Mhendomaya
Play Name: Mhendomaya
Director: Ghimire Yubaraj
Playwright: Fulman Bal
On Stage:
- Dilmaya Tamang
- Shanti Lama
- Santosh Gurung
- Santosh Tamang
- Sukumaya Moktan
- Nima Lama
- Sharmila Yonjan
- Bir Bahadur Tamang
- Uday Lama Tuwa
- Ashwin Lama
- Prakriti
- Bijay
Description:
Based on a folk tale from Tamang culture, the play
shows the struggle of women in different time periods. Their crisis differ from time to time, but their struggles remains the same. After the untimely demise of Tamba, a historian and the cultural expert on the oral culture of Tamang people, his wife Nanakhewa takes over the task of storytelling. She narrates the story of ‘Gole Bombo’ who bets to kill the snakes of Bhairav Kunda that are troubling the human beings. He succeeds in overpowering the snakes with his celestial powers and comes out of the Kunda carrying those snakes on his shoulders. Frightened to see him like that, his wife Mhendomaya runs away without sprinkling holy rice over them. Golebombo’s power weakens and snakes win the battle. As a widow, Mehndomaya wishes to remarry and begin her new life. Villagers agrees to her proposition and accepts her as the heir of Gole Bombo. However, Nankhewa, while reciting this story raises the question if it was really ethical of Mehndomaya, a widow, to remarry and take a position of her husband? The play interestingly, introduces Mehndomaya at this juncture, who is not from the mythical story but a representation of modern day widows who are struggling in gulf, abducted and sold in India and lives along in our society. The play connects the two time periods and portrays the issues of women whose struggles never seems to cease.
