Hayavadana

The play began with a brief narration on the play’s antecedents: one of the influences behind the play was Thomas Mann’s The Transposed Heads, which in turn was borrowed from a Kathasaritasagara story. In keeping with the spirit of the play, Monisha Charan paid a rich tribute to the myths and legends of the Hindu religion.

The plot revolves around two parallel stories, both involving questions of love and identity (the heart and the head). In the main track, a well-built kshatriya, Kapila (Avtar Bhullar), finds that his best friend Devadatta (Justin Lee) has madly fallen in love with Padmini (Dr. Siri Rama). Although Kapila harbours an attraction for Padmini, his love and loyalty stands above all; he arranges the match for Devadatta and Padmini and they get married.

The director has made sure that the two actors present a contrast in their physicality and demeanour: Kapila is a Kshatriya with a muscular and manly appearance; Devadatta is a learned Brahmin and poet with a weak physique. The playwright cleverly poses the question to the audience: what if their physicalities are switched? What if the weak Brahmin poet becomes muscular and the sinewy warrior takes the body of the weak poet? Are they happy in their new avatars? What happens to Padmini’s love in that case?

In Hayavadana, Karnad delves into the questions of existentialism through the quest of the individual for the assertion of his self despite his limitations and idiosyncrasies. When the head in not in tune with the body, it leads to a situation of conflict. Can there be synergy between, say, a head full of old ideas and a body living in the modern times? This could well be the reality for many across the world.

One of the philosophical questions posed in the play is about the identity of the individual. What is a person’s identity – his head (face) or his body? At one point in the play, the poet Devadatta says that according to the Shastras, the head is what signifies a man. Should that settle the question for us?