‘Yudhisthir and Draupadi’ is again being brought to the art-lovers of Delhi on popular demand. This dance theatre has been performed several times to rave reviews in Delhi, Nepal, Punjab and Kerala. This production based on an event in one of our great epics, ‘The Mahabharata’, yet is so contemporary as it explores various facets of human nature. It could be the story of any person; it could be articulating the innate unsaid feelings of a person. It makes a person think, laugh, sympathize, enjoy but above all ….. it talks about relationships which are eternal …. traditional yet so very modern!
Shovana Narayan, India’s most celebrated and virutous Kathak Guru, and Sunit Tandon, well-known theatre personality, combine to produce a most riveting enactment of Pavan K. Varma’s critically acclaimed book: ‘Yudhishtar and Draupadi’.
Synopsis:
The broad story of Mahabharata is well-known. Draupadi, the Princess of Panchala, is won by Arjun, the archer par excellence among the five Pandava brothers. But Draupadi, against her will has to marry all five Pandava brothers, because Kunti, her mother-in-law, not knowing that her sons had brought Draupadi with them, pronounced the words written in stone: ‘All of you enjoy what has been obtained’.
Yudhishtar, the eldest of the five brothers, was the first to be with Draupadi, even though Arjun had won her and she was prepared only to marry him.
Pavan K.Varma’s book explores the fascinating relationship between Yudhishtar and Draupadi. Draupadi was not like most of the other women of her time – submissive and yielding. How did she react to Yudhishtar , and why did Yudhishtar, sober and reticent by personality and inclination, fanatically gamble away all his Kingdom and wealth, and, last of all, his own wife, Draupadi?
Based on a long poem written by Mr. Pavan K.Varma, the theme breathes of passions and dilemmas between Draupadi and her husband Yudhishthar. We follow Yudhishthar to the still pool of death where, by answering philosophic questions posed by the Yaksha, in reality his father, Dharma. Kaunteya brings back his Pandav brothers to life.
The primary concern however is the trrouble between a woman, Draupadi, and a man, her ‘first’ husband Yudhisthar. Arjun won her, Dharmaputra gambled her away. But Arjun had Subhadra and Bhim, Hidimba. Who did Yudhisthar have? No one but Panchali. But how did Draupadi think of Kaunteya?
Ultimately, Varma’s book is about a man and a woman, and their interaction; a world opaque to outsiders, a cosmos in itself.
Excerpts from some reviews
“..Draupadi’s passion in Kathak and verse….Divided in space, not separated in light, Shovana with a superb control over the medium of Kathak expression and rhythm, gesture and body depiction, evoked Draupadi’s inner turmoil, responding to Sunit Tandon’s measured speech…”
(Kavita Nagpal, The Times of India, March 29, 1998)
“ One of the main attractions of the evening was the piece on Yudhishthir and Draupadi….In his poem, Varma has analyzed the resentment and vengeance of Draupadi towards Yudhishthir and his bitterness towards her feelings. … The effect of Tandon’s mesmerizing voice and Narayan’s enthralling performance created sheer magic in the theatre….”
(The Kathmandu Post, Oct 14, 1999)
“ Yudhisthir and Draupadi is the story of the relationship between a man and woman, which vary individually and is a world opaque to the outsiders’ written by Pawan K.Varma. This extraordinary sensitive work fittingly brought to life by Shovana Narayan as well as the narrator Sunit Tandon, delves deep in the recesses of mind to explore with how emotions evolve in a singularly peculiar relationship between a man and woman…..The performance of the danseuse, the narrator and the accompanying musicians – all summed up, can only be described in superlatives!”
(The Rising Nepal, Oct. 13, 1999)
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