Deepak Paramashivan
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Paramashivan – A Treasure Trove of a Forgotten Theater Tradition Life, Music and Search for an Identity by Deepak Paramashivan A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Music University of Alberta © Deepak Paramashivan, 2019 Abstract Modern Kannada theater refers to a very rich tradition of theater that evolved in the princely state of Mysore, British India. It was founded, supported and nurtured under the royal patronage of the erstwhile kings of Mysore, Mummadi Krishna Raja Wodeyar, Chamaraja Wodeyar, Krishna Raja Wodeyar IV and Jaya Chamarajendra Wodeyar. Popularly known as ‘Kannada Vṛtti Raṅgabhūmi (Vṛtti:Professional, Raṅgabhūmi: Theater Stage)’, it reached its pinnacle of creative effervescence in the late 19th century during the colonial rule and rode high upon the crest of boisterous popularity from the early 20th century until its decline in the 1970s. The plays in this genre of theater were rife with a wide variety of music, beautiful poetry, dance and action. The dramatic literature— based on popular mythological, historical, social and fictional themes—was used as a story telling mechanism to appeal to the enamoured fancies of the audience. Though it initially throve under the magnanimous patronage of the kings of Mysore, modern Kannada theater was later promoted by famous drama companies such as A. V. Varadachar Company, Chamundeshwari Company, Gubbi Veeranna’s Channa Basaweshwara Company and K Hirannayya Company. The current work aims to document the salient features of modern Kannada theater, based on the artistic biography of the eminent Kannada theater personality, my father, Vidwan R Paramashivan (Vidwan – an epithet usually associated with scholarly musicians in South India), often referred to as ‘Kannada Raṅgabhūmi Bhīṣma Pitāmahā’ (“Great grandfather of Kannada theater”)’, who had an illustrious career spanning more than eight decades in Kannada theater as an actor, director, harmonium player and composer with various drama companies from 1935 to 1970. As an essential component of his biography, the work will include brief biographies of two of his sisters ii R Manjula (Born 1940) and R Nagarathnamma (1926-2012), both eminent actors, who were groomed under his watchful eyes in the nuances of acting and music. This work derives from a palette of research approaches including biography, dialogic interviews, auto-biographical and reflexive-ethnographical research methods. A series of personal interviews about Paramashivan’s personal life and his knowledge worlds of theater, cinema and music in a politically charged atmosphere amid a growing sense of nationalism determined to uproot the colonial rule, will be interpreted to reflect the social situation, cultural and political processes prevalent in that period. Paramashivan’s biography also sheds light on issues related to gender conventions, social status of actors and their struggles, social attitudes, prejudices and cultural pressures towards theater artists that led to the decline of a highly evolved art form such as modern Kannada theater. iii Preface This thesis is an original work by Deepak Paramashivan. Various field research methods like personal interviews, audio recording, video recording, visit to archives and galleries and other ethnographic tools have been used to conduct this research. The research project, of which this thesis is a part, received research ethics approval from the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board, Project ID Pro00071027, titled “20th Century Classical Theater Music of Mysore”. The video and the audio referred to in this thesis can be accessed from the Education and Research Archive, University of Alberta by following the link https://era.library.ualberta.ca/ . iv Note on Transliteration This dissertation contains words from mostly Sanskrit and Kannada. Unlike Hindi, the terminating a is not dropped in Kannada (ex. Pareśa is not pronounced as Pareś). Sanskrit words appear in the form of either the name of the play or as a poem. Kannada words are more frequently encountered in the interview section where native phrases are transliterated and glossed within parenthesis. Lyrics in the transcribed scores of songs do not follow the transliteration scheme. The song lyrics is first presented using the transliteration scheme followed by the melody and the text without transliteration (For example, pareśa is written as paresha in the score). Note on Long Interviews in Block Quotes While presenting the interviews, for longer segments of interviews, block quotes are used, and the text is italicized. Shorter ones are presented without any font change or block quotes. v Dedicated to ‘The Two Great Dudes’. I am sure, as the greatest intellectuals, they will be able to logically resolve their doubts. If you spend too much time thinking in the abstract, you will never reach introduction! --An Old Chinese PhD dropout (Tashi’s Guru) vi Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the constant encouragement, kind support and timely advice of many people. First, and foremost, words fall short to express my indebtedness to my supervisor Professor Michael Frishkopf, a friend, philosopher and guide, in the truest sense of the word. Be it as trivial as writing emails to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research (FGSR) to support my enrolment in drama and composition courses or as important as strongly recommending me for the PhD program and also help me win some of the most prestigious fellowships or could be as intense as offering compassionate emotional support when I was dealing with this mysterious world’s playful obscurantism, he has always stood as a constant source of strength and hope. If I were to ever attend a panel discussion with eminent philosophers such as Adi Shankara, Socrates, Plato and Omar Khayyam, on the theme ‘Mikha’el?’, my concluding remarks would be, ‘Guys, I would let you answer this question to suit your beliefs. To me, my Guru Michael is’. Undoubtedly, he is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I am deeply beholden to Professor Regula Qureshi, one of the finest scholars of both Western as well as Indian music, for supporting my life in many ways. She recommended me for the program, kindly accepted me as her student and most importantly, accepted me as a friend into her family. I will always cherish the moments I spent under her guidance discussing a plethora of scholarly subjects such as music, language political science, anthropology, history and so on. I enjoyed those moments of positive shocks when she would merely look at the musical score and talk about the piece at length. Whenever we met, never did I return home without learning a new lied by Schubert, or without learning to appreciate the subtleties of a new symphony or a Bach’s suite. It is indeed rare to come by such an exemplary scholar and I thank my good fortune for having encountered her and been associated with her. This work would not exist without the contribution of Prof David Gramit, who offered me his kind, timely help at various stages of my research as a mentor and a member in the supervisory committee. He changed my understanding of music in the context of colonialism through his wonderful course, which later helped me immensely in my research. I owe him a great debt of gratitude, for, it was his Midas touch that I won so many fellowships and continued my program, especially at a juncture when I was contemplating to go back to climate engineering, a financially more rewarding profession. He in fact got me habituated to winning fellowships. I always adopted a very simple procedure to win a fellowship; 1. Make an application 2. Share it with Prof David Gramit for suggestions, corrections and modifications (the Midas touch part) 3. Submit the application, 4. Request for reference letters and 5. Win the fellowship. He had made my life literally as simple. His scholarship, logical precision in thought and speech is what I aspire to achieve some day. Thanks galore to Dr. Julia Byl, a fantastic friend and one of the most generous intellectuals, who intervened in a timely fashion, literally held my hand and walked me through the process of writing the dissertation. I have been a beneficiary of her generous affection, concern and invaluable guidance. It was she who first gave me a flavor of true scholarship when she once advised me “Read books a, b, c, d… In book C read the introduction section. In book d there is an interesting section on biography in pages 219-232. The author refers to another article, which you can read but there is another interesting article by the author referred in...”. She could have gone on if not for my innocuous interruption, “Let me finish reading these first”. It was a great experience working with her as a teaching assistant for her course. It was then I could see her sweet persona, who vicariously felt others’ pain and wept with them, a caring teacher who was genuinely willing to help her students, a quality which, ideally, every teacher should strive to acquire. vii Thanks to Prof Maryam Moshaver, who was kind enough to teach me music theory and her theorem PI/D on species counterpoint is etched permanently in my memory. I thank Professor Dominik Wujastyk for his invaluable suggestions and for kindly giving me an opportunity to teach Sanskrit at the university. It is widely believed that fine arts such as music, dance and drama have divine origins. After creating the drama, the Goddess of knowledge was overawed by her own creation and went cogitating. Waiting restlessly at her abode were both connoisseurs and the curious, of the immortal world, who had taken special interest on the mortals of the human world. At the very first opportunity they could meet the Goddess of knowledge, in chorus they inquired of her, “Well, you created one of the finest, subtlest and the most abstract art form called the Drama.