Interpreting The Mahabharata: A Fan Mail To Peter Brook

Dear Peter Brook,

How does one write to someone whom they have never met or ever spoken to? Yet, here I am, writing to you as if my life depended on it. This one-sided conversation is strange because it is all talk between strangers. Still, nothing can be more fulfilling. Like Arjuna, the warrior who could see only the eye of the bird. Only your re-imagining of the Mahabharata comes to my mind while I write this, and perhaps that is enough. Watching an epic like this come alive through the microcosm is sometimes a lifetime too short in discovering the many nuances that this story encapsulates. For it is not only the story of a family, but within it carries multitudes, the brahmand as it were.

I am reminded of the opening scene. A young boy wandering around a cave that has small lamps set up on the rocks. The boy looks lost, but unafraid. He walks around as if in search of something important. He is looking for a story, and soon enough the story finds him. Here begins the narration of the grandest of all stories—the Mahabharata through the eyes of Vyasa, the revered sage who invites the boy to sit down and tells him a story about his ancestors. A story that encompasses the poetic history of mankind. This boy turns sutradhar, and carries forward the narrative through conversations with Vyasa, Krishna and Ganesha.

The first scribe, Ganesha, suddenly wanders in. Here, he looks like a lovable, plump, swaggering Lavani dancer adorned in ghungroos and ornaments—like her, Ganesha here is charming, even matter of fact—an intricate Chhau mask from Purulia gives shape to Ganesha—but within it, is a wise and witty mind. Ganesha talks about avatars, how Vishnu in his Krishna avatar is found everywhere. He lies down, opens the mask and lo behold, becomes Krishna playing a flute.

Leela! You reminded us of it always, Peter, throughout the play. But we who inhabit this land and grew in its magic have often forgotten it. How easily this beauty and wonder is sidelined and stories of the past neglected. This grand imagining of a story, which is such an intricate part of the subcontinent, you brought us back, Peter. Where else is one epic showcased in a thousand forms within the same country? As you travel with your team throughout the length and breadth of India to see the Mahabharata being played out in people’s lives—you see Leela everywhere, without the burden of local customs, or of knowing too much. You recorded the bizarre, the poetic and the startling, through the eleven years of the making of this epic. It would have needed not only an understanding of the epic, but also of the people of this country and its culture. There is an obvious deeper association with the epic here that comes through. An association that blends with different kinds of theatre in India, and includes seamless adaptations of the street theatre model into this re-imagining. As a result, the epic becomes free of local and ancestral ritualistic traditions, or the classical precedents of a fixed text. Glimpses of the characters from the play came alive in the streets before us, and amongst the locals who perform their very own rendition of the Mahabharata. Folk and classical forms in which the poem is enacted often give a divergent glimpse. Thus, Kathakali, Bharatnatyam, Chhau and Theyyam, all of these dance forms find place as inspiration in your play.

When Ganesha rolls around to become Vishnu, in one stroke the Gita is explained- for in him resides everything. As Indians, we watched with interest, even scepticism,  the great liberties you took with the epic—Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam came alive in an inverted form in your experiments. The scene where the lake questions Yudhishtira, comes to my mind every time I ponder on these experiments. New questions that were framed, and passages from the Life of Alexander by Plutarch that was incorporated to amplify the philosophical riddles when juxtaposed in the Indian context.

“What came first, the day or the night?”
“The day, but it only preceded the night by one day.”

“Give me an example of defeat?”
“Victory.”

“What is madness?”
“A long-forgotten path.”

This long-winding engagement with The Maha­bharata and insights that seep into modern-day war, politics and its wreckage, keeps playing out in the minds of the audience long after they finish watching it, and in many ways connect the dots to modern day politics worldwide.

The Mahabharata is a political poem of the highest order, philosophical in its roots. It is ageless. A nine-hour production, with an ensemble cast, playing occasionally for days at length, or from dusk to dawn—how deep would that internalisation have been? But more than ever, Peter, you remind us of how contemporary the epic is and how the Mahabharata doesn’t leave you. It is within you and takes on different dimensions even as you grow as a person.

To be able to look East, to break away from the parameters set by the West, and get submerged in more than just Shakespeare or the Roman texts, needs a curious mind. To be able to take such an epic, adapt it with actors from all over the globe and introduce it to the world, needs the mind of an expansive artist.

Peter, you believed that any empty space can become a stage. Jean Claude Carrière, your scriptwriter, narrated a story about a workshop for the actors while passing a jungle. Each actor was asked to find an item that caught their interest in the jungle, something that had meaning. They all gathered twigs, stones, scraps of paper or dry grass, and placed it in a clearing. An Adivasi woman passing by, looked at the pile and assumed it to be a kind of God. She prostrated in front of this understanding of God—a stunned crew returned with a new understanding of India in its wild.

The Mahabharata is startling. One of the most powerful and oldest stories understood universally. By employing multicultural elements with martial arts and music from different  parts of India, you made it a timeless international re-imagining. The greatness of an artist is measured by how their work transcends time, how universal that work is—in that, dear Peter, you triumphed. You might no longer be with us, but your work will always remind us of how the universe meets in stories.

It is impossible to forget this re-imagining of the Mahabharata or to forget the passion with which it was executed. Perhaps, this poem says it best: ‘Everything which is in the Mahabharata is elsewhere; which is not in the Mahabharata is nowhere.’

From an Indian poet.
Thank you for this poetry,
Maitreyee

(This appeared in the print edition as "Finding Kinship in Creativity")

Maitreyee B. Chowdhury is a bangalore-based poet and writer