The Game of Dice and Draupadi's humiliation in the royal court
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Following the footsteps of the great Kathak maestro Pandit Birju Mahraj, Srimati Gargi Bagchi will present (Annual Concert - Mar 27) an one act dance drama called “Draupadi’s Vastraharan” which is taken from the episode ‘Savaparbha’ of the great Hindu epic ‘Mahabharata’. The story is often presented as a simple story of good winning over evil, of the victory of the rightful heirs to the throne over their enemies. However, the characters and storyline are much more complicated, and this undoubtedly contributes to its importance and appeal. Lets go directly into the game of dice.
Yudhishthir, the eldest brother of the Pandavas, was the king of Indraprashtha which was a palace of a great wonder. The magical beauty of the palace promptly created an intense envy among his cousins, the Kauravas. Duryodhan, the eldest among them, was the prince of Hastinapur. While discovering the miracles of Indraprastha, Duryodhan fell into a pool of water which was so still that it looked like a tiled floor. Draupadi, the queen of Yudhishthir and the Pandavas, made fun of it and her hearty laugh broke the heart of Duryodhan. Being extremely revengeful, he arranged a dice game where poor Yudhishthir was purposely and crookedly defeated by Duryodhan’s uncle Shakuni who had an evil spirit of fraudulence and hypocrisy. Yudhisthir lost everything in that game including himself, the Pandava brothers and queen Draupadi who was extremely humiliated in the court room especially by Dushyashan, the second brother of Duryodhan. He dragged her into the court room by her hair and then started to strip off her sari. She prayed to Lord Krishna with utter pathos and agony. Krishna provided endless garments for her body and saved her dignity.
Gargi will play the role of all the main characters (specially the characters of Yudhishthir, Duryodhan, Shakuni, Dushyashan, Draupadi and Krishna) making it an unique item. One act play is an extremely difficult job specially in portraying the variation in male characters by a female performer. Gargi will use difficult spins, footwork, eye expression for different characters.