Significance of the opening scene in the play.

The play begins with Bhagavata, a figure who is devoted to worshipping the god Vishnu. Bhagavata is the play’s narrator and theatre director and its guide, offering commentary on characters and actors and even the audience. Karnad emphasizes the multiple layers of the theatre experience through this figure, as Bhagavata often talks to the audience; additionally, the Actors come onstage as if they are not actually acting yet (“What do you mean by all this shouting and screaming? In front of our audience too!" [74]). There is a slippage between what the audience sees as the play and what they perceive to be “real.”