An artiste of great vision, Gopal Sharman was the creator of many theatrical works, exuding contemporaneity. Undoubtedly, The Ramayana is his magnum opus and Jalabala Vaidya carries it forward
The Ramayana, whenever staged in Delhi, will always be about Akshara Theatre and its passionate founders, Jalabala Vaidya and Gopal Sharman. The play became their raison-d-être. In 1968, the couple was showing their first play, Full Circle, in the UK when the Royal Shakespeare Theatre invited them to stage an “Indian play” for the annual World Theatre Season. They decided to rely on our epic and thousands of years of heritage and re-establish its universal appeal and contemporaneity of spirit. They needed a space to rehearse and were allotted the land where Akshara is located now by the Morarji Desai government. What followed was a labour of love. And deep insight.
The world got a Ramayana meant for every age in the format of a solo woman act with minimal props but maximum appeal. And we got a handcrafted, wooden stage that has been holding up the cultural legacy of our epic through generations. Vaidya continues to follow the katha tradition, playing narrator and characters (nowadays in bits and pieces, backed up by an ensemble). Sharman, whom we lost last year, still has a palpable presence in the words that have kept the play timeless and relatable for young actors to want to be a part of it. Vaidya never fails to remind us with every performance that Sharman is always there in spirit. And the marigold flowers that she distributes to each member of the audience in the end is a tribute to the play’s and indeed the epic’s inherent spirituality.
Watching the play over the Dussehra weekend, as it is staged every year around this time, was worth reminding yourself why we need to have fundamental faith. In ourselves and the divinity within us. The fact that Akshara has not tweaked with the format at all, except adding new cast members to fill Vaidya’s spaces, mirrors the truth of our epic and reinforces why any gimmickry cannot touch its import. Perhaps every theatre aficionado has watched Akshara’s Ramayana many a time but certain aspects need to be highlighted for the current human condition.
The most important aspect is that both Rama and Sita traverse the four acts as people and not as divine beings, as Vaidya always reminds us. Sita, while being a captive at lanka, is still mindful of the destruction of war on both sides and unlike Rama, doesn’t quantify or compare the worth of the two. She is graceful, not judgmental, even under fire. Ravana, with all the hubris of his hedonism, takes a step back from forcing himself on Sita and follows the terms of endurance. Rama himself, on a quest for higher consciousness, seeking to break out of his earthly form and merge with the formless One, succumbs to mortal frailties at times in the name of duty. Sita herself is not oppressed but walks out on her own terms, as she would not be a slave to duty and Rama’s over-arching detachment. The sacrificial fire does not touch either Sita or Rama, simply because they had to traverse the earthly path to god-realisation before they could subsume themselves and their ego to the basic elements of earth and water.
There’s no doubt that Vaidya has perfected the ability of articulating the navrasas for over 40 years now. But to bring forth the same among her floating young cast members from her observatory chair is indeed stupendous. No doubt, the play still talks to each youngster, who is surrounded with the excesses of lanka in everyday life.