MUMBAI: In a Marathi theater landscape often defined by box office, two plays – ‘Shivaji Underground in Bhimnagar Mohalla’ and ‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’ – have challenged the status quo, creating a decade-long legacy of radical and emotional storytelling as they march confidently towards their historic 1,000th show.
First, the commonalities – both plays have achieved something rare over the past decade or so: they have moved out of the drawing room and into the outdoors. They don’t just entertain; They demand awakening. While ‘Shivaji Underground in Bhimnagar Mohalla’ is a radical dialectical interrogation of history, ‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’ is a meticulous musical investigation into the lives of two women left behind by the careers of holy men. Together they represent two young voices of the Marathi stage: Rajkumar Tangde and Prajakta Deshmukh.
Shivaji Revisited
The genesis of ‘Shivaji Underground in Bhimnagar Mohalla’ is a story of grit that belongs more to the soil than the stage. Rajkumar Tangde, its playwright, hails from Jamb Samarta, a famous village associated with the 17th-century saint Ramdas Samarta. In a land where devotion is often a commodity, Tangde grew up watching the Warkari tradition calcify and transform into ritual ritual. For Tangdi, writing was never a pleasant hobby; It was, as he put it, “a reliable weapon.”
A subversive play, it opens up with traditional jandal motifs only to be interrupted by a character declaring, in essence, that the audience is tired of ancient myths. The plot is something of a foil: Yama, the god of death (short cameo by Lokshehr Sambhaji Bhagat), arrives on Earth to fetch Shivaji (again, short cameo by Dnyanesh Maharao), but the warrior king has his thoughts misplaced. What follows is a frantic search for a “head” with his own set of principles and values, who can wear the king’s turban.
As the play unfolds, the turban becomes a symbol of the gap between the Shivaji of history, a ruler concerned with women, caste and agriculture, and the Shivaji of modern politics, chosen by those who once opposed his coronation. The play says that there are many myths about Shivaji which were spread to garner support for their ideology. As Rajkumar Tangde says: “Although Shivaji Maharaj was a Hindu and fought against Mughal opponents, this does not mean that he did not fight with Hindu kings.” These wars were waged in order to expand states and defend their territories from enemy attacks, be it Rajputs, Marathas, or Mughals. “Religion was never the basis of any war. There were many Muslim generals who fought under Shivaji. In fact, his bodyguard was a Muslim,” Tangde points out. ‘Shivaji Underground’ demolishes the myth of Shivaji as a Hindu king who only fights to defend Hindus from Islam. It presents an egalitarian king with an emphasis on improving his subjects.
Watching it is like watching a play written in the midst of commitment. During its creation a decade ago, the cast underwent thirty-day resident workshops in which they dropped everything: one actor sold his bull, another closed his brick business, and the crew lived in relative isolation, shedding the distractions of modern life to focus on the script. This was not a production that required applause. It was a production that required self-sacrifice.
Woman behind Sant Tukaram
If “Shivaji Underground” is a pugnacious political confrontation with history, then Prajakta Deshmukh’s “Sangeet Devbhabhli” is his quiet, emotional interior. While the first looks at the just ruler, the second looks at the woman standing behind the saint. The play focuses on the meeting between Avali, the wife of the saintly poet Tukaram, and Rakhubai, the wife of Lord Vitthal. They are both women marginalized by the divine pursuits of their husbands. Both were left in a state of deprivation and despair.
‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’ celebrates the life and joys of Sant Tukaram through a live performance by singers and actors. Oddly enough, there is only one honor for each member of the audience: the poet, the bhakt, the reformer, and the vidruh. Nashik-based playwright Prajakta Deshmukh belongs to the Warkaris family and has a personal connection with Pandharpur. The play’s production is formally constructed like a series of Impressionist paintings. Each image indicates the fusion of elements in the scene of the play: Prithvi, Jal, Vayu, Agni and Akash. It is clear that the playwright’s genius lies in placing the two famous men (Tukaram and Vithoba) off stage. This is what makes the play come alive in the here and now.
The theater becomes a space for women’s kinship. Pradeep Maule’s set design transports the audience from the empty deserted kitchen of Avali to the Bhandara Hills. The play is about the female experience, and a musical exploration of the silence left in the wake of “great men.” It raises a poignant question: What is the cost of this dedication? When Avali and Rakhubai share their domestic tragedies, they are not singing about sanctity, but about the painful mundane reality of being a woman with domestic obligations. They search for answers in the rain and the scent of flowers, a solace that the high, strong walls of the temple have denied them.
There is a thread that connects the two plays, pulling together the fabric of Indian society. It echoes Dr. Ambedkar’s skepticism about the status quo, and the idea that chanting God’s songs does not lower the rent or pay the farmer’s debts. Both plays seem to operate on the premise that the “real people,” that is, the peasants who still constitute the majority of the country, are being ignored in favor of a sanitized populist history.
Tangde, in his private life, once encountered a kirtankar who criticized his play without having seen it, reminding him of a line by Ramdas: “Get your facts straight before making any comment.” Perhaps this is the spirit of the new Marathi theater thanks to the pen of playwrights like Tangdi and Deshmukh, as well as Datta Patel. They are not interested in today’s “fashions and fads.”
Whether it is the spirit of the ‘vidrohi’ of ‘Shivaji Underground’, which forces the audience to confront the co-optation of their icons, or the somber beauty of ‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’, which forces the audience to confront the forgotten women of history, both plays share one goal: to remove the veneer of sanctity. They remind us that theater is life and not the other way around.
(Ramo Ramanathan is a Mumbai-based playwright and poet.)
