Gauri Ramnarayan is a vast writer, playwright and singer. She has been private for the lives of many great people in art and politics. When you talk to him, you get to hear such anecdotes that help you to learn more about the personalities that you have only read. One of them is PT. Ravi Shankar, who took the sitar into the world. His music included all the feelings and colors of life.
Over the years, Gauri has succeeded in mixing music, dance and theater originally in her story. AttractionHis latest production is a biography drama, which offers a glimpse in PT’s life. Ravi Shankar. Gauri talked about making drama and how Panditji’s music revealed her new dimensions of art. Excerpts from an interview.
You have written a play about PT. Ravi Shankar?
It was in 2020, his birth was a centenary year, when the epidemic closed the world, that I felt the play forced to write the play as a tribute to the prestigious musician. Looking back, the idea actually took root in 1992, when I interviewed Ustad Villayat Khan – which was often described as Ravi Shankar’s staunch rival. Ustad spoke about him in length. After the interview was published, I received a call from PT. Ravi Shankar. He had read it and wanted to talk. He shared how he was subject to not only with Vilayat Khan, but also with his wife Annapurna, which he was under, who was often a better artist, who was often considered a better artist. (the film Abhiman His story is based on.) He also talked about how much his internal turmoil stems from restlessness – irony is that his unique creativity is very source of creativity. His words stayed with me, bouncing with unspecified signs and unknown complications. All this eventually led to this project.
Gauri Ramnarayan | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Is the play based on such memories or real events from his life?
The drama thrives on struggle and contradiction. Ravi Shankar’s biography by daughter Anoshaka was very released after writing my play, but also had two autobiography. Anoushka’s book has profiles and interviews. It explains how the masters as a indigestion child were closed from Banaras to Paris; Review of victory as a dancer in London and New York; In a small town in Central India, he left glamor and luxury for seven years to learn classical music under a Martinet Guru; And later, they were struggling to establish themselves as a big man, pushed to the verge of suicide, finally before receiving global praise. His life and art were often overshadowed by controversy.
But emotions shape a drama, not information. I was lucky that I was getting access to sisters Lakshmi Shankar (Ravi Shankar’s sister -in -law) and Kamala Chakraborty (his partner for 24 years). Both were my mother’s friends and shared their personal experiences. As a child, I know The Sitar Legend as a family friend. As a journalist, I felt the nuances in the tone of his tool and feelings in his voice. This drama came from those moments of vulnerability.
What do you think about PT. Ravi Shankar as a person and an artist?
What can you say about an extraordinary talent? He was the first and most acclaimed international Indian composers – who killed East and West, North and South and Traditional and Modern. He showed what world music and fusion actually mean. Nevertheless, my response to this question is within the play. And perhaps, people who see it can probably walk with their image of man and artist.
Which elements have you woven in drama?
All my work takes a cue from the Indian beauty tradition, which looks at the theater as a amalgamation of words, scenes, music and dance. I use dance and music, not as frills, but to represent the complications of contemporary life. They become parallel texts, especially when I think words cannot develop an accurate feeling in a particular context. In AttractionIt became a natural process. The hero was a dancer, which turned into a musician. Also, with smiles and tears, Ravi Shankar’s compositions are landscape in itself. Bombay Jayashree can only do him. Aditya Prakash, Vignesh Ishwar and Chaitra Syram have added their tender notes. Renjith and Vijana have understood that in this bioplay, dance has to expand the mood.
Writing an easy process for you,
For me, writing a drama is fast, easy. It is thinking that it brings sweat and tears. You suffer all the sufferings of a sculptor on the rocks under the blazing sun and blind ice. Hammer and chisel are essentially the process of editing. But ever since I direct my plays, when actor starts speaking lines, we all see faults. Then I became a ruthless surgeon. The story evolved with my memories and my own interpretations of others. Watching Yohan Chacko, RB Veeraraghavan and Tariha Subramanian (Cameo), it was attractive to convert into your characters with each rehearsal session. How? With skills and understanding, but also that actor does ’emotionally memorized’ from his own life.
Do you think the audience is going to join the drama?
A film on Nureyev is not specially made for ballet fans. Nor is a play on Mozart limited to Western music enthusiasts. This play center stages a person who lives in our time, brings the world and brings the values ​​of Indian performance art with it. However, I see Attraction As the universal saga of humans has followed its dreams with obsession, patience and determination – never allows external obstacles or even half the path to their own road to stop or leave. Any writer or director of plays wants the audience to have some experience that moves with them and find themselves strong in heart and mind. Is it called the ancestors called Katharsis, and we say freedom? I will be satisfied with the sympathy of the audience.
September 12 (7 pm) Staging is being staged in Museum Theater, Egmore, Chennai. Bookmyshow ticket
Published – 02 September, 2025 03:49 pm IST
