Directed by: Dadi Pudumjee, Language: Musical
Ishara’s puppet and dance version is based on Rashna Imhasly’s book “The Psychology of Love – Wisdom of Indian Mythology” where she has used both the versions from the Vetalapanchcavinasati and Thomas Mann’s “Transposed heads” continuation, as representative stories depicting the illusions of love. It deals with the duality of each person, between illusion and reality with stylized puppet archetypes and dancers, to a score composed and compiled by Sawan Dutta.
It’s a non-verbal -no text performance- to music with some narration in-between -poems and sayings from various poets including Rumi, Thomas Mann and others. “Transposition” features three large puppets and dancers with projections and a dramatic recorded music score with chants.
THE STORY
The story seeks a synthesis between the world and the spirit, between life and death. It’s about the understanding and insight of the human heart. How can one arrive at a perception of peace and feel the joy of cessation from conflict unless one has the Maya-image (illusionary image) to give one an understanding of it? Nanda and Shridaman two friends are bound together by their unlikeness of each other. Both love the beautiful Sita, who is married off to Shridaman, but Sita eventually longs for what she hasn’t – Nanda. The two males temporarily loose their heads in a fit of confusion and anger only to be put together by Sita, Her confusion results in the switching of heads in relation to the bodies. Now who is the real husband?
The three need one or the other to feel their sense of completion, short sightedness symbolizes states of incompleteness in ourselves, which we project onto our relationships; each imprisons the other and in trying to break loose we are chained. Loves disappointments lead us to interiorising and self-reflection. Maturity ripens by recognizing our own excesses, betrayals and failures. Each needs to turn the sword against their present division within themselves. Only when mind and the body are one are we part of the universal order of things.
Rashna Imhasly-Gandhy is a transpersonal psychologist and the author of the book “The psychology of Love – Wisdom of Indian Mythology.” Married to a Swiss National she lived in Switzerland for seventeen years where she studied Jungian psychology. She lives and has a private practice in New Delhi, India besides working with groups in conflict areas in Kashmir and Gujarat. She teaches and lectures in Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Mexico.
