Mumbai-based Abhyaas Theatre brings Girish Karnad’s Agni aur Barkha to Bengaluru 

Abhyaas Theatre presents Girish Karnad's Agni aur Barkha, a reimagining of Mahabharata, at Ranga Shankara, Bengaluru on February 11.

Abhyaas Theatre, a Mumbai-based theatre company, is bringing to Bengaluru one of Girish Karnad’s popular plays, Agni aur Barkha, on February 11.

Directed by Abhinav Grover, originally titled Agni mattu Male, the play was written by Girish Karnad in Kannada in the year 1994, later translated to Hindi as Agni aur Barkha in 1996 by Ram Gopal Bajaj and to English as The Fire and The Rain in 1997 by Karnad himself.  

According to the synopsis of the play given by the troupe, among the most complex works of Karnad, this play is based on the myth of Yavakri from the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata and is an innovative reimagining of the epic’s characters and events.

“It is a retelling of a lesser-known episode from the epic in which the Khandava forest is burned down by Agni, the fire god, with the help of Arjuna and Krishna to provide a sacrificial altar. Karnad combines multiple myths such as these to explore contemporary social, cultural, political, and psychological issues,” said the synopsis.  

Known for its play-within-the-play method to depict the deception of brothers against brothers and its timeless themes, the play continues to remain a significant work in Indian theatre and has been performed in multiple languages and at numerous theatre festivals.

On being asked why the director chose to make the play though many theatre troupes have attempted it, Grover said that his team wanted a strong play that could reach all kinds of audiences. “Our last play before Agni Aur Barkha was The Caretaker by Harold Pinter. Though it is a very good play, it did not reach its potential, and we wanted to do a production that was very Indian. I have been in Udupi for a couple of years learning Yakshagana, and when the thought of this play hit me, I wanted to make it in Kannada. We made Agni Mattu Male, which had a good number of shows. However, most of them in the production were amateur theatre artistes, who got busy with work and other commitments. I did not want to drop the production, so I decided to make it again in Hindi with professional actors.”

“There are a lot of Karnad plays that I could have made, but I wanted to explore a play which had a man-woman conflict and a balance of the masculine and feminine. This is a very challenging text. While we made the play, we were sure that it would not just be visually aesthetic, but we tried to question, find the sub-text and worked in a very old school method“ he added.