CONTACT PLAYWRIGHT

Synopsis

Shikhandi is perhaps one of the earliest trans-characters known in mythology. She appears in the Mahabharata and plays a crucial part in winning the battle of Kurukshetra for the Pandavas. Arjun hides behind Shikhandi and kills Bhishma by showering a volley of arrows at him. Bhishma does not raise his weapons against Shikhandi as he sees Shikhandi as a woman and not a man. Shikhandi was Amba in her previous life. Amba was abducted on her wedding day, by Bhishma, for his brother Vichitravirya. Amba was to marry her lover, who then spurns her saying that Bhishma has already “touched” her. When Amba goes back to Bhishma he refuses to marry her because he has sworn celibacy. Amba in a rage prays to Shiva to make her the cause of Bhishma’s death (Bhishma cannot die; he has a boon to choose his time of death). Shiva blesses her but says he can only help her in her next life. Amba then ends her life so that she can be reborn as a man. The bigger karmic game unfolds when she is reborn female, but raised male, called Shikhandi. On her wedding night, her wife finds out that Shikhandi is a woman and creates havoc. Shikhandi runs away into the forest where she meets a Yaksha who gives his penis to her, because he wants to be a woman. Shikhandi is then able to fulfil her destiny as a “man” on the battlefield - to be the cause of Bhishma’s death. The play is a comic, tongue-in- cheek retelling of the story of Shikhandi; mixing the traditional with the contemporary, the grandeur of physical Indian storytelling and contemporary English verse- questioning gender, sexuality, maleness, femaleness and everything in-between.

Duration

90   Minutes

No of characters

16