With ‘Mathangi’ and ‘Chinmaya Charitham’, kathakali takes a giant leap into unconventional ground

For the most part, Kerala’s kathakali dance form portrays episodes from the Mahabharata and Ramayana. That is why the themes of two recent productions, Mathangi Charitham and Chinmaya Charitham have come as congenial surprises.

With Mathangi Charitham, written by Sreechithran MJ, kathakali tackles the stigma of untouchability, perhaps for the first time. It is the story of a woman named Mathangi, born into a lower caste, being accepted as a disciple by the Buddha.

In Malayalam, “charitham” means “tale”.

Chinmaya Charitham, written by K Narayanan and Harindranath, tells the story of journalist Balakrishna Menon who becomes spiritual guru Swami Chinmayananda. He was the founder of the Chinmaya Mission, which propagates the wisdom of Advaita Vedanta and runs educational institutions and rural welfare programmes.

Mathangi was premiered on World Theatre Day on March 27 in Cheruthurty in Thrissur. Chinmaya was staged on May 10 as part of the golden jubilee celebrations of Chinmaya Vidyalaya in Alappuzha, of which Narayanan is the president.

It is not just the subjects of these productions that are unconventional. Mathangi uses the device of a flashback, perhaps for the first time in a kathakali performance. Similarly, Chinmaya deploys a sutradhar or narrator.

Mathangi and Chinmaya follow in the wake of two other kathakali productions with unorthodox themes that Scroll reported on recently: Da Vinci Porul, inspired by The Last Supper painting, and The Old Man And The Sea, an adaptation of the Hemingway novel.

Both Mathangi and The Old Man and The Sea have their origins in Kerala Kalamandalam, the university in Thrissur that is the popular custodian of the state’s various art forms.

The institution and its vice-chancellor B Ananthakrishnan have been trying to present one new story every year, said Sreechithran, who wrote Mathangi’s story.

Last year, Sreechithran noted, the university had presented The Old Man And The Sea. For this year, Ananthakrishnan selected Chandalabikshuki, a poem by Kumaran Asan written in 1919 that questions caste discrimination.

This was Sreechithran’s debut as a kathakali writer. An IT professional, he has written a few books and also songs for other dance forms. But he has learnt kathakali and says he is fascinated by it. He has also been studying Buddhist literature for some years now.

“I am a regular at the university and consider all artists as a friendly community,” Sreechithran said. “Everyone insisted that I write the atukatha” or script for the production.

When composing Chandalabikshuki, poet Kumaran Asan had referred to Divyavadhana, an ancient book on Buddha written about 2,000 years ago. Among the episodes in the book, “Shardulakarnavadhanam”is the story of Mathangi.

“I also read about the places where Buddha had travelled – Gaya, Kapilvastu,” said Sreechithran. “I studied the history, geography and boundaries, and the social environment, during the Buddhist period. I also read many papers available on various websites abroad which are easily accessible on the net. I met many experts and consulted them. I started reading Buddha stories in Pali script.”

It took him three months to write Mathangi Charitham. At every stage, he consulted the teaching staff at the Kerala Kalamandalam.

“We discarded several lines and wrote fresh ones,” said Shanmukha Das, who directed the production and also played the role of Mathangi.

In order to be able to represent all the types of veshams, the elaborate system of make-up that signals a character’s moral traits, Mathangi Charitham’s 12 dramatis personae include some who play roles that are good and others who are evil.

“Perhaps for the first time, a Brahmin was shown as a vile character as he questions how a low-caste Mathangi could give water to Anandan [Buddha’s main disciple], how she could join the Buddhist fold etc,” said Sreechithran.

Kathakali, the writer noted, is a dance-drama and it needs a conflict to animate it. “...You need the oppressed [Mathangi] and the oppressor [Brahmins],” said Sreechithran. “While many versions had Mathangi emotionally involved with Anandan with the help of her sorcerer mother, I did not delve into it.” Instead, he portrayed this as a brother-sister relationship.

He focussed on how the Buddha accepted Mathangi and other women into the fold, establishing social fraternity. “Mathangi is eventually addressed as a sister, making her very happy,” said Sreechithran.

The writer said that the talams or beats and ragas used in Mathangi are not the usual ones. “Apart from the usual percussion instruments of chenda and maddalam, we also employed the pulluvan kutam, an earthern pot used by the lower-caste Pulluvar community,” he said. “We have used some instruments used in monasteries.”

Actor and director Shanmukha Das explained how Sreechithran used a flashback in the narrative, perhaps for the first time in a kathakali performance.

“The story starts with the Brahmins complaining to King Prasenjit about Mathangi at a Buddhist camp and then goes back into time as Anandan narrates how he ended up drinking water poured from a ghatam [earther pot] by Mathangi,” said Das.

Unlike in a usual kathakali drama, the two sets of singers and drummers are deployed, standing in the flanks hidden from the audience, who see only the dancers on the stage.

“We have done away with the traditional lamp as it would have been out of place in a Buddha story,” added Sreechithran. “Instead, special lamps and smoke that are seen in a monastery have been used. The audience will get the fragrance of a monastery too.”

Chinmaya Charitham was born when a follower of the religious leader suggested that a kathakali biography of Chinmaya should be staged to mark the 75th year of the mission, to be celebrated in October.

“She wrote a script which got misplaced,” said K Narayanan, who teaches Sanskrit at SD College in Alappuzha. “Later, I and one Harindranath wrote a fresh script.”

They asked Kalamandalam Ganeshan, who runs a dance academy called Natyakala in Alappuzha, to write the atukatha since he had earlier written a kathakali drama about the renowned Kerala social-reformer poet Narayana Guru.

Though Ganeshan was already familiar with the life of Chinmayananda, he read several books about the spiritual leader. “It helped me understand the line I had to take, the characters I had to bring into the Kathakali atukatha,” he said.

It took him over six months to write the script as he was getting it vetted by Narayanan at every step.

Chinmaya Charitham has 10 characters with two different dancers playing him – one as Menon the journalist and the other as Chinmayananda. The river Ganga also appears as a character in conversation with the spiritual leader.

“It was a biography, but the challenge was to make it interesting,” said Gandeshan. “Characters were added to create drama – British officers, his mother, two other gurus among others.”

“We were in a quandary on how to present the early life of Menon and hence brought in the concept of a sutradhar [narrator] who describes moments and then leaves the stage saying, ‘now you watch all about Swami Chinmayananda’,” said Ganeshan.

Narayanan that the journalist’s confrontation with two British officers is a high point of the drama.

Ganeshan said that the cast, who were from different places, had very few practices together. But before they assembled. he explained every act to the dancers over the phone.

Mathangi Charitham and Chinmaya Charitham are both expensive productions and would not have materialised without institutional support – Kalamandalam sponsored Mathangi Charitham and Chinmayananda Education and Cultural Centre, Greater Cochin, backed the Mathangi Charitham.

Sreechitran said that Kalamandalam plans to give Mathangi a longer run, probably from next year, after trimming it down to a more watchable duration of a couple of hours. But Narayanan said that the organisation has not discussed staging Chinmaya again.

Retired journalist Sunil Warrier is a theatre and dance lover.