The International Theatre Institute (ITI), in 1961, declared March 27 as World Theatre Day. Jean Cocteau was the person who wrote the first World Theatre Day message in 1962. Since then, World Theatre Day has been celebrated every year on March 27, the date of the opening of the 1962 "Theatre of Nations" season in Paris. Speaking of ‘stage’, I cannot go any further without paying tribute to the greatest showman of stage-shows, William Shakespeare, the famous bard of Avon from the 16th century.
Shakespeare compared the world to a stage in the opening line from a monologue by a character, Jaques, in ‘As You Like It’. Through Jaques, Shakespeare takes the audience on a journey of the complete lifecycle of a human being, made particularly vivid by his poetic description of the different stages of an Elizabethan’s life. The famous monologue is also known as ‘The Seven Ages of Man’.
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages… and so forth the Bard narrates the seven stages of man — from the time of his birth until his death.
Recently, I was watching a recording of the Mohammed Ali Memorial Service speech given by Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of United States, and what caught my attention was the way President Clinton eulogised Ali’s later years of life, which, according to him, were more profound even though he was called ‘The Greatest’ in his early boxing career. The President interpreted that Ali proved himself ‘Greater’, subsequently, with the humanitarian cause he had pursued after he had retired as the World Heavyweight Champion. Clinton said that Ali’s later years were ‘unsaid’. Ali, according to Clinton, decided at a very young age to write his own script, ignoring the surroundings and circumstances under which he was born. This happens once in a billion events in history. Ali never was afraid of the consequences of acting on what he believed in. In a sense, Ali never believed the surroundings in the world stage, he designed his own act and that had impressed the Director — just like great people like His Excellency Abdul Kalam, former President of India.
Similarly, I cannot resist mentioning one of my favourites in Telugu poetry by a great poet saint of south India during the 15th century, Tallapaka Annamacharya. In one of my favourites of his — ‘Nanati Brathuku Natakamu (meaning ‘everyday life is a drama’) — Annamaya conveyed the essence of life with his wonderful philosophical insight:
‘Everyday life is a drama,
What is seen, yet not seen is — the liberation.
To be born is the truth, and to die is the truth,
Our role in between the birth and death is the player in the drama only,
We only witness the world in front of us and assume as if its reality,
But we don’t see the ultimate goal which is liberation… which means that we fail to search for the exit route from the stage play and fall into the trap of entering again and again onto the stage with a new costume on. We often fail to see the reality behind the physical world.
I don’t remember the number of times I have been on this stage in the past. I should have argued loudly, fought and drawn daggers until I bled, all with hatred assuming that I was insulted or betrayed. The identity of ‘Me’ itself is a mystery that I have not yet discovered. Later, I realised that the script was breached by all, including me, and in the quandary, I too had responded and retaliated, overdoing them, possessed with the psyche that ‘I’ was real and ignoring the fact that it was only a play. In the process, I could have committed an endless tally of sins or else I wouldn’t be here.
I thought that whatever I possessed belonged to me, which was the first great misunderstanding. I thought the given and taken financial transactions, losses and gains were mine and mine alone, and the property that I had inherited and lost was mine, the luxury I enjoyed and the hardship I had endured were by ‘me’ alone. Later, I came to know that they were all ‘set properties’ and ‘background screens’ that vanish when the Director beckons them. People who played different roles with me in the act were thought to be mine and I not only played but fought with them. Some who played perfectly well found the exit from the stage and I doubt whether they will ever return, and even if they return to redo a residual imperfect part, I would never recognise them for their costume would obviously be different. They only leave memories.
At this juncture, once again, I recollect the last stanza of Annamaya’s song cited above:
Tegadu papamu, teeradu punyamu,
Nagi nagi kalamu natakamu… Annamaya says that the sins never end, so are the good deeds without any completion, for it is impossible to reconcile the tally and this entire process is just a laughable drama, for the flaws continue to reflect as brought forward for the next play.
My body aches and goes to rest for five to six hours after the sunset and recollect where I had gone wrong in playing my role. But, unfortunately, in my deep sleep, I remember nothing, but in my semi-consciousness, I am influenced by my senses with likes and dislikes. — reason: there were flaws in the last act and we are asked to perform again. As days went by, I got trapped again in the delusion and started committing flaws again and again, despite several lessons that I was continuing to assume that everything is real on stage, unable to comprehend the falsity of the world I am in.
I watched the great actors and supporting actors whom I was unable to acknowledge, but felt the absence of their radiance after they exited. The actors in the supporting role were specially enrolled by the Director to assist me to get my act perfectly well, but I did not realise it in the past. Now, I have a clear understanding of the purpose of those supporting actors as it slowly dawned on me that I cannot reach perfection unless I first accomplish ‘Best Actor in a Supporting Role’. It is ironic that one thinks of becoming the ‘Best Actor’ without proving oneself as a ‘Supporting Actor’. It needs infinite perfection to satisfy the Director and I know it is impossible. Hence, all the players in the script are to prove themselves as ‘Best Supporting Actors’ to maintain harmony on the world stage.
Astonishingly, I was born midday on March 27 in the year 1956 at Kakinada, a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh, and once again, my play in the drama started when the Director whispered ‘action’ in my ear. And like all earthlings, my first act started with a huge cry in agony that I was beckoned to act once again, an opportunity to do it perfectly at least this time.
I fell and fell on the floor all through the first half and then I managed to stand up, realising that this was only a play with an insignificant role in this grandeur stage play. The act should be with perfection, I realised, or else the Director will remand me back to the stage. I should correct the blunders I had committed during my last act and the one I am playing now.
This round, the Director intentionally gave me an entrance on March 27 to remind me that I was introduced on World Theatre Day, giving me a clue that at least now I should realise that the world’s a stage and that I should not have any attachments to my role or costumes and perform to His expectations to exit from the stage forever.
Now, I am given the role of an ‘advocate’ and I started my career searching for the meaning of ‘advocate’ and ‘advocacy’, where the meaning is clear that it is an act in support of others’ causes. It is necessary to be a student of philosophy to be a good lawyer and you need to be a prolific writer, primarily, to be a lawyer and to record my thoughts or insights. And now I am confident that I am competent to perform the roles. I am cautious not to switch to any other script and, hence, I am pursuing it, trying to improvise it to the best of my capacity, aware of the Director’s watch.
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