Kaisi Paheli..returns

There you go. You didn’t have to wait so long, did you? In continuation to the previous post, the details of the Avadhana I saw follows.

The Avadhani here, Ganesh was posed 8 challenges by the Prucchakas through 3 rounds, where he solved the challenges sparingly in each round. The 8 Prucchakas handled one form or type of challenge. They were:
1. Sankhyabadhana
            A 5X5 grid was given to the Avadhani and he had to fill it up with any numbers [non-repeating] so that the total on each horizontal, vertical and diagonal had to be the 225 [In this session]. The Avadhani was told about this in the beginning and he hardly mused about it for 2 min before jumping on the other challenges. Throughout the session, the Prucchaka, kept interrupting the Avadhani and asked him for a particular number in the grid. For eg: He suddenly asked the Avadhani “what number has to come in 3^rd row 2^nd column?”
            The Avadhani told a number and that was filled in that position. At the end of the session, he completed the grid almost correctly. There were a few mistakes in between, which he instantly corrected.

2. NishEdaakshara
            Here, the designated Prucchaka asked the Avadhani to describe “Vasanta Ruthu” in a 4 line Sanskrit poem. Of course, this is impromptu. :-) But there should be a catch isn’t it?? Well, the catch was that the Prucchaka bars the Avadhani from using a particular letter in the beginning. In this case it was “va”. So the Avadhani said he will use the letter “Shree” at the start. The Prucchaka then said he cannot use “ma” as the second letter. The Avadhani used “sa”. This goes on for all the four lines [one or two words at a time before being interrupted by another Prucchaka!] Phew..and note that it should also be correct to the metric given by the Prucchaka.
            Difficult isn’t it??

3. Samasyapoorna
            The Prucchaka here should give a puzzle to the Avadhani and asks him to solve it in a particular metric. The Avadhani has to give the answer in poetic format adhering to the constraints. The puzzle posed this time was “Bhimarjunau hanthau harirjagaanah”. The Avadhani gave a beautiful composition [impromptu and not told continuously of course…but I guess you would have got the hang of it by now!!!] of how the two mighty [Bhim] Arjuna trees were shattered by Krishna as an infant and freed the two sons of Kubera from a curse. I just loved this.

4. Datthapadha
            Here, the assigned Prucchaka gives 4 words to the Avadhani and asks him to come up with a 4 line poem with Virodhaabasa [Each line should be an oxymoron]
In this case, the words were “gesha, nesha, hesha and Nesha. The Avadhani described Lord Shiva using these in the words Nagesha, Dinesha, Mahesha and GaNesha.

To give an example of an oxymoron he used, in the line with the word Dinesha: “Though his head is shining like Dinesha [Sun] he adores the Moon on his head”.

5. Chitrabandha
            In this challenge, the Prucchaka asks the Avadhani to depict the message from Sita to Rama through Hanuman. And the catch is he should create the poem in Bashaantaraabhaasa i.e. The four lines of the poem should be in different languages. BUT if the words are split or joined together at diff positions, they become Sanskrit wordss.

Didn’t get it?? :-( This is difficult to explain. Well, here’s another go at it with the poem he created.
            The four lines were in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi respectively. The last line was “Manlo Kab NaaHi tha” If they are split, rejoined at diff positions then you get the Sanskrit line being “Man lok abna hitha” or something similar. [Not very sure about the exact Sanskrit line cause we didn’t note it down.] But you get the point right? [Please tell me you did!!! :-) ]

6. Aashukavitha
            I think this was the easiest compared to the others. The Prucchaka has to give a topic to the Avadhani and he has to compose a short poem on it [4 lines, impromptu, metric constraints remaining the same]. In the program there were 2 Prucchakas – One gave topic for Kannada poem and the other for Telugu. The topics were Mauna [Silence], Lone tree on the top of a mountain.etc.

What amazed me was the creativeness of the Avadhani and the similes he used. They were very beautiful and made the topic so Aakarshaniya. :-)

7. KavithaVaachana
            In simple terms this was “Reference to context”. The Prucchaka recited a shloka and the Avadhani had to guess the work, the author, the chapter and verse [Yes!!!] and the context of the shloka. The shlokas given to him were ranging from Kalidasa’s Meghadhoota to Banabhaatta’s Kaadambari. He guessed them right and for 1 or 2 shlokas he even sang along with the Prucchaka! This was a very nice round since we drew analogy to the way we guess the movie and the context when we listen to a dialogue or a song :-)

8.Aprasthitha Prasanga
            This was the most interesting form and the Prucchaka for this is called AprasthithaPrasangi. His sole aim is to interrupt the Avadhani at any point of time, while completing a line of some poem, or when he is thinking what number should go into that particular house in the grid, or when he is trying to tell the letters he is using in the NishEdAkshara challenge. The Prucchaka tried his level best to divert the Avadhani’s attention and this sure gets irritating sometimes. Not for the Avadhani..but us, the audience!! :-)
            The AprasthithaPrasangi this time was asking questions ranging from common topics or about the Avadhani himself to quotes from certain Sanskrit words and his opinion on it. The audience was also encouraged to give questions which the Prucchaka would ask. After answering each question, you would have just thought that the Avadhani would have forgotten something, but no!!! He would start off again the next instant.

            PHEW!!!

All in all, a total confusing, yet thought-provoking, marvelous time for the audience. Enjoyed every minute of it totally!!! :-)

This is just a humble, yet long, attempt to explain this art-form. By the way, not sure if I have given the exact meaning of things here. So apologies in advance for any subtle or glaring mistakes.

To think I would have missed this because of the throw ball match fatigue!!! :-) Thanks Kartha for persuading me to come. Thanks to him and Sunil, for the notes they took of this program.