ChayaMukhi

ChayaMukhi – An ode to Prasanth Narayanan

Nobody watches dramas any more these days .Most people consider it as monotonous ,slow ,no gimmicks ,no innovation old stuff and hence in the process miss out some of the most beautiful works ever produced in any medium.
Chayamukhi is one such a gem. Written and directed by Prasanth Narayanan ,a versatile artist with an ever probing intellect ,a talented writer and a crazy director,Chayamukhi takes the viewer to the realms and thoughts never traversed before. I am a big admirer of this great artist and its not just because he was my neighbor or because he was my Guru who taught me the basics of drama but because of the sheer brilliance of his literary skill.

The play is a fusion of the Mahabharata and the present world and the entire story is told and viewed through the eyes of three petty thieves who venture into the forest and witness certain events depicted in Mahabharata.

The story starts with Hidumbi seeing the second Pandava prince Bheeman in te forest and falling in love with him .After some intimate days with Bheeman whom she loves no ends ,presents him with a mirror. ChayaMukhi, the magic mirror which shows the person you love the most when u looks at it. It was Hidumbi’s prized possession and all she could see in it was Bheemans face. Expecting to see hers on it when bheemasenan looks at it, she hands him over the mirror as a gift. But to her dismay, it was Panchali’s face that filled the mirror when Bheeman gazed at it and she resigns to the fate that Bheeman never loved her as much as Panchali.
On returning to the Pandavas, Bhemaan hands over ChayaMukhi to panchali for safekeeping and asks her never to look at it. As days passed, Bheeman became more and more curious to know whether his face would appear if panchali looks at it .So one day he asks panchali to have a look at Chayamukhi and glistened the beautiful picture of the warrior prince Arjun. It shook him no bounds to learn that even while being with him, its Arjun whom Panchali always love and never him.
As with the vanavsam, Pandavas always move him from one place to another and finally they come up in the VIrad kingdom. There Draupathi disguises herself and becomes the first mad to the queen of the Virad .One fine day, the queen sees Draupadi gazing at Chayamukhi. Intrigued by the mirror, she gets the mirror from Draupadi and looks at it. Instead of seeing the wrinkled, old and tired face of the king of Virad in the mirror, there appears the picture of a young man in the army.

Time went by and entered Keechakan .He got fascinated with draupathi the moment he set eyes on her and decided to make her his wife. One day draupadi shows the mirror to keechakan and he sees a blank image on it .Confused, he realizes that he ahs never loved anybody In his life even though he have had many affairs. He realizes the biggest loss in life and changes instantly, he started loving draupadi with all his heart. As his love for draupadi grew ,she got afraid and tells bheemasensan about keechahan and they decided to kill him .Under some false pretext,Draupadi invites keehakan to her room where Bheeman was hiding. Severe fight ensues and meanwhile keechakan gets hold of the mirror and looks at it while getting beaten by Bheeman . The mirror displays the face of Panchali and bheeman gets stunned seeing it . He realizes that there is no difference between him and keechakan . They both are in love with Panchali and are ready to die for her while she is in love with some else . It seems to him that there fight is meaningless because whoever wins or whatever happens ,panchali is never going to love any of them . Nevertheless Bheeman somehow manages to kill Keechakan and finally crying throws the mirror to the ground,

Chayamukhi shatters ……….