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SADEHA 08.m4a

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Part 1 · VIDEHA MITHILA MAITHILI DISCUSSION CRITICISM SERIES PART 1

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35:00

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1. 0:00–0:05Usually, when we talk about preserving a historical language or, you know, an ancient culture,
2. 0:05–0:10there's this heavy expectation of, well, of pristine quiet.
3. 0:10–0:11Right, exactly.
4. 0:11–0:16Like you picture dusty dictionaries or scholars in silent reading rooms, maybe glass display cases,
5. 0:16–0:22holding fragile manuscripts. Just a general atmosphere of polite, quiet reverence.
6. 0:22–0:25Yeah, and it creates this illusion that the culture is static. Like,
7. 0:25–0:31It's a fossil protected behind velvet ropes, entirely unchanging and honestly largely irrelevant
8. 0:31–0:36to the messy reality of modern life. But then you step into the world of Methilite theater,
9. 0:36–0:41particularly the grassroots movements in rural India in Nepal, and that entire museum display
10. 0:41–0:46case is just, it's shattered. Completely smashed. Yeah. We are looking at a cultural landscape that
11. 0:46–0:51is honestly a battlefield. It is loud, it's fiercely contested and it is incredibly alive.
12. 0:51–0:52It really is.
13. 0:52–0:56And the battleground we are looking at today is an extensive, remarkably detailed archive
14. 0:56–0:57from 2012.
15. 0:57–1:02It's titled, Videha Mithili Drama Festival, Mithili Parallel Theater Archive.
16. 1:02–1:05And I have to say, this text is anything but a dusty record.
17. 1:05–1:11I mean, Mithili is a language with a deeply rooted literary heritage in the Indian subcontinent.
18. 1:11–1:13It's spoken by millions of people.
19. 1:13–1:18And exploring this archive reveals how local theater doesn't just passively entertain,
20. 1:18–1:24It actively acts as a mirror to society's deepest conflicts and its highest aspirations.
21. 1:24–1:28It is the absolute definition of a living, breathing, fighting art form.
22. 1:28–1:32So our mission today for this deep dive is to pull this archive apart.
23. 1:32–1:37We're going to explore this vibrant, sometimes intensely controversial world for you.
24. 1:37–1:42We'll unpack exactly how an ancient art form serves as a modern battleground for
25. 1:42–1:47social equality, for language preservation, and for a literal grassroots cultural revelation.
26. 1:47–1:51this isn't just about people putting on quaint community plays on a Sunday afternoon.
27. 1:51–1:56Not at all. We are going to be diving into 13th century con men, poison suites, cool
28. 1:56–2:00yard rebellions led by teenage girls, and this entire ideological movement known as
29. 2:00–2:02Parallel Theater.
30. 2:02–2:07The archive makes a really compelling case that art is never just art. You know the
31. 2:07–2:10words an actor speaks on a village stage, they're always a reflection of power,
32. 2:10–2:13of identity, and ultimately of survival.
33. 2:13–2:19Absolutely. But before we get into the specific plays and the modern drama, and trust me, there's a lot of drama.
34. 2:19–2:20Oh, there's so much.
35. 2:20–2:26The Archivist does something fascinating. They lay down this massive theoretical foundation.
36. 2:26–2:33They give us the historical blueprint of the stage by directly contrasting eastern and western theatrical traditions.
37. 2:33–2:34Right. It's a very deliberate setup.
38. 2:34–2:40Yeah, they draw a hard line between the foundational text of Western dramatic theory, which is Aristotle's Poetics,
39. 2:40–2:44and the classical Indian treatise on performance,
40. 2:44–2:47the Natishastra, which is traditionally attributed
41. 2:47–2:48to the sage, Haritha.
42. 2:48–2:51And setting up that contrast is crucial for literally
43. 2:51–2:53everything that follows in the archive.
44. 2:53–2:54How so?
45. 2:54–2:56Well, Aristotle, in his poetics, he's fundamentally
46. 2:56–2:58an analyzer of structure.
47. 2:58–3:00He was obsessed with the imitation of action.
48. 3:00–3:02Right, the mechanics of it.
49. 3:02–3:05Exactly. For Aristotle, the plot is the supreme entity
50. 3:05–3:06of the theater.
51. 3:06–3:08The beginning, the middle, the end,
52. 3:08–3:11and the inciting incident, the climax.
53. 3:11–3:13He believed the mechanical sequence of events
54. 3:13–3:16was the primary vehicle for delivering meaning
55. 3:16–3:17to an audience.
56. 3:17–3:19So if Aristotle is treating a play
57. 3:19–3:22like a tightly wound mechanical clock,
58. 3:22–3:24focusing on the gears and how one plot point
59. 3:24–3:26physically triggers the next,
60. 3:26–3:28what does the Natyash Shastra doing?
61. 3:28–3:31Because the archive paints a completely different picture
62. 3:31–3:33of how an audience is supposed to experience a story.
63. 3:33–3:36The Indian tradition, as highlighted in the source,
64. 3:36–3:38focuses on something called rasa.
65. 3:38–3:42Yeah. And RASA translates roughly to juice, essence, or flavor.
66. 3:42–3:43Fever. Okay.
67. 3:43–3:49The ultimate goal of a performance under this framework isn't necessarily to execute a perfect logical sequence of plot points.
68. 3:49–3:54The goal is for the actor to evoke a specific refined emotional essence.
69. 3:54–3:57So it's less about what happens and more about how it feels.
70. 3:57–4:03Exactly. The audience isn't there to just watch a sequence of events unfold. They are meant to actively taste this emotion.
71. 4:03–4:07I love that. A play isn't a clock. It's a recipe.
72. 4:07–4:10The focus is on the emotional flavor the audience walks away with.
73. 4:10–4:11That's a great way to put it.
74. 4:11–4:17And to cook up that flavor, the Natya Shastra breaks down the theater into specific practices.
75. 4:17–4:22The archive mentions a split between Lakadharmi and Natyaadharmi.
76. 4:22–4:26I'm assuming that's the difference between everyday realism and high theatricality.
77. 4:26–4:33Broadly, yes. Lakadharmi is the realistic or folk practice. It reflects the behavior of
78. 4:33–4:36of everyday people and it's grounded in the physical reality
79. 4:36–4:37of the audience's daily lives.
80. 4:37–4:39Like how people actually talk and move in the village.
81. 4:39–4:41Exactly, whereas Nachat Harmi
82. 4:41–4:43is the stylized classical practice.
83. 4:43–4:46It utilizes elevated symbolic conventions.
84. 4:46–4:49It's the heightened reality of the stage.
85. 4:49–4:52But the real mechanics of how the actor achieves that rasa,
86. 4:52–4:53how they deliver that flavor,
87. 4:53–4:55is found in how the Nachat Shastra categorizes
88. 4:55–4:58acting itself, which is known as a pinaya.
89. 4:58–5:00This is where I started getting a little overwhelmed
90. 5:00–5:01by the archive, honestly,
91. 5:01–5:05because it breaks up in I down into four very distinct types.
92. 5:05–5:06It's a very rigorous system.
93. 5:06–5:07Yeah.
94. 5:07–5:09The first two seem straightforward enough.
95. 5:09–5:12There's Angika, which refers to the body,
96. 5:12–5:14the physical gestures, the posture,
97. 5:14–5:15how an actor communicates through their lens.
98. 5:15–5:16Right.
99. 5:16–5:17Then there's Vachika, which is the voice.
100. 5:17–5:18Yeah.
101. 5:18–5:20And the text notes, it's not just the words
102. 5:20–5:22written on the page, but the modulation,
103. 5:22–5:24the tone, the entire delivery.
104. 5:24–5:25Which makes sense.
105. 5:25–5:27But the third one, Satvika.
106. 5:27–5:29I need you to unpack this for me
107. 5:29–5:30because reading the description,
108. 5:30–5:33It honestly sounds terrifying for an actor.
109. 5:33–5:35Suttvika is incredibly demanding.
110. 5:35–5:38It refers to emotional or internal states
111. 5:38–5:40that must manifest physically.
112. 5:40–5:41Like fake crying.
113. 5:41–5:42No, that's the thing.
114. 5:42–5:45We are not talking about pantomiming sadness.
115. 5:45–5:47We are talking about genuine tears.
116. 5:47–5:51Visible, trembling, breaking out in an authentic sweat
117. 5:51–5:53or having the hair stand on end.
118. 5:53–5:55Wait, you mean literal biological control.
119. 5:55–5:58It expects an actor to force their autonomic nervous
120. 5:58–5:59system to react on command.
121. 5:59–6:05Yes, it requires the actor to so deeply inhabit the psychological state of the character that
122. 6:05–6:08their physiology catches up to their psychology.
123. 6:08–6:09That is wild.
124. 6:09–6:14It's the summoning of a true physiological state of sorrow or fear.
125. 6:14–6:19It is arguably the highest pinnacle of the craft requiring absolute internal focus.
126. 6:19–6:20That is intense.
127. 6:20–6:25Compare that to the fourth type, Aharia, which the archive describes as the external
128. 6:25–6:29additions, the costumes, the makeup, the jewelry, the set design.
129. 6:29–6:30Right, the props.
130. 6:30–6:34It feels like Ahari is just window dressing compared to the biological manipulation of
131. 6:34–6:35Sadevika.
132. 6:35–6:37And that hierarchy is entirely intentional.
133. 6:37–6:42The source text illustrates this by pointing out how classical Sanskrit plays functioned.
134. 6:42–6:45They did not rely on massive, elaborate physical sets.
135. 6:45–6:47The Ahariya was often minimal.
136. 6:47–6:50Some no-giant castles painted on canvas.
137. 6:50–6:51Exactly.
138. 6:51–6:53Instead, they leaned heavily on the actor.
139. 6:53–6:57The archive uses the example of Kali Dasa's famous classical play, Shikuntalam.
140. 6:57–7:01Let's talk about that because the stage directions mentioned in the archive for Shikungalama
141. 7:01–7:02are fascinating.
142. 7:02–7:06The actor has to pantomime watering a plant or pretend to ride a chariot.
143. 7:06–7:09There is no physical chariot wheeled onto the stage.
144. 7:09–7:10There is no water pitcher.
145. 7:10–7:11Right.
146. 7:11–7:17The actor is using stylized precise Angika body movements to build the environment.
147. 7:17–7:19The burden of creation is shifted.
148. 7:19–7:22From the set designer to the actor and the audience.
149. 7:22–7:23Yes.
150. 7:23–7:27The actor provides the blueprint through movement and the audience uses their imagination
151. 7:27–7:29to construct the chariot and the garden.
152. 7:29–7:32The audience is forced to actively participate
153. 7:32–7:34in building the world of the play.
154. 7:34–7:36Okay, putting the pieces together.
155. 7:37–7:40If I am a grassroots theater troupe
156. 7:40–7:42in a rural village today,
157. 7:42–7:44this ancient theory is basically
158. 7:44–7:46a massive permission slip, right?
159. 7:46–7:48How do you mean?
160. 7:48–7:50Well, if I don't have a multimillion dollar
161. 7:50–7:52Broadway budget, if I don't have elaborate lighting
162. 7:52–7:54rigs or extensive carpentry,
163. 7:54–7:56this 2,000 year old text tells me I don't need it.
164. 7:56–7:58Oh, absolutely. It goes beyond permission.
165. 7:58–8:02It provides a profound theoretical validation.
166. 8:02–8:04A scrappy, underfunded village troupe
167. 8:04–8:06isn't failing to meet a standard
168. 8:06–8:08because they lack a physical set.
169. 8:08–8:09By relying entirely on the actor's body
170. 8:09–8:11and voice to create the world,
171. 8:11–8:13they are actually adhering to the purest,
172. 8:13–8:14most classical interpretation
173. 8:14–8:16of their own theafrical heritage.
174. 8:16–8:17That's brilliant.
175. 8:17–8:19The theoretical foundation of the Natcheshastra
176. 8:19–8:21perfectly supports and empowers
177. 8:21–8:24modern, low-budget grassroots performance.
178. 8:24–8:26So if the ancient texts give these playwrights
179. 8:26–8:31the tools to evoke deep emotion using nothing but their bodies and voices.
180. 8:31–8:33How did they weaponize that theory?
181. 8:33–8:37Because the archive shifts chronologically from this theoretical blueprint to look at
182. 8:37–8:40how mythily playwrights actually applied these rules over the centuries.
183. 8:40–8:41And they did not hold back.
184. 8:41–8:42No, they didn't.
185. 8:42–8:47They didn't seem interested in writing polite, pious stories about virtuous people.
186. 8:47–8:52The historical reality completely shatters the illusion that ancient literature is
187. 8:52–8:56inherently stiff, moralistic, or deferential to authority.
188. 8:56–9:01The timeline presented in the archive reveals a continuous, centuries-long streak of deep
189. 9:01–9:06cynicism, dark humor, and a willingness to brutally mock the establishment.
190. 9:06–9:08Let's look at the 13th century.
191. 9:08–9:11The archive brings up a play called Dirt Summagum, written by J.O.
192. 9:11–9:13Tireshwar Thakur.
193. 9:13–9:15The title translates to The Meeting of Naves.
194. 9:15–9:17A very fitting title.
195. 9:17–9:21And the plot summary reads like a script for an incredibly dark modern sitcom.
196. 9:21–9:24Literally every single character is a fraud.
197. 9:24–9:27It is a masterful, worldly satire.
198. 9:27–9:33The central premise revolves around a religious teacher and his own student.
199. 9:33–9:39And both of these supposed holy men are actively lusting after the exact San Corazon, a woman
200. 9:39–9:40named Annencena.
201. 9:40–9:44Which immediately destroys any pretense of religious piety.
202. 9:44–9:45Completely.
203. 9:45–9:50And unable to resolve this deeply inappropriate dispute, the teacher and the student agree
204. 9:50–9:52to bring in a friend to arbitrate.
205. 9:52–9:53As you do.
206. 9:53–9:54Right.
207. 9:54–9:58as a judge and decide who gets the courtesan. The judge listens to their respective arguments,
208. 9:58–10:02considers the facts, and then simply demands the courtesan for himself.
209. 10:02–10:06It's just layer upon layer of corruption. And then there's the subplot with the barber.
210. 10:06–10:11The barber goes to Anning Sina, the courtesan, with a completely reasonable request. He just
211. 10:11–10:16wants to collect a year's worth of unpaid wages. But in a play called The Meeting of Naves,
212. 10:16–10:21no one gets justice. Obviously not. Instead of paying her debt, the courtesan pays the
213. 10:21–10:24the barber by getting him incredibly intoxicated on various substances.
214. 10:24–10:25Oh my God.
215. 10:25–10:29And while he is completely incapacitated, he is tied up and simply left for dead on the stage.
216. 10:30–10:34Imagine being an audience member in the 1200s, watching actors use refined
217. 10:34–10:39classical techniques to portray your local religious leaders as corrupt, lustful
218. 10:39–10:42frauds tying up a stoned barber.
219. 10:42–10:43It's wildly subversive.
220. 10:43–10:46It demonstrates a profound societal skepticism.
221. 10:46–10:50The playwright is using the stage to publicly air the hypocrisy of
222. 10:50–10:52religious and social authority figures.
223. 10:52–10:56And that theme of challenging authority evolves
224. 10:56–10:58as the archive moves forward.
225. 10:58–11:00By the 15th century, we see a play called
226. 11:00–11:03Gorakshava Vijay by the famous poet Vijapati.
227. 11:03–11:06Now this one sounds a bit more spiritual on the surface.
228. 11:06–11:08It's about a yogi named Goraknath
229. 11:08–11:11trying to rescue his guru, Matsyendra Nath.
230. 11:11–11:13But the guru hasn't been kidnapped
231. 11:13–11:15by a demon or a rival king, has he?
232. 11:15–11:18No, the captivity is entirely self-imposed and material.
233. 11:18–11:22Guru Matsyendra Nath has willingly abandoned his ascetic spiritual path because he has
234. 11:22–11:24been seduced by worldly power.
235. 11:24–11:25He sold out.
236. 11:25–11:26He really did.
237. 11:26–11:30He is living as a king surrounded by 18 queens entirely consumed by material pleasure.
238. 11:30–11:37So the loyal student, Goraknath, has to infiltrate the palace to essentially stage an intervention
239. 11:37–11:39and wake his teacher up from this material illusion.
240. 11:39–11:43And he does it by disguising himself as a dancer.
241. 11:43–11:45Notice the mechanics there, going back to our earlier discussion.
242. 11:45–11:47He is utilizing Aharya.
243. 11:47–11:52costume and disguise. Yes. Combined with Enjika, the movement of dance, to deceive the court
244. 11:52–11:58and save his teacher, it explores the universal tension between spiritual integrity and the
245. 11:58–12:03intoxicating pull of worldly power. Fast forward to the 20th century. And that tension strips
246. 12:03–12:08away any remaining spiritual optimism. The archive highlights a modern play called
247. 12:08–12:13Chinook Ladu, which translates to Sugar Sweet by Ishnaath Chah. This is a story
248. 12:13–12:16of pure unadulterated greed.
249. 12:16–12:19It is a dark, cynical narrative about family betrayal.
250. 12:19–12:23A wicked uncle named Batwata conspires with an easily manipulated relative to steal a
251. 12:23–12:26massive inheritance from a young boy named Sukumar.
252. 12:26–12:27And their plan is brutal.
253. 12:27–12:32They send a poisoned sugar ladu, like a sweet treat to the child, intending to murder
254. 12:32–12:33him for the money.
255. 12:33–12:34Which is horrific.
256. 12:34–12:37But it backfires, and the wicked uncle ends up eating his own poisoned sweet and
257. 12:37–12:38dying.
258. 12:38–12:39Yeah.
259. 12:39–12:46karmic retribution, but the flavor, the rasa, is intensely bitter.
260. 12:46–12:52That bitterness, that sense of a corrupted world, sets the stage perfectly for the final
261. 12:52–12:55era the archive examines, postmodernism.
262. 12:55–12:59The text points to a highly experimental play called No Entry.
263. 12:59–13:04Mavish by Ude Narayan Singh, writing under the pen name Natchiketa.
264. 13:04–13:08Unpack this one for me because this feels like a massive leap from a family squabble
265. 13:08–13:12over an inheritance to full-blown existential dread.
266. 13:12–13:13It is a leap.
267. 13:13–13:17In no entry, the premise is that dead souls have arrived at what they believe to be the
268. 13:17–13:19gates of the afterlife heaven or hell.
269. 13:19–13:23They arrive expecting the judgment, the order, and the cosmic justice they were promised
270. 13:23–13:25throughout their entire mortal lives.
271. 13:25–13:27But when they arrive, the gates are locked.
272. 13:27–13:30There is a literal no entry sign hanging on the gates of eternity.
273. 13:30–13:34The horror of the play isn't physical violence, it's the revelation of cosmic
274. 13:34–13:35emptiness.
275. 13:35–13:39The gods who are supposed to be managing the afterlife reveal themselves to be absolute
276. 13:39–13:40fakes.
277. 13:40–13:47The entire system of divine reward and punishment, the very bedrock of moral order, is exposed
278. 13:47–13:49as a sham on stage.
279. 13:49–13:51How does an actor even portray that?
280. 13:51–13:56If we go back to the Natishastra, you don't need a massive fiery hellscape set.
281. 13:56–14:00You just need actors portraying souls, realizing that all their suffering on earth was for
282. 14:00–14:03absolutely nothing, facing a locked door.
283. 14:03–14:05The psychological weight of that is staggering.
284. 14:05–14:11What the author of the archive expertly synthesizes here is a continuous lineage of subversion.
285. 14:11–14:16From the cynical satire of greedy 13th century holy men in Dirtzumigem, to a 15th century
286. 14:16–14:22guru losing his way, to a 20th century uncle poisoning a child all the way to the postmodern
287. 14:22–14:25realization that the gods themselves are frauds.
288. 14:25–14:26It's all connected.
289. 14:26–14:27Yes.
290. 14:27–14:30Methylie Theater has consistently been a space to aggressively question authority.
291. 14:30–14:34It's a stage built on saying, look closely, the people in charge are lying to you.
292. 14:34–14:38Which brings us to the most explosive, deeply contentious section of this entire archive.
293. 14:38–14:43This is where ancient theory and historical cynicism crash violently into the immediate
294. 14:43–14:45political realities of modern South Asia.
295. 14:45–14:49Now before we get into this, I need to make something very clear to you, the listener.
296. 14:49–14:54The source material we are examining now contains incredibly strong politically and
297. 14:54–14:56socially charged critiques.
298. 14:56–14:59As your hosts, we are strictly impartial.
299. 14:59–15:04We are not taking a side in this conflict, nor are we endorsing the specific viewpoints
300. 15:04–15:09presented by the authors in the archive. Our role here is to report the contents of the text
301. 15:09–15:15exactly as they are laid out to help you understand the ideological war happening on this stage.
302. 15:15–15:21That boundary is essential. We are analyzing the mechanics of the arguments presented in the archive,
303. 15:21–15:24understanding how these artists view their own cultural battlefield.
304. 15:24–15:29With that understood, let's look at the conflict. The archive features a blistering critique by
305. 15:29–15:34writer named Gajendra Thakur. He is declaring absolute war on a specific style of modern
306. 15:34–15:39theater that he labels Jativa di Rangaj, which translates to Casteus Theater.
307. 15:39–15:39Yes.
308. 15:39–15:45And he points a very specific finger at a prominent playwright named Mahendra Malangia,
309. 15:45–15:47specifically targeting his play Juta Gail.
310. 15:47–15:51The core of Thakur's accusation is linguistic weaponization.
311. 15:51–15:56He claims that this Casteus Theater intentionally utilizes a derogatory,
312. 15:56–15:58entirely fabricated language.
313. 15:58–16:01How does that work in practice? Like what does that actually mean on stage?
314. 16:01–16:07According to the critique in the archive, these playwrights mix Hindi with a bastardized,
315. 16:07–16:12mocked-up version of Mithili. They invent a hybrid dialect that no one actually speaks naturally.
316. 16:12–16:16But why go through the effort of inventing a fake dialect? Why not just write in standard
317. 16:16–16:23Mithili or Hindi? The archive argues the purpose is purely malicious. It is designed to mock
318. 16:23–16:28lower caste individuals, depicting them on stage as uncultured, uneducated, and inherently
319. 16:28–16:34ridiculous. By assigning this crude artificial language to specific characters, the player
320. 16:34–16:38right guarantees the audience will laugh at them, not with them. The language itself becomes a
321. 16:38–16:43structural tool for marginalization. Think about the psychological impact of that. If you are a
322. 16:43–16:47working class person sitting in the audience and you see a character who is supposed to
323. 16:47–16:52represent you, but they are speaking a cartoonish mangled version of your mother tongue
324. 16:52–16:56to get cheap laughs from the elites in the crowd.
325. 16:56–16:59Well that is devastating. It tells you that your identity is a punchline.
326. 16:59–17:04Precisely. It alienates the working class from their own cultural representation.
327. 17:05–17:08But the archive claims the manipulation by this
328. 17:08–17:12casteous theater goes far beyond just inventing offensive dialects.
329. 17:12–17:13It gets worse.
330. 17:13–17:18It accuses these playwrights of actively and intentionally distorting history on stage
331. 17:18–17:19to manufacture division.
332. 17:19–17:21The text gives some wild examples of this.
333. 17:21–17:26It claims these playwrights will mash up the timelines of famous historical figures
334. 17:26–17:30just to serve a divisive narrative. For instance, they will put Ghanusha,
335. 17:30–17:36who is a beloved historical trickster figure, in the exact same era as the poet Vijapati.
336. 17:36–17:40Even though historically they lived centuries apart, there's no possible way they interacted.
337. 17:40–17:45Right. And the archive also mentions the insertion of massive anachrodisms
338. 17:45–17:50into these historical plays, like putting Muslim tax collectors into eras in specific regions
339. 17:50–17:52long before they ever actually existed there.
340. 17:52–17:56And according to Gajendra Thakur's critique in The Source,
341. 17:56–18:00these are not accidental historical errors made by lazy writers.
342. 18:00–18:04They are calculated, strategic moves designed to stoke communal tensions
343. 18:04–18:07and reinforce caste-based animosities.
344. 18:07–18:11By rewriting history on stage, they are attempting to legitimize modern prejudices.
345. 18:11–18:12Exactly.
346. 18:12–18:15This completely reframes the experience of going to the theater.
347. 18:15–18:17The audience thinks they are walking in to be entertained,
348. 18:17–18:23But according to this archive, they are unknowingly walking into a linguistic and historical proxy war.
349. 18:23–18:30It's a battle over who has the power to define what authentic Mathili culture is and who is actively being excluded from that definition.
350. 18:30–18:40In direct response to this perceived cultural hijacking, the archive champions a fierce counter movement called Samanta Rangmatch, or Parallel Theater.
351. 18:40–18:45The text probably notes that this movement has been active for 25 years.
352. 18:45–18:47That's a long time to sustain a grassroots movement.
353. 18:47–18:53Yeah. So what is their strategy? How do you fight back against a theater that mocks you?
354. 18:53–18:57The stated goal of Parallel Theatre is to create inclusive, deeply respectful art.
355. 18:58–19:03They argue that the stage must rely on authentic folk traditions and the actual
356. 19:03–19:04living language of the people.
357. 19:04–19:06So no fake hybrid dialects.
358. 19:06–19:11Right. They refuse to rely on cheap offensive stereotypes to generate a reaction.
359. 19:11–19:16The Parallel Theater movement believes that if you use the genuine dialect of the working class with dignity,
360. 19:16–19:20you empower the community rather than alienating them.
361. 19:20–19:22It is a battle for the soul of the language.
362. 19:22–19:28Now, right in the middle of documenting this intense hyper-local South Asian linguistic turf war,
363. 19:28–19:31the Archivist does something that honestly made me stop reading and scratch my head.
364. 19:31–19:34You are referring to the inclusion of the Western Canon.
365. 19:34–19:38Yes. The author of the archive, a scholar named Parasharam Shah,
366. 19:38–19:44suddenly drops in a deep, highly academic analysis of four classic English plays.
367. 19:44–19:45It is quite the pivot.
368. 19:45–19:52And my immediate reaction was, wait, hold on. I am completely lost. We are talking about grassroots,
369. 19:52–19:58rural, South Asian theater, performed in dusty village courtyards, fighting over local cast
370. 19:58–20:04dialects. Why is the archivist suddenly devoting pages to John Milton and T.S. Eliot? It feels
371. 20:04–20:08incredibly out of place. It almost feels like academics showing off, like the authors
372. 20:08–20:10just trying to prove they've read Western literature.
373. 20:10–20:16It is a jarring shift, I admit, but it is a highly deliberate and deeply strategic editorial
374. 20:16–20:22choice by Purashuramjha. He is not showing off. He is universalizing the struggle.
375. 20:22–20:23Universalizing it.
376. 20:23–20:27Yes. By placing Mathili Rural Theater in direct conversation with the giants of the
377. 20:27–20:31Western dramatic canon, he is validating the local conflict. He's saying, look,
378. 20:31–20:34These aren't just petty local arguments, these are the fundamental human struggles that
379. 20:34–20:36all great theater addresses.
380. 20:36–20:37Okay, defend that for me.
381. 20:37–20:42Walk me through the plays he chose, because the connections have to be rock solid to justify
382. 20:42–20:43shifting focus like this.
383. 20:43–20:46He starts with Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus.
384. 20:46–20:51Dr. Faustus is the quintessential Western narrative of a man trading his spiritual integrity
385. 20:51–20:54for absolute worldly power and dark magic.
386. 20:54–20:57He literally signs his soul over to the devil.
387. 20:57–21:00Right, it's the classic Faustian bargain.
388. 21:00–21:04The archive explicitly echoes this back to the themes we saw in the earlier Mathili
389. 21:04–21:05plays.
390. 21:05–21:10Oh, like Vigipati's Garakshavae, where the spiritual guru abandons his enlightenment
391. 21:10–21:14to live as a king surrounded by luxury in 18 queens.
392. 21:14–21:15Exactly.
393. 21:15–21:19Jasha is pointing out that the catastrophic human temptation to trade the soul for the
394. 21:19–21:23material world is not a local South Asian trope.
395. 21:23–21:25It is a universal theatrical obsession.
396. 21:25–21:27Okay, that connection makes sense.
397. 21:27–21:31The second play he analyzes is John Milton's Samson Agonisties.
398. 21:31–21:36Now, this is a closet drama, meaning it was meant to be read, not necessarily staged.
399. 21:36–21:40It tells the biblical story of Samson, who has been blinded, stripped of his power, and
400. 21:40–21:42is held captive by his oppressors, the Philistines.
401. 21:42–21:44And how does that story end?
402. 21:44–21:49The blind Mox hero uses his final surge of returning strength to pull down the massive
403. 21:49–21:52central pillars of the temple, crushing the elites who oppressed him, even though
404. 21:52–21:54it cost him his own life.
405. 21:54–21:59The archive positions this as the ultimate symbol of the fight against overwhelming systemic
406. 21:59–22:00oppression.
407. 22:00–22:03Which maps perfectly onto the goals of the parallel theater movement, fighting against
408. 22:03–22:06the crushing weight of the castiest theater establishment.
409. 22:06–22:09They are trying to pull down the pillars of that linguistic temple.
410. 22:09–22:10Exactly.
411. 22:10–22:12They are the blinded Samson fighting back.
412. 22:12–22:13Wow.
413. 22:13–22:14Okay, what's next?
414. 22:14–22:19The third play Joha uses is T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral.
415. 22:19–22:23This play dissects the internal and external struggles of Archbishop Thomas Beckett
416. 22:23–22:25in the 12th century.
417. 22:25–22:28Becket is locked in a fierce, unyielding battle
418. 22:28–22:31against the supreme, centralized power of the state
419. 22:31–22:33embodied by the king.
420. 22:33–22:36The archive zeros in on the most iconic moment of that play.
421. 22:36–22:38Becket knows that king's knights are coming
422. 22:38–22:40to the cathedral to assassinate him.
423. 22:40–22:43His priests are begging him to lock the heavy wooden doors
424. 22:43–22:44to save his life.
425. 22:44–22:45But Becket refuses.
426. 22:45–22:46He refuses.
427. 22:46–22:48He insists that the doors of the church
428. 22:48–22:51must remain open, even to his murderers.
429. 22:51–22:54he is making an absolute fatal stand on moral principle
430. 22:54–22:55against the violence of the state.
431. 22:55–22:58By including this, the archive elevates the resistance
432. 22:58–23:00of mathily playwrights.
433. 23:00–23:02It suggests that refusing to compromise
434. 23:02–23:05your linguistic integrity or your cultural truth,
435. 23:05–23:08even when it costs you funding, popularity or safety,
436. 23:08–23:11is a moral stand equivalent to Beckett's in the cathedral.
437. 23:11–23:12That is a huge statement.
438. 23:12–23:14Yeah.
439. 23:14–23:15The final play he analyzes makes
440. 23:15–23:17the most practical sense to me.
441. 23:17–23:19It's a more modern, secular play by John Gulls
442. 23:19–23:20what they called strife.
443. 23:20–23:24Strife is a brutal grinding depiction of a labor strike
444. 23:24–23:27at a British tin plate works.
445. 23:27–23:29It strips away all romance from class warfare.
446. 23:29–23:31You have the chairman of the company,
447. 23:31–23:32board John Anthony representing
448. 23:32–23:34the immovable force of capital.
449. 23:34–23:36And you have the fierce leader of the workers,
450. 23:36–23:39Roberts, representing the desperate force of labor.
451. 23:39–23:41Wait, so Roberts and Anthony just refused a budge?
452. 23:41–23:42Yeah, exactly.
453. 23:42–23:44They're totally uncompromising.
454. 23:44–23:46Both leaders are entirely unyielding.
455. 23:46–23:48They refuse to negotiate or give an inch
456. 23:48–23:53and their ideological purity results in immense practical suffering for the workers' families.
457. 23:53–23:55People are starving.
458. 23:55–23:59Roberts' own wife dies of a heart condition exacerbated by the cold and hunger of the strike.
459. 23:59–24:03And the conclusion of the play is devastatingly cynical.
460. 24:03–24:09After all the death and starvation, the workers eventually mutiny and depose their own leader, Roberts.
461. 24:09–24:15The company board, exhausted by the financial losses, deposes the chairman, Anthony.
462. 24:15–24:18The two new sides immediately sign a compromise agreement.
463. 24:18–24:23And the terms of that agreement are exactly the same as the terms that were proposed before the strike even began.
464. 24:23–24:28All the suffering, the death, the starvation, it was completely meaningless.
465. 24:28–24:31So, to answer my initial skepticism,
466. 24:31–24:37Paris-Charme-Jarre includes strife to prove that a brutal, uncompromising factory strike in Gullsworthy's England
467. 24:37–24:43is fundamentally the exact same human drama as a dispute over agricultural labor,
468. 24:43–24:46caste dynamics, and cultural ownership in rural Bihar.
469. 24:46–24:52He's saying the human condition is the same, whether you are in a grand cathedral in Canterbury or a dusty village courtyard.
470. 24:52–24:56The parallel theater movement isn't just a petty local squabble.
471. 24:56–25:01It's part of a grand global theatrical tradition of representing the struggles of the working class against the elite.
472. 25:01–25:06It provides immense dignity to the local artists. They're part of a global continuum.
473. 25:06–25:07They absolutely are.
474. 25:07–25:10Speaking of those local artists in the village courtyards,
475. 25:10–25:17How do all these grand sweeping global theories like Aristotle's structure, the Nakya Shastra's
476. 25:17–25:22emotion, the class warfare of Gaulsworthy, how do they actually manifest on the ground?
477. 25:22–25:26We don't have to guess, because the archive leaves the realm of theory and gives us a
478. 25:26–25:31very specific, practical look at the messy reality of parallel theater in action.
479. 25:31–25:35The archive focuses heavily on the pioneering, boots-on-the-ground work of a director
480. 25:35–25:37named Béchan Thakur.
481. 25:37–25:40Béjan Thakur is highlighted as an absolute trailblazer.
482. 25:40–25:42The archive meticulously documents
483. 25:42–25:46that between 1995 and 2009, he directed numerous plays.
484. 25:46–25:49He was incredibly prolific staging titles like
485. 25:49–25:53Ubna, Satyavantse Vitri, Bedi Khaiman, and Chinar Devi.
486. 25:53–25:55And we must emphasize the venue for these productions.
487. 25:55–25:58These plays were not being staged in grand,
488. 25:58–26:00state-funded metropolitan theaters with air conditioning,
489. 26:00–26:03velvet seats, and sophisticated acoustics.
490. 26:03–26:04Not even close.
491. 26:04–26:05The art tag notes that were put on
492. 26:05–26:07during the Saraswati Puja Festival
493. 26:07–26:10literally staged in the open-air dusty courtyard
494. 26:10–26:12of the new Lotus English School
495. 26:12–26:13in a village called Chinatirganj.
496. 26:13–26:16And the actors weren't polished professionals
497. 26:16–26:17commuting from the city,
498. 26:17–26:19they were local students from the village.
499. 26:19–26:21But Bikanthakur wasn't just putting
500. 26:21–26:23on standard school plays.
501. 26:23–26:25The archive documents a specific,
502. 26:25–26:28incredibly radical experiment he conducted.
503. 26:28–26:32He staged these complex, socially charged plays
504. 26:32–26:35using entirely female casts.
505. 26:35–26:38Young women from the village were playing all the roles.
506. 26:38–26:40They were playing the female characters, yes,
507. 26:40–26:42but they were also playing all the male characters,
508. 26:42–26:44the kings, the fathers, the gods.
509. 26:44–26:46Consider the mechanics of that.
510. 26:46–26:48Going back to our earlier discussion of Unjika,
511. 26:48–26:51the body language, how does a teenage girl
512. 26:51–26:53in a deeply patriarchal rural village
513. 26:53–26:56physically portray a domineering older man?
514. 26:56–26:57She has to really study it.
515. 26:57–26:59Yes, she has to observe the physical language
516. 26:59–27:02of patriarchy in her own life, the wide stance,
517. 27:02–27:04the loud voice, the taking up of space,
518. 27:04–27:06and replicated on stage.
519. 27:06–27:08By embodying it, she demystifies it.
520. 27:08–27:10That is incredibly powerful.
521. 27:10–27:12And the themes he chose for these plays
522. 27:12–27:15were not light, escapist entertainment.
523. 27:15–27:20He directly targeted deep-seated, painful social ills.
524. 27:20–27:23His play, Biddy Kay Upman,
525. 27:23–27:25which roughly translates to an insult
526. 27:25–27:26to the daughter-delt head-on
527. 27:26–27:29with a desperate need for female empowerment
528. 27:29–27:31and tackled the horrific taboo reality
529. 27:31–27:33of female feticide in the region.
530. 27:33–27:39Another play, Chinor Devi, tackled the pervasive dangers of blind faith, religious exploitation,
531. 27:39–27:40and village superstition.
532. 27:40–27:45You know, reading about Beshantakar's setup, the lack of funding, the local kids, the intense
533. 27:45–27:49social messaging, it really reminds me of the early indie punk rock scene.
534. 27:49–27:51Oh, that's an interesting comparison.
535. 27:51–27:53You don't need a massive record label.
536. 27:53–27:54You don't need a million dollars.
537. 27:54–27:57You just need a school courtyard, a local festival day, a group of passionate kids
538. 27:57–28:01who have something urgent to say, and you can start a cultural revolution right
539. 28:01–28:02where you stand.
540. 28:02–28:07It answers the fundamental question of how a community actually counters entrenched cultural narratives.
541. 28:07–28:12Do you write an angry, dense academic paper complaining about the patriarchy?
542. 28:12–28:15Clearly not, because the people who need to hear it most will never read it.
543. 28:15–28:17Exactly.
544. 28:17–28:23Beshen-Dakur's approach proves that profound lasting change happens locally through immediate action.
545. 28:23–28:30He didn't need to stand on a soapbox and deliver a heavy-handed political manifesto to explain feminism to the village of Chinatagrange.
546. 28:30–28:34He just let the community sit down in that school courtyard and watch their own daughters
547. 28:34–28:38command the stage. They watch young girls assume positions of absolute narrative power.
548. 28:39–28:44That visual alone, the sheer audacity of it, reshapes what the community subconsciously
549. 28:44–28:49believes is possible for those girls. It alters the psychological landscape of the village,
550. 28:49–28:54which brings us to the final and arguably the most moving section of the entire archive.
551. 28:55–28:59The archivist doesn't just list the theories and the plays, they conclude by documenting
552. 28:59–29:03the actual human beings who are impacted by this grassroots theater.
553. 29:03–29:06We get to hear the voices of the people on the front lines.
554. 29:06–29:11The archive documents this through interviews and by listing the recipients of the 2011-2012
555. 29:11–29:13Vidhi Ha Saman Awards.
556. 29:13–29:15We hear from an actress named Shilpi Kumari.
557. 29:15–29:19At the time of the interview, she was a 17-year-old, 10th grade student.
558. 29:19–29:25And in Beshen Thacker's production of Satyavan Savitri, this 17-year-old girl was cast
559. 29:25–29:26in the role of Yamraj.
560. 29:26–29:28The Amraj is the god of death.
561. 29:28–29:30That is not a minor supporting role.
562. 29:30–29:36That is an incredibly commanding, fearsome, deeply masculine, mythological figure.
563. 29:36–29:40In her interview, she is asked about her experience tackling such a monumental role.
564. 29:40–29:45She shares how acting on that stage, forcing herself to project that level of power, built
565. 29:45–29:47her self-confidence immensely.
566. 29:47–29:51But what struck me most was her answer when she was asked, how she thinks her
567. 29:51–29:53art affects society.
568. 29:53–29:56It's such a remarkably mature perspective for a 17-year-old.
569. 29:56–29:59She doesn't talk about fame or, you know, moving to the city.
570. 29:59–29:59Right.
571. 29:59–30:04She says that seeing her on stage actively inspires the other children in the village to dream bigger.
572. 30:05–30:09And even more importantly, she says it encourages the elders in the community to change their minds
573. 30:09–30:11and actually support the youth.
574. 30:11–30:13She recognizes her own symbolic power.
575. 30:13–30:17She also practically notes that she balances her art with her intense studies
576. 30:17–30:21and states clearly that her dream is to become a great actress.
577. 30:21–30:23I just try to picture the courage that requires
578. 30:23–30:31Angin being a 17 year old girl in a rural village stepping out onto a makeshift wooden stage in front of your entire community
579. 30:31–30:37Your parents your strict teachers your gossiping neighbors and playing the terrifying god of death
580. 30:37–30:42With such absolute conviction that they forget who you are and believe in the character
581. 30:42–30:47It is a profound act of bravery the archive also features an interview with a man named Parmanan Thakur
582. 30:47–30:50He is a 30-year-old local pancayet teacher,
583. 30:50–30:54and he's a musician who plays the harmonium for these village plays.
584. 30:54–30:56He talks about his origin story.
585. 30:56–30:59He says he was originally inspired to pursue music by a school cultural event
586. 30:59–31:02way back in 1971.
587. 31:02–31:05It shows the generational ripple effect of these small courtyard performances.
588. 31:05–31:08He is very clear about his motivations, too.
589. 31:08–31:11He emphasizes that he doesn't do this for money,
590. 31:11–31:14because there is none, and he doesn't do it for fame.
591. 31:14–31:19out of a pure abiding love for his culture. He views his harmonium playing as an active
592. 31:19–31:24duty to preserve his heritage. And he talks about how he manages to balance these late
593. 31:24–31:28night exhausting play rehearsals with his day job as a teacher.
594. 31:28–31:34The archive caps this all off by listing the 2011-2012 Vidya Saman Awards. And what's
595. 31:34–31:38beautiful here is the democratization of the honors. They aren't just handing out
596. 31:38–31:43trophies to famous wealthy writers from the city or elite political patrons.
597. 31:43–31:49No, they are honoring the working class grassroots contributors who actually make the art happen
598. 31:49–31:50with their bare hands.
599. 31:50–31:52The list is a testament to the community.
600. 31:52–31:55They awarded Shilpi Kumare for her acting.
601. 31:55–31:59Bermanantakur was honored for his harmonium playing, but they also gave awards to Jagdish
602. 31:59–32:05Malik for his work in local crafts, Naklamanol for painting, and Jagdish Prasad Mandal
603. 32:05–32:08for his collection of short stories, Gamak Janagi.
604. 32:08–32:11When you read these interviews and look at this list of awards, it retroactively
605. 32:11–32:16charges the rest of the archive with so much meaning. All the dense theoretical discussions
606. 32:16–32:21we started with, the Natishastra, the mechanics of Rasa, the fierce ideological wars over
607. 32:21–32:24language and caste, they aren't just academic debates.
608. 32:24–32:25No, not at all.
609. 32:25–32:29They matter deeply because of people like Shilpi and Parmenand.
610. 32:29–32:34The stakes are incredibly high for these individuals. If the theater establishment
611. 32:34–32:38succeeds in relying on derogatory tropes, if they normalize a mocked-up insulting
612. 32:38–32:44language as the standard for mathilly culture, it ultimately crushes the spirit of the youth.
613. 32:44–32:49It sends a broadcast message to a 17-year-old girl that her identity, her dialect, her very
614. 32:49–32:55existence is a joke not worthy of serious art. But if the theater empowers them, if it gives them
615. 32:55–33:01dignity and refuses to compromise as the Parallel Theater Movement fakes to do, it changes the
616. 33:01–33:07trajectory of a life. Letting a teenage girl play a god elevates the entire community.
617. 33:07–33:10It's a phenomenal sweeping journey this archivist takes us on.
618. 33:10–33:14It is a master class in connecting the abstract to the deeply personal.
619. 33:14–33:18We started thousands of years ago with the theoretical roots of the Natya Shastra,
620. 33:18–33:21learning how actors use biological control and imagination to make an audience taste the
621. 33:21–33:26rasa of a performance. We traveled through the 13th century absurdity of corrupt holy men
622. 33:26–33:32in Dirtse Manga and faced the existential dread of locked doors and fake gods in postmodernism.
623. 33:32–33:40We navigated the very real, very fierce modern battles over fake dialects, historical manipulation,
624. 33:40–33:41and cultural ownership.
625. 33:41–33:43And the Western Canon.
626. 33:43–33:47Yeah, we thought how a local South Asian struggle perfectly mirrored the tragedy of British
627. 33:47–33:49labor strike and strife.
628. 33:49–33:55And we ended up in a dusty schoolyard in Shinarganj, watching young girls stage a quiet,
629. 33:55–33:57undeniable revolution.
630. 33:57–34:01The archive conclusively proves that the stage, no matter how small, underfunded,
631. 34:01–34:04remote is a place of immense world-altering power.
632. 34:04–34:09So as we wrap up this deep dive, I want you, the listener, to think about the art happening
633. 34:09–34:11right now in your own community.
634. 34:11–34:15Think about the scrappy local plays in the community center down the street, the poetry
635. 34:15–34:19slams in the back of the local coffee shop, the loud indie music gigs happening in a
636. 34:19–34:20cramped basement.
637. 34:20–34:21They might seem small to you.
638. 34:21–34:23They might seem underfunded and unpolished.
639. 34:23–34:28But as we've seen today, the words they choose, the dialects they use, and the
640. 34:28–34:32specific stories they insist on telling, might just be fighting the biggest ideological
641. 34:32–34:38battles of our time in miniature. You have to ask yourself, who controls the language
642. 34:38–34:42of your local stage? Because whoever controls the language on that stage today controls
643. 34:42–34:46the narrative of your community's future tomorrow. Thank you for joining us on this
644. 34:46–34:51deep dive into the source material. Remember, true knowledge is not just about having
645. 34:51–34:55the historical information or the theoretical definitions, it's about understanding the
646. 34:55–34:59deeply human, intensely fought stories behind those words.
647. 34:59–35:00Keep exploring.

Plain text

Usually, when we talk about preserving a historical language or, you know, an ancient culture, there's this heavy expectation of, well, of pristine quiet. Right, exactly. Like you picture dusty dictionaries or scholars in silent reading rooms, maybe glass display cases, holding fragile manuscripts. Just a general atmosphere of polite, quiet reverence. Yeah, and it creates this illusion that the culture is static. Like, It's a fossil protected behind velvet ropes, entirely unchanging and honestly largely irrelevant to the messy reality of modern life. But then you step into the world of Methilite theater, particularly the grassroots movements in rural India in Nepal, and that entire museum display case is just, it's shattered. Completely smashed. Yeah. We are looking at a cultural landscape that is honestly a battlefield. It is loud, it's fiercely contested and it is incredibly alive. It really is. And the battleground we are looking at today is an extensive, remarkably detailed archive from 2012. It's titled, Videha Mithili Drama Festival, Mithili Parallel Theater Archive. And I have to say, this text is anything but a dusty record. I mean, Mithili is a language with a deeply rooted literary heritage in the Indian subcontinent. It's spoken by millions of people. And exploring this archive reveals how local theater doesn't just passively entertain, It actively acts as a mirror to society's deepest conflicts and its highest aspirations. It is the absolute definition of a living, breathing, fighting art form. So our mission today for this deep dive is to pull this archive apart. We're going to explore this vibrant, sometimes intensely controversial world for you. We'll unpack exactly how an ancient art form serves as a modern battleground for social equality, for language preservation, and for a literal grassroots cultural revelation. this isn't just about people putting on quaint community plays on a Sunday afternoon. Not at all. We are going to be diving into 13th century con men, poison suites, cool yard rebellions led by teenage girls, and this entire ideological movement known as Parallel Theater. The archive makes a really compelling case that art is never just art. You know the words an actor speaks on a village stage, they're always a reflection of power, of identity, and ultimately of survival. Absolutely. But before we get into the specific plays and the modern drama, and trust me, there's a lot of drama. Oh, there's so much. The Archivist does something fascinating. They lay down this massive theoretical foundation. They give us the historical blueprint of the stage by directly contrasting eastern and western theatrical traditions. Right. It's a very deliberate setup. Yeah, they draw a hard line between the foundational text of Western dramatic theory, which is Aristotle's Poetics, and the classical Indian treatise on performance, the Natishastra, which is traditionally attributed to the sage, Haritha. And setting up that contrast is crucial for literally everything that follows in the archive. How so? Well, Aristotle, in his poetics, he's fundamentally an analyzer of structure. He was obsessed with the imitation of action. Right, the mechanics of it. Exactly. For Aristotle, the plot is the supreme entity of the theater. The beginning, the middle, the end, and the inciting incident, the climax. He believed the mechanical sequence of events was the primary vehicle for delivering meaning to an audience. So if Aristotle is treating a play like a tightly wound mechanical clock, focusing on the gears and how one plot point physically triggers the next, what does the Natyash Shastra doing? Because the archive paints a completely different picture of how an audience is supposed to experience a story. The Indian tradition, as highlighted in the source, focuses on something called rasa. Yeah. And RASA translates roughly to juice, essence, or flavor. Fever. Okay. The ultimate goal of a performance under this framework isn't necessarily to execute a perfect logical sequence of plot points. The goal is for the actor to evoke a specific refined emotional essence. So it's less about what happens and more about how it feels. Exactly. The audience isn't there to just watch a sequence of events unfold. They are meant to actively taste this emotion. I love that. A play isn't a clock. It's a recipe. The focus is on the emotional flavor the audience walks away with. That's a great way to put it. And to cook up that flavor, the Natya Shastra breaks down the theater into specific practices. The archive mentions a split between Lakadharmi and Natyaadharmi. I'm assuming that's the difference between everyday realism and high theatricality. Broadly, yes. Lakadharmi is the realistic or folk practice. It reflects the behavior of of everyday people and it's grounded in the physical reality of the audience's daily lives. Like how people actually talk and move in the village. Exactly, whereas Nachat Harmi is the stylized classical practice. It utilizes elevated symbolic conventions. It's the heightened reality of the stage. But the real mechanics of how the actor achieves that rasa, how they deliver that flavor, is found in how the Nachat Shastra categorizes acting itself, which is known as a pinaya. This is where I started getting a little overwhelmed by the archive, honestly, because it breaks up in I down into four very distinct types. It's a very rigorous system. Yeah. The first two seem straightforward enough. There's Angika, which refers to the body, the physical gestures, the posture, how an actor communicates through their lens. Right. Then there's Vachika, which is the voice. Yeah. And the text notes, it's not just the words written on the page, but the modulation, the tone, the entire delivery. Which makes sense. But the third one, Satvika. I need you to unpack this for me because reading the description, It honestly sounds terrifying for an actor. Suttvika is incredibly demanding. It refers to emotional or internal states that must manifest physically. Like fake crying. No, that's the thing. We are not talking about pantomiming sadness. We are talking about genuine tears. Visible, trembling, breaking out in an authentic sweat or having the hair stand on end. Wait, you mean literal biological control. It expects an actor to force their autonomic nervous system to react on command. Yes, it requires the actor to so deeply inhabit the psychological state of the character that their physiology catches up to their psychology. That is wild. It's the summoning of a true physiological state of sorrow or fear. It is arguably the highest pinnacle of the craft requiring absolute internal focus. That is intense. Compare that to the fourth type, Aharia, which the archive describes as the external additions, the costumes, the makeup, the jewelry, the set design. Right, the props. It feels like Ahari is just window dressing compared to the biological manipulation of Sadevika. And that hierarchy is entirely intentional. The source text illustrates this by pointing out how classical Sanskrit plays functioned. They did not rely on massive, elaborate physical sets. The Ahariya was often minimal. Some no-giant castles painted on canvas. Exactly. Instead, they leaned heavily on the actor. The archive uses the example of Kali Dasa's famous classical play, Shikuntalam. Let's talk about that because the stage directions mentioned in the archive for Shikungalama are fascinating. The actor has to pantomime watering a plant or pretend to ride a chariot. There is no physical chariot wheeled onto the stage. There is no water pitcher. Right. The actor is using stylized precise Angika body movements to build the environment. The burden of creation is shifted. From the set designer to the actor and the audience. Yes. The actor provides the blueprint through movement and the audience uses their imagination to construct the chariot and the garden. The audience is forced to actively participate in building the world of the play. Okay, putting the pieces together. If I am a grassroots theater troupe in a rural village today, this ancient theory is basically a massive permission slip, right? How do you mean? Well, if I don't have a multimillion dollar Broadway budget, if I don't have elaborate lighting rigs or extensive carpentry, this 2,000 year old text tells me I don't need it. Oh, absolutely. It goes beyond permission. It provides a profound theoretical validation. A scrappy, underfunded village troupe isn't failing to meet a standard because they lack a physical set. By relying entirely on the actor's body and voice to create the world, they are actually adhering to the purest, most classical interpretation of their own theafrical heritage. That's brilliant. The theoretical foundation of the Natcheshastra perfectly supports and empowers modern, low-budget grassroots performance. So if the ancient texts give these playwrights the tools to evoke deep emotion using nothing but their bodies and voices. How did they weaponize that theory? Because the archive shifts chronologically from this theoretical blueprint to look at how mythily playwrights actually applied these rules over the centuries. And they did not hold back. No, they didn't. They didn't seem interested in writing polite, pious stories about virtuous people. The historical reality completely shatters the illusion that ancient literature is inherently stiff, moralistic, or deferential to authority. The timeline presented in the archive reveals a continuous, centuries-long streak of deep cynicism, dark humor, and a willingness to brutally mock the establishment. Let's look at the 13th century. The archive brings up a play called Dirt Summagum, written by J.O. Tireshwar Thakur. The title translates to The Meeting of Naves. A very fitting title. And the plot summary reads like a script for an incredibly dark modern sitcom. Literally every single character is a fraud. It is a masterful, worldly satire. The central premise revolves around a religious teacher and his own student. And both of these supposed holy men are actively lusting after the exact San Corazon, a woman named Annencena. Which immediately destroys any pretense of religious piety. Completely. And unable to resolve this deeply inappropriate dispute, the teacher and the student agree to bring in a friend to arbitrate. As you do. Right. as a judge and decide who gets the courtesan. The judge listens to their respective arguments, considers the facts, and then simply demands the courtesan for himself. It's just layer upon layer of corruption. And then there's the subplot with the barber. The barber goes to Anning Sina, the courtesan, with a completely reasonable request. He just wants to collect a year's worth of unpaid wages. But in a play called The Meeting of Naves, no one gets justice. Obviously not. Instead of paying her debt, the courtesan pays the the barber by getting him incredibly intoxicated on various substances. Oh my God. And while he is completely incapacitated, he is tied up and simply left for dead on the stage. Imagine being an audience member in the 1200s, watching actors use refined classical techniques to portray your local religious leaders as corrupt, lustful frauds tying up a stoned barber. It's wildly subversive. It demonstrates a profound societal skepticism. The playwright is using the stage to publicly air the hypocrisy of religious and social authority figures. And that theme of challenging authority evolves as the archive moves forward. By the 15th century, we see a play called Gorakshava Vijay by the famous poet Vijapati. Now this one sounds a bit more spiritual on the surface. It's about a yogi named Goraknath trying to rescue his guru, Matsyendra Nath. But the guru hasn't been kidnapped by a demon or a rival king, has he? No, the captivity is entirely self-imposed and material. Guru Matsyendra Nath has willingly abandoned his ascetic spiritual path because he has been seduced by worldly power. He sold out. He really did. He is living as a king surrounded by 18 queens entirely consumed by material pleasure. So the loyal student, Goraknath, has to infiltrate the palace to essentially stage an intervention and wake his teacher up from this material illusion. And he does it by disguising himself as a dancer. Notice the mechanics there, going back to our earlier discussion. He is utilizing Aharya. costume and disguise. Yes. Combined with Enjika, the movement of dance, to deceive the court and save his teacher, it explores the universal tension between spiritual integrity and the intoxicating pull of worldly power. Fast forward to the 20th century. And that tension strips away any remaining spiritual optimism. The archive highlights a modern play called Chinook Ladu, which translates to Sugar Sweet by Ishnaath Chah. This is a story of pure unadulterated greed. It is a dark, cynical narrative about family betrayal. A wicked uncle named Batwata conspires with an easily manipulated relative to steal a massive inheritance from a young boy named Sukumar. And their plan is brutal. They send a poisoned sugar ladu, like a sweet treat to the child, intending to murder him for the money. Which is horrific. But it backfires, and the wicked uncle ends up eating his own poisoned sweet and dying. Yeah. karmic retribution, but the flavor, the rasa, is intensely bitter. That bitterness, that sense of a corrupted world, sets the stage perfectly for the final era the archive examines, postmodernism. The text points to a highly experimental play called No Entry. Mavish by Ude Narayan Singh, writing under the pen name Natchiketa. Unpack this one for me because this feels like a massive leap from a family squabble over an inheritance to full-blown existential dread. It is a leap. In no entry, the premise is that dead souls have arrived at what they believe to be the gates of the afterlife heaven or hell. They arrive expecting the judgment, the order, and the cosmic justice they were promised throughout their entire mortal lives. But when they arrive, the gates are locked. There is a literal no entry sign hanging on the gates of eternity. The horror of the play isn't physical violence, it's the revelation of cosmic emptiness. The gods who are supposed to be managing the afterlife reveal themselves to be absolute fakes. The entire system of divine reward and punishment, the very bedrock of moral order, is exposed as a sham on stage. How does an actor even portray that? If we go back to the Natishastra, you don't need a massive fiery hellscape set. You just need actors portraying souls, realizing that all their suffering on earth was for absolutely nothing, facing a locked door. The psychological weight of that is staggering. What the author of the archive expertly synthesizes here is a continuous lineage of subversion. From the cynical satire of greedy 13th century holy men in Dirtzumigem, to a 15th century guru losing his way, to a 20th century uncle poisoning a child all the way to the postmodern realization that the gods themselves are frauds. It's all connected. Yes. Methylie Theater has consistently been a space to aggressively question authority. It's a stage built on saying, look closely, the people in charge are lying to you. Which brings us to the most explosive, deeply contentious section of this entire archive. This is where ancient theory and historical cynicism crash violently into the immediate political realities of modern South Asia. Now before we get into this, I need to make something very clear to you, the listener. The source material we are examining now contains incredibly strong politically and socially charged critiques. As your hosts, we are strictly impartial. We are not taking a side in this conflict, nor are we endorsing the specific viewpoints presented by the authors in the archive. Our role here is to report the contents of the text exactly as they are laid out to help you understand the ideological war happening on this stage. That boundary is essential. We are analyzing the mechanics of the arguments presented in the archive, understanding how these artists view their own cultural battlefield. With that understood, let's look at the conflict. The archive features a blistering critique by writer named Gajendra Thakur. He is declaring absolute war on a specific style of modern theater that he labels Jativa di Rangaj, which translates to Casteus Theater. Yes. And he points a very specific finger at a prominent playwright named Mahendra Malangia, specifically targeting his play Juta Gail. The core of Thakur's accusation is linguistic weaponization. He claims that this Casteus Theater intentionally utilizes a derogatory, entirely fabricated language. How does that work in practice? Like what does that actually mean on stage? According to the critique in the archive, these playwrights mix Hindi with a bastardized, mocked-up version of Mithili. They invent a hybrid dialect that no one actually speaks naturally. But why go through the effort of inventing a fake dialect? Why not just write in standard Mithili or Hindi? The archive argues the purpose is purely malicious. It is designed to mock lower caste individuals, depicting them on stage as uncultured, uneducated, and inherently ridiculous. By assigning this crude artificial language to specific characters, the player right guarantees the audience will laugh at them, not with them. The language itself becomes a structural tool for marginalization. Think about the psychological impact of that. If you are a working class person sitting in the audience and you see a character who is supposed to represent you, but they are speaking a cartoonish mangled version of your mother tongue to get cheap laughs from the elites in the crowd. Well that is devastating. It tells you that your identity is a punchline. Precisely. It alienates the working class from their own cultural representation. But the archive claims the manipulation by this casteous theater goes far beyond just inventing offensive dialects. It gets worse. It accuses these playwrights of actively and intentionally distorting history on stage to manufacture division. The text gives some wild examples of this. It claims these playwrights will mash up the timelines of famous historical figures just to serve a divisive narrative. For instance, they will put Ghanusha, who is a beloved historical trickster figure, in the exact same era as the poet Vijapati. Even though historically they lived centuries apart, there's no possible way they interacted. Right. And the archive also mentions the insertion of massive anachrodisms into these historical plays, like putting Muslim tax collectors into eras in specific regions long before they ever actually existed there. And according to Gajendra Thakur's critique in The Source, these are not accidental historical errors made by lazy writers. They are calculated, strategic moves designed to stoke communal tensions and reinforce caste-based animosities. By rewriting history on stage, they are attempting to legitimize modern prejudices. Exactly. This completely reframes the experience of going to the theater. The audience thinks they are walking in to be entertained, But according to this archive, they are unknowingly walking into a linguistic and historical proxy war. It's a battle over who has the power to define what authentic Mathili culture is and who is actively being excluded from that definition. In direct response to this perceived cultural hijacking, the archive champions a fierce counter movement called Samanta Rangmatch, or Parallel Theater. The text probably notes that this movement has been active for 25 years. That's a long time to sustain a grassroots movement. Yeah. So what is their strategy? How do you fight back against a theater that mocks you? The stated goal of Parallel Theatre is to create inclusive, deeply respectful art. They argue that the stage must rely on authentic folk traditions and the actual living language of the people. So no fake hybrid dialects. Right. They refuse to rely on cheap offensive stereotypes to generate a reaction. The Parallel Theater movement believes that if you use the genuine dialect of the working class with dignity, you empower the community rather than alienating them. It is a battle for the soul of the language. Now, right in the middle of documenting this intense hyper-local South Asian linguistic turf war, the Archivist does something that honestly made me stop reading and scratch my head. You are referring to the inclusion of the Western Canon. Yes. The author of the archive, a scholar named Parasharam Shah, suddenly drops in a deep, highly academic analysis of four classic English plays. It is quite the pivot. And my immediate reaction was, wait, hold on. I am completely lost. We are talking about grassroots, rural, South Asian theater, performed in dusty village courtyards, fighting over local cast dialects. Why is the archivist suddenly devoting pages to John Milton and T.S. Eliot? It feels incredibly out of place. It almost feels like academics showing off, like the authors just trying to prove they've read Western literature. It is a jarring shift, I admit, but it is a highly deliberate and deeply strategic editorial choice by Purashuramjha. He is not showing off. He is universalizing the struggle. Universalizing it. Yes. By placing Mathili Rural Theater in direct conversation with the giants of the Western dramatic canon, he is validating the local conflict. He's saying, look, These aren't just petty local arguments, these are the fundamental human struggles that all great theater addresses. Okay, defend that for me. Walk me through the plays he chose, because the connections have to be rock solid to justify shifting focus like this. He starts with Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. Dr. Faustus is the quintessential Western narrative of a man trading his spiritual integrity for absolute worldly power and dark magic. He literally signs his soul over to the devil. Right, it's the classic Faustian bargain. The archive explicitly echoes this back to the themes we saw in the earlier Mathili plays. Oh, like Vigipati's Garakshavae, where the spiritual guru abandons his enlightenment to live as a king surrounded by luxury in 18 queens. Exactly. Jasha is pointing out that the catastrophic human temptation to trade the soul for the material world is not a local South Asian trope. It is a universal theatrical obsession. Okay, that connection makes sense. The second play he analyzes is John Milton's Samson Agonisties. Now, this is a closet drama, meaning it was meant to be read, not necessarily staged. It tells the biblical story of Samson, who has been blinded, stripped of his power, and is held captive by his oppressors, the Philistines. And how does that story end? The blind Mox hero uses his final surge of returning strength to pull down the massive central pillars of the temple, crushing the elites who oppressed him, even though it cost him his own life. The archive positions this as the ultimate symbol of the fight against overwhelming systemic oppression. Which maps perfectly onto the goals of the parallel theater movement, fighting against the crushing weight of the castiest theater establishment. They are trying to pull down the pillars of that linguistic temple. Exactly. They are the blinded Samson fighting back. Wow. Okay, what's next? The third play Joha uses is T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. This play dissects the internal and external struggles of Archbishop Thomas Beckett in the 12th century. Becket is locked in a fierce, unyielding battle against the supreme, centralized power of the state embodied by the king. The archive zeros in on the most iconic moment of that play. Becket knows that king's knights are coming to the cathedral to assassinate him. His priests are begging him to lock the heavy wooden doors to save his life. But Becket refuses. He refuses. He insists that the doors of the church must remain open, even to his murderers. he is making an absolute fatal stand on moral principle against the violence of the state. By including this, the archive elevates the resistance of mathily playwrights. It suggests that refusing to compromise your linguistic integrity or your cultural truth, even when it costs you funding, popularity or safety, is a moral stand equivalent to Beckett's in the cathedral. That is a huge statement. Yeah. The final play he analyzes makes the most practical sense to me. It's a more modern, secular play by John Gulls what they called strife. Strife is a brutal grinding depiction of a labor strike at a British tin plate works. It strips away all romance from class warfare. You have the chairman of the company, board John Anthony representing the immovable force of capital. And you have the fierce leader of the workers, Roberts, representing the desperate force of labor. Wait, so Roberts and Anthony just refused a budge? Yeah, exactly. They're totally uncompromising. Both leaders are entirely unyielding. They refuse to negotiate or give an inch and their ideological purity results in immense practical suffering for the workers' families. People are starving. Roberts' own wife dies of a heart condition exacerbated by the cold and hunger of the strike. And the conclusion of the play is devastatingly cynical. After all the death and starvation, the workers eventually mutiny and depose their own leader, Roberts. The company board, exhausted by the financial losses, deposes the chairman, Anthony. The two new sides immediately sign a compromise agreement. And the terms of that agreement are exactly the same as the terms that were proposed before the strike even began. All the suffering, the death, the starvation, it was completely meaningless. So, to answer my initial skepticism, Paris-Charme-Jarre includes strife to prove that a brutal, uncompromising factory strike in Gullsworthy's England is fundamentally the exact same human drama as a dispute over agricultural labor, caste dynamics, and cultural ownership in rural Bihar. He's saying the human condition is the same, whether you are in a grand cathedral in Canterbury or a dusty village courtyard. The parallel theater movement isn't just a petty local squabble. It's part of a grand global theatrical tradition of representing the struggles of the working class against the elite. It provides immense dignity to the local artists. They're part of a global continuum. They absolutely are. Speaking of those local artists in the village courtyards, How do all these grand sweeping global theories like Aristotle's structure, the Nakya Shastra's emotion, the class warfare of Gaulsworthy, how do they actually manifest on the ground? We don't have to guess, because the archive leaves the realm of theory and gives us a very specific, practical look at the messy reality of parallel theater in action. The archive focuses heavily on the pioneering, boots-on-the-ground work of a director named Béchan Thakur. Béjan Thakur is highlighted as an absolute trailblazer. The archive meticulously documents that between 1995 and 2009, he directed numerous plays. He was incredibly prolific staging titles like Ubna, Satyavantse Vitri, Bedi Khaiman, and Chinar Devi. And we must emphasize the venue for these productions. These plays were not being staged in grand, state-funded metropolitan theaters with air conditioning, velvet seats, and sophisticated acoustics. Not even close. The art tag notes that were put on during the Saraswati Puja Festival literally staged in the open-air dusty courtyard of the new Lotus English School in a village called Chinatirganj. And the actors weren't polished professionals commuting from the city, they were local students from the village. But Bikanthakur wasn't just putting on standard school plays. The archive documents a specific, incredibly radical experiment he conducted. He staged these complex, socially charged plays using entirely female casts. Young women from the village were playing all the roles. They were playing the female characters, yes, but they were also playing all the male characters, the kings, the fathers, the gods. Consider the mechanics of that. Going back to our earlier discussion of Unjika, the body language, how does a teenage girl in a deeply patriarchal rural village physically portray a domineering older man? She has to really study it. Yes, she has to observe the physical language of patriarchy in her own life, the wide stance, the loud voice, the taking up of space, and replicated on stage. By embodying it, she demystifies it. That is incredibly powerful. And the themes he chose for these plays were not light, escapist entertainment. He directly targeted deep-seated, painful social ills. His play, Biddy Kay Upman, which roughly translates to an insult to the daughter-delt head-on with a desperate need for female empowerment and tackled the horrific taboo reality of female feticide in the region. Another play, Chinor Devi, tackled the pervasive dangers of blind faith, religious exploitation, and village superstition. You know, reading about Beshantakar's setup, the lack of funding, the local kids, the intense social messaging, it really reminds me of the early indie punk rock scene. Oh, that's an interesting comparison. You don't need a massive record label. You don't need a million dollars. You just need a school courtyard, a local festival day, a group of passionate kids who have something urgent to say, and you can start a cultural revolution right where you stand. It answers the fundamental question of how a community actually counters entrenched cultural narratives. Do you write an angry, dense academic paper complaining about the patriarchy? Clearly not, because the people who need to hear it most will never read it. Exactly. Beshen-Dakur's approach proves that profound lasting change happens locally through immediate action. He didn't need to stand on a soapbox and deliver a heavy-handed political manifesto to explain feminism to the village of Chinatagrange. He just let the community sit down in that school courtyard and watch their own daughters command the stage. They watch young girls assume positions of absolute narrative power. That visual alone, the sheer audacity of it, reshapes what the community subconsciously believes is possible for those girls. It alters the psychological landscape of the village, which brings us to the final and arguably the most moving section of the entire archive. The archivist doesn't just list the theories and the plays, they conclude by documenting the actual human beings who are impacted by this grassroots theater. We get to hear the voices of the people on the front lines. The archive documents this through interviews and by listing the recipients of the 2011-2012 Vidhi Ha Saman Awards. We hear from an actress named Shilpi Kumari. At the time of the interview, she was a 17-year-old, 10th grade student. And in Beshen Thacker's production of Satyavan Savitri, this 17-year-old girl was cast in the role of Yamraj. The Amraj is the god of death. That is not a minor supporting role. That is an incredibly commanding, fearsome, deeply masculine, mythological figure. In her interview, she is asked about her experience tackling such a monumental role. She shares how acting on that stage, forcing herself to project that level of power, built her self-confidence immensely. But what struck me most was her answer when she was asked, how she thinks her art affects society. It's such a remarkably mature perspective for a 17-year-old. She doesn't talk about fame or, you know, moving to the city. Right. She says that seeing her on stage actively inspires the other children in the village to dream bigger. And even more importantly, she says it encourages the elders in the community to change their minds and actually support the youth. She recognizes her own symbolic power. She also practically notes that she balances her art with her intense studies and states clearly that her dream is to become a great actress. I just try to picture the courage that requires Angin being a 17 year old girl in a rural village stepping out onto a makeshift wooden stage in front of your entire community Your parents your strict teachers your gossiping neighbors and playing the terrifying god of death With such absolute conviction that they forget who you are and believe in the character It is a profound act of bravery the archive also features an interview with a man named Parmanan Thakur He is a 30-year-old local pancayet teacher, and he's a musician who plays the harmonium for these village plays. He talks about his origin story. He says he was originally inspired to pursue music by a school cultural event way back in 1971. It shows the generational ripple effect of these small courtyard performances. He is very clear about his motivations, too. He emphasizes that he doesn't do this for money, because there is none, and he doesn't do it for fame. out of a pure abiding love for his culture. He views his harmonium playing as an active duty to preserve his heritage. And he talks about how he manages to balance these late night exhausting play rehearsals with his day job as a teacher. The archive caps this all off by listing the 2011-2012 Vidya Saman Awards. And what's beautiful here is the democratization of the honors. They aren't just handing out trophies to famous wealthy writers from the city or elite political patrons. No, they are honoring the working class grassroots contributors who actually make the art happen with their bare hands. The list is a testament to the community. They awarded Shilpi Kumare for her acting. Bermanantakur was honored for his harmonium playing, but they also gave awards to Jagdish Malik for his work in local crafts, Naklamanol for painting, and Jagdish Prasad Mandal for his collection of short stories, Gamak Janagi. When you read these interviews and look at this list of awards, it retroactively charges the rest of the archive with so much meaning. All the dense theoretical discussions we started with, the Natishastra, the mechanics of Rasa, the fierce ideological wars over language and caste, they aren't just academic debates. No, not at all. They matter deeply because of people like Shilpi and Parmenand. The stakes are incredibly high for these individuals. If the theater establishment succeeds in relying on derogatory tropes, if they normalize a mocked-up insulting language as the standard for mathilly culture, it ultimately crushes the spirit of the youth. It sends a broadcast message to a 17-year-old girl that her identity, her dialect, her very existence is a joke not worthy of serious art. But if the theater empowers them, if it gives them dignity and refuses to compromise as the Parallel Theater Movement fakes to do, it changes the trajectory of a life. Letting a teenage girl play a god elevates the entire community. It's a phenomenal sweeping journey this archivist takes us on. It is a master class in connecting the abstract to the deeply personal. We started thousands of years ago with the theoretical roots of the Natya Shastra, learning how actors use biological control and imagination to make an audience taste the rasa of a performance. We traveled through the 13th century absurdity of corrupt holy men in Dirtse Manga and faced the existential dread of locked doors and fake gods in postmodernism. We navigated the very real, very fierce modern battles over fake dialects, historical manipulation, and cultural ownership. And the Western Canon. Yeah, we thought how a local South Asian struggle perfectly mirrored the tragedy of British labor strike and strife. And we ended up in a dusty schoolyard in Shinarganj, watching young girls stage a quiet, undeniable revolution. The archive conclusively proves that the stage, no matter how small, underfunded, remote is a place of immense world-altering power. So as we wrap up this deep dive, I want you, the listener, to think about the art happening right now in your own community. Think about the scrappy local plays in the community center down the street, the poetry slams in the back of the local coffee shop, the loud indie music gigs happening in a cramped basement. They might seem small to you. They might seem underfunded and unpolished. But as we've seen today, the words they choose, the dialects they use, and the specific stories they insist on telling, might just be fighting the biggest ideological battles of our time in miniature. You have to ask yourself, who controls the language of your local stage? Because whoever controls the language on that stage today controls the narrative of your community's future tomorrow. Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into the source material. Remember, true knowledge is not just about having the historical information or the theoretical definitions, it's about understanding the deeply human, intensely fought stories behind those words. Keep exploring.

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