org/

HIMAL Southasian

About us
Himal Southasian is published by the not-for-profit The Southasia Trust, Lalitpur, Nepal

Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For two decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.

Independent, non-nationalist, pan-regionalist – Himal tells Indians and Nepalis about Pakistanis and Afghans, Sri Lankans and Burmese about Tibetans and Maldivians, and the rest of the world about this often-overlooked region. Critical analysis, commentary, opinion, essays and reviews – covering regional trends in politics and economics with the same perspective as culture and history, Himal stories do not stop at national borders, but are followed wherever they lead.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

'Southasia' as one word

Readers will note, and perhaps wonder why, Himal's editorial stylebook favours 'Southasia' as one word. Well, as a magazine seeking to restore some of the historical unity of our common living space - without wishing any violence on the existing nation states - we believe that the aloof geographical term 'South Asia' needs to be injected with some feeling. 'Southasia' does the trick for us, albeit the word is limited to English-language discourse.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THE KING WHO LOVED PEOPLE AND PLANTS

HIMAL South Asian Magazine
June 2009

The king who loved people and plants:

'Paari Padukalam'

written and directed

by

Pralayan

By: Sivagnanam Jeyasankar



Paari Padukalam (The Death of Paari)
written and directed by Pralayan, 2008

Against a backdrop of increased marginalisation of minorities the world over under the banner of the US-led ‘war against terror’, a new stage play has come out of Tamil Nadu. Paari Padukalam (The Death of Paari), a 100-minute production, has been performed around Tamil Nadu since September 2008, following a month-long theatre workshop at Pondicherry’s Department of Performing Arts. It was written and directed by Pralayan, the renowned street-theatre maestro from Tamil Nadu.

Paari Padukalam tells the story of Paari, the well-known Tamil king of the Parampu Hills, believed to have been located at the modern town of Piran Malai in the south-central Pudukkottai District of Tamil Nadu. The monarch has long been admired for his willingness to help people in need; but unlike the entrenched legend of King Paari, Paari Padukalam explores long-ignored aspects of the king’s character. The Sangam, or body of classical Tamil literature that flourished between 300 BC and 200 AD, was largely a movement typically laden with romanticised imagery; Paari, who is mentioned in more than 50 Sangam poems, is similarly portrayed. For instance, in the Sangam literature dealing with the situation after Paari’s death, his daughters are said to have become homeless, landless, even nation-less wanderers seeking refuge. Such imagery is popular among the Tamil masses, and was successfully dramatised by the modern-day Tamil poet Inqulab and dramatist Pathma Mangai in “Kurunchi Paattu” (Song of Kurunchi).

While very few attempts have been made to take a non-romantic view of Sangam literature, Pralayan tries to explore the social history, hierarchies and power relations of the era. Paari Padukalam subsequently rejects several popular notions. One example of this is Paari’s legendary love for plants, as often evidenced by his offering his chariot to the Mullai (a type of jasmine) creeper on which to climb up. The play sarcastically dismisses this reference as the mere hyperbole of an overenthusiastic poet, as chariots were not used in hilly areas.

Pralayan’s production does place additional focus on other parts of the Paari fable, however. The king’s kindness to plants is also said to have extended to his subjects, allowing his people to live autonomous lives, unlike the strictures of other rulers of the time. Soon, bards across the southern part of the Subcontinent began to compose songs and poems in praise of Paari, whose popularity soon came to be seen as a threat by the kings of Chera, Chola and Pandiya – the three most powerful southern kingdoms at the time. The three agreed to unite to eradicate this ‘evil’ in their kingdoms – the only point in the historical or literary record of the three rulers fighting collaboratively.

The strength of Pralayan’s production lies in its exploration of how the tale of Paari, itself an old one, is of particular relevance to contemporary audiences. Indeed, the questions raised by the dying Paari are pertinent to the current global political climate, in which the thirst for ‘democracy’ is, ironically, often fulfilled through bloodshed. At the end of the play, as Paari is dying, he asks the bard Kapilar:

Oh Kapilar, what wrong did I do? Our land has no fences. Our land has no bunds.
Only the rivers and justice flow
I maintained ‘In birth all the species are equal’ – was it wrong?
I maintained ‘All are equal in the face of justice’ – is it wrong?
We the tribe of Velir lived harmoniously with mother earth, is it wrong?
Was it wrong, Kapilar?! Is it wrong?!
Was it wrong I listened to the learned and to the elders?!

As referred to here by Paari, the story of the Velir, the subjugated tribe to which he belonged, is an important one. Sangam literature often mentions the seven chieftains of the Velir, in addition to the kings of Chera, Chola and Pandiya, and there is significant epigraphical evidence to support the existence of the Velir clan. In the post-Sangam era, however, there is no mention of the Velir – it is as though they suddenly vanished. The belief is that that they were conquered and absorbed into the Chera, Chola and Pandiya kingdoms. In Paari Padukalam, one of Pralayan’s goals is to explore these very silences and pauses in history, thus hoping to inspire minorities today to refuse to allow themselves to be obliterated.

Model state
As responsible citizens, in contemplating our responses to Paari Padukalam we must wrestle with one question in particular: What is the place for minorities in a world that continues to be controlled by elites? In the case of Paari, his downfall appears to be a result of choosing friendship with his people over favourable diplomatic relationships with the surrounding rulers. Yet in today’s postmodern world, where differences are said to be celebrated and individuality respected, are these ideas feasible? Keeping in mind the draconian laws and military might used to impose order in many parts today, there appears to be no difference between ‘peace’ and ‘silence’ in the contemporary world. An exploration of the barriers that must be overcome to achieve a people-friendly world in the 21st century is a crucial need, and one that is specifically highlighted by the story of Paari.

One such barrier is fear, the alarm that led the three monarchs to put aside their personal conflicts and unite against Paari. A conversation between the bard Kapilar and the three kings illuminates several related points:

Kapilar: Kings, I did not expect this war.
You could avoid this war with Paari.
Kings: He defied our demands! Disobeyed our orders.
And he declined to offer his daughters as rewards.
Only the war will heal the nauseous of Paari.
Kapilar: Kings, the love to live with dignity is nauseous?
But, oh Kings, there are hundred reasons to avoid this war.
Kings: How? Tell us Kapilar, tell us one reason.
Kapilar: Chera, Chola, Pandiya and Paari from the Velir tribe all are Tamil-speaking.
They could unite as Tamils, can’t they?
Kings: Oh bard, how dare you equate the high tribes of Chera, Chola and Pandiya Kings and Paari of the low tribe?
King: Has Tamil get the power to remove this disparity?
Kapilar: Oh, is this your problem?!
Disaster for the tribe… devastation for the Tamil tribe…
Goodbye Great Kings!

As this excerpt makes clear, a favourite tool of rulers past and present is to generate fear, to create a situation in which the upstart and the independent can be labelled the enemy. After coming up with such inventions, the rulers then panic over their constructed ‘enemies’, and busy themselves creating forts, security zones, bunkers, intelligence units, weapons and torture methods. Few appear to be free of this psyche of fear, which has become the essence of the politics of rule.

Also requiring some discussion in this context is how the callous greed of rulers can act as a roadblock to a just society. Pralayan depicts this particularly well in a scene in which the three kings are discussing their shares and opportunities in the conquered Parampu. Indeed, such bargaining continues today among world powers, reflecting the market ambitions of the so-called democratic superpowers. Similarly, then as now, talk on planning and reconstruction is notably missing.

Interestingly, in the rhetoric of modern Tamil politics, the three monarchs continue to be celebrated for building dams, their forays into the high Himalaya and victories over invading Aryan armies, amid other achievements. Paari, meanwhile, is also admired, but for his philanthropic character rather than for his judicious political rule. Yet if these issues are explored in depth, Paari’s Parampu could easily be seen as a strong model for modern democracies – if what is truly desired is rule of the people, by the people, for the people. Given the examples set forward by Paari, it is confusing why Tamil social scientists have not long been busy designing and producing such a model. That Pralayan has chosen to present such a reassessment of Paari today is thus not only good theatre, but potent inspiration.


Sivagnanam Jeyasankar is a theatre activist and senior lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Culture at Eastern University, Sri Lanka.
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