CHENNAI: You take a story and then it becomes yours. These were the words of the eminent Tamil folklorist and writer Ki Rajanarayanan. Perhaps no one has stayed more true to this piece of advice than Rajiv Krishnan — the man behind the play Kira Kozhambu.
That the play is an adaptation of Ki Ra’s collection of short stories from Nattuppura Kadhai Kalanjiyam only makes it more serendipitous. As the director and his team at Perch theatre group are gearing up for the 100th performance of Kira Kozhambu (since its revival in 2017), Rajiv gets talking about the show’s humble beginnings.
“We premiered this show in 2010. At that time, one of the artistes with us, Malavika, her mother Pritham K Chakravarthy had translated some of Ki Ra’s short stories into English. Hence, Malavika suggested we try Ki Ra’s work for our next project. We read the stories and found them to be very interesting. We knew there was a possibility of appealing to both children and adults. So, we started working on this adaptation with three actors,” he narrates.
But translating their lofty vision from the page to the stage had not been all that easy. It was then that they met Ki Ra himself, to pick his brains. “We told him that we are trying to make a performance of your stories and we are getting stuck. It was then that he said that you take a story and then it becomes yours. That kind of freed us,” he recounts. This fuelled the first showing of Kira Kozhambu. After nearly a year of performances, the play was shelved. It was revived in 2017, in honour of the author turning 95 years of age. In a span of just two years, it has worked its way to its 100th show. “It’s a tribute to its popularity. Folk tales generally have a timeless appeal; it is absolutely rich in possibilities,” he remarks.