As a sutradhara, Rajika Puri drew parallels between the Mahabharata-Trojan wars and Draupadi-Helen in her dance drama Eleni of Sparta: An Indo-Greek Re-telling. ByUtpal K Banerjee
Story-telling has been an age-old art in our land. Especially in the northern Indo-Gangetic plains — inhabited by secure janapadas (local kingdoms), scoured by occasional external invasions — the oral tradition of nomadic narrators carrying tales of kings and their valorous deeds was once a frequent occurrence. Basically a form of entertainment — accompanied by songs, if not dancing gestures — the narratives also dealt with legends from the epics, besides spinning comic and didactic yarns that served the purpose of popular education. These are: Bhopa and Bhopi (eulogising Amar Singh Rathor) of Rajasthan; Kathakar (evolving into Kathak) of Uttar Pradesh; Pandavani (describing Mahabharata) of Chhattisgarh; Charan (peripatetic) poet of Bengal among others — and all of them direct descendents of the Sutradhara (commentator) legacy of Sanskrit plays of yore: carried forward in most folk entertainment-forms ever since.
So it was no wonder, when recently Kri Foundation presented Eleni of Sparta: An Indo-Greek Re-telling, with Rajika Puri as solo storyteller and dancer, she did it entirely as sutradhara. Her theme-title is familiar as Helen of Troy. Hers was, by far, the most complex and endemic of all Western mythologies, having been treated in several epics: from Virgil’s Ennead of antiquity;through Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey in the 7th century BC; up to Christopher Marlow’s Dr Faustus in 1604, not excluding Sappho’s and Goethe’s works. Rajika fell back on Homer’s twin classics and — with superb support from Suchet Malhotra using a mind-boggling variety of global percussion — visualised seven episodes: with gods interacting with men.
It begins as infant when Eleni (Helen) is born of Zeus, king of the gods in hot pursuit and the unwilling Nemesis the goddess: both assuming the form of goose. The second is Maiden: the adolescent Helen abducted by another god, Theseus, and taken to the underworld before she is rescued. Then comes Bride when Helen chooses her husband — in the true swayamvara(self-selection of groom) style — from among a galaxy of princes: all present with their fleet of ships. Prince Menela of Sparta is the lucky suitor to be prized with the booty: reputedly the most beautiful woman ever born. Their brief period of togetherness is interrupted when Paris, prince of Troy and blessed by Zeus, visits Sparta and falls for Helen. The epics (and the Western art world) hold contrary views as to whether Helen is abducted by Paris and raped or she elopes with him. But she disappears from Sparta and the terrible ten-year Trojan war results in retrieving her to Sparta in Greece. This is briefly covered in Twice Married, followed by Great Queen, when Helen returns to Sparta: leaving behind a devastated Troy and the wailing Trojan women. The finale is Goddess, when the gratified Sparta elevates Helen to be a goddess.
Trained in both Bharatanatyam and Odissi, and based in New York, Rajika did an excellent job in all four deportments in her dance. Her vachik — of verbal expression — was eloquent as asutradhara and, in fact, the best part in the presentation: with a good mix of English and Greek, and Sanskrit quotations to establish parallels between the Mahabharata and Trojan wars and between Draupadi and Helen: both fiercely self-assertive women. Her sattvik — of facial expression — was adequate. Her angik — of physical gestures — modelled each episode on a different genre of Odissi dance: from mangala charan, through sthayee, nritta, pallavi to shloka-moksha. Her aharya — adornment — was austere accoutrements and minimally-additional costumes: good enough for donning a Sutradhara’s role.
Her major drawback was the concept itself: the elaborate Helen myth being terra incognita for most Indian viewers.
Excerpts of an interview with the storyteller:
How did you conceived the musicIJ
I set music to ragas derived from the six Hindustani thaats (scales). These are Bilawal, Darbari, Kafi, Des, Bhairavi and Durga — equivalent to ancient Greek melodic modes. For rhythms, I used Greek folkloric beats like 11, eight and five, similar to those of Odissi dance music.
Your depiction of Helen had a definite feminist angle…
Certainly she was no bimbo! As a co-ruler of Sparta, she was powerful, intelligent and beautiful: the daughter of a god. She reigned during an age when Greece was turning from a matrilineal mother-goddess culture into one dominated by war and patrilineal values. This was in the 13-12th century BC. By the seventh century BC — when she became heroine of the written versions of Homer’s epics — she was blamed for the Greco-Trojan war. Homer, however, portrays her as a thoughtful, intelligent and compassionate being, although possessed of a “terrible beauty”. later the European re-telling of her story — like the film Troy — reduces her to a symbol of sexual beauty: half-way between hapless victim and whore!
You adopted a comparative Indian angle…
I tell Helen’s story from the perspective of a culture that understands female power, shakti and has its own resonances with a bronze-age world in the epic, Mahabharata. In India, we also recognise our links with ancient Greece: arising from the Indo-European migration from the Caucasus during the first millennium BC. The consonance in music, phonetics and deities seal the case!
lastly, you used an Indian accent and body-language…
I do it deliberately, as I’m an Indian sutradhara. Greek language — which I’m using — is, after all, a phonetic one, like our Sanskrit. English language in Roman script is highly non-phonetic!