He had a completely different approach - music, improvisation, linking with one's traditional impulses.” From Alkazi, whom she describes as a “Renaissance, classical artist,” she developed her propensity for detail. “I moved to Bhopal sometime after I married and the idea of leaving Mumbai, where I did nothing but had a good time, was distressing!” Still, it was here in Bhopal that she found inspiration - and a new teacher, B.V. Karanth. “My degree from NSD got me a job at Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal,” she said. “Karanth was my colleague, but I saw him as a teacher. He had a completely different approach - music, improvisation, linking with one's traditional impulses.”
Her nostalgia for Bhopal after she moved to Chandigarh led her to founding The Company. Punjab didn't boast the same traditions as Bhopal and Chowdhry decided to create a combination of urban and rural actors from different backgrounds to put together a play. “Like many other urban artists struggling to find their own identity, I dipped into my cultural energies.” She came across traditional musicians, actors, ad libbers and female impersonators and worked with them all. “They represented a metaphor at the start, but those lines have dissolved and now we're a group of people working together.”
License - The Untitled Saga is one more culmination of her creative impulses, an improvised take on texts by Saadat Hasan Manto and Bertolt Brecht. “How did it begin? It was summertime and we were bored!” Chowdhry suggested a workshop which dwindled when participants left to visit their families during the holidays. “I was left with my own actors; we began exploring Manto and also Brecht, another writer whose stories I really enjoy.” Manto's License and Brecht's The Job had one thing in common, what Chowdhry describes as “the industrialisation of the body.”
In Manto's License for instance, a young woman arrives in Calcutta and hails a tonga. “She and the tongawallah fall in love instantly - they don't even make it back to her house,” Chowdhry explained. Their alliance is met with disapproval, the tongawallah is sent to jail, where he eventually dies. “His wife begins to drive the tonga and make a living for herself. One day, she is stopped by a cop who asks for her license. She only has the one that belonged to her husband.” The play, she says, defines the body not by gender but by the work we do - “That was the idea, it started there. The texts came later.”
The production appears to carry a distinct social message, although this was never the focus of Chowdhry's experiments with it. “Art is not a pulpit, I'm not holding a flag or preaching an ideologue. I feel uneasy with anything tha sounds like I'm giving a sermon. It's not a pulpit where you burn your bra or shout about how committed you are socially.” Inspiration comes from different places, she maintains - some are moved by what is outside of them, others seek fantasy. “It depends on where you are at a point in time. There's no formula, really. You make errors, come to terms with your uncertainties and take some risks!”
What: The License -An Untold Saga
When: April 9, 3 pm
Where: Jagriti Theatre, Varthur Main Road, Whitefield