Meghadootham- a Performance by Samradhya

When it was announced that Meghadootam was going to be staged in Chennai, i was very excited. i always love it when a literary piece is given an artistic treatment- be it Singing Barathiyar, or reciting poems; singing Pasurams/ devaram; Paintings, dance performances etc inspired by a literary work. So it was no wonder i was very eagerly looking forward to this performance. By the way of preparing i wanted to get a copy of Meghadootham and Sit with N. Balasubramanium (Nahupoliyan) and refresh my reading of the classic by Kalidasa. We had only briefly touched upon it on a couple of occassions earlier. 

My little grunt about Shelling out quite a sum for the ticket was washed away when i learnt about the Noble work done by Sankalp, the hosts. They are doing yeomen service in the field of education and livelihood for children with special needs. It was touching to learn about Bombay Jayshree's association with Sankalp and her little touching experiences these special children. ( this was the second day i was getting to witness her presence and her music, after Pappu Venugopal Rao's lec dem at Vani Mahal yesterday). She had devised the Music for this performance.) And if any little doubts ( blame the middle class mindset) were left, it was completely washed away at the end of this Fabulous, once in a life time performance.

For those who need a little intro to Megahdootam, it is a classic sanskrit poetic work by Kalidasa. it has at its core a yaksha, outlawed by Kubera from his Kingdom in Alakapuri for dereliction of duty in the spell of love, yearning for his Yakshi and sending a love messenger in the form of a cloud. he telnets the clouds path by describing socio-geographical landscape it has to take enroute to Alakapuri fro Ramagiri hills. There lies the genius of Kalidasa.

In working out the technicality of staging this work, the creators had made a clever decision of embedding the spirit of the Yaksha himself in the cloud, along with his message. This made the narration more direct and dramatic. Talking of narration, i need to mention the few English lines that interspersed the performance, that sort of gave a foreword to the segments which divided the performance, was simply magical and poetic. It made me look up for the english writer, while acknowledging the genius of Kalidasa. These few lines that have so poetically captured the essence and context of the original would definitely be a fine feather in Baradwaj Rangan's writing cap.

Talking of Rangan, takes me to the other cine-star casts featured in this work. Apart from Bombay Jayshree, who has scored the music, there is the now very Popular n distinct voice of the actor Arvind swamy, and the gentle voice of Rajiv Menon, playing the narrators. 

The performance opens up with the Yaksha and Yakshi yearning for each other in different corners of the land. Then the creepers,birds and all nature empathise with the yaksha's pining for his love and wow to help him ( bring in Paulo Coelho' Alchemist). The yaksha's pining tears form as a cloud and take his love travelling to Alakapuri. 

On the way we see Kadamba forests, rare deers, and birds. and then we see women bathing in the river ghats, Siva worshipers portraying some ecstatic Siva nadanam., and Devdasis dancing.

The cloud is portrayed poetically as struggling between his identity as the cloud and as the yaksha it self love struck. It was a fantastic feeling to imagine a 'romantic' cloud, stopping and  enjoying the glimpses of life on earth as it passed over.

and as the cloud nears Alakapuri and pours down , the Yakshi senses the presence of her love in evrey drop and finds her ailing heart suddenly feeling light. This were the clever decision by the makers materialises as a beautifully staged scene where the yaksha magically materialises out of thin air as the cloud pours down. 

some clever stage and property arrangements and performance ideas like featuring the cloud with a cluster of drops, huge panel of cloth with painted cloud, the graphical reproduction of a burning pyre, etc  lifted the aesthetics of the performance. 

the music was refreshing and stuck to mind like a gum. i was fascinated to find a person in the audience hum the tune of the songs we had just heard in the performance, for the quickness with which he had grasped it. I learnt from him that the songs were all mostly in desh Raag. Listening to Bombay Jayshree's Voice in the back drop of a shining moon was a magical lullaby ( reminding one of 'Life of Pi's title track.)

The performance was lit bright by the performances of the actors who played the cloud and other elements of nature, leaving little scope for the performnace of the Yaksha and Yakshi and pushing them sadly to the sidelines. This also highlights the leadership quality in the creator couple of Shrijit Nambiar and Parvathi Menon.