Emancipator

Starting Oct 2, the day of Gandhi Jayanti, Hulugappa Kattimani and his bunch of actors kicked off their theatrical journey to four cities in their state, at Bangalore. It went less noticed by the local press, but struck a chord with the audience. The first play, in sync with the day's own significance, was Kasturba. The second was Girish Karnad'sTaledanda and the third, Bhishma Sahni's Madhavi. The last one I like the best, for many reasons.

 The play is set in Indian mythology, but relevant to the times we live in. To this very moment.

 To quote from The Hindu's Sunday literary review in July 2002 that explains the plot and storyline,

 In his play, "Madhavi", Sahni draws upon a story from Mahabharata, but gives it a fine ideological spin. Munikumar Galav, arrogant disciple of sage Vishwamitra, insists on giving him gurudakshina, even though the sage wants nothing. In exasperation Vishwamitra asks for 800 white ashwamedhi horses with black ears to boot. Only 600 such horses exist in Aryavarta, three kings owning 200 each. People advise Galav to go to King Yayati, who now lives in an ashram, but has a prodigious reputation for generosity. Yayati gives him his daughter Madhavi who is blessed with two boons: she can renew her virginity and youth whenever she wants and each son she bears will be achakravarti. So Galav gives her away to one horse-owning king after another for just one year in return for the 200 ashwamedhi horses they possess. She in turn gives them each a son. Still they are 200 short. So Madhavi goes and offers herself to Vishwamitra for a year and he dispenses with the last 200 horses.The males, full of themselves, preserve their "reputations" — Yayati for generosity, Galav for his gurudakshina pledge. He will end up as aRishi, no doubt about that. He is insensitive to her moving from harem to harem, leaving a son behind each time. In the end Yayati holds a massive swayamvar in which the three kings attend with their sons by Madhavi, hoping to attract her favour. But Galav again becomes a bit uptight (she has lived with his guru, so how can he take her now?) and Madhavi walks out on the swayamvar in the end.

Architecturally and ideologically the play is well honed and deserves its considerable renown. Yayati gives away his daughter as if she is an inanimate object. Queens who bear daughters are sidelined. By the very nature of the myth, the characters turn wooden. The three kings are just anonymous characters pining for male heirs. Galav, Vishwamitra and Yayati are wooden. But unlike as in the myth, Madhavi is not just a male-bearing womb. She is well portrayed and humanised. The dialogues never scintillate. A fire-spitting Madhavi would have been more interesting. Someone needed to shout at Vishwamitra and Yayati, but they end up unscathed. Rather sad.

Madhavi is certainly not fire-spitting. She may not have shouted from roof-tops unlike today's women. But she quite reminds you of the hundreds of stories you and I come across every day, in the women we meet, in how the system shamelessly allows exploiting them in the name of religion, caste, sex, body, lust...just about everything. 

Among prison circles in Karnataka and especially at Mysore and Bangalore, Kattimani is adored as the messiah who can give jailbirds a new lease of life, infuse some self-esteem in their otherwise shamed personality. I first met him and his actors during a press interaction ahead of Madhavi's being staged at Ravindra Kalakshetra, about five years back.  

The difference he brought about for Madhavi, was that he managed to bring women prisoners who would actually ``wear masks'' (masks of shame, ego, suppression or whatever one could call it), out of the closet named jail. Not an easy task, considering Muttappa Rai was being housed at the high security jail then, and jail officials were all the more apprehensive about letting women act. And so was Karim Lala Telgi, and this was even before the multi-crore stamp paper scam shook the nation.

Women we met there wore sarees of the same colour, and certainly not the stereotyped white sarees with blue border, for their rehearsals. Their sarees in a different hue seemed to set them apart from the rest of the prison crowd, which in itself was a world of difference.

Kattimani told us then that the whole exercise of bringing the actor in them to light, was a tough one. ``They would not open themselves up at all. Blank expressions, lifeless. They were indeed wearing masks,'' he said. Some of them were at the jail on charges of murder, some on theft, some were co-prisoners who turned convicts by providence.

So like his three month camps earlier with the jailed men, here too, he spent most of his time during the three months, with the prisoners, taught them pottery, painting, making masks, clay-modelling, making props, etc to break open the walls in their mind. 

The result showed in the sheer confidence these women displayed when they sang folk songs and danced in amazing synchrony to beats, in their layered acting skills, and more importantly ease with which they spoke to men in the prison, post the period. An hour's chat with them proved they had grown to discover themselves and their own purpose in life over the period. Many wondered how only the poor who commit crimes ended in prisons, how politicians and the rich were never around. Some even thought of pursuing theatre after they finished their jail terms.

Staging of the play a day or two later in the city was a success, despite the sleepless nights it gave to the constables manning them behind the stage. These prisoners put on a show like pros.

More so, it gave the women a reason to smile. Sadly, I had to leave the show midway to rush to Express and file a quick copy for the night's edition. The other play I watched was Taledanda, that again is a classic by Karnad, held three years ago. In fact, I had to do a whirlwind train journey and leave my brother's wedding celebrations aside so I could get back to Bangalore and watch the play.

This time round, women prisoners were not allowed to take part, by the ever-apprehensive jail authorities. So Kattimani got women employees from a bank to volunteer as co-actors. 

One had to be on the dais to see the adulation Kattimani got ...from the prisoners and police after the play. The actors actually lifted him in joy. 

He has been around in the prisoners' play scene for about 10 years, and in spite of all the hurdles he faces in schooling them in acting. But he has brought in a whole new dimension to the word `reform' - in real sense.

It's about time our prison policy changed for good -- by bringing in the positive into their lives.