Shaakuntalam

Imagine, if you will, the archetypal school play that is based on a mythological tale. Kids stumble onto the stage in homespun costumes: kings in plastic crowns, commoners in rags, and sages in saffron lungis carrying canes and tiny kalasams. And under the harsh glare of stage lights, these hapless young actors sputter their memorized lines with feverish intensity, flailing their arms about in exaggerated gestures. Sitting in the audience are the poor parents, bored beyond the telling of it, and yet still watching, with their eyes glazed over in a kind of benign torpor, purely out of love for ....