A Mammoth tale

The novel – The Elephant’s Journey – by the late José de Sousa Saramago was published in 2008,and now,three years later,it has been adapted into a Marathi play,Gajab Kahani. The novel had garnered rave reviews,not only for its interesting historic documentation but also for the bluntness and rawness with which it portrayed the paucity of human emotions. And that was the idea that prompted the play producers to adapt the novel in a manner in which they could stay faithful to the original story that made it a publishing phenomenon in Europe.

Presented by Aasakta on Thursday at the Yashwantrao Chavan Natyagruha,the actors included Umesh Jagtap,Geetanjali Kulkarni and Nachiket Purnapatre in the lead roles of the commander,the elephant and the mahout respectively. “While not many people have read Saramago’s works,his writing style has a uniqueness that has captured the imagination of a lot of people. Something akin to the Hindi Bakhr writing style,where not many punctuations are used. That was what actually drew me to the novel. The long sentences with no punctuations,no proper nouns for characters and no inverted commas for the quotes sort of challenged me to adapt the novel,” says Pradeep Vaiddya,the man behind the Marathi translation and stage adaptation.

The play had the elephant and the mahout as the main narrators. “Because they are the only Indians in the story. The commander who is also another prominent character is introduced as the third narrator,” Vaiddya adds.

The original novel tells the story of Solomon – the elephant and his mahout,who travelled from Goa to Lisbon and then made a journey to Vienna in 1551. Travelling through the European landscapes at an unhurried pace,the animal and the mahout attend various functions and meet villagers,townsfolk,and military men who differently interpret the sudden enigma of an elephant entering their lives. “An interesting part about Saramago’s novel is the minute observation that he made of human nature. The wonder on seeing the elephant,which is not a common animal,the foreign mahout,the attitudes of the local politicians and how it affects the common people are all little things that have been captured beautifully in the novel. And we hoped to replicate the same in the play,” Vaiddya adds.