Renu Ramanath

Watching 'Shuffled' was heavy. The Bangalore-based theatre practitioner Anish Victor's solo is not for the casual viewer. And its not the kind of entertainment that lightly lights up your evening. Its heaviness, though, is casually cloaked with layers of lilting music, engaging card games and light-hearted jokes handed out by Anish while effortlessly switching between the lilting melodies and flashing blades of realities that strike at your deepest core.

I could not sleep the night I watched the first show of 'Shuffled' at Walden Pond House, Irinjalakuda. Later, Anish said he too could not, after the first show. At the next show, at Studio Fawn Tierra, I disconnected purposely. Otherwise I won't survive it, I knew.

I had met Anish almost eleven years ago. In 2015. When he was travelling with 'Koogu, ' another solo which also he staged at Walden Pond House. Then he said he would like to do another show at my parents' home, Pournami, where Rajan (Rajan M Krishnan, the late visual artist who was my life partner) was convalescing after suffering a debilitating cerebral haemmorrage which left his left side partially paralysed. He was just 47.

Anish performed 'Koogu' just for Rajan, on the terrace of 'Pournami, ' the home my father, K. V. Ramanathan, one of Kerala's leading children's writers, had built. A few months later, on February 11, 2016 Rajan left this world. Some weeks later, I discovered a paper on which Rajan had scribbled a poem, and a few words about Anish, and about the short exchage they had about one of Rajan's paintings, 'Departure. ' That same day, I received an email from Anish requesting he wished to visit me, and that he wished to dedicate the next show of 'Koogu' to Rajan. I sent him Rajan's words. Later that year, Anish presented the 100th show of 'Koogu' at the Retrospective of Rajan's works held by Vibhuraj Kapoor at Gallery Beyond, in Mumbai.

'Pournami' means 'Full Moon. ' It was a Full Moon day when 'Shuffled' was staged at Walden Pond House.