Mar 14 2025 to Mar 14 2025 7 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Gandhari, Kunti and Draupadi are the three women intricately woven into the tapestry that is the Mahabharata. They weave in and out of all the major events leading to the war at Kurukshetra. Who are these women? What part do they play in the oncoming war? What dilemmas do they confront, and how does it shape their lives?

Indian-Scottish storyteller Gauri Raje and Scottish musician Mairi Campbell tell the stories of these three women in the Mahabharata, the world’s longest epic. This telling of the Mahabharata creates a story woven from classical and folk versions of the epic where Scottish and Indian rhythms meet to question the consequence of wars on women, and their complicity in them.

Adapted and performed by Gauri Raje

Musically directed and performed by Mairi Campbell

Directed by Kath Burlinson

Produced by KT Productions, Glasgow

This event is a part of the two day Storytelling Theatre Festival curated by Vijay Padaki. The link to the other event is here

Artistes

Gauri Raje
Storyteller
Gauri Raje holds a PhD in Anthropology, diploma in film editing and has trained in storytelling in India and the UK. She has trained and worked with Theatre of Witness in Northern Ireland and England, a performance approach that focuses on biographical storytelling by people who have no experience with theatre. During her field work among communities in south Gujarat, she found herself engaging with displaced people, traditional healers and their patients. Much of the time was spent listening stories and narratives in their many forms became the main focus of her interest. When she began to live in UK, she found writing inadequate to explain many of the stories and her experiences. She came across storytelling as a counter cultural art form when she was researching a simpler, more everyday word for ‘narratives’. There followed a decade of un-writing. In order to understand the radical nature of the oral word, she stopped writing, trained in storytelling and began to work orally with stories. Since 2019, she has acquired confidence to regard herself as a storyteller.

Vijay Padaki
Curator
Vijay Padaki has worn many caps all his life. One of them is in management, with a special interest in organization and institutional development. He was part of the founding faculty of IIM Bangalore and a tenured Professor there. The other cap has been in the theatre, being associated with Bangalore Little Theatre (BLT) from its inception in 1960. He is particularly committed to dissemination in the Theatre, which is reflected in his long track record in writing and training. He is an internationally recognised Theatre Educator with over sixty years of experience as an actor, director, designer and administrator. Vijay was responsible for several long term thrusts of BLT. He is currently Trustee Emeritus at BLT.