20

The performance

When Narasa Nayaka or ‘Narasimha Nayak’ was high king of Vijayanagar, he encouraged poets and performers to wander about his empire in south India and refresh his hard-working subjects with wit and verse, song and dance, and especially with stories of the resplendent gods. Scholars and artistes were welcomed at his court and the royal chamberlain of the great palace at Hampi, the capital, was in charge of the cultural events selected for a ‘command performance’.

One time, soon after the rigours and restrictions of the chaturmaas or monsoon season were over, when it was feasible for the common folk to travel again by foot, palanquin, horse and bullock cart, a programme at court was announced as usual. It was to be a brahmana mela or play performed by the priests of the village of Kuchelapuram, from the banks of the River Krishna. They were to present the Prahlada Charitram, in which a horrid mythical tyrant was routed by Lord Vishnu in his avatar as Narasimha, the man-lion. Such dance–dramas or operas, which were a blend of speech and songs, were a very old tradition of India.

Each region had developed exciting art forms of its own, marrying local arts with epic stories.

Before the time of Vijayanagar, in the days of the preceding Kakatiya dynasty, the artistes of the southern lands had excelled in Shiva Leela, or episodes that illumined the tales of the great god Shiva. Over time, the complex lore of his divine confrère Lord Vishnu, had become very popular too for the stories were exceedingly enactable with interesting plots and subplots. The troupe from Kuchelapuram was made up of artistes who could speak in Telugu and Sanskrit and could sing Carnatic music, with gifted young men playing female characters.

Narasa Nayaka and his court looked forward to that evening’s entertainment in the sandalwood-scented, rosewater-sprinkled courtyard. The courtyard had long strings of jasmine looped around its granite pillars while finely chased brass holders of sambrani smoked in the corners, the fragrant resin burnt on live coals to keep away mosquitoes and insects.

Into this expectant, fire-lit atmosphere, with a roll of drums stepped the artistes of Kuchelapuram, bowing in deep namaste to Narasa Nayaka and his court. The prologue began, invoking the guardians of the eight directions and the grace of the powers of justice and righteousness. ‘A delicate compliment to our capable king and his good governance,’ thought his ministers, preening a little, for were they not part of it?

‘Unusual,’ thought the king, for plays normally had an invocation to Shiva, Vishnu or Ganesha.

The hero, Prahlada, played by a pale, resolute-looking youth, remonstrated with his tyrannical father, the titan Hiranya Kashyap. ‘I cannot submit to you as my guru, O Raja,’ he said firmly. ‘You are the king of my region, no doubt. But the king of my heart is that just, righteous and merciful One, the Lord who abides in his victorious city.’

‘Why, that’s “Vijayanagar”, the “victorious city”,’ thought Narasa Nayaka, suddenly intent.

‘He is too far away in his kingdom to save you, Prahlada,’ boomed the titan. ‘I am the one with absolute and immediate power over you.’

‘He is a gentle lord,’ said Prahlada, turning to face Narasa Nayaka and bowing deeply. ‘Unlike you, he is not feared by his subjects. He does not tax them cruelly, or make them yield their fields and gold to you, or forcibly take their sons away to serve as soldiers or demand their wives and daughters for his own inner chambers.’

‘How I choose to rule is not your business, son,’ thundered the tyrant king. ‘Your only task is to address me in your prayers, for I alone am God Almighty, not this faraway Vishnu on his faraway throne.’

‘Very specific points under that epic tone,’ thought Narasa Nayaka, his interest fairly caught.

The play went on, its intensity growing with every scene as Hiranya Kashyap, fed up with his unyielding son, tried every trick in the epic book to kill him and failed, for each time, ‘faraway Vishnu on his faraway throne’ saved his devotee.

The play climaxed with Vishnu erupting from a pillar as Narasimha, the fierce man-lion, to disembowel the tyrant king, and triumphant songs and a shower of rose petals marked its close.

The king graciously bestowed the customary bags of gold, silk shawls and gold bracelets on the old priest with the enigmatic face who was the troupe leader and retired to his palace to think it over.

The next morning, he summoned his prime minister and army chief.

‘We have some very interesting subjects in our empire,’ he told them with a grim smile. ‘The artistes of Kuchelapuram will need an armed escort to go home; make it a fairly big escort and well-armed. They have risked their lives to convey their message to me indirectly through their art and thankfully, I could read between the lines. Prime Minister, please send an able administrator with the armed escort. Acting on your authority, he will depose and imprison Guruva Raju, the chieftain, who presently administers the region, and take his place. The armed escort must stay with the new administrator. Guruva Raju’s coffers must be inspected and all wealth that rightfully belongs to the royal treasury must be seized and dispatched to Hampi, as must any stockpile of arms and ammunition. The citizens held in service by constraint must be set free, their names must be recorded and an honorarium disbursed to them to go home with. After these matters are taken care of, a healing puja must be conducted, addressed to Lord Vishnu to thank him for his grace and favour on our land. All citizens of the region must be invited to the feast at the temple and there must be a parade by representatives of all the guilds and communities with singers and dancers leading them, to celebrate their release from bondage in a befitting manner.’

And so it was. The Machupalli Kaifiat, a record of the region from 1502, tells us the gist of this story about the resource and daring of the artistes of Kuchelapuram, later known as Kuchipudi.