well, i break my silence to put in a eyewitness report of a tribal dance-drama, hope it suits the style of this blog (as if it has some style!)... read on:-

On 13th April 2006 night, from 11.15 pm to 12.00 night, a magnificent performance of ‘bear in the jungle’ a dance-drama was done by tribal youth as part of ‘Ma Danteswari Jatra-2006’, in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, India. This spectacular show, replete with subtle nuances of theatric exposition was a totally enjoyable experience. It’s not easy to describe or to understand it through reading about it – but lets both try to do so.

The show began after a drizzle of a rain peeped a bit through the summer night without dampening the festive atmosphere at Shodgram, a Tribal health initiative (www.searchgadchiroli.org). Around 500 people were gathered and sitting in a big circle to view this show.

And the show begins with drumbeats, and about 15 people, in magnificent leaf headgears and flowing dresses dance in to the performing circle, their movement flowing in a line. They cover less than one-fifth of the arena, and with mesmerizing rhythm keep moving around the circle. One half of this group are males who are stamp the walking sticks they carry in synch while the women are carrying woven bamboo baskets either on their hip or on their head.

The drum beats slowly increase, and other characters fill in effectively using the line of walkers, the gaps in the audience circle to move in and out of view; scaring the kids in audience, monkey’s are seen jumping around, a small bear is seen hustling about, a black faced huge bear is glimpsed, white painted monkeys mock around, and an old man with a huge turban on his head, carrying a water bag and an unwieldy stick is seen walking around in a tired, stooping but rhythmic way, obviously lost. Also seen is a strapping young man, carrying on his shoulders, two large baskets tied on a stick; he unfortunately has many encounters with animals, and fortunately escapes each one of these along with his baskets.

Then a group of 4 to 5 hyper energetic hunters with rifles enter this scenario and pandemonium breaks loose. These hunters attempt to create some kind of temporary stillness in this jungle, long enough for them to calmly aim but in vain. They also appear very human and are not particularly observant or brave, and thus find themselves frequently startled by sudden appearance of some animal, run helter-skelter, trip and fall around till they re-group again to hunt.

The small bear has a long face cover (made of bamboo, a modified rice-chaff differentiator), which limits its vision, and naturally leads to comic situations. The old guy walking around in stiff limbed rhythm has the confounding habit of appearing in unexpectedly in the middle of thick & thin, and never fails to evoke laughter either. These comic elements surprisingly are enacted without becoming overtly slap-stick because they don’t seem preprogrammed conscious enactments.

As the show progress, the speed gradually increases along with faster drum beats, till the big bear wounds a man. Background music stop and the human members huddle around the wounded person and get someone to treat him. The old man is the lone character who remains mobile. The wounded man recovers after treated by two people and then drums restart. The hunters, animals and walkers return reinvigorated and action explodes through their criss-crossed interactions, till after few unsuccessful attempts, a lucky strike by one of the hunter leads towards the big bear’s death and to a jubilant end.

In this group effort, naturally available props are modified to bring out startling effects; various theatrical elements are mixed together to provide classic entertainment without high expense; and through involvement the actors connects with the audience who can almost feel as if they were on this jungle safari themselves. If you have read till here, then let me end by wishing you in the future a chance to experience in person, this amazing performance.

been watching a lot of recent movies. 'crash' and 'goodnight & goodluck' stand out. i could get the script of 'munich' by googling. reading a script almost gives me a feeilng as if i have seen that movie (though some of my friends consider reading a script as boring).

talking about reading a script, i had read one unofficial script version of 'minority report', and i liked it so much and decided rented out a cd or dvd, i forget. the movie was quite different!! i was disappointed as the official script was lousy compared to the unofficial script.

of course, giong back to the first para, i also saw, 'capote', maybe didn't enjoy becoz had not read 'in cold blood' or seen him on tv ever.

been reading a lot too, mainly pulp fiction books like, stephen king, ildes, connelly and stuff... just fall on to my bed and keep reading till the sun rises and birds makes all kinda noises, thought i wouldn't be doing that stuff in my thirties.

well, will be soon going to a tribal area, and hopefully be there during a tribal festival. i guess the tribe is called as 'gonds'. i am pretty much looking forward to this trip, and watch out this space, i told you about this first.

and yeah, sometimes i wonder whether anyone reads such blogs, there must be billions out there. So, if you read this, do write something on the comments... ok? its not for my ego trip, but hey, knowing whether someone ever reads this or not is important, right?... "YEAH".