“In the shadow of the epic: The Ramayana’s quiet witnesses take the stage”, Open the magazine, March 05, 2026
“In the Ramayana, they stand just outside the blaze of the hero’s arc. A sister who is left behind without farewell. A nurse remembered only as the crooked whisper that altered a kingdom. A demoness reduced to appetite and mutilation. A queen who grieves after the fire has consumed her world. A counsellor whose wisdom arrives too early to matter. A daughter given away to a sage so destiny may proceed.
What She Said, written and directed by Gowri Ramnarayan, performed by Aarabi Veeraraghavan, Sunandha Raghunathan and Akhila Ramnarayan, turns toward these half-lit figures—Urmila, Manthara, Surpanakha, Mandodari, Tara, Shanta—framed by the Ramayana only in relation to fathers, husbands, brothers, kings. In Aham Sita, Ramnarayan’s earlier dance-theatre production with Priyadarshini Govind, Sita was at the centre of the story while Ramnarayan stepped intermittently into the lives of the women who surrounded her—Urmila, Ahalya, others whose presences flicker and fade in the epic. “I became fascinated by these women whose stories are so partially told or mentioned only very briefly in the epic.”
Take Urmila. When Lakshmana vows to follow Rama into exile, the text makes clear where his priorities lay: “In his mind there was nothing dearer, not even his wife.” Ramnarayan restores the human cost of that displacement. Her Urmila is scholar, dancer, archer, daughter of Janaka, yet perpetually “one step behind” Sita, the miracle child. When exile comes, Lakshmana does not consult her. Service supersedes marriage. The epic records the decision, the play records its afterlife…….”
Read full article at openthemagazine.com
