Based on “Eight Poems for Shakuntala” by Arudhathi Subramaniam

“So here you are, just another mixed-up kid, daughter of a sage and celestial sex worker…”

These words open a poem that anchors Forever Interim, a solo dance interpretation by Kavya that does not simply retell the story of Shakuntala, but breathes through it. Shakuntala, a popular figure in the classical Indian literature canon, has always lived in the in-between: an exquisite paradox suspended between memory and forgetting, wildness and grace, desire and divinity.

In Forever Interim, she becomes both character and cipher – beyond her image as ‘Ravi Varma’s poster girl’ and as a mirror through which we examine the tension of being. Especially in today’s world, where we are asked, relentlessly, to sit on extremes – of identity, politics, belief – this piece seeks refuge in the quiet, complex spaces between. It asks: Isn’t the truest essence of being human, in fact, being multiple things all at once?

The work is an ode to liminality. To the beauty of being unresolved. To the struggle of fitting in. It is a meditation on the halfway – on being neither here nor there, but powerfully present in flux.
“What could you be but halfway, forever interim? What else but goddamn human?

Premiered at Jagriti Theatre for ‘Parabola of Dance’ curated by Aditi Mangaldas with the support of the Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company and Drishtikon Foundation.

Dance & Choreography: Kavya Ganesh
Poetry & Narration: Arundhati Subramaniam
Music: Featuring tracks from HOME, created by Sushma Soma with Aditya Prakash

Ma: Vocals – Sushma Soma
Grief: Vocals – Sushma Soma, Cello – Corentin Chassard, Violin – Fra Rustumji

Tracks from HOME produced by Aditya Prakash

Music arrangement for Forever Interim: Charu Hariharan