The hidden afterlife of epics: Karthika Naïr on Peter Brook and the adaptations of the ‘Mahabharata’

Looking back at Peter Brook’s Le Mahabharata, the French-Indian poet says the inconsistencies taught her that creators need not be driven by the same truth while making art

There are scenes in the film version of Peter Brook’s Le Mahabharata I return to, over and over; ones that I dissect at every available platform, in print and on stage.

Take the prelude to the treacherous dice game. Duryodhana (Georges Corraface), freshly returned from Indraprastha and scalded with envy at the ethereal delights of Maya’s palace, plots the downfall of the Pandava brothers with his uncle Shakuni (Tunzel Curtis). His mother Gandhari (Hélène Patarot) begs him to desist, to seek distraction with his wives; she reminds him of all the blessings he enjoys.

Duryodhana’s response is a white-hot creature ablaze amidst the dancing flickers of dozens of nilavilakku and thookuvilakku. His voice soars as faint drum beats gather momentum like the heartbeat of a flailing earth. ‘ But I want to be discontented,’ he rages… ‘a man’s body grows from birth and everyone is delighted; in the same way his desire grows, his desire for power.’

Each time, I am mesmerised by this vision of the Kaurava crown prince: easily one of the most compelling and self-aware characters of the play, one who can locate the precise epicentre of his own hate, presage the consequences of his overarching greed, and still choose to act on his darkest impulses. With that one — almost throwaway — sequence, Brook (with his playwright, Jean-Claude Carrière) gives us the key to the unobtrusive notes that reverberate through Vyasa’s Mahabharata. I could instantly believe why his subjects would love Duryodhana and hail his reign, believe why the Kauravas could find far more allies than their cousins at Kurukshetra, even why Bheeshma — in the last chapters of the Udyoga Parva — is given to pangs of aching love for his wayward, charismatic, grandnephew.

And that specific perception of Duryodhana weaves through Until the Lions, my own telling of the Mahabharata in 19 voices. When “my” Gandhari tells Shakuni, ‘I’d force Time to halt, return,/ and I’d kill you myself while you were still a child,’ it is this Duryodhana — the beloved firstborn who ‘breathes wrath’ — that she would gladly kill her brother to protect. Later in the book, Georges Corraface’s explosive performance as the exacting yet irresistible friend informed my portrayal of Karna’s wife Vrishali’s initial distrust and unwilling gratitude.

Then there are moments and inconsistencies in Brook’s Mahabharata that confounded, even infuriated me for years, until I realised that one could create in retaliation, as well, to a work of art one loves reservedly; that influence need not stem from acceptance or agreement alone. Satyavati, the inevitably subjective narrator of Until the Lions, is the counterpoint to an omniscient Vyasa found in myriad Mahabharatas, not only in the Brook-ian adaptation — a position that she blazons from the outset by inverting the lines mouthed by her sage-son in the latter: ‘This is not the whole story, nor a lyrical history of mankind.’ She, and the other protagonists of my book, will speak from the interstices, with no single, infallible account, for ‘truth is a beast more wayward than time’.

I have a more conflicted equation with Brook and Carrière’s characterisation of Amba/Shikhandi (played with quiet, heart-rending intensity by Corinne Jaber). When it comes to pure theatrical invention, my favourite is the opening scene of Part II: Exile in the Forest*. The five Pandava brothers and their wife Draupadi (Mallika Sarabhai) can be seen in the wilderness, when a voice shatters the silence, hailing Bhima (Mamadou Dioumé). A figure clad in black appears. It is Amba, who seeks the strongest man in the world to slay Bheeshma, the man who destroyed her life by abducting her from her swayamvara.