A man sits on the floor,his blue-and-green checked lungi neatly folding around his legs. His name,we are told,is Raghavan. He faces a tiny yellow mirror. Scattered around him are several pots of colour and make-up,white-and-orange gajras and gleaming jewellery. He reaches out for a pot of foundation and begins to dab it on his face with a make-up sponge. By the time he is done,his skin is several shades lighter and there is no sign of his stubble. His lips are vermillion,the same brilliant shade as the bindi on his forehead,his eyebrows are black,long and beautifully curved,and his eyes thickly lined with kohl. Raghavan checks his reflection and pins ornaments into his hair. He does all this in a manner so casual and unaffected that it can only come from habit or routine. Suddenly conscious,however,he turns away to put on his blouse. As he drapes a sari and fixes the pleats,the transformation is complete. No longer Raghavan,this sari-clad enigma goes on stage as the mythological character,Draupadi. The gender transformation was really interesting for me. I went in asking what brings about this transformation. I wasnt too sure what wed find,but in the 40 days we were with them,we did find some answers, says Sonalee Hardikar,a professor of theatre arts at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII),Pune,who captured Raghavans metamorphosis in a photo essay titled An Actor Prepares: Draupadi. Raghavan and his troupe are Terukkuttu performers,portraying the story of Draupadi through the traditional Tamil street theatre form. Intrigued by the gender transformation and other nuances of the art form,Hardikar visited the troupe in Purusai,a village near Mammallapuram in Tamil Nadu. Her photo essay mainly comprises pictures taken on the 25th day of her trip. This was the middle of the trip; we were comfortable with them and could keep asking questions,back and forth. But all the actors would invariably say,kapde pehen liye aur ho gaya,whenever we asked them about the change, she recalls. But the moment he puts on the make-up even before the blouse is on the line of his neck changes,his gaze and the way he carries himself are radically transformed. When he began putting his under garment on,he turned around suddenly. He was already in character,and had turned around to protect his feminine modesty. This nuance was very interesting. Later,when he becomes Draupadi,there are other people who react to him in the gender role that he is playing,like the man whom Ive photographed kissing Draupadi, she says. For Hardikar,the project is part of an ongoing search for how gender reflects in theatre arts. She says,When I am looking at gender,I am also looking at the possibilities in which gender can be played. So,it isnt about whether a man is playing a woman. There is a gurukulam,where girls portray male characters. What happens to our understanding of gender in such cases? When she was in another green room adjoining Raghavans room,there were two transgenders who were also changing into female costumes,but felt no need to turn away from her. They could button or unbutton their clothes in front of me or other women. So the question of gender and gender divide also comes from what you have been and what you are transforming into, she says.
