Long discussions. Continued the next day.

What becomes clearer, little by little: the need to find our own path. Tradition here is very strong, with an energy that is constantly renewed. How is it that such ancient heroes, with their stories so well-known (we have seen ‘The Death of Abhimanyu’ seventeen times!) retain such power, almost primeval, after so many centuries?

We cannot hope for anything to equal it. In the West we will, on the contrary, present an unknown story. Therein lies the danger of exoticism, of picturesqueness. We must establish from the start that it interests us directly, that it is written for us, that it is in no way a cultural duty.

On the other hand, in India, this all-powerful and omnipresent tradition must have a paralysing effect on contemporary expression. And even beyond that: to continue a tradition does it not mean, in a way, that the order of things is good as it is, that the caste system is excellent and that nothing must be touched? The first wish of an angry young author today must be to throw everything out, including the theatrical conventions.

I know perfectly well that our problem does not lie there, but all the same. It is at least worth thinking about.

5. This sentence would finally be modified but the expression ‘the depth of the heart’ reappears many times in the narrative. Later I found the same expression being used by Claude Lèvi-Strauss to translate the words of the Amerindians (in The Jealous Potter ). Had he also read Hampáté-Bâ? Strange, and interesting, triangle.

6. This beginning would be modified. The first sentence remains, but Vyasa is alone with the child in the wilderness, beside a little lake.

7. Without realising it, we had found Draupadi. Mallika Sarabhai would come to Paris two months later (from New York) to read a few scenes for us. Entering the Bouffes theatre, she bent down to touch the ground. She would stay with us—a precious personal presence as much as the presence of India—throughout the whole adventure. Her son was born just before rehearsals began at the end of August. Because of his birth she arrived a little late in Paris. She acted in French, in English, in the film. Impossible, today, to imagine the Mahabharata without her.