BIKHRE BIMB

Nestled in the quiet bylanes of an otherwise bustling JP Nagar, rests this epitome of excellence, Rangshankara Theater. It does not have a very striking appearance or immediately eye-catching architecture but there is something about such places. They stretch their legs in the world of imagination and sip the finest vine from the vineyards of creativity. You can feel it in the air. The moment You enter, your thoughts start flowing and the fumes of imagination start invading your nostrils.

I got a chance to spend a few hours at this place during my recent visit to Bangalore and I was amply rewarded. My friend Sunder nonchalantly mentioned about a play at this theater and we all forgot about it. Next day while searching for a nice place to spend the evening with my brother, the idea of going there dawned on us and it took us little time to take a decision. We rushed to Rangshankara in the afternoon and grabbed the tickets to the evening 7:30 show.

We chose to spend sometime in the premises before leaving. Looking around, I spotted a book store and rushed straight in. The Shankara Bookstore. Once again, the feel was different. It was not like huge book store chains of CROSSWORD and LANDMARK, neither did it resemble the roadside bookstores that are just filled with numerous books in a random fashion. It was a serene place, holding very few but painstakingly chosen books. It made me untie my purse-strings and spend decent sums to enhance my own collection of books.

Meanwhile, tentacles of hunger were tightening their grip on us and we had to eat something to counter. We walked to the cafe in the premises and ordered some Parathas. Not too much to say about the food but it was decent enough to quieten the hunger without annoying our taste buds. Enjoying the strange artifacts lying around us we finished what was offered and left the
place to come back in the evening.

'BIKHRE BIMB', the first question that popped in my mind was, How is a BIMB different than a PRATIBIMB. I scoured through some of the english equivalents but the closest I could come was IMAGE and REFLECTION. Not quite convinced, I dropped the topic and thought we will find out during the Play anyway. Well, the time was nearing and while standing in the queue, we got to see some more pieces of interesting art. The bell rang after some time and we made our way to the main auditorium.

Beautiful...!! I exclaimed. May be I was excited becaue my familiarity with theaters has been limited to a couple of ordinary Pune ones or on some make shift stages in some five star hotels, but this one was way too different. I have to agree I was excited. A semi circular stage was erected and an arc shape seating arrangement had enveloped it. The seating was set on cushioned stairs and overall it looked like a beautiful and modern lecture theater. The walls were painted in a dark hue and a couple of dim bulbs here and there lighted it in a peculiar way, giving it an appearance that would fall somewhere beteween the extremes of gloom and exuberance. AC grills jutting out of randomly laid AC ducts, a high ceiling and numerous unlit electric bulbs arranged to light the stage as intended, all this gave it quite an impressive look.

The posters downstairs boasted the use of State of the Art technology. This had set some expectations and I had entered thinking I will get to see some new contraptions of scientific jugglery. I was willing to see how they crafted a blend of science and art but I will admit I was a bit disappointed to see 8 flat screen Televisions studded in the backdrop and a big flat screen one set up a little right to the centerstage. Use of televisions in a play can be termed innovative but not state of the art in any way. Well, the air was positive and so was I. I thought there might be something really state of the art and its just poor I who is unable to visualize that. How much did I know about theater anyway..!!

At 7:30 sharp, Manjula Naik, a middle aged lady, clad in dark green sari enters the stage, adjusting the collar mike clipped on her blouse. Soon its clear that the arrangement on the stage hinted a TV studio and the lady is here to give a talk. She keeps mumbling to herself and sometimes to imaginary cameramen and sound engineers. She has come to studio to deliver a 15 minute speech about her recent publication, an internationally acclaimed english novel. The public is wondering how a kannadiga author suddenly came up with an english novel and that too of such excellence. Her speech is more of a press conference where she wants to answer a few questions that people might have about the novel. She makes it a hilarious one casting an occasional sarcasm on general public mentality about the local languages and english. She also sheds a couple of tears while mentioning her deceased sister who was a paralytic and is the central character of the novel. All this while, she is being telecast live on the central television.

She completes her speech and stands up to leave. Her business is over here. But as soon as she starts out, her image on the TV changes. Its the same Manjula in the same dress and in the same position, but it does not follow the moves and voice of real Manjula anymore. It starts acting on its own. The Manjula in TV starts talking to real Manjula, following her with her expressions and eyes. Real Manjula is flustered and scared initially but soon settles down when its clear to everybody that the lady in the TV has turned into nothing but Manjula's self image, her conscience.

Here starts a wonderfully captivating one hour spell of Manjula's conversation with her self conscience. Manjula a real person moving about the stage and the conscience is framed in the space of a few inches of LCD screen. An odd but very creative combination and most striking part of it is that the conversation is between a recorded session (the conscience) and the real lady (Manjula). Startlingly creative.

The story is further told as the conversation advances and a string of events lays open. Malini is Manjula's younger sister. She is a paralytic and the lower part of the body is non functional. They both inherited some property from their father. Manjula tricked Malini and made her sell off her property to fill her own coffers. Malini had stayed with Manjula since then. Malini has been remarkably intelligent and dazzlingly beautiful. Manjula is no match for her sister. All these years have inculcated a sense of jealousy in Manjula. To add to her misery, her husband doesn't like her either. He is a lady killer . He is also a man of great intellect. He is obviously attracted towards Malini. Manjula has always suspected an affair between her husband and her sister. This leads her to an extreme frustration and gradually turns her into a wicked lady. In her own life, she has seen nothing but the defeats and every time, her own sister has defeated her.

Then the time comes when Malini gives in to her poor health and dies. Manjula is just too happy. She has gotten rid of her biggest enemy. But most awaited happiness' are sometimes short-lived.

Manjula discovers the manuscript of a novel penned by Malini. This novel is nothing but Malini's autobiography. She reads through the manuscript and realizes that she has been depicted as a villain throughout. Malini has very beautifully inked her inner most feelings on the paper. She has held Manjula's husband in very high spirits but every line about Manjula is finely dipped in venom and is sauteed in pangs of hatred, giving her a perfect flavor of a vamp. She is out of her wits now. She soon finds out that her husband has known everything about it all along.

Then, she does the unthinkable. She has just one desire and that is to win. She is ready to sacrifice everything. Her family life, her relationship with her husband, her conscience, her self respect, everything. She sends the novel across to a Big international publisher with her name, M. Naik. Novel is taken with welcoming hands and she is mistaken as the writer. Now, she is the heroine. She is everything. She has earned the admiration of millions of readers. She has become a very famous figure. Universities are ready to grant her scholarships. She is invited to literary academies. She has dawned a pseudo or rather a false happiness and has garlanded herself with an even more false greatness. Her husband feels too disgusted to live with her and just calls it quits. He even leaves the country and settles himself in America. He has stopped entertaining her. Still, she was happy with her false convictions and had decided to live that life, until suddenly, in the recording room of a TV channel, her self image confronted her.

The lady in the TV has evoked those long buried emotions which Manjula had very well hidden from entire world. She has spit it out in the flow but is now just too overwhelmed to digest it. She gets out of whack and starts yelling at her self image. Who is she to ask her all this. Who is she to make her realize all this. She goes behind the TV to unplug it. Right then, everything kept on stage starts sliding on the rails and is taken away. Only thing left is 8 TV's in the background. All of them come alive and various self images of Manjula appear. They all are in different moods, yelling different things, making different faces. Manjula is lost somewhere among these scattered images. She is torn in her BIKHRE BIMB.

The play ends and a thunderous applause begins. Very rarely I have seen the spectators giving such compelling standing ovations. You dont have to look at your neighbour and rise and clap. Your feet just dont allow you to keep sitting down. Such is the appeal of good artworks.

After a long time something has enthralled me to this extent. Thats probably the reason I have written such a long one.