Pain that binds, and burns the living dead

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Seema Biswas plays Kadambini, a widow, in Jeevan Mrityu

Jeevan Mrityu, a play based on the writing of Rabindranath Tagore as adapted by Geetanjali Shree, was presented at the Mohan Rakesh festival organised by the Sahitya Kala Parishad. It was directed by Anuradha Kapur for her company Vivadi.

The play has been staged by Dinesh Khanna earlier. Dinesh’s enactment of play had the full complement of characters in the tale of child widow Kadambini, who is sent to be cremated by her family of rich landlords and how she is not quite dead when they leave and she gets up very alive. Instead of returning home, she goes to her childhood friend’s place who does not like the attention her husband begins paying her.
The friend drives her out. Kadambini returns to her home where the family members treat her as a ghost.
Finally to prove that she is alive, she bangs her head on the stony verandah floor till the blood flows and she dies.
Anuradha Kapur uses one character to narrate the story. It is a theatre coup for Seema Biswas who plays Kadambini.
The stage vibrates with her presence. While she is in the crematorium her make-believe conversation with herself and the passersby is pure theatre. Seema plays all the roles though she never gives up her Kadambini presence. Her versatility is on display as she croons to herself, talks to herself to pick up the courage to get out of the crematorium where dying fires are all around.
Seema is at her very best in the scene where she comes home and sees her nephew who adores her. Beautifully designed by Anuradha, this sequence is marked by emotional depth.
Here she is looking at the little boy as if he is lying on a toy bed.
Her thumbs become his feet as she speaks to him. In dire contrast is the hate and revulsion the boy shows when his parents tell him she is a ghost and to never let her come near him. Though the video installation was a bit distracting, the sound design was excellent.
The Pratibimb festival was organised by the Pratibimb Kala Sangam. It featured a new play by Marathi playwright Satish Alekar. Math Ke Raaste Mein Ek Din was staged by the Aakaar Kala Sangam in Suresh Bharadwaj’s direction. The play is mystical with characters meeting and leaving each other in a trice. The play opens with a young man going to the math (a religious place). He thinks he might find his mother there. On the way he meets an older man quite by chance.
The man shows him the trick of how to listen to the music playing in the math. Their conversation goes very smoothly as if they have known each other forever. After he leaves the old man delivers a soliloquy which is a reevaluation of his marriage to a woman now dead.
The woman appears in the form of a girl for whom the young man has been waiting. Who is the old man? Where is the math? Is there a math at all? How is it that at their first meeting the old man and the young man are so much in sync? Who is the woman? Is she the dead wife of the old man or a friend of the younger man?
The play does not have answers to these queries. Written in the stream of consciousness style, it is a depiction of the pain and anguish that connects people.
The old man’s soliloquy was written by Alekar shortly after his wife died. It is a part of nostalgia and has no connection to the play as such but fits into the design. According to Satish Alekar,”Theatre is a reflection of life, but at times it works as therapy too.”
The performances are generally good. Suman Vaidya, as the older man, is very effective. He brings grace and elegance to his role, making the soliloquy meaningful. The young man, as played by Kundan Kumar, is a good foil to Suman’s character. Lighting and sound were creatively handled.