MANGALURU: “I am Tarakasura, the indomitable emperor of Rakshasas at Shonikapura..The kind and merciful Lord Bramhadeva manifested before me and granted me a boon to the effect that I have no death except from the offspring of Lord Shankara.. HA HA HA.” Thus thunders Tarakasura in English in a Yakshagana play!Yakshagana in English? It may sound incongruous. It has been around for nearly 40 years, but has been gaining popularity of late. Traditionally, this vigorous theatrical form was sung exclusively in Kannada. That was then. This is now.
Yakshagana, which has its roots in the local languages and is popular among senior art enthusiasts, is slowly becoming a trend among the youngsters too. This trend is seen as English penetrates the art form and a majority of takers are students, who have increasingly become an English-speaking lot.The English-speaking audience who felt left out when the art form was performed in vernacular languages, even on a global stage, now find it easy to comprehend.
The P V Aithal English Yakshagana Troupe that boasts of being the only one teaching the art form in English has witnessed a rush of young artistes over the years. Usually school and college students make up for majority of their students, says advocate Santhosh Aithal, who runs the troupe.Yakshagana critic Narahari believes it a way to include children in the art form which otherwise has a few takers among the seniors. “It is a good means to popularise the cultural form while other new forms are setting the trend,” he says.
At present the troupe has 30 members from the student community who learn the art for free, once a week. Among the students are Kannada artistes too. “It is a way of honing their language skills while developing their interest in the art form,” says Santhosh.Initially, the concept was frowned upon by a large number of the traditional audience. However, the form was accepted over the years especially among the educated class who are unable to watch its original Kannada and Tulu versions, says Santhosh.
Apart from their annual performance at the Town Hall, the troupe has been frequently performing at medical conferences in Bengaluru and has also stretched the reach of the art form to Chennai, Nagpur and Mumbai. The troupe is yet to perform abroad despite having offers, as coordinators are employed in other professions, according to Santhosh.
Prabhakar Joshi, scriptwriter for the English Yakshagana, defends his art. He believes much of what we call original is what our predecessors would call diluted – some call Tulu original, others say it’s drawn from Kannada , while some others say it’s a diluted version of the Puranas. However , he says each language has its own way of expressing a concept - likewise English.Although the dialogues are translated into English from the narratives drawn from the Hindu epics Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the Bhagavatike (background score for Yakshagana) retains its vernacular medium. The dialogues had to take the traditional Yakshagana tone over the years to avoid dilution of the art, that was first started to entertain the agriculture folks.
But adaptations aren’t always easy. Performing in English means that they cannot have spontaneous dialogue or improvise on the lines, which is the essence of Yakshagana. “The English Yakshagana has seen huge audience in national conferences in which various students and scholars participate. It is performed in institutes and as demonstation for theatre experts. Several new audience flock just for curiosity though many of them do not speak English. It’s by and large a cosmopolitan audience,” says Joshi. (pearldsouza@newindianexpress.com)
THE ROOTS
The English Yakshagana troupe started in 1981 when late P V Aithal, advocate in commercial tax at the time, had noticed that his clients, mostly an English-speaking crowd, would walk out of Yakshagana performances within ten minutes. This, he understood, was because of the language barrier. One which he worked on for years. He had read Shakespeare plays and performed during his college days. He began Yakshagana with English dialogues in 1981 in the city’s Town Hall and a performance was held every alternate year. After his death, his successors continued the English Yakshagana in his name, which gained wide popularity among very young performers.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Yakshagana scholar Prabhakar Joshi says the analogy changes in terms of language. For instance, “’Akki’ in Kannada is a connotation for staple food, as is ‘bread’ in English. But now, the word bread denotes the food made from dough,” he says. So they have to keep such nuances in mind while translating into English.