Hindi Literature and Theatre light up the Seattle Scene
The Hindi speaking community of Seattle was treated to an unusually high quality of events this June in the field of Hindi literature as well as theatre.
One of the most prominent names of contemporary Hindi literature – Dr. Narendra Kohli came to visit Seattle, and during his 2 month stay, he attended a number of public events organized by The South Asia Center at the University of Washington, The Seattle Hindi Samiti, and Pratidhwani’s Drama Wing.
Dr. Kohli is one of the largest selling Hindi authors today, and is most well known for his novels based on the Puranas – Ramayana and Mahabharata – literary epics that not only inspire Indian thought and philosophy, but are in many ways, representative symbols of the society.
Prof. Michael Shapiro of University of Washington while introducing Dr. Kohli at an event organized by the South Asia Center said that Pacific Northwest’s distance from the Hindi literature universe keeps a lot of the bigger names away from Seattle… but when a bright star of that universe comes to visit, we have an opportunity to meet and greet him in a much more intimate environment.
On June 10, 2006, The Seattle Hindi Samiti and Pratidhwani’s Drama Wing jointly organized an evening of literary and theatrical interests in one. The headliner for the evening was Dr. Kohli, who spoke for almost 90 minutes on “narendra kohli kaa rachnaa sansaar – vyangya se pauranik upanyason tak” (Narendra Kohli’s Literary World – from Satire to Novels based on the Puranas). He discussed his journey as an author from his early writings to the projects he’s currently working on.
He said literature can not simply be a vehicle that exposes the negative aspects of life and inspire change. It also has to provide the positive ideals – a destination towards which the society should move; and what better source for positive ideals than the puranas. He talked in depth about his work on Mahabharata and his novels based on the life of Swami Vivekananda, as he briefly mentioned Ramayana, but saved most of Ramayana related discussion for the event that took place on June 24th at the Ethnic Cultural Theatre, University of Washington. After the lecture, actors from Pratidhwani – the local India centric performing arts organization – stage-read a couple of Dr. Kohli’s short satire pieces from his collection titled panch absurd upanyaas.
On June 24th, 2006, Pratidhwani’s Drama Wing presented an encore performance of their Staged Reading of sangharsh kii oar – a theatrical adaptation of Narendra Kohli’s Ramayana based novel abhyudaya. The staged reading aided by theatrical elements of lights, sound and costumes gave the audience a glimpse of what a fully staged version of the play might look like, while still keeping the focus on the script and the plotline. After the performance, Dr. Kohli shared his views and thoughts with the audience before opening the floor for a question and answers session with the audience and cast members. He talked in detail about the relevance of a story from ages ago in today’s world. As an answer to a question he said rakshasas (demons) are not a race or a person, but a tendency, against which the struggle for justice is universal - and not a tale of any one time or place.
These events continue to build on the momentum and buzz created in the Seattle area by Pratidhwani’s Hindi plays starting with hatyaare in July 2005, and have once again invigorated the literary as well as thespian communities in Seattle. Up next, this fall, Pratidhwani is getting ready to present a Hindi translation of the original Marathi play shantata! court chaalu aahe by Vijay Tendulkar, under the title khaamosh! Adaalat jaari hai.
