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The Hindu
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
A feminist retelling of ‘The Mahabharata' by K Srilata
'The Mahabharata contains stories within stories... just when you think you are all caught up, a new tale or an old one differently told resurfaces,' says an excerpt from KSrilata's new book of poems, Footnotes to the Mahabharata, publishedby WestLand. The book was recently launched at the Goethe Institut, Chennai, in association with the Prakriti Foundation, where the writer- academician engaged in a conversation with theatre artiste V Balakrishna, on what inspired her to write the book, and her view on the feminist retelling of the epic. Srilata spoke about how she stumbled upon the subject accidentally. 'I am not a Sankritist, I dont work in the space of mythology or epics, it came at a time when I had given up my 20 years of intense career as a full-time professor, ' she says. While dusting her bookshelf she found exactly what she was looking for to write about. 'I discovered a brand-new copy of Parva, SL Bhrappa's Kannada novel based on The Mahabharata and translated into English by Raghavendra Rao.' She found herself completely lost in its pages, which ultimately inspired this collection exploring the lives of the female characters from the epic— Alli, Hidimbi, Draupadi, Gandhari and Kunti. For Srilata, the female characters are a window to a feminist retelling. 'As somebody who was a working woman and a parent, there are so many things that women go through that remain completely untold. I ask myself, what if I were to slip into the characters of the women from The Mahabharata, what sort of poem would come from there? As I started writing more and more, I was convinced maybe there could be a book there,' says Srilata. The poem is also a reflection of the local Tamil retelling of the epic, for instance, the poem opens with Alli – a character, 'exclusive to the Tamil, Dravidian tradition, not found in the mainstream Mahabharata,' Srilata mentions in her book. The poems are steeped in haiku (a Japanese tradition of poetry). 'Around the time that I was working with these poems, I had also been working with another Haiku poet, Geetanjali Rajan. She mentored me, and that was the form I grew extremely fond of, so there was no other way but for that to seep into the writing of these poems,' says Srilata. In Srilata's poems, Sakhi (used to address a female friend) plays an important role. 'I realised that these women perhaps would have only been able to speak freely to their female friends, the Sakhi listens in silence as the heroine speaks.' Like when Draupadi speaks to her sakhi Nitambini about Krishna. The event ended with a poetry reading by Srilata and Balakrishna. Footnotes to the Mahabharata is available in online bookstores.
The Hindu
17-06-2025
- General
- The Hindu
Delving into multiple layers of Tamil identity
The rich repository of Tamil heritage and culture has largely remained invisible to the wider world, said Nirmala Lakshman, Publisher and Chairperson of The Hindu Group of Publications, speaking at a discussion on her book The Tamils, at the Bangalore International Centre here. Ms. Lakshman described how it took her four years of multiple journeys across Tamil Nadu, studying, researching and listening to stories of people, to come up with the book. 'I spoke to epigraphists, historians, experts as well as ordinary people who generously shared their experiences, their sense of culture and tradition, and I discovered that multiple narratives coexisted,' she noted. It was during this journey, Ms. Lakshman said, that she realised how a large part of it still remained unknown to the larger world. 'Many expert voices had not been heard outside of Tamil Nadu and Tamil world which led me to realise that the wealth of knowledge of the rich repository of Tamil heritage and culture has not been visible to larger world, and the nuanced and better-informed reading of Tamil history and society as seen through their eyes could be highlighted in my book.' 'Through The Tamils, I hope to convey my personal insights to what I have learned about Tamil culture, history and literature to an audience of not just Tamil people, but also to non-Tamil speaking people everywhere,' she further added. Connection to roots The discussion, moderated by Ranvir Shah, founder of Prakriti Foundation, and introduced by Ramachandra Guha, writer and historian, delved into multiple aspects that have shaped the Tamil identity. 'The Tamil diaspora is as strong in Tamil as people in Tamil Nadu are. In places like Malaysia, there is a thirst to know more about one's roots,' said Ms. Lakshman, who further added that the research for the book was a journey of discovery for her too. According to her, Tamils, as with many other communities, are a complex demographic and carry with them a weight of history that goes back several millennia. Pointing out that there are about 90 million people across the world who identify themselves as Tamil, she recollected how, when she visited places like Malaysia, the diaspora there expressed a strong desire to know more about their roots, despite having migrated at least three generations ago. The essence 'In this book, I tried to find that Tamil essence as I weave through history and story, talking to a wide spectrum of people. So that in that sense it's an anecdotal and personal journey,' Ms. Lakshman remarked while further adding that today, a Tamil in Tamil Nadu is no more a Tamil than a Tamil in Malaysia or Sri Lanka or Canada.
The Hindu
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Inside Prakriti Foundation's Festival of Sacred Music
Prakriti Foundation's Festival of Sacred Music (Thiruvaiyaru on the Cauvery), the 12th in a remarkable series initiated by cultural catalyst Ranvir Shah, took place this February in Thanjavur and Thirupugalur in Tamil Nadu. Festivals of sacred music are now popping up all over: there is an impressive annual one in Fez, Morocco; another on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea; and an International Festival of Music and Art in Rome. India has a few too, including the Sacred Spirit Festival that takes place in March in Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur; Bengaluru's Fireflies Festival of Sacred Music; and the Sacred River Festival in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh. Some of these have their own idiosyncratic definitions of what 'sacred' means; some have unifying themes — ecological, social, meditative, mystical, and so on. In this expanding and varied landscape, Prakriti's Thiruvaiyaru festival is unfailingly excellent. The performances are brilliant and wide-ranging, the artists superb; the musical texts come mainly (but by no means only) from the classical Carnatic repertoire. Reliving past genius Throughout the 2025 festival, day and night overlapped in a gentle symbiosis — evening performances balanced by daytime adventures. A trip to Darasuram and Swamimalai ended with a veena recital at the Siddhar koyil (temple) in Thirupugalur, across from the temple where the Tevaram poet Appar merged forever into Lord Shiva. On day three, a morning walk on West Main Street in Thanjavur led us past the Bangaru Kamakshi temple, to whose goddess Shyama Shastri devoted many of his musical compositions. That same evening in Thiruvaiyaru, Sikkil Gurucharan sang for Bangaru Kamakshi. I was moved beyond words. For a moment, I thought I saw both poet Muttusvami Dikshitar and Shastri walking together, singing, just ahead of us on the street where they once lived at the same time. Imagine the creative effervescence of those days in Thanjavur at the royal court, the temples, and in the musical salons. Clearly, these astonishing geniuses are still very much alive. Intimate settings On the first night of the performances, Shruthi Veena Vishwanath, whose work celebrates the intersection of classical and folk forms, sang a medley of intoxicating abhangs (devotional poems), accompanied by Shruteendra Katagade on tabla and Babui on dotara. Marathi abhangs — dramatic, highly personal, emotional, and sometimes antinomian — are by now intrinsic parts of the Carnatic concert canon, as is only right. Vishwanath performed them, and also described them in words as fiery texts of resistance to oppression, prejudice, and self-righteous arrogance, thus in line with our current movements of feminism, post-colonialism, and the search for authentic subaltern voices. I could see her point, but soon I was simply carried away by the music with its bold, recurrent moments of delightful dissonance and unforeseen endings. Her English translations from the Marathi texts were a gift: Like a puppet on a string/ You make me swing/ Tinted by your sense and form/ My senses come alive, says Tuka, the 17th-century Marathi saint and poet. On the second night, in Thiruppugalur, the versatile master of many instruments and musical forms, Thiruvetakkudy C. Saravanan, led his veena ensemble of nine in padams and other genres by various composers, including Purandara Dasa, Oothukkadu Venkata Subbaiyer, and my favourite, Muthu Thandavar. He is one of the most creative, and now largely forgotten, of the early 16th century composers of Tamil padams and kirttanais. I assume that Lord Agnisvara-Siva was listening in from across the great three-sided temple tank. Carnatic music was meant for that kind of intimate performance for a receptive, attuned audience, in just such a setting. Experimenting with forms The Diwanwada ruins of the Maratha palace at Thiruvaiyaru were illumined by oil lamps on every level of the still standing 18th-century dovecot when Gurucharan began his katcheri on night three. He wisely sang Tyagaraja's Evar Unnaru, in Malavashri, on Lord Pancanadeesa, the Lord of Five Rivers. The composer's samadhi was just a stone's throw away on the bank of the Cauvery. Before the performance began, we had the privilege of darshan at the Thiruvaiyaru temple in that early evening hour when pilgrims linger, singing Tevaram verses, the moon is still nearly full, and the drummers are playing. That haunting moment fit the 'sacred'. So did Gurucharan's thrilling rendition of the core composition that night, Shyama Shastri's Talli ninnu namminanu, in Kalyani raga. We live in divisive times. Music at the highest level may offer hope and some sort of solace. People may complain about an alleged erosion of taste and the lost art of listening to classical music, but in my view Carnatic music is flourishing as never before. A new cohort of young, profoundly gifted musicians are already present in the sabha katcheris. Some are experimenting with forms and visions that deepen our awareness and enrich our experience. The sacred music festivals, such as the annual one by Prakriti, have a crucial role to play in this vibrant scene. The writer is an Indologist and poet.
