Flower power
A handful of teenagers stole the show on the evening of January 27 when they enacted the dance drama
‘Parijatham’.
The dance drama was put together by dance guru Saroja Rani of Sankara Natyalaya, Kodambakkam, and was sponsored by the Tchaikovsky Music Club along with the Russian Centre for Science and Culture.
The story revolves around Krishna and his wives Sathyabhama and
Rukmani. Narada was very unhappy that he could not get a darshan of the three of them together as Sathyabhama and Rukmani did not see eye to eye.
When he comes across a parijatham flower, he plans a trick and includes Krishna in the drama. He takes the flower to Krishna when he is with Rukmani and insists that he give the flower to her. But he goes to Sathyabhama’s house and paints a different picture. Sathyabhama gets angry with Krishna for having favoured Rukmani with the flower and kicks up a row with him. To pacify her, Krishna plants the parijatham tree in her palace.
But due to the wind, all the flowers from the tree fall in Rukmani’s house. Her anger mounting, Sathyabhama storms into Rukmani’s palace where she is busy preparing a garland of the parijatham flowers for Krishna, and picks up a fight.
Narada and Krishna arrive on the spot and Narada explains that it was all a trick by him to have a darshan of the three together. He succeeds in his plan!
Aiswarya, who played Krishna caught between the two women and trying to humour Narada, exhibited her talents well. Premlatha as Sathybhama, Vijayalakshmi as Narada and Bhavani as Rukmani played their parts very well. The rest of the cast included Kavitha, Chitra, Deepika, Meera, Reema and
Anusha.
Saroja Rani directed the play and rendered the songs along with Anuja. The other accompanists were 86-year-old Subbiah on the harmonium, Dilli Babu on the tabla, Murugananda on the mridangam, Narasimhan on the violin, Srinivsan on the flute and Gajavadanam for sound effects.
The lyrics by late poet Maruthakasi were in simple and sweet Tamil. N N C Swamy also contributed some of the lyrics and supervised the whole show.
Retired judge Justice S Mohan, president of the Tchaikovsky Music Club, was all praise for the team of dancers and Saroja Rani. Chief guest Stanislva I. Simakov, director of the Russian Centre for Science and Culture, distributed mementos to the dancers and said the club was planning a string of cultural events.
Sankara Natyalaya was founded in 1981 and since then has produced many Bharatanatyam dancers. Saroja Rani, trained in Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Kuchupudi, Kathak and other oriental dances, was awarded the title Aadarkalai Arivoli by film director S P Muthuraman during a stage performance in 1991.
Sankara Natyalaya will be celebrating its silver jubilee in September 2006.
