A Woman to Her Friend
Friend, I didn’t say a word.
It would be a shame
if others were to hear.
He came with a glisten of mascara
still on his lips.
When I said it hurt me,
he made a scene.
When my friends asked me
what had happened,
I laughed it off,
covered it up.
I didn’t say a word
He wasn’t afraid to come home
with the red lac from her feet
on his forehead.
Still, he had the nerve
to ask for a hug.
I was furious
but, hiding it,
I protested gently.
I said it wasn’t right.
He raised his voice and,
fearing where it might lead,
I gave in.
As in the saying
about the thorn and the banana leaf,
it’s always the leaf that gets torn.
I didn’t say a word
Friend, he came here
with her betel juice
staining his neck
breath sweet with whiskey heaviness
and asked me for a kiss.
Tell me how much you love me,
he said, smiling uncontrollably,
tell me how much.
I didn’t say a word.
Friend, he made love to me
the same as ever,
the thorn carelessly shredding the leaf,
the monsoon rain battering the earth.
And as I lay there unmoving,
the peacocks shrieking wildly
I didn’t say a word
-Ksetrayya, rewritten by Cynthia Ling Lee
Here is the original padam as reference:
A Woman to Her Friend
Friend, I didn’t say a word.
It would be a shame
if others were to hear.
He came with a glisten of mascara
still on his lips.
When I said it hurt me,
he made a scene.
When my friends asked me
what had happened,
I laughed it off,
covered it up.
I didn’t say a word
He wasn’t afraid to come home
with the red lac from her feet
on his forehead.
Still, he had the nerve
to ask for a hug.
I was furious
but, hiding it,
I protested gently.
I said it wasn’t right.
He raised his voice and,
fearing where it might lead,
I gave in.
As in the saying
about the thorn and the banana leaf,
it’s always the leaf that gets torn.
I didn’t say a word
Friend, he came here
with her betel juice
staining his neck
yet asked me for a kiss.
It seemed improper
to hurt a man
who had come to me.
But when he made love to me
as well as ever,
I felt obliged, and
I didn’t say a word
-Ksetrayya, from When God is a Customer, eds. and trans. A.K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Schulman.
Friend, I didn’t say a word.
It would be a shame
if others were to hear.
He came with a glisten of mascara
still on his lips.
When I said it hurt me,
he made a scene.
When my friends asked me
what had happened,
I laughed it off,
covered it up.
I didn’t say a word
He wasn’t afraid to come home
with the red lac from her feet
on his forehead.
Still, he had the nerve
to ask for a hug.
I was furious
but, hiding it,
I protested gently.
I said it wasn’t right.
He raised his voice and,
fearing where it might lead,
I gave in.
As in the saying
about the thorn and the banana leaf,
it’s always the leaf that gets torn.
I didn’t say a word
Friend, he came here
with her betel juice
staining his neck
yet asked me for a kiss.
It seemed improper
to hurt a man
who had come to me.
But when he made love to me
as well as ever,
I felt obliged, and
I didn’t say a word
-Ksetrayya, from When God is a Customer, eds. and trans. A.K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Schulman.
FEEDBACK QUESTIONS:
(1) How might you imagine performing or otherwise staging this poem?
(2) How do you see this poem in relation to My Silent Cry, the choreography Shyamala created based on Uma's story? Would it layer on top? Immediately precede or follow the dance? Go somewhere else altogether in the show, yet link to the story?
(3) Any feedback on the writing?
(4) Mythili Prakash once performed Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman" in classical Bharatanatyam abhinaya, with the American poem translated into a South Indian language and sung Carnatic style. I am curious whether a similar strategy of "reverse" or "hidden" translation might be interesting here. Thoughts?
An interesting note - according to Oldenberg, many tawaifs were the victims of abuse before becoming courtesans:
ReplyDelete" ...the compelling circumstance that brought the majority of them to the various tawa'if households in Lucknow was the misery they endured in either their natal or their conjugal homes. Four of these women were widowed in their early teens, two of whom hailed from the same district and had lost their husbands in a cholera epidemic; three were sold by their parents when famine conditions made feeding these girls impossible. Seven were victims of physical
abuse, two of whom were sisters who were regularly beaten by their alcoholic father for not obliging him by making themselves sexually available to the toddy seller. Three were known victims of rape and therefore deemed ineligible for marriage; two had left their ill-paid jobs as municipal sweeper women, because they were tired of "collecting other people's dirt"; two were battered wives; one had left her husband because he had a mistress; and one admitted no particular hardship, only a love for singing and dancing that was not countenanced in her orthodox Brahmin home."
Of course this padam is from a South Indian tradition, so it is a slightly different context than the North Indian world of the tawaifs and baijis, but it's still an interesting connection between SAN and the courtesan material.
I would like to choreograph 2 versions of this padam/poem using abhinaya and hastha mudras in a video version that is zoomed in close and then another live version that is fast moving physical movement based in bharata natyam nrtta with some release/breath to it. I see the zoomed in face dance can be projected onto Shyamalas back before she begins "Silent Cry". The live physical version of the padam can be performed simultaneously with "Silent Cry" moving between the two. THe highly physical fast movement would be symbolic of Uma's shadow self reflecting all she wanted to say but couldn't for all those years. We could also play with the performing the video abhinaya version live if we perform my Varnam study as a trio (it can be one of the women's stories: 1) love & longing 2) silently suffering 3) angry and outspoken
ReplyDeleteI had an image of a woman cutting a huge pile of onions mechanically and eating them while saying either this poem or another text telling Uma's story. The tears would pour down from the onions but she would stay expressionless.
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to write another poem after listening to Uma's full interview.
I like both Cyn's and Anj's ideas very much- the onions- such a visceral image- I almost feel it should be live?
ReplyDeleteRegarding Anj's idea of choreographing several versions- I think it coincides with the many interpretations a padam allows for- of the same line, in different emotions, different characters. Thats what I meant by "translating through" the padam.
And I can see a physical version performed simultaneous with Shyamala's silent cry- though overlapping, rather than really simultaneous.
Cyn, your question about the reverse translation and hidden translation is intriguing. However, somehow, to me it does not connect to this re-written padam.
I'm very excited about the potential connection to the poetic tradition of the courtesans and the SAN women's experience!
ReplyDeleteyou wrote earlier: "if one rewrote the padam so that in the last stanza, instead of them making love "as well as ever," he comes to her stained with betel juice and asks her to tell him that she loves him, but her response is, "I didn't say a word," so that her passive acceptance becomes an act of resistance at the end."
The current version is a pretty tragic ending and I miss that feeling of her resistance...
perhaps consider moving it till after the monsoon of his love making? something like:
Friend, he made love to me
the same as ever,
the thorn carelessly shredding the leaf,
the monsoon rain battering the earth.
And as I lay there unmoving,
he said "tell me how much you love me"
"how much? how much? How much you love me?"
Friend, I didn't say a word.
Then perhaps the earlier stanza could go to the pallavi when he asks for a kiss.
Just some thoughts, either way I"m happy to share the whole interview with you for future possibilities!
I did think that cutting and eating the onions would be live!
ReplyDeleteInteresting to think about moving around the stanzas. I'd like to look at it when I have more leisure, but that being said, padams are not performed in a linear manner, and stanzas can drop out according to historical forgetting and the predilections of the dancer. Originally I did write the poem without the last stanza, and it really did not ring true to me.
One thought about ending on a note of "resistance" - I've been talking to a friend who was in an abusive relationship, and she said, after watching our NET performance, that she felt we were really romanticizing the moment of transformation (rather than the figure of the courtesan). For me I think that acts of resistance are contingent, momentary, provisional and that you never fully escape.
Another way to add more ambiguity is removing the word "unmoving"...
I just took a moment to look at the poem with Shy's change.
ReplyDeleteFor me, this shift makes the man a flatter and more evil character. I lose the sense that the man really loves the speaker - that his violence stems from a wish to control her that is rooted in a deep insecurity about whether she is fully his. I also lose any sense of motivation for his violence - in Ksettraya's poem, any moment of the man raising his voice or making a scene is always prompted by something the woman does. Incidentally, the way I've written the poem also maps on more directly to the actual incident from Uma's life, where her refusal to tell him that she loves him ends up with her being beaten.
Thanks so much for suggesting the change - it was very illuminating!