“A lentil, a lentil, a lentil, a stone... ”, the lines of Armenian poet Zahrad’s ‘A woman cleaning lentils’ got a life of their own during a theatrical adaptation presented at Adishakti on Saturday.
The show, ‘Lentils and Stones’, directed by Vijay Ravikumar, put the spotlight on the demographic features of the lonely widow, juxtaposing happy memories of her past with the ennui and monotony of domestic work of the present.
As it casts light on the mundane life of an aged woman (portrayed through puppetry) whose mind goes wandering as she goes about her daily routine of sorting stones from lentils, the audience is prompted to ruminate on how many old women share such a desolate plight and what eventually becomes of them.
The woman’s thoughts, as she rolls back the years, take her to unexpected places, sometimes leading, sometimes following the train of thought.
One of the speaking characters in the play is the idiot box which attempts in vain to draw the attention of the old woman going about her chores with a miscellany of content.
The TV set tries to strike a conversation with the impervious soul but the lines turn into a monologue. And, the woman’s occasional soliloquies about childhood, marriage, fears and being widowed 20 years ago, are hardly in response to the television set.
In a curious reversal of roles, the old woman's television watches on, trying to mine data on this woman whose world has long since passed.
For the woman though, the meandering mind offers a sort of liberation, not as a form of escapism but as a process of gaining confidence and power, and self-discovery. But then, she is a champion in her world of dreams! At one point, the idiot box observes rather darkly that sometimes funerals bring freedom — a remark both powerful and poignant in the context of the widow’s situation.
“The idea grew out of the time I was living with my grandmother in Chennai,” says Ravikumar, who also manipulates the puppet-woman.
He was particularly struck by the bundle of happy memories she had of childhood which contrasted with a post-marriage life consigned to domestic chores and desolation in old age.
Ravikumar was initially thinking of the graphic novel as a form of expressing his take on the lonely life of an elderly woman and her memories of a time long gone by, but then changed his mind after coming across the poem by Zahrad.
The poem, a short one but nonetheless powerful, served as a framework, a sort of scaffold, says Ravikumar.
“The first version of the play has undergone multiple changes,” said the director who has added layers of script and theatrical elements to come up with a stage performance of nearly an hour. “Now I feel that it is all starting to come together,” said Ravikumar.
The play was conceived by Vijay Ravikumar as part of the Take Flight support and mentorship programme by Perch Collective, Chennai in 2018.
The cast comprised Abhaydev Praful, Aditi Bheda, Bhagirathy, Devika Mohan, Madhushree Basu, Parvathy and Pranav Sreerag.