13 | The sound of starvation

Paarvai (The Gaze) is a new play performed in a hybrid style combining elements from Kattaikkuttu and contemporary acting. This requires a lot of attention for the dramaturgy and music, in addition to flexibility to handle Paarvai’s hybrid cast of senior and junior performers. Situated in 19th century South India one of its themes is the Great Madras Famine of 1877-1878,

As a musician playing the mukavinai, Hanne (one of the artistic directors) presented me with an artistic challenge asking me to imagine whether extreme deprivation and suffering has a sound and if so, what this sound should/could be like. For the first time, I had an opportunity to try something entirely new using my instrument creatively. Her challenge forced me to step out of my ‘traditional’ raga/talam structure to find out what other sounds my instrument could produce.

In the production we recreate a dehumanising photograph shot by a British colonial photographer, but  using real bodies and real people to form the tableau reminiscent of the original photograph. The hunger-sound accompanies this tableau of starving men, women and children. It is meant to have an emotional impact on the spectators, making them feel their suffering. 

Initially, I had no idea where/how  to start. I struggled to dissociate myself from my regular musical practice - to take the freedom to experiment and figure out a creative composition that had the desired effect.  After discussing my dilemma, I got some ideas from Hanne that I could work with, such as creating a very slow paced sound in a  high, almost hallucinating pitch that suddenly descended or ended abruptly. A second challenge was to fit this composition into the actual performance aligning it with what the actors say on the stage, while simultaneously highlighting musically the impact of the tableau.  Through trial and error, recording stretches of music and listening back to them, reproducing them during the rehearsals and refining them, I came up with a composition that got the approval of the directors. However, while this composition provides the basic ‘sound-track’ I still need to improvise in order to finetune it every time again to what happens onstage during the actual performance. 

Convincing others that a contemporary sound-track can work within a traditional medium was not an easy task either. Ultimately, I needed to get the approval (with Hanne’s support) of the other artistic director, P Rajagopal who, as an experienced performer, director and playwright, not only looks at the music but also at its placement, effectiveness and workability in the  performance as a whole. 

The process of finding a sound that represents the idea of starvation and extreme suffering has made me think about the flexibility of Kattaikkuttu’s music, and more in particular, the music of the mukavinai, and my freedom as a musician to experiment with sound. I hope to continue this process in the future and publish more sound-tracks online.

Sasikumar Panchu (musician)