Live performance for Kartik Fine Arts Margazhi Mahotsavam 2013
Concept and Choreography: Divya Devaguptapu
Music: Easwar Ramakrishnan
Adapted from a Telugu poem Kunti Kumari by Jandhyala Paapaya Shastry.
Here, Princess Kunti, is conflicted with emotions of joy and sorrow, duty and motherhood, of personal choice and societal acceptance and filled with deep sadness when taking her most difficult step to abandon her first born, Karna (son of Surya), into the Ganga. At first, unsure of how society would accept her with a newborn out of wedlock, she decides to give up her life and that of her son and starts walking into the Ganga, when she notices a box floating towards her. Taking that a sign of hope she decides to place her child into the box, and as she does so she looks at her son for the first time as a mother and starts to fall in love with him. However, quickly realizing that society always comes first for a woman, gripping her heart and wiping away her tears, she places the infant in the box and sends him into the Ganga… asking the river for forgiveness and to find a “suitable” mother for him… At the same time looking up towards the Sun God, the father of her child, in hope and despair.