Remembering Gayatri Krishnaswamy (1936-2024) Long time President of the Madras Players. And Ex. British Council with her late husband K. Krishnaswamy.
This is a trumpet solo for Gayatri Krishnaswami, the long-time President of the Madras Players. She has taken her final bow at the age of 87 alone – but leaving behind a whole orchestra of diverse symphonies.
In the last two years, Gayatri was bereft of the love of her life, Kiccha, or K. Krishnaswamy as everyone knew him. Together they were a team. You might imagine them as a pair of tandem cyclists trailing the flags of the arts and literature at the British Council, while also enabling young Indian artists, dancers, choreographers and playwrights to experience first hand whatexperiments were being made in late mid-century U.K. They operated a two way traffic exchange that was to earn them both individual OBEs (Order of the British Empire). But for those who witnessed at least a few of the 240 theatre productions from the mid 1960s there can be no medals, only memories of glittering performances by some of the most charismatic individuals each tempered to perfection by an extraordinary company of friends.
Gayatri Krishnaswamy (Grace).As observed by P.C. Ramakrishna, a legend now in various fields of the theatre world, in the book Bring down the House Lights – 50 years of the Madras Players written and compiled by him: “Grace (known as Gayatri) and Krishnaswami (Kiccha to his friends) were both working with the British Council. Grace was in charge of the programmes and cultural affairs, while Kiccha was the boss of finance… One of the earliest members of the Madras Players, she structured and organised several programmes and collaborations with The Council – short plays, readings, poetry sessions, workshops on theatre, plus major British plays, presented by us in association with the Council. She coordinated the bringing down to India of eminent theatre directors to conduct workshops, leading to productions of plays in Madras.” (Page 55).
In her capacity as President of the Madras Players, Gayatri wrote a brief history of the group, including a quote from Girish Karnad, who was then a fledgling member.
To include a small excerpt from the Introduction: “The Madras Players, which celebrated its golden jubilee in 2005, is the oldest English theatre group in India. We started out as a group of young theatre enthusiasts, mostly students, who were members of a play-reading group established by the British Council to promote English language theatre. Our early efforts were confined to Shakespeare and classic British and American plays. We then went on to present contemporary plays.
In the late sixties and early seventies, we attempted English translations of works by Indian playwrights. These plays were successful and well received by our audiences because of their relevance. Between 1963 and 1970, Girish Karnad was working in Madras and was an active member of our group as an actor, director and translator. To quote him – “In those seven years (with The Madras Players) I was involved with some twenty plays – by Pinter, Williams, Shaw, Beckett – and I learnt how language needs to be used on stage: the rhythm, the pacing, the allowances for breath and movement, the pause, the pitching. We also staged some translations by Sartre, Pirandello, Chekhov and so on, and quite diligently compared different versions before deciding on any one. This was excellent training and I asked myself why I couldn’t translate my own plays.”
When they first came to the City they were known as the Adiyappa Sisters, Grace and Ida from Bangalore. They carried with them the elegance of their Coorg heritage. Ida taught English at the Queen Mary’s College at a time when the English Department under the extraordinarily charismatic Head, Lucy Thomas presided over a menagerie of exceptionally gifted young teachers. This was probably true of the other Colleges in the City in the Sixties. There was a tremendous sharing of ideas and fresh experiences from places as different as Kalakshetra for dance as theatre, the Cholamandal Artists village, the Weavers Service Centre, and in time at what became “Spaces” with Chandralekha, the dancer-choreographer. They may have existed as small tribal groups each with a leading personality, but there was also a cross-fertilization between the tribes.
Looking back through the pages of Ramakrishna’s book it’s also obvious that it was a time when a sorority of women led the charge. One has only to look at the table of contents in Ram’s book. Ammu Mathew is introduced as “The Queen Bee”; but there were also Yamuna, Bhagyam, Vishalam and Lakshmi paired here with her husband S.V. Krishnamurthy as “The First Couple”. Gayatri’s role was to be the hummingbird dipping her beak into these disparate groups and ensuring that the honey would be there for others to share.
I may be forgiven for including a small vignette of my own participation in a playlet by Anton Chekov called The Proposal with Tamby Kadambavanam and Ashok Nehru in 1965, at the Gymkhana Club.
If however I could single out one production that was epic it has to be Hayavadana by Girish Karnad directed by Yamuna Somasundaram as she was known then in 1991. It not only brought into focus Karnad’s skill as a playwright able to introduce philosophical themes of the mind-body dichotomy, with its blend of folk, myth and Western Existentialism, but under Yamuna’s direction produced a palate of visual delight in its use of costumes, music and dance, and the freeing of space through lighting techniques that were revolutionary at the time.
In the theatre with its evanescent delights, Gayatri Krishnaswamy exuded a singular grace and we can only salute her memory.
(This tribute would not have been possible but for the very generous inputs by Gopi Nair, who became a part of the Madras Players in 1977, by V.V. Subramanian who with Kiccha’s family members was with Gayatri through her last days and from the excerpts borrowed from P.C. Ramakrishna’s book. My thanks to them. GD)