Like a babushka doll: A review of ‘Bhoomi’, Adishakti’s new play

Layer by layer, the play shifts planes, changing mood and tone, throwing up questions that demand answers, problems that demand a solution

Utsav met Damini, or in theatre terms, Rabindranath Tagore met Vijay Tendulkar on stage on April 10, when Adishakti Theatre Arts opened its latest play, Bhoomi, to launch the Remembering Veenapani Festival 2021. Directed by Vinay Kumar, who also created the musical pieces, the play weaves together mythology and reality, past and present, humour and anger, to create a pattern quite distinct from what one has come to expect from Adishakti. A song and dance sequence that’s strongly reminiscent of the dance dramas of Shantiniketan unwraps the story as it moves between two young women from different time frames, both of whom are victims of a king’s depraved lust. The Ramayana story of Araja, daughter of Shukracharya, lies at the heart of this debate on rape. When the power-drunk king Dandaka sees the innocent maiden, decked in flowers, singing to herself and communicating with the trees and flowers, he does what depraved men do; pounces on her and, despite her attempts to free herself, rapes her savagely to leave her bruised and bleeding. Her sorry state enrages her father, Shukracharya, who curses her tormentor so that the once beautiful forest that was part of his kingdom, and indeed his kingdom itself, is ravaged by a raging fire and dust storms that cover and annihilate it completely.