 Perfect exit
I had known Bhagirathi from the time she was a young amateur actress of Madras Players in the sixties, and then more as my friend Shekar Ramanathan’s cousin. She was a bright young law student then, and an active participant in amateur theatre, at a time when the Madras Players were still crawling on all fours. Those were the days a young actor called Girish Karnad of Oxford University Press was making waves. I went away to Hyderabad in 1970 and lost touch with most of that crowd.
It was in the last decade or so that I got to know Bhagirathi Narayanan, Bhagyam to everyone. She was by now a dedicated supporter of theatre in Chennai, quietly contributing to its sustenance with her sincere work as an actor and director. It was also always a pleasure at music concerts to come across her and her husband Mohan - sitting in a quiet corner of the auditorium, lost in the beauty of the experience. She did some wonderful work as a director and brought out the best in Chennai’s young actors. Though her work in amateur theatre was extensive, her direction of Nagamandala performed by school children of Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan was one of her finest achievements.
Bhagyam was playing a lead role in a play written by my wife Gowri and I was often present at the rehearsals, mainly in the role of tea maker, but at least once reading a part with her, as the other lead actor of the play, Dhritiman Chaterji, was out of town for a few days. Even in that brief theatrical interaction, I could not help being electrified by the power of her performance, and moved by the sincerity of her effort. Those who saw “Dark Horse: Down Arun Kolatkar’s Lane” will remember for long her emotion-charged rendering of the climactic ‘Sarpa Satra’ scene and the tears of compassion and rage that welled up in her eyes as she recalled man’s inhumanity to nature.
During those rehearsals, she was the perfect team person, always on time, thoroughly prepared with her lines, helpful to the other members of the cast, especially the youngest of them, and never once forgetting that she, a seasoned director herself, was being directed by another person. She had a sense of humour too, and she invariably prefaced her entrances into our home with the cheerful query, “Enna Mami, Innikku Enna Tiffin?” directed at my wife.
It struck me often that she was a professional among amateurs - full of the amateur spirit, but a champion of the professional work ethic. And she achieved every actor’s dream when she collapsed on stage one evening six months ago, in the midst of her young friends.
The family mourned her passing quietly, with dignity. She was always our kid sister, her siblings said, though Bhagirathi Narayanan turned 60 last October. A consummate artiste, one of her long time colleagues called her. Another described her as every actor’s and technician’s favourite director. She was everybody’s friend, a loved one remembered - friend, mentor, confidante; “no one would call her an acquaintance”. Her young friends, many of them actors or other theatrepersons, seemed the most devastated.
It’s six months since Bhagyam left us. She would have been 61 around now. There has been tremendous activity in Chennai’s theatre circuit in the last few months, and almost every group has paid its homage to her. Every time ‘Dark Horse’ has been staged, none of us can help remembering that magnificent performance of hers. It’s a sobering reminder that time waits for none.
|
