Articulating Mountains Through Mofussil Aesthetics

Abstract

This article investigates the crucial role of operatic theatre tradition in representing the mountain culture of Uttarakhand, a region that became the twenty-seventh state of the Republic of India in 2000. Uttarakhand culture is extremely diverse, so in this article I solely examine the performance practices of the Kumaoni community and, in particular, a Kumaoni opera called Rajula Malushahi, which is based on a folk mountain legend. This article problematizes and expands the range of influence of mountain cultures by drawing on a version of this story by Indian director Amit Saxena, performed on 17 January 2017, at the Sri Ram Centre for Performing Arts, Delhi. The first part of the article traces the emergence of the Kumaoni opera tradition and its ability to articulate the voice of these mountain people. In the second and third parts, I examine the dramaturgical practices of Rajula Malushahi and demonstrate how it diverged from mainstream Indian dramaturgies, and how this voiced the anxieties and dilemmas of peripheral mountain cultures. These strategic diversions reimagined the idea of mountains and the female gender. I argue that Kumaoni operatic theatre tradition, which is based on folk narratives, continually connects mountains, human bodies and modern environmental discourses, and thus offers a critique of entrenched modern divisions between humans and non-humans.