Did Chitrangada’s father, the King of Manipur, take her permission before deciding to bring her up as a boy and man by suppressing her sex and gender physically, educationally and socially? Did she even know what being a woman was until she saw Arjuna in deep meditation in the forest where she had gone hunting? Were her prayers to Madana, the God of Love to turn her into a beautiful maiden her own choice? Or, was it triggered by Arjuna, who could not recognise the woman in her hunter’s form and went looking for the elusive beautiful princess he had heard so much about? Who is the real Chitrangada? Tagore, through Chitraganda (1892), answers this question in the end.  Anubha Fatehpuria’s powerful performance through these brief but historic questions on a woman’s identity was the best enactment among the seven performances in Saptaparnee, staged at the Academy of Fine Arts recently. Directed by Tulika Das, Chitrangada packs in more questions that today are more rhetorical than they were then.

Usha Ganguly, founder-director of Rangakarmee that celebrates 41 years of its existence within the Kolkata theatre scenario, conceived of a unique performance to celebrate some of the strongest, universal women hand-picked from Tagore’s works to present them on the proscenium stage. The short skits are focussed more on the questions they raise, shedding light on perceptions that might not have been as clear when Tagore created them as they are today. The original script is by Sadhana Ahmed of Bangladesh, the stage design by Sanchayan Ghosh, lights by Badal Das and the musical score by Bhadra Basu.

The pièce de résistance lay in septuagenarian Maya Ghosh’s incredibly strong Malati in the poem Sadharon Meye. She strides across the proscenium space, making imaginative use of the stage props. She throws her voice like a challenge to the writer (Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay) she is talking to, her flowing white hair, her confident strides, her taking those graceful bows, belying her age.. She tells the author to write about an ordinary girl called Malati, the name of hundreds of ordinary girls like her. He should write about how this girl she wants to go to England and stand out, not like Shakuntala or any other Sarat Chandra heroine who always meets with tragedy, but as a Shining Star, graded first in mathematics with distinction. She wants to be bright enough so that her wicked lover can only be found in the corner when she lives the attention. Ghosh’s entire performance is a satire, an incisive attack on a patriarchal society that thrives on the tragedy of the woman it considers “ordinary” which she most certainly is not.

Chandara of Shasti (Punishment) enacted by Karuna Thakur and directed by Sima Mukhopadhyay  is in Hindi and the abstract is condensed so that the essence of the story and the tragedy of Chandara comes across lucidly. Whose punishment is it all about? Is it really Chandara’s punishment for a crime she did not commit? Or is it her punishment of her husband who she refuses to meet when he comes to see her, with that single world, “Moron”?  Carolyn Brown translates “Moron” as “What Husband?” Karuna has performed well but the stylisation appeared to be a bit more loaded than necessary. Jibito o Mrito (1892) provides Bengalis with one of their more widely used epigrams Kadombini moriya proman korilo she more nai (Kadombini died, and thus proved that she hadn’t). Kadambari, a young widow, finds herself on a cremation ground and thinks that she is dead. Performed by Mrinmoyee Biswas and directed by Suranjana Dasgupta, the short skit shows an angry Kadambini, raising questions against a society that forced her to die just because they had accepted her as ‘dead’, a convenient death for Bengali family of the time. Mrinmoyee is somewhat constrained by her black robe that restricts her body language and this impacts on the play. Kadambini was expendable and erasable from human memory.

Senjuti Mukherjee’s Damini from Chaturanga directed by Sohag Sen is enriched by her beautiful stage presence, her imaginative costume and of course, her performance that is a blend of femininity, grace, strength and courage. In Chaturanga (1914), Damini emerges as the most powerful character in this love story with unusual and bold twists. Senjuti articulates about how certain she is about what she wants and what she does not. She is not afraid to ask questions even Lilananda Swami is uncomfortable with. She questions her dead husband’s right to will away the house, her jewels and even herself to Leelananda Swami’s religious cult, without her permission. She questions Swami’s right to accept her custody without asking whether she agrees to be taken care of. She is not afraid to express her physical desire for Sachish. When she finds he is afraid to respond, she tries to woo him by appearing to shift her focus on Sribilash.

Kathakali’s performance as Nandini in Rakta Karabi ( published in book form in 1926) under the direction of Abanti Chakraborty somehow, misses out completely the spirit of Nandini in a world where hers is the sole strident voice raising questions against this autocracy. Nandini symbolises the universal woman born free and sustains her freedom with her ornaments crafted out of red oleanders (Raktakarabi).  Tagore reveals layers of the constant repression of the weak by the powerful, of the captive by the captor, of the exploited by the exploiter and of labour by the capitalist.

Nandini is also a metaphor for freedom of the individual but this does not come across. This forms the weakest link in this seven-act performance. Ela of Char Adhyay (1934) was performed by Sanchayita Bhattacharjee directed by Ishita Mukhopdhyay. With her powerful voice, clear diction and bold body language, Sanchayita brings across Ela who persuades her lover Atin to kill her before her political mentor’s goons do. She desperately urges Atin to kill her instead of allowing “their dirty hands to touch me.” Though Sanchayita looks and is much older than what Ela was, she infuses the energy and dynamism of youth by the sheer strength of her performance. 

Rabindranath Tagore created, redefined, reinvented, deconstructed, and presented the woman of tomorrow. Tagore’s women come across as strong and independent even when trapped in conventional roles. Women everywhere will find a close friend in Tagore. Positive or negative, central or marginal, young or old, normal or psychotic, rural or urban, married, single or widowed, traditional or modern, his fictional women are imbued with personality traits rarely found in Bengali literature of the time.