Contents SEAGULL Theatre QUARTERLY

S T Q Contents SEAGULL THeatRE QUARTERLY Issue 17 March 1998 2 EDITORIAL Editor 3 Anjum Katyal ‘UNPEELING THE LAYERS WITHIN YOURSELF ’ Editorial Consultant Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry Samik Bandyopadhyay 22 Project Co-ordinator A GATKA WORKSHOP : A PARTICIPANT ’S REPORT Paramita Banerjee Ramanjit Kaur Design 32 Naveen Kishore THE MYTH BEYOND REALITY : THE THEATRE OF NEELAM MAN SINGH CHOWDHRY Smita Nirula 34 THE NAQQALS : A NOTE 36 ‘THE PERFORMING ARTIST BELONGED TO THE COMMUNITY RATHER THAN THE RELIGION ’ Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry on the Naqqals 45 ‘YOU HAVE TO CHANGE WITH THE CHANGING WORLD ’ The Naqqals of Punjab 58 REVIVING BHADRAK ’S MOGAL TAMSA Sachidananda and Sanatan Mohanty 63 AALKAAP : A POPULAR RURAL PERFORMANCE FORM Arup Biswas Acknowledgements We thank all contributors and interviewees for their photographs. 71 Where not otherwise credited, A DIALOGUE WITH ENGLAND photographs of Neelam Man Singh An interview with Jatinder Verma Chowdhry, The Company and the Naqqals are by Naveen Kishore. 81 THE CHALLENGE OF BINGLISH : ANALYSING Published by Naveen Kishore for MULTICULTURAL PRODUCTIONS The Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Jatinder Verma 26 Circus Avenue, Calcutta 700017 86 MEETING GHOSTS IN ORISSA DOWN GOAN ROADS Printed at Vinayaka Naik Laurens & Co 9 Crooked Lane, Calcutta 700 069 S T Q SEAGULL THeatRE QUARTERLY Dear friend, Four years ago, we started a theatre journal. It was an experiment. Lots of questions. Would a journal in English work? Who would our readers be? What kind of material would they want?Was there enough interesting and diverse work being done in theatre to sustain a journal, to feed it on an ongoing basis with enough material? Who would write for the journal? How would we collect material that suited the indepth attention we wanted to give the subjects we covered? Alongside the questions were some convictions. We knew, for example, that we wanted to pay attention to those kinds of theatre work that were off-beat, alternative, serious, sustained, activist, experimental, confrontational, small, semi-rural or rural, marginalized for one reason or another. We wanted to find a way of bringing such work to the notice of the theatre community, to help forge links, spread awareness and facilitate networking. We wanted the journal to be relevant, which meant that it had to deal with issues and problems faced by theatre persons. There should be food for the mind and soul, things that opened doors and lit up horizons, that helped one cross borders and break conventions. Inspirational stuff, perhaps a fellow theatre person talk of his/her life in theatre or how s/he overcame certain problems. Lots of ringing bells. There should be practical stuff, which one could use, which could help answer questions related to one’s work in theatre. Voices of flesh and blood people. All this, and more— playscripts, debates, group discussions, serious reviews. Part of what this fledgling journal wanted to do was to strengthen the very embattled, threatened situation in which live theatre which does not want to be just commercial entertainment, finds itself today. To devote a serious journal to this theatre was a way of acknowledging its presence, giving it importance, recognizing its contribution to society, giving it a voice or allowing its many voices to speak. It was a way of joining the struggle, if you will. Because every theatre person knows that today, doing theatre seriously is a struggle. Anyway, today we are inviting you to help us by giving us your feedback, your inputs and ideas, which will help us take a long, hard look at ourselves. Please be as frank as you like. Please be as constructive as you can. We will be grateful if you fill in the attached questionnaire as completely as possible. Many thanks, Anjum Katyal, Editor Seagull Theatre Quarterly (STQ) The Seagull Foundation for the Arts 26 Circus Avenue, Calcutta 700 017, India. Phone 240 3636, 247 7942. Fax 91 33 280 5143. E-mail [email protected] Editorial The Naqqals of Punjab, a traditional rural community of performers, are followers of the goddess Jawala Mai. They are bhakts of a sufi pir and consider their weekly performance at the dargah an act of worship, of bhakti. They perform the Ramleela, they enact and recite the stories of the Sikh sants and gurus, they perform at gurdwaras. When asked about this multi-religiosity, they answer: caste and religious divisions are man made. Divinity is one, indivisible. Humankind is one family, different members of which hold different religious beliefs. What does it matter by which name you call your god? Aalkaap is a popular performance form in rural Bengal and parts of Bihar. Seeped in the essentially humanist and mystical philosophy of the baul and fakir, performances begin with invocations to Hindu devis and devtas, even by Muslim troupes. The Aalkaap play upholds the principles of love and humanism above divides of caste and religion. Mogal Tamsa, a rural performance tradition of eastern Orissa dating back to the 18th century, brought both Hindus and Muslims together before the local Shiva temple on Sankranti day; more recently, it played a healing role in uniting a bitterly riven community split along communal lines. These examples of performance traditions which comfortably transgress what we are being taught are barbed-wire barriers between different systems of religious belief, are just a few of the many performance forms which, on the ground, affirm our centuries-old history of sophisticated acceptance of difference, of the other. This is a history which has always existed alongside and despite all our other histories of repression, hostility and dominance. As polarizations intensify, as increasingly strident claims to a definitive ‘tradition’ and ‘heritage’ multiply, such performance forms need all the more to be cherished, positing as they do an alternate, equally indigenous, tradition of humanistic tolerance and syncretism. Anjum Katyal 3 ‘Unpeeling the layers within yourself’ Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry NEELAM MAN SINGH CHOWDHRY , director of The Company, Chandigarh, is a director whose vividly stylish productions have been invited to important theatre festivals both within the country and abroad. In this intimate, introspective journey through memory, she shares the experiences that shaped her creative life with ANJUM KATYAL and NAVEEN KISHORE of STQ. ‘Contradictions and contrasts’ 4 My family situation was quite unusual. My father came from a family of priests—the whole Nirankari Movement, which is a villagers’ Sikh movement, and which was a Reformatory movement in Punjab, was started in our family. The first widow remarriage happened in our family. While Raja Rammohun Roy was preaching the abolition of sati, in our family we got a widow remarried. The Anand-Karaj, which is marriage around the Guru Granth Sahib, was started in our family. Previously, even the Sikhs got married around the fire, which was called Bedi di Lawan. My mother came from a very anglicized family; while my father’s family was basically taught how to read and recite the Guru Granth Sahib. But they were very liberal-minded people. My mother’s father—my nana—was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was the Ambassador to Ethiopia, very friendly with Nehru, the Mountbattens . So, it’s a very strange kind of contrast in terms of family exposure. When I went to my mother’s side of the family—it was all bridge- tables in the evening and the Nehrus dropping in; when I went to my father’s side of the family, we all ate in the kitchen, we lived in the gurdwara, woke up in the morning with the sound of the Kirtan (songs of worship), we would get up at 4 in the morning and do seva (service) in the langar(food distribution ceremony). So to me, the whole thing seemed to suggest a whole variety; and perhaps, the whole sense of drama really happened through the kind of contradictions and contrasts that I was exposed to. My father is a doctor, and also a theologist, which is, in retrospect, a very unusual combination. He writes a lot on theology, he goes to seminars, he writes papers, but they are very progressive writings. So there was an interesting mix of scientific and religious temper in the house, a kind of westernization that came from my mother and a kind of ‘Punjabiat’ that came from my father’s side of the family. Then my father went off to England for further studies and the whole family went with him. So, I have early childhood memories of spending five years in London, Edinburgh, Leeds—certain memories, certain smells, certain friendships which developed in early schooling. An attitude that one brought back, when one came from England. Because one was about 11 or 12, so a certain formation had happened. I do remember, very clearly, that I had formed a little theatre group, with all the local children. My father was the Medical Superintendent of the Medical College, Amritsar. So we lived in a home which had a lot of staff—the people who did the laundry, the gardeners of the Medical College. I would collect all the kids together, in the garage. I would set up two table- tennis tables, which I made into the stage, and I would write little plays and I had my own little friends and we would do the plays and all these kids would be our audience. I have a memory of that. But, because I grew up in a provincial city, as I started growing older, I started getting more shy, more inhibited; I got more into painting. I used to paint, like a lot of people paint; there was nothing special in that.

Load more