Women’s voices from Ramayana

When Odissi dancer Ranjana Gauhar brings Ramayana's Sita alive in a dance drama, she is made to resemble a contemporary opinionated woman with a voice of her own.

Ranjana's Sita is joined by Surpanakha, Mandodari and Kaikeyi, other female characters from the Ramayana in a modern retelling that incorporates four Indian classical styles Odissi, Kathak, Mohiniyattam and Kuchipudi.

The production Tejasa - Women from the Ramayan from by Ranjana's dance academy, the Utsav Educational and Cultural Society that intertwines dance and narration, is scheduled to be held here on 3 September.

Ranjana Gauhar essays Sita in a Odissi dance and Uma Dogra portrays Kaikeyi through Kathak dance while Gopika Varma showcases Surpanakha through Mohiniyattam and Deepika Reddy gives voice to Mandodari in Kuchipudi.

'It is important for us to connect to Sita's voice and frame of mind as the present situation in our country is similar to that in her age,' says Ranjana Gauhar, who drapes herself in a fishtail Odissi-styled sari to play out Sita'

'Like Sita, the women continue to be ill-treated, abducted, are seen to be infidel and have to constantly prove themselves at all times to be respectfully accepted within the society,' Ranaja says.

Her character at one point says 'I am Sita and not Sati'.

Ranjana says it was her dream to present a dance-drama that would reflect the composite nature, conflicts and compulsions of four entirely different woman characters from the epic.

'Sita, Kaikeyi, Surpanakha and Mandodari are all different from each other and not much discovered or understood by us.

We have seen them as less significant characters, but these are the characters who have changed the course of the epic,' she says.

It took almost two years to research and unearth facts on all of these characters. Ranjana claims that she even had to go underground in the past six months. 'Whenever and wherever I travelled outside the country, I carried those research papers with me,' Ranjana says. 

Conventional Ramayanas either ends up with Rama's victory over Ravana, or with Sita dramatically taken away by Mother Earth who is also supposed to be her mother. Similarly there is much researched on Mandodari, the queen consort of Ravana after her husband's death.

'I am showing Mandodari not just as a perfect wife, but a wife who questions and advices the most powerful man on the earth, his husband Ravana,' says Deepika Reddy, who enacts the role.

The production attempts to show characters like Kaikeyi and Surpanakha, often portrayed negatively in a different light. 'In those times it was rare for a woman to demand her son be crowned as king. But Kaikeyi dared it, and what is wrong in demanding that? She questions society's fundamental right that the decision to choose a king rests only with a man,' says Uma Dogra who essays the character of Kaikeyi.

The chief narrator of the production is conducted by Mother Earth, who weaves the struggles of the four lead characters who are transported from age to age, into the present and to the future. Music for the production has been given by Saroj Mohanty.