Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play [1 ed.] 1527591166, 9781527591165

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Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre

Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play By

Sanjay Kumar

Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play By Sanjay Kumar This book first published 2023 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2023 by Sanjay Kumar All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-9116-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-9116-5

For all the pandies For my students And for Anuradha, my partner in process

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations .................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................ x Where I Am Stood Chapter One ................................................................................................ 1 Defining Incomplete Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 11 The Mighty Proscenium Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 31 Theatre and the Rise of the Right State Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 47 The History of Theatre is the History of Social Change Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 63 Scripting to Perform: Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan da Sardar (The Chief of the Lunatics) Chapter Six ............................................................................................. 109 More about Negotiating the Filthy Lucre Theatre Towards Alterity, Theatre as Community Chapter Seven......................................................................................... 120 Workshop Theatre Chapter Eight .......................................................................................... 162 Let’s go Offtrack (2012) Chapter Nine........................................................................................... 205 Theatre in Conflict/Theatre and Conflict: The Case of Kashmir A Summing up/An Opening Out ............................................................ 237

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Appendix 1 ............................................................................................. 241 Pandies’ Theatre Bibliography ........................................................................................... 245 Index ....................................................................................................... 250

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig 0-1: The question/answer session with the pandies’. Crooked Kalaam, 2016 ...................................................................... xiv Fig 0-2: Trial Scene, Machinal, 2020 ..................................................... xxv Fig 0-3: Afghan story tellers 2020 ......................................................... xxvi Fig 1-1: Veils marketplace 1998 ............................................................... 10 Fig 2-1: Hoarding for Ghosts (1995) ........................................................ 15 Fig 2-2: Veils (1998) ................................................................................. 22 Fig 2-3: Pandies’ in the proscenium, Manto (2019) ................................. 30 Fig 3-1: Cleansing in Manchester ............................................................. 39 Fig 3-2: Danger zones, 2007..................................................................... 46 Fig 3-3: Sarkari feminism, 2010 ............................................................... 46 Fig 4-1: The Balcony (Genet), 2014 ......................................................... 60 Fig 4-2: The Balcony (Genet), 2014 ......................................................... 61 Fig 4-3: The Good Person of Setzuan (2019) ........................................... 61 Fig 4-4: The Good Person of Setzuan (2019) ........................................... 62 Fig 5-1: Crooked Kalaam, 2016 ............................................................... 65 Fig 5-2: Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan Da Sardar, 2018..................... 99 Fig 5-3: Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan Da Sardar, 2018................... 107 Fig 6-1: Workshopping in Delhi’s Tihar Jail .......................................... 118 Fig 7-1: Workshop in Saksham, Nithari ................................................. 131 Fig 7-2: 1st public performance, India Habitat Center, Delhi 2007........ 136 Fig 7-3: Rehearsing, 2009 ...................................................................... 142 Fig 7-4: Performing before peers............................................................ 145 Fig 7-5: Train to the platform, workshop Ajmer .................................... 148 Fig 7-6: Kota workshop .......................................................................... 155 Fig 7-7: Alipur workshop ....................................................................... 157 Fig 8-1: Offtrack, Delhi (2012)............................................................... 162 Fig 8-2: Offtrack, Delhi (2012)............................................................... 174 Fig 8-3: Offtrack, Delhi (2012)............................................................... 192 Fig 8-4: Offtrack, dance at the end, Delhi (2012) ................................... 203 Fig 8-5: Offtrack in New York ............................................................... 204 Fig 9-1: Srinagar, Images ....................................................................... 215 Fig 9-2: Sharing stories, Srinagar ........................................................... 216 Fig 9-3: Jammu – enactments ................................................................. 219 Fig 9-4: Sonamarg, theatre games .......................................................... 233

INTRODUCTION WHERE I AM STOOD

Definitions of theatre and narratives of its performance are as old as theatre performance itself. Speaking from a specific position, this book is an attempt to share one understanding of theatre. This is a sharing of decades of theatre work in diverse capacities; as practitioner and performer, teacher and researcher, and playwright and collator of stories, each spanning at least thirty years. The view is through the prism of the pandies’ theatre group,1 which was registered in Delhi in September 1993, and of which this writer is a founding member. Theatre is an intensely political and communicative genre which, both as text and performance, remains incomplete and open to constant reappropriation of meaning and understanding. This process of sharing is located in the evolving history and politics of contemporary India. Consequently, like most middle class sensibilities in India and other postcolonial countries, it also has a bias through being trained in, and reaching its ‘theatre’ via western paradigms of practice and theory, tracing its history more through British traditions than its own. The perception and articulation of this sharing is at times somewhat stable and organic, and often vulnerable and disparate. The articulating voice, the ‘I’ is plural, and derives its ownership from multiple capacities. First, it is pandies’ theatre ‘I’. In the understanding of theatre, the priority is the practitioner/performer. Pandies’ theatre has been functional since 1987 though it was formally registered in 1993. I direct the plays and I am the chief facilitator of its workshops. I am also a script writer for the group. Identified among the few activist theatre groups in the country, pandies’ challenges existing norms, pushing and redefining them, in theatre, and equally, in the realm of living and social values. Representing the plurality of its society, and having members from a social cross section (from a variety of religions, classes, regions, castes, and sexual preferences) at any given time, the group has an agenda of working from, and for, the margins. It gets stories from those margins. Self- reflexivity negotiates the ownership of the stories as a group of people (pandies’ representatives conscious of their socio-economic identity) and works with other groups (often from the

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social margins) to find stories. The stories often become material in the creation of performances (by pandies’, by the facilitated group, and/or by an intersection of the two). Performances that explore, challenge, subvert the existing norm, and also at a sharper, though narrower level, seek to direct policy and influence change makers of the future. These stories and performances also constitute an experiential core that contributes towards an exploration and tentative understanding of theatre. Pandies’ uses many different, though malleable and usually over-lapping, theatrical modes: proscenium theatre (and that includes many performances that are not strictly in the proscenium but do involve a formal presentation before an assembled audience); protest theatre for both awareness and arousal (which includes theatre on controversial issues in villages and slums, schools, colleges and marketplaces, and guerrilla theatre1 in malls, public parks and other public spaces); and what pandies’ has made its own through decades of focused practice, workshop theatre. The group works with the youth of marginalized, underserved communities in their locales, for instance, with the socially ‘unstable’ young in juvenile jails and shelter homes, to jointly create their stories. The group’s work with young boys - drug peddlers and sex workers ‘rescued’ from railway platforms by NGOs and government agencies, and with a community of cannibalized young in a village adjoining the city of Delhi have earned international recognition. All the modes above are penetrative tools that pierce and open up the social rubric, exhibiting its rot and seeking ways of change. Therefore, as a practitioner, for me, theatre is not a form or a genre. It is a dynamic part of lived experience, and ideally a process of social change. And it doesn’t seek to provide answers to already existing questions, rather it is a reframing of questions and issues from the perspective of the marginalized other. These ‘reframed questions’ seek redressal of the iniquities of living, and build constructs that negotiate social mechanisms of authority and repression, such as the state and its allied institutions. As the examples here will show, theatre also questions, and takes on the hegemony of, the market, and faces off with the corpus of decadent right-wing thought and toxic values which vitiate contemporary living in India and across the globe. At its working best, theatre constitutes an act that inspires, and seeks to enable us to constantly out-perform ourselves. The pedagogical ‘I’ is not lagging far behind in its contribution to the understanding of theatre. The performing ‘I’ and the teaching ‘I’ are symbiotically connected, as a section of the pandies’ emerges from my 1 Guerrilla

Theatre: A surprise, at times spontaneous, performance in an unlikely public space to an unsuspecting audience. Typically, these performances intend to draw attention to a political/social issue through satire and protest.

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classroom. 2 My (usually middle-class) students seek to ‘radicalize’ themselves via theatre, and in due course, get along with their friends and acquaintances (these often outnumber the students themselves) to become performers - facilitators and actors alike, at pandies‘. This middle-class section derives its activist strength through interacting with other older members, and with those from lower working classes who have joined pandies‘ through workshops in the social margins. In the pedagogical avatar, along with colleagues and peers during my 35 year career as a teacher of ‘English literature’ in a leading college of the University of Delhi, I have been teaching ‘drama’ to 18 to 21 year-olds. In spaces like ours, exclusive schools for theatre and performance are still few and far between. What do we do, if we are passionate about theatre? Theatre is still seen as ‘extra-curricular’ with most colleges having dramatic societies or clubs, and many of us involve ourselves there, but these are seen more and more as exclusive student zones, and their work single-mindedly targets prize money in ‘festivals’ for colleges. What we certainly do, within the larger set of English literature, is opt to teach more dramatic texts in the curriculum. Carrying the post-colonial burden, the teaching of theatre under the rubric of English literature takes us through the canonical gamut with the usual highlights, starting from the Greeks through the Elizabethans and then the modernists and the contemporaries (the last alone having some texts of non-western origin). The performative, both in history and practice, is peripheralized, and in many of our spaces, theatre is still understood as an intern to fiction, with the same tools of plot and character used as a way of making sense, as New Critical hegemony still persists.3 Leaving aside the stark politics, even the teaching of drama as performance does not happen, or happens as a lesser adjunct to the teaching of dramatic texts. For those who prioritize teaching theatre, apart from insistent references to the performative in the pedagogic act itself, there is a constant seepage of our context, and of the play’s context. At least two related kinds of context 2 The

other significant source is young people from the underserved sections, who join pandies’ after a workshop. 3 New Critical Theory: The early 20th century theoretical frame with its attempt to see the text as autonomous, divorced from history and the author, with its obsessive focus on form, had T S Eliot, I A Richards, and John Crowe Ransom as its pioneer exponents. Hailing notions of objectivity and universality, it emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functions as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. The approach dominated, and in many colleges in India continues to dominate, the study of all texts, including dramatic texts.

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oriented activisms - emerge and contribute to an understanding of theatre; First, a searching of alternate traditions of writing and performing coming from the underbelly of the canon and feeding into a questioning of the means of locating the canon itself, and second, and more directly, grounded around the specific text, an exploring of the purposes of theatre, and making the act of teaching the text relevant as a critique of our lives and the status quo. The playwright ‘I’ explores the space connecting the dramatic text and the dramatic performance to underscore the importance of this connection in the making and understanding of theatre. Writing theatre is a different, and also an allied, tradition of dramatic performance. The need for a ‘good’ script is often felt. But what is a good script? Delving into the relationship of text and performance invariably makes one conscious of the vulnerability and incompleteness of theatre. Every dramatic text is an invitation to perform, and every performance in turn is an interpretation and an appropriation of the written text. The playwright tries her/his best to manoeuvre, to get his meaning across through the performance, and the performing unit seeks and adapts scripts most conducive to their politics and what they have to say. Where is the real ‘play’? Is it in the text, the performance, or in the interplay between them? I have written, collaborated and adapted, and then directed, close to 40 scripts. This book reproduces and investigates two full scripts and many segments from my writing for pandies‘ to delve into the experience of the performer as playwright and see the importance of this relationship in the task of understanding theatre. At the heart of this book lies probably the only certitude that, regardless of the age, or the place in which it is created, theatre defines itself in terms of resistance and dissent, and as standing against authority and fascist tendencies of its space and time.

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Fig 0-1: The Question/Answer session with the pandies’. Crooked Kalaam, 2016.

A note on pandies’ theatre. Incipience Pandies’ theatre, though registered formally in 1993, traces its origins to 1987 when some students and teachers of an undergraduate college in Delhi University decided to move away from the flippant, meaningless plays put on in the name of competitions and festivals by theatre societies of various colleges, and instead, take up more meaningful, full-length plays staged at commercial auditoriums in a more-or-less commercial manner. The society performed Lorca, Ngugi, Strindberg, Vicente Leñero, Genet and Brecht,4 in that order. Surviving under the rubric of a college was becoming difficult. Students who had completed their studies wanted to be with us, students from other colleges wanted to join, and there was consistent opposition from college authorities regarding the ‘wasted’ time of the students and the unconventional themes of the performances. Pandies’ theatre was born in 1993. Moving away from a college and a university, it comprised four 4

Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding (1932); Ngugi Wa Thiongo, The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976); August Strindberg, A Dream Play (1901); Vicente Leñero, The Bricklayers (1976); Jean Genet, The Balcony (1957); Bertolt Brecht, The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1944).

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teachers - including the author - as the office bearers, and an executive committee consisting of ex-students. The initial strength of the group was around thirty members, and the active component per project/play continues to be so, though the total number has grown beyond 150. Begun with a simple agenda of staging plays relevant to our ethos and time, it has evolved as an activist group – left, feminist, and atheistic. It started as a prosceniumoriented English theatre group, but from 1996 turned increasingly activist, taking on projects rather than plays. The dominant number of women among the younger members assured a feminist beginning for the group. The group has penetrated further and further into the margins, working especially with under-privileged children from diverse areas. Our work, which is now almost totally activist, can be put into three divisions: first, scripting and directing performances (largely adaptations and original scripts) for the proscenium, and staged initially in a commercial theatre before being used for awareness programs; second, using theatre as a means of generating awareness on diverse issues ranging from feminist theatre to gay rights, child rights, and the rights of religious minorities (this attempt includes legal and legislative intervention). Third, the most focused area, and also one where pandies’ contribution to the idea of theatre lies, is in using the workshop mode to create performances with young people articulating trauma, containing conflict, and finding space for marginalized voices in policy formulation. The Name The decision to call the group pandies’ theatre (including the use of the lower case) was taken collectively in 1993, and was in keeping with the playfulness of the group in all its senses. ‘Pandies’ derives from Pandey, a British mispronunciation, or an arrogant inability to reproduce Indian pronunciation, reducing ‘the Pandey’ to ‘pandy’. The name goes back to the 1857 War of Indian Independence. Mangal Pandey was the first Indian soldier in the British army to fire a shot at a British officer and raise the banner of revolt while posted at the military garrison at Barrackpore. The gesture is seen in India as the beginning of the Revolt. For the British, a ‘pandy’ was not simply a mutineer, or even a traitor, but an expletive uttered with spitting at the end, a lowly worm to be crushed at the earliest opportunity. The word continued in British generals’ correspondence for over 50 years after the defeat of the rebels, as the generals exhorted each other to never let any ‘pandy’ raise its head. The ‘pandy’ was not an enemy outside the structure, but a subversive subordinate who dared to act against the system. We are the ‘pandies’ of modern India - part of the mainstream

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in being English speakers and of the upper middle-class, but opposed to practically the entire value scheme of this structure; the veritable termite seeking to destroy it from within. The Collaborative Pandies‘ has about 40 plays in the proscenium to its credit, with about 25 of these being original scripts. The work is essentially collaborative, and detailed discussions and collective workshopping form the basis of these scripts. The group has had more than 150 members associated with it, with around 25 forming the core for each project. Each member contributes to the production in several ways. Artwork, costumes, sets, and lights are all worked on by members of the group itself. Along with the writer of this book, two other members have been regularly writing for the group and contributing to all aspects of the production process: Anand Prakash, a founding member of the group, and Anuradha Marwah who joined the group two decades ago. Apart from the writer of this book, Anuradha Marwah is the only one to have directed a project, Euripides’ Medea in 2019, which had 16 highly successful performances.5

Cyber performing in a collapsing world I work on this book in the midst of a raging pandemic that is hitting humanity globally and threatening the very foundations of my country, killing countless people and destroying families all over the world. What we see around us is numbing, and can take away the capacity to feel. There are unprecedented numbers of infected people, and the deadener is the number of people who have died. These deaths are not just of Covid, but of lack of medical oxygen, and galling incompetence in the realm of medical health; shortages of medicines, lack of places in hospitals, and a painfully slow vaccination process. Then there are the super spreader events: various religious festivals, the ignoring of Covid SOPs in the state elections, and the massive crowds at India’s premier sporting event, the Indian Premier League cricket festival, which was stopped midway because of the massive second wave of COVID. The bizarre and heart-wrenching scenes included pyres burning on the roadside, overflowing crematoria, and bodies floating 5

In recent years, many of the younger members, achievers in theatre and other allied worlds, have begun to contribute to direction, including directing five short 10minute plays in The Red Eye 10s International Play Festival, India section (2019) at the American Center, Delhi.

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in the rivers. Facts worse than the worst nightmares see the surreal become the norm. As 2019 neared its end, in a world soon to be hit by this plague, I had no idea what was going to hit us. In India, democracy has often been shown to be a thin facade over tyranny and authoritarianism. The ‘70s saw the infamous Emergency, and the mid-‘80s featured the anti-Sikh pogrom centered around Delhi,6 all under the centrist regime of the Congress party. But the series of salvos fired by the right-wing government (the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP)), with its new-found machismo after the land-slide victory in the 2019 national general elections, left the country stunned. This was its second term, and it had a more than crippling effect on most institutions of democracy. This began with the abrogation of Article 370 7 which gave special status to Kashmir, and the implications of this are still manifesting themselves. That was followed by the relentless invoking of the National Population

6

Emergency: A state of emergency was implemented in India by the Prime Minister, Ms. Indira Gandhi (technically by the President, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed) on 25 June 1975 after she lost a case in which her opponent Raj Narain accused her of malpractice in the General Elections of 1971. Opposition leaders protested against her continuing as PM in spite of losing the case. Their statements were construed as amounting to inciting rebellion, and emergency was declared for 21 months, during which time draconian laws were passed and all opposition was jailed or driven underground. India’s tryst with fascism and genocide is long and undeniable. The anti-Sikh riots in 1984 were possibly the first indubitable case of the state not just encouraging, but participating in, violence against a particular community. This was a vendetta for the killing of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. The centrist Indian National Congress, not only indulged in fascism and genocide of a minority, but also opened the gates for right-wing formations to take such exercises further to our detriment. 7 Article 370 gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir after its Hindu ruler agreed to embrace India at the time of Independence, in spite of the bulk of the population being Muslim. This article specifies that except for Defence, Foreign Affairs, and Finance and Communications, (matters specified in the instrument of accession) the Indian Parliament needs the State Government's concurrence for applying all other laws. The article, along with the special status, was abrogated by the BJP-led NDA government on 31 October 2019.

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Register, 8 and the much-derided CAA came just afterwards.9 ‘Capitalize and hegemonize’ seemed to be the motto. The trend, not really new, became sharper and more fearsome in our polity; steamrolling by our rulers towards religious supremacism, establishing the hegemony of a particular kind of religion, Hindutva,10 accompanying Islamophobia, and a general disregard of minorities. As many lawyers have pointed out, the invocation of the CAA and NPR together threatens not just minorities, but anybody who does not fall in line with the regime. The agitation continues as detentions abound and the dreaded UAPA11 is repeatedly invoked. Resistance has come from many quarters, but the strongest is from two unlikely and unconnected sources; the students and the farmers. The students have been the strongest agitators, and the suppression of their associations has been brutal; their fight has been against the imposition of the CAA.12 The farmers have risen against new laws13 8 The

NPR is a register of the usual residents of the country. It is mandatory for every resident of India to register in the NPR. It includes both Indian citizens and foreign citizens. The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database. It is the juxtaposition with the CAA (below) that increases the possibility of discrimination against those of other faiths. 9 The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA): The CAA was passed without discussion in the Indian Parliament in December 2019. Amending the Citizenship Act of 1955, it is widely seen to be discriminatory against Muslims and other minorities, as it permits Hindus and people of allied faiths to seek Indian citizenship if they arrived in India before the end of 2014. The same permission is not accorded to minorities. This is the first time that such discrimination has been legitimized by law. 10 Hindutva is an extreme manifestation of the Hindu religion, Abjuring the tolerance and inclusiveness usually associated with Hinduism, Hindutva veers towards a religious supremacist assertion in the nation, and would make India a Hindu nation. 11 UAPA: The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, is the dreaded Anti-terrorist law meant to be used against activities threatening the sovereignty and integrity of India, but which is being abused to put away political enemies and dissenters. In the past too, draconian modes have been used against dissent. 12 Starting from Hyderabad University and then JNU (seen as the left bastion for decades even by the centrist government earlier), Jamia and then DU have become target points under the new dispensation. The use of Lathi charges, water cannons, and then bullets, demonstrate that the hatred for inquiring, questioning minds has reached another level. 13 Farm laws: Since November 2020, lakhs of farmers in north India have been protesting, demanding a repeal of the three Farm Laws passed in 2020 (again the suppression has been awful leading to mass injuries and deaths). The three laws are: Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. The

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(passed by sheer force of brute majority in the parliament) which take away their rights and put them at the mercy of corporates. The wellbeing of the corporates is widely seen as the focal point of the powers that be. It is not that crony capitalism did not exist in India before, in fact, it is the characteristic feature, but the extent now is stunning. After a point, it is the lack of consultation and paternalistic chauvinism that galls. People have been arrested for ‘sedition’ for showing dissent, hounded by economic investigative agencies, and pursued through all kinds of vendetta. Then the Covid pandemic struck. As expected, it struck the margins harder than the mainstream, and the impact was ruinous, especially among the families of the poor and the migrant labor force. Domestic violence scaled new peaks (there were no deterrents, as the police and the women’s organizations were both absent for a while, and even later, the police were available only for their political masters). The emergent times gave those in power extra space and time for the exercise of their authority. And the pandemic got worse. Now the question that haunts us is, what should we do when all this happens? How do we, as theatre people, cope with this phenomenon? The need of the time becomes established as subterfuge, leading us towards radical works and the writers of the past, and also using historical allegorical modes. It’s a long fight, and so self-preservation becomes imperative for naysaying practitioners like me and for theatre groups like the one I belong to, pandies’ theatre. A play based on the subversive writings and stories of the famous short story writer, Saadat Hasan Manto,14 together with a Brecht revival - The Good Person of Setzuan,15 produced just before the pandemic and staged just two weeks before the lockdown, provided a mode. Yes, theatre had to continue in the face of the pandemic, and the lockdowns. After a depressing hibernation of a couple of months, the modes used for working from home, cyber technology (the Zoom platform in this case) came to the rescue. We were doing it live. Technical glitches would farmers also demanded a legal guarantee on Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for their crops. The feeling has been that big corporate houses will dictate terms and farmers will end up getting less for their crops. 14 Manto: Among the famous writers of the Indian sub-continent, Manto belonged equally to India and Pakistan, and at the time of Independence and the Partition he wrote some of the most stirring short stories condemning bigotry. A detailed analysis of the play created from his short stories by pandies‘ features later. 15 Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). The German practitioner, playwright, and theorist is an influential source for this writer, and references to him and his plays, including The Good Person of Setzuan recur repeatedly here.

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occur, but we would not display a recording, as the live essence of performance had to be achieved even on screen. So there we were, twenty of us, each in our homes, in our ‘cocoons’, mastering the Zoom form in terms of positions, turning of heads, and looking upwards to make it appear as though we were looking at each other. What plays do we enact? We looked into the past, into the very belly of the tiger, to pick up two plays from the radical, less-known American tradition of the 1920s and 30s. First we selected Clifford Odets’ Till the Day I Die (1935)16 and then Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal (1938).17 We started with the group trying to recreate its old form of meeting every Sunday, this time on Zoom. Pent-up energies and desires came flowing out. We started finding our juices as performers by turning to the mode of storytelling. Engaging stories began to emerge in the pandies’ meetings. And soon, another advantage manifested itself which helped the theatre connect with like-minded theatre people, and friends and comrades all over the world. In this phase, pandies’ was able to show live performances to people in the US, in the UK, and in diverse places like the Philippines. More importantly, group members who were not in Delhi were able to join the cast and perform from their part of the world. We had people from all the above countries in the cast of the two plays, and that international aspect of theatre, towards which all performers and activists strive, came alive as live theatre on Zoom in a way that was truly enthralling. The choice of the plays was difficult, as usual. Some felt that we should create a new script, others that we should revive one of our old ones. In repressive times, the direct voice can be troublesome to say the least, so the exercise was activist in a primary, primordial, sense. Going back to the roots of 20th century American theatre was reassuring, and a learning process. Theatre enables us to learn, and also to re-experience and re-learn a lot of what we know. To begin with, many practitioners on this side of the world do not know that America has an anti-capitalistic, anti-fascist, antimasculinist tradition that goes back to the early 20th century. Looking at Odets from a current perspective, we see the imperviousness of the thought process of votaries of the right wing, their belief in the infallibility of their position, and the propensity to put not just democracy, but everything worthwhile in our world, on the guillotine. The important lesson, that going back in history teaches us, is that the historical record is invariably a record 16 Clifford Odets (1906-1963), American playwright, actor, director, later screenwriter. His early plays, including Till the Day I Die (1935) and Waiting for Lefty (1935), present critiques of fascism and capitalism. 17 Sophie Treadwell (1885-1970), a pioneer American feminist playwright and journalist, remembered most for Machinal (1938).

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of change, that things have to change for the better. Specifically, the history of theatre shows us that ‘they’ stood up, and performed in the face of all threats. As a group, we were familiar with Odets’ work, having incorporated an adaptation of parts of his Waiting for Lefty (1935) about 20 years ago. We kept our first offering free, and while putting it on Zoom, simultaneously broadcast it on Facebook (where each of the two versions garnered many thousand engagements). The decision was to present it originally written, without any adaptation, and familiarize not just ourselves, but also our audience, with the darkness of, and the possibilities against, right-wing takeovers. Till the Day I Die is among the earliest known anti-fascist plays, as it confronts the emerging Nazi Germany. The play itself is a narrative of the underground resistance movement, and the difficulty of keeping that movement alive in the face of fascist torture. The deft handling of the ‘snitch’ story took members of the group back to the Kashmir narrative, where being seen as a snitch is an invitation to death. In the midst of the fascist state, a citizen lives in constant fear, fear of both sides, fear of being labelled a snitch by either. The play’s script, beginning with the cramping of the activist space and ending in Ernst’s suicide, does not provide any hope within the plot itself. But the writing and performing of such a play, at the time of an escalating Nazi threat, is in itself a definitive act of hope and resistance. The play opens a corridor to resistance art of the time; art as a mode of resistance to fascist assertions of the time, certainly against the German Nazis, but also against the likes of McCarthy, and against the fascism emanating from contemporary capitalism, directed against theatre and cinema practitioners with a view to muzzling dissent in the US and ferreting out resistance. That Odets himself had a brush with the McCarthy regime opens up the theatrical road that connects Agit prop18 to Brecht and later to Dario Fo.19 Staging/or rather Zooming that play live, and the fabulous response it got, evidenced that it had struck a chord somewhere, in a collectivity that wanted to believe, and to hope. As we bemoan the lack of internationalism, and the fact that bourgeois art connects globally and dominates theory because of its financial resource, cyber options enabled us to strive towards that radical internationalism. Many friends from all over the globe saw Till the Day I Die. The ability and desire to make connections between activist art and the 18 A

mobile form of outdoor revolutionary theatre. A detailed discussion of the form follows in Chapter 4. 19 Dario Fo (1926-2016), Italian playwright. Practitioner, performer, and theorist, and a doyen of anti-capitalist theatre. His plays and theories are discussed in a detailed manner in Chapter 6.

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act of building bridges across nations had been struck. Dissensions within, betrayals and sell outs, make fighting a difficult task, but regardless, the dark play shows the will to fight. In portraying domination, surveillance, and inhuman brutality, the resonances with contemporary India were hard to not hear. Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal presented another equation. It’s a difficult play. The protagonist, Helen, is problematic within any kind of a social (read patriarchal) framing. The first reading of the play left a lot of people in the group cold; the opening office scene seemed rather obscure with its staccato, incomplete sentences. Slowly the play grew on the group. In keeping with better theatre forays, the play raises a lot more questions than it attempts to answer. People in the group, men in particular, like many in the audience, asked: “It’s she who is unfaithful, has an affair and kills her husband, how does one empathize?” But it’s a play that transcends the mere need for empathy (Do we see a touch of Brecht here? Was Treadwell familiar with Brecht, and with Piscator? Brecht was beginning to sort his distancing devices, working with Erwin Piscator20 and starting with Kurt Weill21). Its success lies in making us see beyond Helen, see the decadence of contemporary society (read nexus of capitalism and patriarchy). Within our existing frameworks of patriarchal capitalist understanding, we may begin by seeing her as a fool to have done what she did, and trusted whom she trusted. Then we realize the inadequacies of our understanding processes and the limitations of our theoretical frames of theatre. The systemic critique is big, enabling us to focus most on the politics of the play; the marginalized position of the woman in contemporary society. At a point, we are pushed to ask, does her husband in the section entitled ‘Honeymoon’ subject her to a violent rape, or within a more sympathetic paternalistic discourse, does the scene take the play into a very dark area where her sexual consent is being violated? Her lover sweeps her off her feet. What are his modes of seduction? On his first meeting, he confesses to having killed two people - Mexican bandits - with a bottle filled with pebbles, for ‘freedom’. The glorification of masculine violence, and in masculine discourses, violence being seen as a never-failing 20

Erwin Piscator (1893-1966), German theatre director producer. Along with Brecht, the pioneer who sorted the nuances of the politically charged, critical Epic Theatre. More about Brecht and Epic theatre appears intermittently in this book. 21 Kurt Weill (1900-1950), Jewish-German composer, persecuted by German Nazis, who fled to the US in 1935. He became a US citizen in 1943. While in Germany, he composed music for Brecht’s Threepenny Opera (1928). In the US, they tried to tie up a musical adaptation of The Good Person of Setzuan (1944) but that did not happen, for reasons explained later.

Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play

xxiii

tool to seduce a woman, is obvious. Even if he is lying, the two friends are proud of their narrative, and see it as a turn-on for Helen. The love scene is enthralling and gives us a glimpse into Helen, but only a glimpse. The larger part of our protagonist remains opaque. She is trusting. But he betrays Helen. It is his testimony (possibly to save himself from extradition?) that finally nails her. His act smacks of some sort of a ‘men only’ morality, an abstract masculine bonding, a loyalty to the man whose wife he has had an affair with, rather than loyalty to the woman he was involved with. Called out for her violence and sentenced to the electric chair, to a gory, violent death, the play retains the mystique around its protagonist as she confronts religion (a priest) and goes to her death with a resolve as hard as the system that kills her. So, socially, some betrayals are ‘good’ and some forms of violence are valorized; man on woman and men on racially ‘inferior’ men. And women? The questions remain pertinent. They contribute to an understanding of theatre where difficult issues from, and of, the margins, are brought forth to the main stage. Theatre as a site for the solving of issues remains incomplete and unresolved. This Zoom production was better, the gait was redefined as head space, moving in and out, using the space covered by the laptop camera became important, and music and light - as usual - enhanced meaning. The performance stuck to the bare bones of the performative; the idea was not to let anything come in the way of the questions explored. Again, a dark play, striking chords with the victims of domestic violence, took us to the very roots of feminine resistance, showing again that the radical too exists as an alternate and vital tradition to be tapped into in mainstreaming times like these. In the time of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns, cyber theatre made enabling additions to the definitions of theatre. Pandies’ has a vital outreach that feeds into its understanding of theatre. Before the pandemic hit, probing workshop theatre was being done in least three places in Delhi itself: the Shaktishalini 22 shelter home for women; Saksham School 23 in Nithari village; and with Afghan refugees. The pandemic reduced them to being merely narratives in the media: sagas of unprecedented domestic violence, of unimaginable migrant labor stress and the hardships of people 22

A grassroots women’s organization, Shaktishalini has been in existence from 1987. Pandies’ has been very closely associated with it, being a part of its outreach programs, as well as training the residents of its shelter in theatre. Many womenoriented stories in pandies’ plays have been researched from its case studies. 23 A charity school in Noida, close to Delhi. This school is a site where pandies‘ has been conducting workshop theatre since 2006. It is a focus of detailed analysis later in the book.

xxiv

Introduction

who seek refuge from different countries, supported by the UNHCR24 alone without any legal or financial support from the government here. How does one negotiate with a theatre activity that had been so much ‘out there’? In the third cyber performance, the storytelling mode brought that alive. Three underserved outreach sectors and the digital divide showed. The internet failed, and often we had to reach out and make an effort to procure a single phone/laptop that could be used by many participants in each zone. Shaktishalini shelter residents have always stood out in terms of their performances, putting up many deep disturbing plays in the pandies‘ studio. This was a different challenge. The group was comprised of some residents who had worked with pandies‘ before, and some who had joined the shelter subsequently. There were also those who had left the shelter and were living outside now, but were still very much a part of the Shaktishalini support structure, seeking ongoing help and counselling from the organization. Some were now even working there. What was the experience of these women - some of whom had escaped domestic violence by turning to the shelter, and those who had been there earlier - of the numbing effects of the lockdown shut away in a shelter? We got four stories and one set of looselystrung narrative poems. One story came in the form of a letter from a young girl who had left home to get to the shelter, to her father. It was a powerful recounting of the problems faced by this parentally-proclaimed ‘crazy’ girl. Another story was of a girl with an orthopaedic disability, who felt a lack of adequate parental support and an excess of social hostility, where everything in her life was measured in terms of her disability. A third story was a harrowing tale of domestic violence, where the male partner habitually beat the girl, convincing her that she was so bad that she was forcing him to do it. In the climax, he broke her teeth with a rolling pin. When one tooth stuck in her mouth, he forced her to pull it out with her bare hands. In the fourth story, in today’s charged communal ambience, a Muslim girl elopes with a Hindu young man and both face threats. Young people from our beloved terrain, Nithari, young people who are sacked and turned away from their meagre employments contributing to house chores, felt disturbed and disillusioned. Measured and experienced actors that they are, the stories from this sector were truly amazing. There were historical allegories, such as placing Covid alongside the Spanish flu, and stories of people trying to sustain themselves and help others, succeeding and failing, as well as heart-rending stories about efforts in the

24 United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the agency that assists refugees across the world.

Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play

xxv

pandemic. And there were stories of what the pandemic and its consequences did to the Afghan refugees in India, a country which has no legal status for them, even though UNHCR, perceiving the nation’s centrality, gets them to India via Pakistan and then tries to emigrate them to western countries. The performance, in its entirety, formed theatre with diverse episodes, revealing the underbelly of the pandemic. Revelations abounded about escalating domestic violence and the general ‘looking away’ from it, of the strengthening of authoritarian aspects of governance, and of religious supremacism. And while the privileged complain about the boredom, and the resultant angst of the lockdown, we were ready for a direct confrontation with those who bore the brunt, who came from their villages to the city in search of work and money, and, divested of both, found nothing but misery. Cyber theatre, in this activist mode, emerges as theatre which has an enviable range, and the ability to confront social apathy and bare the state’s attempt use the pandemic to further its authoritarianism.

Fig 0-2: Trial Scene, Machinal, 2020

xxvi

Fig 0-3: Afghan story tellers 2020

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE DEFINING INCOMPLETE

He was… (She touches him on the shoulder) Not inside me We met in the corridors Held hands in the canteen He wooed me all over In the backseat of the car In the corner seat of the cinema hall He kissed me Not inside me Flowers and stars later Wines and dines behind Venus would have descended to penis if I was in the mind Not inside me There beside me He talked Of undying love and happiness ever after Not inside me His love grew Spread its tentacles End to end Kashmir to Kanyakumari Not inside me He said Money was easy to get Laptops and stratagem Just get it right and you win the fight

Chapter One

2

Our world was divided into us and them You could be paid to just kill them Embezzlement belongs to the past No need to think of forgery Chopping a neck, pull out the innards and carve the body Perfect the art of butchery An assertion of identity And it has to be done as a feeling of majority Not inside me His love grew Ayodhya, Benaras1 and holy cities few Roaming and necking Ruins of desecrated mosques It grew embracing the smell of the charred bodies of holy fathers It grew forcing its way through the unwilling thighs of nuns It grew Not inside me It grew Along with heaving, smelling male bodies Over prepubescent girls of other faiths It grew With the force of the spikes That penetrate the bodies of their children Not inside me His love came back to me and said We are made for each other – consummate fast You and I both are upper caste We are in danger of decimation, We may actually be reduced to 80.5% The greatest yet will be our progeny Forging the country’s destiny Strong, united, mainstream Disempowering the naysayers Wiping out the margins. 1 Two

cities in India regarded as holy among Hindus.

Defining Incomplete

3

Not inside me. And if it took root I would bury it there Converting my womb to its tomb. (to her husband) mediocrity, misery maybe but never cruelty in the name of majority the right position is not right there’s a battle ahead, prepare to fight be steadfast, be true and you will be there beside me with all my strength and all my love inside me.2

This is an excerpt from a pandies’ play (usually put to music or recited in the hip hop/slam traditions), Not Inside Us (2004), written and then performed as the last in a series of three consecutive attacks on the emergent (though growing and consolidating) right-wing domination of Indian politics. Stating a politics of change rather than an endorsement of the system, the anti-majority sentiment comes, as is often the case with theatre practice in pandies‘, from a woman’s voice, and her economic marginalization deliberately enables her as much as her gender. Calling out the bigotry of the times, the section is a war cry that moves to a battle against the state, against the social status quo that a right-wing dispensation demands. The passage is a promise that holds just that - a promise, not a completion, not even an assurance of a possible victory, and it is shot through with a certain kind of sexual humour that provokes a smile, though not laughter. As script and performance it delivers a vulnerable political incompleteness. But how do we get here? “Let us play”, “No more work. Take a break. Tell me a story. Come let’s play”.

2 Regarding

the scripts, many have been written by one author and some by multiple writers. At the end of each chapter the writer(s) and the year of the first performance of each play is cited. For purposes of analysis, all the scripts used in the book have been written by Sanjay Kumar. Originally, many of them are multi-lingual (English, Hindi and Punjabi) and they have been translated by the author himself for the purpose of this book.

4

Chapter One

The attractive world of ‘play’ takes us beyond our routine life. The play hour and its attraction are manifest from childhood itself, from “let’s play” to “let’s do a play”. ‘Play’ - a word with a thousand meanings, has at least one meaning that links to theatre, emphasizing the ever-present ludic in theatre. Speaking from a perspective of four decades of performing and acting, of playing, ‘theatre’ as its more versatile synonym ‘play’ is seductive, and also stands in violation of the ‘rules’ that bind us in our lives. “What purpose does this acting, this theatre serve? What do you do here?” I am asked often, especially by fathers and older brothers. How can we explain that theatre is the purpose itself? This book is an attempt to answer this. Theatre is its own answer, as we, among many things, underscore the limitations of the world around us, play to outperform ourselves, look inwards developmentally, and seek collective visions of better futures. What do we do here? We ‘act’ and we ‘perform.’ The spectrum of binary meanings inherent in both words points towards theatre as the reconciling ground of opposite meanings. Both words have an ‘as if’ and an ‘actually’ aspect which gets reconciled on the theatrical stage. To ‘act’ is to proactively do something, and it is also, therefore, to play out the mimic of doing something. The word combines the binary of real doing with the performance of it. Similarly, ‘performance,’ as we all know, from the verb ‘perform’, encapsulates a binary - to pretend, play act, and also to do, and importantly to achieve, something. Participating in a theatrical performance is the coming together of these opposites, as the pretending becomes the ‘act’ itself, and performing is the performance. The playful ‘as if’ repeatedly shows the limitation of the actual, prompting us to constantly qualify, even negate, the actual, with inputs of dreamy ideals and aspirations, inputs that prompt us to be developmental and create collective visualizations of a better world for more people. The teacher contributes with his research. Fluid though its form is, theatre creates a binary with authority, with orthodoxy. Standing in the historical corridors of theatre as we proceed to look backwards into time immemorial, theatre is a naysaying form, perennially in an inimical relationship with authority, with discourses of hegemony and the attempts to contain us. Authority is definitive, it acts without that awareness of the duality enshrined in acting. To be told that it is only play acting - mimicking - is an insult to authority. Theatre on the other hand, wallows in taking the multiplicity of the act together, subverts showing that the acts of authority are actually mere acts. And how do these theoretical opposites deal with theatre? The history of theatre is also a history of attempts to ban, control, and buy out its activism. Let’s delve into this history.

Defining Incomplete

5

Those in authority have feared the power of theatre, and sought to harness, control, or ban it; if theatre is there, they try get it to endorse their point of view. If we examine the first outpourings of acknowledged great theatre, in ancient Greece, we realize that those in power not only monitor theatre but also try, theoretically, to frame the meaning of the theatrical presentation for those watching it. Plays were staged at festivals and watched by all, including the Greek aristocracy. Along with the emergence of the two genres, Comedy and Tragedy sits the framing of the theoretical principles behind the two genres. These frames emphasize a ‘safety valve’ for the genres by giving vent to feelings of resentment and subversion in the audience and leading to an assertion of authority systems as they flourished at that time. Comedy brought about an ephemeral, illusory ‘reversal’ of established hierarchies that was eminently (if we go along with the language of those in authority) reassuring for the underdog. And it was the purest genre, second only to the epic tragedy, that, in the words of Aristotle, 3 provided a “cathartic release of negative emotions” (read anti-authority emotions) and ended in calm and peace with the triumph of the Dyke (Divine laws, another term for the status quo). Greek theoreticians then, try to package the meaning of theatre in such a way that inclines it towards an endorsement of the value structure of the ruling classes. A look at the history of theatre in England (with the Renaissance representing another grand moment in the history of theatre) evidences the importance of theatre for those who exercised authority. In the Dark Ages, under the sway of the Medieval Church, theatre manifested itself as religious spectacle, and was used to propagate the messages of the church, to convey the grandeur of Christ’s miracles, and to highlight the transformative passages from the lives of saints (the famed ‘miracle’ and ‘mystery’ plays that students of literature/theatre still feel forced to negotiate with all over the decolonized world). With the emergence of a monarch-centered nationhood in the Renaissance, the power of theatre was recognized by all, even the queen/king. All theatre houses and companies owed allegiance to the aristocracy, and plays were carefully monitored by the rulers. The complexity of this relationship is manifest in the stage histories of many famous plays of the time. The stage history of Shakespeare’s Richard II (1597) possibly provides one example of the nuances of this relationship. Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) acknowledged the power of theatre in her famous line to her archivist William Lambarde4 in August 1601: “I am Richard II, know ye not that”. She was aware of the 3 Famous

Greek philosopher (384-322 BC), important here for his tract on Tragedy in Poetics c. 335 BC. 4 An English antiquarian in Elizabeth’s reign.

6

Chapter One

parallels being drawn between her and the weak monarch in Shakespeare’s Richard II. Significantly, the famous deposition scene of the play, in which Richard abdicates, removes his crown and places it on Bolingbroke’s5 head, was never allowed to be staged during Elizabeth’s life. It was staged once, and isolated from the rest of the play by the Earl of Essex6 as a precursor to his abortive rebellion in February 1601 and his subsequent beheading. As Great Britain strove to assume world hegemony through blatant colonization, its relationship with its own theatre became another victorious battle for control. Robert Walpole’s Licensing Act (1737)7 placed theatre totally under state authority. The state was so repressive that writers like Henry Fielding stopped contributing to theatre, and as historians of literature emphasize, this Act could well have been one of the propellants of the phenomenal rise of the novel. The Act restricted the production of ‘serious’ (legitimate in being allowed by the state) dramas to the two theatre houses that already had Royal sanctions for their existence, Drury Lane and Covent Garden. It also decreed that every new script must be vetted by the Lord Chamberlain with his 'Examiners of Plays' before performance. It virtually declared a ban on new theatre, making it even more difficult to practice performance in the Enlightenment than it had been in the Dark Ages. The Act was only repealed in 1968, and modified censorship Acts even exist in the UK today. With censorship - licensing on the one hand and funding, awards, and lucrative posts on the other - state authorities move in and thwart the naysaying of theatre across the globe. Looking at India’s theatre history, we see similar patterns. That Britain, the colonial power, would suppress and alternately mould indigenous theatre is understandable, as eliminating a chief source of dissent and as the culminating seal of authority to what started with the suppression of the revolt of 1857. Lord Northbrook passed the famous Dramatic Performances Act in India in 1876 as a final curb on theatre which disagreed with the policies of Britain. 8 If there was support for Sanskrit theatre (which the 5 Later

Henry IV, King of England from 1399 to 1413. Robert Deveraux (1565-1601), the second Earl of Essex. 7 Robert Walpole (1676-1745), the 1st Earl of Orford, a powerful Whig politician, often called the first de facto Prime Minister of England. The Licensing Act is seen by historians as a pivotal moment in theatre history. It sought to control the dissenting form and it was a long time before new radical scripts emerged in England. 8 Lord Northbrook (1826-1904) was the Viceroy of India from 1872-1876. The immediate cause of the Act was the stated action against four plays: Dinabandhu Mitra’s Nil Darpan; Dakshina Charan Chattopadhyay’s Cha-kar-darpan (The Teaplanter’s Mirror – which is as graphic as Nil Darpan, and deals with the cruel and 6

Defining Incomplete

7

British authorities felt posed no challenge to rulers) or for mimic reproductions of famous contemporary British plays (which furthered British ‘culture’), any attempt at political theatre, and even popular folk forms like jatra, , tamasha and burrakatha,9 were viewed with suspicion. However, what may come as a surprise is the suppression of independent Indian theatre by the independent Indian government. A close look at the work of IPTA10 (Indian People’s Theatre Association) in the period just before and after Independence provides an illustration of the relationship of the state and progressive theatre. Even before the presentation of Bijon Bhattacharya’s Nabanna in 1944, 11 the name IPTA had become synonymous with resistance to the forces of capitalism and propaganda against British imperialism. Combining the message of a people’s struggle with the freedom struggle, it included not only the nation’s top performers but also its top activists and freedom fighters.12 After Independence, the first to come under the new national government’s scanner was IPTA. In 1953, the IPTA was asked to present the scripts of 54 plays.13 These included the famous Neel Darpan (written 89 years ago, much before IPTA) and Bijon Bhattacharya’s Nabanna, was first produced in 1944 but was never banned

licentious behaviour of British planters in Assam); Gaekwad Natak (the Trial of Gaekwad - also called Gaekwad Darpan. Later, this play represented the farcical trial of Malhar Rao, Gaekwad of Baroda, who was forced to abdicate his throne in 1875 on trumped-up charges of attempting to poison Colonel Phayre, a British resident of Baroda); and Gajanand and the Prince (which ridiculed the visit of the Prince of Wales to the house of an esteemed Bengali gentleman, including a visit to the zenana). A little after these four, there was Upendra Nath Das’s, Surendra Binodini (1875) which evoked considerable anger from the English because it depicted a European magistrate attempting to rape a ‘native’. 9 32 Popular modes of Indian theatre, they all include narration, songs, and music, as essential aspects of the theatrical experience. 10 Its constitution framed in 1942 defined IPTA as: “A people’s theatre movement throughout the whole of India as the means of revitalizing the stage and the traditional arts and making them at once the expression and organizer of our people’s struggle for freedom, cultural progress and economic justice” (Indian People’s Theatre Association Bulletin 1, cited in Nukkad Janam Samvad, 373-74). 11 Bijon Bhattacharya’s iconic play is available in an English translation by Arjun Ghosh of 2019. 12 These included Sheila Bhatia, Rasheed Jahan, Uma Chakravarty, and Sarojini Naidu among women, and Balraj Sahni, Bijon Bhattacharya, Shombu Mitra, Anna Bhau Sathe, and Khwaja Ahmad Abbas among men. 13 The British government had never done this.

8

Chapter One

by the colonial regime. IPTA was warned that the “non-submission will result in legal action under section 176 of the IPC”.14 The heretofore revolutionary Indian middle class had become the repository of authority, and therefore the need to suppress the dissent embodied in theatre. At a softer, more insidious level, the Indian state tried to use theatre to protect and proffer India’s ‘heritage’ as set down by the diktats of the newly set-up Sangeet Natak Akademi (1952) and The National School of Drama (1956). They continue to do just that. And then there are awards and honours for individuals who help accomplish the agenda. Licensing laws ensure that no one crosses the line. And it does not stop at suppression of the performance, but extends to that of the performers too. As the treatment of activist theatre practitioners in Bengal in the 1970s showed,15 as did the case of the brutal killing of the theatre group Janam’s Safdar Hashmi16 while performing in support of a CITU affiliated candidate 14 In

effect, the section means that a person has to comply and furnish information to a public servant. Non-compliance leads to imprisonment, or fine, or both. Nobody thought that IPTA could ever be treated in this insulting manner. The independent Indian government went much further than the British did ever with IPTA. 15 The history of activist theatre in independent India evidences many state-enforced deaths of theatre activists who were critical of the state, and especially those who espoused the communist cause. The catalogue below is taken from Biswas, Bulbuli and Bannerjee, Paramita, “Street Theatre in Bengal: A Glimpse” Seagull Theatre Quarterly, 1997. Bir Sen, director and actor in Silhouette, jailed without trial for three years. Kajal Sarkar, playwright and director, tortured and jailed. Benu Datta, actor and theatre activist, tortured and jailed. Srilekha Roy, actress and theatre activist, jailed and crippled by torture by police. Shyamaltanu Dasgupta, playwright and director, beaten up and tortured several times by goons of rival parties. Narratives of theatre groups like Silhouette, Pathikrit, Runer and Shongshaptak recount the torture and deaths of many of their members. 16 Safdar Hashmi’s death on the second of January 1989 at the hands of Congress party goons is a deplorable blot on the history of Congress-led centrist state. Arjun Ghosh recounts the murder in his A History of the Jan Natya Manch (2012). Janam was performing in support of a strike led by CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Unions) in Jhandapur, Delhi, and for the CPM candidate that CITU was supporting for the Ghaziabad municipal elections. The site of performance lay in the way of a Congress campaign procession. At Safdar’s behest (he was not performing) that they need not stop the performance but could return after half an hour, after which the performance would be over, the goons left, only to return, armed, and killed a worker/member of the CITU right there. The serial images of a Safdar with folded hands, without his glasses, dragged to the site of the play and killed there is embedded in the minds of all those associated with theatre (even though few actually witnessed it). The point is, that no one had any animosity with Safdar, they came to kill the performance,

Defining Incomplete

9

against the centrist ruling party’s candidate in January 1989, the treatment meted out to dissenting theatre performers was not simply an example of ideological repression, but was outright violent and murderous. This suppression stems from a basic realization, that both in its generic mode as text, and in its performative mode, theatre, as an attempt to say what I want to say about my world to a set of people wanting to listen, is the most obviously political of forms, and the most steadfastly opposed to the powers that be. Powers that be move with agendas and need endorsement. Theatre on the other hand, negotiates with that agenda and often gravitates towards subjecting it to an intervention from the perspectives of the disempowered. Looking at this in its entirety, as this book attempts to do, the theatrical task is huge. Theatre is a coming together of theory and praxis. It has both to relocate the problems, and then suggest methodologies to cope with them. And theatre is itself defined in opposition to the hegemonic state, to the subsuming market, and to socially regressive forces; the bastions of orthodoxy and irrationality whose raison d'être is that they are there; to all that we define as right wing. Its power is apparent from ancient times, and even today, in the time of cinema, it stands, not de-fanged but growing canine teeth, to counter new challenges which make it impervious, or at least resistant, to subsumption. The history of theatre is a song sung in challenge to songs of victory, as it charts the path for those who, in repressive times, stood and fought the losing battle, or those who, even in better times, choose to not take up that fight, and instead steer clear of the mainstreaming notions of success. Upholding alterity above the mainstream, theatre projects alternate dreams and visions of a different, more agreeable, future. —————————————————————————————— Pandies‘ plays referred to in this chapter, with year of first performance and writer/adapter’s name: Not Inside Us (2004), Anand Prakash and Sanjay Kumar

and would have killed whoever they could. For what? They were killed for using street theatre to campaign for a candidate against the mainstream party’s candidate. We see evidenced the tremendous fear that supporters of the status quo have of the power of theatre, especially its ability to reach directly to its audience.

10

Fig 1-1: Veils (1998) Marketplace

Chapter One

CHAPTER TWO THE MIGHTY PROSCENIUM

There is a tenuousness, an incompleteness about the theatrical act that complements its organically evolving politics. Neither the event nor its politics can ever be complete. The incompleteness works on multiple levels. Theatre is an ‘in process’ form. It does not even end with the performance, it only lays bare possibilities of itself. And the intersection between the ‘performative’ and the palpable continues; theatre has a make-believe aspect, even in the midst of the most naturalist performance. The creation of the relationship with a live audience, the repeated cracking of the illusionary mirror, the awareness that it could have gone another way, that it will go another way, with another set of performers, and even with the same performers another day, all these elements keep it from becoming calcified, or from submitting to the feeling of having got it ‘right this time’. All of the above ensure that the invitation to complete the performance comes packaged with torques that twist against that very completion. It arouses, but does not consummate. At its best, it stimulates a continuing process of questioning. Completion is a goal, and theatre is not about that, but rather about conveying the vibrancy of the process itself. Completion is the process against which it is pitted. Completeness is fascist, it has an end that is set and the process then consists of moving towards that end. Theatre enables us to out-perform this completeness, and to move towards change, to make better who we are and make better the frameworks where we are located. In the performative experience, the creation of more equitable, shared space where our lives, and our relationships, work better, can work better, that is the special ability of theatre. The sheer incompleteness makes space for alternative ends, which compare to where it was\would have been headed. It provides the better developmental template. The theatrical act reframes and makes us reconsider the issues we are addressing. Its attraction lies in group work, in enjoying, in celebrating, in eroding the stultifying, absurd/meaningless aspects of our lives. Not about answering questions, it focusses on raising questions, and, more often, showing old questions in new light and enabling us to look at our issues from different perspectives.

12

Chapter Two

In my social ethos, theatre defines itself against right-wing assertions and today, against the right-wing state, even as it becomes increasingly difficult to do so. We have seen from ancient times that the regimentation imposed by authority becomes a major challenge for theatre. And theatre exposes the mainstreaming arising from skewed and supportive institutions. Along with an opposition to patriarchy and its venomous offspring, masculinity, pandies’ has defined, and continues to grow with, the definition of theatre as being in opposition to religion, and to the bigotry of its patriarchs. The pandies’ theatre history has posed a challenge to both praxis and theorization. I will begin with the performances in the proscenium which are easier to talk about and relate to. Pandies’ started with performances in the proscenium, and continues to exploit this medium to the present day, though far less than in the ‘90s. Pandies’ 35-year tryst with the dominant mode of proscenium theatre ratifies some of the issues, and furthers these endeavours to locate and define theatre. To begin with, let us focus on the importance and role of proscenium theatre in seeking a holistic notion of theatre. It’s a complex sub-genre with mixed connotative meanings. Literally, proscenium theatre traces its origins to 19th-century European drama which was performed from within the proscenium walls and from under the proscenium arch. 1 The associated concepts, however, climb over these walls and crawl out from below that arch. In its incipience in Europe, it began as a radical space and an accompaniment of late 19th century realistic theatre, as part of the process that challenged not only supernatural elements in erstwhile theatre, but also the constructions that endorsed superstitions, to usher in a more rational and realistic base, in theatre and out of it. It was the abode of a new kind of scripting which avoided the grandeur of the old and the inanity of the contemporary to post new realistic/naturalistic scripts. 2 However as proscenium theatre spread around the world and became the dominant form, what began as a radical space ends up as the abode of the privileged. At least 1

The proscenium structure was first expanded by Squire Bancroft and his wife, Marie Bancroft, to enclose the lower side of the stage at London’s Haymarket Theatre in 1880, creating a 'picture frame’ or an imaginary fourth wall through which the audience experienced the illusion of spying on characters behaving exactly as if they were unobserved. 2 The 19th century is characterized by some mature performances of Renaissance drama, particularly Shakespeare. Contemporary theatre consisted of inanities called ‘the well-made play’ (neatly plotted formulaic plays) and ‘kitchen-sink drama’ (again formulaic, social realist plays usually depicting disillusionment with contemporary society).

The Mighty Proscenium

13

in developing countries, proscenium theatre has degenerated to become the spokesplace for the rich upper-middle urban class, the chief consumers of this sub-genre. For most of them, theatre is identifiable with the proscenium alone. More often engaged in staging plays in English in India, proscenium theatre tends to translate theatre into an evening of entertainment and relaxation for the rich, and is also the site for an endorsement of their life patterns and value structures. The challenge then, is to use this space to communicate the resistance politics which are germane to the very notion of theatre, and to garner what this space adds to our understanding of theatre. In being so much in the face of the dominant class, it also gives the performers the unique opportunity to give a lie to the constructs of the middle class, and become the space for protest from the margins’ perspectives and for sensitization of the hegemonic class. In terms of the interaction with the state, it becomes the site best suited for an ‘in your face’ resistance, strumming the dissenting chords in the audience. The wide range of the audience has an enabling effect. Proscenium theatre is the space for resisting fascism and underscoring the fundamental rights of questioning, and of saying no. If it works politically, it is enabling, drawing a shared ideological space between the performing unit and the audience, where revelations can take place, protests can be voiced, and questions reframed, from unusual, marginalized, perspectives. At its best, it is also a space for impacting the young of the dominant class, who are the would-be power centers and the change makers of the future, equipping them to out-perform and overcome the barriers of their class to create a better world than the one they inherited. Pandies’ has performed over 50 independent plays that seek social change in the proscenium. Using a slow, at times wavering and at times ascending, graph, the plays catalogue, along with the uses stated above, strategies to overcome the class barriers inherent in this dynamic. For instance, the group has brought sex workers from G.B. Road, Delhi’s redlight area (providing conveyance and gratis seats) while doing multi-lingual plays focusing on sex work in the city and using some of the stories acquired in these brothels, along with other narratives. And regardless of the language of the play, 20 seats are reserved for young people from the slum village where the group has been doing workshop theatre since 2006. These inclusions form a marginalized ingredient which undercuts the inherent class factor of this genre and impacts the audience’s perception of the play, taking the post-play discussion to another level. This extended performance, in the form of a discussion beyond the curtain call, leads the cast and the

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crew to discuss in depth, not just the issues with its audience but also the positions from where these issues have been presented. Macbeth was the first play that pandies’ staged in 1993. Work had already started before we broke away to form a separate group. Macbeth was a course play, and as a college group we felt we would attract a lot of students from all over. Foundations of the group were being laid as the play was being rehearsed for performance. These were the years of the initial aggressive right-wing assertion in India’s polity. A resistance to the same became a part of the initial definition of pandies‘ itself, and also of the group’s understanding of theatre. We started with an assertion against the hyper-masculine that this ideology represented, and the result was a performance that was often reviewed as ‘Lady Macbeth and the Witches’, both approbatory and tongue-in-cheek. A Hindustani prologue was added, and the play ended with the witches appearing again with their opening 11 lines in Hindustani. The bard’s classic was interpreted in terms of the need to deal with the hyper-masculine and to be flexible in terms of language to retain the relevance of theatre. A critique of patriarchy and contemporary toxic strains of masculinity became identifiable targets for the pandies’ (continuing through the decades) and were germane to this concept of theatre. Two proscenium productions inspired by the work of two contemporary western feminist writers followed: Womanscape (1993, inspired by the shorter fiction of Doris Lessing3) and The Beautiful Images (1995, from Beauvoir’s Les Belle Images4 ). This aspect of right-wing critique became an essential part of pandies‘ negotiation with the idea of theatre. With this quest came the realization that right-wing structures have been theatre’s oppositional points throughout its history, and the toxic masculine has viewed it with special suspicion. Therefore, any understanding of theatre has to be against rightwing formulations - and in spite of them. The defining journey takes a giant step with pandies’ third proscenium production, an adaptation of Ibsen’s 5 classic, Ghosts (1994). Ghosts occupies an important place in the study of modern western theatre in Indian universities. It is taught as belonging to that body of texts in the decades just preceding the 20th century which enabled western theatre to rediscover itself as radical, with the ushering in of realism/naturalism on the 3

Doris Lessing (1919-2013) acclaimed feminist British-Zimbabwean novelist. de Beauvoir (1908-1986), the French feminist theorist and creative writer known for her philosophical work The Second Sex (1949). Her French short novel Les Belles Images was published in 1966. 5 Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), the Norwegian playwright known for naturalistic theatre. Ghosts was published in 1881. 4 Simon

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proscenium stage (a theatre space still in the process of finding its feet and creating the new sub-genre of proscenium theatre). The text is often explained as a radical negotiation with contemporary patriarchy (though somewhat limited in not going far enough in its subversion of contemporary patriarchal modes), dealing with the underbelly of late Victorian upper-class society, and the dreaded, but seldom talked about, syphilis.

Fig 2-1: Hoarding for Ghosts (1995)

In the pandies‘ adaptation, the play became significant as a sensitizing exercise against the onset of HIV in India. The country was sitting on the edge of a massive outbreak of AIDS. Pandies’ had tied up with many NGOs seeking to stem the outbreak with awareness. A small NGO-AIDS cell was formed under the aegis of AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences)6 to make suggestions to various government and foreign agencies for policy changes to thwart the onset. Pandies’ was the only arts group in this cell at 6

The premier government-funded institution in the country, AIIMS is both a leading medical college and a hospital. The NGO-AIDS cell was recognized by the government as a frontline group against HIV and the cell was funded by the government, and with its permission, by foreign funders too.

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that point. Looking for a suitable play, workshops within the group, and outside with other groups working on the HIV menace, showed that Ghosts was a good possibility for this advocacy against behaviour that could lead to AIDS. Seed funding to prepare the play was obtained from NACO (the newly formed National Aids Control Organization, Government of India). We focused microscopically on a Delhi-based family (Delhi was one of the epicenters of the HIV outbreak). Medical activism was at the liminal stage, but we were also looking at possible reasons for its rampant spread. The first challenge was to the hegemonic patriarchal structure of Indian society and its toxic masculinity. Some of this is there in the original script. In analyzing Ghosts, syphilis is usually seen as a point of entry into questioning contemporary patriarchal society with its masculine bias, particularly in sexual behaviour. The history of the play shows many of the traps that need to be avoided for a proscenium exercise to become theatre. While adapting the script, two areas of focus, inherent in the parent script, were specially kept in mind; a critique of family, as the institution that harboured and fostered patriarchy, and secondly, how largely the tolerated, even touted, sexual behaviour of men opens the innards of society to the onset of disease and death. At this point, pandies‘ started with its search and research on HIV in ‘high risk’ groups, groups that were in the margins and targeted by the mainstream society as being super-spreaders. Going out with small plays to invite conversations showed that they were actually at the receiving end. Particular reference is made to the research around poor brothel sex-workers in G B Road and eunuch prostitutes living around Red Fort. How were they getting it?7 Then the focus turned on the rampant, uncontrolled male sexuality which visited these brothels and was actually responsible for spreading it, in there, and then back in the ‘family.’ Reports kept pouring in of young women in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar testing positive while going in for pregnancy-related medical investigations. As we worked on the script with inputs from the newly-set-up UNAIDS office in the capital (at that time having a staff of just three people), comparing it to the parent script, this script became a stronger critique of the father figure and the related notion of joy of life (‘joie de vivre’). We located Ghosts in Delhi, with the son returning from Paris after having studied at an art school. In our play, the father has died of AIDS while the son was still a teenager. Historical veracity was a must, so in the script, the death occurred in the early 80s, in line with the first deaths due to AIDS in India. The father is a sexual profligate who has had sex with whoever he could force himself

7 This thread ties this play to what followed at pandies’ with our own script, Mannequins, where many of these themes resonated.

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upon. Seeking to maintain their honour and keep stigmatization at bay, the family has kept the cause of his death a secret. He has brought HIV into the family (we don’t know if Ms. Alving is infected or not, the parent script does not spell it out and neither did our script). Scripting was also a learning process; the son’s illness, we realized, could not have been inherited from the father.8 The son only ‘inherits’ the father’s attitude to women and his masculinity. Following the same toxic traditions and treatment of women that he has seen his father exhibit when he was a child, the son too, tests positive. The play became a strident critique of those aspects of masculinity that were exposing the rubric of social living to the onset of this deadly disease. Consequently, hope turned more sharply to the Ms. Alving character. How does she cope with her husband’s behaviour? Why does she stay with him, with the family? How enmeshed is she in the same patriarchy that the play seeks to critique through her? The answers are not easy, but the questions have a way of rearing their heads and demanding negotiation regardless of time and context. And the problem that invariably creeps up is regarding the ending of the play, a problem that continues to plague performances and classroom interpretations of this play. The play was ahead of its time, trying to bring in an avant garde notion of assisted euthanasia. But can this work in activist medical advocacy? As performers and students ask, are we asking syphilis (or AIDS) patients to be ready to kill themselves - maybe with some help from mama? In our adaptation, the mother resists. Having given in to the demands of her husband, she resists thoughts of her son’s and her own suicide, and the two stand to ‘fight the ghosts together’ - the son still has some time, and a cure may be found. And who knows, we may find a vaccine for the virus. Two important ingredients in the understanding of theatre had been added in the exercise; advocacy of awareness and correct behaviour before an approaching pandemic (all the more poignant in corona times), and a critique of right-wing notions of family and hidden family secrets, but more importantly, of the way in which masculinity and sexuality are constructed in our world, and how they pose a threat to the very rubric of our living. The play is disturbing in the way in which theatre alone can be, incomplete, cautiously hopeful, and challenging. As it emerges from this foray, theatre is an expression of criticism of the way things are evolving in the social fabric enveloping us, of the end to which social processes are headed, and an exploration of better possibilities. 8

As contemporary research from UNAIDS showed us, it was practically impossible that the son would get the disease from his father while still in his mother’s womb and still survive into his late 20s (as with syphilis in the parent script).

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The play travelled to Bangalore. Pandies’ stepped out of the strictly proscenium production which had started with Ghosts, staging multiple performances in schools and colleges, together with discussions with the units and the doctors and epidemiologists who joined in with the performance. Theatre experience becomes a lot more fluid in the following decade. Within proscenium theatre the scripting turns more to efforts within the group and beyond, street theatre increases manifold, and workshop theatre begins to happen. Continuing with proscenium theatre, Mannequins (1995) followed Ghosts. It was the first play to be scripted entirely by the group.9 It was bilingual. There were two parallel plots, linked only thematically. One was primarily in Hindustani and Indian regional languages and dialects (keeping in mind the flavour of Delhi brothels which usually housed girls from all over the country and even Nepal). The other focused on a rich call girl, who is as vulnerable as her poor counterpart. This story was mostly in English with some Hindustani included. Both dealt with HIV, which at that time was being dealt with in developmental and medical activist circles as almost exclusively a health issue. This was the area where maximum funding was available, and it was interesting to note that a lot of friends whom we had known and worked with in other fields (human rights, rights of minorities and women rights for instance) had turned into HIV activists and experts overnight. Overtly it was a play about HIV. Some money was raised for this purpose, and research and a search for narratives was done in brothels, under the rubric of spreading HIV awareness, alongside activists and health workers. The play went on to achieve various ends and was a learning experience in the powers and meanings of theatre. The scripting of the Hindustani section was the culmination of a series of probing workshops within the group and field research in G. B. Road, the capital’s red-light area (research which had started during Ghosts). Snippets of narratives of the girls in brothels were mixed (with their permission) with the first-hand accounts of the group members who visited there. The research for the English plot took a slightly different trajectory. The call girl, as we discovered, operates in a zone that is not open to anyone, but only to women who work there and their clients. The call-girl’s life and work is clandestine, which of course also makes it dangerously open to the outbreak of the virus. We were able to talk to a few call girls, not the superrich, but of the independent street walker variety. We used studies

9

Anand Prakash for the Hindustani section and Tich Verma and myself for the English section.

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conducted by government organizations and leaned on the ground-breaking study by Dr. Promilla Kapoor, The Indian Call Girls, 1979, and on a series of talks not only with the girls, but with many women activists. We invited about 40 workers from the brothels, along with their madams, to the premiere. 10 Doctors, epidemiologists, and other health officials were also invited. The dynamics were interesting. It was possibly the first attempt in Delhi to break the class barrier inherent in proscenium theatre, to call in lower-class sex workers and to have medical experts sit onstage in the Q&A with a regular audience for a discussion at the end of a performance. The sex-workers were delighted with the attempt and participated aggressively in the discussion. We did not to reveal who they were or where they were from but many of the upper middle audience were guessing, as we learnt later. At a very obvious level, the providing of stories from their real and extended lives impacted strongly on the audience’s reaction to the HIV campaign. What was really interesting was that the limitations of the developmental agenda became clearer. The play was attacking the social construction of masculinity in contemporary India. Can we look at HIV purely as a health issue? Can we be non-cognizant of the fact that, be it the rich, high-flying executive, the truck driver, or the migrant labourer, it is the traveling man who is really guilty of its spread in India? That yes, there are trans- and gay sex workers, and many children (though surveys continue to reveal that 80 percent of the sex workers here continue to be women) but the ‘clients’ are almost invariably men. Can we simply go and talk condom protection to a young sex worker in a brothel and not tell her equally young clients what they are exposing her and themselves to, and what they will expose their wives and families to as they go back to their villages? That no religion or god can save them from it? But we can’t do that under the medical developmental rubric - it is a health issue, and the brothel authorities will turn against you if you try talking to their clients, as we were told by our friends in the medical field. Are we not therefore working in a developmental vacuum? The theatre experience tells us that multi-pronged approaches are required. Repeated forays also show that some valorized institutions of our society (like marriage and family) and many conventionendorsed, long-held, beliefs and practices (constructions of masculinity and patriarchy, orthodoxy seeking its endorsement in religion) will negate all development efforts if they are not targeted first. A core of political protest appears to be evolving here at the very heart of an early understanding of theatre. Next from the pandies‘ proscenium 10 As

the play was staged at Shri Ram Center (the hub of theatre world in Delhi).

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stable are two plays specifically targeting the toxic masculinity in our society. Advocacy apart, they were part of a process of legal reform on the issues of mental health and rape. She’s MAD (1996), was a special project, commissioned by the women’s organization Shaktishalini, 11 for their fundraiser. While a play on the issue of mental health had been on the pandies’ agenda for a while, it came as a demand for funding from the organization, which had in its case files many cases where an archaic law was used to prove women ‘mad’, deprive them of property rights, and even have them confined. The infamous Mental Health Act was often used to annul marriages and take away custody rights. Violence and torture were used in many of these cases to prove the women were of unsound mind.12 The most famous of these was the Anamika Chawla case. Along with other NGOs and activists (Elizabeth Vatsayana from the group AAG13 was the one immediately associated with Anamika Chawla), Shaktishalini too was involved. Anamika’s case took the full trajectory up to the Supreme Court where the then Chief Justice Y. V. Chandrachud said, along with his judgement, that “her mind is at least stable as mine”. The wider implications of this story are horrifying; the fact that it took a bright middle-class young woman years to prove herself ‘normal’ and that ‘normalcy’ could be confirmed only by a male judge, speaks volumes for gender biases in our society. Elizabeth Vatsayana and counsellors at Shaktishalini reported ad verbatim Anamika’s words after she won the case and before she left the country without a forwarding address: “If the norm be man then isn’t to be a woman in itself a label of madness?” Essentially a middle-class story, thereby striking a chord with the proscenium audience, Anamika had sought refuge in Shaktishalini’s shelter for destitute women while her husband, with support from her parents (particularly her father), was trying to prove her mad and even threatening to have her killed. The organization protected her and stood by her till her 11

Starting out in 1987, and establishing itself as a premier women’s organization, Shaktishalini has spread, and deals with all kinds of gender-based violence. Pandies’ and Shaktishalini are different in terms of the work they do but firmly aligned in terms of ideological beliefs and where they stand and speak from. 12 The Act, as it stood since 1912, required the evidence of two registered medical practitioners (RMPs), not even qualified (basic MBBS) doctors, to ‘prove’ a person mad. If such proof was required, the ‘evidence’ of one constable was enough. Changes were made in 1987 (the 1987 amendment placed the onus of confirming madness on the magistrate and the courts, but they never felt it important enough to check on a regular basis and in practice the earlier mode prevailed) but were insufficient and not implemented in practice. 13 AIDS Awareness Group was founded in 1994. The group did pioneering work in spreading AIDS awareness, it combined feminist concerns with medical advocacy.

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‘sanity’ was proven in the Supreme Court. A lot of lesser-known cases of the abuse of this Act, narratives of cruelty and violence, were woven around this story to present an unwavering critique of the way our society is evolving. A sharp purposiveness to the critique voiced by theatre had begun to emerge, and a malleable, adaptable, multilingual form was manifesting itself at the level of both script and performance. If theatre is to maintain a critical relationship with the world as it exists, it needs to align itself with progressive organizations and explore the working out of various developmental agendas and models. The episodic, impactful script took on another level in the next play, Veils (1998). This is probably also a good place to start looking more directly at the craft of writing a script and honing its politics. Veils was a good learning exercise in keeping the political stark and simple, as we traced the machinations of patriarchy and the toxic masculine following sequentially the stages of the woman protagonist from childhood to motherhood. Veils (1998) Maina, the nursery rhyme continues in a slightly older voice. “Trust your elders, they’ll protect you”, “but mummy what if they are the ones who scare you?” “Listen to your elders, obey them”, “but what if they ask you to remove your clothes? uncle . . .” We had gone to the temple, I asked God but he remained quiet, am I bad girl? Brother says that God listens to him, whatever he wants is fulfilled by his parents, I prayed - God keep uncle away from me. But he comes every day, when mom and dad are away. He sends Ayah away with my brother and gives me chocolates. I did not tell mummy, she is busy. Working hard with papa, helping in his work. I talked to Ayah, she laughed, “he is the big boss and gives work to our Saheb, you just keep quiet”. Mummy said wear the pink frock but I wanted the blue one. I told uncle, he said “no problem, remove it, I’ll give you the blue one”. (horrified) What is he doing? I don’t know. It hurts, it feels dirty, I want to bathe. He’ll come again tonight. Oh God please help me. I will be a good girl. I will do what mummy says.

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Fig 2-2 Veils (1998)

The above section may seem cliched, but remember this was 1997-8 and India. Pedophilia exists, child rape abounds, but behind various veils, and we don’t talk about it. Pinki Virani’s ground-breaking Bitter Chocolate, an in-depth study of pedophilia in Indian society, was still a couple of years away. 14 In its opening section, Veils was touching, sensitizing, and protesting against, the dark that lurks beneath the sunny version of the Indian family. This play was a watershed, adding definitive nuances to the meaning of theatre and to the meaning of rape. In the context of its theme there were various episodes, such as a lower-caste girl from the working class being raped by her peers from her college because she is bright and her very intelligence poses a threat to their masculinity. How dare she, from her background, do better than them, the punishment has to be there. The idea was to stress the ordinariness of the act. I will talk about two episodes, one a narrative in a university scenario (like my own), but this is only one such narrative. Many girls are ‘seduced’ by young men to have sex with them. The protagonist is wooed for her intelligence (as an undergraduate she actually quotes Simon de Beauvoir). The male protagonist lays a bet 14 Pinki Virani, Bitter Chocolate (2000: Penguin), was an eye-opener about sexual exploitation of the Indian child, Veils came two years before but had it as one of the many themes. Plays like Veils and this book were ground-breakers leading towards many in-depth studies about this phenomenon.

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with his friends (she does not know about that of course) and chases her, enters into a sexual relationship with her, and after a point, just goes away. Her short soliloquy at the end of this episode became iconic among women college students, as many of them were overwhelmed and in tears, 15 empathizing with her condition: (Maina sits before the audience somewhat disconcerted). What do you think went wrong? Was I being cloying, wanting to hold on? No this is like I wasn’t there at all, or something out there. He decided to strike an acquaintance, have an affair and one day it was over, just like that, no reasons, no explanations, didn’t even give me a fight (laughs), perhaps even that would’ve meant giving something. He stopped calling and wouldn’t answer my calls. Just disappeared. And then one heard about his marriage - legalized prostitution, he said, quoting Shaw (laughs). I never asked him for anything. Never really expected more from the relationship than the way it was evolving. What did I, this relationship mean to him? A part of his growing up? His maturity? Or was he trying to prove his manhood to himself, to his friends? And did he succeed in proving it? Why this manly obsession to prove manhood? Are men intrinsically so insecure? (Voice offstage) Forget him Maina, think of yourself, of your life, how do you feel? (Pause) Maina: Abused. . . But I suppose I’ll have to move on.

My last pause in Veils would be at the holiest of holy cows, marriage and marital rape. In keeping with the sanctity associated with marriage, marital rape is never talked about. This play, a comprehensive look at rape as a social phenomenon, brought marital rape to the table. It is a short episode in which the husband cheats and uses underhand means in his business, and beats his wife on the pretext of stress. And then he ‘makes up’ by coercing her into having sex. Her soliloquy at the end is again, a reaching out to the women in diverse audiences and it worked:

15 Apart

from an initial five shows in a professional auditorium, over 50 shows of parts of Veils (this episode always there) were performed in colleges and women’s hostels, in and around Delhi.

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Chapter Two Have you been raped by your husband? It really hurts. the physical pain, [. . .] yes that matters, but it goes deeper, it's worse than that. It's a relationship you want to make something of, […] what you have waited for years to make a success and it turns out like this, it’s a violation of the deepest recesses of one’s being, and nothing can neutralize it. There’s no redressal as for most of you it doesn’t exist or is at most something that he will slow down on, and she will learn to accept. (Voice offstage) Throw up this marriage Maina. Walk out and be on your own.

This short episode had to carry an important burden, and therefore simplicity was of the essence, as it takes on the citadel of marriage. How many people of all classes and regions still live their lives without realizing that rape happens in marriage, and how important it is to see it for what it is and legislate against it? From the first decade of this century, changes have been made in the laws on rape, though many areas remain deafeningly silent. Even later, as the group participated in the agitation following the Nirbhaya case in Delhi16 in December 2012, the refusal to touch marriage was obvious. Retired Justice Verma was asked to frame suggestions for amendments in the rape laws, and he invited myriads of groups who had been working on the issue to come up with suggestions. Treating marital rape as a crime was very much a part of his recommendations but as recommendations became a legislative Act, marital rape was among the first things to be dropped. Fourteen years after the first phase of performances, pandies’ members picked up parts of this play again (the two episodes above) and performed at various venues and as part of demonstrations in this protest. This episode went down rather well. It is interesting and disconcerting that what we had done many years previously was still relevant, but that as a society, we were glued in time, still as misogynist, still as rape-friendly as ever. What does this mean in terms of theatre? Is there space for advocacy of legal reform? Yes, there is room for anything that faces up to hegemony and questions the way things are. And the law is not where it stops. It challenges its audience to empathize, takes the onus of solutions away from the theatre and thinks out ways not only of ‘solving’ but of bettering. The creation of that shared ideological space (germane to the classroom teaching of

16

Reference to the 2012 gang rape and murder of a physiotherapy intern which led to one of the strongest protests in the country and to a movement for stringency in rape laws and their implementation.

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Brecht’s alienation/epic theatre and Boal’s 17 work on theatre of/for the oppressed) is basic to the idea of theatre. Thereafter the performer can take his audience anywhere. It’s not easy, and one keeps trying. For instance, in pandies’ attempts at ‘talking gender’ in tough slum/villages, we saw young men sitting around enjoying themselves collectively and making the most inappropriate remarks. In a street performance of parts of Veils, boys/young men start laughing along with the men who rape a young, bright, poor girl. The actor suddenly stops, steps out to simply ask what is funny? It can get rough, but usually leads to an engaging discussion. It can be aggressive, but usually it works, and soon we move towards creating a shared platform where people have differences but begin to think together. Even in the proscenium, Veils got some angry reactions regarding stereotypical behaviour of old men towards younger women.18 People often deride the activist in theatre as preaching to the converted. It is a charge that any kind of change-oriented position faces anywhere. But the thing is to keep expanding the space and numbers of those converted and within the socalled niche, to keep pushing the bar (such as beginning by talking about rape in the abstract, a position which everyone agrees with and then moving to exploitation within the workspace, to pedophilia, to sex-work and finally to marital relations), so that all engage in negotiating with the issue. And gender relations, vast and distorted as the topic is, serves as a metonym in theatre’s definition of its negotiation with authority and its discourses. In keeping with the radical incompleteness of theatre, the challenge is never abstract in seeking solutions in the absolute, rather it keeps evolving, changing its focus, as it encounters new problems, new nuances. An exploration of the gender mismatch and of patriarchal hegemonies is one major challenge that theatre puts before dominating discourses. It possibly forms the primordial base of opposition for theatre along with the authoritative state and religious bigotry. Of paramount importance in itself, gender exploration in theatre is also a powerful metonymy. A metonym for a larger opposing of those in authority and the practice of all regressive social forces.

17

Augusto Boal (1931-2009), the Brazilian theatre practitioner who has had considerable influence on theatre all over the world. A detailed analysis of his work follows in Chapter 6. 18 The reference is to a small interlude within Veils, where old men who are doing some morning stretches in a park tell each other to take the drive from inside the colonies rather than take an outer road, because young women who come to drop children to their school buses do not wear any undergarments that early in the day. An old gentleman actually got up and tried to stop the show.

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The teacher takes over. If the ruling class sought to mould theatre to its end, the dramatist found languages that would upturn the same, blatantly at times, and at times with a winsome subtlety that would be difficult for even the authorities to fathom. In Greek theatre for instance, examples of two well-known tragedies immediately come to mind: Euripides’ Medea and Sophocles’ Antigone. 19 In using female protagonists (and that is a mode used again and again to defy masculine hegemony in theatre theory and in practice, in the history of theatre), the drama is already destabilizing the inherent patriarchy of both the social system and the theoretical system that defines theatre. And these eponymous protagonists stand in open defiance not only of patriarchy as a social system, but also of patriarchy as a dramadefining theoretical system. For instance, Euripides’ use of the Medea story is just brilliant, as it leaves no space for emulation or purgation. In the mire of the act of Medea’s killing her children, an act which is difficult to understand and absorb, we are left to negotiate with the powerful intersection of the hollow fragility of patriarchal formations and the coldness of their toxic masculinity. And our protagonist, Medea, is a goddess herself, not one of us mortals, undercutting the idea of Hamartia or error of judgement, and leaving no space for anagnorisis or self-awareness. The Renaissance too is replete with examples of non-conformist forms of theatre, examples of ‘real’ theatre that skirts state hegemony and theoretical mainstreaming by not seeing the state’s patronage as the sole means of survival. There are popular forms, seldom acknowledged in mainstream histories of theatre, for instance, the giullari and the jongleur (badly translated as the jester and juggler) of 13th and 14th century Europe. They lived and performed outside the organized pale of church-centric performance: as the bard who sings and narrates, the magician who does his tricks on the street, the charlatan who amuses people anywhere, and the vagabond who simply roams the streets of villages living off his wits, on both sides of the law. These performers were constantly pushing the confines within which theatre was defined. Those in power were never comfortable with them and a dichotomy exists even in the nomenclature given to actors in Elizabethan England, on the one hand ‘vagabonds and sturdy beggars’ 20 and ‘servants of the nobility’ on the other. Two Acts, promulgated in 1582, made it worse. Queen Elizabeth took away from most 19 Euripides (480-406 BC) and Sophocles (497-406 BC), two premier Greek tragedians. Medea (431 BC) and Antigone (441 BC) 20 The Vagabonds and Beggars Act 1494 was an Act of Parliament passed during the reign of Henry VII. The Act stated that "vagabonds, idle and suspected persons shall be set in the stocks for three days and three nights and have none other sustenance but bread and water and then shall be put out of Town”.

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actors the right to be in service of nobility, and condemned them to be arrested and punished as vagabonds if not in the active service of a noble.21 The dangers were real. Performing without patronage and protection, these performers were often beaten, and at times even burnt, for saying things that did not go well with the powers that be. Individual, unstructured performances apart, as a parallel to the aristocracy-submerged theatre of England, Commedia dell’arte, took a different theoretical route, arising in Italy and continuing well into the 16th and 17th centuries as a potent and illicit form bent on survival without aristocratic patronage. It used humour and satire to keep hegemony on its toes. The lack of aristocratic support meant it remained fragile, but at the same time free from a lot of attempted control and extremely sensitive to the demands of the audience from where it had to get its daily bread. Meaning literally ‘comedy of professions’ or better still, pursuing comedy as a profession, it was an early attempt by players to live as professional actors. And that set its rules apart22 and placed it in a radical but vulnerable corner. Commedia dell’arte was banned from most of Europe by the end of the 17th century, because apparently even the lure of money and an easier life couldn't get it under the state’s control. Even within mainstream Elizabethan and Jacobean English theatre, we get to see the naysayers, negotiating with, and pushing, the official expanse within which theatre was sought to be confined by those in power. Stepping aside from Shakespeare, I would like to talk of one early and one late example, from Marlowe and Ben Jonson respectively;23 Dr. Faustus (first performed 1588) and The Alchemist (first performed 1612). As an early comment, Dr. Faustus is an obvious challenge. Ensconced within a conventional Prologue and Epilogue, it does everything in between to 21 In

1572, Parliament passed two acts which damaged thespians’ social status. In the first, the Queen forbade "the unlawful retaining of multitudes of unordinary servants by liveries, badges, and other signs and tokens (contrary to the good and ancient statutes and laws of this realm)” in order to “curb the power of local grandees” – (Dennis Kay, Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1992, 88). One result of this was that some of the actors, now considered superfluous, were turned away. To make matters even worse, these actors faced yet another impediment: the "Acte for the punishment of Vagabondes” (Kay, 88), in which actors were declared “vagabonds and masterless men and hence were subject to arrest and imprisonment” (Thomas Marc Parrott and Robert Hamilton Ball, A Short View of Elizabethan Drama, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943,46). 22 For instance, Commedia used women actors, a ‘no-no’ in Elizabethan stage, and pantomime becomes an essential ingredient of the performative act. 23 Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) and Ben Jonson (1572-1637), two famous playwrights of Elizabethan England.

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challenge and subvert the social and theoretical systems within which it thrives. Faustus commits multiple cardinal sins and survives. The onus is placed on his will; he chooses not to be saved, as his rationality prevents him being subsumed in the clutches of his own system of repentance and salvation, and his story from becoming a conventional one illustrating contemporary Christian morality, which says ‘bow before God (read powers that be) and be saved’. In spite of committing unpardonable ‘cardinal’ sins, the possibility of redemption remains as a lurking theme in the play, and the image of Christ’s blood assumes metonymic proportions. The rupturing of contemporary authority takes place by keeping it within religion (Marlowe might have been an atheist but using that as a metaphor would be highly dangerous, and besides, the beauty of subversion lies in using the system against itself), by referring to the most powerful image in Christianity, Christ’s blood. It can theoretically redeem Faustus, but will he seek it? I personally find the end of the play extremely tactful and vulnerable. Faustus (as per stage directions) is discovered severed and torn in pieces. What is the dramatist negotiating? If Faustus had been merely damned, he would just have been taken away by the devils (as per usual morality play conventions, the few moralities especially of German origin where the Everyman crosses the line and is removed to Hell)) but does this need for tearing come from last-minute attempts to repent? Is there a possibility that Faustus actually seeks the blood of Christ at the end of the play? And does the challenge to ethical framing continue, and not end with the end of the play? The play is so subtle and sure of the defiance of its systems in its vulnerability that its refusal to be framed within its social and generic normative makes it truly an amazing play. Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist operates around the impact of the plagues on London theatre.24 It is a foray into the underworld of ‘real’ theatre. Set in the time of plague,25 when theatres were shut and the aristocracy were largely missing, retreating to their rural residences to escape the disease’s worst impact in London, the play ventures into a space where acting and performing take place outside the accepted theatre space and away from the surveying aristocracy. The contradiction renders it multi-layered. The play is for a conventional theatre and audience, but is about the absence of both. The Alchemist is performance for public theatre based on the absence of such theatre. And the actors are bereft of financial resource. Jonson takes us 24 It assumes added relevance in this time of the coronavirus. The play is focused on the means used, dangerous and morally and legally suspect, by these jobless people to survive in difficult times. 25 The play was first performed in 1612, and was apparently looking back at the plague of 1611.

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into the world of the ‘not belonging’ actors as vagabonds. The performance space is a rich man’s house. His page, Jeremy, aptly called Face, has taken in two actors/vagabonds, and through them, is using the space, and his power to cheat the gullible by promises of turning base metal to gold. The two actors at the center of the performance are Subtle, who plays the Alchemist, and Dol Common. We see Jonson quietly stepping out of the norm of the actor who ‘belongs’ to an aristocrat into a world of charlatans and vagabonds (jongleur and giuIlari traditions). Subtle could well be one of the actors from any of the theatres/companies (with their suspension reduced to a charlatan, a magician). And Dol Common is extremely interesting. Is s/he a sex worker from the accompanying tavern/brothel, or a man who plays those roles, or women’s roles, in theatre (the ones which paid the least in theatre)? This ambiguity enables us to better negotiate the discomfort around his/her ‘exposure’ and her ‘fit’ in Act II of the play, as s/he successfully puts off Mammon who yearns for sex with ‘her’ and also hides her/his identity? The close connection is stressed, keeping in mind that there was a close connection between public theatre and sex work at that time.26 Ben Jonson takes us into the amorphous, uncontrolled world of pure ‘play.’ It raises difficult questions around not only social formations, but around the theoretical frames of theatre. What is The Alchemist about? What kind of comedy, if comedy at all, is it? Is it a satire then? Wallowing in the ludic, The Alchemist defies any kind of message or theme, moralizing or rhetoric of endorsement of contemporary world views or theatre rules. The landlord wins (he has to, being the patron of theatre), the ‘establishment’ guys are punished, and the actors/charlatans ‘jump over the fence’ and merge with the chaos from which they emerged, back to being performers actors/sex workers, vagabonds/beggars. —————————————————————————————— Pandies’ plays referred to with year of first performance and writer/adapter’s name: Womanscape (1993), Anand Prakash, Debjani Sengupta and Sanjay Kumar Beautiful Images (1995), Sanjay Kumar Ghosts (1994), Sanjay Kumar Mannequins (1995), Anand Prakash, Tich Verma and Sanjay Kumar. She’s MAD (1996), Anand Prakash and Sanjay Kumar Veils (1998), Anand Prakash and Sanjay Kumar

26

The taverns were a part of the theatre life in those days, they were both spaces for drinking and also brothels. Many of the famous theatre owners, including Burbage, also owned an accompanying tavern/brothel house.

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Fig 2-3: Pandies’ in the proscenium, Manto (2019)

CHAPTER THREE THEATRE AND THE RISE OF THE RIGHT STATE

Reverting to pandies’ practice, and to the vortex of the relationship with the state, I will take up some plays that pandies’ put up towards the end of the century which epitomize the core sense of theatre’s naysaying to the establishment and its rules. They graph India’s difficult tryst with religion and the rise of the right-wing discourse.

Visitations (1999) The word ‘secular’, added in 1976 (during the emergency) by the 42nd Amendment to the Preamble of the Constitution of India, points to a conflicted zone at the heart of the Indian nation.1 As recently as 2020, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) 2 plea to have the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ removed was filed at the Supreme Court. From fringe to mainstream, from the time of Independence itself (even before, actually), there has been a school of thought that challenges this secular bid (and is true also of the socialist bit) and would like to see India as a Hindu rashtra (nation). Ridiculed and scoffed at earlier, considering that a secular nation was a fundamental principle on which the freedom struggle had been fought, the sentiment of Hindu religious supremacism has been there for a long time and has grown stronger, steadily. Pandies’ practice, seeking to stop this growth, has sought to vehemently oppose such supremacism, emphasizing

1 The

first sentence of the Preamble reads: “WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:[...]” The original adopted in 1947, defined the nation as a SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. 2 Public interest litigation (PIL) is a legal (litigation) to secure public interest, especially for underserved people. It means that people not directly involved may bring matters of public interest to the court and the court may take them up at its discretion.

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the need to be rational and not get taken in by the majoritarian false logic of the crushing discourses of the right. The pandies’ experience with the rising right-wing-leaning state is a good illustration of how theatre dissents against both regression and repression. At times, it is the only means that keeps asserting an alterity. The challenge to the secular rubric of the country follows a charted course from the late 1980s. It started with the Rath Yatra 3 performed by L K Advani, one of the commanding figures among the right-wing leaders of the BJP.4 Modelling itself on such exercises of rulers doing a victory march over conquered territory in the historical past, its purpose was to show a triumph of Hindutva forces across the nation, and to capture the Hindu sentiment and propel itself to power. The nineties saw the destruction of the Babri Masjid, 5 a landmark moment of religious divisive politics in the country. This was ‘in-your-face’ mainstream. There were also cases of atrocities on many minorities by fringe elements of the Hindutva who felt empowered by these assertions, while others watched in horror. If today, we move rapidly to the building of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, it is because of the foundations laid then. For us at pandies’, a critique of such regression becomes an inevitable part of the definition of theatre. Visitations (1999) was the earliest pandies’ full frontal attack on bigotry. It was a warning against the fascist current towards which the Indian polity was evolving. It was also focusing sharply on a possible takeover of the nation by right-wing fascist thought with no space for any other thought. It looked ironically forward at a dystopic India, post a right-wing takeover (unfortunately prognosticative). Presented with the first NDA government ever in India in 1999, the play was located 10 years hence in an extreme Hindutva India. Minority hatred, normalizing of lynching and murder of minorities (and those dissenters), and a toxic masculinity were the norm in this play. Along with the direct face-off with right-wing violence, 3

A political, religious rally, the Rath Yatra, September to November 1990 was led by L K Advani, then the President of the BJP. From furthering the demand for a destruction of the Babri Masjid and building a Ram Mandir at the same spot in Ayodhya, to strengthening Hindu unity in the form of a masculine assertion, and converting the same to an election victory. 4 The Bhartiya Janta Party, the premier right-wing political party that supports a policy of Hindu religious supremacism. 5 Babri Masjid, built in the year 1528, during the reign of the Mughal emperor Babur in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. It remained a point of Hindu-Muslim contention with the Hindus claiming it to be the birthplace of Ram, their principal deity, and the mosque having been built over a temple destroyed by the Mughals. It was destroyed by Hindu forces in 1992. A recent verdict of the Supreme Court has given the site to the Hindus, and work on the temple is underway.

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Visitations was also the first use of the self-reflexive mode by pandies’ (many more have followed). Pandies’ got itself into the plot of the play (without naming itself, a later play, Offtrack, would speak of the pandies’ by name), in an attempt to dwell directly on its own experience and take positional ownership of what was being presented. A naysaying, left wing, pro-feminist perspective was the group’s definitive point, and also the position from where the performance was speaking.6 As the play begins, we are in a fascist spaceless world, one religion dominates, dictates the norm, one gender rules, no women in public spaces and any woman seen in the open is open to assault and rape. All the liberal men have been killed and all the women not in the extreme Hindutva fold have been branded and declared sex-workers. Members of a theatre group (pandies’, without naming), that had been practicing workshop theatre in Delhi’s Yamuna Pushta, 7 have been killed, sold into sex work, or gone underground. They meet at the place, the auditorium where they used to perform their proscenium plays (Shri Ram Center, where this play was premiered) to see and recount what has been happening to their society. And there, they are met by some of the youth with whom they did theatre in the slum by the river, and hear horrible stories of what has been happening to dissenters, women in particular, as the emerged right fascists put them away with a view to creating a homophonic society. And the place where they performed (and where the play was actually performed), was to be pulled down as a waste of prime land, for the establishment of the offices of new powerful IT ministry. 8 A theatrical face-off with right-wing forces had begun, and was to become a central ingredient of the group’s notion of theatre hereafter. Political events often consolidate theatre’s face off. In India, for pandies’, as for a lot of other rational secular individuals, the Gujarat riots of 2002 were a landmark. Hindu-Muslim riots are an undeniable aspect of 6

In a nascent stage of the group’s growth, the self-reflexive mode was to become essential in later years while working with communities in the margins, so we are often the privileged within our environment, and speaking about margins from a promargin position. In politically-charged times of identity assertions, it becomes imperative to qualify where you speak from while speaking of people from another identity. 7 Pushta means ‘embankment’ and Yamuna Pushta was the embankment on both sides of the Yamuna River, having a series of slums housing over 100,000 people, the bulk of which were destroyed after a court order in 2004, some for the creation of a green belt and some for the preparation for the Commonwealth Games in 2010. 8 In another case of theatre prognosticating society’s trends, in India where there was no IT ministry, not even the call for one, the government tabled the proposal for an IT ministry a month later, though luckily not with the demolition of SRC.

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Indian history. Often the term is used to gloss over a pogrom or statesponsored genocide. The anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 was probably the first state-sponsored riot, but Gujarat took it to a new level.9 We could only react with sustained fury. We had many workshops among ourselves, an equal number with activists and with people, Muslims, who had escaped from Gujarat, especially younger people who had seen the wrath of Hindutva forces. For a play like this, the relevance of playback theatre and verbatim theatre emerged clearly.10 In the creation of the script we were using the memories, and often even the words, from the testimonies of those we had workshopped with, encapsulating it within an overall episodic framework. The play starts with an episode looking back to 1984, and the assassination of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the massive killing of Sikhs that had followed. The victims were Sikhs not Muslims, and the perpetrators were the centrist party, Congress. With the legacy of India’s freedom struggle, however, the Delhi pogrom has to form the beginning of any narrative of genocide in the nation, because this was the first case of an open state-sponsored pogrom in the country and opened the gate for much ethnic cleansing from the right-wing parties in power targeting minorities of religion and caste which followed. Cleansing (2002) has episode after episode cataloguing events which had happened in the pogrom. Upper castes exploited the lower castes to loot and plunder, and it was the lower castes who were shot by stray bullets. There are stories of rape and mass murder. In the play, the deliberate omission is of the Muslim perspective. We chose to look at the situation from multiple majoritarian perspectives. My pick in this play, which was first staged at the Shri Ram Center and later went to Manchester, to participate in the first Contacting the World Festival in 2002, was a story depicting the rape of a young Muslim girl. The narratorial perspective of the rapist’s wife follows below.

9 1984:

Sparked off by the killing of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, allegedly by her Sikh guards, the riots, often referred to as a Sikh massacre, had the ruling Congress party’s blessing, if not active involvement. The figures regarding the number of Sikhs who died vary in terms of where these numbers are sourced, but by all estimates they run into thousands. 2002: Gujarat riots, often referred to as the Gujarat pogrom, with the BJP as the ruling party, targeted Muslims and led to unfathomable sufferings and deaths among the largest minority in India. 10 Playback theatre: an improvisation form where the audience tells stories and the actors play them back at the audience. Verbatim theatre: One kind of documentary theatre which uses people’s real words and draws dialogue, often from recorded interviews. The two terms are being used here in an extended sense as many parts of this play were based on witness testimony, and the attempt was also made to use their words in the making of scene and dialogue.

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Three women scene from CLEANSING (2002) (Three women, arc formation) 1: Do you know what he did? (she laughs mad) It was a cool night, too cool for May. And she was so beautiful, so beautiful, pure and virginal. We were married in the traditional manner, I was just 14 and he all of 16. our parents had decided the match. we were married as per traditional Hindu rituals. and two years later I had moved into his house. he was tall, bit lean, actually thin. it was nice with him, (Hesitant) at least in the beginning. I remember the first night, he asked me to give proof of being a woman, just like that. 2: Do you know what he did? It was a cool night. too cool for May. And she was so beautiful, so beautiful, pure and virginal. Yes I have loved him. He is all right. unlike the rest of them he allows me sufficient freedom - within the home. He would say outside you must do what I say, but in the house you are the boss I’ll do what you say. I had to cover my head, touch the feet of all elders but it was good between us. It is a traditional family, not only do I have to appear in ghoonghat11 but they all take their religion seriously. Every morning we pray, recite shlokas12 and adorn our foreheads with sandalwood. Don’t be cynical, so do many of you. We had a good sex life. he would come back from the fields full of want, of desire. His body was covered with sweat and a peculiar smell. He would be hungry, he would eat voraciously and then he would have me. Gosh it was lovely. and now after he .... he can’t even get it up usually or is it... is he so full of them...? 3: Do you know what he did? It was a cool night. too cool for May. And she was so beautiful, so beautiful, pure and virginal. There were his parents, elders in the house but they all slept in the house. We, we slept in the courtyard under the stars. It was a cool night, rather cool for May. You know we were very lucky- they told us. My father-in-law was the head man of the village, very powerful almost like a lord, the chief pandit had him perform all the rituals of our religion. No prayer would be started till he arrived and none complete except on his command. I remembered him 11

The Hindu veil, women usually cover their face with a part of their sari or use a scarf. 12 Hindu Hymns

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in his social role, an erect saffron turban on his head, so phallic (laughs) looking regal and powerful outside the main temple a mile away from the village - those days like many other villages we had a main temple and small shrines in every street where we worshipped, today (laughs) the whole bloody village is an extension of the temple. Yes he would stand in front of the temple and speak to us, of us. How we were the last bastion of our faith. how people of our community had been decimated in the world. Our great tradition, great culture, what was it all coming to? People had lost respect for their own religion, for their motherland. We would have to stand up for our own. what tradition culture did these people who go to mosques, to churches, to gurudwaras13 have? We have tolerated them, protected them, given them food and shelter and they spite us. 2: My husband would listen mesmerized. And he would come to me filled with his father’s words and make feverish love to me while repeating every word of what his father said. He hero-worshipped, no god-worshipped his father, sit and stare as the father continued to spit venom. If the Hindus’ temple is not built in Hindustan, where will it be built? This our land, our great land, motherland. And they, those people from the other community. they are dirty, as you enter their houses what do you see first - the toilet. They eat cows and who eats cows, they are our holy mothers, they want to eat our mothers, they hunger after our mothers. . . .and they are so backward. Don’t study, most of them, their bodies stink, even their touch, why touch even their shadow pollutes. ... we all believed him, yes, they surely do pollute us, above all my husband believed him and I believed my husband. 3: Do you know what he did? It was a cool night. too cool for May. and she was so beautiful, so beautiful, pure and virginal. And when the time came to demolish the big mosque, the one built by the marauder on the remnants of our peace-loving religion, my father-in-law inspired them. He spoke so well about the unfair constitution, about the justified fears of the majority community - they may lose their status if others rise. He inspired them, all of them. All the lower castes and all those who had nothing and everything to lose to destroy pillage and ransack in the name of God. After all was that not what god wanted them to do? He died. They came from all over, sprawling like ants to see him. Death made me realize his clout. And they had the ceremony, took the saffron turban and put it on my husband’s head. The same, (laughs) his head looked like one giant saffron phallus...he was to take over the head of the village, leader of the community.

13

Sikh temple

Theatre and the Rise of the Right State Do you know what he did? It was a cool night. Too cool for May. and she was so beautiful, so beautiful, pure and virginal. He organized camps, said Hindus have to be militant, they have to learn to fight. This centuries old surrender won’t do. And they learnt firearms, swords and the trident. And then it started. (Three male voices) 2: Sixty people were killed in a train accident as two bogies caught fire 3: Most of them were Hindus for pilgrimage 1: No. Six hundred Hindus were killed as the train was set on fire by members of the minority community. (They laugh) 2: An old woman’s head was found severed by the rescue workers. 1: A young girl’s body was clung to her. 3: No. Members of the other community severed the head of an old woman and then decapitated her grand-daughter .... they also raped them (serious) 1: Some young people who tried to jump off the train but got clung to the train and were dragged along. Their remains were spread all over. 3: These pigs, they dragged young women and children to their madrasas, hacked the children on the way and raped and killed the women in their madrasas. (They look at each other) (sounds of rioting in the background) 3: This is your chance....don’t leave any evidence. (Women return) Smoke was everywhere. One could see fire in the distance. The city had become a tandoor, roast, a roast for human bar-be-cue, any takers? We all heard stories of human bestiality. Was it not becoming an insult for animals to call men beasts? Facts of today, legends of yore - intertwined, inextricable. Foetuses torn out of wombs, children tossed in air and spiked on swords and tridents, women raped and then maimed, a hand here, a foot there and....a breast somewhere, yes facts of today. Do you know what he did? 1: There was Naseem, just approaching puberty, the landless worker’s daughter, her father was on the look-out for her marriage. She used to come for food. 2: That night she was not looking for food. She wanted rest and comfort. She had seen it, seen it all. Her father had been burnt alive and worse had awaited her mother. Hidden in a trunk she passed out. She came to us for help, for succour for comfort for rest.

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We hid her in this room, made a small bed for her, gave her some milk. But they found her, the boys. Drunk with plunder, gorged with human blood, stoned on the smoke of human flesh, they danced and danced the macabre dance around her. We stood behind the blinds and wondered what to do. And the door opened and he stood before, my husband. They went mad. This was to be the offering, the prize for the greatest of them all. The most courageous of them, the killer of infidels. He stood there, smiling, accepting. But he was decent, he asked about me. She is sleeping, they said. Deep inside the house, they said. Forget her, they said. He smiled....vicious One jerk and her clothes were torn asunder. I looked at her simpering, moving her hands to ward him off. His clothes were off. He stood there as I thought only I had the right to see him.... for the first time it .. it looked like the weapon of his body.... and his body an extension of the weapon. And then he . . . . he emerged triumphant, covered with the secretions of her body. The bastard did not become impure, he did not even know that his familial turban lay there below supporting her buttocks.... he looked down at himself with pride. . . .I puked. It was a cool night, too cool for May. And she was so beautiful, so beautiful, pure and virginal. They raped her one by one. Ten men. Men? Some boys, mere children. She passed out. They hit her threw water on her face and raped her. She lay like a lump on the floor. They sat in a circle around her. Should we burn her? No let’s hang her outside the infidels’ settlement. Good idea, he said. Except that after this there won’t be any left. They all laughed If she is alive, we’ll sell her. No we’ll burn her. . . . It continued till I lost consciousness. It was a cool night. Too cool for May. And she was so beautiful, so beautiful, pure and virginal.

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Fig 3-1: Cleansing in Manchester

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I loved scripting this one. Anger, grief, responsibility were turning into an activist canon. And even in the writing, the impact was obvious (that this episode was picked out for a special mention in the CTW festival14 talked about above came as no surprise). Emotionally it was penetrating the hearts and politically dissecting the ideological frames that religion creates, pushing us into seeing the other as an object of hate and exploitation. The tryst with script after script showing bigotry playing itself out on the body of the woman had begun. The episode is framed in the mind of a young Hindu rural woman devoted to her husband. Her Hindutva husband, a leader of the village, brutally rapes the Muslim girl child and opens her up for a brutal gang rape. It is a fascinating perspective and surfaced in our discussions repeatedly. How did the Hindu women react to the heinous acts done by their husbands? How do women deal with husbands/lovers who rape, and murder other women? Are they complicit? Could they be complicit, given the intense value given to sexual commitment in a traditional marriage in India? Overall, Cleansing was an angry response. Yes angry, anger allowed to gestate and acquire a political mode. This conversion of intense anger at political happenings into an equally intense but critical script is another feature of theatre. Cleansing took the negotiation with the understanding of theatre many notches higher. The ‘inyour-face’ critique of governance, of condemning one party and outlook and then taking it beyond one party to a broader critique of a tendency to consolidate power in terms of the majority and making the dissenters pay. How does one use theatre to stand up to acts that are fascist? At this point the answer seemed to be by creating a collectivity that challenges it openly in spite of the dangers, and expands that collectivity for a broader framing of opposition and dissent. This was also the first attempt to form an international collaborative, to reach out to groups that were critical of the same tendencies in their countries and in many countries. This was the first attempt at understanding the international aspect of theatre and the need to do so. The songs of victory dominate but if we form collectives that repeat the songs of defeat these songs find a resonance that threatens to drown out the tunes of victory. Cleansing was one such fruitful exercise. There were four more productions from the pandies’ up until the end of that decade. Expansive, increasing the span of theatre, co-scripted, and portraying reality as perceived in the here and now, they brought many understandings of theatre together. Partial Interest (2005), Margins (2006), Danger Zones (2007) and Sarkari Feminism (2010) explored submerged

14 Contacting

the World theatre festival. The first one took place in Manchester in 2002. It was also pandies’ first performance abroad.

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aspects of our own reality, and dealt with diverse issues; farmer debt, caste, same sex relations among poor disempowered women, and how the state reacts to such issues. I will pick two small sections from Margins and Danger Zones. Margins (2006) took the She’s MAD exercise a step further. The episode penned by me was based on an event from the files of Shaktishalini, and an anecdote circulating in activist circles of women’s organizations. The event from the files was a story from Delhi’s Nizamuddin of a courageous Muslim woman relentlessly pursuing the killers of her daughter (in her opinion they were her own sister and her son, who was also the husband of the dead girl). The end of the play was taken from the life of an activist whose daughter had been burnt by her in-laws. Appa Shahjahan had turned to feminist activism after forsaking all the trappings of the patriarchy and religion, throwing her burqa on the floor in the office of a women’s organization. Margins (2006) Begum: I did not have the comfort of counting the broken pieces of my heart, busy I was in collecting the pieces of my daughter’s body. One lay in the gutter, one in the garbage can, behind, behind in the courtyard. She had been spread all over. My Guddo’s hands, fair, beautiful with those long fingers, the entire neighbourhood was a devotee of those hands. Her feet, legs, thighs; I used to massage them, my child. And her face, pure, beautiful, exuding innocence, smiling even now, separated from the rest of the body. Four, four, they chopped my daughter into four pieces. I will not let them go, I will not spare them. Narrator: Rounds of the police station. Support from Shaktishalini. Courts. Dates. Years were flowing by. What happened that night. It was Urs15 that night. Khurshid: (drunken song) The neighbourhood is so peaceful. Everybody has turned believer. (Laughs) They have all gone to the mosque, to Nizamuddin. Is there anybody inside? Who is lying on the bed? Anjum. Still as beautiful. And pure. No don’t move. I can’t bear with it. Don’t scream. Nobody is there to hear. The house is empty. And so is the neighbourhood. Don’t be afraid. I was just looking at you. It feels really nice to see you laugh. Laugh 15 The Urs festival is an annual festival and commemorates the death anniversary of a Sufi saint, usually held at the saint's dargah (shrine or tomb). In most Sufi orders, such as Naqshbandiyyah, Suhrawardiyya, Chishtiyya and Qadiriyya, the concept of Urs exists and is celebrated with enthusiasm. The best-known example in India is at the Chishti Dargah in Ajmer, Rajasthan, India which commemorates the anniversary of the death of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti. It is held over six days and features night-long qawwali singing.

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Chapter Three a little. Please. What did you say? You don’t like me? You are weeping. Brother beats you and mother too. Laugh. That day you were laughing, with brother. I was hiding behind the curtain. What were you doing? Brother’s hands were inside your clothes and you were…Do the same with me. Come, I said start. You hit me. You had the guts. You degenerate Bitch. Bastard. You humiliated everyone. Today I’ll take revenge. You will ask me to apologize, me! I’ll drink your blood, tear you into pieces. Salman: Khurshid! What have you done, Khurshid? Narrator: What happened that night. It was Urs that night. Khurshid: You will ask me to apologize, I’ll drink your blood, tear you into pieces. She, she doesn’t love me. Salman: Khurshid come here, mother wants to talk to you…. Here hold this knife. Rubaina: Khurshid. Come son, you have to do something for me and brother. The greatest thing that a human can do. You have to be the sacrifice. Even gods cannot become this. It is the very pinnacle of human glory. Sacrifice. Khurshid: I, yes, I killed her. Just like that. Cut her into clean little bits, I am training to be a butcher, precision. Take me wherever you want. Don’t hit me. What is the point of that. Begum: This is not right. It’s a conspiracy. My sister, her husband and her elder son, they are the ones. He is a retard, an innocent. Not a killer. Khurshid: I just told you, she wouldn’t listen to me. She will make me apologize. Brother, mother, they are not needed. I am very strong. Narrator: What happened that night? Begum: Her head was severed from the rest of her body. No I don’t believe in any God or Allah, animals, predators all of them. It’s their country, their society. (She throws off her veil) No I will never wear this again.

The scriptwriting consisted of combining two ‘true’ acts together and playing with time to make the event from the files coincide with destruction of the Babri Masjid. The script became an exercise in juxtaposing the incidents of the story to show the impact of the destruction of the Babri Masjid across the nation over the mini-stories of families. Yes, the act of scripting is embellishing, and involves history, and also playing with history to sharpen the political spotlight.

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Following the same mode, and again turning to files of women NGOs, Danger Zones (2007) presented the story of a working-class lesbian couple who had been through more than their share of trauma. The predicament of one of the protagonists: Danger Zones (2007) Nafisa: I was stripped naked. Gangu had been very angry for some time. The matter about his sister, rumours of snitching. (Chants continue) Gangu: …Our religion, our society and our country (before a smaller circle) Regarding this affair. There is no need to report the matter, what do FIRs accomplish? And the police is with us, they are like our brothers. We can handle this by ourselves. How many young girls has this bitch blighted. If we report the matter not just the girls, all families will get a bad name, the entire village will get a bad name. The point is to teach her a lesson that she never forgets. And that we will do properly, collectively. Nafisa: I was stripped naked. They tonsured my hair, blackened my face and put a garland of shoes around my neck and then paraded me through the village. Nobody stepped up to help. They laughed, threw stones at me. The police guys with whom I had spent most of my time, they too laughed at me. You are a woman, should we shove something inside to make you realize that? I don’t remember what else. Shove it in. How do I explain? This body is a jail. I loved playing marbles with boys. I love flinging a knife. I love women and I also love men. I am like a man, want to be like one. My body shape changed as I grew older. The Doctor said touch yourself, feel yourself, feel the essence of being a woman. I don’t want this realization. With boys wielding knives, living in their stories. I did not need weed or hash, I would get stoned by just being with them, by opening a knife. But I did not like it if somebody touched me. Police. What magnificent strength is there in that uniform, that belt, those stripes. I would be willing to give anything to wear those. Yes, anything. They threw me out of the settlement. Went to another village, and then another. But my story would reach before me. Beat him, kill him. The charge of selling girls. Tell me would I sell those whom I love? Tell me, would you? Brother died. Swine got liberation. There wasn’t much and whatever little material possessions were there, were taken by relatives. I am not my parents’ son so they don’t want to give anything. And I am nobody’s wife, so I have no rights on anybody.

Yes, this is the predicament of the lesbian without financial resource, her ‘not belonging’ and the travails and betrayals that dot her life.

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Repeatedly we saw young lesbian lovers packed off into marriage, and where that wasn’t possible, sold off into sex work. Writing these scripts posed unique challenges. Activist scripting takes a particular kind of empathy and demands a focused commitment. In Danger Zones I was writing beyond my ken. The play consisted of three 35-minute scripts, and this one was based on a case study of a lesbian relationship (based on direct interaction over weeks with a couple in Southeast Delhi and details available in the files of a feminist organization where they had sought shelter and which were, of course, fictionalized thereafter). It was about marginality and the violence that accrues out of making same sex choices, especially if you don’t have a lot of money in the bank. Nafisa’s character in Danger Zones is one of my favourite creations. The challenge was to bring to life a lesbian woman (traditionally the ‘butch’, though these binaries have ceased since in the theory and movement of the LGBTQIA+, and were also being sufficiently challenged then). It was a story of lesbian love, but this script had a an ostensibly far broader aim than that. The attack on right-wing chauvinism, on the ideology of the religious bigot was stirring. The point of entry, both in the lovers’ experience and in the theoretical framing was the hatred that right-wing thought (especially in its combination with religious bigotry) has for same sex love (especially in women). The play expanded the notion of theatre in seeing its complexities from within and exposing the vulnerability of radical alterity. Margins (2006) was about people in the peripheries. Again, it comprised three scripts showcasing aspects of living in the margins. 16 It was the courageous story of a mother, a Muslim whose daughter was married to her sister’s son and was chopped into pieces. The mother had collected the bits. This presented a different challenge, as the story existed at an intersectional level. As the case presented a critique of the Muslim patriarchy, whose masculinity was ruptured by a consistent feminist attack, it became really important to play within the larger frame of the rising Hindu chauvinism which has resulted in increasing ghettoization of the Muslim community and an increasing obliteration of the liberal Muslim perspective in the public domain. The dates of the actual event were tweaked to set it around the destruction of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent manifold increased distrust of the Muslim community in the social and professional space. The rise of a scary, militant Hindutva applies closure to moderate liberating Islamic voices, and ensures that the Hindu-Muslim game is played in a matrix of hatred. What comes as a ridiculous point of connection is the 16

Margins and Danger Zones; each contained three short plays scripted by Anand Prakash, Anuradha Marwah and Sanjay Kumar. For purposes of close analysis, I have used my sections.

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exploitation of women by both patriarchies. And theatre, that ludic space where one dissects political realities, shows us again and again the dystopias that are around us, that we have colluded in creating, and to which we are shutting our eyes. The pedagogue in me evokes Brecht. Not just Brecht, and not just the ability to create a critical distance to assess the bourgeois world around us, but also to see where the moolah comes from. An evocation enabling enough to focus on that wonderful tradition of western drama of the first half of the 20th century that kept the radical of theatre alive in the midst of a large-scale sellout of not just theatre, but most things, to the market. A word about the market. From the state being the sole repository of money for theatre and arts in general, the transition from feudalism to capitalism ensures that another factor, the market, comes into the fray, in terms of which theatre has to manoeuvre its role and definition. —————————————————————————————— Pandies’ plays referred with the year of first performance and the writer/adapter’s name: Visitations (1999), Anand Prakash and Sanjay Kumar Cleansing (2002), Anand Prakash and Sanjay Kumar Partial Interest (2005) Anand Prakash and Sanjay Kumar Margins (2006), Anand Prakash, Anuradha Marwah and Sanjay Kumar Danger Zones (2007), Anand Prakash, Anuradha Marwah and Sanjay Kumar Sarkari Feminism (2010) Anuradha Marwah

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Fig 3-2: Danger Zones, 2007

Fig 3-3: Sarkari Feminism (2010)

Chapter Three

CHAPTER FOUR THE HISTORY OF THEATRE IS THE HISTORY OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Whose market is it anyway? How much should theatre professionals be paid? We have had some real debates among practitioners here, the lines between amateur and professional are fudged in India.1 Theatre groups don’t have enough money to really declare themselves professional. Actors turn to cinema and web series’ to survive, and often the lucre of that kind of money stops them from playing theatre, except as that ‘urge to do the better thing’. So how much should performers be paid? In India there is a hierarchy of earnings. The corporate sector is at the top, where many professionals are on a par (lawyers, doctors, chartered accountants). The top levels of government and bureaucracy follow, then the lower levels, private companies, and then NGO workers. So, what should performing theatre artists be paid? (cinema/Bollywood2 is on another level). The framing by many theatre practitioners is around capitalist concerns, and runs somewhat like this: “We are all professionals here, we all have to be paid as per the time put in, and why should we not be paid on a par with what people like us earn in the corporate sector?” The perspective that emerges from the pandies‘ experience is a bit different. It is true that theatre, like all things, needs money to run. A problem comes to the fore because theatre is so political and so influential a form. The strings of money are most visible here. To earn more, groups often perform state-sponsored theatre, and/or theatre that titillates the appetites of the middle-class, and ensures an endorsement of their lifestyle. This is not theatre. Endorsing middle-class value structures, pandering to the powers that be, and performing that 1

I am reminded of a debate taking place on a WhatsApp group consisting of practitioners of theatre in India. Interestingly, a fellow practitioner was being accused of using the money he earned from being a lawyer to fuel and keep his theatre work alive. Yes, it was an accusation! 2 Cinema, usually in Hindi, from Mumbai, India’s premier cinema city.

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endorsement, can only be called an endorsement performance - not theatre at all. With theatre, the compulsory requirement of money is much less than with the comparable form of cinema. 3 And if the concern is with communicating a politics, the amount of money required to put that point through is very little. Many of my practitioner friends chide me for taking a false purist position, I get a cheque from the university at the end of every month, but what about those whose only ‘profession’ is theatre? But then if your politics is being compromised, if you are losing out on the very quintessence of theatre, what then? And isn’t being professional inimical to being activist? […]. The argument continues. When we look at our world before the capitalist takeover, we realize that theatre was a large explosive genre, but still integrated and holding together. As researchers and teachers, we peruse records and histories of theatre, and find that theatre was searching and researching life. Whenever the modes of governance got more oppressive, theatre would cock a snook at authority; to try to circumvent or openly defy bans and prohibitions was all in a day’s work. In the pre-capitalist world, the negotiations were only with the power of the state, money was centripetally concentrated there. This problem of theatre being split into that which endorses and that which activates, that which entertains or makes us think, market and non-profit, has surfaced in our world in the last century and a half. And radical writers of the last century tried, with a high degree of success, to bridge this gap (Bertolt Brecht and Dario Fo come immediately to mind) retaining for theatre that pristine state of saying no to hegemony and no to the exploitation of the margins, while keeping it both purposive and entertaining. The world of activist plays, from agitprop and suffrage drama, through Brecht, Dario Fo, and Augusto Boal, 4 clearly carries the burden of alternate theory and performance. And this burden often meant moving away from performances in the proscenium theatre into performance spaces more affordable for the

3

Possibly a major reason that stops film makers from being political is the amount of money involved (include actor and unit fees, stocks of photo rolls, technical equipment, technicians and so on), and, therefore, the need to please everyone, to not have the film banned or subject to protests. The money will get stuck. We hear so often that so much money is riding on this film or this actor. There is of course another reason. Theatre has a live unit present there, actors will adapt according to audience need, and especially if, like after each pandies’ performance, the unit calls out for a discussion at the end, the political purposiveness reaches new heights, something cinema cannot even begin to emulate. 4 Augusto Boal (1931-2009), a Brazilian theatre practitioner, theorist and political activist. A major influence on activist theatre. In our world, he is often known for his theories and practices under the label Theatre of the Oppressed.

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performer and the viewer alike (the point will be explored further in the workshop section). The oft-ignored suffrage drama and agitprop occupy a special place in any understanding of theatre. At the level of the practice of theatre, they respectively pose a challenge to the entrenched patriarchy that denies women the right to vote, normalizes this position, and relentlessly exposes the underbelly of capitalism and its claims of success. Theoretically and ideologically, in spite of coming from different places, the two stand in opposition to the coming together of capitalism and patriarchy. They, with their amateur players, are the forgotten zones of activism, the first entrenched forms that took on the toxic nexus of patriarchy and capitalism. Emerging out of the Suffragette movement and peaking between 1907 and 1914, suffrage drama, having England as its epicentre, raged across the US and Europe. Marching along with, and focussing on, issues of the Suffragette movement, the plays played out on a wider canvas, of the universal exploitation of women, of the basic socially-infused inferiority of their condition. In a more immediate form, they focus on the sheer irrationality of denying women the right to vote. The cause was the raison d’être, and these plays were created at extremely low cost with the activists themselves writing the plays and performing them, with other, often amateur, women. The Englishwomen Elizabeth Robins (Votes for Women) and Cicely Hamilton immediately come to mind.5 To keep it affordable, suffrage plays were often performed in the drawing rooms of private residences.6 Beginning in England, the powerful genre spread all over the West and also to Australia and New Zealand, as the Suffragette movement spread across the world. The history of agitprop theatre includes a binary which can be reconciled when viewed in an international context. An amalgam of the words ‘agitation’ and ‘propaganda’, it begins from post-Bolshevik Russia, and at its incipience, stands as an abbreviation for the Department of Agitation and Propaganda. An endorsement form within Russia, it was a song of victory meant to disseminate the logic of the Soviet state’s ideology to the people. It consisted of short plays by traveling troupes who rejected theatre

5 Elizabeth Robbins (1862-1952), actor, playwright and suffragette. Moved to London from US in 1888. Votes for Women, possibly the best known of the suffrage dramas was first staged in 1907. Cicely Hamilton (1872-1952), another leading actor, playwright, and suffragette. She is best known for her play, How the Vote was Won (1909). 6 Were we already moving towards a kind of neighbourhood/street theatre?

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conventions and spread messages of Marxism, socialism, and communism.7 Though endorsing the message of the Soviet government, it remained naysaying in the overall context of the capitalizing western world. Socialism remained a second discourse in world politics, with capitalism and its derivatives exercising hegemony. This became clear in the context of the Great Depression (1930), as agitprop plays seeking their form and content from the Russian tradition, criticizing capitalism and policies of the capitalist state, and which were supportive of the trade union movements came up in US, England and Germany.8 Performing in the open, outside factories during lockouts and strikes, wearing similar coloured shirts, using symbolic props (a crown to denote a king), its staple looked forward to Brecht’s techniques, and to the extremely popular vibrant form in our subcontinent - street theatre. In the inter-war years, seeking a more equitable distribution of the spoils of colonization (which had gone into the pockets of few countries with the UK at the top of the heap), governments of ‘deprived’ western countries 7 Art

is Weapon (1931), probably the first in the genre from Russia, sees theatre as the working class weapon for the class revolution: the theatre of the future is the theatre of revolution. we awaken enlighten arouse every working man every working woman every young worker all proletarians the masses to action. We do not play for your and our entertainment we play because participation in the class struggle is your and our duty. 8 The Federal Theatre Project in the US; Left Column and Troupe 31 in Germany; Workers Theatre Movement in the UK. Initially tolerated by the state, the form soon came under the scanner and was soon banned all over, including (in 1931) in Germany by the Gestapo and in the McCarthy era in the US Federal Theatre closed in 1939 under McCarthy’s orders; the plays of Clifford Odets provide a glorious example of agitprop theatre in the US, with Waiting For Lefty being arguably the best, or at least the best known, of the genre.

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assumed diverse masks of tyranny and prepared to fight for a more equitable distribution of old spoils. It had a more direct form in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, and then there was the liberal world around them seeking to rescue the rest of the world from their fascism. But this liberal world is getting more and more smeared by capitalism, and that creates its own forms of fascism, a fascism getting stronger, more exploitative and taking over the lives of all. Theatre (and cinema and many other varieties of art) of this period has to give a lie to both kinds of fascism and go along with it as a binary, as defined by the liberal world.9 There are positives too, as I often say in my class. Theatre comes to the fore stronger than before as there is vulnerability on the other side. The western world lacks a uni-focal version as we look at it in the decades from 1930 to 1960. Capitalism was on a shaky footing like never before (may also never be after). Historical narratives sing the songs of the victorious, masking in a baritone the fragility of victory and hiding the power of the lost other in louder and louder refrains. At times, we have to sift through the archives for the songs of those who fought and resisted, but these songs are there. The stories of the Depression (1928 to 1930), the second world war (1939-1945), the much-touted cold war between Russia and America, the quiet emergence of China, McCarthy’s10 acute fear of the colour red (or any hint of communism or socialism), along with the phenomenal growth of trade unionism, the (at least geographical) removal of colonialism, and the decisive move towards another patriarchy-shattering phase of feminism, string a counter narrative which is dangerous (for the powers that be). For a while, from the late 40s to 60s, frames derived from Marxism provide the theoretical possibility of knitting the world together with alternate threads. A lot of the burden of that alternate theory is voiced by radical theatre. And Brecht’s is a booming voice. Using theatre as a forum for political ideas, Brecht saw theatre as a powerful agent of social change, and sought to frame it in a theoretical frame that highlighted just that. Known all over the world for his radical plays, he 9

It is interesting how many plays and playwrights feel called upon to take on the might of both, and even show the insidious connections between the two. If Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty (1935), places itself in the midst of the taxi drivers’ union strike, looking back at the Depression and presenting an adroit critique of American capitalism, chiding it for its inability to improve the conditions of the have-nots or take any steps to prevent this from happening in the future, Till the day I Die (1938) is among the early critiques of Hitler’s Germany and the first anti-Nazi play to be staged on Broadway. 10 The infamous Republican US senator who led the campaign to ferret those with communist leanings in the US in the 1950s.

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is equally known for his theoretical writings closely associating Marxian axioms with theories of activist theatre. Stationed in a world stifled between fascist ‘truth’ and bourgeois universalisms, all through his theatre practice, Brecht sought to exploit the special connection between performance and the audience, seeking to foster the critical in the audience and move rapidly away from the emotional stasis evoked by this relationship as it evolved under the empathetic framework of naturalist theatre. Picking on valorized institutions like ‘nation’, ‘family’ and ‘war’ Brecht pointed to a support of middle class ideology in their constructs, and exposed their universal truths to be middle-class lies. Moving from fascist Germany, hopefully towards a more liberal US, he was quick to perceive the ubiquitous fascism at the base of the American capitalist setup. The changes in the text of The Good Person of Setzuan (1939 - 1944) graph that growing perception. 11 Borrowing from Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach (1888): “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it,”12 Brecht adapted to assert that theatre can change the world. Surrounded by examples of bourgeois theatre, Brecht sought not to destroy it but to re-do its function for social use. The modern theatre mustn’t be judged by its success in satisfying the audience’s habits, but by its success in transforming them. It needs to be questioned not about its degree of conformity with the ‘eternal laws of the theatre’ but about its ability to master the rules governing the great social processes of our age; not about whether it manages to interest the spectator in buying a ticket - i.e. in the theatre itself - but about whether it manages to interest him in the world. (Brecht, 161)

His notion of epic theatre is one of the glorious notions in the history, theory and praxis of theatre in western history. And he remains at the center of methods of practice, teaching and writing theatre: The spectator was no longer in any way allowed to submit to an experience uncritically (and without practical consequences) by means of simple empathy with the characters in a play. The production took the subject matter

11

As we move from the Zurich version (1944) to the Santa Monica version (same year) which Brecht wanted for a possible musical with Kurt Weill, the tenor of the play changes and it gets darker. The identification of ‘tobacco’ as opium shows Brecht’s realization that the American Dream was no better than German reality, and thereby hangs the tale of capitalist fascism. 12 Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, Trans. Cyril Smith 2002, based on work done jointly with Don Cuckson. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/

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and the incidents shown and put them through a process of alienation: the alienation that is necessary to all understanding. When something seems ‘the most obvious thing in the world’ it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up. (Brecht, 71)

At a theoretical, technical level, epic theatre used the alienation effect13 which works to distance the spectator from the plot and eschews an emotional response for critical understanding of the socioeconomic forces that underlie the tragedy depicted. Brecht talks about it repeatedly in his theoretical treatise A Short Organum of Theatre (1949) and brings it out in his plays. The theatre practitioner and the teacher move hand in hand. Having directed The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948) and The Good Person of Setzuan (1938-1944) once each, and Arturo Ui (1941) twice (a total of four plays , more than I have directed of any other single playwright) and having taught The Life of Galileo Galilei (1937-1943), Mother Courage (1939) and The Good Person of Setzuan, I feel Brecht is crucial to every aspect of theatre definition, and his theatre intersects with the composite set of power and money, exposing repeatedly the machinery of the capitalist state. For instance, the use of songs in both Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle serves the purpose of exposing patriotism as jingoism, wars as bourgeois markets, and the sacrifice this market constantly demands of the poor. It is important here to recall Brecht’s intense displeasure at the various attempts to valorize Mother Courage against his direction, to see her as foolish, one who tries to benefit from the forces of war, not realizing that war does not spare anyone except those in power and she’ll be left negotiating while her children are consumed by the war. If Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle provide an adequate illustration of class equations and questions looked at from a Marxist position, then The Good Person of Setzuan provides a good illustration of the radical as method: making processes as participatory as possible and resisting all kinds of normativizing (read stereotyping) and relocating universal concepts (goodness and love in this instance) out of the domain of the powerful and pushing them into the margins. The play sees activism as a collective quest of ‘good’ placed in co-ordinates of specific time and locale, a concept of good which asks us to adapt and perform, and seek goodness in our midst. Brecht was not setting himself in a niche of activism, nor was he seeing himself as a practitioner of change-oriented theatre. For him, what he was 13

Called the Verfremdungseffekt (V-effekt), it is a way of making the familiar unfamiliar, to enable us to see and locate the lies in what we have been taught to see as clear truths.

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practicing was theatre, and against contemporary modes of the well-made play and the kitchen sink drama which were not theatre at all, but morbid and moribund endorsement performances. Playing Brecht remains crucial to any attempt to see theatre as a naysayer to attempts at mainstreaming, at defying hegemony and the value structures proposed by hegemony. More than a century from the time that he started performing, Brecht remains crucial to the practice of performance. Many European plays of the first half of the 20th century, some overtly and by implication, and others direct and in-your-face, provide a critique of the contemporary western world, wallowing in the moneyed success of capitalism. Theatre from this region of the time resists the successful framework of contemporary capitalism, especially the one theorized upon in Anglo-American theory, and its espousal of this success is far more qualified. The much valorized plays of Beckett and Ionesco14 continue to defy the theoretical framing of the Theatre of the Absurd (Martin Esslin’s misleadingly famous book, 1961)15 to show the decadence of contemporary fascism and the fascism of contemporary capitalism - how it has brought the contemporary West to the static decay where it stood then.16 Far from a demonstration of the absurd, their plays show how theatre can never move away from politics, how its stasis reflects the stasis of its world and its political processes. If Waiting for Godot (1953) has been praised as an adequate illustration of the existential absurd by approaches that look back to New Criticism, our placing of that text in the foreground of agitprop and Brecht, especially remembers Odets’s Waiting For Lefty (1935), from which Beckett borrows not only in terms of the title and structure, but also 14 Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), the famous Irish playwright, and novelist who based himself in France. Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994), a Romanian playwright who wrote in French. Both are regarded as the defining playwrights of modern European Drama. Esslin tried to subsume both playwrights in his notion of Theatre of the Absurd, which presents the existential absurdity of our world. Many Marxist critics, including Adorno disagree, finding the plays of the two to be radical and against the capitalist world. 15 Martin Esslin (1918-2002), British playwright, journalist, and critic, best remembered for coining the term ‘Theatre of the Absurd’. 16 I am referring to many plays that withstood theoretical attempts to frame them within the absurd but particularly iconized plays including Waiting for Godot (1953) and The Rhinoceros (1959). Waiting for Godot provides an unparalleled critique of deadness, of the lack of developmental potential in the contemporary West, and The Rhinoceros provides a critique of fascist voices and of how the majority just goes along, and that this is as true of Hitler’s Germany as of the capitalist US, or the Hindutva India.

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in terms of a critique of the void created by growing capitalism in the wake of the second world war (with Odets it was about the Depression). In the words of Adorno on Beckett’s Endgame (1957): Historically, this continuum is supported by a change in the a priori of drama: the fact that there is no longer any substantive, affirmative metaphysical meaning that could provide dramatic form with its law and its epiphany. That, however, disrupts the dramatic form down to its linguistic infrastructure. Drama cannot simply take negative meaning, or the absence of meaning, as its content without everything peculiar to it being affected to the point of turning into its opposite. The essence of drama was constituted by that meaning. Were drama to try to survive meaning aesthetically, it would become inadequate to its substance and be degraded to a clattering machinery for the demonstration of world views, as if often the case with existentialist plays. (Adorno 1991 - 92)

And there is Jean Genet, with his vital, reverberating theatre. His plays and his dramaturgical techniques (a preference for using young male actors to perform the roles of women - an amalgam of Elizabethan traditions, of his own sexual preference for young boys, and his evolution of new dramatic devices for baring the performative) present a challenge to this day, and make him an avant garde, not just in his time but in all time. The Balcony (1957) is intermittently a part of the English Literature course and I have taught it many times, besides directing it twice over a gap of fifteen years. The play subverts contemporary capitalism, gender binary constructs, phallocentrism, heterosexuality, the institution of the family, marriage - the list is endless. And in greatest ludic traditions, it plays with play-acting, rolemaking and essence creating. Its critique of all existing modes of radicalization is not an endorsement of the status quo or even a cynical one - what’s the point but a cry for wholesome, total change in the way in which our society has been organized. As a director, for me, the most interesting bit is to communicate to the audience that the last act of Roger in The Balcony is a castration and not a penectomy, the latter is the desired metonymy, a disgendering, an act that could change the valorized notions of gender. A complete systemic change is needed, and until that happens we are ‘sterile virgins’ and castrated men in a decaying world. In spite of a lot that appears abstruse, or unusual, he brings a lot of optimism, even idealism to the table. Through him, theatre becomes that pursuit for that ideal, equal world, no compromises accepted.

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Theatre in History and History in Theatre From 2014, slowly but very surely, India has been in the grips of a powerful right wing rule. How did we get there and what are the implications for theatre? The Congress party-led coalition, the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) lost the plot in its second run from 2009 to 2014. Gross incompetence at handling the finances of the country, unpopularity, and above all that, the charges of graft. Not just a charge, but mind-blowing evidence of the way the ruling party’s people were accumulating money for themselves, put again and again in the public domain. The graft took away whatever the alliance had grafted from 1999. In 2014, the Bhartiya Janta Party-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) got to wrest the power. There is something eerie about what has emerged, something that challenges the very rubric of what the country has stood for; its secular, syncretic, democratic spirit. ‘Fearsome words like ‘treason’, and ‘antinational’ enter into our mainstream discourse, and surveillance becomes strong under the garb of ferreting out anti-nation activities. The distinctions between what is against the nation, against the government, and against the ruling party is becoming indistinguishable. In 2019, a bigger brute majority for the BJP (and NDA), took what started five years earlier to unprecedented heights or depths. So how does theatre redefine, reinvent itself? As repression rules, people are picked up from all walks of life, and detained. We need metonymies, we need dystopias, we need fantasies. We need paradigms from the past, writers and works that stand up as inspirations, and also as hope, that repression has not stifled antagonist voices or kill hope. And that it will not succeed now, either. Brecht’s voice is possibly the most important in its challenging of capitalist constructs, of showing its bias towards the margins, not just thematically, but in creating an enabling methodology of critical distancing in the performers and viewers alike, to discern the lies of hegemony and seek alternatives beyond the mainstream. At pandies’ we turned to radical writers of the past whose politics do not belong to the past. We played The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (2018)17 and The Good Person of Setzuan (2019). The performance of the first kept its centripetal focus on radical openings provided by the word ‘resistible’. Resistible is an interesting word open to performative play, not the usual irresistible. Tyranny can be resisted, which is an important matter that we 17 Pandies’ has staged The Resistible of Arturo Ui twice. The first time, in1994, was apprehending the danger of a right-wing takeover in the wake of the destruction of Babri Masjid, and of the fact that Delhi, the capital, had a right-wing leader for the first time, Madan Lal Khurana as the Chief Minister of Delhi.

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tend to forget. The theatrical tradition is the strongest evidence of this. To resist leads us to that word hated by all authorities, by all those in power, resistance. This became an endorsement of that most basic task of theatre. An early success of pandies’, the return of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in 2018 was a risky endeavour. Where would we stage it? Any reference to Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, or Arturo Ui, could have serious consequences.18 The play was staged in the group’s own studio (by now pandies’ had a small performance space taking in an audience of about 50-55), and then in some universities and colleges. That need for space, to be able to ‘know’ what we choose to ignore, and Brecht’s key to exposing objective truths as lies of those in power has been one of pandies’ chief inputs and takeaways from Brechtian theatre. We started with some experiments to enhance the distancing effects (taken a step further in the staging of The Good Person of Setzuan later). The primary one of these was breaking the protagonist, in the sense of making two actors perform the central role. This also meant a further increase in the inability to empathize. But the play speaks for itself, and its critique is a potent condemnation of fascism under any circumstances. Any attempts to adapt or contemporize this play seem pointless and even rather counter-productive. The Good Person of Setzuan was easier to get under the radar. The focus was to get the nuances of the script’s negotiations with the ‘method of good’ across. The play has been a problem for those who go by content alone, and do not see the importance of the performative. Many appreciative critics of Brecht have also felt that this play does not ‘work’ as well as its more famous counterparts19 like The Caucasian Chalk Circle or Mother Courage. This position amounts to succumbing to its challenge – The Good Person of Setzuan questions formulations and methodologies including those of the playwright himself. Thematically it belies notions of success (goodness) showing them up as markers of the capitalist ethos that it criticizes. What appears as a partially worked out structure, with characters swinging from one binary to another, is a working illustration of Brecht’s expression of his understanding of the instability of the workers in an exploitative structure where most are victims, losers. And the lack of resolution, even in the form of a Marxist platitude, emphasizes the primacy of the process and places the onus of resolving on the audience. The play’s canvas of critique is uniquely 18 The staging of The Resistible of Arturo Ui has been repeatedly halted by many universities in the country. 19 The play had few performances in Brecht’s life and later, even the Ensemble was chary of putting it up. Contemporary and later directors (including Piscator) felt that Brecht had erred, that he was not being ‘radical’ enough. For me, the above constitutes a misreading or at least an under-reading of The Good Person of Setzuan.

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vast and unending, especially seen in the light of the evolution of the script. Brecht’s own changes to the text as we move from the early 1940-41 version (written largely in Stockholm), through the Zurich version (1943), to arrive at changes that he made for a possible musical performance directed by Weill in America (the Santa Monica, 1943 version) show his deepening engagement with the ethical outcomes of a flawed system.20 We had two shows in our studio and two at the Stein Auditorium at IHC, one of Delhi’s premier theatre auditoriums. Brecht has been central to defining the meaning of theatre, that it is a genre against the grain/normative, and a means of exposing exploitation by those in power. The performance of this play enhanced these interpretations further than the presentations of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. Shen Teh/ Shui Ta was played by three actors; two women and one man. Not women for Shen Teh and a man for Shui Ta but a rhythmic flow, emphasizing the fluidity of gender and sexuality. For instance, the male actor might have played Shui Ta with Sun as her lover. References to contemporary happenings (the CAA)21 were thrown in, in small bits here and there, like little pebbles to create small complicit waves with the audience without in any way rupturing the core of Brecht’s attempt in the play. The construction of a shared ideological ground between the performers and the audience was emerging as another of the stark features of theatre. What was interesting was the huge potential for political destabilization in the Brecht process, as adapted by us. People in the audience who were usually somewhat conducive to the barrage of rightwing rhetoric were also entertained and smiling in the Brechtian mode, and maybe, some went back thinking about what they were supporting. We used the Santa Monica script, where Brecht really pushes the notions of ethics. Shen Teh is not just a sex-worker (in our academic mindset we see the sexworker as a victim of society and patriarchy, and therefore easy to accept in the valorized mode). She is also a drug peddler (now that is a problem for 20

It is interesting how both the ‘standard’ translations - Eric and Maya Bentley (originally translated around 1947) and John Willett (original, 1962) - stick by and large with the Stockholm and Zurich versions. Willett praises the Santa Monica version but shies away from using it for his first or later revisions. The Santa Monica version, understandably, has been preferred by alternate translations and productions closer to our time. For instance, in 2008, David Harrower used this text for his translation for the Young Vic Company and it was used earlier also by two famous examples of The Good Person of Setzuan’s adaptation into participatory theatre, The Good Woman of Sharkville (1997), explicitly began with the Santa Monica script, and the Good Person of New Haven (1996), began with the three versions together. Our own script prioritized the Santa Monica script but borrowed bits, the marriage scene for instance, from the Zurich version. 21 The Citizenship Amendment Act, explained earlier.

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most middle-class minds). And the relationship between her and Sun becomes rather more complicated, as she is not only the one who exploits, but in her male, drug making/peddling avatar, reduces Sun to a grovelling junkie. The play ruptures all conventional ideas of the radical, both in real life and in theatre life. It moves us clearly towards a collective mode of addressing. The failure to define goodness shows that normatives emerge out of stasis and can only be supportive of the power-centered status quo. These normatives stand exposed when subjected to a rational analysis. An underdog view of such concepts requires a constant relocation. The unresolved ending of the play, a play that has raised an ethical problem in the midst of myths of capitalist success, turns the onus on the audience. The play adds to the incompleteness germane to the notion of theatre, a form written to be performed - perennially in process, striving not for completeness but for a collective addressal and redressal of problems in the constant attempt to make this a better world, a more equal world. The literally timeless aspect of Brecht’s theatre provides interesting spaces for intersectionality. On the one hand we present a no-holds-barred critique of the shenanigans of a capitalist, right-swinging state, and that very timeless quality of his scripts enables us to locate the critique in our context and locale without much, or even any tinkering. Brecht provides a good space to hide (after all, for all purposes we are doing iconic European plays of the 30s and 40s) and also equips us to use allegories and metonymies as means of subverting those in power. The devices and methodologies above enable the performer to strike up a special relationship with the spectator. It isn’t just shared ideology, but goes way beyond in establishing a subversive relationship with the hegemonic state and the institutions it supports. Brecht’s devices establish a new potent theatrical language mutually understood by the performer and the participant/audience. At the level of social critique, the plays also work as simplistic historical allegories, an immensely malleable, multiple target form 22 that allows subterfuge and subversion of the system, and, more important, enables a theatre group’s survival in repressive times. The immense importance of Brecht for pandies’ theatre (while not actually performing Brecht) was clearly visible in two attempts at historical allegory, as theatre structured around the works of Saadat Hasan Manto was adapted and performed by pandies’ from 2016 to 2019.

22 Arturo Ui looks back to Hitler and in turn, relates to such dictators across time and countries.

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Works cited Adorno, Theodor. Notes to Literature 1961, Trans. and Ed. Nicholsen, Shierry Weber. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991-1992. Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Trans. and Ed. Willett, John. New York: Hill and Wang, 1957.

Fig 4-1, Fig 4-2 The Balcony (2014)

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Fig 4-2: The Balcony (Genet), 2014

Fig 4-3, Fig 4-4 The Good Person of Setzuan (2019)

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Fig 4-4: The Good Person of Setzuan (2019)

CHAPTER FIVE SCRIPTING TO PERFORM: SAADAT HASAN MANTO: PAGALEYAN DA SARDAR (THE CHIEF OF THE LUNATICS)

This section assumes importance for the persona of the playwright. It is on the one hand, an attempt to adapt the form of the short story into a theatre script, and more important, it is a foray into the radical, into how to veer a script towards a politics, to bring out its vulnerability and incompleteness while making a definitive political statement. The exercise was done twice, and constituted an interesting attempt in the way the choice of stories influences the way in which the politics of the writer gets shaped. In addition, what gets stressed in the story exercises an important ingredient in shaping its politics. So there were two Manto scripts, one a forty-minute piece as part of a larger enactment, and the other a full length 120-minute script. The use of language got more experimental in the movement from a multilingual script to the sharp use of a combination of just Punjabi and English (Punglish). But it was really in the choice of the stories, the varying emphasis and sequencing changes that the political choices stood out. While analyzing in detail the longer ‘main’ script in its entirety, I will also refer to changes made in the rendering and performance of stories as one moved from the first attempt to the second, and why the stories that ended the first foray were dropped altogether in the second. Saadat Hasan Manto, is a reverberating name in the Indian subcontinent, a radical voice (so revered that even the right-wing seeks to devour him, and claim him for theirs), valorized both in India and in Pakistan, suspect both in India and in Pakistan. He wrote on both sides of the partition and on both sides of the LOC. Was he Indian, was he Pakistani? He was both, and neither. Hindu or Muslim? He was a well-born Muslim but with his avowed atheism, maybe not both, but certainly neither. For pandies’, this writer has a special place. This was due to the way he stood for secular values, as the world around him during the partition of India, post-Independence, split

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across to unleash one of the worst religious pogroms in world history (the religious bigot thrives, actually looms large on India’s horizon today, ensuring Manto his place in history and a resurgence in theatre history). Taking on right-wing ideological frames, he seemed to be that one source which could be latched on to, to speak back at the establishment. As speaking in your own voice becomes difficult, theatre needs subterfuge1 to remain a powerful instrument of dissent even as repression gets normalized and normativized. Manto’s irreverence to religion, to critiquing religion per se makes him that much more relevant to our times. As we point fingers to show limitations in other religions, and bury seeds of bigotry and hatred, his mode of criticism was to begin by critiquing his own religion. His modus operandi was to critique family by critiquing his own family, offering a dissection of fatherhood by dissecting his own role as a father. It is interesting to see how the script evolved and how the dramaturgy was set in place. The first adaptation was in the play entitled Crooked Kala(a)m (2016),2 along with adaptations of short stories of two other writers, Premchand and Ismat Chugtai, pioneers of the form of fiction. And from here evolved a full script based on Manto’s own short stories. Manto wrote in Urdu, though his preferred language was the regional Punjabi. Scripting him in our time presented the challenge of trying to bring it alive in his preferred language. The script had chunks of Punjabi along with Hindustani and English.

1

It’s been interesting to see how many plays and films (biopics) have come up about Manto and his works since India came under the BJP’s rule. 2 Crooked Kala(a)m was a unique experiment. Three playwrights from pandies’, Anand Prakash, Sanjay Kumar and Anuradha Marwah, worked on three radical writers of the early 20th century, Premchand, Manto and Ismat Chugtai. Anand’s script was an adaptation of one short story, Manto of many short stories, some vignettes and some prose writings, and Chugtai was a recreation of Chugtai’s relationship with Manto. The latter two, Manto and Chugtai were developed into full length scripts, Ismat’s Love Stories (2016) and Pagaleyan Da Sardar (2017) by the respective writers Anuradha Marwah and Sanjay Kumar.

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Fig 5-1: Crooked Kalaam (2016)

Crooked Kala(a)m (2016) In Crooked Kala(a)m, Manto was placed where he belongs historically, between Premchand and Chugtai. In an overall script that presented a critique of contemporary India, Manto’s anti-communal voice had been celebrated, but the play was left poised delicately for a feminist intervention. The combination of the two raised the vital question - what is it that the secular, left, voice offers as a masculine alternative to the right-wing toxic masculinity it so criticizes? (a question that has no easy answers and is unfortunately easily avoided in radical circles too). The question was being reformulated. As in the real-life relationship of Manto and Chugtai, the script left space for Chugtai to voice the ambiguity she felt for Manto, her frenemy. The Manto script had a particular place in the nuanced politics of the piece as a whole. It ended with an adaptation of two short stories that showed women in an ambiguous, violent light. The first (100 Watt bulb) had the young man as narrator (Manto?) seeking a sex worker during the

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riots. Unable to perform he gives her money and goes away. Chided by his friend, he goes back to her. The short play ends thus: (Next day, the narrator talks to his friend) Friend: How was she to look at, sexy, her boobs, were they large? Narrator: Okay Friend: Was she young, the problem with sex workers here is they are all above 40. What about this one? Narrator: It was dark in both the rooms, I could not look at her properly. And I was so angry with her pimp I just wanted him dead. (Voice from darkness) They parted, the conversation had aroused an interest, a curiosity. He found himself standing by the same door, it was again half open. The streetlight swept in through the window, forcing him to look at things in a particular perspective. (The woman is visible as the narrator moves to her) Narrator: She lay on the floor. Her face was not visible. Her breasts were heaving, she was obviously in deep sleep. I looked at them they were big indeed. My eyes figured a loose brick, one of those lying outside the other day but this one was by her side, It wasn’t there the earlier day. what was that on the brick? Thickish fluid? My eyes were pulled beyond her body. There was somebody lying by her side. I rushed in. It was a man, but he was headless, no, there was a head smashed, I could see the innards and the flies hovering over his blood. (Voice from darkness) He ran out, barely able to hold his legs. (The woman sits staring at the audience)

The woman as sex worker/murderer, naturalized, made acceptable, remains the othered object, a male study, of desire and hatred. She was seeking rest and sleep, and could kill for it. The misogyny was intense. This short story creating an intense, and not really lovable, picture of womanhood led to another violent rendering of womanhood: Behind the Wild Cactus/Reeds, (Sarkandya de Pichhe), the disturbing story of a mother-daughter (pimp-sex worker) Sardar and Nawab, and the young nawab Haibat Khan in love with Nawab. The intense romance between Haibat and Nawab comes to closure when Haibat returns with the new woman in his life, Halakat, his wife, after the death of her husband and a

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tempestuous affair. The script ends in the ghoulish manner of Renaissance revenge tragedy (Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus anyone?) with Halakat serving the lover the wonderfully well-cooked meat of his beloved, and the woman’s avowal at the end: Cutting out these turn on thoughts, Haibat turned back. Even before he could see inside Sardar’s pot the smell of cooking flesh hit his nostrils. His heart froze. He ran fast. Nawab lay pulling a sheet over her face, and Halakat stood next to her. Halakat: I have dressed your fairy princess as your bride, and before devouring her you must partake the feast her mother is making with full passion. And Haibat saw a big dagger, more a cleaver actually and a bizarre expanding pool of blood. And his booming authoritative voice had become a squeak. Haibat: What did you do? In one fell jerk Halakat threw off the sheet. Haibat passed out. (Song in the background - Jo bhi pyaar se mila hum ussi ke ho liye,3 In life’s journey we embraced whoever met us with love)

As Haibat regained consciousness he was in his car and Halakat was driving. She looked at him, eyes dripping love: Don’t hold it against me. This is not the first time. Like you my first husband too did not understand the meaning of fidelity. I cut him into small pieces and fed him to the vultures… But with you it’s different I love you to madness, that is why… Haibat could only turn his head and look back. They had come away, Beyond the wild reeds (Sarkandaya de paar). (Song continues - Hum hain rahee pyaar ke, We are travellers on the road of love)

Looking to the feminist intervention from Ismat - Manto, my friend, my enemy. My frenemy. The Manto section in this smaller script started with adaptations of vignettes, of nano stories, through which Manto had described scenes of the 3

The lyrics of this old film song were used as a refrain in this episode.

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partition. Graphics of violence, of religious bigotry leading to adaptations of some classic depictions of stories from the time, stories showing harrowing incidents of killing, rape, and genocide. But this valorized voice, while retaining most of its grandeur, was gently steered by the two episodes above into a nuanced grappling with the gender question. A question that cropped up repeatedly in pandies’ reflexive workshops - anti-bigotry yes, but what do we do about the misogyny? Can we accept the above descriptions of women? Can we simply put them away as male renderings belonging to a certain age and time? Look at what was being written in the West by celebrated writers like Lawrence, Hemingway, Miller and others? Can that be used to defend Manto, or does it necessitate a closer reading and criticism? In this script, the idea was to subject him to sharper feminist intervention from his younger contemporary, Ismat Chugtai.

Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan da Sardar (The Chief of the Lunatics) Our world was showing drastic signs of change. Theatrical intervention was getting more dangerous and hence, was also more needed. The state has always been a problem for theatre as much as the reverse. And when it gets more repressive, more right-swinging, when the lines between the government and the state get increasingly smudged, the problems are compounded. Pagaleyan Da Sardaar (The Chief of the Lunatics),4 the second script, used a little of the older material (in a different perspective) and added more from other stories and Manto’s prose writings. But there was a distinct change in the political orientation. Coming as it did just after the 2019 elections, the political backdrop turned darker compared to the earlier script.5 Manto’s work starts on the Indian side of the border before a border was built to segregate the nations. Early works include some interesting 4

Manto’s works have been translated by many writers into English and Hindi. I read many of these translations while creating the two scripts, listed at the end of this chapter. At the time of staging, the first was in English and multiple Indian languages, the second in Punjabi and English. The non-English sections in the two scripts have been translated into English for this book. 5 Whatever might be advanced as reasons and explanations, the fact is, that a compendium of actions amounted to a stifling of dissent and protest. The abrogation of 370, the insistence on NPR, the passing of CAA, and all these in the face of resistance from diverse quarters, showed the stranglehold the government was implementing, further corroborated by detentions and arrests from dissenting quarters. All this has been referred to earlier.

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radio plays and some short stories. Manto moved to Bombay and wrote there. Not achieving great success as a film script writer, he went on to establish a reputation as possibly one of the greatest short story writers in the history of fiction. As India became independent, the spectre of communal violence between the two religions, always uncomfortable with each other, also became a horrendous reality as the partition of the nation into India and Pakistan became inevitable. The communal pogrom that followed is among the worst in the history of the world, and this brought forth some of the most seething, searing, creative work from Manto. Manto moved to Pakistan and spent the rest of his life there, writing short stories and his famed letters to Uncle Sam as excessive drinking slowly ate away at his mind and body, rendering him an early excruciating death. Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan da Sardar, is an attempt to catch this vulnerable past and show the parallels and relevance from where we stand today. And what follows below is an attempt to follow a script from the position of a writer (a writer who is also a performer, a director of the same), and the way the writing of the script impacts upon the meaning of not only one play/performance but on the meaning of theatre itself. I have set out below the entire play, with little notes, seeking interaction and comments from readers and audiences. As a playwright, where does one look to polish the craft, hone the politics? All over. In the Manto play, the sharp, stunning twists at the end often come from Manto’s mastery over his preferred form of the short story itself, but that pervasive sense of gloom in the canvas against which the play plays itself is the gift of classical Greek tragedy and the dark brooding plays of the Renaissance. Then there are the Brechtian challenges to framed ideologies and the critical distancing, so as not to miss what is there and to see lies for lies, bigots for bigots. (Voice from darkness) Saadat Hassan Manto, Pagaleyan da sardar A designated spot onstage for Manto. Manto: Now if I were to be asked WHY it is that I write, I have an answer for that too. The most important reason is that I'm addicted to writing, just as I am addicted to whiskey. When I don't write, it feels like I'm unclothed, like I haven't had a bath. Like I haven't had my first drink. If you ask me, and I swear by God, that God, that Allah whom I have never seen nor do I want to see, I really don’t know why I write. It’s Safiya, my wife, as I sit moping in a corner, she tells me: Why are you sitting with your sullen face? Where will we get rations from? You have thought enough, now do some work. WRITE.

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And I begin, the brain remains empty but the wallet fills up. It’s magical really, how a story pops out of the stomach like a child popping out from a womb. I am not a great storyteller. Humble beginnings. Earlier I wrote a lot of plays for All India Radio (AIR). I am not even a storyteller. I am a pickpocket, yes a pickpocket. With a difference, I pick my own pockets and hand you the pickings.

The script used sundry writings from the writer as comments and meaning enhancers for some of his iconic stories and lesser-known plays. The politics of the play were augmented by the political overtones of the languages used. The episodes were in Punjabi (with smatterings of English - at times from the characters but usually from the narrators of the stories). The linking narratives which were often borrowed from Manto’s own writings were almost invariably in English. The attempt was to create seamless transitions between the two languages. Manto wrote in Urdu and spoke in Punjabi. If it was his favoured tongue, it was also his language of desire. The Punjabi which made up slightly more than half of the script was my attempt to bring Manto alive in his preferred language, and to also increase that flavour before a Delhi audience where Punjabi would work rather well.6 The play politicizes, it interprets in the act of performance. The selection and the sequencing of the short stories used endorsed the vision of both the politics of performance and the performance of politics. The script opened, appropriately, with the stage adaptation of Jeb Katra (Pick Pocket), a radio play of Manto’s, which is an attempt at a love story. The radio play aspect of Manto’s work is the most forgotten, possibly as his accomplishments were more in the realm of the short story. For many, it is also puerile in comparison. In the performance it formed a piece with the other adaptations as renderings of sexual love. Pick pocket (A scene at a railway station. A Punjab town, and Kashi picks pockets amidst the din of the platform. Voices) Get aside! Away from the stairs!

6

Delhi has a significant chunk of Punjabi population cutting across class and professions.

Scripting to Perform Leave some space for the women at least. Kashi: (pushes a guy) Be respectful towards women at least, look her purse has fallen. (Kashi and his friend Girdhari on the platform) Kashi: Whether the train comes early or late, whether there is a crowd or the station is empty, our work does not stop. Girdhari: That’s true Kashi, the dexterity of your fingers. . . Kashi: The neatness with which I have stolen her purse. Girdhari: Check whether there is money or it was for nothing. Kashi: Has it ever happened that Kashi used his fingers and the purse had no money, there will be at least 200 rupees. Girdhari: Correct. Here you take this piece of paper. Two hundreds and a little more. (Silence) Kashi: Return the money. Girdhari: What happened? Kashi: We’ll have to find her and return the money. Girdhari: You lost your mind. Kashi: Look it doesn’t make a difference to us, but this money is very important for her. (Kashi locates the girl, Bimla, on the platform) Kashi: Excuse me. (holds the money in his hands) Bimla: Who are you? (Kashi gives her the 200 rupees) Bimla: But who are you? Kashi: A pickpocket. Bimla: Then why are you returning the money? (Silence) Kashi: Letter, read the letter. Bimla: O God so you also know my secret, my shame. How he treated me after I fell in love. Dropped me like garbage and now blackmails me about my letters, another blackmailer, so now I have two to deal with. Kashi: (confused) You need money more.

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Bimla: Of course now you too will want to make a deal about my secret. How much do you want to keep your trap shut? Kashi: (understands) I am a pickpocket but I am also a human being. Bimla: (on her own trip) and I, I really loved him.. really, really loved him for years, the love died but its anguish survives, and now you know my secret. Kashi: Clean Heart. Bimla: Then why did you pick my pocket? Kashi: (smiles) Ungliyan7 fingers are bad, they do not hear heart. Bimla: (laughs)You have never tried to correct them. I will correct them and make you a better human. Kashi: (eyes shining) Okay, when do we start? Bimla: One condition, you will have to listen to all I say and follow it. Kashi: (alone, speaking aloud) If you tell me I will stop picking pockets. Forever. (Narrator’s voice) Nobody spoke to him this way, nobody had cared like this, Kashi was in love, madly in love, in love with Bimla. Are all lovers mad? No. Many make others mad. Bimla: What is that in your upper shirt pocket? Kashi: Nothing. . . Bimla: Show me. Kashi: Some money. Bimla: Where did you get it from, you had none when I left you. Kashi: Had it before, I have been here, I don’t go out. Bimla: Don’t lie Kashi. Kashi: Fingers. My fingers have never done anything else. Bimla: Look at me I work hard the whole month and yet am barely able to make ends meet. I have been looking to buy a good fountain pen for months but haven’t been able to. Kashi: You give half your money to that dog, your blackmailer. Bimla: My luck. I will correct your fingers but if you continue to steal I will never see your face again. I will stop talking to you altogether Kashi: Whatever you say for my fingers. (softer) And that you stay close to me. Kashi: Pen. Bimla: It’s beautiful, it writes beautifully. Kashi: For you. Bimla: But where did you get it from?

7 Fingers,

play.

objectified, almost personified, the word plays an important part in the

Scripting to Perform (Silence) Bimla: Tell me the truth. Kashi: It was lying on the road. (She looks hard at him) Kashi: From a man’s pocket. Bimla: You cannot be relied upon. I will never see you again. Kashi: Because of you, . . . Bimla: Shut up! Kashi: Wait. (A scene between Bimla and her former lover) Man: Come Bimla! Bimla: Why did you call me here? Man: To finish this hatred between us. Bimla: What does that mean? Man: Give me a lump sum once and I will return all your letters. Bimla: Wow, so now you will sell me my letters. Man: It’s a deal. Get money take letters. Bimla: How much? Man: Just once, the final deal, 500 rupees. Bimla: You have lost your mind. Man: Think it over. You’ll never see me again. 500 rupees and it’s over. Bimla: Do you have the letters. Man: You get the money, I’ll get the letters. Bimla: We’ll meet at the station at 1pm tomorrow. Man: This will be our last meeting. Bimla: Thank heavens for that. Narrator: Thank heavens, Bimla had finally given up her lover. And then our Bimla went searching for Kashi, from place to place. Finally she learnt that he was in a hospital. (She finds him sitting outside the hospital) Bimla: Kashi, How are you? Kashi: (surprised at seeing her and speaking in Punjabi) I am okay. Bimla: Where were you? Kashi: (sulking) You told me to not even show my dead face to you again. Bimla: I said it in a fit of anger. Kashi: And now your anger has cooled off? Bimla: Yes. Kashi: It’s too late.

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Bimla: I need you again, you... you are okay? Kashi: Ya I am fine. Bimla - You are fit enough to move around? Kashi: I can go wherever you say. Tell me where do I go with you? Bimla: Not with me, you have to take this journey by yourself. Kashi: Where? Bimla: In the afternoon, tomorrow, a man will wait for me at the station but you will meet him and not me. Kashi: (afraid) Whatever for? Bimla: He will have a bagful of letters, you have to make that bag disappear. Once again use your famous fingers for my sake. Kashi: But my fingers are no longer evil, I have abandoned that way of life. Bimla: Just once Kashi, just once, I only had asked you to correct your fingers… just once, the last time. This is the same guy, my blackmailer. He is asking for 500 rupees to return my letters. Kashi: But my fingers have corrected themselves. Bimla: Just once Kashi, show the dexterity of your fingers. Kashi: After you left me, I understood that I cannot check myself, my fingers are not in my control. (He looks at her trying to make her understand, she does not) Bimla: (pleads) Just once Kashi and then we will work on your fingers together. Kashi: What will you correct? I got my fingers cut off. Manto: As he showed her his hands with the fingers removed, I wondered was he really mad. Was he in love? Then what is love? A kind of madness?

Pickpocket was a softer episode. In both the tasks of writing and performing, it was a way of easing the audience/readers in and settling them. And what follows is from his prose writings, leading to the next episode, an adaptation of a short story. Above, Below and In Between Manto: Dogs, stop running this current through my body. I am not mad, I checked in myself didn’t I? I came here of my own will, why do you treat me like this? I have alcohol, too much they say. And there is no facility in the whole of Pakistan to treat alcoholism and so I came here, to this madhouse of my own will.

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But I am not mad. Bastards, take that thing out of my mouth. You will make me mad, that is if there is anything to be made mad in this mad world of ours. Why are you shooting currents into my body. Will you partition my body too. Manto/Narrator: But before we partition ourselves, partition our bodies, let us have fun, play with our bodies, yes it is about… What lies above, below and what is there in between Above, Below and In Between (Three part stage, the scenes take place simultaneously, often cutting into one another. The three spaces are occupied by the respective couples through the play and they busy themselves with their daily tasks while the scene is elsewhere)

1.

(Zamindar and his wife, Begum, Space 1)

Begum: Come and sit here close to me, we are getting a chance to be close to each other after a long time. Zamindar: I believe in service.. Community and religion. People are always around me. It’s the problem of being famous and popular among your people. Begum: You are simple and warm hearted like me. Zamindar: I have no spare time from all my social work. And you have to handle all the housework by yourself. Begum: Don’t worry I’ll handle it. Zamindar: Like I was telling you yesterday, I went to Bittoo, our second son, as I got close I saw he was reading a book. He saw me and quickly hid the book. Begum: Which book was it? Zamindar: Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D H Lawrence.8 Begum: Infamous book. Zamindar: Yes, it is banned. Begum: What did you do then? Zamindar: I took the book and hid it. Begum: Well done indeed. Zamindar: I was thinking of taking him to a doctor, we have the best doctor in Dr. Jalal. 8 First published in Italy in 1928, the book was banned in many countries for obscenity. The ban still exists in India.

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Begum: And Miss Saldanah. Zamindar: They say if children overeat and that too foods that are regarded ‘hot,’ like onion, garlic, chillies and red meat, then their behaviour patterns too get charged with the same heat. We will change his diet, make him a vegetarian. Begum: We will show him the right path, put him in the correct direction. Otherwise you know the condition of young people today. Zamindar: What do you feel Begum, should we start? Begum: What? (Coy) I get it. You are getting really spoilt. Zamindar: It’s all the result of your magnificent beauty. Begum: (laughs shyly) But your health? Zamindar: I will take full care of that. Without consulting the doctor I will not take even a step forward. I have to think about you. Begum: And check whether it is now safe? Zamindar: And I will call Dr. Jalal. Begum: This is the way to have sex. Zamindar: If Dr. Jalal gives permission. Begum: If Miss Saldanah says yes. (Scene shifts to Jalal and Saldanah space. Space 2) Jalal: Did you give her permission? Saldanah: (laughs) And you, did you give him? Jalal: Yes, though I felt like teasing him and saying no. Saldanah: Even I felt like doing that to her. Jalal: When he asked me, all shy and pausing for what seemed five minutes, I had already understood what the question would be. Saldanah: How did you know? Jalal: His pulse was racing like a motor car Saldanah: His wife’s pulse was in the same condition. Jalal: One year since he had the attack, one year, they will do each after one year. (Saldanah laughs) Jalal: He said to me my heart is beating really fast, please take an ECG, I said relax and I will give you an injection. Saldanah: (still laughing) I also gave madam an injection, distilled water injection. Jalal: The strength of water, Gangajal.9 Saldanah: Just think Jalal if you were this lady’s husband? Jalal: And what if you were his wife? Saldanah: I would have become a loose character then. Jalal: I would have reached the crematorium. 9 Holy water from river Ganges

Scripting to Perform Saldanah: Even this would be attributed to the looseness of your character. Is your character getting loose today too? Jalal: Now let’s stop talking about these boiled potatoes. (He moves to her and picks her up in his arms) (Back to Space 1) Begum: Why have you kept Lady Chatterley’s Lover hidden under your pillow? Zamindar: I want first-hand knowledge of the kind of garbage the Englishmen write. Begum: Let us read together and assess how low they have fallen. Zamindar: I will read and you provide a commentary. Begum: Fine. Zamindar: I talked to Jalal today about Bittoo, he promised to get him on the right path and change his diet. Begum: You are very responsible. The entire community knows that. Zamindar: It’s all a result of your efforts. For me just your praise is enough. Begum: Come. (As he moves to her) Begum: One minute, have you brushed your teeth? Zamindar: Yes, I have also done gargles with Dettol. Begum: I have also brushed my teeth and gargled with Dettol. Zamindar: We are made for each other. Begum: You are absolutely correct. Zamindar: Should we start? (She looks at him) Zamindar: Should I start reading that filthy book? Begum: One minute, feel my pulse, it’s so fast. Zamindar: True it’s really fast. Check mine. Begum: Yours is also fast Zamindar: What could be the reason? Begum: Heart problem? Zamindar: Yes, but Jalal said everything is fine. Begum: Yes, Saldanah said the same. Zamindar: Then it’s fine. Begum: Yes according to the two doctors. Zamindar: Saldanah… Saldanah has made all arrangements? Begum: Ya, she said you are old but still take these pills, you don’t want to get pregnant at this age. Zamindar: So nothing to worry. Begum: Not in that way.

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Chapter Five Zamindar: Check my pulse. Begum: It’s okay now. Zamindar: Even yours is normal now. Begum: Start reading that accursed book. Zamindar: Yes, the pulse is again racing. Begum: Mine also Zamindar: You asked the servants to keep all the things that we could need? Begum: Yes. Zamindar: Check my temperature. Begum: You check, the stopwatch is here, check your pulse too. Zamindar: You have the smelling salts. Begum: On the table. Zamindar: Great. Begum: Increase the room temperature . Begum: You are right. Now you read an entire page. Zamindar: Sure. (He sneezes.) Begum: Why did you sneeze? Zamindar: Don’t know. Begum: Surprising. Zamindar: Me too. Begum: I am so sorry I decreased the room temperature instead of increasing it. Zamindar: It’s fine, give me 12 drops of brandy and I’ll be okay. Begum: Let me pour, you make mistakes. Zamindar: You are correct, you pour them. Begum: Here and now lie down slowly. Zamindar: Yes. Begum: Are you feeling unwell? Zamindar: Yes. Begum: Rest a bit. Zamindar: I am thinking the same. (They go to sleep. Loud snores of both can be heard as the lights go out) (2 servants - a man and a woman. 3rd Space) Maid: Haven’t seen Madam today. Servant: She is not well. Maid: Boss is also lying flat on the bed. Servant: Why what happened? Maid: Maybe the two at night?? Servant: And look at us. Maid: Many days pass us without any action, we should die of shame. Servant: Why should we die, let them die of shame. Maid: Stop talking about death, come let us go inside. Servant: Okay. Why are you going in the reverse direction?

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Maid: I’ll get the carpenter, the cot is totally broken, remember the last time we did. Servant: Tell him to get good quality wood.

The script opened with humour and romance, with some spasmodic darker tones coming from Manto’s writings. His Letters to Uncle Sam10 were the major resource for getting his views in, be they on the issue of mental health, alcoholism, or a phallocentric view of sexuality. They were preparatory; a sense of comfort was required before getting into the meat of the stories of the partition that make Manto, Manto. BU (Smell/Odour/Fragrance) Manto: Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam Uncle Sam, This is my first letter, I write because you asked me to write. No—whatever happens, I'm yours. That one time you gave me three hundred rupees bought my loyalty for life. In fact, if you send three hundred more, I’ll promise to be yours in the afterlife as well, uncle, your women are so beautiful. I once saw one of your movies called “Bathing Beauty’.“Where does uncle find such an assemblage of pretty legs?” I asked my friends later. I think there were about two hundred and fifty of them. Uncle, is this how women’s legs look like in your country? If so, then for God’s sake (that’s if you still believe in God, I finished him long ago) block their exhibition in Pakistan at least. You don’t know what it does to young men’s glands. (Voice from darkness) We enter the world, that mad, controversial world of Manto and his women, Manto’s depiction of women. He was tried for obscenity six times. Challenging, liberational, in-your-face, misogynist or a male re-creation, recreation? Questions remain. Manto: White beauties, sexy women. Brazen depictions of sex and sexuality. Male gaze, fetish, commodification, stereotyping. The world of the 40s and 50s was cruder, more behind the veils, hidden in lehengas and dupattas.11 Uncle Sam, we in Pakistan, and in India, are rather orthodox. So orthodox that we imprison in the name obscenity. I was tried six times for obscenity, thrice in colonial India and thrice in independent Pakistan. The veils needed, they need removing. Bans, censorship, trials. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Uncle Sam even you all got

10 Written 11

in Lahore in 1954. Long skirt and scarf

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after Erskine Caldwell, the bastard, the guy who wrote The Bastard,12 for his depictions of humans as sex glands. (Voice from darkness) Liberational or misogynist, liberational and misogynist, the problem persists. Manto: Well Uncle Sam. Those beautiful white legs and the breasts, the breasts, they got me in trouble and landed me before a magistrate in Lahore. BU Manto: Fair legs and white legs, Randhir had knowledge of all of them, thighs, Navels and the breasts, he knew them all. My character, my creation. You see him there, clinging to the dark fish seller woman, Ghatan.13 Or is he now with his fair, beautiful wife or rather one of the white Anglo-Indian girls that Randhir loves flirting with, from Nagpada to Tajmahal Hotel,14 he had seen them all. Lovely, fair and Christian. Fetish yes, but don’t brown men fantasize white women? (Randhir takes over the narrative) War frightens all of us. Second World War. It took away a lot from everyone, job security, food, but above all it took away white women from me. All the Christian women who were available cheap were taken away. They joined the army or set up dance schools where only white soldiers could go or simply set themselves up to be done by these soldiers only. I really cursed the war, really missed the Christian women, they really know their sex in a way that others don’t. Racism you say, racial barriers, nowhere does it manifest itself more than in that fair woman or any woman who prefers a white skin to a brown erection. I was missing her, Rachel, that Christian bitch. she lives below, and dresses up in her military attire and goes to office, office to get screwed by the white 12

Erskine Caldwell (1903-1987), an American novelist and short story writer best known for his later work Tobacco Road (1933). The Bastard (1929), his first novel, was banned on account of obscenity. 13 A dark complexioned woman from the ‘ghats’ i.e. the coastal regions. 14 Nagpada, a neighbourhood in South Mumbai known for its ancient Shiva temple. The Tajmahal Hotel, located in Colaba, is famous all over and is possibly the oldest luxury hotel in the city (dating from 1902). The neighbourhood today occupies about six kilometers of road in one of the posh zones of Mumbai.

Scripting to Perform boys. It was raining, I was in the balcony smoking a cigarette, there she stood that Ghatan drenched in the pouring rain, trying to keep off the coming cold with deep puffs of her bidi. Rachel appeared, in her costume, I thoughtlessly, perhaps to rouse Rachel’s jealousy, or at least her interest summoned the Ghatan girl with loud gestures. Rachel missed them, too absorbed in her bloody costume that had to be removed in quick time anyway, but the woman noticed and slowly came up. I know you won’t believe me but really I wasn’t thinking about sex. Not my kind. Her clothes were really wet and I was sure she would fall ill. She also knew that. I pulled out my loincloth (dhoti) and gave it to her, explaining in my language that she should remove her clothes and wear this or she will fall ill. She understood as she grew red in her dark face, becomingly. But she also knew the truth of what was being said. She removed her Lehenga15 and put my dhoti16 over her legs. The glimpse of her thighs was attractive. Her blouse too was wet and she tried to open it but the wetness had made knot tighter. She struggled with it for a bit and then said something to me in her brusque language. I stood behind her and struggled with the knot. My crotch nestled her back. I held the cloth and pulled apart, the knot slipped open. Human beings are sex glands first (remember Caldwell) and mind later, before I knew or even thought, her breasts were in my hands. small and firm. I was playing her nipples. Manto: Randhir was with that Ghatan. Glued. As we know, Randhir had been through many women, man, many of them, those that stuck to him through the night, those who narrated intimate incidents of their lives in his arms, those who had all the tricks in the pack. What was so special about her, I wondered. (Voice from darkness) There was that Bu from her body. No, no don’t try translating it as smell or odour or anything else. It was an odour and also a fragrance. Manto: Masochist, fetishist, look Randhir is not any of these, he hated the smell of sweat and was very careful to hide his own but this was not your regular BO (body odour). It is pure, primordial, of human bodies, of human bodies in the act of sex. This bu which was both an odour and fragrance, he kept imbibing. He was drunk. From her dark hair, her hairy arm pits, between her breasts, from her navel, Randhir kept drinking, from her pubic hair. This bu which was both an odour and fragrance. 15 Long 16

skirt Loincloth

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It enveloped them, represented them. Randhir experienced that bu in every nook and corner of his body. Transcending male narratives, Lawrencian? We are in a repugnant male world? You think so? Maybe. My character, my creation. Randhir is again standing on his balcony, it is again raining the same way. He looks down at the street in the same way. But something has changed. In his room? And in his life? The bed is bigger. And what do we see? A new dressing table. And one gets a... we can translate this one as fragrance and a fragrance in the air. It is coming from a woman. I am looking - makeup, jewellery, perfume, and milky white breasts with a tinge of blue and the dents, marks on the skin - they evidence the bra hooks, the tight, too tight string of the petticoat, her neck and shoulders where the jewellery weighed her down. (Voice from darkness) Looks like the iron nails have been pulled off from a wooden box and she has been pulled out. White body, like flour kneaded in milk and pure ghee.17 Joyless, colourless, lifeless, a dead corpse in the monsoon rain. Manto: She was his wife, a graduate with flying colours and having a thousand admirers in her college. And Randhir…. Randhir was seeking the bu of that unclean body. He could not bear this cold flesh.

A phallic gaze, objectifying women, bu has always presented a problem. Could it even be used for theatre? In pandies’ discussions the positions against it were so strong that we decided to omit this story in the first script. The second time round, the problem was somewhat addressed in the performative by turning the male gaze around. The episode was enacted by three women playing out all the roles and taking all the lines. In terms of the gender politics, the alienation from phallocentricity came out in the visual of women and in their tones, they were at times laughing with, and at times mocking, the male renderings of the script. The basic politics of the story, looked at from the gaze of the male protagonist, Randhir, became a story of women by women. The ghatan on the one hand, Randhir’s newly-wed upper middle-class wife on the other, and his Anglo-Indian lover(s). Yes Randhir, while making love to the milky body of his wife, reminiscences the odour of the fish-seller woman. The story also wonders about how the 17

Clarified butter

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two women gaze at Randhir, and the look is certainly not approbatory. The three opening episodes, on the one hand, formed a dubious anthology of misogyny and simultaneously challenged patriarchal codes through liberational sexual relations. The play then went into meaty famous stories of religious hatred, and the catching of that visceral suffering made Manto famous in his time, and essential in ours. Cold as Ice (Thanda Ghosht) Narrator’s voice: Kalwant Kaur. She sits across on the cot, big woman, late thirties, luscious, sensual, MILF you call her. And our very own Ishar Singh, vibrant young man, sitting on the floor and watching her. She is looking at him swinging her legs, trying to turn him on. Kalwant - Motherfucker, Ishar Singh, what’s happened to you? Will you keep sitting there or will you come and do something to me. Look I am not going to come to you. Manto: Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam I hope you received my seventh letter. I eagerly await your response. Are you planning on sending a Cultural Goodwill Delegation in response to the one the Russians sent? Please let me know. I hope you do as it’ll make me feel better and also I’ll be able to tell my Communist brethren (who have been wrapped up in singing the praises of the Russian Delegation’s successes) that my dear uncle is sending a much better delegation that will include girls with such great legs and big breasts that when they see them they’ll start salivating. And your glands, glands will secrete to dryness. (The Kulwant, Ishar drama continues) Kalwant : And tell me that night, 4-5 days ago where were you till the morning. Open your mouth. Ishar: I don’t know. Kalwant: Reply of an idiot. (Quiet) Kalwant: What happened to you that day. You removed my clothes, covered my naked body with all the ornaments you had looted and then massaged me till I was ready. And when it was the time for you to play your card, you wore your clothes and walked out. Ishar: Forget that day, lets’ play our cards now.

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(He picks her up with youthful vigour and takes her aside. Suddenly one heard Kalwant’s acid voice) Kalwant: Which bitch has sucked you dry like this. Tell me her name. Ishar: Nobody touches me except you. Kalwant: Then what is this? (Pointing to his privates). Tell me her name. Ishar: Nobody. (She pulls out his Kirpan18 and slashes his throat) Ishar: No Kalwant Kalwant: I am Harnam Singh’s daughter, I will not seek help from anyone, I will cut you and your bitch into bits. Ishar: Then listen. This is about the night when there was a big riot. With this very Kirpan I carved up 6-7 Mussalmans. And looted several houses and shops. I brought the entire loot to you. Kalwant: But you did not tell me everything. Ishar: One thing I hid from you. No don’t swing the Kirpan at me again. The name plate of one house read Muhammad Khan. We got inside that house. Cut up 4-5. I saw a girl 14-15 years old. Very beautiful. Don’t use the Kirpan. I just thought I feed off your fruits everyday let me taste this little bud too. I put her on my shoulder and ran. There was no movement from her, I thought she must have fainted. I reached the fields and threw her on the ground and immediately threw my card… Kalwant: Then… Ishar: She was dead. I had carried a corpse on my shoulder and I had put it inside the corpse. (Voice fades) (She holds his hand and she finds it cold as ice)

Cold as Ice was strategically placed. While it continued with the politicizing of sexuality, the narrative focus was more split between the two protagonists. And we had already transited seamlessly into the heart of the partition pogrom, and were grappling with its madness. The stories that follow are a combined critique of the irrational that pervades religion, ALL religion. If the protagonist of one shows a sense of loyalty, the other is responsible for the death of an entire family. The obsessive focus brings the matter to the world at hand, where killings and lynchings of the minorities are becoming more and more normalized. If, existentially, we need to 18

A Kirpan is a big dagger / small sword that Sikhs carry with them always. It is one of the essentials of their religion. It is only in recent times that many are not carrying one, or carry a very small symbolic kirpan.

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grapple with what we are becoming, politically where do we go from here? We need to relocate the problem, see it as a problem of majoritarianism, of supremacism, before we think of addressing it. Ram Khilavan Manto: My name is Saadat Hasan Manto and I was born in a place that is now in India. My mother is buried there. My father is buried there, my firstborn is also resting in that bit of earth. However, that place is no longer my country. My country now is Pakistan which I had only seen five or six times before as a British subject. I used to be All India’s Great Short Story Writer. Now I am Pakistan’s Great Short Story Writer. Manto/narrator: Looking back at my days in Bombay, I was sitting on the bed and my washer man (dhobi) Ram Khilavan was looking at my brother’s photo on the wall. Dhobi: That is Munawar Khan? Narrator: Yes my elder brother. Narrator: He looked sceptic and I explained - I have two older brothers, Munawar and Hassan, they came from Punjab, spent two years in Bombay and went to Fiji. Suddenly Ram Khilavan lapsed into Punjabi which he claimed to have learnt from my brother. Dhobi: Both stayed in Colaba19 and you here? Narrator: Yes they were success stories and I, well not even a failed narrative. Decided to hide behind philosophy. The Sun has many colours, shade and light, all fingers of our hands are different. Dhobi: He was a nice man, Munawar Sahab, who while going to Fiji gave me a new long-shirt (Kurta) and a loincloth (dhoti). And you are his brother. (Narrator continues): His doubt took time to die. I could not even pay him all the time. But he never said anything, accepted what I gave. I went to Delhi for two years. Return from Delhi, married. Bad days. Set up house, Adjust to each other. Above all, missed having a good dhobi, where was Ram Khilavan? Most dhobis in Bombay were alcoholics. There was a prohibition on sale of booze, Indian liquor and foreign liquor. But hooch, bad illegal liquor is always available. And who knows its killing effects better than, yours truly.

19

An old, rich neighbourhood in erstwhile Bombay.

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He found us. And again loved to lapse into Punjabi. Dhobi - I asked around and people told me that you stay in Mahim.20 (Narrator continues): He too was a heavy drinker of the same bad liquor. Screwed livers, jacked kidneys. And one day Ram Khilavan lay dying of the same liquor. I was out of town, my wife got the information . She took a taxi, bundled him in and took him to a hospital Ram Khilavan survived but had to go cold turkey. He would say: I owe my life to madam, she took me to the hospital in a taxi or I would have died on the streets. Independence. Partition happened. (The narrator is speaking to his wife on the phone): Don’t come to Bombay, I am coming to Delhi. Yes riots are starting, the country has been divided. Yes I am catching the morning train. My clothes are with Ram Khilavan, I’ll go and get them. No the condition is okay yet and there are three hours before the curfew, I’ll keep the taxi and come back. I reached his place, the Dhobighaat 21 at Mahalakshmi, there was still sometime for the curfew. (Narrator continues): People had crowded around the Dhobighaat, soon they were running in all directions, Cloth washing batons in their hands. a drunken macabre dance movement. Threatening, incoherent words: Dhobis They seemed really drunk but my faith in my privilege and in Ram Khilavan was unshaken. They were dancing. As I reached they stopped and looked at me. Narrator: I am looking for Ram Khilavan. (A dhobi knocks from behind): Who are you? Ram Khilavan is my washerman, I am looking for him. Ram Khilavan? A harsh voice: But whose poodle are you?, Which washerman’s? Are you a little poodle from the Mussalman Dhobighaat or the Hindu Dhobighaat? (Narrator continues): They surround me and move closer. My fear more palpable. Voice more desperate. 20 A 21

down-market area in the same place. The public place where many washermen wash their clothes together

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(To the Dhobis): I am looking for Ram Khilavan, he has been washing my clothes for 10 years, he is a good person. (Laughter from the Dhobis). My Begum, I mean my wife helped him once, saved his life, took him in a taxi from here. I felt ashamed of what I was trying to do. (The harsh voice): Which ghat’s dog are you? Mussalman or Hindu? Narrator: I am a Mussalman. (Several voices): Kill him, kill him, break his head. Narrator: I cowed down. Held my head between my arms. (The harsh voice): Stop, Ram Khilavan must kill him. (A voice) Bastard, Mussalman, you do our mothers, now see… Narrator: looked up and saw a hovering Ram Khilavan, My instinct, strong condemning: Ram Khilavan Ram: Shut up you dog. Is Ram Khilavan your father? Narrator: I couldn’t believe my eyes, I wouldn’t have recognized this voice. I knew it was over. My voice was a squeak - Ram Khilavan, it’s me. You don’t recognize me? His drunken eyes connected. Ram: Saab, He is not a Mussalman. He is saab,22 memsaab’s saab, she took me in a taxi and saved my life. The leader said Mussalmans take your lives but they saved me. No they are not Mussalmans. Impossible. (The harsh voice): Open his pants Ram: Don’t come close, I’ll cut you. Narrator: They grapple, I grasp at my opportunity and run. The cab is still waiting. Next morning, I am getting ready to leave, without most of my clothes. Knock on the door. Ram Khilavan. He comes in and puts my clothes on the bed. Ram: Are you leaving? Narrator: Yes

22 A running colloquial for Sahab/Saheb, a term of respect, roughly translates as ‘Sir.’ Similarly, ‘Memsaab’ for madam.

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Ram: Forever? Please forgive me, all this is the work of booze. Narrator: Where do you get it? Ram: Big money, landlords, big traders, politicos. They are distributing free booze. Drink more my son and go and kill Muslims, rape their daughters and wives and all womenfolk. Now who can resist free liquor. Munawar sahib gave me new clothes and memsaab saved my life. Please forgive me and please, please don’t tell memsaab what happened yesterday. Narrator: Ram Khilavan But he had left.

The Ram Khilavan story could have gone the other way. And then my author/protagonist would have been a grave, an epitaph. The rabble-rousing by politicos, the hate speeches, all the provocations to kill, the rumours, the false news were there in Manto’s nation. They are probably more empowered in our world, as we go down hurling into a dark abyss. But can we rise above? Ram Khilavan did. And Santokh Singh? The Testament (Wasihat) Manto/Narrator: If you had the chance would you like to write your own epitaph? Would it be honoured? I tried. And no they did not inscribe it on my grave. “Here lies buried Saadat Hasan Manto in whose bosom are enshrined all the secrets and art of short story writing. Buried under mounds of earth, even now he is contemplating whether he is a greater short story writer or God.” This was the story of Ram Khilavan. But this is not the way our believers behave, this is not how those of faith show their faith. They have another notion of responsibility. A murderous responsibility. Ram Khilavan story would well go the other way. As it did in so many partition narratives. Narrative voice: (plays the predominant role, encompasses the story) Earlier there used to be an incident or two of knifing here and there, part of the Hindu-Muslim narrative in the country. I thought it will also get over. Mian23 Abdul is a retired judge, like me he too felt that this time too, the violence would tide over.

23 A

term of respect, Lord or master.

Scripting to Perform His daughter, Sugra, felt different but how dare she say anything, after all it was her father and a famous judge at that. Mian: Relax, Narrator: (he said deliberately in English being particular about teaching both his children to speak the language fluently), Mian: It happens every now and then, it will go away. Narrator: Electricity and water supplies too got cut. Mian: Don’t worry it’s all in your imagination, it will go away. Narrator: And then Mianji had a stroke, his left side was totally paralyzed, he still kept trying to make sense to his daughter, to gesture to her and his son that all would be well but he was very unwell. She looked over the terrace, it was getting worse, Dr. Ghulam Hussain’s dispensary and Dr. Garanditta Mal’s clinic had both been permanently shut and her father needed medical attention. She turned her attention to her young brother, Basharat, who had stopped playing his games and sat next to his father’s bed Sugra: I know it’s not safe but he needs medical help Narrator: The child went out but returned immediately. Just outside the door he saw a blood soaked corpse and some people with equally blood soaked eyes looting shops. Sugra: Thank god you got back alive. Narrator: But Sugra was getting desperate, father needed a doctor badly and so she vent her anger on the poor 70 year old servant Abdul. Sugra: Those days are over when servants put their lives online for their masters, go and find a doctor for him. Next morning Abdul left in search. Never to be seen again. Narrator: Eid came, but without its customary festivities. Mian assured his children again that good days were just round the corner. There was a knock on the door. Sugra: Basharat open the door. Narrator: Basharat came running back. Basharat: It’s a Sikh. Narrator: She was scared. Basharat: He wants to come in. Mianji: Gurmukh, it must be Gurmukh Singh. Narrator: She remembered Gurmukh. He came every year to give the traditional sweet, seviyan24 on Eid. His relatives had tried to trap him in a false case to take his considerable wealth. The judge had seen through the ruse and freed him. He had become almost a devotee. He would say that his future generations cannot repay this debt. He would to his dying bring the sweets and his children would do so later. But why did Basharat not recognize him?

24 Sweet

vermicelli

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Basharat asked her to look through a hole in the door. It was a Sikh but much younger, but he had a similar bag of seviyan in his hands. Sugra: Who are you? Voice: I am Santokh Singh, Gurmukh’s son. Narrator: She opened the door Sugra: What brings you here today. Santokh: These are made at home, my father left for his heavenly abode. He made me swear that I must get these to you this year. Sugra: May God grant him heavens. Judge Sahab is rather ill, had a stroke. Santokh: Dad would have felt bad, he used to say he is not a man but a God. Narrator: Sugra was wondering whether she could ask him to get a doctor as he quickly disappeared. Santokh Singh turned round the corner. Four Sikhs were waiting for him. Their faces covered, they were carrying big lit torches and they had kerosene bombs in their hands. (A menacing voice): Sardarji is your work over? Responsibility done? Santokh: Yes. (The voice): Can we do our work now? Santokh: Whatever you please. Yes, his responsibility to his father was over, and now they would be responsible to their religion. The mad rationale of religion.

By now the script was beginning to engulf the reader/audience in its bubble of critical distancing from narratives of violence, religious violence, enabling them to see bigotry for bigotry, cowardice for cowardice, and removing the veneer over majoritarian killings. What follows is a brief prose section from Manto, preceding the next story. Manto : Uncle Sam, You should know why my country, sliced away from India, came into being and gained independence, which is why I am taking the liberty of writing to you. Like my country, I too have become independent and in exactly the same way. Independent and mad. (Voice from darkness): Kill for religion, die for religion or live for religion, you are the biggest lunatic. Saadat Hasan Manto, the chief of the lunatics, gave us a lesson about the madness of religions. Manto: Like my country, I too have become independent and in exactly the same way. Uncle, I will not labor the point since an all-knowing seer like you can well imagine the freedom a bird whose wings have been clipped can enjoy.

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Open up (Khol do) Father: I can’t find my daughter Sakina. Allah what should I do? Manto: If you want to talk about family, won’t you start by talking about your own family? And if you want to talk about fathers, won’t you talk about yourself as father. I remember. Uncle Sam. Lahore Riots, 1953. Curfew to control the Anti-Ahmadi disturbances25 but my daughter was dying of typhoid. Through the curfew rid streets I risked my life and reached a medicine shop. Twenty five rupees I had. Twenty five rupees they had given me to buy medicines. But there stood the illicit liquor guy 20 rupiyah,26 he said and that was it, I gave him the money and took the bottle A constable: It’s total prohibition. I looked at him and saw him as an unnecessary hurdle. I handed out the last five. With the drink inside, returned home empty-handed, to be confronted by an expectant family. What happened?…They asked You also want to know that? “I am a coward, what should I do?” “What kind of father I am? I am human.” What kind of father am I? Father: I can’t find my daughter Sakina.. Allah what should I do?

Manto: If you want to talk about fathers won’t you talk about yourself as father. And if it’s about communalizing and bigotry, where do you begin? What religion do you negotiate with? You need to first take on your own religion. Open its gates, open all the doors, open the window. Open up. (Khol do) Open up 25 The anti-Ahmaddiya riots took place in Pakistan in 1953. They were directed against the marginalized sect of the Ahmaddiyas, and killings and the destruction of property assumed gigantic proportions. It took three months of Martial Law before the Pakistan Army managed to quell the riots. 26 Old word for rupee, the Indian currency.

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Narrator: Two words, famous all over Pakistan and India. The young girl opened her legs. Open up And the story stops here. If the girl opens her legs, do you look beyond that? It is a story of forced entry, of coercion, of rape, and the world’s wheels seem to stop right here. But these are also stories of betrayals. Betrayals by fathers, betrayals by family. Betrayals by religion. Father: I can’t find my daughter Sakina.. Allah with what face do I come to you, what do I say? We ran together, but she fell, hurt her ankle, had I stopped I would have been killed. But what will happen to my daughter? How will I show my face to her? I will be punished for this. I will keep searching for her. Manto: When he left his daughter fallen on the ground, didn’t he know that if she survives it would be as a survivor of multiple gang rapes and worse? Guilt ridden, He sits in a circle with the young robust rescuers of his religion, he gives them the co-ordinates of where he was separated from his daughter, which direction he had asked her to follow. The motivated young men find this beautiful young woman walking by the road. They call out - Sakina (She turns) Your father has sent us to take you to him. She is relieved, it’s her king, father sending people - knights in shining armour - to save her and protect her. She gets into the truck, trusting him and then trusting them. But she is too beautiful. They didn’t voice it, they didn’t need to, they decided to rape her, one by one, all together, again and again, day after day, week after week. and then left her close to the train tracks, hoping she would… Betrayals. Insanity. Protectors. She trusted her patriarch, had faith in her religion, they both let her down. What kind of a father am I? I am a coward.

Khol do (Open it), Possibly the best known of Manto’s short stories on both sides of the Indo-Pak border. The story is a classical rendering of rape in war and conflict, of the same being fought on the body of the woman. Even the strongest readers have experienced goose bumps as the doctor asks people to move aside and open the window (Khol do – ‘open it’) for the comatose girl. And she, in her semi-conscious state, sees it as another injunction of her rapists and unties the string of her lower garment.

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Like a lot of Manto’s maturer work, this story too, functions at different levels. The above can be seen as the dominant strand. But as we turned from story to script, the refrains of the father, and the juxtaposing with Manto’s narration of his failure as a father, focused on the deep negotiation of the story with the institution of the family and with fatherhood. To look at the narrative again, running away from the marauding other, the daughter falls down. The father leaves her, because if he tries to save her, he too will be killed, and her capture gives him a few more precious minutes to escape from death. Now guilt-ridden, he seeks young people from his own religion to go out and seek her. They find her, but rape her repeatedly, and leave her by the rail tracks hoping she will die. Manto’s story negotiates with the deepest aspects of paternal betrayal within the larger canvas of religion as betrayer. In discussions with audience (and before that with scholars of Manto while researching the text) it emerged, to our surprise, that many had not noticed that the girls’ rapists (second time) were not the other religion or the other community, but youth of her own religion. The father had sent them because of that, and the daughter too had come to them because they were of her faith, and perhaps more importantly, they had been sent by her father. Situated as Manto is, negotiating his way through a riot-suppressing curfew to get medicines for his sick daughter but instead buying booze from a bootlegger outside the pharmacy, the episode became about dealing with one’s own demons, of looking for the exploitative, careless father within oneself, and of seeing the problems germane to one’s own religion above those of somebody else’s. In my experience as a writer (and a director), a script works best if it keeps a sharp focus on its political aims, ensuring the readers/audiences never lose that track, and all else needs to be subordinate to that. All nuances added to that murderous potential are ensconced in every religion, and in every pursuer of blind faith, and the damage caused to human beings in a pursuit of majoritarianism and supremacism is incalculable. The two iconic stories that constituted the finale, The Dog of Tithwal (Tithwal Da Kutta) and Toba Tek Singh reinforced this argument like the proverbial nails in a coffin. The Dog of Tithwal is about manning the border between India and Pakistan. Written just after the partition in 1947, and in the wake of the early armed conflicts between the two countries over the possession of Kashmir, the script is a dark, though humorous, look at the fate of the soldiers of the two countries. The opening section from Manto’s later letters evidences, on the one hand, the decay of his mind as incoherence sets in, but at the same time, a glorious evidence of his understanding the effect of American

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capitalism on ‘developing’ countries like India and Pakistan, and also his unsparing hatred for the custodians of religion. Uncle Sam, another thing I would want from you would be a tiny, teeny weeny atom bomb, because for long I have wished to perform a certain good deed. You will naturally want to know what. You have done many good deeds yourself and continue to do them. You decimated Hiroshima, you turned Nagasaki into smoke and dust and you caused several thousand children to be born dead in Japan. Each to his own. All I want you to do is to dispatch me some dry cleaners. It is like this. Out here, many Mullah types after urinating pick up a stone and with one hand inside their untied shalwar, use the stone to absorb the after-drops of urine as they resume their walk. This they do in full public view. All I want is that the moment such a person appears, I should be able to pull out that atom bomb you will send me and lob it at the Mullah so that he turns into smoke along with the stone he was. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is a Kashmiri, so you should send him a gun which should go off when it is placed in the sun. I am a Kashmiri too, but a Muslim, which is why I have asked for a tiny atom bomb for myself. The Dog of Tithwal As for your military pact with Pakistan, it is remarkable and should be maintained. You should sign something similar with India.. You start the war between India and Pakistan. The benefits of the Korean war will be nothing in front of the benefits of this war or I am not your nephew. How much would be made in this war? All your arms manufacturers will start working on double shifts. India will also buy weapons from you and Pakistan too. Sell all your old, condemned arms to the two of us, the ones you used in the last war. This junk will thus be off your hands and your armament factories will no longer remain idle. The Dog of Tithwal (Harnam Singh and Ganda Singh are manning the Indian side of the IndoPak border in Kashmir) Harnam Singh sings a Punjabi love song. (Mimics the girl’s voice) Hear lover Harnam Singh, My lover Harnam Singh Listen to your beloved sing

Please get for me some bangles, A pair of star studded sandals

Scripting to Perform And a scarf with a painted moon In the name of love get it soon Even if it means selling your cattle. (His own voice) Yes Harnam Kaur, you just wait Darling you know I am never late As soon as the India-Pakistan war is won I will get your shoe and your scarf too, My beautiful, that’s a deal done. Just wait for my winning the battle, Even if it means selling my cattle. I will lift you and take you home along with the pickings of the Battle. Get for me shoes and scarf even if it means selling your cattle. Harnam: Where did you find this pup? Ganda: In Kashmir. Harnam: Good looking, Kashmiri? Ganda: Then the war is on. (They all laugh) Harnam: It couldn’t be a terrorist from the other side? Ganda: Sardar saheb, I have conducted a full interrogation. Name Chapad Jhunjhun, from an Indian village, certified Hindustani. (Harnam throws a biscuit at him and then picks it before the pup can reach it) Harnam: I hope you aren’t a Pakistani spy (Ganda laughs): No, no 100 percent Hindustani. Harnam: Give us some evidence. (The dog wags his tail) Harnam: All dogs wag their tails. (They laugh)

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Chapter Five Harnam: From now every dog will have to give proof of being Hindustani, only on that basis (Aadhar)27 will we acknowledge that it is Hindustani. Long live Mother India (The dog retreats from another biscuit) Harnam: Chapad Jhunjhun why are you scared, speak after us. Long live Mother India Harnam: Any dog that is Pakistani, we will tie it up with the Pakistanis and blow him from a cannon. Long live Mother India (Many soldiers give it a little food out of their tiffin): Chapad Jhunjhun (Big loving men they are. They seek ownership. They make a placard) CHAPAD JHUNJHUN This is an Indian dog (and string it across the dog’s neck) (Himmat Khan on the Pakistan side of the stage is studying a map.) Himmat: Now we are headed towards the War of Tithwal (Bashir stands holding a gun at a small distance) Bashir (humming by himself): Where were you last night beautiful? You were not sleeping beside me. Don’t betray me. Or I’ll kill myself After killing you Himmat: Hey you good for nothing, where were you last night. Bashir: I was searching for my beloved. Himmat: And I was seeing this dog. (Bashir laughs and addresses the dog): Where were you last night beautiful? I’ll kill myself after killing you. (The dog wags its tail vigorously) Himmat: What’s that around your neck?

27 The humour here was on the new identity cards made compulsory for most activities by the Indian government at the time the play was staged. The act caused considerable resentment among many Indian citizens. These cards are called Aadhar, which means base or fundaments.

Scripting to Perform (Bashir pulls it off and reads it, alarmed) Himmat: What is it? Bashir: Chapad Jhunjhun, and on the other side - this is an Indian dog.. Himmat: Bloody spy? Wait Bashir, let me talk to the commander. (The two conversations go on simultaneously) Himmat: Yes sir, yes sir. It is a dog sir. Two feet above ground, chest must be about 26 inches. It came to us wagging its tail about two weeks ago. Yes sir we gave it food to eat, could be a spy. These Indians are bastards, they are dogs, no, no, there is only one dog and it is here. (The dog barks) You have the guts to speak before me, you don’t know how many spies I have laid on the ground. No sir, there is a, what do you call it, a placard around his neck and it’s written there, Chapad Jhunjhun. And sir, on the other side it says This is an Indian dog… Yes sir, I will do a full inquiry and get to the bottom of this. Bashir: Come here you dog. Bloody dog, but you are one. Where did you go last night? Across the LOC? Is there any dearth in Pakistan? Did we give you less food? Greedy, do you have any feelings for the community, any sense of nationalism? We are also facing hardships but we are serving our nation here. In the midst of Kashmir mountains, in the midst of Kashmir’s biting cold, to protect Kashmir from them. You have no shame, went over to the other side like a dog, uff, wagging your tail, uff. Himmat: We will give a proper response for this act. India needs to know. (Bashir looks at him questioning and alert) Himmat: Chapad Jhunjhun, Sapad Sunsun. Bashir: What a rejoinder for the Indian dogs, I mean… Himmat: Yes this is the proper reply for Chapad Jhunjhun. Bashir: Yes, this is a Pakistani dog. We also know English. (Bashir writes the slogan and hangs it around the dog’s neck) Himmat (to the dog): Now go take on the enemy. You are our soldier, our commander. There is only one punishment for betrayal, Death. You represent your nation, you represent your faith, your religion. You are the guardian of all that is to be saved. (He fires a shot in the air and the dog goes running to the other side)

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Ganda: Hey where is that dog, he used to bring bustle into our camp. Harnam: He obviously could not digest the clarified butter we fed him with, must be cleaning his butt in some patch of grass. Ganda: But we didn’t give him any clarified butter. Harnam: Dumbhead. Cracking a joke with you is wasted like piss on the wall. (Voices): There it is. Harnam: Where? (Looks through binoculars) There he is far away. Ganda: But he is coming from that side, from Pakistan. Harnam: Son of a bitch, bitch rapist. (He fires at him, misses) (Himmat Khan looks at the dog from the other end) (The dog freezes, catatonic. Harnam fires another shot, the dog runs towards the Pakistan post in panic) Himmat: The brave have no taste of fear. You are not a dog you are our nation’s tiger. Go back and teach them a lesson. (He fires a shot at the dog. The dog scared turns around. Shots fired from both sides, the dog runs amok. It runs mad towards the Indian side) Harnam: Motherfucker. (He takes a careful aim and blasts the dog’s leg. One leg gone, the dog limps to the other side) Himmat: Your life belongs to the nation, to your faith and religion, go ahead my brave soldier. (He shoots the other leg. Shots come from both sides and the dog lies in a heap at the center. Another martyr to the spirit of nationalism, Died a dog’s death.

With tickling humour, this episode was an inverted paean to the two countries and the two religions. Wars and conflicts had rendered so many dead, like dogs on the streets. Jingoism at the national level and burning hatred at the religious level, the damage is unfathomable.

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The play came alive in the wake of contemporary conflicts between the two countries, and in the light of the deaths of soldiers, and the blatant attempt by those in power to valorize those deaths and gain popularity by referring to them. Then came Toba Tek Singh. In a very real sense, a dark play, depicting not only the mood but also summing up some of the crucial politics of this play. The intermittent use of a narrator, and the refusal to identify characters except Balbir, reinforced the feeling of displacement and pushed us further into probing our minds, rather than accepting what is proffered.

Fig 5-2: Manto, 2018 Toba Tek Singh Uncle, what is this hydrogen bomb? What country you want to lighten the burden of this patient's chest. Russia?

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Chapter Five But it is known that they are making a low byte hydrogen bomb. I think you make oxygen bombs in its response. In the eighth grade we had read that hydrogen and oxygen gas becomes water when it is mixed. That will be fun. You will throw oxygen bombs, Russia hydrogen bombs. The rest of the world will make water in the water. You have said that hydrogen bombs are formed only for complete peace and stability in the world. Like the world war ended all wars. Peace and stability. Who knows that better, India and Pakistan. Hindus and Muslims. Toba Tek Singh (The scene is set in the courtyard of a mental hospital in either Hindustan or Pakistan, more metaphorically on the line that segregates them. The patients are sitting in small groups and huddles, some are alone, by themselves. There are about a dozen people and the lines move freely from one to another till specified) Narrator: The partition had happened. Independence had been found. Children. The elderly, the women and the young, whether Hindus, whether Muslims, moving from here to there and from there to here, made new havens, new worlds. Fortunes had changed, lands had changed, families had changed. And now it was time for the exchange of the lunatics. Who is mad? (Voice from the crowd onstage): All are mad. Narrator continues: No no, those who were locked in mental hospitals behind the lines dividing the two nations. Hindustanis and Pakistanis, Muslims and Hindus. (Laughs) - it isn’t as if just those who believe in religion are mad, mad people also have religion. 1950 Hindustan, Pakistan. A mad house (Specified lines are by Balbir Singh, the rest rotate among others freely) Balbir - Upar de gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the moong the dal of the laltain28 Oe, What is this Pakistan? A city in Hindustan where they make cut-throat razors. (Starts crying) Sardarji why are they sending us to Hindustan, I don’t know their language. But I know their language, You know these Hindustanis are very stiff-necked.

28

A gibberish refrain in the story. Sticking to the pattern in the story.

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Long live Pakistan, long live Hindustan, long live Pakistan, long live Hindustan, they all fall down. (Three men sit talking in hushed whispers) 1 - Hey what will happen to us? 2 - We aren’t mad like them. 3 - Then why are you here? 2 - Bro, it was a new marriage, my wife hadn’t cooked when I got back from the fields. I just slapped her, she fell down and hit her head against the stove and died. My father got me admitted here so I wouldn’t end up in jail or on the gallows. 3 - Amazing, I have the same issue. The bitch, my daughter was eloping with a low caste bastard, I just swung my sword and before I knew they both got cut into two parts. My son brought me here so I could escape hanging. 2 - Now tell me, will this new government punish us or free us? 1 - I have another problem, I killed my brother for land and now which side is the land? What has hit us? 3 - Even the jailor doesn’t know, says it’s the work of some Jinnah fellow. (Another part of the courtyard) Muhammad Muhammad, Muhammad Ali29 My name is Muhammad Ali Jinnah Quaid e azam30 Jinnah. Muhammad Ali Then I am Tara Singh. (They start to fight.) Balbir (sits on top of a tree and shouts): Hindustan-Pakistan, PakistanHindustan, Hindu-Mussalman. Mussalman-Hindu. (And he starts tearing his clothes) Another inmate: Come down Balbir: Shut up Arsehole. Hindustan Pakistan Inmate: Come on Balbir: I won’t come down. Inmate: You will stay here? 29

Jinnah, a famous Muslim leader of undivided India, and later the premier of independent Pakistan is often blamed for being an architect of the partition of the country. Master Tara Singh was an influential contemporary leader of the Sikhs and was totally opposed to the idea of a partition of the country. 30 Great leader.

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Balbir: This tree is my Hindustan and my Pakistan. (Another part, two people converse) 1 - What will happen to my love now. She is in Amritsar and Amritsar is in India. And I am in Lahore and Lahore is in Pakistan. Dogs, tell me who broke my heart, Jinnah or Nehru?31 2 - But she got married long ago. 1 - So what, our love will survive the cycle of life and death, we’ll meet again. 2 - But she left you idiot. 1 - So what, she still loves me and I am willing to lay down my life for her. 2 - Then go to Amritsar, just remember her husband will be with her. 1 (Starts crying) 2 - Scared? 1 - No, my legal practice is in Lahore, Amritsar will mean a loss of revenue. (Another part) 1 - But we are not Indians really, my father was British. 2 - And mother a whore, the most famous in Lahore. 1 - You bastard. 2 - You pimp, caught pimping your mother. 3 - Will you both settle down, serious issues are at hand. The English are bloody mad and they put us here, quit India because Indians say quit India. (They laugh) 2 - Who are those bastards to say all this? (Rotating lines among 1,2 and 3) Where will we go? Neither Hindu nor Muslim, neither Indian nor Pakistani. Wherever, will we get our bread and breakfast or will they poison us with their rotis.32 But I don’t understand why the British have to go. Balbir: Upar de gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the moong the dal of the laltain Narrator: He is the real mad man. Hasn’t sat for fifteen years. Standing since then. Look, swollen feet, swollen legs. Sleep, what sleep, at times just leans against the wall. Upar de gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the moong the dal of the laltain of the Pakistan gornament. 31

The first Prime Minister of independent India.

32 Flatbread

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(Random talk continues with people at times addressing each other across the stage) Hey where is Lahore? Where you left it What to say, Sialkot was first in Hindustan and then in Pakistan. Motherfuckers are mad. Balbir: Where is Toba Tek Singh? Another inmate: Toba Tek Singh is asking where is Toba Tek Singh? (Laughter) Never know we hear tomorrow that neither Hindustan nor Pakistan exist anymore. Balbir: Upar de gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the moong the dal of the laltain of the toba tek singh Balbir: Where is Toba Tek Singh, Hindustan or Pakistan? (Laughter) Guards: He is mad. Who isn’t mad here? Narrator: Balbir Singh, he was a landlord, very rich. Just lost his mind one fine day. His family tied him in chains and brought him here. (Another voice): Does anybody come to meet him? Narrator: They all used to visit him once a month. He was able to sense they are coming and he would get ready and wait. (Voice): And what would he say? Narrator: Nothing. Nobody came after the riots started. Balbir (moving from one inmate to another): Where is Toba Tek Singh? Toba Tek Singh? Somebody tell me please. (Another voice): It is nowhere. Balbir: And who are you? (Laughter) (Voice): God, Khuda, Bhagwan.33And I have not given the order yet. Balbir: Then please give the order. (Laughter)

33 Khuda and Bhagwan are popular ways of addressing God in Islam and Hinduism respectively.

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Chapter Five (Voice): It will take time. Balbir: The problem will end. Upar de gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the moong the dal of the laltain of the wahe guruji da khalsa, wahe guruji di fateh. He is the god of Muslims, if he was the god of Sikhs, he would have listened to me. (Choreographed slow sequence as vehicles, people with mental health issues and policemen and officials from both sides arrive center stage. The officials start working on the papers. Police personnel go to untie the patients’ chains and bring them out to the stage. They run in all directions, some refuse to come out from their lorries, some tear their clothes. Crescendo, some get violent and try tear clothes of those who go near them. Mayhem as stage resounds with slogans of Pakistan zindabad and Hindustan zindabad.) Balbir Singh is quiet. His eyes pierce through the chaos, he spots the officials in a corner of the stage and moves quietly towards them, is pushed, hit several times as he goes there. Tries to catch their attention, gestures, trying to say something, not succeeding. The officials do not notice him. Balbir: (finally) Hey tell me fast. Where is Toba Tek Singh? (No response. He shouts loud): Where is Toba Tek Singh? Somebody open your mouth. (He catches the pants of one officer. The officer backing off, yells scared): Take him away, mad man. A guard: He is not violent at all. What is he asking? Another official: Singh, Singh has to go to Hindustan. Guard: No he is asking about the town Balbir (now about to breakdown): Where is Toba Tek Singh? (The officials cannot stop smiling. A harsh one laughs derisively) The sympathetic one: Sardarji, it’s in Pakistan. (He leaves the officials and is back in a jiffy with the Pakistani officials, with their bus. They catch him. First gently cajole him to go on the other side and then start getting rough) Balbir: Upar de gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the moong the dal of the laltain of the Pakistan of the Toba Tek Singh. Dur fitte mooh (They push him, try to drag him and keep telling each other not to hurt him because he is nice, non-violent, never hurt a fly. He freezes, catatonic.)

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Balbir: Upar de gur gur the annexe the bay dhayana the moong the dal of the laltain of the Pakistan of the Toba Tek Singh (Silence) (He slowly falls and reaches a supine position downstage. As this happens a corridor forms on both sides of him. Chants move from one side then the other) Hindustan, Pakistan…. Hindustan, Pakistan… Hindustan, Pakistan… Hindustan, Pakistan Say with pride that you are a Hindu Mussal iman… Mussal iman34 (They become aware of the body onstage) Hindu or Mussalman…. Sikh? No, no… Hindu or Mussalman Hindustan or Pakistan…. Pakistan or Hindustan… Toba Tek Singh. No, no Toba Tek Singh… Balbir Singh Manto…Manto… (Loud) Hindu or Mussalman… Hindu or Mussalman… Hindu or Mussalman (soft) Pagan, disbeliever, atheist Manto…Manto… Hindu ….Mussalman… Pakistan or Hindustan (He shouts from his lying position): Get your face out of my sight

The story is based on the transfer of mental health patients from asylums on both sides of the border. There was hardly anyone to claim them, either their relatives had died, or they did not want to take on this unwelcome burden after partition and the loss of money and property. In the midst of it all lay the figure of Toba Tek Singh, (Balbir Singh), looking for this town. The identification is so close that not only the characters in the play, but also readers and audiences take the two as referring to the same character. The play created the ambience of the madhouse, serving as a metonym for the madness of the two countries; of the two religions. The activist writer, the actor, and the character, came together as the play reaches its climactic ending. Metaphors underscored the ubiquity of Manto’s themes. Particularly relevant was the close look at the issue of mental health. Who is mad? The people behind the walls of mental health hospitals or the ones who seek to kill, to oppress, and whose numbers are forever increasing. This

34

Split like this as two words, the phrase means ‘of pure faith’.

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crosses with the hatred which was becoming so much a part of contemporary India. A look at the ending again: He slowly falls and reaches a supine position downstage. As this happens a corridor forms on both sides of him. Chants from one side then the other. Hindustan, Pakistan…. Hindustan, Pakistan… Hindustan, Pakistan… Hindustan, Pakistan Hinduo ki jaan… Hinduo ki jaan…Mussal iman… Mussal iman They become cognizant of the body onstage. Hindu or Mussalman…. Sikh? na na… Hindu or Mussalman Hindustan or Pakistan…. Pakistan or Hindustan… Toba Tek Singh..na na Toba Tek Singh… Balbir Singh Manto…Manto… (Loud) Hindu or Mussalman… Hindu or Mussalman… Hindu or Mussalman (soft) Kafir, Adharmi, nastik. (Pagan, disbeliever, atheist) Manto…Manto… Hindu ….Mussalman… Pakistan or Hindustan

The actor playing Balbir Singh/ Manto gets up, abandons his role(s), and walks casually downstage, center (like an actor). He casts a contemptuous glance to his left and then to his right, covering the entire expanse of the audience. Dur Fittai Mooh35 Fascist, repressive times (think Hitler, think McCarthy, and Trump and add them up to reach contemporary India) demand powerful indirections. To keep up the fight, and not get detained/arrested becomes as important as making the point itself. Allegories and historical signs revive writers who carry a radical reputation, and keep creating that critical distance that makes people think. Brecht wasn’t the only one in the critical distance theatre tradition.

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“Get your face out of my sight”. A popular Punjabi/ Urdu insult meaning literally: May your face smoke in hell fire.

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Fig 5-3: Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan Da Sardar, 2018

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Sources for Manto Script creation Manto, Saadat Hasan, ĉˑĭęĸĢ. 5 volumes. New Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan, 1993. Manto, Saadat Hasan, Mottled Dawn: Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition. Translated Khalid Hasan. Gurugram, India, Penguin Books India, 1997. Manto, Saadat Hasan, Kingdom’s End: Selected Stories. Translated Khalid Hasan. Gurugram, India: Penguin Books India, 2007. Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, Lucknow: Rekhta, 2013. https://www.rekhta.org/authors/saadat-hasan-manto/stories Manto, Saadat Hasan, Manto: Selected Short Stories. Translated Aatish Taseer. Gurugram: Penguin Random House India, 2014.

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Manto, Saadat Hasan, Why I write: Essays by Saadat Hasan Manto. Translated Aakar Patel. Chennai: Tranquebar Press, 2014. Manto, Saadat Hasan, The Armchair Revolutionary and Other Sketches. Translated Khalid Hasan. New Delhi: Leftward Books, 2016. Pandies’ plays referred to, with the year of first performance and the writer/adapter’s name: Crooked Kala(a)m (2016), Anand Prakash, Anuradha Marwah and Sanjay Kumar Anuradha Marwah built her script on Chugtai into Ismat’s Love Stories (2016). Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan Da Sardar (2018), Sanjay Kumar

CHAPTER SIX MORE ABOUT NEGOTIATING THE FILTHY LUCRE THEATRE TOWARDS ALTERITY, THEATRE AS COMMUNITY

The Italians Franca Ramé and Dario Fo 1 form a resonant duet representing a theoretical and performative challenge to the dominant soprano of capitalism, spanning from the Second World War, well into the postmodern world. Fo is the better-known Nobel laureate and was more influential in his time, though in many ways Ramé’s scripts and performances have more relevance in our time. Fo’s is a theatre that defines itself against the state and speaks as the political other of the fascist and Neo fascist state. For Fo, theatre (all art for that matter) is not for fence-sitters, it is the greatest political act and it has to be on this side of the fence or it falls on the other side. For both Fo and Ramé, practising this theatre was at considerable cost to the self, not just financial, but of assault (gross gang rape in the case of Ramé) at the hands of state goons and the powerful lobbies that they opposed by continuously exposing their involvement in social crime, political murders, and corruption. And like Brecht, he does not confine his focus to instances or examples of social injustice, but rather to the socioeconomic roots that cause this injustice, and more importantly, permit the recurrence of this injustice. Fo voices his concerns in The Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1970) against police torture and custodial deaths of the political other, and takes on liturgical dramatic traditions in Mistero Buffo (1969). The theoretical piece Manuale Minimo Dell’Attore (Tricks of the Trade, 1991) provides a

1 Franca

Ramé (1929-2013), Italian political activist, actor and playwright. She was a feminist-Marxist to say the least. Dario Fo (1926-2016) the Italian playwright. A practitioner, performer and theorist, Fo is a doyen of anti-capitalist theatre. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997. Together they opposed the contemporary fascist, capitalist, bent of the Italian state.

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clearer measure of his contribution to theatre as both praxis and theory. In the Manuale, he sees himself as the contemporary giullari and links his theatre to the traditions of the Commedia dell’arte,2 emphasizing the use of the word arte as guilds or associations of the worker artisans who sought through them to stand together against the power of big tradesmen and law makers from aristocracy and the church. “Commedia dell’arte, then, means, primarily, comedy staged by organized professional actors. It involved an association with a statute of rules and regulations of its own, through which the actors undertook to protect and respect each other” (Fo, 11). For Fo, this collective protection and respect is the essence of political art, and the role of the actor lies not in the use of masks, or the performance of fixed stereotypes, but in a genuinely revolutionary approach to making theatre (Fo, 13). Commedia dell’arte is also attractive for Fo, because, from its origins in the 17th century, political satire was its basic component. The performances were banned and the practitioners were thrown out of France in 1675. Fo felt that was, “certainly not on account of their rollicking comic style. It was their satire on the customs, the hypocrisy and the politicking of the age which was considered remiss” (Fo, 47). Again, in tune with Brecht’s theatre, Fo uses humour as a mode of political subversion, an important weapon in the ‘ordinary people’s’ arsenal because “authorities, any authorities, fear above all other things laughter, derision or even the smile, because laughter denotes a critical awareness; it signifies imagination, intelligence and a rejection of all fanaticism”3 (Fo, 109). Fo, both in theory and practice, highlights the importance of opposition to hegemonic discourse, and of, at least skirting, the obsessive attraction of the market, of the desire to make money. 2 An early mode of professional theatre, it existed in Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. The form has been referred to earlier, in Chapter 2. 3 Like Brecht, Fo too strives to take the spectator away from the darkness of the fourth wall:

“A substantial part of theatre, including modern theatre, is conceived in such a way as to lull the viewer into a state of total passivity. It begins with the darkness in the auditorium, a precondition for a kind of psychic vacuum, but which, on the contrary, has the effect of producing attention of an exclusively emotional order. People find themselves following the event unfolding on stage as though they were themselves on the far side of a curtain, or of a fourth wall which permits them to see - while remaining unseen - a succession of intimate stories, of private, at times downright brutal, incidents, which they, in the unlighted hall, have been trained to listen to in what can be described as a ‘cover of darkness’ state of mind. They have the impression of being spies engrossed only in some morbid pleasure of their own - the classical attitude of the peeping Tom” (Fo, 73).

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Franca Ramé’s plays exist at that vulnerable intersection of the practitioner’s opposition to the fascist capitalist state and the state’s use of force on the woman’s body as a means of subjugation of this dissent. I am thinking specifically of her Monologues: Rape; A Woman Alone, and smaller pieces like An Arab Woman Speaks. Rape is a favourite script with me and I use it often as an ice-breaker in my classes, and in performance exercises in pandies’. The play is a re-performance of Ramé’s rape, less than a week after the gory incident occurred. The performance becomes her response, her political answer to what she, and many like her, endure in capitalist/fascist setups. The brief, An Arab Woman Speaks is a marvel in activist, self-reflexive writing, as Ramé (as Ramé the writer) talks disparagingly about Arab women who refused to share their experience of masculine violence in a meeting she had with them. What follows is an ostensibly straight rendering of an audio tape she received from one of the women subsequent to this meeting. The tape recounts the revenge taken by the Arab woman on an army chief who had shot her husband. Does he rape her? Or does she seduce him as a precursor to murdering him? The lines between rape and seduction are carefully smudged as the woman has sex with the man the whole night, even though she hates the experience, before shooting him dead the next morning. It doesn’t end there. The real marker of heroism is the collective identification of women with this murder, as many women from all over confess to having committed this act. Along with the collective assertion, the confessions also reveal the limitation of western ideas of the radical, and questions whether they can be superimposed on a culturally different environment - just like that. As we negotiate these two, we find ourselves in a theatre world so different from contemporary worlds of theory and theatre. Outside, we are firmly located in the world of the post-modern and the multinational, and the language of this theatre seems a foreign tongue. Castigating endorsement performances, Fo goes back to another radical tradition to invoke a body of naysayers. As we move on beyond the proscenium architecture to see theatre in other locations, the seemingly disparate issues that beget immediate attention are the relationship between theatre and market, and theatre as a process of social change. We are in that space where performative ritual takes us one way, endorsing, and even at its best, not challenging, the nexus of the state and the market, and theatre representing the politics of change, of those who, in different ways, challenge both the hegemony of the state and the market norm. Theatre skirts the lure of the market and the adherence to hierarchical patterns of authority, to become a means of us, individually and collectively, outperforming ourselves to create better selves for all of

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us, on all sides of the political spectrums. In theatre practice and theory, while negotiating money we also perform social change and look out for the needs of the margins. The teacher continues researching and understanding theatre history. Within western paradigms, as we transit into the 1960s and 1970s, the transition is from modernist times into the postmodern. This is probably also the time to look at theatre theory in the context of larger zones and perspectives on performance, originating particularly in the context of the postmodern 1960s, the timeframe of Fo and Ramé, and then Boal. On this side of the picture, the focus is on performance histories and theories that stress the political in theatre, and those that try to reframe the world, highlighting the interests of the underserved and creating methodologies for their betterment. In the post 70s world, (post 90s in the case of India), we live in the context of globalization and multinationalism. The market rules, and has acquired a transnational character. Theories we generally call postmodern provide the bone structure to moneyed, multinational/company-centric constructions of meaning and work towards retaining its hegemony. Scoffing at modernist attempts at framing meaning, of locating it in structures, postmodernism, looks at the current historical period as one in which the ways we had of understanding and being no longer hold (even if some people and some institutions continue to hold on to them). Grand/meta narratives have broken down; truth and human subjectivity are fragmented; and post modernism sees meaning itself as continuously being destroyed and re-created and destroyed. Destabilizing all certitudes, postmodern theories attack all varieties of committed art, and the theory that explains such art. Bemoaning the death of meaning, or locating it in constant deferral theories of the postmodern which graph the transcendence of the signified and find content in a panoptical observation of power-play in the peripheries (rather than try intervention to mitigate the power disparity) the opponents of the theoretical positions of theatre that seek to collate some sense are, in our time, presenting some significance for those in the margins of this world. The multinationals and big business houses run economies and shape governments. Invaded by market economy, the monolithic status of the state, with its repressive and ideological apparatuses, as theorized by Althusser, appears on the decline. Postmodern discourses, including, and going beyond, Foucault’s dissipation of power to the peripheries, strike root as multinational market forces call for a more pan-national reorganization of authority in geographic terms. Contemporary theorists have analyzed this

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de-territorialization4 as flows and disjunctures that have been there in all periods of human history, but as Arjun Appadurai5 asserts “the sheer speed, scale, and volume of each of these flows are now so great that the disjunctures have become central to the politics of global culture” (Appadurai, 19). Many discourses emanating out of the postmodern take for granted these ‘flows’, seeing them as almost inevitable; theatre becomes one entity (are there others?) that intervenes to stem the flows and, call out these formulations as lies, figments of market-speak. It is here, in the support of hegemonic structures and the eluding of the needs of the marginal that a contiguity exists between the modern and the postmodern. And this contiguity, even complicity, becomes the work of theatre to expose and oppose. Conformist and radical art is not just a matter of what is said, or which language it is spoken in, it is, a question of “where do you speak from?” 6 Propelled by an activist concern and not the profit motive, the relative tangentiality of theatre as a market force (both determined by, and determining ‘market trends’ as defined in the lexicons of globalization) renders it somewhat insular to a takeover by the market as the market proceeds to commodify the rest of the world. Breaking this nexus, making those at the fringes aware of these processes and pointing at other possibilities, again, becomes an onus of theatre. Around this time, and from within the folds of the post-modern, emerge vibrant, encompassing discourses of performance theory, which trace the anthropological and ritual roots of performance and seek to broaden its meaning. The endeavour remains somewhat tangential to this intensely political definition and exploration of theatre. Even as pedagogy, performance theory (and its more-or-less companion discipline of performance studies) has not gained a mainstream focus in environments like ours; it is only recently that brief extracts from essays of Richard 4 Linked

closely with globalization, the term ‘de-territorialization’ looks back to the work of Gilles Deleuze and, Félix Guattari in their philosophical project Capitalism and Schizophrenia, especially Anti-Oedipus (1972). Considered a central feature of globalization, it implies the growing presence of social forms of contact and involvement. It speaks of the loss of the ‘natural’ relation between culture and the social and geographic territories. 5 Arjun Appadurai, an Indian American anthropologist, famous particularly for his studies of the disjunctions occurring in the contemporary state with the impact of globalization. He sees the emanating global cultural economy as interrelated but disjunctive flows. Writers and theorists like Rustom Bharucha have expressed disdain over this explanation of globalization as a facade over the ubiquitous takeover by the market. 6 To quote the French student Daniel Cohn Bendit (1968), the question became a war cry during the student unrest movement in France in 1968.

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Schechner, Dwight Conquergood and Janelle Reinelt find themselves in specialized elective courses at undergraduate level. Looking at what lies between performance theory and theatre in the context of the classroom where I come from, it is a complicated relationship. Performance theory deserves credit for rescuing theatre from the confines of New Criticism, factoring in performance and definitely stretching theatre beyond plot and character analysis where it remained stuck. But the political intersection is a bit more ambiguous. For a lot of people, performance theory is also straining to see multiple, ‘all’ aspects of performance, and that sharp political frame in which this book seeks to define theatre gets compromised with the assertion that it is all ‘performance’ .The question remains - is theatre a special political, subversive (and all that we seek to say here) genre/practice/theory within the frame of performance theory, or is it just another performance? Positioned on the other side, we need an alternate theoretical frame challenging the economic framing of our postmodern world. And that brings us to the Brazilian, Paulo Freire, the seminal influence on the theatre practitioner and theorist Augusto Boal, who provides a radically new framing of human collectivity and co-operative living. Freire’s thrust endorses the attempts of theatre from time immemorial to voice the voiceless. Developmentally, those in power assume that what they are saying theorizes on the development of all, little realizing that as a class, as a subsystem, their thought process is inimical to those that constitute the class other, who stand at the other end of the spectrum even in the same system. Theatre that reaches out, that searches for the margin voices and seeks to incorporate them into the developmental discourse, finds a theoretical accompaniment in the frames of Freire.7 Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (first published in 1970 and subsequently translated and published many times in many languages) provides practitioners with the much needed theoretical accompaniment to theatre practice. Freire, quoting Lenin, begins by stating that “without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement” (Lenin 69). The theme that connects various aspects of Pedagogy of the Oppressed is to change the world towards those who are excluded. As the translator’s Preface states, “This world to which he relates is not a static and closed order, a given reality which man must accept and to which he must adjust; rather, it is a problem to be worked on and solved” (Freire, 14). Eschewing 7

Paulo Freire (1921-1997), a Brazilian educator and philosopher who made important contributions in theories of education of the marginalized and the underserved sections of society, seriously questioning those set by the liberal world. His influence on Augusto Boal was paramount.

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the acceptance of the status quo, and repeatedly stressing his commitment to the liberator within the oppressed, his book states that it is hard to surmount distance between the haves and have-nots by pursuing a neoliberal agenda. Its class analysis is in depth, as it seeks a pedagogy of the oppressed. It questions the validity of seeking answers to the problems of the oppressed in the structures of the oppressor, of turning to this class for amelioration. Freire seeks to evoke the ‘critical’ in the oppressed through the process of education, by creating conscientizacao (a favourite term that refers to the oppressed learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions) to take action against the oppressive elements of contemporary social reality. Freire feels that for the pedagogical process to be effective, the prescriptive mode must be abjured: Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about a conformity to it, or it becomes “the practice of freedom”, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world (Freire, 16).

As an educator, Freire finds the faulty education system at the heart of social problems in our time, and seeks to reform that system to bring social change. Freire sees the pedagogy of the oppressed in spaces away from the oppressive: One of the basic elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is prescription. Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness” (Freire, 28-29).8

As he says, “The oppressed are regarded as the pathology of the healthy society, which must therefore adjust these ‘incompetent and lazy’ (Freire, 55) folk to its own patterns by changing their mentality”. Again, Freire says, “Since oppressors and oppressed are antithetical, what serves the interests 8

This cannot happen through the present social system which is based on what he calls the 'banking concept’ of education: Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the ‘banking’ concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filling, and storing the deposits (Freire, 28).

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of one group disserves the interests of the others” (Freire, 127). “Dividing in order to preserve the status quo, then, is necessarily a fundamental objective of the theory of anti-dialogical action. In addition, the dominators try to present themselves as saviours of the women and men they dehumanize and divide” (Freire, 128). Yes, that represents the political, theoretical foundation for Augusto Boal,9 our next stop in studying theatre: This book attempts to show that all theatre is necessarily political, because all the activities of man are political and theatre is one of them. Those who try to separate theatre from politics try to lead us into error - and this is a political attitude. In this book I also offer some proof that the theatre is a weapon. A very efficient weapon. For this reason one must fight for it. For this reason the ruling classes strive to take permanent hold of the theatre and utilize it as a tool for domination. In so doing, they change the very concept of what ‘theatre’ is. But the theatre can also be a weapon for liberation. For that, it is necessary to create appropriate theatrical forms (foreword, ix).

That is Augusto Boal in his famous work Theatre of the Oppressed (1979), a powerful example of the state of resistance exemplified by theatre close to our time (1931 - 2009). On Boal’s theory and practice, the influences of the fellow Brazilian Freire and the pioneer Brecht are most obvious. And importantly, following closely the tenets of Freire, he provides a formidable challenge to the nuances of multinational economics and postmodern theories of theatre. Beginning with the Greeks, Boal shows how dominant classes have always tried to dominate theatre praxis and theory too. The movement from dithyrambic song (an ensemble signifying bonhomie among classes) to conventions segregating the protagonist (aristocracy) from the chorus (mass) provides the first evidence of this takeover. The functioning of what he derisively calls ‘Aristotle’s Coercive System of Tragedy’ demonstrates how Aristotelian theories serve as the handmaid of the state. For Boal, Aristotle’s continued relevance is because his notion of tragedy continues to serve the interests of the powerful and wipe out dissent in social formations. Aristotle formulated a very powerful purgative system, the objective of which is to eliminate all that is not commonly accepted, including the

9

Augusto Boal (1931-2009), the famous Brazilian theatre practitioner, a paramount influence on pandies’.

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revolution, before it takes place. His system appears in disguised form on television, in the movies, in the circus, in the theatres (Boal, 47).

‘Forum’ Theatre and the notion of the specta(c)tor are key notions in Boal’s work and theory. While working in the social margins he asserted that the thoughts, desires, and demands of the target community are of utmost importance in the ameliorative process. Forum theatre is literally an opening out of the forum for the audience to step in and seek solutions or provide new aspects of the problem.10 It’s a decisive step towards workshop theatre, with people in the margins (discussed later). The term specta(c)tor is not a fancy term or a cliche, it radicalizes the spectator and breaks down that distinction between the actor and the spectator, between the practitioner and the participant. Ensuring proximity between audience and performers, specta(c)tor is actually a methodology that springs from the same belief that only the oppressed can free the oppressed. If political/apolitical as binary or even as difference does not work because the crucial point lies in the kind of politics, in the kind of position taken (and that can even be pretty fluid in the radicalizing process), then

10

Forum Theatre: The actors/activists perform a piece around a specific problem raised by the participants, the characters behave in a particular manner, one character is oppressed and s/he goes through a particularly oppressive event, responding in the way in which people from the community usually respond to that problem. The play is then opened up to the spectators and they are asked to replace the victim and come up with alternate modes of ending the performance. This methodology is probably the simplest, and at the same time a really solid political use of the space between the performer and the audience. It serves to cut the distance between the two, and more important, creates and furthers a shared ideology in which the plot of the play becomes subservient to the learning processes of this ideology for both the performer and the participant.

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Fig 6-1: Workshopping in Delhi’s Tihar Jail

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how do we categorize and differentiate theatre from theatre? One solution could be the way in which we make our audience engage with the performative, or how we perform and make our audience perform. If the classic mainstream model/meaning of theatre, where the actors perform and the audience receives (and hopefully is impacted enough to bring the activism into play later) exists, then there is also an alternate mode where they all work together as participants (moving on, and way beyond the Boalian spectactor) and where giving and taking happen on all sides of the spectrum. That is the workshop mode of theatre. ——————————————————————————————

References Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1997. Bharucha, R. The Politics of Cultural Practice. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001 Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed. Trans. A, Charles and McBride, Maria-Odilia Leal. New York: Theater Communications Group, 1985. Fo, Dario. The Tricks of the Trade. Trans. Joe Farrell. London: Methuen Drama, 1991. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. London: Penguin, 1996. Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. Essential Works of Lenin: "What is to be done?" and Other Writings. Ed. Henry M. Christman. New York: Dover Press, 1966.

CHAPTER SEVEN WORKSHOP THEATRE

The workshop has always existed as an important aspect of theatre. From early times it was a training ground for new professionals; people learn the dynamics of performance as they join workshops. 1 Informal workshops existed in theatre as learning spaces in Elizabethan theatre (the first historical period of which we have some stage records). The apprentice actor joined a company, and learned by watching and taking tips from senior actors before he got a chance to come onstage. The workshop is seen as a teaching and learning space, and for many it’s still that, even when it’s not about theatre. On the flip side, coronavirus has dampened spirits. The summers in Delhi and NCR are usually busy with the rich and mighty, seeking ‘good’ theatre workshops for their young, believing ‘it will develop their personality, give them confidence, inculcate a hobby’. And that is obviously a gross market perversion of this form. Workshop theatre uses the workshop as a basic starting feature. We may stop at teaching and learning through the workshop, or we may take it to a performance emanating from the workshop. Workshops augment our understanding of theatre. The subset I am referring to, and which enabled pandies’ to really enhance its understanding of theatre, is workshopping with underserved people, and creating from their narratives and beliefs. The innovations made here have had a deep impact on the methodologies and purposes of theatre. We hear stories of the ‘other side’ and get these stories into mainstream performances. Theatre becomes a means of outperforming, of going further, of radically appropriating processes of social change and amelioration. Social change and positive action often take traditional forms. Governments, NGOs, foreign donors prefer the mode of direct intervention. Direct intervention is the most sought after, because it puts down targets and enables the process to set its aims and measure its impact over specified, 1

On our side of the world you have the Gurukuls, and there is a guru/shishya parampara (tradition), not only for varieties of performing arts, but for all kinds of education.

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usually brief, periods of time. But often, one realizes through these processes (often rather late), that not only the resolutions but even the questions, don’t come from the communities and sectors they are seeking to redress. And social change is a long process. As one who works through theatre, I see the disjunct in a gathering of developmentalists who need to know from practitioners of workshop theatre, the target, impact and results of their theatre as a development activity, especially when they sit in the seats of funders and sponsors. The development agenda is often (and rather often) plagued with the Freirean problem, that of the oppressor framing the development of the oppressed and making it the opposite of development at its benevolent best, or a further agenda of exploitation at its worst. It's here that workshop theatre needs to, and often does, step in and serve its ameliorative and political purpose. The process becomes at least twoway as the facilitator and the participant become part of the same creative, developmental, learning process. The stories of the participants emerge in their marginal glory and are coloured by the desires and passions of those they work with. And when this corpus makes political statements and seeks to guide policy (instead of the simple direct intervention modes) we are at another level of social development, and also realizing a fuller potential of theatre. In its workshop mode, theatre begins to erode the wall between the mainstream and the margins. In India (and possibly other such developing countries), the facilitator does not often belong to the class that is being dealt with in workshops for the marginalized. The workshop theatre then becomes a means of learning, of understanding and politicizing on many sides of multiple spectrums (class and often also gender, caste, region, and religion). The basic attempt is to move towards a space where the performers, the participants and audience (if any) become a part of the same experiential reality. The attempt is to create theatre from the stories of the marginal participants (passing through the sieve of the facilitators) who often lend a perspective to older problems, seeking (re)solutions and at least impacting us to an extent that we are forced to reframe the problem itself. The methodology of workshop theatre is very conducive to activism. The mode of working closely, with a sense of belonging, and over an extended duration, with a set of people connected by their marginality already has many ingredients of activist change. As social change-centered practitioners and theories of theatre have shown (agit prop, Brecht, Fo, discussed before), some of the best examples of activism in theatre result when people in the margins use it to re-perform their marginalization. This (re)performance includes attempts to try and understand and articulate their relationship with mainstream discourses, to understand the dynamics of the

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cause of their marginality, and their trauma in their own terms, and make a togetherness of that marginality to take a collective look at the future. It is important here to avoid prescription,2 and thereby, to go beyond the values and aspirations of the class and the sectors that offer help because these often belong to the oppressive structure themselves. This kind of theatre dislodges certitudes not only of development agendas but of social organizing itself. To begin with a possible structure of workshop theatre culled out of pandies’ experience: In its workshop mode, pandies’ uses two methods, differing primarily on the amount of time spent to cover the various stages of its methodology. Where there is a time constraint, or where the group works in conflict zones (Kashmir) or with incarcerated children in reformatories or in NGO run camps (as in the case of platform children), the preference is for intensive week-long workshops with the facilitators often living on site and working on a 24 hour format. The various stages of the method given below are covered fast, and a performance is created. Working with young people in an underprivileged community, on the other hand (as in Nithari), the group often slows down the process, keeping its visits limited to a couple of times in a month. The stages of the workshop are covered once, and a climax is created in terms of a performance when either an occasion exists or an occasion is created. After the first performance, the method becomes increasingly centered on self-expression and creation, as pandies’ withdraws and the young work more among themselves analyzing and critiquing the processes around them. The more experienced among them assume the roles of facilitators for the uninitiated. Pandies’ intervenes intermittently for a mutually-rewarding dialogue and to create and cater for an occasion with a performance. The play-workshop consists of an adaptable, flexible methodology. The broad aim consists of putting the participants through a process of looking within and creating performances from their stories and their collective experience. The facilitators, after initiating the process recede into an a la carte mode, available on demand. We begin with exercises. Theatre exercises are a part of the repertoire of all theatre groups. Over years, with its vast experience, pandies’ has developed a flexible methodology, a mix of techniques that has its signature stamp: From Stanislavsky, narrativizing truths and lies; forming images and “machines” – adapted from Augusto Boal; using exaggerated body movements and gestures, Brecht and Fo; a variety of modes, moulding

2I

use the word again in the Paulo Freire’s sense.

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content, narrative and performance, culled from Indian subcontinental traditions including Dastaan Goi and nautanki.3 Physical exercises which make the children focus and help remove preconceived peer formations give way to theatre exercises. Image-making provides a good transition. We give the children a word, and in 10 seconds, using their face and bodies, each child has to individually create an image that according to her/him reflects the word. Words are weighted, often in pairs or multiples (father/mother, middle class traveller,/shopkeeper, policeman/activist) and the process of introspection has begun. Each child looks within her/himself interpreting to collect images that correspond to his notion of the word. The truth and lie (liminal lie) is a good exercise while working with the margins. Each person (including facilitators) introduces her/himself with two statements, one which is true and one which is a lie. The rest have to catch the lie and state why they think it is a lie. The challenge is to make the lie liminal, as close to truth as possible, and really difficult to detect. The point is to legitimize the lie, to assure the marginalized (especially the marginalized young who are the targets of adult middle class constructions of being liars and criminals) that there is space for their ‘lies’ as they are truths of the workshop experience. At this point the group is divided into smaller groups. Each group collectively creates a picture corresponding to the concept given by the 3 The Indian subcontinent is phenomenally rich in popular performative traditions. Dastaan goi is a narrative art, originally in Urdu and dating back to the 13th century. The existing written scripts date back to the 19th century Dastan e Amir Hamza. Belonging to a combined Indo-Pak, Muslim-Hindu tradition, Dastaan goi was revived in India in the 1990s. A narrative form, where traditionally one, and nowadays more likely two, narrators partly perform and narrate. Many hybrid forms combining traditional Hindu singing with Islamic traditions have surfaced – pandies‘ has hosted many Dastaan goi sessions at its studio. Adaptable, smaller forms, Kissa goi, for instance which focus on one incident/event are also popular. Apart from Urdu writers, this adapted form has also been used by famous Hindi writers including Prem Chand. It is akin to the short story form (probably the reason Prem Chand was fond of it) but expressly for an oral narration before a small audience. It’s a pleasing, slightly exaggerated, style of narration followed by performance, and works very well in training workshops. Nautanki derives from popular Indian traditions and combines dance and singing with acting. Its themes are usually taken from Indian mythology or satire on contemporary issues. It works particularly in workshops in villages, where the youth are comfortable with dancing and singing, and becomes a good way of getting them in to talk about themselves and their stories. The usage here is paradigmatic; pandies‘ incorporates aspects of local performative traditions in its workshops which the participants are conversant and comfortable with. Others include Tamasha and Jatra.

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Chapter Seven facilitators. In the image, each participant must represent something, and the total picture conveys the group’s collective view of the concept. The challenge is that everybody watching should be able to guess the word/concept from the image. The process of collective introspection, of looking into each other’s experience and creating a collective picture has taken place. Narrativization, possibly the most important stage in the pandies’ workshop, follows. As they get more relaxed, the participants relate stories from their lives, which can include lives of friends, neighbours, colleagues, relatives and others they come into contact with. The stories can also be from their imagination. For instance, in the platform children workshops, experiences at home, at the platform, in the camp/reformatory and on returning after home-placement (in case of those who had returned home), formed the chief focus, whereas, in the workshops in the slum village of Nithari, experiences of interacting with the rich, spoilt youth of adjoining areas and with the media after the carnage formed the chief areas of purview. They are playing, and at the same time it is real. It is a re-creation, done before a specific audience consisting of the facilitating group, their teachers, immediate caregivers, and the rest of the children in the workshop. They are encouraged to play with each other’s stories, to narrate somebody else’s story. Each group then proceeds, with the help of one facilitator, to create a narrative that tries to incorporate the experiences of all the members of the group with the proviso that the narrative as a whole should make sense as a story, simply have a beginning, middle and end. Each group chooses its leader, writer/ collator and presenter. This story, often very sketchy and containing bits of everybody’s story, and at the same time not being really anybody’s story, is then played into a theatrical performance in stages. Using one collected narrative means that a participant need not play out his own story. Some people love to perform their own lives, others are more reluctant and prefer other people’s life incidents. The important thing is that the participants decide which parts of the story they want to act, and what emerges is a performance of the collectivity based on the collective story. The instructor’s intervention is strictly on demand and uses more ideas from the workshop, and the little improvisations are built into performances of about twenty to thirty minutes each. Often, especially if the target is a public performance, these performances are tied together for a longer episodic production. But where there is homogeneity of themes, the more challenging mode is to try and create one sequential script combining experiences from all the narratives. The performances are geared to what the young want to tell us. At times they stress messages that they feel we want to hear, but more often, they do get charged up and highlight events that have disturbed them and they want us to know. The idea of the workshop is to create a zone where young people interact and unleash their developmental selves.

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Pandies’ has done a variety of workshop theatre in its field of experience, and this variety is both in terms of the participants and the nuanced methods used. It has been a growing, enabling experience. It starts with the halting (but great as learning) experience in Yamuna Pushta (the embankment that stretched for more than 10 kilometers along Yamuna River in the Northeast of Delhi) in 1999. 4 The project was an accompaniment of the Veils project (referred to in the proscenium section). A composite on women rights and against violence, especially sexual violence, the idea was to use theatre repeatedly over a period of time to get this message across in a slum, and have a cascading effect through other slums and villages. We started by preparing plays and talking to collectivities in the community. The exercises consisted of taking up many issues (rape/consent, domestic violence, violence, standing up for women and children when they were being abused, drug abuse, drug peddling, alcoholism, bootlegging, trafficking of young girls) in small plays. Popularity and interest arose and we soon had a large ensemble wanting to work with us. Pandies’ volunteers started workshopping with the women and teaching them to create scripts and perform before their community in the slum. The exercise acquired a truly communitarian character, with us appointing two women in charge of the theatre activities and one to manage a small creche where the children would be studying as the women came to perform theatre. We were able to have just a couple of performances by the residents, as the national government changed and money was stopped. We could not continue for more than a few months on the strength of our own financial resources. This endeavour was followed by a huge spread of work with children at the turn of the century. The British Council led a massive Child Rights initiative in North India in 2001 with pandies’ as their theatre partners, where members of the group travelled and conducted workshops with over 60 schools stretching from Delhi to Haryana, Punjab and Jammu.5 The idea was to initiate performative processes which made the diverse school groups voice their opinions on what they understood by child rights, how they are being infringed upon, and how they can be bettered in a world ruled by adults and adult rules for the young. There were no performances by pandies’, who only helped with the scripts and teaching nuances of direction and acting to all participants spread across towns. The point was to get major 4 At

that time touted as the second largest slum in the country, no, in Asia itself, after Bombay’s Dharavi, it no longer exists after its slow destruction by the Indian government, and now a huge temple stands before a section where it was earlier. 5 This project was done as partners for the British Council, North India, as a major awareness campaign to get messages of child rights across.

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cross sections of young people to perform their perspectives of child rights as a means to feed this into policies on child rights in the country. The spectrum and focus were both vast, and the differences too were chasmic. For instance, focusing just on the terror-ridden district of Jammu, in an upper middle-class school (Delhi Public School), the children of the powerful hated the idea of coming to school with armed guards following and keeping an eye on everything they did because their parents were in important positions in the government. And they felt a further infringement of their rights since their school was in the peripheries of the city. Once the army vehicles started moving, often at unpredictable hours, they would be stuck for 3-4 hours in the school till the convoy passed. The concerns of children in a refugee settlement in Mutthi, central Jammu were different as they were migrant Hindu-Pandit families from Kashmir. Would they ever get beyond the narrowness of their house and their fates and realize their dreams? And would they ever return with their families to their beloved homeland in Srinagar, Kashmir? Orphaned girls from Ladakh, were too traumatized to express themselves except in songs in their native languages. A plethora of stories emerged in these workshops which were held individually and apart, and short theatre festivals were held in Jammu and Chandigarh. 6 As we proceeded, it became apparent that the real value addition of the workshop form to the idea of theatre lay in the interaction between the facilitator and the participant, and in creating theatre from the politics of the participant’s stories and experiences to impact change makers and the making of policy (this was tried somewhat in the final festival in the British Council, Delhi). The process became clearer as pandies’ workshops moved more into the margins of neglect and danger, for instance, using this mode with men incarcerated in Tihar Jail (Delhi’s infamous main jail). We went there as part of an AIDS awareness campaign, and helped the inmates create a play on the theme by workshopping twice a week for six weeks. Along with HIV, a plethora of gender-related issues were selected. In this experience, not only is the learning-teaching process mutual, it is also often easier to fathom the quotient on the facilitator side of the equation. The power equations, the submerged violence and the sexual undercurrents were a learning experience and left us a bit unnerved. We also did a somewhat similar

6 Asked

by the British Council to choose a British theatre group as partner, I had gone to London and narrowed on Adrian Jackson of the Cardboard Citizens (primarily practising Boal’s forum theatre), Jackson had come to India, spending time between Delhi and Chandigarh, conducting basic workshops and choosing the better ones from the plays in Chandigarh.

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exercise in the far less volatile juvenile girls’ ward, (Nirmal Chhaya) 7 mainly using underage girls ‘rescued’ from brothels. The emanating performances showed the failure of the corrective enterprise. The workshops started with narratives of exploitation, of hatred and even anger against those who sold them. But as most of the girls became comfortable with the process, and the guards literally let their guard down, counter narratives emerged; while continuing to condemn the system and those who sold them into prostitution, stories of neglect, of boredom with just a hint of sexual exploitation within the prison walls - of people using them against their will, started to emerge, with some delving into the ‘perverse’ desire to be back at the brothel rather than in this hole. They enjoyed that more. They had an agency that prison takes away. As we came to the end of the workshop and made our usual surface promises of coming back in a fortnight or a month, the residents (knowing me by then to be an atheist) turned to a senior woman member of the group and implored her to pray that by the time we returned they should be out of this place and back to their beloved space - the brothel. Workshop theatre adds a powerful outperforming, development toolas-result connotation to theatre, that unravels the underbelly of many an overt ameliorative exercise. The mode has been used again and again with the young, liberated, and incarcerated, in communities and in juvenile homes and jails. The results are startling, and go against the mainstream conceptualizations of their problems. The workshop serves both as a creative methodology and also as the end of the methodology. At times there are performance presentations - proscenium, before assembled collectivities in schools, markets and communities, especially those where they have been created. The genre can culminate with the workshop itself, with all its learning experiences there, or move out into other sub-genres and contribute to their definitional processes. Two case studies of the workshop methodology follow to show the variations, in terms of theatre understandings; children cannibalized in a village and young boys in shelters after being rescued from railway platforms. I follow up with another example of workshop theatre, in Kashmir, also an example of theatre in war, in conflict, in domination.

7 Nirmal Chhaya: A misnomer to say the least, the term connotes loving, nurturing shade, but the place hid its horrors with submerged sagas of violence.

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Nithari Workshop-based theatre in Nithari provides a uniquely sustained and sustainable foray into highlighting theatre as a powerful voice of the disempowered. It shows theatre as a superior development model (superior to our traditional interventionist models). At the same time, it questions the contemporary notions of measuring development. This section is based on more than fifteen years of continual theatre workshops, conducted from mid-2006 to the present day, with young adolescent children (now young men and women in their 20s and early 30s), siblings and neighbours of victims of sexual abuse and cannibalism in the slum/village Nithari, on the outskirts of the capital, Delhi. Evidencing the Boalian need to involve traumatized, marginalized voices in their own development, we have here a fairly composite study - from recovering from trauma to collectivizing and even attaining a ‘better’ future. As we use the workshop mode to work through a horrendous event (and decades of aftermath), the experience also shows the disjunction between formulated policy and the needs of those for whom it is formulated, and also the difference in the expectations of the rich from the impoverished and vice versa, highlighting the falsity and fragility of the social systems which ostensibly cater to diverse classes and peoples, but actually serve the needs of the dominant only.

Setting the stage and putting a backdrop: The carnage in its context Unheard of before, except as one of those villages-turned-slums, Nithari acquired the national center-stage in December 2006 as after two years of complaints about children disappearing from its impoverished residents. The police finally moved in to discover the carcasses of fifty-three children from the drains of the posh colony bordering the village. That story of severed limbs and rotting body parts forms one of the most enduring narratives in the written and electronic media in the country. This carnage is intimately linked with the complex multi-layered nature of life in a city like Delhi, the capital of India. The rampant growth of Delhi has forced the national government to extend the city beyond the parameters of Delhi’s state administration and create a National Capital Region (NCR) to divert this growth. At the moment, the pan-construct (NCR) includes areas of three states, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan, besides Delhi and New Delhi. Coerced proximal living of different classes creates many problems in Delhi itself, and these get compounded as one moves to the NCR. Chunks of rural land have been taken over by the state governments

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for urbanization – building roads and industries, malls and multiplexes. Pockets of small, old ‘villages’ exist juxtaposed with posh multi-storey residential apartments and offices that rank among the most expensive in the country. These old rural spaces survive as the source of menial help – maids, servants, gardeners and fruit and vegetable sellers - for the rich residents around. Many old villages have become slums, the home of migrant labor that comes here from all parts of the country to improve its lot. The disparity creates palpable tensions. The residents of these poor pockets, especially their children, some of whom have been born here and most of whom have spent most of their lives here, are sensitive to the blatant display of wealth by the rich residents and especially, by their bratty children. They are also resentful of looking down the barrel of the gun that this mode of living inevitably entails. The anger brews. The rich middle class has its own narratives which seek to obfuscate the many crimes of exploitation and neglect of the poor. They castigate the poor children from the slums as thieves and drug peddlers, who, for instance, run away with cellphones and wallets from the dashboards of cars at traffic lights. Nithari provides a template of the anomalies above. An erstwhile village, presently a slum, in Uttar Pradesh, Nithari is situated just on the outskirts of Delhi, in the National Capital Region. Its residents are mainly migrant labourers and vendors, and it lies in the extremely upmarket township of Noida. The carnage at Nithari, also provides an adequate rupturing of the stories by the middle class of the criminality of the poor, as this hideous crime is obviously inflicted on poor children by the rich residents. When we took our model of workshop theatre to Nithari, Nithari had no special relevance, and was just another one of the 12-odd slum villages in which pandies’ had started workshop theatre. Theatre activity was started in the aftermath of the Gujarat pogrom. It was in tune with the pandies’ decision to use the workshop mode of theatre with underserved youth of varying regions, classes, and religions to focus on mitigating their marginality and to dwell especially on religious bigotry to protect youth of slums and unplanned settlements who bear the brunt of such marginalization and bigotry. In May 2006, through a mutual contact, volunteer facilitators of the group reached Saksham, Nithari, the place that continues to be the site of our intervention. Using a broad spectrum of secular ideals (religion and caste) as the backdrop, we started working with the children on different issues of their choosing.

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Mediatization Headlines (electronic and written) have endlessly pursued the discovery of the bodies, and all ameliorative processes that followed (including ours) have had to negotiate with the effects of this mediatization. Stories in the media followed a predictable pattern, from probing but sensitive investigative journalism, to sensationalism berating the poor and protecting the rich. The ‘reporting’ started with a fragmented list of possibilities: organ trading, sale of blood, the involvement of a medical syndicate along with the apathy/collusion of the police and the administration; a case of trafficking gone awry; perversion and sexual abuse of young boys and girls at the hands of rich, adult exploiters, and of course, cannibalism. However, the violence inherent in such hostile class juxtapositions was quickly sidelined, the criminal neglect of the area and its inhabitants including issues of sanitation, health, and education, were totally pushed under the carpet, and the apathy of the police and the administration was put on the back burner. The residents of the area, the families and friends of the children who died, still yearn for those investigative threads to be pursued for other truths to emerge. Castigating the poor for the apathy and inability to look after their young, the media stories narrowed, and finally, rested on a sensational perversion, as a rich man and his servant were netted by the police on the charge of kidnapping, sexually abusing, and killing the children. This became real material for headlines. The servant would entice the young with goodies: chowmein and chocolates, the older rich master, a pervert, used to rape and sodomize the children, and the servant, the real maniac, would chop them up and eat them later. The media explored different psychological angles, and nightmarish stories of the servant’s confessions - like his preference for the raw livers of children - still appear. Placed in the midst of this, is the theatre bravely created by the survivors; the participants of the workshops aged 7 to 15 at that time (and nearing 30 now), who lost their siblings and friends in the incident. In the years that have followed, they have grappled with the sidelined narratives of their neglect, negotiated with, and confronted, the powerful class that exploits them, and have tried to put together the jigsaw of their lives, individually and then collectively, letting the anger and disgust manifest spasmodically.

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Fig 7-1: Workshop in Saksham, Nithari

Interaction with the facilitators Theatre from Nithari evidences its emboldening impact on the traumatized margins and the special relation between facilitators and participants, to a point where the two begin to connect at so many points that they seem a part of an integrated identity - the workshop. The first five years had a fairly stable group of facilitators and participants in Nithari. A core group of about 12 facilitators, in their late teens and early twenties, worked with about 250 children at Nithari. The facilitators are middle class, have some training in conducting theatre workshops, and lots of enthusiasm. They too are all invariably in subversive relationships with the grown-up, norm-defining voices of their class. In the workshop theatre, many certitudes of middle class existence were challenged: the valorization of family, the sanctity of marriage, the hegemony of adult voices, the efficacy of the education system, and middle class notions of success and right wing decadence (the hold of religion and morality on our conduct and behaviour). Workshop theatre proceeded on a weekly basis in Saksham school, and public performances were also created. Subsequent to those five years, workshop theatre acquired a more flexible form, leaning more on the

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capabilities of the participants. As performers, and also capable of facilitating and teaching facilitation, the older participants took over the workshops. The role of pandies’ facilitators diminished, and a lot of theatre training, in scripting, directing, and acting, was imparted by the seniors to younger children. The workshop mode continued to flourish. The form became both more incomplete, and more fulfilling. We would go there with pandies’ plays and they would invite us to watch their performances in their community centers. And intermittently, we got together to create a performance. The mental agility that accrues from the collective handling of collective trauma has been honed to a political sharpness by the consistent creation of theatre. The early years of this program of workshop theatre using the pandies’ template gave a nuanced illustration of this process. Along with incessant workshops, these years had three public performances as their highlights. India Habitat Center – April 2007 Constitution Club (Haq) – January 2009 American Center – July 2010

Following the pandies’ paradigm, workshop theatre was started with three or four visits a month, usually on Saturdays. In keeping with standard practice of creating and working with the sub-groups, in six months the process of group-making was completed, along with the crucial stages of making collective images and brief silent enactments, and it reached the point where the four created groups were devising their short stories. The active component in each group settled between 25 and 30 young people. The four groups, working along with their facilitators, were moving in different directions: a gendered love story, education of the girl child, trafficking of children (a very sensitive issue in the slums in India, as I show later) and a condemnation of religious bigotry. Around us it was getting alarming! Children, including some participants, their siblings and friends, were disappearing. Reports were being lodged at the police station but the police personnel were dismissive (often blaming the parents, not only for neglect but for trafficking their children) and of course, nobody had imagined the extent of the carnage.8

8

The teacher who had taken charge of the school and I made frequent visits to the local police station and to the bureaucrats and politicos of the area. After initial noises of concern they would look at us as if we were naive fools. I particularly remember a rather horrendous conversation with a constable at the local police station - the young man told me that I did not know the perfidy of the lower classes,

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The Carnage and Trauma Workshops The discovery of the carnage made ‘Nithari’ the most often used word in the vocabulary of the NCR for years to come. For five weeks after the discovery of the carcasses, the police cordoned off the entire area. When we finally met the children, it was in mournful silence. These were extremely expressive children, keen to learn and hard to suppress. They had been struck dumb by the horrible findings and the media stories that followed the revelation of the carnage. The twice-a-month workshops became daily, to deal with trauma. Theatre grew to take on the added responsibility of dealing with the trauma of the margins. We cajoled them into expressing their hurt, their anger, their opinions – in anecdotes, fictionalized stories, or in silences. Expressing without words worked, and they reverted to silent theatre (derived partly from Boalian machines), to recapitulate and express what they felt about the carnage and its media reports. The impact of the carnage could be felt in all spaces and relationships. Their parents, for instance, were resorting to locking them in their houses while going out, seeing it as the only means of ensuring their safety.9 Something vital had been lost. The event had sexualized them in the ugliest forms of child rape, coerced sodomy, and cannibalism. The innocent dignity and that pride that characterizes eager children of this class had been lost, and recapturing it was an additional task of these workshops. Following that thread of silent theatre, the youths re-enacted what they thought had happened in the house where the children, their siblings and neighbours, were killed. Speaking without words, is what they found the easiest. But soon we were also getting oral narratives of children who had escaped abduction, and a little later, verbally articulated skits of their perception of the event and its causes. Indifference of, and exploitation by, the rich, hostility of the police and the state administration, and insensitivity of the media, emerged as the dominant themes. Theatre was showing political fangs, more than we would have imagined from these margins. The redressing of trauma quickly made way for protest theatre. The participants and the facilitators, together with the teachers and parents, decided that a public performance was essential. It would be an attempt to restore the confidence and self-worth that had been lost in this carnage. their girls start menstruating at age 7 and they want sex soon afterwards; these girls must have run off with their boyfriends. 9 Borrowing from the rhetoric of those around, including their parents, schoolteachers, and the many TV channels, many participants took recourse in blaming themselves: “The children who died went for chowmein, for sweets and chocolates” they said, “They were greedy and paid the price for it”.

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Above that, it was an act of protest. A performance before the oppressive rich was required, to present the victims’ expunged perspective before the class responsible for the trauma, and now posing as benefactors. The facilitators also joined the party. They too needed to deal with trauma. For people working with them, nothing can be more devastating than guilt, confusion, and hurt, on the faces of loving, aspiring children. The facilitators responded to the theatre of the grotesque by preparing small skits of their own to assert their position and articulate what they had learnt at the workshop.

The First Performance The first public performance of this version of workshop theatre from this space was at an open amphitheater at the India Habitat Center, Delhi, in April 2007. The two-hour performance contained samples from the trauma workshops, supportive skits from the facilitators, and the four in-progress episodes from the holistic workshop theatre, started six months before the discovery of the carnage. A silent skit and two verbalized short performances were re-creations of the carnage. They exposed the lies of official narratives (both police and administration), the biases of media stories, and the inadequacies of the views of grownups in their neighbourhood (including their parents). Their endeavour, through those two evenings, revealed upper middle class perversion, police apathy, and the hostility inherent in the existing social system that both used, and then abused, them for being what they are. The three brief performances had the master and his servant at the center. The plays did not make a class difference between the servant and the master, they were both part of the rich reality that both metaphorically, and in this case literally, feeds on the children of the poor. There was a minor climax, an oral narrative of a girl who had escaped abduction. A heroic narrative, it also showed the underbelly of our society, and of the haloed institution of the family, as she detailed how she had escaped and rescued her younger brother from the men who had tried to kidnap her in a van (one of the men, according to her, was the servant shown on TV). She also recounted that she had been thrown aside because she was ugly and a polio victim, and the men laughed while throwing her out stating she wasn’t good enough for rape. Further, she had fought for, and rescued, her brother, not only as he was her sibling, but also, because she felt that her family would have punished her had the boy been lost; he was a boy and normal, so for the family, more precious than she was. The location of this narrative was in the margin within the margins.

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Four plays emerged from the workshops which started six months before the discovery of the carnage and added to the expansion in the meanings of theatre. The episode on love and romance took up the issue of premarital sex and its implications for the boy and the girl. Was there anything wrong in what they did? Why does society punish the girl alone? Set in a migrant labourer family, the play about the education of the girl child looked at the whole gamut of problems that make it difficult, despite state policy, to provide free education to girls of working class parents. The third was a simple, but required, lesson on communal harmony as a Muslim boy saves the life of his Hindu friend putting his own life on the line, despite being derided for his religious customs by his friend’s parents. The fourth play was crucial. Beginning as a critique of child trafficking, it turned the argument around, seeing those who buy children as abler humans, compared to those who produce them and fail to look after or protect them, selling them for petty amounts of money. Along with the gendered statement, the romance story showed that the participants were equipped to talk about an area usually regarded as beyond them in terms of their class and age. They ridiculed notions of romance among rich kids of their age for basing their fantasies on Bollywood recipes. These are false misleading male narratives even at their best, and certainly ridiculous for them in their poverty. The second play, having possibly the most clichéd theme, was the most radical in its treatment. It showed the limitations of affirmative action when such action is imposed from above, and without taking cognizance of the opinions of those for whom it is intended. The state provides free education, but what is the state of this free education? Focusing on the education of the girl child, the play showed that the reasons for not sending girls to school are many: family ‘honour’; the girl’s ‘purity’; somebody else’s property; reluctance to spend on auxiliaries like transport and stationery even when the education is free; and above all, working class girls, in the agricultural, industrial or any other segment, have to do household work in the morning before they can be expected to do anything else.10 No process of education can proceed without negotiating the above, and as the play went on to show, when principals and teachers of administration schools chastise or take a condescending attitude towards the parents, the end of the process has already taken place. The plot of the fourth play was the most unsettling, as it took on the most revered of social institutions – the family. The anger against parents (often identified not as 10

Maybe in spaces like these, the government schools need to start a little later. An experiment that was tried quite successfully in some districts in the state of Rajasthan where pandies‘ was doing workshop theatre with school dropouts.

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‘my parents’ but simply as the institution called ‘parents’) continues to be phenomenal, and is second only to the hatred against the state machinery and the middle-class (often seen as a continuum by the children). If parents cannot protect their children, do they have the right to have any? And is it not more fortunate to be a slave in a rich household than a legitimate child in an impoverished home? Does not the first give more space and chance of success? Dangerously subversive questions were being formed.

Fig 7-2: 1st public performance, India Habitat Center, Delhi 2007

Workshop theatre also worked for the facilitators, and brought out their insecurities and traumas, and their conflicts with the adult world. The skits enacted by them furthered the confrontational aspect of this performance itself. There were two plays. The first was about conflict with parents, and the violation of child rights taking place across the class divide. An affluent single working mother has no time for her child, and a poor boy accused of providing and partaking in drugs with his affluent friend condemns his father for his persistent alcoholism. The play ended with visuals of confused parents. There is no apology for drug abuse and no valorization of the single mother who is trying to bring up a child in adverse circumstances, there was only an uncompromising critique of the institution of the family. Had the Nithari experience equipped them to question this institution?

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The second play explored the ludic as the facilitators portrayed youngsters playing. What would ‘play’ constitute in these circumstances? They ‘play’ family, but there is no protection for the children, only abuse, violence, and exploitation; they ‘play’ relationships but that’s about sexual perversions; they ‘play’ police but it’s about bribery and beating the poor; they ‘play’ media but it’s about sensations and career-making; and they ‘play’ the rich, but it is about raping and eating the poor young. Emotionally arousing, the skit showed poor childhoods played with by uncaring adults. Workshop theatre was unravelling the mesh of the family, taking away its haloed status and reframing the relationship between grown-ups and the young. Is the relationship nurturing, uncaring, or exploitative? The disjunction between the margins and the mainstream was stressed further in the response of the exclusively middle-class audience. Their obvious warmth for the children was almost subdued by a feeling of disappointment. They expected the young to express more rage against the two killers, to show a desire for revenge, even murder, and then turn to the middle class audience as their saviours, seeking help and succour from them. There was no real anger, no turning to them to be their ‘messiah’. Many in the audience were a bit upset at being deprived of their cathartic release, and the chance to emerge as the best of their species. The attitude of the upper class media was worse. Some members of a reputed TV channel had the audacity to ask me to change the structure of the performance and have the narrative of the girl, who had escaped, at the beginning because he had been asked to shoot that. It was the spectacle of cannibalism that interested the media, and the audience were nowhere near ready to look at class-based exploitation and the inability to even comprehend the perspective of the class ‘other’. The workshop theatre experience had become a means of challenging the status quo with many reframed questions: the upper class audience was being questioned about their class bias and possibly pushed to understand that their sympathy was, at best, condescending, and way off what the survivors of the carnage wanted. The facilitators, as part of the holistic experience, were openly articulating their issues with valorized institutions of their structure, including the family, education system, and the value structures of their class, but how far did their class, and the money in its protective power, undercut the genuineness of their attempt? And there were the children, in a liminal political state yet, unsure of what they were seeking, unsure how to cope but not moaning or asking for help. The journey had begun. What we see in this first foray is a pulling at the seams of social living, of showing that dominant class platitudes don’t work, that lives in margins

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have a position; they can express that position, and this expression destabilizes the way in which we have constructed our frames. The young middle class facilitators are closer to connecting than the structures where they belong. They are of course, like all youth, in an inimical relation with the powers that be, but does theatre training in itself equip them to question the hegemonic discourses of their times? The actor has always been in a tricky position vis a vis authority. Does that very naysaying aspect of theatre give them the power to empathize with the margins and bring that perspective into play?

Theatre after the first Performance Incompleteness characterized the first performance, and the process continued in the workshops that followed, which were more enabled and penetrative after the performance, deriving strength from experience and from the bond between facilitators and participants. Post-performance, many more participants joined the workshops, as the popularity of the school and the drama ‘training’ grew. In keeping with pandies’ methodology we withdrew to let the participants evolve together and work on the basic plays of the first set of workshops, so that they grew into full length pieces and new plays emerged from the efforts of the participants. The older/senior children stood up to the challenge to both replicate and deviate from the template workshop with new participants, with minimal guidance from pandies’ members. Theatre stressed a discursive, explorative dimension, and was extremely powerful in creating space for not-oft-stated perspectives. Pandies’ workshops became monthly, evolving, discussion sessions for the participants to discuss issues that concerned them (some enlisted below), often leading to small theatrical performances on the same issue. The cases below evidence the ability of the margins to use theatre to challenge hegemonic holistic meanings, point towards gaps and contradictions within dominant perceptions, and create alternate space for creating policies and laws. Theatre demonstrated the capacity to provide a canvas for all of the above and more. Sexuality and sexual relationships form an integral part of any workshop involving young participants and facilitators. Nithari, with its sagas of rape and coerced sodomy of children, has had it inscribed from the outset. In a hidebound society like India, sexuality is taboo, even for the middle-class young, and as many of them confess, the incidence of abuse in childhood is very high, with many blocking it out of their consciousness. The issue is further complicated for the young facilitators who have often just started their sex lives, and are boasting about it among their peers, and/or more

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often hiding it from figures of authority. In this version, with discussions and in-house performances, and the sharing of desires and experiences, theatre became a revered space between the young facilitators and their younger participants, where both could talk, unbridled and in confidence, a space that neither side is willing to relinquish in a hurry. Aspects of sharp local concerns, including issues of health and sanitation, keep recurring. At this stage, the high points of the workshop are not holistic or climactic, but often fragmented. For instance, they performed around the drama of the kidnapping of the CEO of Adobe India’s son (which had actually occurred in November 2006, a little before Nithari first hit the headlines). He lived a couple of kilometers from the drains where the bodies were found. The boy was ‘rescued’ by the police in forty-eight hours. The workshop participants had heard from their elders that the father had paid a total of Rupees five crores, a lot of which was given to the police. The performances raised the questions: Did the police bungle the investigations around their companions because nobody could give big money? Didn’t they feel ashamed when they took their monthly cheques? This issue obviously affects the participants, and has recurred in their public performances. An extremely important issue that repeatedly comes up is that of child labor.11 The impassioned discussions and performances endorse that many affirmative policies of the state would be better if they took cognizance of the views of the sectors that they are aimed at. One of the most interesting enactments on this issue was created around an event in one of the participant’s lives. A young boy, the son of an ice-cream vendor and one of the brightest in our workshop, used to take his father’s trolley and sell ice creams for two hours in the evening, while his father (who was vending through the day) took his rickshaw to transport people returning from their offices. (Residents of Noida had a difficult time in terms of commuting, and rickshaw pullers made a killing during office hours. Things have improved with the introduction of the Metro, but only just, it’s a vast, spread-out area). This brought in extra money for the family, which, according to the son (perhaps taking inspiration from the play about girl child education that they 11 Indian

laws against child labor are quite stringent. The implementation varies, but in metropolitan cites, including Delhi and NCR it is pretty strict. The Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 prohibits private, government or semi-government companies, organizations, civil departments, or a child's family from employing a child or adolescent in any occupation or process intended to aid his family or guardian. Any occupier or employer caught doing such things in which a child is being used as a labourer, is regarded as committing a serious offensive crime.

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had been performing) enabled the family to send his sister to school. The father was arrested under the Child Labour Act and it took six days of negotiations from us (and probably a hefty bribe from the man) to secure his freedom. The child, together with some close friends among the participants, created a performance around the incident (and many others critiquing labor laws have followed). They felt that it was not only unfair, but also ethically wrong, on the part of the government to pass such laws. If you cannot provide children with the right to education (the RTE12 bill has been passed subsequently, there are problems of implementation but at least it’s there) or to play (where is the space for the working class child? He is thrown out of public parks and his schools do not have play space), can you take work away from them too? Further, if a child studies in an administration school in the morning, and a charity school in the afternoon, and is doing well academically (as was the case above), was it correct to measure his family with the same yardstick with which one measures those whose children were sent to work 12 hours a day in factories, or in the houses of the rich? And is not the work of children, like the one above, to be lauded as an act that enables the family and keeps the child away from harm (drug abuse and petty crime for instance), they all argued. The government of the rich need to think more like the poor. The laws need to be supple and more individual case centric. Many discussions, machines, and forum theatre experiments followed on the issue of child labor and the framing of (better) laws on the issue. A complex relationship with the dominant ‘correct’ strains of social living was emerging. Subversion, protest and negotiation were all there, and submerged perspectives were unravelling in the social margins. A theatrical process of radical change within the community needed to be juxtaposed with the presentation of their points of view before activists, bureaucrats and politicians – policy makers in general. Intermittently, the children presented developed plays (from their first effort) along with shorter pieces culled from later workshops in spaces/occasions provided by NGOs, CSR13 initiatives and government agencies.

The Second Performance An occasion presented itself in January 2009 as pandies’ was approached by a Delhi-based prominent child rights NGO Haq to perform a piece on child rights. We felt it was a good occasion to showcase the work 12

The right of children to free and compulsory education was passed in 2009. Social Responsibility

13 Corporate

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from Nithari. The adolescents (not children anymore) did most of the work by themselves. They expanded on the two substantial plays from the Habitat experience (girl child education and trafficking of children episodes) and added a prologue entirely by themselves. The prologue was answering back theatre from the oppressed. The Prologue had for its protagonist a woman journalist (as the Sutradhar or narrator, from Indian traditions operating both within and outside the plot) celebrating the second anniversary of Nithari (it was almost exactly two years from the discovery of the carnage). Three boys sat center stage, in the position of the three monkeys of Gandhi,14 representing personnel of the Delhi Police who see nothing, hear nothing, and are incapable of opening their mouth to critique or take a position against crime. The Prologue was an enactment of an exchange between the woman narrator and the residents of Nithari - her questions and their answers. The residents curse the police for not being there when they were required, and now just sitting there, smoking and ogling women. Anger finds vent against the house where the killings took place. The children who play around deliberately pelt it with stones aiming to break panes and damage the structure itself. Asked about her feelings two years after the scandal, one young woman turns on the journalist, accusing her and her ilk of making their careers out of reporting ‘Nithari’ but doing nothing for its uplift. “The camera always points up at the faces of the residents and never down at the faeces on the streets,” she says, “Do you think the lack of sanitation and proper hygiene and education facilities is less important than the corpses found two years ago?” A young boy who lost his brother in the carnage refers to the Adobe India CEO’s son’s case and declares with a sardonic smile, “Five crores changed hands, my parents do not have so much money, what then is the worth of my life?” The Haq had collected a formidable audience. Activists and developmentalists, bureaucrats and politicos, it included a former Vice President of the country, and members of the national and state (Delhi) parliaments including the son of the Chief Minister of Delhi (himself a member of the Delhi parliament). The audience was not only powerful, but also far more sensitive, and importantly, the performers were more selfassured. The result was a questioning of the role of the middle-class, and its adequacy to be the paradigm defining class. The position of the middle-class was filled with contradictions and hypocrisies – how for all the shouting 14

Mahatma Gandhi, as he is famously called in the country had popularized that image as a message for the individual to avoid speaking evil, hearing evil and seeing evil.

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against children working, it was people of the same class that employed them, and the state did little to catch the real culprits. Even when they were caught, they were let off after paying bribes. Gender discrimination, even the hideous forms of dowry torture and violence against women were actually middle class realities; as was the way state policy had, for all its drum-beating, utterly failed in the battle against poverty. Workshop theatre was locating the source of trauma of the poor in mainstream processes of the hegemonic class that makes policy and is ostensibly the fount of social change. The margins were planting the seed of radical change, forcing the policy makers from the mainstream to rethink the role of the margins, and forcing them to learn from the margins.

Fig 7-3: Rehearsing, 2009

The Third Performance, American Center, New Delhi Another performative occasion presented itself in 2010. The American Center, which had recently opened its auditorium for staging and screening local plays and cinema (albeit with an American connection) was seeking greater social cultural intervention, and approached pandies’ theatre to do a ‘social change’ play. We felt it would be a good space to stage a play by the

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children of Nithari instead. The performance took place in July 2010. In the run-up towards it the facilitators’ intervention was limited to doing a couple of workshops helping the participants figure the themes they wanted to work on, and assuring that they would be there if required. The participants made two large groups and prepared two new plays almost entirely by themselves. The entire exercise took about one month. They had left the carnage behind, and at least some of its trauma. One group gave a grim reflection of the seamy politics around us, and the other offered a humorous take on gender disparities. The first group used a central narrative of a lower caste boy falling in love with an upper caste girl. The play’s canvas was big, and apart from an expose of the deep roots of caste biases, it included an expose of politicians who don’t think about murder and riots, and create vote banks that enable them to acquire power and money. The indictment of the rich and powerful was severe, and retained immediacy by being structured around Delhi. It ended in Utopia, as the conniving, murderous, favoured candidate to be Chief Minister is exposed and booted out just before her swearing-in ceremony. The second play used an episodic form. It had two narrators, a boy and a girl. Each episode emerged from their consciousness. They narrated and commented alternately on each other’s narrative. Their hilarious conflicts formed takeoff points for a gendered analysis. They narrated anecdotes and stories and then ‘showed’ them to us. There were four brief stories, all working with the reversal of the usual gender stereotypes to make us laugh at our biases. Peppy and energetic, the effort ended with a song exhorting the audience to support girls, and stand by their right to education. The impact of this performance needs more illustration and adds more nuances to the idea of theatre. For the audience, we had a core of people from the American Center, activists, powerful people of the upper classes, a number of regular pandies’ viewers, and above all, many working-class parents of the participants.15 In the best of activist traditions (Brecht), the performance was both entertaining and critical. One middle-class audience bastion that was being attacked was: “I know better, this is really for the lower, lesser educated classes”. Questioned repeatedly about the truth of their assertions about gender disparity, the young Nithari people decided to look them in the eye and call them out. Again blaming the middle-class for setting paradigms of iniquity, they wanted the audience to follow what they were advocating. For starters, they suggested that the educated middle-class audience should stop suppressing their own daughters; and not be biased 15 The

response in terms of numbers was so overwhelming that a screen had to be set up in a hall next to the performance auditorium to accommodate those who could not fit in the auditorium.

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against those whom their children loved, regardless of class, caste and religion; And that their messages, the fruits of their labor should not be forgotten by all once they reached home. Theatre had taken its age-old confrontationist mode. Beyond that, was the protest of the performers, the cannibalized, abused young of Nithari (we had almost forgotten that). The plays evidenced their rejection of their profiling, assaulted their stereotyping by the mainstream, and challenged the notion that they want to be treated with kid gloves because of the carnage. It was an articulation that they are as good (probably better) as any youth at dealing with, and talking about, social issues. The movement was from the indignity of 2007 to the self-assurance of 2010. I will talk in greater detail about the facilitators after the discussion on platform boys, where the task of facilitation is far more demanding. Between the two larger plays at the Center, they also presented one little play by four facilitators focusing on their discussions at Nithari. The core issues were the really tricky ones, focused on the anomalies of middle-class activism and whether any planned development of a marginalized collectivity (including our ‘radical’ intervention) can avoid the pitfalls of mainstreaming. Is the middle-class, the class that hegemonizes all the static discourses and value structures, capable of bringing change? The stories of the facilitators were also stories of individual reckoning. For one girl facilitator, an experimenting bisexual who steers clear of any commitments and is in a hostile relationship with the middle-class valorized concept family, Nithari was a running away, running away to reality, away from the inanities of a meaningless middle class existence. Another confessed that her relationship with her family had been non-existent, and these kids with whom she had grown up with over four and half years constitute the only family she has. For both, Nithari and its children constituted a created space to learn to question, to express, and to say no to what one finds reprehensible. A boy, an exhibitionist bisexual with kohl-stained eyes and painted nails, who boasted of having random sex everywhere confessed how scared he was when a young adolescent boy from the workshop propositioned him. He needed this relationship to be outside the ambit of the sexual, and he did not want to take anything from here. The facilitators found themselves in liminal politics, first, between the participating protagonists and specta(c)tor villains, and then, being connected to their middle class selves, between the grossness of their class and their sensitivity to these impoverished youth. At this point the participants were at intersectional zones: collectively, an awareness of their marginality – their poverty and their migrant situation that keeps them looking up the tunnel and makes them vulnerable, keeping

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alive the possibility of another ‘Nithari’; at the same time, a sharp articulate critique of the mainstream, especially of the government, the police, the media and middle-class value structures in general. Most satisfying was their desire to be ‘activists’, to pursue further the paradigms set by teaching younger children at Saksham and to be facilitators of new participants in their theatre workshops. Additionally, at a more individualistic level they wanted to ‘show’, which included success in mainstream terms, with the accompanying spectre of co-option into the value structures of the oppressive class other. All paradigmatic possibilities exist as they move along these going a certain way and then returning.

Fig 7-4: Performing before community peers

Over the years, the workshops have been sporadic. Some training of the young continues, and they participate in competitions. Many are earning from performance and from other sources. Nithari has been marked. While the dirt and slum aspects continue, the area has become expensive, and many families have sold their houses to move on. Others have built floor upon illegal floor, hiring out the floors and rooms. It has a strange, disorganized feel to it. And these children, now grown men and women closing in on 30 years, carry the scars, they are marked; Nithari’s children. Children of a harsh mother that gave them a pogrom and has also made them famous forever, instilling in them a desire, an ability to rise above the

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ordinary. There are many stories of success but Paulo Freire’s markers remain, success is defined by the dominant class.16 The pandemic hit them like a truck. Their meagre jobs were lost, and with that, their chutzpah. It was time to get together, and play. We met on the internet and prepared a festival of stories of many of the margins that pandies’ has been involved with. Solid actors and part-trainers that they are, the Nithari segment was the best, as we got parallel stories to the Spanish flu, positive attempts to help in the midst of the ruin of the pandemic, and even a letter to God. We heard a crescendo of voices from the margins, describing their conditions and giving a lie to middle-class stories of suffering. And at the moment, work on Waiting For Lefty continues as they take time out to prepare an adaptation of Clifford Odets’ famous play for the reopened theatre. Theatre was showing big, unbridgeable gaps in our social living. The definitional aspect of our lives focuses only on the dominant layers. The stability and unity we experience is a hegemonic construction coming from the buffer of money. There is the page, and there are its margins, our modes of existence move on, not noticing life in the margins, thus pushing them further out. Whenever confronted, the hegemonic tries to appropriate the voice of the margins and speak for it in its own language. In countries like India, in discourses of development and growth, the margins are often seen as a disease to be cured, the problem that needs solutions. Theatre is a survival kit for those in the margins, gives them a sense of purpose, and when performed in middle-class spaces, makes the dominant other notice them. 16

In 2009, the first two students sat for the twelfth board examinations and cleared them. The number has been steadily rising each year. Many students at Saksham go to the morning administration school and come here in the evening. The unique experiment succeeds; as the older ones go out looking for careers the younger ones take on the task of teaching the new children. Sachin and Soni, are our two mascots, they were the first to finish school, and were with our workshops from the beginning, first as participants and then as facilitators. Sachin will soon finish his graduation, is good with computers, and has got a job with a foreign company to operate a complex games machine with computers. He wants to join a drama school and become an actor. Soni has trained as a nurse/ maid and works in a hospital. Her dream is to set up an NGO for marginalized children. Sonali has joined the prestigious LSR College to pursue graduation. They want to be cricketers and lawyers; one bought a motorcycle recently on monthly instalments, after he saw a similar bike with one of the facilitators and wanted one. Is this a marker of something more serious? Are they losing their radical marginality and getting absorbed in bourgeois centrism? The danger is there, that as the target group evolves, the desire to move on, to cease to be victims, gets tied in with mimicking and looking up to the oppressive class other.

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The limitations are obvious. It constitutes one experience with a particular set of people using one kind of workshop theatre, but that concision gives it the potential and strength for a close study to see what we can do. Positionally, we are in the margins looking at hegemonic constructions, from the perspective of impoverished children who have been traumatized, not in the usual sense of the word, but actually cannibalized by the dominant class. Benefits of development accrue without thrusting the agenda from above, and with the participation of the lagging sectors in their own policy-making. There are the lessons of the theories of Freire and the practice of Boal. The voices of the underserved outsider, sifted by the marginal, come within naysaying voices (of the facilitators) inside. Performances in the larger arena seek legislative reforms and policy influence, making them more flexible and capable of accommodating variations in the margins, showing that those who dominate and control the social structure have lots to learn about the disempowered within that structure. The spotlight focusses on creating a zone of development for the participants and their facilitators together. The extended mode (close to two decades in this case) enables an assessment of the evolving relationship of the practitioner/performer and participant/audience. This relationship becomes the major gain in terms of understanding of theatre. Here, constructions of the status quo are repeatedly questioned, and doubts hover over many of the affirmative policies that emerge from the state. Extremely low on cost (especially so with the most marginal, in kind, support from the community), we also see theatre’s insularity to market forces, showing starkly that this is a forgotten corner of the mall (and such corners constitute the overwhelming majority of our country). As the process continues, the activism is apparent in the underdogs’ ability to put trauma behind them and emerge forthright, asserting their equality and seeking their place in the sun. It is there, in the learning graph of the middle-class facilitators, in their discomfort at being the more evolved. Nithari continues to be the site of workshop theatre-based ameliorative interaction. As the multi-layered liminality above reflects, the theatrical process is not linear or evenly paced, and depicts multiple levels of interaction between the margins and the mainstream, spanning the spectrum from extreme subversion to possible cooption. It is a confrontation with the confrontationist in theatre.

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Fig 7-5: Train to the platform, workshop Ajmer

Platform Children Workshop theatre with ‘platform children’ started around the same time as Nithari (around 2007), but an entirely different set of experiences confronts us in our work with children who live on platforms. Dangerous and challenging, the experience with them cannot be contained, even in the most radical thought structures. Out-performing, enabling, failing? Defying any kind of definition or conclusion, this scattered, incomplete experience can only be encompassed in theatre, and in turn, has provided another dimension to an understanding of theatre.

Painting the backdrop ‘Platform children’ constitute a narrow and specific sector. Youth, children really, they have spent a significant part of their lives on railway platforms. From British colonial days, and expanded much by the Indian governments, India has had an extensive railway system, that covers the entire nation. Violence, sexual abuse, at times just galling poverty, induces

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many young children to run away from home and board trains to escape, and they make the platforms their impermanent abode. Most keep moving from one platform to the next, some settle on one platform for some time, even for a few years, and become the ‘dons’ (called bhai) of that space. Coming from all parts of the country, apart from traveling in trains, they also dwell together in a shared zone of poverty. Pandies’ has done residential workshop theatre with over 600 of them (all boys and aged between seven and fifteen)17 incarcerated in state reformatories and NGOrun shelters. I often wonder what happens to a platform child when he grows up? How many reach adulthood, and how many die, victims of starvation, drug abuse, sexual abuse, and diseases like HIV? And if they do, rejected already by organized society, how many would we find, except in the criminal underbellies of our society or incarcerated in jails? Almost belonging to another planet, they certainly have little to do with our world, with its institutions and value structures. They are an amalgam of binaries. It’s a cool high world, where all the boys are drug abusers and many also peddlers. Sexually experienced (gay and bisexual), they flaunt their sexuality and invariably get into sex-work. An unnerving, celebrative, machismo characterizes this world. Their life comprises petty theft, picking pockets, snatching food from train bins, begging, earning, and eating and drinking things (pizzas and burgers for instance) not available in the confines of a poverty-struck village home. Tough and masculine, the norms of parents, education, and society, are seen as emasculating spaces to be avoided at all costs. And at the same time, the platform child’s loneliness, and after a point, rootlessness, are unfathomable. His is a world of druginduced permanent brain-damage, of extreme sexual abuse, of violence – both afflicting and being afflicted, of close encounters with death, of being thrown on the tracks by older boys and policemen, of picking out remnants of crushed bodies (friends and strangers) from the tracks, and cleaning up afterwards. His body is a living amalgam of an aggressive predatorial libido, coupled with being repeatedly sexually exploited. Workshop theatre here unveils a febrile, radical subculture that exists layers beneath our structures of social living, and defies not only the stereotypes of gender, but also its unconventional reconstructions. Theatre is only possible with platform children in incarceration, in ‘homes’ (temporary shelters run by NGOs) in different cities, or in state-run reformatories (juvenile jails). We do theatre with them in ‘de-addiction’ 17 It

is not as if girls do not run away from home in trains, but the shelters where we worked were boys’ shelters. There are people who say girls, if not rescued in time, are sold into brothels and so there is little trace of them.

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camps, where they undergo some mode or other of ‘home-placement therapy’. Selecting from the broader area of experience of interacting with these children, I draw from the material of three residential workshops, where the facilitators lived and worked with such children in a ‘home/camp’ for five to seven consecutive days, conducted between 2008 and 2010 in Rajasthan and Delhi, to further its formulations on theatre. Some differences from the Nithari study need to be placed right away. Firstly, (with the exception of Alipur) these were essentially residential workshops where the facilitators stayed with the incarcerated children in their camps, and conducted the workshops. Each of these workshops was an intensive experience where the young ones were involved throughout the day for one week. Unlike Nithari, which is characterized by a sense of continuity, theatre with platform children has been sporadic, as we have worked with different children in each camp. Most importantly, these performances have not been ‘performed’ in the way of the Nithari illustration. There have been no public performances (apart from Ajmer where the plays were performed at the Railway platform and the Ajmer Dargah)18 because, often, the involved NGOs and the Delhi Police have baulked at seeing the raw, critical content of the plays created. Workshop theatre in this sector adds a perilous dimension to the understanding of theatre. It’s a world of drugs, sex work, and murder. We are dealing not just with the underbelly of civilized society, but with the underworld itself. Providing a deeper penetration into the ‘other side’, and showing the inadequacies of many social principles which are taken for granted, theatre then gets empowered to question the very basis on which social formations are built, from the perspective of one of its most volatile margins. These young people, kids really, put all our constructions and certitudes to the sword. NGO agendas, state policy, foreign expert intervention, the mode gave a lie to all attempts at amelioration, and in a fashion that was so reminiscent of many histories of subversion via theatre and the successful attempts of those in authority to try to subjugate and obliterate the form itself.

Facilitators The pandies’ facilitators have been briefly profiled in the previous section. My connection with them is diverse, as chief trainer, chief 18

Ajmer Sharif, a Dargah is a shrine built over the grave of a revered religious figure, often a Sufi saint. Often, as in this case, people from diverse faiths congregate there for blessings. This Dargah is among the most sought after Muslim shrines in India.

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facilitator, and in many cases, their teacher from college too. All of them have worked in other workshops before venturing into this sector. But this sector was a different experience. The impact is shattering, and the high of working with this ‘cool’ bunch of kids is intermittent, with the facilitators feeling despair and self-hatred of being with the exploited, and also of the exploiting class, (though struggling with many of its value structures). Theatre is the abode of naysayers, and for the facilitators, the rejection of the normative social modes of their class emerge more starkly while working with this sector. Negotiation in the zones of drug abuse and sexual behaviour are revealed in all their contradictions. We all know that it is harmful for a ten year-old to be doing drugs, but what about us? It’s not about morality, it is somewhat about the ethical right to stop somebody from doing something that I am doing, but it is really far more basic. The facilitator convinces her/himself that what s/he is doing is right, ‘right for me’ given ‘my special circumstances, my level of maturity’ and the fact that ‘I can handle it’. But the young participant from the platform world may feel exactly the same in his - possibly less articulate and aware - state (and this may not be true). Again, most of the children that we meet with in this sector have been subject to abuse. For many of them, sexual abuse and prostitution are ways out of being brutalized by the police and other domineering adults. In the abstract, the situation is black and white but not essentially so for the young facilitator, whose sex life has often just begun, who is boasting about it before peers and hiding it from figures of authority. The problem with abused, sexually active, children and especially those in sex-work, is that they are aware and complicitous. Many of them are proud of the amount of money they could/can earn. How can the facilitator (especially given the ‘all are equal’ basis of the workshop mode), without doubts in her/his mind, tell these young participants that sex is wrong, when s/he is often logged in a tussle with an older grown-up world that seeks to curb young sexuality? Drugs and sex are two highlighted areas, but then there is also the whole edifice of structured, institutionalized, living that many of the facilitators themselves are uncomfortable with. Performing the ludic, the facilitator finds himself/herself constantly in a liminal state between conflicting ethical discourses. As a bridge between the two, s/he is with them, and also a part of the structure that exploits them, at times wanting to opt out, at times returning with redoubled vigour, and at times actually opting out. And when it works, the theatre that emerges conveys, with the disagreeing voices, dangerous challenges to the mainstreaming currents of our world. Theatre with this sector also showed that as a species, we need to evolve more to be able to be productive for underserved sectors. At the level of

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development processes, theatre here shows the limitation of policy makers, of their agendas, of implementation, and of the results. The cycles of abuse and exploitation that theatre from different cities shows, reveal how hard and uncaring our world is under the present systems of self-interest and profit, respect for patriarchy and orthodoxy and adherence to morbid zones of religion. Theatre pushes us into the ideal, the extreme of becoming and outperforming our structures. The disjunctions between the fringes and central organization become dangerously clear, as theatre in this zone tries (and fails?) to bridge that gap between the two. Standing up to empowered structures and their policies, theatre does what it has best done across time, negotiate, subvert, and call out all those which are present in the pandies’ attempt to internationalize this issue. This included presentations, conferences, articles, and above all scripting, and the creation and performance of Offtrack, a play enacted by the facilitators and based on their experiences in the workshops and their understanding and rendering of the stories and experiences of the youth they have worked with (the experience is discussed in detail in the next chapter). After successful evidencing of the limitations of formulated concepts, pandies’ was pushed out of the sector for exposing the limitations of all attempts to ‘develop’ this sector and showing how numbers were manipulated to simply show success by the organizations involved. The work continues to happen but sporadically, with few fringe organizations. It is possible the development thrust and methodology were wrong, that especially in this particular sector, the toolas-end principle should have been more closely adhered to. After a little highlighting of the specifics, and the differing nature of the three spaces where the theatre took place, rather than follow the format of looking at plays sector-wise, we will look at the script and performance of Offtrack, and the implications of these performances.

Three forays into Workshop Theatre Of the three attempts at theatre that fed into the script, two took place in ‘camps’ in the state of Rajasthan. The first was in a town called Kota (January 2008) and the second in Ajmer (May 2009), both in rented spaces run by NGOs. The third was a collaborative effort between two NGOs, and took place in a state-run juvenile reformatory in Alipur (February 2010) on the Northwest border of Delhi. The care-taking ‘host’ institutions, government agencies and NGOs, are eager for theatre interventions. Often commissioned by them, they happen invariably at their behest, and there are a plethora of reasons. First, there is an abysmal absence of any pass time or play for the boys (“How do the

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juveniles pass time?” is a difficult question, as the examples below will reveal), so this ‘play’ is much sought after (particularly if the helping theatre group agrees to do it without a charge, at minimal charge, or gets funds from elsewhere) as it gives them something to do, and more important, also enables the host to put it down among their development activities to show their funders. There is also the common expectation among host organizations that theatre will second their work and prepare the children to go back ‘home’, while emphasizing the virtues of home and reintegrating these children into the social normative. In addition, that it will make the stubborn child cough up his home address for rehabilitation (without which it is more difficult to deem the task a success).

Kota Not even maintaining the veneer of higher aspirations, this shelter was simply and explicitly a de-addiction-come-home placement camp. All the boys in the camp, mostly from North India, had been ‘rescued’ from the three main platforms of Delhi and dislocated to Kota. The NGO had taken a biggish, somewhat dilapidated, cheap rental house in the outskirts of Kota, a small nondescript town in Rajasthan. The stated purpose was to make it very difficult for them to get their daily drug fix and keep them away from the snares of the big city by making it unattractive to get out of the camp. From the outset, the equation between us and the caregivers (a term to be used consistently for the paid employees of the state/NGO who live with the children and look after them on a day-to-day basis in the camp) was at best suspicious, and at worst, hostile. We were not welcome, as there was the fear of the outsider. They could not get rid of us because they knew that the group was there at the request of their employers. Were we going to give adverse reports to their employers? Our initial observations too were not positive. We chose to stay on premises. There were no beds or mattresses and we slept on the floor in a room beside the children’s room. The place had a military camp feel about it. The children were woken at five in the morning and put through a physical drill. The first morning, the caregivers had lined up all the boys in their underwear, and they were being bathed with a hosepipe. We stepped in to stop this inhuman practice and it was not continued, at least not in the days we were there. Soon we discerned the ominous presence of violence and sex behind the veils. The boys repeatedly referred to threats of violence to contain them, and also hinted at the use of violence by the caregivers. Obviously sexualized, the boys talked about the existence of sexual relationships

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among them and, disturbingly, between the caregivers and the boys (the pandies’ facilitators, stressed in later discussion sessions, that the ‘sexual’ was more in the air with these boys than with other children located outside the mainstream). In the early stages of the workshop, the facilitators’ arms and legs were often felt up, and they felt that sexual enticement and challenges were there continually in the conduct of the boys. On the first night, the boys wanted two of the caregivers to come and sleep in their room and the caregivers seemed ready, but then backed off, probably because of our presence. The caregivers were very careful about maintaining the power hierarchies with the children. From within masculinist frameworks of their conversation, the children, in raucous laughter and using words and expressions branded vulgar and obscene, would often give out ‘facts’ of their treatment in the camp. Aslam, an exceptionally lively and subversive kid, when referring to one caregiver, would repeatedly say dhol ghusa dega (he will shove the drum up) and the rest would laugh, complicit. The proximity to the treatment given to convicts in jails was obvious in the ritual of cleaning the toilets.19 Here too, before the bathing ritual, it was the children who were, with bare hands, clearing the clogged drains (it was an old hardly-used house) of the faeces.

19

We have seen it in our interventions in adult prisons that the inmates are the ones who clean toilets (specially the more powerless among them) and this hideous pattern continues in reformatories and platform children camps run by NGOs.

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Fig 7-6: Kota workshop

The boys in the camp really had little to do. Meditation was the mode for de-addiction. They had two meditation sessions, one in the morning and a longer one in the evening, which included chanting of Hindu hymns (Gayatri Mantra)20 to the lighting of candles. The strange use of religion apart, it was particularly objectionable that boys with obvious Muslim names were being made to do this. Health checks were minimal, a once a week visit by a local general practitioner. There was no input from any psychologist (a lacuna common to all the camps). The day was spent trying to find the whereabouts of their home from children whose homes had not been traced, and repeatedly convincing others that home was the best place. The caregivers embodied the stereotype of caregivers in the sector: many of them showed great zeal in trying to save the children, but low-pay and the extremely ad-hoc nature of work in the sector takes its toll. Further, dealing with nobody’s children gives an extreme sense of power to many, and the power at times moves into the sexual space as some caregivers feel that

20 One

of the most revered Hindu mantras from the Rig Veda. A mantra is a repetitive utterance to assist meditation, somewhat like a chant.

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there is nothing wrong in having sex with the boys, especially since they are experienced, desirous, and above all, boys. As the workshops proceeded, the children’s performances revealed their experiences on the platform. All of them had gone through similar routines of begging, sweeping, being coerced into taking drugs and then enjoying it, and of being raped and then graduating to sex-work. Boys ‘rescued’ from Delhi talked about their love for the two types of trains (expensive and preferred by the rich) Rajdhani and Shatabdi, which have Delhi as a final station. The food given to passengers is a lot more than required, and the bulk of it is left. There is so much that even the train staff are not interested, and lots reaches the bins and constitutes a feast for the platform boys. Any reference to the police evoked derisive laughter and painful memories of dandacharan (shoving the baton), a term that was first used by a Muslim boy, Arif. Three plays were created in this workshop.

Ajmer We joined them for the culminating six days of a month long homeplacement camp. We felt welcome, and the place seemed far more relaxed than Kota. The boys had been ‘rescued’ from the platforms of Ajmer but they were from all over India, including three from remote villages of South India and three from Nepal. Again, it was about home-placement and deaddiction, but without a tough regimen. The process of the workshop was more relaxed, and showed that the caregivers had not overtly relied on religion. The fact that one of the three immediate caregivers was a woman had an extremely good impact on the nature of the camp. The usual problems were visible at the outset. The care-givers had relied on a sense of guilt to make the children shun their lives of drugs and sex and focus on going back to home and family. And the basic problem persisted – what to do? It was as if the children were waiting for the day when they would be handed over to their parents in the presence of some VIPs. As the process continued, this emerged as the most penetrative and enabling of theatrical interventions in this sector. Starting from imagemaking, through discussions, through individual and collective narratives, and through enactments, tableaux of the horrors of platform living hit us with uninhibited velocity. The focus on sexual acts was very high. All of them, unequivocally condemned sex (straight, gay, and bisexual) but really talked about little else. The rejection often seemed a language taught for ‘us’ and in the theatre process, they took salacious pleasure in depicting the things they were ostensibly rejecting. We realized, for the first time, that many of them had long scars on their cheeks – the punishment for refusing

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sex or drugs thrice. One boy recounted how his south Indian friend had been thrown under a train because he could not understand, and therefore did not obey, the diktat of the older boys. Another boy who had run away from his home in Nepal five years ago told us he had travelled all over India, spending a few days in all its famous cities. He recounted his attempt at a stable life, spending six months in Mumbai working in small restaurants and selling himself as a child prostitute on Juhu beach, but he had rejected this to return to his travels and his preferred residence – the platform. In the later stages of the workshop, as they became more trustful and charged up, many confessed that though they had said yes to going home, they would run away and maybe take their siblings along who were being abused at home. Three plays were created in this workshop. All the stories emanated from violent homes, from the hands of alcohol-abusing fathers. Each of them recounted stories from different parts of the country but the depiction of the difficulties and that evanescence that makes the platform so attractive for these children came repeatedly to light.

Fig 7-7: Alipur workshop

Alipur The unnerving Alipur experience took theatre to another level of vulnerability, probably due to the dangerous nature of the place and its impact on the participant children. The workshop took place in a Juvenile Home (euphemism for a reformatory/jail) There are three such in the same vicinity, on the borders of Delhi. Notionally, under the Delhi Government,

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the place is run by the Delhi Police, with the jails providing the paradigm for treatment of these boys. Housing two hundred and fifty juveniles, aged between 8 and 16 years (in a space for 100), picked for reasons ranging from petty crime to loitering to just being where they should not be, it had a tough superintendent who felt it was his duty to keep the boys in check. We joined them for the culminating five days of the camp, which were being held by two NGOs together. They had taken forty of these children, (who did not have any crime registered against their names) to the first floor of the same building for a one month-long home-placement camp. This was a difficult workshop. Regulations had to be followed strictly. There was no question of staying overnight, we would arrive by 10am and leave by 8 pm. Theatre met with a dead end, putting the incompleteness in a bolder frieze. The performances of Alipur were never staged. The reformatory authorities decreed against it (for reasons speculated later). What we had here was workshop theatre-in-itself, at some stage towards a to-be-staged performance, liminal to an extent that it is not even possible to say where the ludic ended or the ‘real’ began. In my experience, the Alipur plays offer the best and most uncompromising examples of protest theatre that I have participated in, as these children made mincemeat of most of the certainties of our organized social life. Cynicism, resignation, and despair, were the characteristics of the participants here. As the workshop progressed, it became clear that they had accepted sexual ab/use at the hands of older boys/staff as a normative, and were scared (also seeing the pointlessness) of complaining. The disturbing, dominant language of the workshop was violence. They were all on edge, and ready to hit each other at the slightest provocation in the early stages of the workshop. The performances, from discussions to enactments, highlighted violence and pain. They started from the platform and turned more sordid as they turned to the reformatory. There were spectacles and narratives of beating, for falling ill, for reporting abuse, for cooking, for just being there, any kind of defiance met with stripping and being belted on the back. Narratives showed that the worst treatment was for those who tried escaping. One boy’s fingers were broken, another had his body slashed, and the third had his legs broken before being thrown back on the platform. Three performances emerged. The children were really enthusiastic and worked hard with their facilitators, and finesse of presentation and complexity of treatment characterized this workshop. The entire gamut of these lives was on display from family to platform living to rescue process, to life in the reformatory to restoration, to family and its aftermath.

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Workshopping with this sector Workshop theatre with this sector revealed the primordial naysaying core of theatre activity. It destroyed the hegemony of the norm-making rich and powerful. Subjected to obtrusive evaluation (that was the mode of all homes and shelters), this sub-culture was, in turn, evaluating the ethical value structures of the mainstream, and those in power in the mainstream. ‘Home’ was a recurrent theme in the enactments. The boys seemed to be saying that before restoring them home, the home had to be restored. Some kind of normativization of the home, even as per the standards of those who advocated home-placement, was pre-requisite. The violent, alcoholic father was the first point for reform. Since our workshop was designed to make them look back and recount their travails on the platform, the inherent violence of the space, along with drug abuse and sexual abuse, was repeatedly highlighted. At the same time, the narratives offered a great undying attraction for this space; its independence and liberty kept it an object of desire. Theatre, here, pulls out known but hidden truths - truths that are known and suspected despite manipulated data and manipulations by those in power. It also raises new questions and makes us review old problems. In India, we still run shy of facing issues of sexuality and drug abuse. Paedophilia is, of course, illegal but thrives if backed by enough money. The resurgent right-wing Hindutva wave revers the traditional and the conventional in its discourse. Home and family are the norm, there is no space for the sexually alive child, and the gay child is not even in the margins. The platform is an uncomfortable zone even in radical discourses and interventions. The smudged zone between choice and coercion, between rape and consent, between child and man, and of course their disempowered state, begets an ambiguous response from India’s bourgeoning LGBTQIA+ movement. Further, where the galling picture does emerge, the abysmal lack of resources makes the desire to pass blame and responsibility imperative. Government agencies blame the NGOs, and the NGOs throw it right back. The NGOs are tied to the agendas of the funders – callous Government agencies, and distant foreign donors. This ensures that the problems that plague marginalized sectors all over exist here, in this margin of margins, with redoubled vengeance. State policy is at a remove from the issues concerned, and training to caregivers is imparted as per this policy and agenda - in this case, home-placement. As workshop after workshop starkly shows, this policy in practice is not only conservative, but way off what is required. The problem is further compounded by drug abuse. At least twenty-five percent of the boys with

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whom I have interacted show permanent effects of drug abuse. How should we deal with it? De-addiction is a complex process. Two camps acknowledged the existence of addiction, but they had little medical and no psychological treatment available. ‘Therapy’ is a chant, an arousal of a sense of guilt, and the fear of becoming a social outcast if the habit continues. There is no space for the question - what if the child does not feel guilty, simply does not care about our society and its values? This is the process of theatre, both its revelation and the beginning of its intervention. Theatre expands its definition to encompass the processes of learning and teaching with platform children, and also to explore the nuanced connections among performance, affirmative action, and developmental policies. The performances comprising the free-flowing, unstructured voices of the platform young, peppered by disparate but connected voices of the middle class young, present a rising crescendo of challenges to the world of structured living. Family becomes a beleaguered zone, and the myth of bourgeois success that sustains the nation – good education, good job, good old age (with concomitant looking away from what this good does to the not so good, less moneyed sectors) lies denuded. Pushed into the threshold of multiple perspectives where so many unattractive images of the self appear, we begin to frame the question: are not ameliorative exercises such as finding a ‘home’ for the platform children marred by seeking solutions from the very sectors which are in many ways sustaining the problems? Can policy, legislation, and even informed radical interventions, begin to question the certitudes of the structures in which they stand rooted? And just maybe, theatre can show this and begin to map paths out of it.

Putting it all together When we look at these two examples together, the two sectors are positioned in extreme margins away from the page of ‘our world’ and its development procedures. Theatre, here, reiterates that performance has significance, or makes meaning when the participants perform, or rather outperform, their accepted roles to bring a better, at least more caring developmental self into play. We create a developmental zone where the method and the result are inseparable. Often we create a workshop that becomes its own result. In Nithari, though the main participants fit into the classic, sympathyarousing, paradigm of traumatized children, the way the argument has panned out over the years has put the power-wielding middle-class in the dock. The Nithari young have put up critical, alienating, Brechtian presentations again and again to expose middle-class truths as endorsement

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lies, and their refusal to have middle-class prescriptions clamped on them insulates them against easy co-option, but also undercuts the sympathy of the powers that be. Nithari workshops have traversed with reasonable success the entire spectrum of workshop theatre - playing and creating theatre in workshops, advocacy, and protest, outside the proscenium, especially in their own community and before child rights NGOs, and of course sophisticated performances in the proscenium in both the Habitat Center and the American Center. These, together, show the failure of the middle-class-oriented state towards its margins. With platform children, the demolition of conventional developmental discourses is almost complete. Sexualized young boys, questioning the norms of family and ridiculing religious bigotry are already far removed from right wing ideology, are in fact objects of its hatred. Theatre with them is placed out of the market zone. Government funding will not work, as the work does not follow the government agenda or replicate their results. The CSR of companies, including multinationals, would rather keep away because of the ‘controversial’ nature of these children (sexualized/bisexual/ sex workers) as they defy the pristine, innocent stereotype of the child21 that needs to be protected from the evils of the world. All structured discourses emanating from the classes wielding power are put to the sword. The process is king. It is all that remains as a gauge, there is no other success or failure to measure in concrete terms.

21 CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). Looking for funding to further this research and also travel with the play Offtrack (created from these experiences), I cannot forget the responses of two CSR heads - “Are you sure?” (Not doubting the truth of the collected evidence but simply incredulous) “Who would have sex with them? They are so dirty!” Another of the same - “This sector lacks glamour, we wish you were working for tiger conservation, for instance”. Not even willing to respond, this constitutes more evidence of what we as practitioners of theatre are up against.

CHAPTER EIGHT LET’S GO OFFTRACK (2012)

Fig 8-1: Offtrack, Delhi (2012)

Picking from the two examples in the previous chapter, the process towards Offtrack graphs additions to the canvas of theatre, and what theatre can do for the development of the margins, even when it remains incomplete, and ‘fails’ in the development catalogue. In this section we are looking closely at 10 plays, generated in a compact period of about two years. The plays from Kota were to be staged once in the final meeting at Delhi when the boys would be reunited with their parents by the bigwigs of the NGO in front of luminaries of the government and the foreign sector alike. Announcements had been made, but as their officials, who had visited the camp and seen some of the subversive, critical content of the plays arrived, there was a desire to take away the focus from the play (it would have been

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difficult to do away with the performance because they had really publicized the event, touting it as being ‘directed’ by pandies’ theatre). They had the meeting with the parents just before the plays were to start, and the emotional torque created made it practically impossible to have the performance, with the boys running to their parents and those who had none coming for them going into a depressive state. The performance was held, but truncated, and all plans of showing it further to other NGOs were shelved. Those united went away with their parents, and those left were packed off to other shelters and vocational training centers.1 The boys, and the theatre created by them, were lost (except one boy who continues to be in touch with me). 2 Ajmer has been an exception in many ways, the performance was staged in a small public auditorium, and then at the railway station, and the Dargah where children who run away take shelter. But soon the boys go back home, one boy has been there for years now and is trained to be a caretaker. In Alipur, the moment the police personnel saw the performance (unfortunately the last rehearsal which the boys were doing after we had left the night before the proposed function), all ideas of having it performed were done away with. The facilitators felt that this process had to be taken a step further. And we workshopped among ourselves for nearly three months, slowly remembering the ten stories and narrating our experiences of those interactions in hot-seat mode.3 Since the boys were obviously not available, 1

There is another moot point between the theatrical development model pursued by pandies‘ and interventionist development as dictated by organizations and governments. Professions deemed ‘low’ on the social scale are seen as appropriate for ‘them’. No cognizance is taken of the desires of those who study in terms of what they want to be. (An interesting aside, an affluent, though concerned, lawyer once told me “Why were these programs so centered on education? Why don’t you teach these boys to make straw baskets?” I could only respond, “Would you have the same program for your sons?”) 2 Venkatesh. This boy from a village in Tamil Nadu, south India, kept in touch with me for nearly seven years. He did not know Hindi or English, and I did not know his language. In the workshop I used to ask him - Ttheek hai (Are you okay?). That remained our greeting through the years. He had left home because his alcoholic father used to hit him and his mother. He agreed to go back when his mother left his father. They were staying in a hut in their village. He had my number, and every now and then he would call me, Ttheek hai, that would be our only exchange. His mother would come online, she had a few words of Hindi. This continued for years. 3 It’s a therapeutic game that we often play among ourselves. People who work in such sectors need a lot of psychological support and it isn’t easy to find. This theatre group supplements its activism by sharing experiences, brainstorming on them collectively, and making suggestions on how to deal with trauma. It is a complex

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I wrote and re-created (and collated) the plays that had been performed, prefaced with stories of the facilitators who had facilitated these plays, with feed-in from the entire facilitating group. The process created a new mode of ownership of the stories and the theatre. These were activists/actors/ facilitators of the group, performing plays they had helped create. There are no claims to authenticity, what does that mean anyway in this situation? These were re-enactments from the entire group’s perspective, interspersed with stories created from their own experiences around the enactments. A powerful body blow, this play was performed in Delhi and then taken to New York. I share below the complete ‘script’ of Offtrack. The ‘plays’ recreate the performances by the platform boys in their shelters, and the interspersing narratives show the experiences and impact on the facilitators. Significantly, the ‘audience’ is as cryptic and bizarre as the presentations, as the originals were denied performance, and the final Offtrack was performed to full houses. It was a unique dramaturgical experience, really once in a lifetime. In the ‘hot seat’, the facilitators share experience of the workshop and what has been learnt from the process, and are subjected to questioning by others, and collective enactment, where the facilitator picks a couple of friends, and together they create plays that show the experience of the facilitator. The careful recounting and some re-enactment of the plays created by the young with the facilitators’ direction followed. Was it the truth? All of it, as much as theatre brings about. The point was to recreate ‘that’ world, intersecting with the world of the facilitators and dissecting the world we live in. Both the script writing and performance are exhilarating experiences difficult to describe as they stretch theatre conventions so much. The intersectional writing, collating from diverse and really different experiential material, and aimed at the facilitators playing themselves (at times playing each other) and playing the stories/enactments they had participated in creating (again, at times playing each other’s stories). Telling stories (The facilitator parts are in italics and the platform children parts are normal text. The names of the boys have been changed, not that this means much, as many of the names are kept by them or by their friends, and moreover,

group process that needs to be experienced. This exercise is one where you describe experiences that left you confused or traumatized, or impacted strongly in any way. And the rest of the group can ask you up to three questions and make suggestions, and it is up to you to answer or not, to take or not.

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) they have all gone away to their own worlds. Telling stories was the prologue by facilitators) We’ll tell you a story. We deal in stories Narrate stories Perform stories What do we narrate today? The repertoire is vast. We have told you many stories in the past. Stories that tear the veils, Stories that tie you in knots. Is that .... are you saying that they don’t understand. That we don’t often make sense Too high, lost in our idealism, Of what we think intellectual Bad stories, indifferent narrations, unsure performers? Ganju4, don’t just sit there like a bloody halwai5 Pour the Rum punch damn it, That’s the best about being here. Stories Of people who have lost their way Of a nation in consumerism’s sway Of people who never had their way Stories of women and children Of the lower caste brethren Stop trying to make it rhyme, Sound like a pompous child, you make me sick Anybody game to jump over to the next roof And light a joint? Stories of the village, of the city Too in your face to seek your pity Legal stories of culpable homicide Stories of debt suicide Of daughters sold Of fathers who tried, who couldn’t be bold 4 Baldy 5 One

who makes and sells Indian sweets, confectioner.

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Stories Stories of cleansings,6 Of the rape of many a region In the name of integrity of a nation Stories from the margins, from zones of danger. Of avantikas, nafisas and anjums. Of priyas, mrinalinis and the pipe dreams of nithari. Stories Ourstories, ourstory. Their stories Each one’s story Ok Ourstory Today we perform the story of a journey, Our journey... ass hole. Can’t you speak without bloody cliches? Bring on the weed And the punch man Ok Ourstory What are we? Narrators, commenters, observers, activists. Performers. Ok Ourstory It’s the story of performance Of performers, who have performed, Or more often failed to perform To do anything To perform To get it up No, it’s the story of performers Who tried to perform Tried to Break the limitations of class, of upbringing, Of gender, Tried to perform beyond themselves, And hold that performance as a mirror to their selves 6 The

name of pandies’ production 2002, names of women protagonists from various plays follow and of course, Nithari, where the group has been running workshop theatre programmes for decades.

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) Faced the tragedy of the image being repeatedly better than the original But what is Ourstory? Inextricably tied with theirs There is no them In our methodology It’s about us all of us, all are us. You are bloody stoned. Had 7 joints. It’s like fruit juice, Nothing ever happens to me (pukes) Why do you make it so strong? Hey, it’s the best punch Stories. Their stories. Our stories. Stories. We work for them and we bring them out What do you bring out? Am I going to run? We bring them out and put them on a pedestal. No not on a pedestal, we decided that nothing of ours would go on the pedestal. Yes, no valorizing of us fuck-faces. So then where will we put them? Where you put everything else, Have been putting everything else all your puking life. We’ll put them on the platform. These are stories from the platform. So? We’ll put them on a platform. (muttering as they move away) Stories Ourstory Their story Each one’s story

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The longish self-reflexive prologue packs a recollection of pandies’ as a group, and the kind of theatre it has created, leading up to the Offtrack experience. Interspersed with sections of dance, dialogue, and stylized movement, it uses the mode of a mud rum punch party, a real favourite among pandies’. In the midst of the drink and smoke come moments of selfdoubt, critical hatred for the oppressive class many of them belong to, and also of what they have done and are trying to do. It runs through the references to many of the plays and projects that the group has done, at times self-effacing, at times with a validating assertion of its theatre and its politics. The group’s special contribution has been to cull stories from the communities and sections in the margins. 1. Quiet please ‘After that first simple guy. You have set your eyes high. You look for high achiever guys, it’s not realistic,’ she said. ‘Don’t get it, how somebody as bright as you….' ‘Get married,’ another she said, ‘You can’t handle relationships.’ ‘Get a better job, take the corporate social responsibility sector,’ he said 'You disappoint me,’ he said yet again. He screamed: ‘It was my problem, I was drunk, blown whatever out of my wits, yes I had hurt myself. But why the hell did you have to call him?’ ‘Because you want to get laid by him. Upper class, snooty bastard. You. You and your middle class love desires. You have made me look a class fool. I don’t even know the face of the woman I hurt, all your fault. My drunk, my stone, my hurt, so why him?’ ‘Can’t stay with him anymore have to get out.' She repeated: ‘You need a stable life don’t you? That’s the real problem, this kind of lifestyle does not work with you, alterity is not your cup of tea or joint either. You put us in a lot of trouble.’ Another she said, ‘I wanted to be friends, tried hard but you are too competitive.’ Definitions: Parents: What make you an adult before you cease to be a child. Sibling: Whose entire world is focused on her and expects the entire world to be focused on her.

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) Me: Good. Good academics. Good results. Good scholarship. I need to excel I have to excel. Need to be good to be able to be bad. Quiet Please Rahul sits quiet in a corner. looking deadpan at the audience. A caregiver and a policeman sit on either side of him. Caregiver - I have been trying for a fortnight, he just doesn’t speak up. If you tell us where you live, or about your relatives, only then can we send you somewhere. Even the seniors of the organization told you, give us one lead and we will do the rest. He looks so innocent, there is fear in his eyes. Policeman: Fear and this guy, he is the 14-year-old don of New Delhi Railway station. We also tried, but he doesn’t open anything. (Laughs). Rahul continues to look at the audience with the same expression. Caregiver: Call Chhotu. He was with him for the last year on the platform, even he doesn’t know his address but has promised to tell us his story.’ Chhotu:7 Don’t call me Chhotu, my name is Krishna. Bhai is hot headed, he kills off people, has already killed seven. When he is angry, he stops thinking. Call Vipin, we’ll tell the story together. In what follows, Chhotu enacts Rahul. And Vipin performs Chhotu. A series of visuals follow. Chhotu sits with his knee on Vipin’s chest. Chhotu: Why did you refuse to go to him? Vipin - He is weird. Chhotu (takes out a surgical blade) - You will have sex with him. (Asks three times). Vipin keeps mumbling ‘no’. Chhotu puts the blade inside the boy’s mouth and slashes it. Screams. Voice of Chhotu, heavy voice imitating Rahul - If I ask you to have sex, you will, if I ask you to blow him you will do it. 2nd Tableau Chhotu addresses Vipin as Rahul would address him: How much did you earn Chhotu? 7

Small, tiny. A somewhat insulting diminutive which the boy did not like.

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Chhotu: And you went to toilet twice with them, that’s too little. Any way let’s get something strong, I am tired of inhaling erasing solutions. They sit drugging. Suddenly Chhotu, still acting Rahul turns on the other boy. Chhotu: Who were you abusing? The boy scared: I was saying just like that. Chhotu: Were you abusing your father? The boy: Who do you think you are? Chhotu: I don’t like the way you speak. And slaps him hard. The boy scared and angry: Use your brains. Chhotu slaps him again and again: You will teach me how to use my brains. Acting totally stoned, Chhotu picks him up by his collars, throws him on the track before a passing train and almost falls himself. [There were brief breaks as Chhotu would teach Vipin to act like Chhotu or the other boys] Chhotu continues to narrate as Chhotu now: Both of us were lying on the staircase just above the platform, it was beautiful, we were high and then bhai had had sex with me. The platform was our world and Vipin was also in the margins of that world - bhai cut his cheek in the first scene, the marks are still there. A car stopped below in the VIP parking space. Two men got out of the car, obviously drunk. They whistled; Bhai laughed he was already aware of their presence. ‘Come down to us, if you want to earn some money’, they yelled. Chhotu addresses Vipin now playing Chhotu: Will you go down my smoothie? Vipin as Chhotu: Vipin will go with me? Chhotu as Rahul: But you guys are worth only 500, I will go today.

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) Vipin as Chhotu: What are you thinking? Chhotu/Rahul pulls out his surgical blade: Whatever they have will be ours today. Chhotu continues to narrate: We both went down, I was turned on, like, like while having sex, just before coming. (Darkness. Screams of grown men): Dirty pigs, call the police, we’ll fix these runts. Chhotu comes onstage running breathless excited, blade still in hand, playing Rahul: He was full ready. I just touched the blade on his rounds and he went running in circles, crying and abusing together. . Chhotu throws a wallet of the ground: There is 8000 in it, have you ever earned so much? Chhotu prompting Vipin: But won’t the police catch us? Chhotu as Rahul laughs: What will they tell the police, we were trying to screw a child and he chopped our balls. Chhotu breaks performance. He is close to tears. Last scene: Bhai’s silence Chhotu does the last bit as Rahul’s monologue: Look Chhotu two men are calling us. No, they are not the same men. . . I know the police have been looking for us…But it has been three weeks now, and it’s not the same car and beside I am tired of inhaling solution, want something stronger. Come (he takes out a barber’s razor) you also teach these rich bastards. (Giving the razor) From today you are also a don-Chhotu Don. Don’t cut them off, just touch, let out some drops of blood and then watch the fun. (Darkness. Screams) Chhotu’s terrified voice: Run bhai run. They are the same. They are 8 this time. Run bhai run. Chhotu comes onstage running breathless excited razor with blood in hand, there is no doubt he is playing himself now: They are the same. They are 8 this time. I slashed at the thighs of one and ran, in any case they wanted bhai. Run bhai run.

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Chhotu nudges Rahul. Rahul gets up from his place where he has been sitting since the beginning of the play. The last scene plays itself again. Rahul plays Rahul and Chhotu plays Chhotu and Vipin plays Vipin. Rahul: No more 500 Rupees. Chhotu: But they are all searching for you. Rahul: Shut up. Too scared for me. Have you fallen in love with me or what? Come (he takes out a barber’s razor) you also teach these rich bastards. (Giving the razor) From today you are also a don-Chhotu Don. Don’t cut them off, just touch and watch the fun. (Darkness. Screams) Chhotu: They are the same. They are 8 this time. Run bhai run. (Darkness. voices of men, as they stand with their backs towards the audience. Interspersed with Chhotu’s line) Men: It’s that bastard. Rip his clothes off. Hang him upside down. Chhotu: There were 8 of them. Men: Did you all have fun. His arse is still tight. Here use some protection, I carry them in my wallet since my wife has gone to her parents. Chhotu: There were 8 of them. Men: We are done. But I feel this bugger too has enjoyed it all. We’ll work that out. I’ll get Sunny’s bat from my car. We just got back from his cricket lessons when you called. Let’s see how much of that bat can be shoved up his rectum. Chhotu: There were 8 of them. Men: Inspector, please come over. Yes, the advocate is here, who had lodged the complaint.

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) This garbage opened a knife on him and robbed him. (Darkness) (Voices of policemen. Laughter) You will have to open something. Your mouth perhaps, the backside is too bloody and dirty. Chhotu - Bhai returned to the platform a fortnight later, he hasn’t opened his mouth since.

She said - I’ve got a problem. Desire gets lost in a maze of complexities. We’ll try doing it again. No. It does not work. Nothing works. Can’t perform. Not since those days as a child. Big man, big body. Small bathroom Small Me and my smaller body Repeat and repeat Didn’t the marks burning visible on my face and body speak, couldn’t they speak. They. Couldn’t they see the marks and the scars that followed? Didn’t they want to know what happened? Couldn’t they see I was desperate to speak? Bursting. Nobody asked, nobody wanted to know. Quiet please. The weekly maths test is on. You know at a level I hate Rahul His silence was so full It laughed at my silence And pushed it closer to pretence And his story Bereft my story of its gory glory. No, no valorizing you fuckface.

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Fig 8-2: Offtrack, Delhi (2012)

The first episode (interspersed between two small sections of its chief facilitator) was from the Kota camp. For the facilitator, the experience connected with her own traumatic experience as a child. Painful, and also a realization how bad Rahul’s experience was. Four performances came from this camp. Three have a kind of affinity and were integral to our learning about the experiences of these boys on the platform and in the NGO-run shelter. An ‘in-your-face’ sexuality, drug and sexual abuse, violence, and the rejection of the home-placement policy were the connecting points. One accepted a return, but a return to an alcohol-free home, to a non-violent father. Another, while valorizing the shelter and opting to stay on there, in that very formulation rejected the ‘home is best’ policy of the same shelter, nay of the entire development process. And the third rejected ‘home’ and shelter to set up a commune existence where people live together in the same house, share ‘everything’ with each other, and in a utopian assertion of independence, set up a teashop at the New Delhi Railway station. They would, once they acquired money, feed poor kids like themselves who left home and came to the platforms. The fourth play was our pick from this theatre-creating process. This play was re-created, and put as the opener, above. This group had a fourteen year-old boy, Rahul, (a don) from one of the platforms. He would not talk about his travails. That he had spent eight years on the platform, that he was

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a don there, that he was credited to have killed a few boys on the platform were narratives that we obtained from another younger boy (called Chhotu by the caregivers but who hated the diminutive and insisted that he be called by his ‘real’ name, Krishna). Krishna had spent the last year with Rahul on the platform and was obviously in love with him. The theme’s crushing blow apart, this theatre was a marvel in terms of structure and performances too. The piece began with this boy (Krishna) acting the older, silent boy (Rahul) and a still younger boy (Vipin) playing Krishna. Krishna began enacting the myth of Rahul. First, small scenes that revealed vignettes from their lives focused on violence and sex work and established Rahul as the Don. Plot linearity started from towards the middle of the play to present the incident that led to Rahul’s silence. The two boys, sexually sated and deeply drugged, lie on the staircase of the platform and are called by two men from the VIP parking lot to earn money. 8 The way they had created the performance from this point onwards was that for many parts, the children put their backs to the audience and for these bits, we heard voices only. They admitted a close working with their facilitator for this part. There was a rawness in a language full of expletives, expletives that left one stunned. The two men, totally drunk, physically abuse the boys and then refuse to pay them, abusing and insulting them for their ugliness and poverty. Suddenly Rahul (Krishna playing Rahul) loses his temper, pulls out his surgical blade and puts it on the genitals of the man who had just had sex with him. He throws his wallet (which holds considerable money as we are told later) and runs off stage vowing revenge. Krishna introduced the last scene as The Don’s Silence (Bhai ki Chuppee). The recount of a horrendous, violent rape of Rahul by eight men was gut-wrenching. The rapists’ class and background was brought by nuances in dialogue, and the buttress was provided by the attitude of the police. At this point, we suddenly realized that as the horrendous episode was going on, Krishna had gone and sat right next to Rahul. Rahul’s response is summed up by Krishna saying that Rahul has been silent since. But Rahul had spoken. Resonating voices had emerged from the darkest corners of our world. Not only was his silence eloquent, but theatre had also become an act of empowerment. The young ones had expressed the harshness of the protectors and the callousness of the adult world as such, at the same time telling us what they, and we, are up against.

8

Their words created for us, those who were familiar with the Ajmeri Gate side of New Delhi Railway station, the entire visual of the stairs just above the expensive VIP parking.

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The episode was ensconced between two bits from the facilitator’s hot seating. A survivor of repeated horrendous sexual violence at the hands of an uncle, under whose care she had been left by her parents, she recounted her guilt, fear and shame along with recounting the act itself. But did not the significance of her trauma disappear before the same of Rahul (of many platform children) who were children that do not belong, have no family and no money buffer? Or does her suffering occupy another realm? A similar realm? Regardless, our rape narratives do not accommodate the stories of Rahul. From the very innards of our social living, theatre had reshaped these questions. 2. Criss-cross Some theatre members enjoying themselves. Four/five characters on stage, drinking/ smoking up. Loud music. As the scene moves on, the characters get more loud and drunk. Man1: He stuck his body to mine. I was in the mood. I said, will you kiss me. Got startled, backed off. All set for having sex with me but he doesn’t like to kiss. I told him today I’ll only kiss you. Poor guy. Man2: My story. I was surfing the net; I came across this extremely hot guy. He wrote you are beautiful. I said let’s meet inside Nehru Park.9 Or we could also meet in the metro at a non-crowded hour if you are scared of the park. He was getting all excited. And suddenly - You are a Hindu, no? That broke it for me. Man3: Did I tell you the story from my college. I was in class and my teacher said that nobody in this world can openly say they are gay or bisexual. I stood up and said that I am bisexual. Flustered he said but you cannot say that openly. How else should I open it? Man1: Best was that. Our senior teacher. If my son turns out to be a drug addict, I am okay with it but if he is gay, I will kill him or kill myself. Well mam it’s time you killed yourself. Man3: My father is really disappointed. He feels after many daughters he and mother had prayed for a son and I was born. Father - At least wear proper clothes, we asked for a boy and got a eunuch. Take all my property but give me a grandson... Should I take his money, I keep taking it but also feel bad about it. Man2: My father keeps looking at me from top to toe, you are 31 he says, now get married. Woman: It’s my turn, I’ll show the scene at my house. 9

A large park in the posh area, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, where foreign embassies are located. Like many parks in Delhi it is notorious as an abode of drug peddlers and sex workers.

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A young girl walks in to find her mother in the arms of a man other than her father. The girl runs out. Comes back crying. Mother: Look I thought I would tell you when you grow up, your father and I are in an open marriage, our guru tells us there is nothing wrong with it. Girl: Mummy, I am sorry I should have understood you are progressive. And evolved. (Later) The mother walks into the house and sees the girl making out with another girl Mother: Oh my god, have all the boys died. You are going to go out with girls. How will I face the family and the society. (Laughter)

(A train, with some rich boys traveling together) Boy1: You know as I was returning from my paternal grandparents’ house in Lucknow, I was traveling alone in this train and there was this young aunty in the same coupe. Something told me it was on and sure enough at night she came down and sat at my side Boy2: And then Boy1: Then what, I am a Rajput.10 (They all laugh) Boy3: I had my first fuck years ago Boy2: We know, with that married woman in your neighbourhood. Boy3: These types are really hot, they want it and treat you like a king, she used to make Dhokla11 and cakes for me. Sure miss the taste of that. Boy2: And of other things too. (Laugh again) The facilitator starts the narrative: Far ahead and far beyond the reach of these stories, We tell you of the stories of Saddam and Devender Saddam: Ran away from home 15 times. Bisexual, primarily gay. Very sexual. Impossible for his parents/ relatives to withstand his promiscuity. Chief work: sex work, cleaning utensils in dhabas.12 Cool dude. Not interested in stability, sees going home as another adventure, likes being in the camp. Okay with wherever life will take him. 10 A

warrior sect from Rajasthan, known for their masculine valour. dish found most in the state of Gujarat in India, visually similar to cake and made from a batter of gram flour (from chickpeas), cooked by steaming. 12 Cheap roadside restaurants 11 A

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Devender: Ran away after being trafficked. Has travelled all over India, almost like a tourist. Spent time in many tourist spots, stayed for a while in Bombay working in a dhaba during the day and prostituting himself in the evening on Juhu beach. Severest critic of sex, strongest supporter of back home policy. But a long history of sex work and promiscuity. Saddam: It was a lot of pleasure. She was my father’s sister but how good in bed with me. (Village scene. Saddam with a classmate) Saddam: It was a lot of pleasure. She was my father’s sister but how good in bed with me. Friend: You have been talking about this only for the last month. Saddam: You are jealous. Friend: Listen the teacher was saying… Saddam: Since when did teachers start coming to school? Friend: Since last week after the government inspection. Saddam: I didn’t know, I wasn’t there. Friend: If you get out of your aunt’s bed. Saddam: Jealous you are. Friend: They were saying something about AIDS. It kills people. And spreads only through sex. Talk to the teachers. Saddam: Even I get scared, it’s a lot of fun but I feel tired. They say a drop of cum, is like a hundred drops of blood. I will talk to the lady teacher. Friend: Madam? Have you lost it? Saddam: She is really hot. Reminds me of aunt. Maybe she too would? (In a classroom) Lady teacher: But you are too young. Why do you want to know about sex? Saddam: Well the official who visited with the Headmaster said that sex can lead to a dangerous disease and also that we should not pick knowledge from anywhere, ask our teachers. Teacher: You should not do it at a young age and there is the fear of AIDS. Saddam: How does one get AIDS? Teacher: If you do it without protection. (Embarrassed) You are shameless. Saddam (scared): Tell me how can I save myself? Teacher: Have you had sex? Saddam: Many times. Teacher: With whom? Saddam: How does that matter? Teacher: We must know. Saddam: With my aunt, father’s sister. Teacher: How many times?

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) Saddam: 7-8. Teacher: Do people at home know? Saddam: No. Teacher: We will have to talk. Saddam: Don’t do that, I will have a real problem. Tell me how do I save myself from AIDS now? (A dejected Saddam returns from the forest towards his village in the evening. His friend stops him on the way) Friend: Where are you coming from? Saddam: Man, that teacher really scared me. What will happen now? Will I get AIDS? Friend: I’ll tell you what will happen to you. Your family will beat you to death. Saddam: What? Friend: The teacher went straight to your house and told everybody that you would have to be tested for HIV. She said she does not know about other women but you are claiming to have regular sex with your aunt. Your aunt was like a woman possessed. She screamed and yelled and asked her husband to kill you for this accusation, asked your dad how he could father such a bastard and accused your mother of playing truant because you could not be from the family. And now they all await you with iron rods. Saddam: They are all bastards. I’ll run away. Tell mother she is the only one I care for, but I am going away never to return. (As he tries to board a train he falls and walks with a limp for the rest of the play. Darkness.Three boys have Saddam in their grasp, one holds a razor to his throat) Boy1: Do you inhale solutions? Saddam: No. Boy1: Will you take it with us? Saddam: No... Yes Boy2: Will you have sex with us? Saddam: Yes. Boy2: Have you had sex before? Saddam: Yes Laughter Boy2: With man or woman? Saddam: Woman. Boy2: Now it’s our turn to have you. (Tableaux of begging, cleaning trains, selling cold drinks)

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(A man stands in a corner in the train) Man: Come here, you look so sweet. Saddam: Give me 20 Rupees. Man: Why? Saddam: I am hungry. Man: But why should I give you? Saddam (looks up at him, a smile coming across his face): What do you want? Man: Move towards the bathroom, you will get the money. Saddam laughs: Just 20. Man: More? Saddam (speaking like a grown up): I will take 150 to do it with my hands here and 300 if I go to the bathroom. Man: What will you do there? Saddam laughs: What you desire. (Complicit laughter) Saddam (narrates like a monologue): Twelve times they sent me home and I ran away the same number of times. What will my family do with me? They cannot handle my sexual habits. Home, family, they are really for the losers of the world. Devender (takes over the narration with a bit of fun and pranks to begin and then gets more serious): I have seen Saddam many times on the platform. He was a child first. Got badly beaten up many times. And then became a bit of a bhai (don). They all called him langda (lame) and he became ‘langda bhai.’ He is addicted to sex. Does it willingly and often free, loves to force younger boys to have sex with him. Abusing the weak, that is a rule of life, all life, including yours. My father sold me. That is the best thing he ever did. We stayed in a village on the Nepal border, don’t know if it was this side or that. Indians hated us. Infiltrators, intruders they called us, at times just thieves. Father was an alcoholic. Earning, he could earn only if he went to work. Drunk and beat up mother and then me. Mother. He used to call her ‘the whore.’ I do not remember her, or maybe. She left him. And me. (The actors narrate as facilitators): Trafficked, he ran away from Bihar to Benaras and then to Delhi, stopping for a few days at various towns like a voyeuristic tourist. Jumping from train tops, surviving glares and of course using his basic weapon, his body, to negotiate with the normal world. Delhi to Bombay. Liked the glamour of the place, spent some time there working in dhabas through the day and selling

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) himself on Juhu13 beach at night. But too stable for him. Back to the train and the platforms, through Madhya Pradesh spending time in the heart of the country to Calcutta, the seat of many a revolution, there to Delhi. Was caught there and handed over to a child restoration center. Ran again. New lesson avoid Delhi, too many loving people had set shop on the railway station, they waited for people like him, they need people like him, to get them back home, to enter them in their diaries, to show them to the world. No never Delhi again. He was off to Jaipur. A lot of people going to Ajmer, to see the Dargah and beautiful city of Pushkar.14 Their stories crossed, yet again (amazingly reminiscent of the tramps in Waiting for Godot) Devender: So there you are. Saddam: Yes. How are you? Devender: What can we show them? (Disconnected scenes with anarchic energy follow) (They sit inhaling erasing fluid with other boys. One boy takes out a packet of smack, they all giggle. A policeman enters their world. He takes some smack himself) Policeman: Come with me to the toilet. The boys refuse. He suddenly takes out his baton and starts hitting them wildly. Policeman: Dogs, if I see you here tomorrow, I’ll kill you all. (Saddam and Devender stop. And after a pause, say the following one by one): Let’s tell them the story of Sunil. Who is he? The one who ran away from the platform when threatened by the policeman. The one who went to a godman. Yes. The godman who raped children in the name of God? Yes, and worse. After raping them he would hand them over to the Doctor Who would in turn chop them up and sell their organs. The leftovers the godman would eat and feed to his gods. Devender: Kids who run away from home deserve this fate. Saddam (angry): Sick world, you all live in, it feeds on the blood of poor children. On their bodies.

13 The 14

most famous beach in Mumbai, shot in many Hindi film sequences. Pushkar is small city in the outskirts of Ajmer and is a Hindu pilgrimage site.

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Chapter Eight Listen you are drunk, if you step out like this, I’ll give you a slap across your face. They sit separate. How dare he hit me? Why does he always judge me? I was watching. The car stopped for no apparent reason. I thought he wanted to know the way and took a step in his direction. But he called a young girl child begging on the traffic light. She went and stood next to his car. He had a fifty Rupee note in one hand and his other hand was under the girl’s skirt. I ran at him. Scared he put both his hands inside. I caught him by the collar. He begged me to leave him. “You don’t understand, you are from a well-todo family, you don’t know how people treat such children, they do much more than this and don’t give them anything, I was giving her fifty rupees.” Speechless I backed off. And that child was looking at me, confused, unsure, she wasn’t happy that I had stopped her from getting fifty rupees. And how dare he hit me? My turn. I was near Sarojini Nagar in an auto rickshaw. It was my uncle’s car, he stopped and picked up a girl from the roadside. I followed for a bit and then asked the auto to draw parallel, what I saw was rather amusing but what uncle saw, me, left him red in the face. “You are a man now. Look don’t tell your aunt, she won’t understand. Look it’s part of being a man. Women like these don’t mean anything to us. They help relieve our tension on way back from office. They enable us to be good husbands and good fathers”. I couldn’t stop laughing. But should I tell aunty? I once told one aunty. Her husband was my lover, he decided to leave me to be devoted to family. I told her. She immediately called him. And they never talked to me again. But how dare you? But still how dare he hit me? And Why does he always judge me? There are very few people who are even worth judging.

The second episode of Offtrack, above, was from the Ajmer workshop, the best experience of the three. Three explorative plays emerged, of which second and third (Magic, at the end of the script) were in the script. This episode was full of difficult-to-contain anarchic energy and reflected the anarchic in theatre which authority finds hard to contain. The real challenge was not to lose that energy in the re-creation. This group had two difficult-to-manage boys with the most interesting pasts. Saddam from Uttar Pradesh had left home many times in spite of repeated placements and was proud of his sexual prowess. Devender was from Nepal, also took pride in his sexuality, but was constantly condemning sex and drug abuse. The performance was both extremely sophisticated and

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truly inconclusive as the incomplete stories of the two boys criss-crossed, as narrators and as characters, and found themselves between incomplete snippets from the facilitators’ lives. The facilitating team for the group had two young men, one identifying as gay and the other as bisexual. The chaotic energy of the narratives of their experiences gave the entire section a combustible level. The first man had sagas of betrayal, lovers who let him down and whose wives easily accepted them in the family, seeing him as the vixen in the process. With painted nails and kohl-stained eyes, the second facilitator’s appearance made him an instant object of desire and generated immense affection for the platform child. Coming from a rich landlord family, he was in rebellion against the shameful familial traditions of patriarchy, and his exhibitionist bisexuality gave a lie to this masculinity. Was the extreme, ‘in-your-face’, sexuality a coming together of the similar aspect in the personalities of Saddam, Devender, and their exhibitionist, kohl-using facilitator? Can the systematic destruction of all social ideologues, including elders in the family, rich travelers in trains, holy men and teachers in schools, be attributed to this combine? 3. Where will you take this? Dim lights come on with the three boys at the center of the acting area, 'creating’ a performance. The focus is first on a corner/periphery where the facilitators stand talking to each other as they are leaving the space. Facilitators 1 and 2 look shaken as what has happened was beyond their usual experience. A caretaker sits in a distant corner, half asleep, watching the proceedings through the performance. 1: This was my first time in a rescued boys’ workshop. To do theatre with all of you. Felt weird. Suffocation. Wanted to fling my arms and open a window. 2: I have done workshops with marginalized children before, but this was difficult, groping, feeling up, bizarre. 3: Ya, it can be difficult, this sector is like none other. It’s our world that taught them that. 2: I know but how does one negotiate. 3: One learns to communicate that I love you and you don’t have to do this. 1: You know that boy he put his hands on my thigh and asked for a chewing gum or was it biscuits, I didn’t know how to respond? 3: You freaked. 1: (takes his time): No, I did not know how to respond.

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(The play starts with Raja, Vijay and Ravi as the main actors) Ravi - What do they want? Raja - Who they? Ravi - These NGO guys and those with the college teacher. Vijay - Penniless buggers. Raja - Why? Vijay - And scared. I asked that guy with long hair to get me some chewing gum and he tells me today that he forgot. Scared or has no money. Raja - Maybe you didn’t feel him up properly. Vijay angry - Okay you do it tomorrow. Raja - If ask for gum, he will just come. They laugh Ravi - Let’s play stories. Are our stories a game? Vijay - And that man with moustaches, does he know what he is asking for? Will he be able to take our stories without a sugar coating? Ravi - Let’s start or they will get angry. That girl - Didi15? Raja - Shut up moron. If you call everyone Didi, who will you do it with? A bit old, but will do for me. Ravi - Have you ever done it with a girl? Raja - Question? Many times. Ran into problems here in this boys’ ward. Vijay - Let’s start the story. Ravi - Tell us how you ran away from home? Raja - Am I the arsehole here? You tell yours. Ravi - We’ll take one story. Raja - Take his. Vijay - You have heard it so many times. I was addicted to inhaling solution. Father pulled me out of school and put me to work in a shop. (Shop scene) Shopkeeper - Hey nitwit. Vijay - I have a name, Kanhaiya. Shopkeeper - Whatever, have you mixed the black peppers with papaya seeds. Vijay - No. Shopkeeper - You will make us bankrupt. And mix that worm-eaten wheat with the fresh one. Vijay - Okay. I need some money Shopkeeper - Your father takes your salary before the month is over. Vijay - But I work for you.

15

Older sister. A respectful term.

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) Shopkeeper - Settle it among yourselves. And this time there will be a wage cut because the wheat got eaten by worms. Vijay - But you mixed that in the new stock. Shopkeeper - Yes, but you must learn. As the master goes out he steals money from his safe and leaves. He seeks out a man in the market. Vijay - You have shit. man - Loads, how much do you have? Vijay takes out a hundred rupee note. man - Big note? Vijay - Show the stuff. Looks like horse shit. Get good stuff. Man - No change. That’s all I have for now. Vijay takes the stuff man - You want some great toddy, I have it. Vijay - I got totally stoned Raja (getting bored) - What happened the next day. Vijay - You know the story. . . Got caught, was wasted. They all beat me up, hung me upside down from a tree. Raja - If they had hung you straight it would have hurt less! Ravi - Didn’t your parents save you? Raja and Vijay laugh Vijay - Father beat me the most. Raja - He must have shat bricks, wanted to show the cops that he had nothing to do with the theft. Ravi after a pause - Mother? Vijay angry - Bitch, stood watching the fun. Raja (consoling) - These social work guys and the film chaps make a lot of mothers, actually either they can’t do anything or they don’t want do anything. Ravi - Then? Vijay - The cops were beating me and buggering me every day. Ran from home and got into a train and reached Delhi. And there I met him (Raja). He taught me everything. Was already doing drugs, learnt petty theft and of course catering to the needs of the rich in the toilets and in the empty compartments. (Raja and Vijay laugh). Could earn a bit. (Raja takes over) - One day he did not get a toilet customer, so picked a pocket and ran, they saw him. He passed the wallet to me and I ran. But I slipped and fell. We were both caught and thrashed badly and then handed to the police. Vijay - They brought us here and since there is no criminal complaint registered against us and the NGO people brought us here, for home placement Raja - Sarin, the Superintendent’s boy fell in love with him and did him every day.

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Vijay laughs - That’s okay but why do they beat us so much, more than on the platform? Raja - Thanks heavens he did not win the superintendent’s heart or he would have died under his 200 kilos. Ravi stops them. Ravi - If you say all this they will send you down among the rest of the boys and then what will follow. Raja - We are good children and that is why you all want to save us. Vijay - We have never done anything bad. Raja - We have been troubled by the world. They laugh. Ravi too joins. Ravi - Let’s do some serious story work. You are two brothers and your father is an alcoholic. (Ravi directs the enactment) - Two boys live with their parents. father is a drunkard. He takes the boys out of school and puts them to work. Mother gives them some money and they work in a shop. Ravi (at a loss) - And then? Raja (getting in the spirit of things) - We collected money and bought our first two-in-one.16 Vijay - And took it to show it to our parents. Ravi - And they were very happy. Raja - Mad? The alcoholic has no sense. Vijay - He can only beat up. Raja to Ravi - You play the father. Raja/ Vijay - Father, we bought this. Raja - Take it from our hands and throw it against the wall. Vijay - Are you mad? Raja - No you are insane and drunk. Vijay getting the spirit of things - Bastards, what have you got. Don’t have money to buy booze and you idiots. He throws the imaginary two-in-one against the wall and starts beating the two. Raja - Bastard, you get the smallest chance and you start beating us. If I feel the slightest pain in the play. I’ll chop your dick off. (The play continues) Raja - No more, brother let us leave this place for ever. 16 Radio and cassette player, still used in marginalized towns and working class families. Still a success symbol and an object of desire there.

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) Vijay - Yes brother, I feel bad for mother but we can’t stay here anymore. Ravi - We will take her out of this swamp when we are grown up. Away from this devil. Raja - You remember that mother song, the NGO guys taught us. Vijay laughs - Yes. Raja - I could not sing it even then. Vijay to Ravi - You would remember? Ravi - Yes. Raja - You sing I’ll lip synch. Ravi (uncertain) - Be with me. Raja - Sing with this dimwit. Vijay and Ravi sing a stanza of a song of mother love, Raja joins at end. (They all stop and can’t stop laughing.....) Ravi - And then? Raja - It’s magic, or what? Ravi - Life on the platform. Raja - Don’t talk about it, I get heart break. Vijay - Yes, what days! Raja - Then we reached here. I said shut up. Ravi - How? Vijay - How?? The bloody cop wanted to do us, we refused and he brought us here. Ravi - You will say that. You are in jail, they will break you into bits really. Raja - He is mad. Lost his mind in the story. They will increase the size of your butt hole. Ravi - Okay. So we were loitering around and the police brought us here by mistake. Vijay - Does this happen? Raja - There are boys like that too here. Ravi - And here. Raja - 350 boys, in space for maximum 100. 8 to 16 years. And on reaching here we saw the beautiful faces, first Sarin and then the Super… Ravi - If somebody repeats this. Speak softly.. Vijay - Yes boss if he gets to know, I don’t what all he will shove up ours. Raja - He is like four people. Ravi (really scared) - If he comes to know? Vijay - Pussy. Raja - Sarin? Vijay - Looks 20 years at least and is still here. Raja - He is special. Ravi (suddenly) - I will play Sarin in the play. Suddenly slaps Vijay hard across his face. Vijay jumps back and a real fight breaks out between them. Raja stands aside and enjoys. Finally he intervenes and stops them. Ravi - I was acting.

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Chapter Eight Vijay - You will do anything in the name of a play. (Pause. Dark mood. Stand in an arc and narrate one by one) This is the world of this jail. They call it home. Strange language they all speak in. What do you want? Weed, hash, smack, it’s all available. And sex? Boys among themselves, coercion by the grown-ups. The way of showing love, of showing machismo, of punishing, forget boss it’s a habit, with all of them too. And the violence? Lots. Get ready to hit or be found dead. Raja - Bro let’s go back to the platform. Ravi - But you don’t even want to talk about it. Raja - I really remember that space. Ravi - What is there in that life? Raja - He hasn’t spent as much time there as we have. Raja lyrical - An openness, .. fresh air and the kings of our space, of our world. Ravi - And the beating, the knifing and forced sex. Ravi - All that happens here too, there we got paid for it and also we could choose to run away. Raja - And if nothing else there is God’s will. Laughs. Vijay matching lyrical - This is a blind well. Laughs too. Vijay - Having sex is evil, theft is evil and running away from home is the worst. If your parents beat you it is for your good. Vijay - You sound like the caregiver’s parrot. I will beat you up for your own good. Ravi - And on the platform one gets addicted to solution and weed. Vijay - It’s all here too. Help the clean-up boys and they get you weed even if you can’t pay. Raja - Remember when I made a face when they asked me to clean the toilets Ravi tender - They really beat you up. Raja laughs - They snatched the cloth from me and made me clean the shit pots with my nails. (The three again form an arc and speak one by one): And then When they choose the little boys with innocent faces. Take them out from the backdoor. Sometimes to the minister’s house. Sometimes to the councillor’s house.

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) And sometimes to their own house for gratification. And if you dare say no to anything. Raja (suddenly breaking the narration) - Do you remember Tony’s story? They look at each other scared, as if referring to this demands great courage. Raja (challenging) - Should we tell them? (Again speaking one by one): He had run away from home. Don’t know when. Where had he come from? Don’t know. He had spent so much time on the platform that these questions had lost relevance. Many NGOs took him to their spaces but nobody could trace his home. They had to let him go after a few months. And he would go back to the platform. He worked for a man who had a small shop selling water bottles on the platform. The man would fill the bottles with tap water and sell them as mineral water. He would earn 1 Rupee per bottle. One day he was caught. The shop keeper looked away And the police brought him here. He felt choked here His mind too was not okay He would say just one phrase Take me back to the platform. He would say again that he would run away to the platform. They would beat him, they would laugh at him. Vijay - I’ll play Tony. Raja - And you become Sarin, I’ll play the Superintendent. Be careful when you hit. Raja - The minister is coming here for a visit. We were kept awake the whole night cleaning up the jail. They vigorously clean the jail. Raja - Lots of people came with him. Vijay is on the look-out. Ravi - As the lesser VIPs. Raja - Flatterers. Ravi - Got in Raja - Tony saw his chance.

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Chapter Eight (Vijay runs as if out of the gates of the reformatory. Sarin and Superintendent (Raja and Ravi) carry him on stage between them. It is clear from his movements and their breathlessness and attitude that they have beaten him badly) Raja (Barks)- Ask him what does he want? Ravi - What do you want? Vijay - On the platform. (Fading lights. The two strip him, remove their belts and proceed to beat with the buckle side) (The three stand in an arc again and say the lines one by one): He did not understand. We were all playing outside. People were painting the wall outside. A ladder was lying there. Vijay looks to the wall. Suddenly he runs to the ladder makes to climb up and jumps over the wall. He was caught again. Raja and Ravi carry him again. Raja - Ask him now. Ravi - What do you want? Vijay (barely mumbles) - Platform. Raja - Sarin get that big hammer lying in the corner there. And place those bricks under his legs. Ravi seized by paroxysms of fear - Me Sarin. Raja (louder) - Get the bricks. Ravi starts crying inconsolably. Raja relentless - They broke both his legs from two places. They made him an invalid. And they say then they threw him on the platform. Ravi howls miserably. Three this time together: You want to give us a second chance? Hear our stories? What will you do with it? Where can you take it? (Two facilitators sit side by side): The first time for such a workshop, I went to Kota, and I was joking on the way, I’ll ask them where to buy weed. Heard their stories, created a performance.

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And the kids: The bitterness of the world on their tongues but eyes played with the innocence of childhood. And the scars on their faces and bodies. Stayed there for a week, slept on the hard floor. And then got home and lay on my spring mattress, Did not want to speak or listen. Came down in the evening. My father was sipping his favourite single malt. He pushed the bottle in front of me. … I could not drink it. I remembered the scars on those faces. Looked in the mirror. Saw my own scars, Performance. Out of my sight, fuckface. How did you feel? She remains silent.

The third (and fourth) enactment was from Alipur. The extremely scary locale of this workshop has been outlined above. The awe was there for the facilitators too, I can never forget how a young boy, merely a child in the lower section, caught hold of another child’s arm and bit it through to the bone, and when I asked him why, he started crying and said he had pushed him with his elbow. The mismatch between the act and its reaction was not there for him to see. The small bits from the facilitators around this piece were merely cataloguing the mind-numbing nature of these currents of violence. The performances had matched up to it. The third enactment was real stunner (it is difficult to choose my favourite between this and the first from Ajmer). Very carefully crafted, moving between ‘play’ and ‘enacted play’, it took us on a bumpy ride. They narrated their ‘true’ experience and then ‘played’ it again, sugarcoating it for us. Margins often use humour to negate the power that ‘mainstreamers’ have over them. In this one, the young actors used the situation of the workshop to laugh at the caregivers, and at us for asking them to ‘play’ their lives. Three of the kids, Raja, Vijay, and Ravi, arguably the more intelligent and dominant, took over the play. They created an acting space at the center, and put all other children aside to perform the crowd scenes. The three sat discussing what we had asked and glared, objectifying us. Was it a discussion or an enactment of one? They asked many questions. Were we ‘sexual’ or like the hijras (trans people) they met outside? Did we secretly want sex with them like all other people they had come across? Were we plain scared of the police? Did foolish upper class brats, have any

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idea of their lives? Could we stand it if they gave us an undiluted display of their story? What were we looking for, money, other gains? In a parody of our task they began by asking each other for stories to enact. Vijay’s raw story was followed by Ravi’s palatable reconstructed story. And they narrated the horrors of their lives with skill and humour until they came to Tony’s story. This story was known to all the juveniles there, passed on by older inmates who had possibly been around then (the Superintendent might have furthered the story to keep the fear element strong). It was the story of a young boy whose legs were broken and he was thrown on the platform for repeated attempts to leave the reformatory. For the full impact, we need to remember that the young participants had re-enacted a terrible story that they had witnessed/heard, which had left them traumatized. The same story was being re-enacted by pandies’ members who had facilitated the process and were the sole audience of it (Alipur was not presented). The facilitators were equally traumatized by the sheer horror of it. The layers need unravelling, the story itself, the participants harrowing enactment of it, and the facilitators reenactment. The process was the treasure, it had succeeded in putting the entire mainstream value structure in the dock.

Fig 8-3: Offtrack, Delhi (2012)

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) 4. Family scene: (The facilitator sits with overbearing family) Father: We’ll take care of you, if your marks are not good, we’ll send you abroad. But I want you to be like your cousin, just 28 and already earning 5 lakhs a month. Mother: Don’t put pressure on him. He’ll earn even more. Brother: And now you stop going to your theatre group, it’s too much a waste of time. Father: It’s okay for personality development. You have learnt to speak better and got confidence, but that is all. Mother: Tell him not to sit with those filthy boys in the jail. He will catch an infection or lice or something else. Father: Now that is not theatre. How will that help in your career? And what if he did not want to succeed? And these stories went beyond success. They questioned the way my parents and their ilk made sense of the world. The Return (Anil is walking down the street to his house and crosses his father on the way) Father - Don’t get to see your face nowadays. You are studying hard for your exams, proud of you. Anil - Yes dad this time I’ll pass, with flying colours. Father - How did you get so late? A - The teacher stopped me for extra tuitions, said you must come every evening, want you to get a first division. Father (slaps him across his face) - Bastard, what a liar you have become, you haven’t been to the school for a week. (Beats him up as Anil keeps shouting for his mother) Mother - Shameless wretch. Twice you have failed in the sixth standard and bunking school. (She picks a broom and beats him with it) (A stoned Anil returns home to find his close relatives in the house with his parents. On seeing him his father loses his mind and starts hitting him for having failed for the third time. He tries to save himself, abuses his father

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and all relatives start abusing and hitting him. He falls on the floor and a sachet of weed drops out of his pocket, his uncle picks it and smells it) Uncle: Weed. He has become a drug addict, forget studies for this boy. (His father picks up a stick and starts hitting him) (Anil runs away from there. He reaches the station and gets on board a train) (Tableaux of platform life: Begging, cleaning the platform and the tracks, selling tea) (An older boy accosts him on the platform) Boy - You love smoking up, will you sell weed also? Anil - What if I am caught? Boy - I have been doing it for so many years. You don’t have anything on you. You just find customers and send them to that shop in the corner. All safe. You’ll make some money and also get better stuff to smoke. (Anil is unsure) Boy - Come let me introduce you to the man. (As they move towards the exit, they are accosted by two policemen) Police 1 (to the other boy)- Chandu, what are you doing here? We told you to keep clear of the platform. (Hits him with the baton) Come here (frisks him but finds nothing on him). You were going to get stuff? Who is this new boy? Police 2 (holding Anil by his ears) - Who are you? Tell me your name. (Scared Anil starts crying) Police 1 - Let us take him to the NGO’s office, they’ll deal with him, we have been asked to lay off. Police 2 - And him. (pointing at Chandu) Police 1 - Even they will chase him away. (They reach the office of the NGO located at the railway station itself. The person from the NGO gets up to make Anil feel relaxed and asks him to be seated. The two police constables hover over him) NGO person - Tell us your name. (Anil continues crying)

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) NGO person - Nobody will even touch you here. Give us your address, we’ll inform your parents but we will do with you as you please. We have a small shelter for boys like you. (Anil trusting and also scared, gives his address) NGO person (to the constables) - I’ll take him to the shelter. Police 1 - When you register him put our names as the constables who rescued him, it will help at the time of promotions. Police 2 - Will you take Chandu too. (NGO person looks at him) - You know what happened last time, he started selling weed in the shelter and then forced the younger boys to have sex with him and tried to run away from the shelter along with other boys. You let him be. (The policeman gives Chandu 2 blows on the bum again) - They do not want you, you stay with us and keep selling weed for the rest of your life. (Chandu looks longingly at Anil, looking rather let down) (Darkness. Platform. A small light on Chandu. Seized by tremors, he sits crying in a corner. He takes out a blade and places it on his wrist. Slashes again and again) (Voices fill the darkness) A new boy on the platform Where? 3 number platform. (Sounds of drunk, stoned grown men) New stuff. Check him out. (Total darkness. Voices rise louder) Tear his clothes. Put more booze in his mouth, then he will resist less. (Laughter. Goes on) (Weak voice of the boy) - Let me go (Lights. The bodies of Chandu and a new boy lie heaped in the center of acting area)

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(Two employees of the NGO sit on chairs and talk while Anil plays with other boys) NGO person 1 (on the phone) - Yes your son is with us, he is safe. No you won’t have the need to run around police stations. (Explains the paperwork required including identification cards and photographs) NGO person 2 - What did the father say? NGO person 1 - Said he will come along with his wife in a day or two. NGO person 2 - At least one good boy will be saved. NGO person 1 - Father sounded relieved and happy and mother kept crying. (They come to the shelter. One examines their papers carefully and the other counsels them) NGO person 2 - He obviously left the home in a pique. You will have to take utmost care for a while, when kids spend some time on the platform, their personalities undergo a change. Father - We’ll take care. NGO person 2 - Good. Try and revive the old love. We’ll call you but if there is any problem or query call us. Get him back in school. Government law says that schools cannot deny admission to children because they ran away from home. (Emotional meeting between the child and parents. And they take him home) Tableaux.

1. Anil is welcomed home. Parents are very careful. Images of family love.

2. Father has to argue with principal to get him back in school. 3. Neighbours avoid him. (Anil sits eating his lunch in school. Boys surround him) Boy1 - You are the king of weed. Got any stuff for us. Boy2 - For me too. Boy1 - At a cheaper rate, we are old friends. (Disgusted, Anil leaves) (Anil goes to the toilet in school. Older boys surround him as he pees) Boy1 - Hey bugger, will you give it to us too.

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Boy2 - Let us also have some fun. Boy3 - He is a whore, he gives it for money only. Boy1 - Give us a discount. (They all laugh. Anil pushes them and runs out of school, and goes home. As he enters he overhears his neighbour talking to his mother) Neighbour - It's our daughter’s wedding both of you must come. Mother - Of course, we’ll get Anil with us. Neighbour (hesitates) - Please don’t misunderstand, don’t get him along. He is an ill omen. And if somebody points to him and says that boy ran away from home and lived on the platforms! We are the girl’s parents. (Mother keeps quiet) (Evening. Anil sits on a cot in the courtyard. Father comes in) Father - How was school? Do well this time and all will be fine. Anil - What should I do? Live in your society or head again towards the platform?

The other two plays from Alipur focused on home-placement. One, using the plot of a lost child, carefully showed the entire process from home tracing to parent registration, to verification and restoration. It also showed the cautionary message that children who have been around too long are subjects of abuse and hatred, as even the NGOs refuse to touch them because they will not be restored and will only spoil their figures, and who knows ‘spoil’ the other children too. The other play (the fourth, The Return, above), was the only one among the ten plays, problematizing the protagonist’s life after being ‘restored’ and ‘home-placed’. The protagonist, Anil, is beaten by both his parents and flees. Traumatized by the travails of the world outside, he is restored home via the Railway Police, who ‘rescue’ him and an NGO which ‘restores’ him. Anil returns home full of hope but is shunned by his relatives and neighbours being castigated as a drug abuser. School becomes a trauma. He gets readmission only because the law decrees that he must be given admission in the Government School, while the teachers continue to despise him as a troublemaker, and his old friends stereotype him as a drug peddler and a whore. The parents, happy and welcoming to begin with, slowly become uncertain and suspicious of him. The performance ended with the boy facing the audience and wondering (reminiscent of the classic Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn’s predicament) – should he stay or flee for the platform again?

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The last bastion too had been broken. You home-place the child and what happens then? Where is the follow up, the providing of extra emotional and financial resources to the parents, and awareness for neighbours, friends, school mates, and teachers, and all the setups that the boy has to live within? 5. Magic (Facilitators sit as if chatting after a workshop) Why are people so unaccepting, he is a child only Why does it have to be like this? (Muted laughter) Once I too ran away from home. Where did you go? (sheepish) To my sister’s house. (They laugh) These kids do not have such privileges. (Stealing) One boy facilitator (Angry) - I too used to steal. (cools down) Guys - I really enjoy shoplifting. My elder sister’s friend, she was studying Psychology in a top college in the university, called it a disease Kleptomania. No, no she wasn’t moralizing, she found it quite interesting, turned her on, wanted to do a bit of therapy on me, ended not on a couch but in bed with me on top or was it the other way around? But that’s another story. Stealing, I just know I knew perfectly well what I was doing and really enjoyed every bit of it. Started by shoplifting a few music CDs and cassettes, then expensive perfumes and clothes - jeans, jackets, shoes, shades, used to keep them in a friend’s house (he too had a good time), scared of keeping them in mine. Dating used to be quite a ritual. Bathe and get ready and then go to the friend’s house and get ready again. Every day - different shades. Never really thought I could be caught. (Serious and breaking down) In a reformatory - beaten, raped, legs broken. Sold and bought by people who are like so many men in my family. (Sounds of slum life. Vendor arrives with veggies and women are buying them)

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) Voice of boy - Government has declared education free but I have still been pulled out of school. (Two men are talking to each other standing outside a slum) Mahesh’s Father - I opened Mahesh’s bag yesterday and guess what I found? Friend - What? Mahesh’s Father - Pouches of country-made booze. I have been living here for decades trying to make ends meet but never did anything criminal or unethical and this boy, he is just 11 years old. Friend - You had earlier also asked me to look for some work for him. Mahesh’s Father - But now it is essential. This way we will have the police on my back. I don’t like the boys he hangs out with. I have pulled him out from school. Friend - He can mind my shop. The boy who works for me has gone home, till he returns Mahesh can step in and then we’ll see. (Back to Mahesh) M - So my work is to keep the shop clean and give water (tea for the rich ones) to the customers. It’s okay but I do miss my old friends. (Mahesh sits alone at the shop, another boy rather young man walks to him. The boy has not seen him yet. He discretely takes out a sachet of local booze. Mahesh sees him) Mahesh - Sohan, just go away. Not here. Sohan - You are sitting at a shop, sell from here only, we’ll send customers. Take these 10 halves. And a quarter for you, over and above your commission. (Boy looks uncertain and undecided. His father and the owner arrive and see the sachets. Father loses control over himself and sure that his son has lost his way beats him so badly that if his friend had not stopped him the son would have been killed. Father locks him home and goes out) Mahesh - Beating me like this and I was just thinking. Am I street dog? You can’t even treat them like this. I’ll leave this place. (Jumps the wall, sees father’s long shirt hanging on the clothesline, jumps back and takes whatever money is in the pocket and runs away) (Tableaux of the life on platform follow. Mahesh is seen primarily begging and pickpocketing. Tableaux of boys being beaten by older boys, of being coerced into sex by older boys and men. Keeping them grim but also funny. As he picks a pocket, he is caught and mercilessly beaten. Two policemen save him and take him away)

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Mahesh - Don’t take me to the police station, please leave me. (They take him to a deserted place. Darkness. Voices of the policemen one by one, interspersed with Mahesh’s voice) If you want to be free then you have to please us. If we take you to the police station, you will have to please everyone. Mahesh - But I won’t do this. Cop - Bastard will just pick pockets. (They beat him mercilessly and rape him and leave him in the darkness. Two men come across the acting space. They hear his moans) Man A - Who is there here? I can hear sounds. Man B - A ghost, this forest is haunted. Come let us run. Man A - Bloody coward, you look there I will look here. (Scared, B moves slowly towards the sound. A first hears the boy crying) Man A - Your ghost weeps. Maybe the ghost has seen you. (Sights the boy) Look at him, honest looks bad enough to make a ghost scream. (The boy emerges from behind the bushes) Man A - Who are you child? Mahesh - My name is Mahesh. The pol… some bad people got hold of me, beat me bad, stole my money and threw me here. (A and B look at each other) Man B - No problem, you come with us. (They bring him home and ask him to bathe and clean up and give him some food and tell him to rest. Mahesh begins to rest) Man B (on the phone) - Prince, come quickly, we have a fresh item for you. Ya he is very young, just the kind you like. (Prince, an old man, arrives. A and B get up and point towards the sleeping Mahesh on the cot) Man A - There is no rush, he is all yours. Just give us a thousand Rupees and we will leave the house. (Prince examines the sleeping boy and grins and takes out the money asked for. A and B step out)

Let’s go Offtrack (2012) (Next morning. Prince pats the two men and throws another five hundred rupees on the floor) Prince - This was just great. Keep him with care, I’ll be back in the evening, and don’t let another get to him till I have had my fill. He is so good. Man A - What is he doing? Prince - Tired and asleep, let him rest. (A and B sit reassured and relaxed. Scene shifts inside, Mahesh has only been pretending to be asleep. He sits crying) Mahesh - Why did I leave home. I should have stayed, if I had taken my father’s beatings I would have been safe from all of this. (Suddenly furious) But why? Why should I be beaten? These people are taking advantage of me because I am small and poor. (Moves to a locked window, struggles with it and soon has it open. Jumps out and runs away) Mahesh - One more train, one more city. One more platform. (He starts begging for money. Approaches two men for money) Mahesh - Give me some money. I haven’t eaten for three days, I am very hungry. Man 1 - Where are you from? Mahesh - Far away. Man 2 - Do you have your address? Man 1 - We will leave you there. (Mahesh looks apprehensive. Turns to go away) Man 1 - Don’t leave, we’ll try and help you. (Moves towards him) Mahesh - Keep away from me, don’t touch me. Man 1 - They have really oppressed you. Let’s eat something. (They get him food and sit a little away respecting his reserve. He finishes the food) Man 1 - Look we understand that you have no trust in us, probably in nobody. But come with us, we are with a children’s organization. You have a look and satisfy yourself. If you like it stay there if not don’t.

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Man 2 - If you want to go back home we will send you there, and if you want to study we will get you in a school. (Mahesh follows them a little distance behind) (Tableaux. Mahesh with other boys of his age, he loves to play with them but doesn’t agree to go to school. The boys are sitting together in an evening with a caregiver. The caregiver is playing a game played usually in shelters: What do you want to be when you grow up?) Caregiver - Okay so what do you want to be when you grow up? (The boys stand up one by one and state the profession they seek as grownups. Army, doctor and lawyer are the most popular) Caregiver - Mahesh you have never answered this question, would you like to tell us today? Mahesh - I want to be a magician. (The boys look confused, some giggle and others snigger) One child: I don’t understand, why a magician? (Mahesh stands and speaks to everyone) - To understand this you will all have to come with me to the platform tomorrow. (Next morning they all stand at the platform. Three tableaux of violence against children are shown) 1. A grown up forces a young boy to have sex with him and is beating him for trying to resist. 2. A child has been caught picking a man’s pocket and is being beaten mercilessly by the same man. 3. Three older boys are forcing a young boy to have drugs and are systematically beating him on refusal. (Mahesh walks up to them one by one and waves his wand. And says the magic words) - I have corrected this. (The three scenes transform) 1.The old man stops and takes out money from his pocket and gives it to the boy. I should be ashamed of what I was doing. And he walks away. 2. The two stand still, the man asks the boy: Why did you steal the money? The boy replies: I am very hungry. And nobody gives money on asking, I know it’s wrong. The man: Come with me, let’s lunch together.

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3. They also freeze. The oldest boy: Don’t hit him, he is like our younger brother. All boys together: We will stop doing this. (Mahesh comes forward) - This is how I set the platform world in order. And now we will set this world in order. Make it a better place, better for all of us. Better stories to narrate. Better roles to play. Perform Let’s outperform ourselves. All the performers jump around, dance and play together.

Fig 8-4: Offtrack, Dance at the end, Delhi (2012)

The last episode of Offtrack was also from Ajmer. It served as an appropriate end for the play, because coming from the mind of a traumatized child seeking a better world, it was truly developmental, almost visionary and almost magical. It was located in a working class urban colony. Using multiple parallel narratives, this episode has a plethora of real characters - grey and not black or white. The protagonist Mahesh tells us that in spite of the government’s declaring free education for all, he has been taken out of school by his father, pointing to two men conversing at the grocery shop. In a parallel narration,

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his father tells his friend, something that Mahesh has not told us, that he stopped Mahesh from going to school because he found a sachet of illicit country liquor which Mahesh confessed he was regularly bootlegging. Following the trajectory of violence and excessive sexual violence, Mahesh finally reached a shelter home. The ending took us into desire. The boys were asked what they wished to be when they grow up. They wanted the usual professions; army, police, doctor and lawyer but Mahesh said he wanted to be a magician. And he invited everybody to accompany him to the platform in the morning. Three tableaux of violence against children were shown. Mahesh walked up to them one by one and waved his magic wand. Mahesh transformed his performative world into a drug-free, violencefree and rape-free zone, and challenged the rich and powerful to perform and change the world. This play was simple and extremely important, in that we heard a voice from the margins asking the mainstream world to transform itself, to make itself more sensitive to, and less exploitative of, those who are vulnerable.

Fig 8-5: Offtrack in New York

CHAPTER NINE THEATRE IN CONFLICT/ THEATRE AND CONFLICT: THE CASE OF KASHMIR

Over the last fifty years, theatre in time of war has emerged as a subgenre in itself.1 Does theatre have a special place in zones of conflict? Does it acquire special meanings when it takes place in times of war? The two together would seem to constitute an oxymoron, it seems impossible to do theatre in times of war. However such endeavours abound in our world. Locked as it is between two warring realities, theatre in zones of conflict is both sporadic and spasmodic. It will become proscribed. It will have to retreat before shellfire. This is incomplete theatre, at its best and its most incomplete. On the question of politics, does theatre position itself in conflict and criticize one side? That would land it, possibly, in the lap of endorsement performance, even performing jingoism. So it critiques war, looks at the people who suffer during war, and, making a critique in the Brechtian mode, shows the anti-human aspect of war. Distancing people from the immediacy of destruction, it tries to mitigate the amount of suffering. Ambitiously, it even tries to get the warring peoples together to see each other’s point of view. Taking a developmental veneer and focusing on the next generation, it looks forward to a more cooperative future. Pandies’ has been doing the impossible, doing theatre in one of the hottest, continuous, conflict-torn zones in the world, Kashmir. Spread over fifteen years, pandies’ has pioneered (almost exclusively) theatre work in the conflict-torn zone of Kashmir. This work forms a separate chapter, not only in this book, but in the history of the group and maybe in histories beyond that. 1 For

instance, In Place of War, a project researching and supporting arts programs in war and disaster zones founded by James Thompson, University of Manchester, has over a hundred participating member groups and companies. I presented at one of their earliest conferences in Kosovo in 2010. There have been many initiatives and research projects on this issue.

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A little more about the relationship of theatre and war. The first time I talked about pandies’ theatre in Kashmir was in 2010, at a conference on the Theatre of War organized in Kosovo by the In place of War project. It was a ‘can-opener’ for my mind to be in the midst of people from the wartorn Balkans, from Kosovo, from Serbia, from Bosnia, from Jordan; to be talking about theatre in times of war and genocide. With many of the actors and directors being leaders, or leaders of the opposition, in their respective countries, the performance of war and of theatre were really running parallel, and the connection between national politics and the performers seemed really close in these countries. Leadership and opposition were really fluid, compared to a big democracy like mine, and I perceived the multiple possibilities of relationships. Those on opposite sides in the parliament could be a part of the same theatre or cinema project. The repeated references to the many stagings of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in the times of war in this war-torn area were interesting and intriguing. Izudin Bajrovic’s 2 presence at the conference made Susan Sontag’s attempt at staging Godot in Sarajevo in 1998 a constant reference point, as the actor - also a politico (at that time in the opposition in Bosnia) - played Vladimir in the same production. Why Godot? Possibly its stasis, possibly its depicting of a state post-devastation (so, war-like). Were they suggesting that Beckett’s plays depict stasis, depict ‘nothing’ to tell us what the pursuit of capitalism has reduced our lives to, as Adorno does?3 Is this stasis, this sense of elongation, a depiction of, the peoples of all sides waiting for something to come to end their misery, as war stretches itself out? My memory retraced a conversation in Delhi with a film-maker friend who wanted me to do a script about performing Waiting for Godot in Kashmir. He was trying the easy connection, the expectation of something to happen, someone to come, provide succour and alleviate the conditions in the war-torn area. The use of Godot apart, the formulation does strike affinity with the condition of Kashmir. From performing before their communities and collectivities, to doing workshops - collective and separate - with Hindus and Muslims, to creating performances by the people from their stories, pandies‘ work has covered the canvas. It is dangerous, and under close watch from all sides of the political spectrum. Where do I stand? The political in war is a layered region, and keeps twisting and getting nuanced. Theatre then, needs to cover a range of perspectives, evolving its own radicalism. There is always the other discourse, the voice from the other side, at times many voices. The 2

Famous Bosnian actor who was heading the National Theatre of Sarajevo and was removed because of his political affiliations. 3 Adorno on Endgame in Chapter 4.

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aggressor and the oppressed, a fluid state and the ‘innocent” victim caught in the crossfire? A variety of voices emerge, including the hegemonic voice that seeks to usurp theatre and have it reflect its position, the only position as far as it is concerned. There is obviously the inverse voice that comes from subjugation, and opposes, ridicules, the hegemonic voice and those that directly and indirectly support it. It comes from the premise, not untrue, that the voice of hegemony is a lie. Theatre tries to cater to this voice. But the ludic needs restraint. We can’t ‘play’ here, this is war, and an ‘improper’ performance could mean death. And if ‘they’ are listening? The opposition voice gets muted, modified to appear that the naysaying is within the limits of the ‘tolerance’. We hear these two opposing voices in conflict, and there are the mumblings, the asides and soliloquies going to spaces other than this binary. These tertiary voices problematize the two sides, and in the best traditions of theatre, first bring forth the problem in more complex dimensions, and then try to seek passages of amelioration. Constantly evolving narratives of love, betrayal, survival, and negotiation amongst a diversity of fluid aspirations gives a new level to theatre. Culling stories and performing in the larger arena of war, theatre goes where discourses of war cannot. When we look back today, a lot of things that defined Kashmir have become non-existent. The contemporary Indian government, in keeping with its stated agenda, has stripped the zone of its special status. Many of the issues that concern us here have been ‘resolved’ within its religious supremacist structures of thought. In possibly the first act in a series of hegemonic acts, the Hindutva-endorsing government abrogated Article 3704 which gave Kashmir its special status. That the political leaders of Kashmir, including the leader of the party which had ruled in Kashmir along with the national party, were incarcerated, many in jails and some placed under stringent house arrest, seemed a ritual follow up. The ban on media reporting, and most important, the ban on the internet in the valley, saw the events and reporting too placed within the confines of the state. In the present scenario, or let’s say since the last seven years, it has been practically impossible for any radical group to do theatre in Kashmir. The learning process for pandies‘ graphed here spans a decade-and-a-half from the turn of the century to 2014 (the year the present government took over the reins of government). Yes we did theatre, workshopping with the young of both sides, with the workshop, at times, as the end process and, at times, with a performance in mind. We did this in their respective abodes and in the valley of Gulmarg, achieving the near-impossible task of getting the 4 More

about this article in the Introduction.

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warring communities together. For me and the pandies‘ the encounter with Kashmir through the language of theatre was the ultimate penetration into negotiating authority and fathoming the power and meaning of theatre.

In the context of conflict The abrogation of Article 370 is momentous. The impact of the present government’s aggressive attempts to ‘mainstream’ Kashmir will unfold only in time. The past has been characterized by a mutual sense of hostility and violence, first between India and the state of Kashmir, and then second, the factor of the freedom/terror movement which sees both the central and the state governments as antagonists. The Kashmir (or Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, to be correct to the politics of the place)5 issue is tied in with the very creation of the Indian state as it was eased out of British imperialism in the 1940s. The state of Jammu and Kashmir occupied a special place and status in the Indian state. The Kashmiri Muslims’ resentment against the Indian state has existed virtually since independence, since the accession to India. Having vacillated about becoming a part of India or Pakistan, or remaining independent as the British left the sub-continent, the erstwhile rulers who opted for India ensured a modicum of independence. Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed a special status in the Indian Constitution because of Article 370, which specified that except for defence, foreign affairs, finance and communications, (matters specified in the instrument of accession), the Indian Parliament needs the state Government's concurrence for applying all other laws. The residents of Jammu and Kashmir live under a separate set of laws, including those related to citizenship, ownership of property, and fundamental rights. The population of the area has been dominantly Muslim all along, more so after the migration of the bulk of the Pandit community by the 1990s. As such, it reverses the trend of the rest of India where there is a sizeable Muslim population but the Hindus form an overriding majority. Politically a part of India, emotional identification has constituted a problem, the majority of the Muslim populace sees itself as victimized and in a hostile relationship with India. These conflicts are primordial and involve the dangerous issues of nationhood (India and Pakistan) and religion (Hindus and Muslims). The 5

In the past, the term ‘Kashmir’ was used in an encompassing manner. The realization that other entities need separate recognition has been dawning for a while. As of now, Jammu is the predominantly Hindu section, Ladakh is majority Buddhist with a marginally lower number of Shia Muslims, and the Kashmir Valley is predominantly Muslim, or Sunni Muslim.

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resentment took a particularly virulent form from the 1990s. Obviously there have been no solutions or resolutions. There is the old story that comprises of two communities with a combined history – the Kashmiri Muslim and the Kashmiri Pandit (the upper castes among the Hindus). As the articulation spells out, the ‘Kashmiri’ unites and the ‘Muslim-Pandit’ separates. Centuries of living together, of combined landscapes and mindscapes are interwoven with feelings of hatred and of suffering at each other’s hands. There are attempts at adult reconciliation; rationalizations to bridge the gaps, but core problems remain: 1. Muslim: “Peace process - what about 100,000 jehadis who have died?” 2. Hindu: “What about us being forced out of our homes, reduced to refugees and worse beggars, for no fault of ours?” 1. Muslim: Can I do business with him, he sold my parents to the Indian army? 2. Hindu: Can I spend an evening with him, his father threatened my mother with rape and worse, forcing the family to flee to Jammu. The Pandit-Muslim problem exists on wider canvasses. The political imbroglio involving neighbouring Pakistan compounds the problem. Caught in an actual tug-of-war between India and Pakistan, a visit to Kashmir would reveal a vanquished land where all are victims, all losers. Pakistan has laid an emotional, and often territorial, claim to the land. A view of the maps of Kashmir shows the situation is amusing if one distances oneself, and hurtful if one is embroiled in it.6 All wars that have been fought between India and Pakistan have been largely around Kashmir. And the situation shows no sign of resolving. The conflict does not end here, the seemingly separatist Muslim-based jihadi movement has been fighting the Indian army for decades, earning the sobriquet ‘terrorist’ for the region, and putting it on the list of places to avoid for many countries. Some feel that the conflict also extends to what are seen as native liberal, Sufistic, Islamic traditions of Kashmir and the more fundamentalist elements coming from across borders and even beyond. The biggest, murky backdrop is the HinduMuslim conflict germane to this area.

6

It is interesting to look at Kashmir on diverse maps, it shows us the fluid position. The process is painful for the resident. Claimed as part of India on the Indian map, Pakistan on the Pakistani map and shown as a disputed area on most international maps, where do the residents live?

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Pandies’ theatre creating theatre in Kashmir7 This complex of socio-political happenings provides the context for pandies’ theatre in Kashmir (2000-2014). In Kashmir’s history, these are the years of Mufti Muhammad Syed’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) taking over the government reins in Kashmir. These are also the years that witnessed increased militancy in the valley – brutal violence and brutal suppression. In India’s political history, these years chronicle the increasing stranglehold of the BJP-led NDA over the national politics (1999 - 2004) and then the re-emergence of the centrist UPA, led by the Indian National Congress (2004 -2009 and 2009 - 2014)8 only to give way again to the NDA with its supremacist politics in a naked form. It also seeks its co-ordinates in the pandies’ increasingly aggressive position against right wing fundamentalism – three proscenium productions on the trot condemning majoritarianism, and vast amounts of theatre work in schools and slums asking for an understanding of difference; difference of gender, class, caste, and more so, region, and above that religion. The first integrated phase of theatre in Kashmir can be located from 1999 to 2005. Continuous and unrelenting, the two things that stand out are that theatre was done deliberately with both communities, and the participants were adolescents. Despite two festivals in Delhi and a public performance in Srinagar the theatre largely followed the workshop mode. The first attempts at theatre with adolescents of the valley (along with the British Council in the same initiative) were with Kashmiri pandit young people in two camps for the community in Delhi itself. The impermanence of the community hit us at the very beginning. Narratives of the two sides vary. The pandits under perceived threat from Kashmiri Muslims, and without adequate support from the government (state or center) had left the state to move to Delhi and were waiting there for years, even decades, for life to attain some permanence; to get some vestige of ‘home’ for them and their children. One camp was a huge field with big tent-like structures which people had divided into rooms with curtains and saris, but though these were obviously makeshift, intended to last a few days, weeks at the most, became the reality for decades. The other camp was not much better, with spread rooms in a complex, and each room housing a family - or at times more. The fear and trauma were there, but apart from that, the inhabitants seemed to be 7

The names of all participants have been changed. The UPA1 had its high points, especially in the influence that regional and Left (CPM) exercised in governance of the nation but the UPA2 was a disaster with misgovernance and repeated proven charges of graft. This paved the way for a rightwing takeover of governance under the BJP.

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humanity in despair, in atrophy. Unable to grow, they were left to stagnate. As we started our signature workshops with the young, culling out their stories, an immediate blossoming of the young took place. Theatre was the zone to expand yourself, to try and have aspirations better than the reality you were in. The first foray to the state was to Jammu alone as part of the British Council initiative (they were asked by the British government in consultation with their Indian counterparts to steer clear of the Kashmir Valley because of the volatile, unsafe, situation there). This was followed by a series of workshops in Jammu and Kashmir (the attempt was an expanded version of what had happened with the British council, but now with pandies’ taking the responsibility) ending with youth from both regions traveling together to Delhi to participate in a theatre festival (Togetherness) organized by the pandies’ at the Dilli Haat, New Delhi in November 2003. I see the above as one continuous phase. The second foray was a week-long workshop in the Gulmarg valley staged in tents, ambitiously getting Hindu and Muslim adolescents together and culminating with a heart-wrenching performance in Srinagar. The saga began in November 2001 with a recce visit to Jammu looking at the work of some schools and orphanages for the British Council, and focusing ahead to a pandies’ theatre festival in 2003. The work in Kashmir is also evidence of collaborations with like-minded organizations. From the very beginning of its theatre work in Kashmir, pandies’ has worked in close collaboration - nay union - with Yakjah9, a motley incipient organization with raw energy which was, at that time, a heartwarming coming together of Kashmiris, Muslims and Pandits. Today it is doing more carefully structured work in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. The city took me by surprise, and this surprise was to frame the theatre work that would follow over three years. When I had visited the place after 1988, my memory was of a small and beautiful town, but what I saw was an almost total Hindu take-over of the place. The old Jammu existed, as I found later, but small and in the interior, in the little bazaars, and in the famous Tourism Department’s Wazwan10 restaurant, which serves extremely good Kashmiri 9

Yakjah defines its purpose as follows: “The focus is to express and share personal stories, experiences, anecdotes and action for personal transformation, selfawareness and knowledge, conscious leadership and social change”. Pandies‘ has been associated with it since its very incipience, and the two together have taken many initiatives together in Kashmir. What is most attractive for us is their ability, despite many problems, to continue trying to work with youth of opposing communities, together. 10 Kashmiri cuisine, containing at its richest 36 dishes largely of mutton and chicken.

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(and not just Jammu) cuisine. The town, however, at first sight, seemed more like an extension of, and a preparatory zone to the hill shrine of Vaishno Devi. 11 Reeling under the Hindutva rhetoric echoing across the country, my antennae were up. Was I over-reacting? But the signs were there, unmistakable in the saffron-coloured deities staring across the walls of the city. Jammu and Srinagar have always been connected, and not just in my mind. Was the saffronization of Jammu a result of the Islamization of Srinagar? Was it the reverse? It was difficult to say, but I was sure that the two would be linked. I became somewhat fearful of what to expect in Srinagar. While in Jammu, I visited pandit migrant camps and schools with overwhelming numbers of students from Hindu families that had left Kashmir. The narratives of stories and experiences would begin to emerge a few months later as theatre work started. Workshop theatre in Jammu and Kashmir started in March 2003 with a week-long workshop in Srinagar, followed by a similar effort in Jammu. Pandies’-led workshops continued intermittently over many months in Srinagar and Jammu. At this stage, the workshops were conducted separately for the two communities in their areas. In the first foray, for instance, the children in Srinagar were almost exclusively Muslim, and those in Jammu were exclusively Kashmiri pandits. In Jammu, the adolescents were from the lower middle and middle-classes. The class levels were the same in Srinagar, though there were some children from elite Muslim families. Like Jammu, my Srinagar too had been lost somewhere. Miles before the city, we saw, at a distance of fifty meters, soldiers with carbines. It was almost like working in a foreign country, and more so one that was hostile and felt itself under siege from ‘our’ army. Our week-long Srinagar workshops took place. We did two workshops simultaneously, one for schools, and one for orphanages and trusts. For the schools bit we started in a small school (Greenland) in the Nagin region. The school was the workshop site, and the participants were from this, and another four, schools. The pandies’ methodology - images, machines (Boal), Goi12 narratives and story making, and brief, improvised, enactments took place. We gave them situations from their personal experience, such as ‘how would I ideally like Srinagar to be’, and elections in the valley. Left to create by themselves, as was seen and reported by the facilitators, images of violence, terrorist instigation, unfair polls and army brutality were manifest in the workshop area. Images and machines were portraying what 11 An extremely popular Shrine, close to Jammu. It is a much sought-after destination

for Hindus from North India. Goi, the art of story-telling. Daastan Goi and Kissa Goi, were explained earlier.

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they were not allowed to speak of. There was an aura of distrust and hostility which came forth in the discussions. Teachers from diverse schools, and grown-ups from the area, began to dominate the discussion. Adolescent voices were getting drowned out. We used various devices to keep the focus on them: We asked direct questions, and asked the youth to narrate anecdotes from their experience, interwoven with small imaginative tasks for them to perform. I will use one example of an intervention from a distinctly upper-class, twelve-year-old Shia girl – Zaheera. Zaheera was asked to play being the prime minister of India for a day. In her bratty, self-assured way she scoffed at what she felt was the pointlessness of the attempt. Asked to say more, she added that just the day before her brother was slapped by her parents for holding a toy gun. “We play act, we live in denial. Television sets are switched off or children sent out of the room when talk of terrorism or news of anti-terrorist operations comes on”. Why should she pretend playing prime minister of the country which had reduced the people of her state, her beloved Srinagar to animal modes of living. “Sir, remove the army and there will be no terrorism”. She stated that, unflinching. Her direct assertion was greeted with stunned silence. And she went on to question hotly the toadies from other schools: “How do you know the bombs aren’t planted by the army with a view to take action against the local people?” There were smiles of approval from the grown-ups and one teacher asserted: “If this was shown on TV these children would be taken away by the army, ‘your’ army”. Narratives, stories, and enactments like these reflect the ability of the theatre to bring out the complexity and multi-dimensionality of conflict situations from the perspective of those caught in the midst of them. The obvious, stressed binaries in Zaheera’s story are an attempt to mock centriststate-sponsored peace attempts, and to unmask even this workshop endeavour. But the subversive voice is also a mimic. It echoes the sentiments and expressions of many adult segments in the valley. The one thing that was emerging from the beginning was the expression of a desire for a cessation of the existing situation (the waiting?). The young were consistently outperforming the debilitating performances dealt out to them. The same was apparent in another anecdote of a small workshop enactment. There was a set of students who joined us late. Given the special circumstances under which we were working, violating usual theatre workshop discipline, we allowed them to participate and create a play outside the holistic workshop, under the guidance of one facilitator. Samer was a middling middle-class lad of 16. He was Sunni, they said later he was disturbed (who isn’t in conflict zones?).

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As the facilitator reported, the boy was greatly attracted to the idea of creating theatre, but he was already upset about our schedule and our starting the workshop on a day that was a holiday in their school. He wanted to create a play. On the issue of everyone’s love for Srinagar, he responded: “I hate Srinagar”. He added “If my father was to die, I would never bury him in the valley”. His provocative interventions came intermittently: “India, yes, but it is important only as a passport for a better future, I want to get away from it all, go to the west […] And these terrorists, I hate them. This city is sold out to them and the Pakistanis”. Other students went along with him as he took the lead in creating play. In the midst of his play, which was all about terrorists hiding and shooting from behind trees, he just broke away and went about making the noises of an automatic gun. ”Come out of hiding, you all have to die, you hide behind trees and shoot us innocents. Pakistan Murdabad”.13 The last cry was repeated over and over, and the enactment ended with two slaps across his face from his schoolteacher. Taken aback, but undeterred, he stated: “Isn’t this the truth? Or rather what you asked us to say before them – the Dilliwalas?”14 Who said what about whom to who, the enactment caught the sheer confusion and the fear of the place of conflict. Two voices: one girl, one boy; Shia, Sunni; brave, disturbed. There were lots of submerged stories here. Theatre was unraveling them. There was an important common point – the need to change the situation. Forty other voices, deistic to atheistic, ‘anti-national’ to nationalistic. There was one meeting point, the desire for that change.

13 Murdabad, literally means ‘death to’ though in sloganeering is more akin to ‘down with’. 14 Dilliwala, means literally, one from Delhi. Interestingly here the student seems to be saying that he was asked to shout these slogans before us, the ones from Delhi, and that I think created the problem for the teacher concerned.

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Fig 9-1 Making Images, Srinagar

The five-day workshop ended with an unexpected performance. I stood in the principal’s room attempting to prove my credentials before him. The ‘blame’ of Samer’s play, especially the anti-Pakistan chant at the end, had been put on us by the teacher who had slapped him (the child having blamed him at the end of the performance had really scared him, he felt he could be targeted by the jehadis). My friends from the valley, Hindu and Muslim stood and argued. There was a long discussion and finally, shaking of hands. Peace had been amicably restored. But we lost. With numbers limited as they were, we could not continue with our work in schools in Srinagar, and had to confine our workshops to orphanages and trusts alone. We got diverse reasons for this over the succeeding months. We were suspected of being western agents with the mission of converting the children to Christianity. We were central state agents. Extremists had threatened the principal of the school. The threat was real, it was our safety that they were bothered about. The principal’s child was kidnapped and let off after the principal paid a hefty ransom and promised that such projects would not be allowed in future. And so on. How far had theatre penetrated? Timorous and tentative theatre showed that the child of our ‘heavenly’ valley is mute; he is supposed not to feel. It’s true parents get uncomfortable if the child carries a toy gun. Children are not supposed to participate in discussions on Kashmir, Pakistan or India.

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I wanted to know what else they were supposed to talk about. The intense hatred for the army was manifest. There was sympathy for the terrorist, but it was muted, and so in their mind’s eye, he is not violent and ceases to be a source of any kind of terror. These children need avenues to express themselves. They are in a hateful situation; they are being bombarded by contradictory, hostile discourses. Their stories and short skits were focused on militancy, satirized electoral processes, and government inefficiency. All Srinagar stories and skits ended in the desire for reconciliation, lasting peace, and collective advance. As is its wont, theatre was empowering the most marginalized, the young, by getting their perspectives in.

Fig 9-2, Sharing stories, Srinagar

The children in the Jammu camp were older (14 to 16 years) than the children in Srinagar. Nearly fifty in number, they were extremely talented, ambitious, and embarrassingly, they saw us and the theatre workshops as keys to future success. Extrovert and friendly, one of them took us to his house in the Mutthi camp, where he stayed with his parents and siblings. My memory is of a low-roofed, makeshift construction where I had to stand bent over, and soon had the desire to move out and stretch. The temporary, cramped, environment became emblematic of the cramping of dreams and desires, and of the impermanence in which these youth find themselves. The absence of Srinagar became the dominant theme of the Jammu workshop. I recount one participant’s account that was fairly paradigmatic.

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Pradeep was unusually sensitive:15 “I want to go back to Srinagar. I am 14 years old. No it does not matter that I was born in Jammu, not even that I have never been to Srinagar. It is embedded in my mind. I hate those of the opposite faith, those who betrayed our trust, were responsible for the deaths of so many in my family. Must return to Srinagar”. It’s again a mimicking voice, voicing the desire of the elders of the community, a voice that still exists and seeks that return. The irony escapes Pradeep. His family left Srinagar a year and a half before he was born. Apart from four students of the tenth class, all have been born here in Jammu. However, they all desire to ‘return’. Their stories and skits focused on migration,16 and they all culminated in fantasy - a non-violent, peaceful, jubilant, and welcome return to Srinagar. Intermittently and inconsistently, other voices came through. Many of them wanted to be performing artists, musicians, and actors, and after the ‘return’ to Srinagar, they sought escape to Delhi or Mumbai. Theatre workshops had become the voice of the most submerged here, the young, whose trauma and issues were not being reflected in any agenda or in any policy. The first interaction, in Srinagar and Jammu, showed that the child’s desire is to obliterate the violence of the adult world. And its Srinagar is an abode of the desire of the prelapsarian. The pandies’ youth theatre festival in December 2003, in Dilli Haat,17 New Delhi, had over a score of plays from Delhi, Jammu and Srinagar, which were overtly against communalism. A lot had happened between March and December. In November 2003, the famed Ghazi baba was shot dead in Srinagar near his support base in Safa Kadal.18 I was there then doing another workshop in an orphanage – Yateem Trust - trying hard to transpose some performances from the workshops in Srinagar to Delhi. I was working with children who had been orphaned in diverse parts of the valley, had had their parents killed at the hands of either or both sides. I remember my little Nasser. A sweet child, barely above ten, he sat quietly 15 This

participant’s byte appeared on India’s most popular news channel Star TV when they came to cover the workshop. It was so good that it became a part of the promotion campaign as Star branched into NDTV. 16 The Jammu rhetoric calls it 'migrancy’ (the word encompasses not only the migration, but also all the problems that led to it and ensue from it till today, it’s a bit like the exodus really). 17 A government complex in South Delhi, it has become a hub of activity with a small open air theatre and shops/stalls from various states of India which also dish out food from the respective states. Haat literally means a shop. 18 In the interiors of Srinagar.

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for one whole day in the corner while the workshop was going on. And then he spoke, a small sentence. It was celebrative. I can never forget his big, bearded caretaker, somber, always speaking in Urdu or Kashmiri. He came running over and almost lifted me in joy. Nasser had found his tongue again. He had seen his parents slaughtered before his eyes and had been unable to speak since. And watching his newly acquired friends perform he was moved enough to say something.19 The developmental strain in theatre was alive and thriving. In the Delhi festival, three plays arrived from Kashmir and four from Jammu. The plays built on original themes of migrancy and loss (Jammu) and administrative corruption (Srinagar), but the real drama was happening around the festival. It was in the haunting ghosts of adult discourses of mistrust, in the growing bonding and friendship, in the interaction with children from Delhi, in the story of the young boy and girl from Jammu who got themselves left behind to steal an extra day of romance in Delhi. One more story among the sundry young voices in Dilli Haat, was of Gulzar, barely 12, and from another orphanage in Srinagar, He was a favourite with all those who worked with him. It was enabling to watch the change that came about in him. He arrived scared. He had been warned (by his caregivers in the orphanage and other adults of his community) against the older, rich Hindu boys with whom he had travelled in the second part of his journey from Jammu to Delhi. He had been told to watch out, that association with them would defile him, they were unclean, and the three days that they all spent together were transformative for all of them. It was a joy to watch Gulzar after his group’s performance. He addressed the audience: “I may be from anywhere but Srinagar is mine. The problems of Srinagar, no, the entirety of Kashmir, stem from unscrupulous politicians who make big promises and do not honour them. The way is total cleansing. Cleanse the administration of such people and problems can be solved. We, all of us, Mudassar, Muhammad, have to move forward together”. I asked other children in this camp: “Can success be found by sticking to those who belong to your religion, or to your region only? Srinagar, Kashmir, India must move forward”. And when I jokingly asked him “What about those boys, the Hindu pandits from Jammu?” He grinned back: “They appear much better after three days together. We talked together and on the way back I... I shared my lunch box with them.”

19 This

was a serious case. Arrangements had been made to take him to a hospital for psychotherapy.

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Fig 9-3: Jammu - enactments

Theatre here had shown possibilities. Possibilities that we would need to work on. Taking us out of the confrontational aspect of the conflict, methodologies and passages towards alterities were being shown. Questions were being reframed. And the hegemonic, authoritative voices on both sides were being re-examined. At this stage, and pushing this thread of meaning and significance, the most significant stop was a six-day workshop in Gulmarg in June 2005. The group comprised fifty-five youth/children between ten and eighteen years of age. They were an almost even split of Kashmiri pandits and Kashmiri Muslims, and an even split of girls and boys. The pandit youth, older, were from migrant camps in Delhi and Jammu and areas around Jammu. A handful of them (five in all) had worked with me before, the rest were new to the theatre experience. The Muslim young were from diverse parts of the valley, from camps, schools and orphanages in Brijbehara, Baramulla and areas around Srinagar. Most were poor, and many had lost their parents. The eclectic spirit of togetherness dominated this endeavour (probably never possible again), with Yakjah and pandies’ at the core; the space and tents were courtesy of the Indian Army (which kept a close watch on our activities) and the meals were funded by politicos of the state government. The trusts and organizations from Kashmir (who brought the Kashmiri youth) had deep roots in the valley and took positions divergent from the Indian government’s positions (we had ‘reformed’ extremists and

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organizations working with families whose members were in the anti-India movement). This was a very special moment in history, and gave a chance to push the meaning and role of theatre. It was a nature camp (with walks taking place at 5 am everyday) and had a small painting component too. The main activity was the theatre workshop facilitated by pandies’. Collectively, we set a challenging target: use workshop theatre to create a performance that would be staged in an auditorium in Srinagar on the seventh day. The effort of all in the camp had to be directed towards that. A unique experiment of putting the two warring communities together, literally in a 24 x 7 format, it was fraught with dangers. The situation was volatile, as all the participants (not just the young but caretakers too, in fact they more than the participants) carried a lot of past baggage. Stunning though it was, the physical hardship of being in a nature camp made the creative task really daunting. Safety/fear was always an issue, and it wasn’t lessened by the news of bomb blasts in the market less than a kilometer away, just the day after we started. We kept it simple and true, and let the participants pack all their political punch. The pandies’ methodology of individual, followed by collective, exercises, sharing of narratives of experiences, converting them into one short story by every group, and then creating twenty-minute skits from those stories, culminated this time in tying these short skits into a holistic mode of a final play of about ninety minutes duration. In the epic theatre/agit prop format we sought to string divergent scenes together and let the connections emerge thematically in the minds of the audience. While splitting them into five groups, care was taken to see that participants from diverse areas were in each group. Given the nebulous situation, facilitators were asked to take the indirect route, work on the peripheries of the issues, and wait for the participants to take us into the conflict zones, as and when they desired, and focus on giving full space to their diverse perspectives. As we reached the stage of fictionalizing diverse personal narratives into one short story, the topics that the groups wanted to use had been reached by them. The four themes that emerged were: a romantic love story, poverty/class (a poor boy working in a roadside eatery), gender violence (a stepdaughter’s story) and physical and mental disabilities. I held one group back to create a meta-narrative, tying up the four episodes through the use of music and songs. The beginnings of the short stories (which would later become skits and then episodes) were provided by the short story facilitator. Each group was under the charge of one facilitator. The forces unleashed by workshop theatre were there for anyone to witness. The political hierarchies, and the binaries were obviously visible. The Jammu youth

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(especially those from Mutthi) were older and dominating. The Kashmir young, especially the boys, were traumatized and repressed – many of them going and spending the night with Yakjah members rather than in their own tents. There are many tertiary stories; I pick one: Ishfaq from Baramulla was from the group that I had held back. His exchanges with me showed the widening of his horizons. At an early stage, he came to me asserting that the whole work there seemed suspect. It is against the teaching of Koran, theatre is the Devil’s zone. “Why have our teachers brought us here? These older Jammu boys are so volatile, abusive, and always picking a fight”. A little later, he continued: “Whatever was to be learnt we learn here, why should we go to Srinagar? Performance is suspect in the eyes of our religion”. Savouring the experience, and aspiring to perform, he had soon moved to asserting that his teacher wanted him to go as a process of learning, of getting exposure, and improving his chances in future. “Well, I think I will go to Srinagar” he said, finally. The short stories and the subsequent skits that emerged were all Srinagar-centric. My group too, keeping it simple, decided to exploit the factual situation and locate the story in the milieu of a youth camp – comprising young people from Jammu, Srinagar and Ladakh. From this center, various episodes would evolve as narratives of experience of the participants. Interludes and three songs would be used to tie things up. We take a quick look at the four episodes that emerged: The first was a love story: Rich boy – poor girl, a decoy pandit to make the girl fall in love, rich parents’ objection, and finally elopement. Unashamedly Bollywood, 20 it worked with its humour and constant references to Nishat and Shalimar gardens and the Dal Lake.21 What was really amazing, was the bonhomie between the two protagonists. The class difference in the play was, in reality, the far more dangerous difference of religion and region. The boy was a pandit from Jammu and the girl a Muslim from the valley. The play had started with a love song sung by girls from Kashmir, including Aksa, our protagonist. Her summing up of her experience after the Srinagar staging needs focus. “Our Kashmiri song was a real hit. It’s a song about love. Everyone liked it; we dressed up in our Kashmiri dresses and sang the song before the love episode. I sang the song and then played the lead in the love story” she said. Talking about the high point in her 20

Mainstream Hindi cinema based in Mumbai. The two gardens, and of course the famous lake, are known for their beauty all over the world. At this point even they were under siege, specially the gardens that had been shut by the army for fear of terrorist activity. 21

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experience in the workshop, she said: “While doing the workshop the lady facilitator asked me if someone like Vipin really loved me, and his parents objected, what would I do?” “If he has the guts to propose” I replied, “I would run away with him. And that became the climax of our episode”. Here we were talking about love and defiance among teenagers in the most customary manner – within and without the play. This was a set of unusually good-looking young people; many of them were ‘free’ for the first time. Romance was in the air. It was in the campfire dance (unfortunately disallowed by the security personnel after the first night, in the aftermath of the blast in the market). It was in taking on their teachers to be allowed to be together - longer and oftener. It was there in the little meetings behind the tents. Who was Hindu and who Muslim? Somebody needed to pinch and remind me: These were hostile, warring communities, weren’t they? The next story/ episode was about a poor boy working in a Srinagar dhaba.22 He wanted to study, but his father refused to educate him. Latching on to a few words in the facilitator’s opening lines (“people like us do not get work”), the group had contextualized the father’s refusal in the lack of opportunity and hurtful mistrust of Kashmiri Muslims in mainstream India. Tapering away from regional/religious margins, the story moved into fantasy with the use of a deux ex machina 23 in the form of the boy’s employer, who funded his education. The boy became a doctor and returned to Srinagar in the service of his community. The third was a story of a widower with a young daughter. He remarried, to a woman with a mentally disabled child. Cinderella-torture ensues. Cinderella triumphed not by upstaging the stepmother but by taking her along. She saved the life of the disabled child and the two bring about a ‘realization’ in the mother. There was a lot in the nuanced warm scenes between the siblings, in the desire at the end not to hate the oppressor but to abjure hatred itself. The fourth episode was a nuanced political engagement. The group was dominated by two Hindu pandit boys from Mutthi. They were older, they had worked with me before and they were also good actors. The story was of a polio-hit lame girl (Kashmiri pandit) who lived in Srinagar. Her father was threatened by militants and asked to cough up money if he wanted to live. Unable to pay he was killed. Living in fear, the family finally moved to Jammu to her maternal uncle. Historical, temporal correctness was maintained. They migrated in 1993 when the girl was nine years old. She grew up in Jammu. When she was twenty years old she returned to Srinagar 22 Cheap

roadside restaurant Literally “god in the machine,” a theatrical device that goes back to Greek Drama, of gods appearing from above (in a machine) and solving human problems.

23

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en route to Amarnath, the famous Hindu religious shrine. This was not the Srinagar of adult constructions. Loved and welcomed, she settled there. The story raised a furore in the group itself. The younger Muslim participants wanted to know how they could say with certitude that killers were terrorists (aatankwadi).24 They could be dacoits, or state goons. Also it was unfair to put the blame for the happenings in the valley on one community. The problem was resolved by referring it back to the group and asking particularly the young Muslims from the valley to suggest alternate endings, taking cognizance of the sentiments of the people from the other side. This is what they came up with: The murderers should be dealt with like common criminals and without any glory! So when the pandit girl returns to her village from Jammu it’s her brother (yes the masculine bias was there) together with his Muslim neighbours from the past, who catches the second of his father’s murderers. An important change was to make the inspector who helps the pandit children a Muslim; this was both ideologically stronger and also correct in the sense that policemen in Kashmir were, by and large, Kashmiri Muslims. Creating theatre in collectivity had made the young of the two communities interact with each other on principles other than suspicion and anger. Despite the Kashmiri pandit bias and blaming the Muslims for their eviction from their beloved Srinagar (adult stories), the Jammu boys had expressed desire in seeking the warm welcome return to the valley. While casting off blame and valorizing the Jehadi (adult stories), the Muslim boys had welcomed the pandits with open arms and wanted to re-establish them, ferreting out criminals from their own ilk; you take a step forward and so will I. A new Srinagar landscape had been (re)created. And liminally, the performance of theatre, with this specific set of people, at this moment of time, explored the possibility of a return to the mindscape that had for centuries connected the two communities. As we returned by bus to Jammu from Srinagar, I sat next to Neeraj, a seventeen year old Hindu pandit from Jammu. He was in my sub-group in this performance, and had been trained by me in Jammu for the earlier project. Neeraj confessed that he had reluctantly agreed to come for this experience. He had been apprehensive of visiting Kashmir and living with Kashmiri Muslims for a week. Prejudice was the dominant sentiment and hatred lay just below the surface. But what he found was, for him, the closest that comes to unqualified love. For him, the experience was best summed in the couplet with which they had culminated their performance (a rough translation of the Hindustani): “This country does not need a Hindu or a 24

A derogatory term, one who creates ‘aatank’ or terror.

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Muslim, what it needs is a good human being.” Jargonized and ‘adult secular’ though it is, it was his moment of anagnorisis in this unfathomable tragedy. The meanings for me still lie beyond. Theatre in conflict had added large dimensions to the meaning of theatre. Our participants were trying to perform in all meanings of the word. The acquisitions lay in relocating the issues, in questioning the processes and calling in the ignored voices of the stakeholders of the future of the space. The greater truths lay in fragments and possibilities. They lay in the mesmerizing performance in Srinagar, in the streaming tears and standing ovation of the three hundred-strong adult audience – Pandits and Muslims; they were ensconced in the fragmented Srinagars created in the plays, in the gardens and Shikaras (boats) back as cuddle spots for young lovers; in spaces where deux ex machina still exist and where Cinderella’s stepmother is a vulnerable, loving person. They lay in the creation of a huge developmental landscape where Kashmiri togetherness can possibly edge out the Hindu–Muslim separateness. Theatre in a place of war is a dangerous activity. And Gulmarg was a glorious moment. It became impossible to repeat this kind of activity because theatre in war comes under scrutiny from all sides of the warring spectrum. We too got warnings. We were under surveillance, under the radar of the government agencies, and also observed by the dominant forces in the valley. Friends, relatives and ex-students, all of whom were associated with this area, advised us to back off after this bridging exercise. After intense, continuous exercise over five years, workshop theatre in the area has continued sporadically. It has covered diverse age groups and all three areas of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. I will look at two more instances of workshop theatre, one with college students and their teachers in Bhaderwah (Jammu) and the second a rehab workshop of the infamous stone-pelting youth from Sopore, under police supervision in Sonamarg (Kashmir). Bhaderwah, primarily known for its university, is a small town located in the Jammu section of the valley, close to the border of Kashmir. The Bhaderwah campus is under control of the University of Jammu, the most famous university of the state. Having a thin majority of Pandit youth, it also has a sizeable Muslim component from people living in the hilly areas around, and also from Kashmir. In 2011, knowing about our work with the two communities, the Bhaderwah Campus invited us to do a theatre workshop with their students. We had about 45 students, largely undergraduate (19 to 22 years), and the Pandit-Muslim proportion was 2:1. Enjoying the ludic as we started the workshop, six teachers also asked to participate in the play creation. Four days of intense workshopping yielded

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three plays that were staged together in the college auditorium. Mature and radical, all three attempts need a close look, as they showed the power of theatre to collectively mull over zones of conflict and bring forth issues that concern those involved in the conflict. The first play was Mother Courage (borrowing from Brecht in my lexicon, though the players called her by another name). The play was located in the valley and had a Muslim family at its center, with the mother as the real protagonist. It was already focusing on the tragic phenomenon of stone pelting (I will talk more about this in the next section). Emotional and evocative, it had a feel of good old tragic inevitability, inevitability of young Muslim boys steering away from education towards joining the anti-India struggle and becoming vulnerable targets for the armed forces. Ensconced within a beautifully sung song which bemoaned the loss of the loving Kashmir and issued a condemnation of the present hellish existence, it asked ‘Khuda’ for return to the pristine Kashmir (which was God’s gift to Kashmiris, a return to paradise) The song had a double return to it, a return of the returned paradise. Very subtle and mature in its structure, the play made holistic use of the workshop exercises, for instance, the machines made there formed the tableaux in the play. The tragic story of a Muslim woman was placed in a callous milieu; callous killings by the extremists, the equally callous state usage of the same to gain political mileage, and a media that reports nothing except scandal and death in a bid to raise its TRPs. The opening tableau brought us to the edge. The hustle of a marketplace is ruptured by a bomb explosion, leaving many dead. The extremists gloat over the death of people, people protest against the killings and ask for justice. State goons (in cahoots with the killers) shoot them dead. And the news person is concerned solely about ‘breaking news’. The accompanying photojournalist is most concerned about getting the correct poses of the corpses. It’s all about TRPs,25 he asserts, and then giving a rousing report before the camera bemoaning the callousness of the administration. Cut to the political milieu. The state CM bemoans the death of the people, and blames the forces of the neighbouring country. He promises a 25

Television Rating Point (TRP) is a tool provided to judge which programs are viewed the most. This gives us an index of the choices of the people, and also the popularity of a particular channel. For calculation purpose, a device is attached to the TV set in a few thousand viewers' houses. These numbers are treated as sample from the overall TV owners in different geographical and demographic sectors. The device is known as the People's Meter. It records the time and the program that a viewer watches on a particular day. Then, the average is taken for a 30-day period which gives the viewership status for a particular channel.

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befitting reply, and seeks a proper investigation to bring the culprits to book. Asked about the lack of action over such incidents in the past, he asserts that his government’s performance is better than the previous government’s. He also sets up a separate committee to decide the quantum of compensation for the next-of-kin of the dead. The leader of the opposition tells another group of journalists that things were much better in their regime three years ago, and hope that people have learnt and will vote their party back to power. The next scene is the house of a working class woman (the protagonist) as she receives the news of the death of her husband, Ali, in the blast. The narrator wants to know why this happened, why all this is happening? What will she do now? Her son enters. Like so many young in the valley he loves to study, sees that as the ticket out. But he needs money to pay college fees or be thrown out. Next we see her selling vegetables in a boat in the famous boat market of Nagin and Dal lakes of Srinagar. A woman hires her to work in her house in the evenings. A narrator reports that working hard, she has sent her son to the medical college. The scene shifts to the college, where education is plagued by shutdowns because of the conflict between the jehadis and the armed forces. Exams may not be held. We return to the opening tableau. The leaders gloat over deaths and the young raise slogans for justice. The protagonist’s son is one of them. Her son is shot dead and she collects his body. The play ends with the beautiful song. The play showed the penetrative power of theatre by taking us into the very innards of the political situation, the heartlessness that accompanies war was highlighted with each person looking out for himself and trying to benefit from the war, as the life of the working class degenerates into a hell. They called it ‘mediatization’! The second play had what had already been hinted at, as its major theme - the grossness of the electronic media in the state. An expose of the dark seamy side, it showed the lengths to which TV channels go to improve their TRPs. The play opened with a TV set framing a newsreader giving out inane news about the valley, concluding joyously with a narration of a rosy picture of the return of ‘love’ in the valley. The love narrative arouses our interest as the newsreader wonders if the story of the love of a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl will bring love back into Srinagar, or will set their world on fire. The first scene started with the trope of the visit of a well-off Kashmiri Pandit girl to her old house in Srinagar. Her family had left years ago with the general movement of the Pandits to Jammu. The aged Muslim lady next

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door recognizes her, and welcomes her to her house. Introducing her to her son Adil, she wishes that not only the young pandit girl, but all pandits would return to the valley. The old woman’s speeches are filled with an explication of the economics of the valley (the bias of the group, which had a largish segment of Kashmiri pandits including some teachers from the university, was obvious, though the twist at the end considerably nuanced this perspective). The pandits’ exit, synonymous with a picture of the valley as an abode of gory violence in the national and global canvas, resulted in no big company wanting to invest in the development of the valley, and that made jobs extremely scarce for Kashmiri youth like her son. Also, the general lack of trust springing from the violence in Kashmir made it practically impossible for Kashmiri Muslim youth to find work in the rest of India. In an intimate gesture, she gives the Hindu girl an idol of Krishna, the Hindu deity, which the girl as a child used to carry around and play with and had forgotten. The pandit girl reciprocates her feelings and prays for a return to the erstwhile Kashmir, before going to the market with her son. We then see Adil in a corner of the stage with Arun, a journalist friend, telling him how much he loves a richer Hindu girl. He feels that the girl reciprocates, but he can’t proceed without having a decent job. And he bemoans that despite doing his master’s degree, he cannot even get a job that is for a matriculate, because there are very few jobs and those are with the government, and only for those with contacts or willing to give big bribes. The next scene was a comic one, set in the journalist friend’s office, with his Sardar boss berating him for not getting even one story that raises their TRPs. Making fun of everything he says, the boss threatens to fire him if he doesn’t get a good story at the earliest. Arun decides to pursue Adil’s story, a paean to love. A story of inter-religious love, of love enabling a Hindu pandit girl’s return to Srinagar, seeing it as a harbinger of real lasting peace between the two communities. That would surely raise TRPs, he feels. But his boss trashes his effort. He tells him stories of love and peace do not sell, they were only saleable twenty years ago. “Look at the world around you, Jammu-Kashmir, India-Pakistan, Hindu-Muslim, sagas of violence”, he says. The public demands only violence and unrest, and their channel must fuel this need to survive. Arun returns to office the next day with a twisted smile. His boss looks at his file and is happy, pats him on the back. As we wonder about the contents of the story, the newsreader comes onstage and starts reading news, as at the beginning of the play. It is a narrative of a gold-digger Muslim man who seduces an innocent, rich Hindu girl. An obvious distortion of Adil’s story, the pandit girl is his Aladdin’s lamp, and he will use her to better his future and get rid of his poverty and

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unemployment. The news reader sees the act as an example of ‘love Jihad’26 saying that it is people like Adil, and acts like his, that stoke communal fires. Is Adil a foreign agent, are foreign powers converting and using innocent Hindu girls? The play concluded with a pageant, girls carrying placards showing the quick rise of the channel’s TRPs. Using the critique of the electronic media, both as the dominant saga and also an entry point into so much that was happening in the valley, theatre had dissected the use of this conflict, and the necessity of keeping it stoked if interests that have become powerful in the state are to remain empowered. The third play was the most revolutionary. Using a complex, peregrinating, and deliberately incomplete plot, it covered many dominant issues that beset the state, issues of religious bigotry, of migrations and displacements, of the debilitating impact of extremism and the pervasive, continuation of army atrocities on the inhabitants of the valley. But more important, the performance ferreted out many issues that lie simmering beneath so-called dominant issues. The analysis was gendered, and included focus on same sex relationships (incendiary, as it was both a lesbian tale and one between two girls of opposing religions) and of the brutal, ritual rape of women, at times of entire villages, in times of war and strife. War is most often fought as much on the bodies of the women of conflicting sides as on land. At the fulcrum was the love bond between Mediha and Naina (Muslim and Hindu, respectively), and their journey together through various scenes was used for the exposition of themes. It began in childhood with boys playing cricket excluding the girls, and the two of them sitting in a corner singing songs. Mediha wants to play cricket but is ridiculed by the boys. Naina loses her temper and gets into fisticuffs with the boys and is pulled away by others. We move to their entering college. The boys, young men now, sit and talk about the uselessness of being educated as there are no jobs in the state, and the fact that people in the rest of India refuse to employ anyone from Jammu or Kashmir. The two girls enter, discussing that they are going to take the same papers so that they can be together always. One of the boys whistles at them and Naina walks up to him and slaps him in the face. Spurned, he angrily tells the others that the two are obviously lesbians. Another, Yusuf, scoffs and confesses his love for Mediha, challenging that he will propose to her and she will accept. He does that, asking Mediha to 26

Love Jihad: Really an example of Hindutva followers’ Islamophobia. They believe that Muslim men target Hindu women for conversion to Islam (using love, marriage, coercion, etc.) in the larger conspiracy of the war waged by Muslims against Hindus.

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accompany him. Naina is furious hearing about the avowal of love, Mediha placates her and this brings about their first declaration of love in the form a same sex love song. Next we see the girls in the context of the violent Kashmir liberation movement. The protests are followed by crackdowns and the protesters are shot dead by the forces. Central and state governments, the opposition, foreign powers, they all instigate violence and add to the mayhem. In the personal story, Naina loses her parents in the riots and, distraught, takes shelter in Mediha’s house where their love becomes stronger. From this point, the play took diverse modes, with the girls at times acting as narrators, playing off each other (in the Dastan goi mode) and at times, giving fleshedout enactments. Naina describes in detail the bliss she found in Mediha’s arms in her house. Mediha gives the other side, how her parents were suspicious of their friendship and her mother saw it as a disease that needed cure. They are taken to village quacks when Mediha refuses to get married. Feeling that the society in which they live is really ill, they run away together. War between nations, and between jihadis and army is going on in the valley. Village upon village is being destroyed. Young boys are killed, young men are given the choice to either join and help (by both sides in times of war) or die. Women and girls and old men survive. And then there are the half-widows, 27 women who spend their lives waiting for their husbands, never knowing whether they are alive or dead after being taken by the jehadis or the armed forces. The two reach such a village which is almost totally constituted of women. They form a collective that tries to survive by weaving shawls together. An interesting aspect was the drag part of this scene. The village collective was formed primarily of boys, swaggering young men really, wallowing in their masculinity. As the facilitator told us, many of them had problems with the lesbian-themed story at the beginning, but the girls’ word had prevailed. A change had occurred in the workshops, and the enthusiasm with which they played women and looked the bit with their colourful dupattas was exhilarating. 28 They asserted later that this play had made them feel more, and understand better, the predicament of being women in the midst of war in the state.

27

Half widows. A term used for women in Kashmir whose husbands have disappeared, or gone missing, and there is no confirmation whether they are dead or alive. The state can last for years, in many cases decades. 28 It was nice to know from their facilitator (a girl) that they really fought over their dupattas (long Indian scarves), with each wanting the brighter, in male lingo, the more ‘feminine’ colours. The performers were already shedding their biases and getting into a developmental mode, possibly even without realizing it.

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The plot proceeded. The village women are grateful to Mediha and Naina for enabling them to survive the ravages. Benevolent patriarchs, they seek to reward them in the best way that patriarchy knows, by getting them married to suitable boys from other villages. Learning about their relationship, some are horrified, but others feel that they have no right to be judgmental, especially considering what all they have done for the village. The village, like many villages in remote corners of the valley, is attacked by armed men, and all women are subjected to horrifying rape. In what was truly a brilliant move, the actors refused to identify the rapists. Were they from armed forces or the jihadis? From this side of the border or that side? The questions are mouthed as much by the characters as by the audience. The focus is on the suffering of the women. They were the spoils of war. And they were the target of revenge and teaching the opposite side a lesson in times of conflict. Rape was given a theatrical geste;29 all the actors turned around and clapped their hands. Life went on. Putting the rape aside, all survivors, including the two girls, begin to piece their lives together. And mimicking the flow of life, the play stopped, leaving us seeking, wanting more in every way. Mature, hard-hitting theatre, the three plays spoke from inside. They showed how the acute suffering of the people in the state of war is milked by nations, by religions and by the media. The callousness that surrounds war left many in the audience reeling and brought alive aspects of war that we analyze in the coldness of theory, but never stock in experience as these participants had done. I conclude this section with a very different experience of directing workshop theatre in strife. The setting is the stunning valley of Sonamarg,30 the producers are the Jammu and Kashmir police, and the players are 14 ‘stone pelters’ from Sopore.31 The theme is rehabilitation of the players and their joining the ‘mainstream’. This could have been a negation of theatre, a mere endorsement exercise, but it turned out to be a powerful variant on the workshop theatre form, adding resonance to the limits of theatre.

Stone pelting: The historical context Through the passing decades of pandies’ interventions, the state of war in Kashmir had continued unabated. Its dynamics did not change, and it was 29 A

theatrical gesture which has connotative value. See sections on Brecht. ancient town, once an important point in the silk trade to China. A stunning locale, and therefore a tourist attraction. 31 A major town of Kashmir, about 50kms (30 miles) from Srinagar. A major market center for the apple trade of Kashmir. 30 An

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impacted upon by all ramifications: India versus Pakistan; central government versus state government; Indian armed forces versus liberation forces of the state, and Muslim versus Hindu. The change in the central government composition did not make a dent in the deteriorating relationship there. 32 In a strife continuing for decades there are always flashpoints that stick in the minds of those involved. Active stone pelting, as a means of resistance and dissent, enters the vocabulary of the state after the Sopore incident of 1993 when Indian security forces opened fire, killing 55 protesting Kashmiri Muslims in the town of Sopore. The place and the act slowly assumed the nature of a performance ritual, as inhabitants of Sopore and neighbouring areas would turn up on the anniversary of the massacre and pelt the forces with stones. But the ritual performance got violent as the soldiers started to get badly injured. Many of the youngsters (as we learnt in this workshop), some as young as 14-15 and others in their twenties, had perfected the task of stone pelting, hurling stones with great velocity 500 - 600 meters away and causing real harm to those aimed at. Matters were exacerbated with suspicions that the movement was getting funding from Pakistan and being fuelled by drugs and drug money. The security forces retaliated with gunfire. In 2007-8, reports of young people dying in these confrontations began to surface in Delhi, and even abroad. In the face of the opprobrium, the guns were abandoned only to be replaced by pellet guns.33 The results were no less disastrous. The pellet spray led to maiming, and above that, blinding of many Kashmiri youth. Hospitals were full of young boys undergoing treatment for the removal of pellets, and shrapnel was blinding and killing. The Jammu and Kashmir administration, and the police, were drawing clear lines. DCP Khan, our host in Sonamarg, was clear that he would go all-out to help the young Muslim boys from Sopore, Srinagar and adjoining areas. He was encouraging them to get into sports, such as volleyball, football, and cricket (until then there were very few Kashmiris in the national teams, but the Srinagar Centre has been responsible for getting players from the state into the national limelight, a lot of Kashmiris in IPL league and the national cricket team have been trained under the aegis of Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association at the 32 The NDA rule, especially the second term, seems particularly bad for the state with the abrogation of Article 370, but earlier, the sagas of violence, and particularly the internationally-derided use of pellet guns started in the state in 2010 under the second term of Congress-led UPA. 33 Pellet guns - a form of shotgun - were first used by the police as a non-lethal weapon to quell protests in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2010. They are usually used for hunting animals. The gun fires a cluster of small, round-shaped pellets, which resemble iron balls, with high velocity.

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Sher-e-Kashmir stadium Srinagar). DCP Khan was ready to provide all kinds of help to enable their studies (he was particularly keen on Kashmiri youth becoming MBAs, engineers, and doctors, and getting admission into the best colleges in the country). However, he asserted that if you pelt a stone and injure a policeman or a soldier, reprisals resulted, and they would be heavy. Constant surveillance to ferret out and arrest the stone pelters, however young they might be, had become a norm, as deduced in the workshop. In the political theatre we had two Brechtian gestes; the stone pelter and the pellet gun.

The Rationale Pursuing an all-out rehabilitation drive for the young men who were taking a confrontationist route against the Indian state, particularly through stone pelting, DCP Khan34, with his impeccable credentials as a nationalist, along with being a Muslim, had a significant part in this exercise. He had contacted a colleague from Yakjah to explore the possibility of seeking help via a theatre workshop, and pandies‘ were called in. The workshop was kept in Sonamarg (an eight hour journey from Sopore and Srinagar) in an isolated boarding school. It was an ‘under wraps’ exercise and the facilitators were two members from pandies‘, one from Yakjah, and a psychologist also associated with Yakjah. Having worked for decades for the Muslim victims in the valley, we felt that the worst fate was that of the women who lost their husbands and then their sons to the state or extremist bullets. We agreed to this workshop after considerable discussions with our partner organization. The desire was experimental and unsure: to try and protect the young who were quite likely to end up on the other side of the army gun if they pursued the course of stone pelting, and we were also seeking, as in the best traditions of workshop theatre, a change in the mindset of those in power, to try and effect some policy changes

34

The names of all participants have been changed.

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Fig 9-4: Sonamarg, theatre games from the perspective of those to be ‘reformed’, beginning with putting those perspectives on the table.

The Spectacle The facilitators were already there. They arrived in a caged truck, guarded by the police. You would have thought these were dangerous criminals. But what emerged from the truck was a bunch of self-conscious young men, boys really. Swagger was prominent, some cultivated, and some real. Only two of the 12 were still under investigation/interrogation, the rest were under police surveillance for suspicion. We employed ice breakers: Bomb and shield (played in the beautiful meadow), sell - not sell, truth and lie. We were moving closer and closer into their stories. The DCP and his deputy, Aslam (another Muslim cop with an enviable list of achievements in the state) laid down the objectives. Therapy and inner transformation (the term continues to kill me) were our guiding concepts, and the young men were told to make the best of this opportunity to learn acting skills and also make themselves better humans. They were also told, for possibly the nth time, that they would be supported in every way even after they left Sonamarg, but if they dared to injure a police or army personnel, hell would open for them.

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The Process The process continued, the stories were anecdotal, but there was always a veil. The young were very careful when the police personnel were around, they were sure dossiers were being made of their comments. Resentment against India flowed right through. Narratives of being denied admission to colleges on account of being Kashmiri Muslim, of being labelled terrorists by ordinary people and profiled as the same by the police, of being abused and threatened, and a target of suspicion at best, and of hatred at worst. The players included Atif. One of his eyes had been blown out by an army gun. An extremely loving youth, the experience had left him traumatized in many ways. His elder brother was also among the stone pelters and he had died of an army bullet. Atif had gone on the same path, and the pellet gun had left him one-eyed. He always wore dark glasses, and was quite docile in his words; it was difficult to make out what he was thinking behind those glasses. There was Kranti, an assumed name by which he was known in the dissenting and official circles of Sopore, he was among the older ones in the workshop. True to his name, Revolution, was the most vociferous and condemnatory of Indian attitudes towards Kashmiri Muslims. And he hated the slightest insinuation that the stone pelters were doing it for money or under the influence of drugs. He felt that was the combined conspiracy of the armed forces of Indian state and of Kashmir police, both sold out to the Indian government. We looked for little Munawar, he couldn’t be found. Then one of his friends showed him sleeping peacefully under his bed. That's where he slept, under constant threat of being picked up by the army or the police. He looked in his early teens and younger than the rest. He was the dreaded ‘Brett Lee’, we were told secretly, and forces still weren’t sure. Brett Lee was legendary for his arm and his ability to generate tremendous pace while throwing a stone and never missing his aim. He would always sleep under the bed. When the police caught up with him, they weren’t sure on seeing this small boy, if he could possibly hurl with that force and be the dreaded Lee. He had been put under surveillance. Stories were evolving around the workshop too, and probably the most interesting was Aslam’s. He was a celebrated cop too, the first from Jammu and Kashmir police to be given anti-terror training by the Indian government. He would keep a tough, distant veneer while among the young whom he was guarding, but he was getting affected by their stories. And one day, sitting with a drink with the facilitator, he blurted his own truth. When he had gone to Delhi for the training, it was deemed a great honour. He had just been married and wanted to get his wife along for the six-month

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training. Understandably, he did not want to live in the barracks. He told us he had tried his best to find a house for himself but nobody in the city was ready to have them as he was a Kashmiri Muslim, even though he was a celebrated cop and trusted enough by the Indian government to be selected for this training. The idea of ‘silent’ theatre went best with our players. Not using words absolved them of what they were saying. We split the group into two; members of Yakjah joined separate groups and the movement towards performance started. Going along, one group came up with a short performance of a young boy taken away from stone pelting by the intervention of his maid (almost a family member) who instigates the family members and his close friends to threaten him with a boycott if he joins the pelters. Conflicted at first, the boy comes round to be with his people and abjures stone pelting. Nuances in the second play pushed the meanings and potential of theatre. This group had the older, more aware youth. They opted against the use of words, and gave us a series of small scenes. The small silent theatre graphed the various stages of the young people’s attraction to stone pelting. Scenes set in classrooms, frustration in the world outside, anger at the deaths of their friends, and stone pelting were followed by scenes of arrests and being brought for therapy and to rejoin classes again thereafter. But their theatre performed the impossible, it turned the form against itself. Most of the performance continued at an even pace - descriptive and naturalistic - but the stone pelting scene was a rupture (it was done twice, once actually, and once in description). Suddenly the stage came alive, the energy levels became electric. The two youths performing acted deliberately and slowly, and did it more than once. They were really enjoying in the performance what they were condemning otherwise. And as we shut our eyes after the performance, all we remembered was this visual. Therapy theatre was demonstrating the limitation of having a preconceived agenda. It was showing the limitation of its goal. The question stood in bold relief, is rehabilitation possible if the cause and the conditions of the divestiture remain unaltered? Before leaving Sonamarg, I asked Atif: “You have lost your elder brother and you have lost your left eye to stone pelting, will you go back to Sopore and still pelt stones?” “No” was the prompt reply from this loving boy, who added with an impish smile, “I will go to Budgam35 and do the same, they will catch me in Sopore”.

35 A

town close to Srinagar, just about 9kms, 6 miles from Srinagar.

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A new dimension to the negotiation with the state was added. Were they forced to perform? Did they have the choice of saying no to coming to the workshop? And once they did, it was some performance, really for those in authority to see how much they had lost, and how far they were from registering in the hearts and minds of this zone.

A SUMMING UP / AN OPENING OUT

The ludic journey has taken us playing through performing, studying, researching, teaching, and writing theatre. It is a specific, experience-based journey, but it has a vastness and a depth that is just about beginning to reveal itself. The one thing that is clear is that creating theatre is an exercise in seeking an alternate way of life, constantly activist and constantly developmental. Challenging the hegemonic crust, showing it to be the veneer that it is, theatre is the voice of all the diversity that lies beneath. Inimical to the state, in its purer, stronger, manifestations it questions all forms of authority, and beyond that, exposes the fallacies that constitute the very framing of authority. It is the reply to authoritarianism, and at best, often the only means to express the perspective of the unheard. It leads from the front against oppression and repression and becomes a vehicle for the two rudimentary rights of all thinking beings, the right to say ‘no’ and the right to question ‘why’. Hated by religious bigots, theatre is against the orthodox and the patriarchal, and also against the ossification of the radical, showing progress to be a verb in progress rather than an arrived noun. It is a performance that constantly seeks to outperform the deals dealt out to it. A form existing as text, theory, and praxis from times immemorial, theatre integrally ties in with the histories of its times. Wallowing in many such oxymorons, theatre is historical in being located in its specific history and has a trans-historical dimension in being the perennial naysayer. And as the world sinks to newer levels of fascist authoritarianism, and detentions, arrests and persecutions abound, theatre reverts to metonymies, fantasies, dystopias and historical allegories to keep the fight going. All kinds of decadence are its target, from the toxic masculine to the religious bigot to capitalist power, theatre can, and does, oppose them all. Its biggest enemy remains the fascist, authoritarian, capitalist state in all its avatars, and it is possibly the best weapon against it. The provisional aspect of its outcomes makes it capable of dealing with the ossified layers of its world and seeking alternate questions and meanings, continuing to show that the meanings that are rooted in hegemonic formations erode in time. An incomplete and malleable form, its multilayerity gives it the flexibility to explore diverse facets of the same reality.

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The capitalist and the fascist seek to keep us entrapped in cocoons. Theatre, however, links people, it is a reaching out, and its transboundary aspect makes it possible for it to acquire an international dimension and combat the internationalism of the market. The history of theatre evidences its relative insularity to the forces of capitalism. After a capitalist takeover of our world, clearly since the 19th century in the west, and then in India, all over the world there exist traditions of theatre that prioritize working in the margins, and acquire a razor edge in showing the political through the prism of the peripheral. Critiquing the money-oriented world is where realism began, and the kind of distancing that left-wing theatre creates from this orientation takes the critique much further. In our world, proscenium theatre can serve as a point of intersection between dominant processes and dominant policy making on the one hand, and the needs of the margins on the other. The pandies’ experience shows this across the class and gender divides, and in undermining notions of dominance and supremacism. Its strength lies in creating mutually performative playful zones where the audience goes along with the performing unit and sees through its own blindness to realize how easy it is to pass a lie as truth and vice versa. The creation of a developmental zone of shared ideology between the unit and the audience is the key to successful proscenium theatre. The challenge of theatre becomes to outperform and reach out to the class and power other. In its taking on of hegemony, it has the potential to be confrontationist. The challenge to regression can be outright or with subterfuge, as seen in the use of Manto by pandies’. Negotiating with those in power, the proscenium is also the space to impact the young privileged, to impact enough to use better, more inclusive paths, enabling us to make better decisions for the future. It is the perfect site for advocacy - social, medical, and even legislative. Its effectivity gains manifold if the performing unit makes a conscious effort to overcome, or at least mitigate, the class barrier, to get underprivileged voices in. This enables the margins to better penetrate hegemonic structures and provide leads to better courses of development. With workshop-based theatre, we move into a zone that is probably most conducive to alternate formulations of amelioration and development. It opens the doors between the mainstream and its margins and enables those stories to come in, and it’s no longer a diseased margin that needs cure but a vital, throbbing entity with its own claims to be heard and developed on its own terms. This is the real site of out-performing, setting the problems and getting possible processes for solutions. The age-old problem is reframed in bold frieze - can those sitting in positions of power redress the problems of the disempowered? Can they even identify the problems

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holistically? On the margins, it gives the space to voice its position about its problems and judge back the power structures that profile it. One needs to give in to alterity, to at least a feeling that some of our fundamentally held beliefs can be wrong, or at the very least not pertaining to those away from the mainstream. When we look at the workshops with the youth in Nithari, and with the platform boys, the certitudes of dominant classes get irrevocably displaced. The participants perform in all senses of the verb. And via proscenium theatre, these voices penetrate the mainstream. They raise new questions and review old problems. Co-ordinates of family, religion, and a good life do not hold any certitude for those in the margins. It stands bare that the system’s ameliorative processes are for the dominant only, and those in the margins continue to be used and exploited. And there is the special relationship between the facilitator and the participants that forms the core of understanding needs and moving towards possible methodologies of development. Theatre assumes penetrative insights as one creates with communities in zones of conflict and war. Its potential in zones of war, not simply of usual peace processes but of understanding the conflict and seeking solutions from the engaged parties together is still untapped, as shown by the Kashmir experiences. The pioneer process showed possibilities in theatre, at par with workshopping at Nithari and with platform children. In zones of war, its characteristics become stronger and more capable, the defiance of an authoritative perspective, of not taking of one discourse as the final statement, the fluidity of negotiating binaries becomes a mode of understanding and bringing opposite positions closer. Again, voices that are totally removed in times of war, those of women and children, come to the fore and add perspectives to what is felt, and what is required. The process of theatre repeatedly showed that beneath the veneer of hegemonic dominant voices the suppressed voices wanted a cessation, of war, of conflict, of misery, of one and all. The incompleteness of theatre matches the incompleteness of the process, the bumps, the changes, the veering possibilities. Penetrating the chest-thumping veneer, it seeks out the vulnerability and takes us often, as elsewhere, into desire and imagination, the two sources capable of taking on most conflicts. Suspicion and hatred slowly give way to older traditions of love and togetherness. And there is potential for turning any, even loose, agenda on its head, as the workshop with the Sopore pelters showed. There is a kind of immediacy to the process. The form dips so much into the participants’ collective thought process and depends so much on what emerges from there, that it is this collectivity that at that moment forms the narrative.

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All political formations seek to prescribe or proscribe theatre, and theatre exists in subversion, subterfuge, and open rebellion. Closer to our understanding of historical processes, theatre’s role has been more caustic as nations veer towards a right-swinging, fascist combination of patriarchy, religion, and capitalism, theatre has had to bite in hard. The proscenium theatre has played, and continues to play, its vital role, but it’s really theatre that emanates from various communities and underserved social formations that the more disturbing and relevant modes of theatre emerge. Arousing our critical faculties theatre goes places. The whole holistic mythos of the bourgeois success narrative from school to profession; the bigotry of all religions; legal, medical and social interventions - all are under its purview. And creating unique developmental zones in our societies it nudges to outperform ourselves, look beyond the decadent ideological frames of the worlds we inhabit, and seek out, or rather make, newer, better worlds.

APPENDIX 1 PANDIES’ THEATRE

pandies' theatre is a Delhi (India) based group. It was registered (under the Societies Act 1860) in September 1993. Workshop theatre: Creating with the young to make space for marginalized voices Areas Delhi and surrounding villages Rajasthan Jammu and Kashmir Haryana and Punjab Awareness campaigns Child rights Rights of incarcerated men and women Rights of sex workers LGBTIA+ rights International Renown areas (Conferences, Seminars, Presentations) Platform Boys Children of Nithari Conflict zones of Kashmir Proscenium Performances: Adaptations/classics Macbeth, 1993 Womanscape, 1993 (inspired by short stories of Doris Lessing) The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, 1994 (Bertolt Brecht) Ghosts, 1994 (Ibsen) Beautiful Images, 1995 (from Simone de Beauvoir – Les Belle Images) Waiting For Lefty, 2004 (Clifford Odets) The Balcony, 2014, (Jean Genet) The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, 2018 (Bertolt Brecht) The Spectres of Shakespeare, 2017 (reweaves the magic of The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Macbeth)

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Medea, 2019 (Euripides) The Good Person of Setzuan, 2020 (Bertolt Brecht) Presentation of original scripts The Story of Meera, 1995 Call her a Witch, 1996 Mannequins, 1997 She’s MAD, 1997 Veils, 1998 Visitations, 1999 (K)nots, 2000 Cleansing, 2002 Not Inside Us, 2004 Margins, 2006 Danger Zones, 2007 The Curse Conquered, 2008 Jab We Elect, 2009 Wed-Lock, 2009 Sarkari Feminism, 2010 Offtrack, 2012 Seven - 2015, (Readings of the internationally acclaimed play Seven in Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jammu and Delhi) Crooked Kala(a)m, 2016 Ismat’s Love Stories, 2017 Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan Da Sardar, 2018 International Performance Offtrack, Castillo Theater, Broadway (at Performing the World) in New York in October 2012. Cleansing, Contact Theatre, Manchester (at CTW theatre festival) in Manchester in January 2002. Cyber theatre Till the Day I Die, 2020 (Odets) Machinal, 2020 (Sophie Treadwell) Relevant Publications by pandies’ members Sanjay Kumar Kumar, Sanjay. 2019. “A Child’s Act”. Surviving on the Edge. Ed. Sonpar and Kanwar. (205-220). Chandigarh: SAGE-Yoda Press. Kumar, Sanjay. 2013. “Performing on the Platform”. TDR: The Drama Review 57:4 (T220). (95-119). New York: New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Kumar, Sanjay. 2013. “Can failed theatre enable consciousness?”. Consciousness, Theatre, Literature and the Arts, 2013. Ed. Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe. (55-82). Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Kumar, Sanjay. 2012. “Dramatising an Evolving Consciousness: Theatre with Nithari’s Children”. Consciousness, Theatre, Literature and the Arts 2011. Ed. Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe. (170-199). Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Kumar, Sanjay. 2012. “The Good Person of Szechwan: Political, Dramaturgical and Pedagogic Concerns”. Modern European Drama: Ibsen to Beckett. (78-95). Ed. Swati Pal. New Delhi, India: Pencraft International. Kumar, Sanjay. 2004. “pandies’ theatre”. TDR: The Drama Review (Volume 48 Number 3). (79-95). New York: New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Online: Two features recently on-line in Borderless Journal 2. https://borderlessjournal.com/2022/01/14/dramatising-an-evolvingconsciousness-theatre-with-nitharischildren/?fbclid=IwAR1wBXoqg2R3H_uCmp9_wujycy4_75XOQLIrs GF3_hXJmeM3zlwSmln7Q9Q (Republished, January 2022) 3. https://borderlessjournal.com/2021/12/14/bridge-over-troubledwaters/?fbclid=IwAR3EOl6-SZxyDrU5TGDFNhZnBhedMjos98exZw64XayObebBTHADdAKQuw (interview, December 2021) Anuradha Marwah Marwah, Anuradha. 2022. “Raging in Delhi and Rajasthan: Post-show audience discussions of Medea”. New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 1. (75-90). London: Cambridge University Press. Marwah, Anuradha. 2021. “When Covid Sets the Stage…”. Voices: Voices of Interdisciplinary Critical Exploration (Volume 11, Issue 2). (3-10). Jaipur: Rawat Publications. Marwah, Anuradha. 2021. “From Euripides' Medea (431 BCE) to Tagore's Kabuliwala (1892): A Theatre Journey for Justice and Fairness”. Voices: Voices of Interdisciplinary Critical Exploration (Volume 9 Issue 1). (3134). Jaipur: Rawat Publications.

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Anuradha Marwah in conversation with Anubhav Pradhan and Sonali Jain, 'Theatre, Feminism and Society: Notes from a Practitioner' in Literature, Language and the Classroom: Essays for Promodini Verma Ed. Anubhav Pradhan and Sonali Jain. London and New York: Routledge, 2022. Sanjay Kumar: sanjaykumar.cloud Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pandies1857 More on pandies’ theatre: pandiestheatre.com

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Bibliography

Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto. Lucknow: Rekhta, 2013. https://www.rekhta.org/authors/saadat-hasan-manto/stories Manto, Saadat Hasan. Manto: Selected Short Stories. Translated Aatish Taseer. Gurugram: Penguin Random House India, 2014. Manto, Saadat Hasan. Why I write: Essays by Saadat Hasan Manto. Translated Aakar Patel. Chennai: Tranquebar Press, 2014. Manto, Saadat Hasan. The Armchair Revolutionary and Other Sketches. Translated Khalid Hasan. New Delhi: Leftward Books, 2016. Odets, Clifford. Waiting For Lefty and Other Plays. New York: Grove Press,1993. Pradhan, Sudhi. Marxist Cultural Movements in India: Chronicles and Documents. Calcutta: Santi Pradhan, 1985. Treadwell, Sophie. Machinal (1938). Reprint. London: Nick Herns Books, 2014. Varadpande, M.L. Traditions of Indian Theatre. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1979. Virani, Pinki. Bitter Chocolate. New Delhi: Penguin, 2000.

Further Reading Allain, Paul and Harvie, Jen. The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance. New York: Routledge, 2006. Balflour, Michael. Theatre in Prison: Theory and Practice, Bristol: Intellect Books, 2004. Bernardi, Claudio Ed. War Theatres and Actions for Peace: Community Based Dramaturgy and the Conflict Scenes. Milano: Euresis Edizioni, 2002. Bharucha, Rustom. Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture. London: Routledge, 1993. ʊ. The Theatre of Kanhailal. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1998. ʊ. The Politics of Cultural Practice. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2001. Bhatia, Nandi. Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance: Theater and Politics in Colonial and Postcolonial India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004. Bial, Henry. The Performance Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2004. Boal, Augusto. The Rainbow of Desire. Trans. Jackson, Adrian. London: Routledge, 1995. ʊ. Games for Actors and Non-Actors. Trans. 2nd edition, Jackson, Adrian. London: Routledge, 2002. Brook, Peter. Empty Spaces. London: Methuen, 1968.

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ʊ. The Shifting Point. London: Harper and Row, 1987. Cohen-Cruz, Jan Ed. Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology. London: Routledge, 1998. Delgado, M. and Svich, C. Theatre in Crisis: Performance Manifestos for a New Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. Deshpande, Sudhanva. Theatre of the Streets: The Jana Natya Manch Experience. Delhi: Jan Natya Manch, 2007. Dolan, Jill. Geographies of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and Performance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2001. Drain, Richard. Twentieth-century Theatre: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 1995. Farfan, Penny. Women, Modernism, and Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Fischer-Lichte, Erika. Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring Forms of Political Theatre. London: Routledge, 2005. Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge. New York: Pantheon, 1980. Fuoss, Kirk W. Striking Performances/Performing Strikes. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011. Gainor, J. Ellen. Imperialism and Theatre. London: Routledge, 1995. Gómez-Peña, Guillermo. ETHNO-TECHNO: Writings on Performance, Activism, and Pedagogy. New York: Routledge, 2005. Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1968. Hyman, Colette A. Staging Strikes: Workers’ Theatre and the American Labor Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997. Mann, Emily and Roessel David. Political Stages: Plays That Shaped a Century. New York: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2002. Kershaw, Baz The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention. London: Routledge,1992. Madison, D. Soyini and Hamera, Judith, Ed. The Sage Handbook of Performance Studies. California: Sage Publications, 2006. Milling, Jane and Ley, Graham. Modern Theories of Performance: From Stanislavsky to Boal. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Prentki, Tim and Preston, Sheila Ed. The Applied Theatre Reader. New York: Routledge, 2009. Renault, Janelle G and Roach Joseph R. Ed. Critical Theory and Performance, Revised and Enlarged Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. Samuel, Raphael, MacColl, Ewan and Cosgrave, Stuart. Theatres of the Left 1880 – 1935: Workers’ Theatre Movements in Britain and America. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.

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Bibliography

Schechner, Richard. Performance Theory, (Revised and updated). London: Routledge, 1988. ʊ. Appel, Willa Ed. By Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990. ʊ. The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance. London: Routledge, 1993. ʊ. Performance Studies: An introduction, New York: Routledge, 2002. Schinina, Guglielmo, Bernardi, Claudio and Dragone, Monica Ed. War Theatre and Actions for Peace: Community – Based Dramaturgy and the Conflict Scenes. Milano: Euresis Edition, 2002. Schlossman, David. Actors and Activists: Politics, Performance, and Exchange Among Social Worlds. New York: Routledge, 2002. Schneider, Rebecca and Cody, Gabrielle H. Redirection: A Theoretical and Practical Guide. London: Routledge, 2002. Sinfield, Alan. Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theatre in the Twentieth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Stanislavski, Konstantin. Selected Works. Compiled Korneva, Oksana. Moscow: Raduga, 1984. Thompson, James, Ed. Prison Theatre: Practices and Perspectives. London: Kingsley, 1998. ʊ. Applied Theatre: Bewilderment and Beyond. London: Peter Lang, 2003. Turner, Victor. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: PAJ publications, 1983. Williams, Raymond. The Politics of Modernism. London: Verso, New York: Routledge, 1980.

Relevant Journals Asian Theatre Journal. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press. New Theatre Quarterly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Janam Samvad. Delhi: Jan Natya Manch. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. Cambridge: MIT Press. Rang Parsang. New Delhi: National School of Drama. Sangeet Natak. New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi. Seagull Quarterly. Calcutta: Seagull Books. Studies in Theatre and Performance. London: Intellect Books. TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies. New York: New York University Press. Theatre India: NSD Theatre Journal. New Delhi: National School of Drama. Theatre journal. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Theatre Research International. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Theatre Studies. Columbus, Ohio: Theatre Research Institute, Ohio State University. Theatre Topics. NY: John Hopkins University Press.

INDEX

A

Burbage, Richard · 29

AAG · 20 Adorno, Theodor · 55 agitprop · 48-51, 54 Odet, Clifford Waiting for Lefty  51,54 Appadurai, Arjun · 113, 119 Aristotle · 5, 116

C

B

D

Babri Masjid · 32, 42, 44, 56 Beauvoir, Simon de · 14, 22 Beckett, Samuel · 54-55 Endgame · 55 Waiting for Godot · 54 Bendit, Daniel Cohn · 113 Bharucha, Rustom · 113, 119 Bhattacharya, Bijon Nabanna · 7 Bitter Chocolate · 22 Boal, Augusto · 25, 48, 114, 116118, 122 Forum Theatre · 117 Theatre of the Oppressed · 116 Brecht, Bertolt · 25, 45, 48, 51-55, 122 A Short Organum of Theatre · 53 alienation effect · 53 epic theatre · 25 Mother Courage · 53 The Caucasian Chalk Circle · 53 The Good Person of Setzuan · 52, 53 The Life of Galileo Galilei · 53 British Council Child Rights · 125

Deleuze, Gilles · 113 Dramatic Performances Act · 6 Drury Lane · 6

Capitalism and Schizophrenia · 113 Chugtai, Ismat · 64, 68 Commedia dell’arte · 27, 110 Covent Garden · 6 CTW · 40

F Fielding, Henry · 6 Fo, Dario · 48, 109-112, 122 Manuale Minimo Dell’Attore · 109 Mistero Buffo · 109 The Accidental Death of an Anarchist · 109 Freire, Paulo · 114-116 Pedagogy of the Oppressed · 114 G Genet, Jean. 55 The Balcony · 55 globalization and deterritorialization · 112 Greek theatre · 26, 116 Comedy and Tragedy · 5, 116 Euripides’ Medea · 26 Sophocles’ Antigone · 26

Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play Guattari, Félix · 113

Hashmi, Safdar · 8

Dr. Faustus · 27-28 Marx. 52 Theses on Feuerbach · 52 McCarthy · 51 Mental Health Act · 20

I

N

Ibsen · 14 Indian Folk Theatre burrakatha · 7 dastaan goi · 123 jatra · 7 nautanki · 7, 123 tamasha · 7 Ionesco, Eugene · 54 IPTA · 7-8

NACO · 16 New Criticism · 54, 114 Nirbhaya case · 24

H

251

O Odet, Clifford. 51, 54 Till the day I Die · 51 Waiting for Lefty · 54 Offtrack 162-204

J P Janam · 8 Jonson, Ben 27 The Alchemist · 27, 28-29 L Lambarde, William · 5 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich · 119 Lessing, Doris · 14 Licensing Act · 6 M Manto, Saadat Hasan · 63-108 Above, Below and In Between · 74 Behind the Wild Cactus/Reeds · 66 Cold as Ice · 83 Open up · 91 Pick Pocket · 70 Ram Khilavan · 85 Smell/Odour/Fragrance · 79 The Dog of Tithwal · 93 The Testament · 88 Toba Tek Singh · 99 Marlowe, Christopher. 27

Pandies' proscenium performances 11-45, 57-60, 61-108, 162-204 Beautiful Images · 29 Cleansing · 34, 39, 40, 45, 242 Crooked Kala(a)m · 64, 108 Danger Zones · 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 242 Ghosts · 14, 15, 16, 18, 29, 241 Ismat’s Love Stories · 108 Macbeth · 14 Mannequins · 16, 18, 29, 242 Margins · 40, 41, 44, 45, 191, 242 Not Inside Us · 3, 9 Offtrack · 162-204 Partial Interest · 40, 45 Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan Da Sardar · 68-108 Sarkari Feminism · 40, 45, 46, 242 She’s MAD · 20, 29, 41, 242 The Beautiful Images · 14 The Good Person of Setzuan · 56, 57

252 The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui · 56 Veils · 10, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 125, 242 Visitations · 31, 32, 33, 45, 242 Womanscape · 14 Pandies' workshop theatre 109-236 Kashmir Bhaderwah campus · 224 First foray in Nagin region · 212 getting the warring communities to perform together · 210 the context of the conflict · 208, 210 the different forays · 211 the stone pelters · 230 theatre in war and conflict · 205 workshop in Gulmarg/Srinagar · 219 Youth theatre festival, Dilli Haat · 217 Nithari Carnage · 128 the media · 131 trauma workshops · 133 3 shows · 132 India Habitat Centre · 134 Haq · 140 American Center · 142 Platform children terms and context · 148 structure and method · 122 3 towns · 152 Kota · 153 Ajmer · 156 Alipur · 157 some realizations · 159 Differences between theatre with platform children and Nithari youth · 150 Facilitators · 150 Tihar Jail · 126 Nirmal Chhaya · 127

Index Yamuna Pushta · 125 Performance theory Conquergood, Dwight · 114 Reinelt, Janelle · 114 Schechner, Richard · 114 Playback theatre · 34 Premchand · 64, 65 Proscenium theatre (evolution) · 12 Q Queen Elizabeth · 5 Acts against performers · 26 R Ramé, Franca · 109-112 A Woman Alone · 111 An Arab Woman Speaks · 111 Rape · 111 Renaissance · 5, 26 the giullari and the jongleur · 26 S Sangeet Natak Akademi · 8 Shakespeare, William. 5-6 Richard II · 5, 6 Titus Andronicus · 67 Shaktishalini · 20, 41 Stanislavsky · 122 Suffrage drama · 48-49 Hamilton, Cicely · 49 Robins, Elizabeth · 49 T The Indian Call Girls · 19 The National School of Drama · 8 Theatre in medieval times · 5 Theatre of the Absurd · 54 U UNAIDS · 16

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V

Y

Verbatim theatre · 34

Yakjah · 211, 219, 221, 232, 235