A woman dressed in black is sitting on the middle of the arena and suddenly low and dying beats emerge from a drum. Masked actors posing as cows enter the scene from the audience and the woman, calling the cows to her side. Giving a weak cow some water, she rears the cows towards the stage as the lights go off.
Filled with symbols and complex dialogues that need an advanced audience to comprehend, the play titled ‘En Peyar Kanjaramaram’ (My name is Kanjara maram) goes about shifting from scene to scene but is filled with satire at every juncture.
The play was staged at the Hindustan College Grounds on Saturday and was jointly organised by the Udalveli, an Art Foundation along with Stanislavski Theatre group and the Department of Visual Communication of Hindustan Arts and Science College.
The play talks about a variety of issues including Jallikattu, losing identity, tradition and culture. In the first scene, the play explains about the relationship of cows with rural women who look after cattle like members of the family.
Talking about their attachment with the soil, the artistes go a step further and call the earthworms that clean the soil, their king.
The play then shifts to a story within a story where a character named ‘Komandi Appatha’, who is supposed to have died in a freak suicide, comes back with black magic to disturb the people like a curse.
While stabbing them with wooden sticks like trees are stabbed with nails, the old lady tussles with the villagers despite them pleading her to leave. However, on seeing what belonged to her once had died, the woman then decides to leave leaving the villagers in tears.
Resembling a cultural symbol once flourishing, but now lost in the modern world, the old lady represents the relationship people had with the soil. But in the name of development, various aspects have taken them away little by little, return to which, people are still reluctant.
The plot then moves to Jallikattu field where the artistes explain in dialogue and their bodies about how the sport is played. The artistes portray how the sport that involves muscle and heart sees the players fall on the humps of the bulls and look like garlands on its neck.
The dialogues also portray how fearless both the bull and the players are despite being thrown to the ground over and over, yet not leave the field early.
In order to keep the audience engaged, a clown is also sent between the scenes to talk about the current political and social issues.
Mixed with complex symbols, to understand which one needs a variety of exposures, the play was able to convey at least half of what the actors intended to portray and was directed by Bagurdeen and written by Konangi.