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SADEHA 08.mp4

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Part 1 · VIDEHA MITHILA MAITHILI DISCUSSION CRITICISM SERIES PART 1

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