Pondicherry, a peaceful, coastal town in the
heart of South India is the home of many creative, original people who
contribute significantly to the aesthetic, cultural and physical fabric of
India and abroad.Veenapani Chawla born in 1947 in Bombay, India,
an innovator of new forms of theatre, founder and artistic
Director of Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research, Pondicherry, is one
of them. A soft spoken woman with a tranquil
smile, exuding quiet authority and dynamism, and Adishakti, a beautiful, green
campus dedicated to the performing arts, make up a coherent and artistic whole
Let us find out more about
Veenapani and Adishakti through the author herself.
You were a history student and
began your career as a teacher. What made you turn to theatre? Was there any
particular play or event?
Yes, I was a history student
and taught history, literature and
political science. But I have been
interested in theatre since my childhood and my interest was fuelled
after I came to Pondicherry.
How did that happen?
Sri Nolini
Kanta Gupta, my mentor, who was one of
the earliest disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother told me in 1978 that theatre was
the thing for me . I didn’t know
how it was going to happen though. I was already in my late twenties. But when
I got back to Bombay things fell into place
Indian families in the 60s, as even
now, wanted safe careers or safe matrimony for their daughters and you chose
neither. Was your family different, encouraging you in your choices and
aspirations?
No, not to
begin with. They were quite upset and outraged, especially about marriage. They
wanted me to get married. It was only when I came here with the theatre work
, and there were material results that they began to be encouraging.
In your
previous interviews you say you trained for a long time with great gurus in
remote places in India, especially in Kerela, in classical Sanskrit theatre Koodiyattam and
the martial art form Kalariayapettu. Can you tell us what drew you to exploring
these forms instead of going through a regular theatre course?
There was
no regular theatre course except in the NSD (National School of Drama) and I
was already directing by that time. In 1978 Nolini-da told me, and by 1981 I was already professionally directing big actors like Naseruddin Shah, so the question of
doing a course at that time didn’t arise.But what I found was that while I was
good with concepts, interpretation, I knew about design, I could tell a
professional, trained actor what I wanted from him, I didn't have the knowledge or the tools required to help a novice with his voice, or bearing. So to meet those needs I went to gurus. I also strongly felt the need for a more physical form of theatre.. I found the theatre that was around me too cerebral, verbal, like in Europe. It
was borrowed from Europe but in India it has always been more than just a
verbal or literary piece of work. So for that reason I looked around and learnt “Chau” from Orissa, then in various
festivals I saw kalaripayettu from Kerala and was very keen to learn it. I also had to train the actor to use
his voice, so that’s how the decision to go to Kerela for Kudiyattam as well, came about.
Did you envisage fusing elements from these
forms in your plays?
I had the desire to create a new aesthetic
form, for our times where the aesthetics would marry historical India with what
we are today, which is a result of various influences from different parts of
the world. And this meant a journey into historical India. If I learnt these
forms it was not to perform them but to evolve something which is
representative of our time.I found that these forms had a lot of knowledge but
that they were obscured by formulae, and I had to strip them of these formulae
and go back to the real purpose.
And I discovered that unlike the West where they began psychologically, we began
from getting into the physical structure first, getting into stances, and then
accessing the psychological spaces through them. You see in tantra the centres
are located in different points of the body and if you position your body in a
particular way, you access one or two centres and then the emotions and then
the state of mind. So from the physical we went into the psychological unlike
in the West where from the psychological they went into the physical.
Koodiyattam was performed
originally in temple precincts and both
men and women participated but wasn’t Kalariyapettu an exclusive male bastion?
Originally
Koodiyattam was performed in the open, then it was taken into the temple
but gradually women lost all the major
roles to men . Many plays got lost because women were predominant in it. Now
it’s come out of the temple again and women are trying to reclaim their roles.
And Kalaripayettu was originally learnt by both men and women. There are many
known female warriors who did Kalaripayettu. But then it was completely shut
off to women.
Did you as a woman from the other
end of India have to overcome barriers before being accepted as a disciple?
Actually it was easier because I
was regarded as a foreigner, so they
were lenient, thinking I was learning it as a hobby. I was also introduced by a very well known
writer and playwright called G. Shankar Pillai and because they respected him
so much they accepted me. If I had gone on my own, v anonymously, they would
not have accepted me. But for example if you had periods you were not allowed to enter the “Kalari” (
the ring where kalaripayettu is practiced)
because you were considered impure, so you had to miss classes.
When and why did you start
Adishakti?
I started Adishakti in 1981. It was a kind of banner under which performers would come together produce
a play, break up and maybe come back again for another play . I was the only
constant factor.
Why the name Adishakti? What is the
significance?
The primordial
energy, the divine mother.
You said you started Adishakti as a
banner but as of today what is Adishakti’s purpose?
Today
Adishakti is very different. When I came to Pondicherry and started work again, it was very different
from what I used to do before. I had time, space and the possibilities to do what
I wanted. There was no intention of showing. There was just the intention of
work. It was a creative process. I started writing my own script, doing
research and focusing on the exploration of creating a new craft… . It led to a performance . Then we were invited to stage it because I was known outside. That’s how it got catapulted. Later we started having performances of other groups, training
workshops, seminars, discussions.
Doesn’t
Adishakti also carry out, encourage and research traditional knowledges in
theatre, dance, music, movement, puppet and craft forms?
We have
worked with with traditional percussions, dance, shadow puppetry. We have also created instruments, resurrected the
five faced Mizhavu (a big copper drum played as an accompanying percussion
instrument in Koodiyattam), for Koodiyattam performers who have only a one
faced Mizhavu.
What sources
did you look into when you started
scripting your plays?
The script is
much like a film script and there is
considerable research which goes into writing it. I can never enter a work unless I
prepare. For example for the the play
‘Brhanalla’, I researched into new
physics, the space time continuum, the ‘Ardhanarishwara’ half man-half woman
concept, brain lateralization theory, the folklore of the region where they
talk about the Draupadi cult and relate Shiva to Arjuna. And all this would be
filtered down to just one line which
would contain these ideas and be figured through an image or music. So for each
play I do a lot of reading, research and this is in the background when a play is created. But you don’t
explicate it, you layer it.
Can you give
us an example.
Well, to continue with Brihanalla,
you see the protagonist playing cricket in slow motion. Brihanalla in Mahabharata is
Ardhanarishwara (half man, half woman) and for me cricket because of its
rational rules is male , so that is the
male part. The scene between Shiva and Arjuna is a combination of flowing
movements and staccato movements, the male and the female, and finally you
discover when you look at the middle ground that it is one seamless loop. I had to reflect these two categories
visually through light, through music, through movement and then to show how the
flowing movement acquires a rhythm and goes into rhythmic polarity.
Compared to the music, the
drumming, mime, the script in your plays is often minimal..
Well, it is a
kind of oral image which is supposed to have an impact on you. Now cinema which
is the art of the times does the same thing It creates a montage, a visual and
you have different signifiers like the text,
picture, sound, music. In one moment you are being fed so many types of
information that you absorb on a non-
rational, non- analytical level.
I am not
interested in the technology of cinema. I am interested in how by honouring the
strength of theatre, which is the live performer, you can do something similar,
in principle though not in effect. In cinema you get the effect of realism. In
theatre you get the opposite of realism. The reality in theatre is the actor
and what is it that an actor cannot do?
He can seduce you! And physically that seduction is possible only
in theatre, in that presence which is there, now.
You know what you want to say but what percent of the audience perceive that,
because understanding your plays requires an intellectual sophistication and
wide cultural knowledge.
There are
people who do . The plays have sparked off discussions, queries. The audience
makes connections. But you can also see
and enjoy the plays at face value, at the narrative level. One doesn’t have to
intellectually apprehend everything. When you go to see a painting and you are
moved, the significance does not strike you first. It is the visual impact and
something other. We are made up of many
other elements than the mind.
Arunima Choudhury
