Nerkku Ner: Face to Face

Written by Neeraja MR
Language: Malayalam
Approximate duration: 90 minutes

Synopsis:

Ever since Smitha heard her sister, Malini and her husband Krishnan are coming home, she has not been able to sleep well. Nightmares haunt her as her parents, Janaki and Sumesh prepare for a feast to welcome the couple. What is disturbing Smitha that she cannot confide in her family and why? Her father, a theyyam artist is fighting his health to prepare for what could be one of his last theyyam performances. Will faith help him endure the performance? As human beings are left to grapple with the stark realities of life, Muchilottu Bhagavthy, a Theyyam Goddess has to deal with a new opponent in her dwelling, a shadow from her past, a burnt body of a woman. Will she be able to make peace with her past? What stories are told and not told? What does it take to tell a story? What does it mean to be a Goddess? What is sacred?
An Excerpt

--------------------------------------------------Excerpt 1----------------------------------------------------

Act 1:

Smitha’s nightmare: There are many pictures of the blue ocean, symbolic of drowning, suffocation in Smitha’s room. Mask is also in the room. One can hear a heavy wind that is blowing. Smitha is on the bed and in her sleep, she struggles as if she is choking. There is repeated sounds of waves and drowning in a sea and coming back to the surface for breath. She continuously struggles with her strangulation. Lighting on the stage changes into a dim light and Smitha wakes up from her nightmare, gasping for breath. She reaches out for a glass of water. As she looks at her wall has many theyyam paintings stuck on the wall, all with raging red theme. There is a moment of stillness when she looks all around her. Suddenly as if something is amiss she starts searching through papers on her table. She is looking frantically for a painting. She doesn’t care as some of the paintings fly in the room.

Mask: Smitha…

Smitha: Not now!!!

[Smitha frantically continues to search for her painting]

Mask: Smithaa…

Smitha:  I can’t find my painting! Did you see my painting? I don’t know where I kept it. It should be here…

Mask (in a musical tone): Chellakutty…

Smitha: Not… now!

Mask: I think you should talk...

Smitha: About?

Mask: About what happened…?

Smitha: What happened...Nothing happened!

Mask: You cannot run away from this!

Smitha: Yes… I can! I can run away…

Mask: Stop searching! She threw the painting away. 

Smitha: Threw it away!

Mask: You mother?

[Smitha reaches out to the dustbin and starts and empties it out. She scavenges through some papers]

Mask: I know you too well… You are going to let him go. Aren’t you?

[Smitha stops for a moment, then continues her frantic scavenging.]

Smitha: I...I don’t want to talk about it.

Mask: If I were you… I would take a huge rope, tie a knot around his neck and strangle him… not too tight… not too light... make him struggle, see his legs paddling under my grip….

Smitha: Can you keep quiet! If you don’t keep quiet, this will be your place…

[Smitha pushes the dustbin in front of the mask]

Mask: Is this you, my Chellakutti? I have no place in your life anymore? So be it if you can abandon an old friend so easily.

[Smitha continues scavenging]

Smitha: Found it!

[She irons out the piece of paper]

Mask: Yet another lifeless painting! What use are all these paintings... Make another one of me… We will make merry with stories.

Smitha: These are not lifeless. [Pins the painting to the wall]. They are what I see each night. Every night.

Mask: Tell me, he is coming tomorrow. What…have you decided?

Smitha: He is married to my sister…Malini loves him.  

Mask: ‘Malini loves him’. That is not your problem.

Smitha: She adores him He is perfect. If she finds out… What do you think will happen? Well, who in this family does not think he is perfect? How did I not see through it? Why me?

Mask: Just Stop! You will let him get away...That’s what he wants. He wants you to say nothing. That’s what he expected. Maybe he knew it. He knew what you are...

Smitha: What am I?

Mask: A coward. Nothing else.

Smitha: Coward!

Mask: You are afraid! Too afraid! You won’t do the right thing… never! And I will be left here seeing you sleepless night after night. You are torturing me… Every night...

[Pause]

Mask: Was it the same nightmare? 

Smitha: It is always the same…

Mask [sighs]: Like every night!

Smitha: I am not a coward… I told Bindu!  I told her everything. I couldn’t at first…It was like I had no words to. Then… I ...it was like a big stone off my chest… but only for a moment…I told her. I told her everything. Everything that had happened. How he… How my screams...they were lost on some piece of cloth stuffed in my mouth…And how he...pushed and pulled...You know… through everything...how it hurt and how I… I couldn’t breathe.

[Pause]

Bindu…she never stops talking. She is such a chatterbox! When we were children, whenever there is a problem she runs to me… Look Smitha Chechi… I have scored zero in the Math test... [Chuckles a little]...sometimes after a good beating… she would run to me… show me her red thighs…

[Pause]

I told her. I told her everything… She would not say anything. I searched her eyes...I don’t know what I was looking for… What was I looking for? She shifted her eyes away as if ...as if she was hiding something. What was she hiding! It is Bindu… She is never silent for a moment and here she was before me. I wanted to shake her...Tell her...Talk to me… Talk to me. Say anything. I cannot take this silence. I think I scared her...I...scared her. We haven’t talked after... But why would she not talk to me!

Smitha: I don’t want to talk about it. No never… Never again!

Mask: Never again?

Smitha: Never

Mask: Coward!

Smitha: I am not a coward! I want to forget it… I want to forget everything!

[Pause]

Smitha: This will all go away… This will all go away… 

[She fishes out her clothes that she had hidden. She stares at the clothes]

Smith: It smells… I can smell …

[She crumbles the clothes and throws it away. After a moment of silent thinking. Then she picks up the clothes once again.]

Smitha: Is it the clothes. Do you think it is the clothes? 

[Smitha puts it on herself stares at the mirror for a while. Then crumbles them in disgust and throws them on the floor]

Smitha: I just need to burn these. 

[She frantically searches for a match box in her room]

Mask: Fire! Fire… put that fire away! I am just a piece of wood! You will burn down the whole house down!

[Smitha puts the match out]

Smitha: I have to forget everything… like a nightmare.

Mask: [Chuckles]. You wake up every day to this nightmare! 

Smitha [glares at the mask]: Is it funny for you?

[Silence]

Mask: Forgive me… I can be cruel! I blame your father. Look at me, how I am made. Carved from a piece of wood. None of the softness of a human [Pause] Look, why don’t you tell your mother everything. How can a mother’s heart bear this injustice?

Smitha: It will destroy them.

Mask: So you will let him go because your parents won’t be happy? Because Malini won’t be happy? Something does not feel right. You know what I think? I think you feel guilty! That is the truth!

[Smitha is silent]

Mask: I just cannot understand why you do not want to tell them? If what happened was not your fault, why this guilt? If it was your fault…

Smitha: My fault? What is my fault?

Mask: Why this shame then?

Smitha: I…don’t know. I… You know what mother says. Whether a leaf falls on a thorn… or a thorn falls on a leaf… it is the leaf that tears!

Mask: Hahahahaha…hahahahah…

Smitha: If there is a woman in the house… it is a fire in the house!

Mask: Hahahahaha…hahahahah…

Smitha [Smitha moves away and gets into bed in a hurry]:  Enough!

Mask: Smithaa…

Smitha:

Mask: Chellakutty…Do you remember the day your father gave me to you. His own hands had made me but had forgotten to put in quite an important thing… A mouth! A lot of stories trapped within me all choked in… and then you came by…and drew me a mouth, in your innocence…

[Pause]

Maybe it is that you should not have. But I know…that stories have a way of punishing you, coming back…

Smitha: It does. I never knew I could be this enraged. But I know telling what happened is an end – end to a lot. If I let it go…

Mask: You won’t be able to let it go…

Smitha: I know.

Mask: How can you let him go?

Smitha: Maybe I know I cannot and that is why I cannot sleep.

Mask: Sleep… Sleep Chellakutty…Let me tell you a story…

Smitha: Ha! I am tired of them!

Mask: You always loved this one…

Smitha: Go on… it is not like I can stop you from telling it.

Mask: Not so long ago [Pause.] Not so long ago, there was a learned Brahmin girl, so learned that songs in praise of her reached far and wide. And that is why, when the local ruler was challenged by the learned pandits of elsewhere he invited her to the court. He chose her to debate with them.

[Smitha is asleep. But the mask goes on]

“Who is this you have put before us as our opponent” They smirked. Felt slighted but soon… soon they were losing the debate, Jealous, they were so jealous they decided to trick her and innocently asked “What is the most pleasurable of all rasas” and she said Kama-rasa and described the rasa in full glory… What is it that a virgin has said? How could she know the Kama rasa? Everyone doubted her. She was thrown out of the illam and wandered here all alone. Found life meaningless and decided to set fire to herself. Who should she see but none other than a Vaniyan, an oil seller, gave her the oil she asked for. She only needed oil. Up in flames she went. From a thousand feet of fire she rose – For the fire never touched her. The whole village worshipped her… They drew her in their eyes as a Divine Mother –

[We see the image and silhouette of Muchilottu Bhagavathy as she comes on stage, one can hear the sound of her anklets. She has her weapon in her hand. The sound of manjeera and her slow movements as she enjoys her dance continues,]

When Gurukkal drew her, he was blind. He drew her, a rainbow for her head gear, an ocean for a dress and studded it with the sun, the moon and the stars. The rainfall for her garlands. All of the universe in one image. Look her Thirumudi is like the rainbow ...Her royal dress is the ocean…and on it the sun...the moon… the stars all in the water... and all her garlands...the rainfall. All of the universe in one.

[As the dance continues… There is a sudden sound from the well. Devi stops dancing and peeps into the well intently. Not finding anything she seats herself on a rock with one leg folded and another firmly on the ground. She opens a food packet tied up in a banana leaf and relishes it as she does so there is another disturbance in the well. She puts her food away and goes and peers into the well. Sees nothing. Turns back confused. As she turns to walk back she hears the sound of someone calling her]

The burnt: Bhagavathyyyyy…Here!

[Bhagavathy turns back to the well and stares at it.]

The Burnt: Can you… Can you see… me?

[Bhagavathy puts one foot on the rim of the well and stares into it trying to see the burnt.] What... are you? You… do not look like a human being… you are not a demon…but… Tell me tell me… who you are…

The Burnt: Are you going to let me hang on to these walls till you find it in your mercy to get me out?

[Bhagavathy looks around. Gets the pail that is attached to the rope and drops it into the well.A figure climbs out, gasping for breath. It straightens itself up and seats itself on the rock. Bhagavathy looks at the figure’s confidence as it navigates her space and starts observing it. The figure does not take much notice of the Bhagavathy as she opens the banana leaf again. As she starts to put her hands into the food, she hears Bhagvathy’s voice.]

Bhagavathy: Stop! Who are you?

The Burnt: Oh Sorry! Do you… do you… want to share?

Bhagavathy: How dare you!

The Burnt: Hahaha… You seem to have forgotten me. [She puts away the piece of banana leaf and the food]

Bhagavathy: Tell me who you are! What world do you belong to? Which evil spirits have send you?

The Burnt: My dear Devi…I am… I am an ordinary woman. Why waste your wrath on me?

Bhagavathy: This is my home! How dare you arrive here and slight me!

The Burnt: Not long ago… I gave my life to the fire…here… right about here!

Bhagavathy: Fire?

The Burnt: The same fire that divided us… Have you forgotten? You abandoned me. When the fire swallowed us, you became one with the smoke. I was too heavy for you, was I not? Easier to leave behind with the bones… Do you know how long has it been?

Bhagavathy: How long has it been since when?

The Burnt: Since… we… How long has it been since you were here?

Bhagavathy: For long… very long. About a five hundred harvests maybe more…

The Burnt: Time…. Time is a strange thing, is it not? Within the deep well, it had felt like a thousand harvests, I am sure. Alone. Foresaken. Battling all the questions one at a time… Why did you not carry me with you?

Muchilottu Bhagavathy: What do you mean? What nonsense is this? Who are you and why are you here? Tell me…

The Burnt: I remember clearly…when we were in the womb of the fire, there were songs… Songs that praised me, songs in Songs in fear… Songs in agony… songs in hope…Huh! Songs! How else would man deal with such a thing as a woman burning herself to death?

In the waves of these songs you were born and you rose from a thousand feet deep. But here were no songs that touched me…

Muchilottu Bhagavathy: What stories are you telling me? Huh? What trickery, what black magic…What is this? Who has send you? Lord Shiva himself has given me these weapons. They hail me as the ‘Divine Virgin’

The Burnt: The Divine Virgin! Hahahah… Haaa the Divine Virgin!

MB: Don’t laugh!

The Burnt: Forgive me, Devi! What else do you think I can do! We were thrown out because they could not ascertain if we were indeed Virgin! And now? The miracle of fire! Hahaha…

[MB picks up the weapon in a moment of anger and goes up to the Burnt and then leaves it.]

The Burnt: Yes…Strike me down! Maybe that will be my release.

[MB throws down the weapon]

The Burnt: Are you happy?

MB: What do you mean?

The Burnt: It is a simple question. Are you happy?

MB: My children perform their duties. They worship me and love me. The land is fertile. My children are prosperous. 

The Burnt: Are you happy?

MB: Lord Shiva himself has sent me here, blessed me. They hail me as sacred.

The Burnt: Pure now… sacred!

[Silence]

The Burnt: Do you regret it?

MB: Regret what…

The Burnt: Giving up… on that fire pit. I do! Sometimes.

MB: Listen, I don’t understand what you are saying. There is a mistake and now if you can clear this area… It is where my people offer me their services. You should know better to respect it.

The Burnt: Sometimes I wonder what I fought for, what we fought for…

MB: Who is we?

The Burnt: You are only born out of me… A purposeless Godhood, yes. Is that what we fought for! You have forgotten what we were… Come to me and touch me…

MB: Ha! Tell me! Which black magician wants to contain me? Tell me your master. You look like you have risen from the pits of the underworld!

The Burnt: You don’t remember… The days they said we couldn’t read, we couldn’t know. When we debated the best in all lands. Remember… describing to them the pleasure of the Kama Rasa…

MB: Che! disgusting…

The Burnt: The day we were declared corrupt, our father wept…

MB: Lord Shiva is my father! He has given me a second birth…

The Burnt: Tell me when they sing of you, do they sing of the pain of leaving home?

MB: No!

The Burnt: Do they sing of the jealousy of learned men?

MB [a little irritated]: No!

The Burnt: What do they sing of? What are they celebrating?

MB: Me! They are celebrating me!

The Burnt: You! The Divine Virgin!

MB: If you can take leave of me now…

The Burnt: Take leave? But this is my home. My abode. This is to where I had to scale those walls with my bare fingers. Where do you want me to leave?

MB: To where you came from?

The Burnt: You cannot make me go, Devi. My time as your shadow is over.

MB: What do you want?

The Burnt: Give me an equal seat here…near you…

MB: Never!

The Burnt: Afraid you will be less sacred? Afraid that the qualities of this ordinary woman, the tongue that spoke of the Kama rasa might dirty you…

MB: Enough! My father… Lord Shiva has sent me here to serve my people. I am bound to them by duty. I protect this village and this is my abode…

The Burnt: Then maybe you should ask Lord Shiva to drive me out…

MB: I am enough for you! [She tries to strike down the burnt with her weapon. But she is not able to move it against her]

The Burnt: Hahahha….

MB: I will put an end to your impertinence!  ……

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Act 3 Scene 1:

[There is the chirping of birds. It is dawn. MB is sitting outside the sanctorum. She uses her weapon (a sword with a curved tip) as her crutch as she leans and sits on it]

Muchilottu Bhagavathy:  A woman dies because they say she is polluted by the knowledge of Kama rasa…Her virginity is brought to question...She makes her own funeral pyre…They declare that she was a virgin – and divine… Out of that fire…I am born…hailed as a Divine Virgin. Where is justice here?

Parvathy: They have made her a Goddess. That is justice!

Muchilottu Bhagavathy:  No they haven’t! They have taken what they thought was fit for reverence out of her ashes… The same reverence…the same stick that is used to measure and size and divide… the same stick that drove her out…now they have made her that stick…To measure size and divide other women! Other women like her! The Divine Virgin! It means nothing! It is nothing! (sarcastically). What changed after her death? Nothing.

Parvathy: You seem so hopeless! We are not here for nothing! I don’t know about you… But my duties give me purpose.

Muchilottu Bhagavathy:  How can I return? What should I do? Hear them sing songs about me… What should I do when I look into the eyes of my devotees? Go on with my duties! More prosperity! More fertility! Yes more fertility. I the Divine Virgin bless you all – Let gold reap in these paddy fields, may your stomachs forever be full. May the light of knowledge lead you on...  The light of knowledge… Who can I lead when I didn’t know… how the fire had swallowed one of us and left another. [Pause] How can I go on knowing it is not me who is to be revered… it is her! She is to be remembered for who she was. Not me!

Parvathy: You are eating my head! How many times have we been going around in circles…You want my advice? Here it is. Return! Convince this… this “body” that you have been talking to…that this is no place for her. Not here. Not with you.

You are her! Just… more sacred than what she was or will be! A more perfect image. You are her perfection! She should be happy and not complaining.

Muchilottu Bhagavathy: And her story? What about her story? The story of the woman…who gave her life? Who gave me mine? Who will sing for her? Of her humiliation? Of her rebellion against what is pure and what is not? Of what can be said and what shouldn’t? Who will sing in her memory?

Parvathy: Memory! What you want to forget, you remember. What you want to remember, you forget. Some things you don’t remember, at all. And some things you think you remember, but they weren’t ever a memory in the first place.

MB: It is what we are made of isn’t it?  You and me? Memories. There is no future for us. We are a bunch of memories stuck in time. That is Godhood for you… I have been pieced together…into an image they want to say everyday… That perfect image of her… Carrying a torch of fire…Of everlasting knowledge and light… and a title - so that they no longer feel guilty of driving her out… 

Parvathy: You are thinking too much… How else do you think Gods are created huh? Piecing together images, yes. But what images? Those which men want to see themselves in, the ideal, the perfect…

About Neeraja

Neeraja started her theatre journey in 2013 and co-founded an amateur theatre group called Tanariri with Pranav Patadiya. The group went on to produce plays such as Aditya Sudarshan’s ‘Green Room’, Badal Sircar’s ‘Evam Indrajit’, Manav Kaul’s ‘Aisa Kehte Hai’ and Manjula Padmanabhan’s ‘Lights out’. Neeraja has served the group in several roles as an actor, backstage crew and as a producer. ‘Nerkku Ner’ [Face to Face] is her first play, originally written in Malayalam and translated to English.

To contact Neeraja, please email neeraja12mr@gmail.com

About the programme

A year of tremendous growth and change is how I would describe my time in this program. We were a diverse set of students, from varied backgrounds, writing in different languages, each with a different approach to making theatre. Finding common grounds, exchanging ideas, debating and discussing with fellow writers opened up many perspectives to thinking about not just theatre, but about life, too.

As a beginner who had come into the program with the ambition of writing my first play while juggling a demanding day job, the well-thought out structure of the course, the incremental learnings and the insistence on applying what we learned immediately through short assignments is what helped me sail. Abhishek focused the first 3 months in building a strong foundation through assignments, exercises and various script analyses. Sharing & getting feedback from within the group was encouraged from the very first class. The program trained me on how to think about ideas in the form of questions, what makes a good socio-political/philosophical question and later how to turn these questions into a play.

The most exciting part of the course was, of course, a field trip that we took to Hampi, Ajanta & Ellora and Amarkantak. I had never taken a trip of 15 days in my life, let alone with a group. We travelled together in a tight budget, hopping from local bus to sleeper trains, surviving on humble meals and all the time focusing on the art around us and pondering on the meaning of it – a truly meditative experience.

The program also provided me with the golden opportunity to meet many theatre makers, and conversed with them closely about their work, method, philosophy and life.

I know I am walking away from this program with an amazing toolkit that demystifies writing and urges me to engage with the problems in my writing analytically. What more could an aspiring writer ask for?

I am deeply grateful to my teacher, Abhishek Majumdar for guiding me in every step towards the writing of my first play, for always pushing me to be ambitious. I would also like to thank Bhasha center, especially Vivek Madan, for creating and hosting this program. I was fortunate to collaborate with the very talented Karen D’mello to develop the second draft of my play. Lead by Karen the workshops came to life with a lovely bunch of talented actors and fellow writers – Ayesha Susan, Anisha Anantpurkar, Rahul Thomas, Sreehari Ajith, Pranav Patadiya, Aditya Nair, Thara Nandikkara, Brinda Nair, Madhumay Sinha, Suranjay Patil. I am deeply indebted to their contributions in time, thoughts and words. I would also like to thank Surabhi Vasisht who was to direct the rehearsed reading of the play. Even though corona virus had different plans for us, I have benefited greatly from our discussions. This work would not have been possible without the numerous sacrifices made by my family, my parents and in-laws, specially my spouse Pranav, who contributed heavily in research and dramaturgy.

Neeraja