Kanyadaan (5/14/2010)

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Seattle, Washington

It is with much anticipation that I attended the opening night show of Kanyadaan, a play written by Vijay Tendulkar and directed by Pratidhwani’s Agastya Kohli. The reasons for my enthusiasm were multifold; for one, I’ve been a fan of Agastya’s (and Pratidhwani’s) work for a few years now, and second, I had personally worked with all members of Kanyadaan’s talented cast in last year’s incisive political satire, Ek Tha Gadha, Urf Aladad Khan. But most of all, from what I knew of the play (and the playwright), it promised a complex plot of important societal concerns that the actors, no doubt, would find challenging to portray, and the audience, perhaps, would find equally challenging to process.

Given the challenging complexity of the characters, the performances by the cast were considerably accomplished. Jayant Bhopatkar, playing Nath, fills the stage with his booming, bombastic monologues that reek of a nauseating brand of “democratic” patriarchy. Nanda Tewari, as Nath’s wife Seva, plays beautifully, his complicit complement in maintaining the status quo, carrying that curious blend of feminist independence and practical subservience that is so characteristic of many of us empowered (Indian) women. But the actors who held my eye the most were Aditi Chaubal, playing Jyoti, and Ankur Gupta, playing Arun.

It couldn’t have been easy to step into the shoes of an abused woman, trapped between her idealistic upbringing and her misplaced muse, or those of an oppressed dalit flitting between mouthfuls of crass expletives and self-flagellating, indulgent remorse. I found my heartstrings empathetically connected with Jyoti throughout the play, beyond reason – beyond the need to understand, judge, or admonish her. And, quite paradoxically, I found Arun’s condition just as poignant; he too was an anchor for my heartfelt attention, once again, beyond my need to understand, judge, or admonish him. Both Aditi and Ankur came out on top, bringing forth with surprising ability the complexity and contradictions of these two central characters, each of whom manifests the societal conditions and conditioning that Tendulkar wants us to consider.

Bhushan Mehendale, playing the support role of Jyoti’s brother Jai Prakash, embodies to great effect the emasculation of his father’s domineering presence and the confusion and repressed frustration of an under-expressed youth. Even C.P. Ramakrishnan and Ravi Sathyam, appearing briefly as insolent sidekicks of Arun, demonstrate with their body language alone that no role is a small one. The performances left no doubt in my mind that Kohli selected a great cast and nurtured the best out of them.

In terms of storyline flow, on occasion the rapid-fire pace of the deliveries disabled me from stopping to ponder, to read more between the lines, to connect more fully to the complex characters, especially with Jyoti’s and Arun’s. I missed the whitespace – the larger canvas that might have better held and cradled the complexities and contradictions portrayed – and for this reason alone, some of the turns in the plot may have come across as somewhat simplistic and not-so-believable. Yet, a tight cadence was necessary to keep the intensity and tension of the storyline; so, achieving a fine balance was undoubtedly no mean task.

My heartfelt kudos go to director Agastya Kohli and the entire cast and crew of Kanyadaan, for taking on this challenging subject and play, and for orchestrating yet another thoughtful production for the Seattle Indian diaspora.

Cross-posted from Pratidhwani

Written by: Shahana Dattagupta, May 24th 2010

The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoir

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Urmila Pawar

Columbia University Press

At the end of her memoir, The Weave of My Life, Urmila Pawar writes, “Life has taught me many things, showed me so much, it has also lashed out at me till I bled. I don’t know how much longer I am going to live, nor do I know in what form life is going to confront me. Let it come in any form; I am ready to face it stoically. This is what my life has taught me. This is my life and that is me!”

People write memoirs for different reasons. Some write memoirs because they’re paid a lot of money to give their version of important eras or events in which they were a pivotal player. Some want to even the score, set the record straight, or tell their story so others might learn from their experiences. I suspect that Pawar’s reason for writing The Weave of My Life was the last one.

Pawar is a well-known activist and award winning writer in India who continues to advocate for greater rights for Dalits (formerly called untouchables) and women in a country with complex social mores rooted in ancient traditions and religious teachings. Pawar tells of growing up as a Dalit on the Kolkan coast near Mumbai in the ‘50s and ‘60s when charismatic leaders like Dr. Ambedkar were advocating for a new casteless society where, if you were born into a lower caste, you were not born into your destiny with no hope of ever rising above your circumstances.

She writes about her experiences with caste discrimination in a matter-of-fact manner devoid of self-pity. As she recounts in her memoir, “the community grew up with a perpetual sense of insecurity, fearing that they could be attacked from all four sides in times of conflict. That is why there has always been a tendency in our people to shrink within ourselves like a tortoise and proceed at a snail’s pace.” Pawar says this slow pace picked up radically after her community’s mass spontaneous conversion to Buddhism in the wake of Dr. Ambedkar’s death because Buddhism allowed them to view themselves and their place in the world in a new way.

The book traces Pawar’s life from a very young age in a village where men and women lived a life of hard work and drudgery. Pawar’s family was somewhat unique for a Dalit family. Her father performed priestly duties for their caste, which were typically performed by Brahmins. Both of her parents were also strong believers in the importance of education to propel their children into a better life. Pawar’s resilience and strong belief in herself and her abilities shines through in this candid and inspiring memoir. From a young age, Pawar enjoyed acting in plays and participating in every aspect of school activities.

Pawar goes against her family’s wishes and marries a man whose family is somewhat below hers in social stature and who is less educated than her. It becomes clear early on that there will be tension in marriage because Pawar is a force of nature whose intensity only strengthens as she comes into her own. After the family moves to Mumbai, Pawar becomes involved in the Dalit rights movement and is recognized as a leading light in the Dalit literary movement. She writes frankly about her husband’s constant criticism and emotional abuse as she continued to do her “social work” and her writing and gained acclaim in the form of awards and published works. She also describes the fissures in the Dalit rights movement between human rights and women’s rights, which were not considered as important by the male leaders and often fell by the wayside.

By the end of the memoir, Pawar has experienced much loss and tragedy. She loses her son, her mother, and her husband in a relatively short period of time and finds herself being blamed by some in her community for these misfortunes because she was not a more traditional wife and mother.

At times I found it hard to keep track of the numerous family members, acquaintances and fellow activists Pawar mentions in the book. I also found myself constantly checking the glossary to remind myself of the meanings of various Marathi words used throughout the text. That aside, what I especially like about this memoir is that Pawar doesn’t whitewash, or sugar-coat the difficulties she encountered both personally and professionally. Her honesty in presenting her life and the daily struggles and victories she experienced is inspiring and is a testament to her courage and strength of character.

Written by: Gita Tewari, December 1st 2009