Deraje Seetharamayya's Kurukshetrakkondu Ayoga- A Probe into Kurukshetra

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Deraje Seetharamayya (1914-1984) is remembered even today for his contribution to the field of Talamaddale a form of Yakshagana in which the participating artists sit across in a place and present the episode chosen for the day (generally either from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata) through soliloquy, dialogue and debate in an impromptu speech sans the traditional costume and dance in response to the song sung in the conventional style of Yakshagana by the Bhagavata to the accompaniment of chende and maddale - the percussion instruments.

The oratorical skills of the artist in sketching the character that he represents by unraveling the motifs for his actions under the given circumstances is a testimony of the artist's ingenuity gained through his close reading of the classical texts and his ability to interpret the events in his own unique style, of course without violating the broad structure of the Text. It is a feast to the listeners of Talamaddale to listen in rapt attention to the arguments and counter arguments presented by the artists in defending, justifying, and explicating the characters they play. All human emotions are played out so powerfully that the audience seems to be transported into that grandiloquent mythological world of yore without any conscious efforts on their part. Audience aren't generally so much interested in knowing the storyline of the episode being presented which they anyway know, but HOW the team of artists develop and present that chosen episode. Hence, the same episode even when presented by the same artists in any repeat performance is not the exact replica of any previous performance; it evolves continually and looks fresh every time. Hence the artists of Talamaddale are called 'arthadhari' - the one who explicates 'meaning," whereas the Yakshagana artists are called "veshadhari' - the one who adorns costumes and also performs the typical Yakshagana-style of dance in addition in order to depict the emotions of the character he plays.