Epic Sound Of Thunder

The Adishakti group brings alive a myth from the Ramayana.

- Geeta Doctor in Chennai

 A rattle of kettle drums and thun­ der rends the air as Bali, Kishki­ndha’s monkey king, strode across a stage, bringing into Chennai’s Museum Theatre a sense of the devastation taking place in neighbouring Kerala. For 70 minutes during the Hindu Theatre Fes­tival 2018, the Adishakti group, started by the late Veenapani Chawla near Auroville, enacted the story of Bali. In Valmiki’s Ramayana, it was coinciden­ tally during the rainy season that Ram and Lakshman, seeking allies in their mission to rescue Sita, had reached Kishkindha—better known today for the scattered ruins of Hampi, with its rock­strewn landscape in the Karna­ taka stretch of the Western Ghats. The two exiled princes from mythical Ayodhya found themselves drawn into the uneasy alliance between the two broth­ ers Bali and Sugreeva.

Setting off to fight a demon in a hill cave, Bali had told Sugreeva to pay heed to his death only when he saw a river of blood flowing down the mountainside. In a striking visual moment of the Adishakti production, a beam of red light was streamed across the stage, while red balls were tossed, or rolled silently, from one darkened end of the stage to another. Could Bali be dead? Sugreeva greedily seized the moment. He took over Bali’s kingdom and his wife Tara, who had risen from gem-strewn waters during the churning of the mythical Ocean of Milk.