S L Bhyrappa’s Parva to be adapted into English play by Prakash Belawadi



Kannada writer S L Bhyrappa‘s magnum opus Parva is set to get back on stage with Prakash Belawadi donning the director’s hat for this English adaptation.
Two years after the play was performed for the first time in Kannada, the idea of an English adaptation emerged, following which an entity called Eneno Ase was created. Academy of Music will host the ticketed play from October 19 to 22 at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Vyalikaval.
While the show in Mysuru was subsidised with state support, organisers said they had one thing in mind that they would not go for sponsorship this time. Talking about adapting the book into a play, Belawadi said, “Language is a real problem in translating Parva to English, both in the semantic idea of writing and the semiotic idea of performance. The sound of language is closely linked to gestures and timing in performance. English being a stressed language, I can’t try translate ‘yaake ide maadide’ into English with the same emotion,” he said, recalling how he cried when reading the Kannada version vis a vis the English.
He was talking at a conversation with the author organised at Chowdiah Memorial Hall on Sunday. The language used in Parva has colloquialisms, and to adapt to a language that is not ours is our challenge, but we feel we have succeeded somehow, he added, stressing the challenge was telling a story that is told in time, within tight confines of time.
In a team of 46 musicians, 122 parts are to be played. The cast and crew belong to various professions, from IT professionals and CA to lawyers.
“If we can pull this off, we would have achieved something major,” Belawadi said. Kannada writer Sahana Vijayakumar said that the need for a literary piece such as Parva existed earlier, too, but it is even so now “with childish statements about the elimination of Sanathana Dharma.
“How our dharma is set apart from other religions, how its roots have spread far and deep, and what sort of tests our faith has gone through, all can be understood by Bhyrappa’s writings, especially Parva. Its a 21st-century Kannada classic written in 1976 and published in 1979 that the central government has translated to Russian and Chinese.”
She expressed sadness that 93-year-old Bhyrappa stopped writing after completing 25 literary works. Yet, hopeful that Belawadi’s attempt to spread Parva to those beyond Karnataka may give rise to 50 more editions of the book.
Bhyrappa, explaining the characters in the novel, said, “When writing Parva, I used a technique — I put out a table penning down everyone’s age. Bheeshma was the oldest at 120 years, and the youngest was 16-year-old Abhimanyu. Thereby, the ages of others were readied. Hence, it was easy to calculate their actions.”
Adding on about his experience in traversing the various regions in the country and finding differences in Vyasabharatha, Kumara Vyasabharata’s narrative and reality, he said, “In Viratnagar in Jaipur, there was a ‘go grahana’, and Arjuna said he will release the cows but needed a charioteer for his chariot. However, when I went there, it was merely hills, so it was impossible for a chariot to run. Vyasa may have described Viratnagar, but did not do a spot study,” he said.
Furthermore, about four miles away was Bheem Guha, a cave in which there was an idol of Bheem, where you can see, even today, underaged children visiting after marriage. “I asked a newly married boy of 16, who had a bride of 10, who prayed there, what he asked from God. The boy replied : I asked lord Bheema to give me the strength to kill anyone who lays eyes on my wife. This idea has come from back then, when Bheema killed Kichaka. It is a mentality of all men in India. Except now, with modernity, infidelity is considered alright, and divorce is sought — as alimony is also not to be given for this reason. But traditionally, men’s mentality is the same as Bheema and the 16-year-old boy’s. This is Indianness,” he added.





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