CHENNAI: Mad and Divine Women, a three-day event featuring dance performances and talks by eminent personalities, opened to a packed audience on Friday here at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mylapore. The event is a part of 11th Natya Darshan Seminar and began by honouring Kum. MR Sruthipriya, disciple of J Suryanarayanamurthy, with the title of ‘Natya Chudar’. L Sabaretnam, Chairman, Kartik Fine Arts, inaugurated the event. The first-day of the event saw a powerpoint presentation on ‘Legends of the Goddess: Andal stories in Srivaishnava traditions’ by Dr Archana Venkatesan, University of California, a dance performance of ‘Ojas’ by Vidhya Subramanian, and a speech by mythologist and corporate trainer, Devdutt Pattanaik, on ‘Myth of the Mad Mystical Women.’Through discussions, poems, songs and dance performances, the conference aims to remember and bring to the forefront India’s beloved saint poets such as Andal, Meera and Jogeswari, said Anita Ratnam, the convenor of the event. “We explore how the divine is yearned for and attained by these figures. It is often judged by their family and society as ‘madness’. Is such ‘madness’ necessary to reach the divine? Why is it that when men express such feelings, they are called ‘the realised one’ while women are called ‘mad’?” asked Ratnam. The conference aims to seek answers for questions such as these. “Overall, the conference will offer three days of Madras, Mallipoo, Mylapore, Margazhi and Madness,” Ratnam added.The schedules for December 24 include a performance by Rajashree Shirke on ‘Saint Kanhopatra’ on Marathi women saints and a talk by Akhila Ramnarayan on ‘Temporal transgressions: Going global with bhakti’. December 25 will see Vyjayantimala Bali being honoured with the Life Time Achievement Award and a talk by Nirupama Vaidhyanathan on ‘Meerabai and St Teresa of Avilla: Lives in parallel worlds’.
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