BENGALURU: Kaikeyi, in Ramayana, did not win any hearts by calling for the exile of Rama. She is even today remembered as evil and stubborn and, to turn this perception inside out, noted Odissi dancer Sharmila Mukherjee will present a dance ballet titled Kaikeyi.
“It was just a momentary lapse of judgement,” says Sharmila. “She’s actually a brave warrior and a good charioteer, and is compassionate. She nursed Dasharat back to health and she was also very fond of Ram. She loved him more than her son. She called for his exile because she worried if she would lose the status of chief queen at court. It was a wrong judgement call. But she later repented and apologised to Ram.”
The dance piece is also a commentary on human folly. “You should not judge people by their mistakes,” says the dancer. “Everyone makes them.”
Sharmila was always interested in “unusual characters”. “A lot has been done on Ram and Sita or Krishna and Radha,” she says. “Also, I find negative characters interesting. If you look closely, you will find shades of grey. Even Ravana and Surpanakha had a good side to them. Why not bring these out?”
She drew inspiration for this dance piece from a book of poetry written by her friend. “The book, a year ago, dwelved on the positive side of Kaikeyi and described her as a woman, wife, sister, warrior and a wife... but my performance is not entirely by the book.”
Behind the Scenes
Sharmila took close to a year to design the entire production. She worked closely with the script writer Pt. Nityanand Mishra on what episodes to edit from Tulsidas’s Ramayana for the performance.
“He and I read Tulsidas’s Ramayana,” she says. “It took time because the story is long and elaborate, and I wanted to edit it down to a 40-minute performance. The musicians had to be briefed about the mood of the piece, they had to work on that and then it was recorded. The music took about three months. Then, I started working on the choreography in mid January.”
It is a solo show and Sharmila will be portraying five different characters - Kaikeyi, Ram, Dasharat, Bharat and Manthara. This is challenging, she says. “There’s lot of abhinaya than pure dance... Presenting negative characters in a positive light is challenging because the audience must be able to follow the story through your body language, the way you walk and your abhinaya.”
Kaikeyi is a part of Pravaha 2017 -- a dance festival hosted by Sharmila Mukherjee and her institute Sanjali Centre for Odissi dance, as a tribute to legendary Odissi dancer, Kelucharan Mohapatra. Do not miss the performance on April 7 at ADA Rangamandira.