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Recently theatre veteran Habib Tanvir was in town with his Naya Theatre troupe for the performance of his new play RAJ-RAKT at the National Theatre festival organized by the Nehru Centre. His production of the play is based on two of Rabindranath Tagore�s works which he discusses at length here. In the process he details the journey the production has undergone. The play will be performed once again in Mumbai during the upcoming Prithvi Theatre Festival 2006.�
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Deepa Punjani
How and when did it occur to you that the combination of elements from Tagore�s novel �Rajarshi� and his play VISARJAN would make a viable dramatic conception?
You see I like the other directors of Tagore�s VISARJAN went through the whole exercise of producing it. Many directors of the play before me have been attracted by the play�s theme and to their cost they realized, including Sombhu Mitra and younger directors subsequently (of course I have seen none of these productions) of the play�s inherent pitfalls. Early this year I made a joint production of VISARJAN with my theatre company and Usha Ganguly�s �Rangkarmee.� During that time I went on de-structuring the play, looking at the sequences, the scene changes, etc and somehow I was not happy. Even the technical aspects of the production began to bother me. I was not happy with the lights for instance but we went on to do several shows. Eventually we sorted out some of the hurdles we were facing. People accepted the play but some close friends expressed their doubts. I too experienced a terrible sense of failure.
Whose original idea was it to do the play? Yours or �Rangkarmee�s�?
It was my idea. For a long time I wanted to do the play because of its very interesting theme of conflict between morality and ideology. Sombhu Mitra was in fact a very good actor; even his wife Tripti Mitra was a scintillating actress. They had houseful shows of VISARJAN and yet after four or five shows Sombhu Mitra decided to close the production. The point is that the play is faulty. I too discovered that there was something wrong with the play. Then Shaumik Banerjee told me that the only way I could compensate for the failings of the text is to make changes by incorporating my ideas in it. It was left to him to tell me how everyone who had attempted VISARJAN had failed. He assured me that I could do my writing of it since the problems surrounding copyright issues would not bother me. I was worried because I knew that I would have to possibly counter the parochial attitude of those Bengalis who revere Tagore and for whom he is an icon. However I took the scholar�s suggestion and decided to do some of my own writing.
How does the novel �Rajarshi� fit in with all this?
I�ll come to that. But first let me give you the complete background to my adaptation. Tagore wrote SACRIFICE (VISARJAN) in English after the novel �Rajarshi� in Bengali. VISARJAN is Tagore�s first play and therefore perhaps it is faulty. He wrote the novel in 1890 and the play was written in 1893. He added the Queen�s character (Gunwati) to the play, which is not there in the novel. Even Aparna�s character he brought to the play. But despite I believe what were Tagore�s good intentions the play became very sketchy. In fact I first called my production BALIDAAN to move away from the association of VISARJAN. You see Tagore came into his own only in the twentieth century. His mature period began from 1920. He was a genius but it was only as he grew more experienced did he become more empowered. He was young when he wrote VISARJAN. He was obviously experimenting with the dramatic form. But yet his characters and his theme for the play are fascinating. What strongly attracted me to the play were the characters of Raghupati, the Purohit and of Jaisingh, his disciple and foster son. And there is no doubt that Tagore has developed these two characters to the hilt with all the metaphysical implications. But the character of the Queen is underwritten and so is the King�s. In the novel for instance the characters of the King and even his younger brother, Nakshatra are fully written. The novel is a political intrigue with Raghupati, the Purohit plotting against the King Govindmanik. Eventually the king becomes a rishi and therefore the title, �Rajarshi.� The plot in it is almost Machivellian in character like Chanakya. In my adaptation what I caught on to were character traits from the novel like Nakshatra�s superciliousness. To develop the character of the Queen Gunwati, I took the cue from another of Tagore�s well-known novel called �Charulata.� Like Charulata, the queen feels neglected by her husband and begins to lavish her attention on her brother-in-law. But I had to show that there is acrimony between the King and the Queen, to the point perhaps that there are no sexual relations between them. In the original play it is not clear why the Queen so lacks a child. She just feels that if she will make an offering to the Goddess Kali in the form of a bali she will be blessed with a child.
So you�re essentially saying that to overcome the shortcomings of the original play, you fused it with select episodes from the novel to not only give more credibility to the characters but to also convey perhaps a more sharper critique of the subject at hand�
Yes. Take the Raja�s meeting with Hanhsi and her brother Tata from the novel. It is not that the King is not used to bloodshed. He has seen blood being spilt in the war. But when the child asks him a simple question: �Itna khoon kyun�� after she sees the blood of an animal sacrifice in the temple of Kali, the Raja is transformed. He begins to question the tradition from the child�s point of view who later dies the same evening of a shock. When people who had seen my VISARJAN came for RAJ-RAKT, they said that the story now made sense to them because I have used the characters of Hanhsi and Tata from the novel. The adaptation makes the characters and the events plausible and convincing, which is not the case with the original play. Had I two actors, who could play children, I would have introduced a new scene. The pivotal scene between the Raja and the children in my adaptation could have been longer. I have pruned it but it is a story by itself. The dialogue between the children in the novel is indicative of Tagore�s sensitive understanding of children. So to reiterate I found things in VISARJAN as well as in the novel to be illogical and therefore my adaptation. I am glad that I have been able to do justice to the adaptation because even though the copyright period is over for VISARJAN, the audience could have well said that I have tampered with Tagore�s original work. However Shaumik who again saw the play said that on the contrary he felt that Tagore was restored. I do really think that with my adaptation, the original has gained in harmony and logic.
Did you have a ready script for your actors to work on or did some things emerge during rehearsals?
No No, I wrote the script first and that was it. I had to do it that way. Of course I discussed the issues in the play with my actors and also the physiological question of fertility, which prevents the Queen from having a child. I had to make my actors understand this. I gave them the example of Murli, an actor who had worked with us and who was Fida Bai�s son. He had married thrice for the sake of a child but yet could not have one. I recall asking Murli if he had ever considered that something could be wrong with him and whether he had bothered to get his blood tested. I also read the novel to my actors and we discussed it. They were able to understand why I wanted to use the episode of Hanhsi and Tata with the King as the defining scene for our play.
What do the songs used in the play convey, especially the Bengali songs that the character, Aparna sings?
The songs are not by Tagore. They are a mixture of Baul and Jogi. They are folk songs that have a spiritual character. They were apt for Aparna because she embodies the spiritual. The dialogues between her and Jaisingh helped me identify the songs. Somebody in fact asked me why I have not used Rabindra Sangeet in the play and I told that person honestly that I don�t like all of Rabindra Sangeet. I adore what is good of it but some of it can be very kitsch and cloyingly sentimental.
If I am not mistaken, all the earlier productions that I have seen of your plays like PONGS PUNDIT, GAON KA NAAM SASURAL�or your adaptation of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT�S DREAM have used only Chattisgarhi. Was there any particular reason why you decided to use a fair bit of Hindi along side Chattisgarhi in this play?
I have used Hindi in quite a few of my plays and now my actors are also at ease with Hindi as they are with Chattisgarhi. No there is no particular reason for using both the languages. But I must say that I have observed dialects being looked down upon. They are categorized as sub-standard languages. Now people who look down upon dialects do not realize the wealth of writers that the dialects have produced such as Tulsidas, Mirabai, Kabir and here I am naming only few of the greatest poets. By looking down on dialects, people have deprived the Hindi language of its rich growth. So I consider Hindi as ever has got so many shakhas. In Madhya Pradesh alone you have Udheri, Malvi, Bageri, Chattisgarhi, etc. So I never discriminate between one and the other.
*The interviewer is Editor of this site, a theatre critic and an academic keenly interested in Theatre and Performance Studies.
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