Update: The play and the protest got some coverage in this article of The Hindu. Thanks to Arka for pointing this out.

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Those were the messages we tried to convey via some performances on a hot Bangalore afternoon yesterday.
At around 3:00 pm we started our first performance at the M G Road – Cubbon Park junction. Some motorists at the signal stopped a while to look at us before the honks from other traffic members eased them on their way. Some of the casual passers-by seemed amused and some nodded their head in approval. We continued with our stuff till about 4:00 pm. Here are the pictures of the performance:

That’s DhiOnlyOne (in the above picture) on the left holding a small percussion instrument. And nope, I did not hurt the dude over whom I had my feet.

Some more volunteers here:

Another performance (a solo one):

I am not quite sure how much of an impact this event had. Maybe some people on their shopping stint went home later and asked “What or Who exactly is Nandigram?”.
If that happened, it was probably worth the few hours we spent.

Enjoy the day, ladies and gentlemen.

Update: The street play will be performed 2-3 times between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm on the pavement of M G Road on Sunday. Watch out for the place where there is a crowd and a bunch of people acting.
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I will be performing in a street play this Sunday (18th Nov).
The play will be staged on M G Road (yeah, right in the middle of the city – no traffic jams I wishfully hope).

The context is the unfortunate turn of events at Nandigram. This Sunday, in the afternoon from 2 to 8 there is going to be a mass protest on M G Road opposing the government actions in Nandigram.

The exact time-slot for the play will be updated shortly, but it would be great to attend the entire duration of 6 hours which shall offer performances of all kinds highlighting the plight of the people in Nandigram and creating awareness about this issue.

The play would last for about half an hour. You can contribute to the play, if you want, by sending in your thoughts, a couple of lines, a poem, a picture – whatever makes you express against this disrespect for fellow human beings and their lives.

Be there or be there. On Sunday, ladies and gentlemen.

For your reference, articles related to Nandigram:
Amit Varma’s brilliant article on this.
Hindustan Times report
Sanhati.com

Watched a play last evening – Ghalib in New Delhi by Pierrot Troupe productions.

The lesser said about it the better. But then, we can’t let the better rule can we? So, I have to write about it.

The play began almost 45 minutes late (a blasphemy if you are a regular RangaShankara goer) and a certain section of the audience area had chairs and tables where people could dine and watch the play.

Now, for me, theatre is a sort of sacred art. For me (I emphasise that over and over), this sanctity gets breached when the stage is set up for pleasing people as compared to conveying or displaying a special art form. I have nothing against people dining and at the same time watching a play. Go ahead and do it. But it pains me to watch something like that. It is something like asking a wannabe professional singer to sing in a wedding orchestra. You are an accessory in someone’s celebrations.

The only solace I was seeking or waiting for was that the play would turn out to be good. To the credit of my regular-bad-luck-in-recent-months, the play was far from what one would term as a presentable show.

Slapstick comedy is one thing. Screaming your head off and making random frivolous (I hate that word now) movements to make someone laugh out of exasperation is quite another.

The play was supposed to portray the insensitivity that today’s world shows to someone as iconic in the literary field as Mirza Ghalib. However, I think this particular play did more injustice to Ghalib than what the society has managed to achieve collectively till date. Now, I am no Ghalib fan yet it pained me to see such a shoddy treatment of the great Urdu poet.

One line of thought I came across was that it was light comedy. I failed to see what was light and what was comedy. Every 20 minutes there would be an aircraft flying above the venue where we were sitting, keeping me awake and interested in waiting for the next aircraft to fly by.

To stop ranting about it, I would like to add that the protagonist of the play did an excellent job and stood out with his acting skills. About the direction, I was disappointed to a large extent. There is one scene where around 7-8 people are on stage depicting various activities. Now, when you want the audience to focus on a conversation happening on stage, all your other actors on stage should mute down their movements. Otherwise, the entire scene comes across as an irritating aberration. This is a basic requirement that one has to adhere to. However, the director of the play had missed out this point. Infact, the director had missed out the entire aesthetic sense of this play.

Overall, the play comprised of snippets of scenes which were probably clubbed together just hours before the show in the darkness of the green room.
Needless to say, it fell apart pretty fast.

Cotton 56, Polyester 84

During my visit to Bangalore, I was lucky enough to catch the October theatre festival at Ranga Shankara.
They play that I watched was titled “Cotton 56 Polyester 84″.

This play, written by Ramu Ramnathan and directed by Sunil Shanbhag, is one of the few outstanding plays I have seen at Ranga Shankara.
Cotton 56 Polyester 84 is a play that revolves around the lives of two former mill workers who have lost their jobs owing to the shutdown of the old mills.

Bhau Saheb and Kaka spend their time at a road-side corner, reminiscing their past and at times re-living the forgotten moments. To kill time, they play a game of counting the number of people wearing cotton and the number of people wearing polyester. At the end of the play, the count stands at Cotton – 56 and Polyester – 84. Polyester winning signifies the death of the old cotton mills and the victory of the new manufacturing units.

Within this game is intertwined the lives of Kaka, Bhau, Bhau’s wife and son, Kaka’s daughter, Bhau’s son’s girlfriend, Gopal Seth who is an opportunistic trader and Dharavi’s Bhai who runs the mafia involved with garbage collection and dumping.

For me, this play had many hard-hitting lines. The starting couplets that Bhau sings in Marathi provoke a sense of ashamed patriotism (I wouldn’t bother explaining that).

Kaka is a Muslim and Bhau is a Maharashtrian. During their conversations about the unions and the political parties, one learns that Kaka (inspite of being a Muslim!) was a staunch supporter of Shiv Sena and Bhau was a communist.
Bhau jokingly tells Kaka, “Bala (Thakre) Saheb didn’t know that you were a Muslim. Otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed you to attend any of the Sena’s rallies”.
To this Kaka replies, “In those days, it was not that bad to be a Muslim”.

The audience chuckled and I withdrew in a shell. Probably because I was watching the play with a Muslim friend?
The sensitivity of that particular line hit me hard in the face. It was that same feeling which I had got when I was acting in the Babri-masjid scene in my last play – Vision 2020.

Bhau and Kaka continue living through their past, living through their children’s deaths and living through their constant marginalisation by the ever-increasing rich society.

The play breaks away in many places into Marathi folk songs and dances. Bhau’s wife does the Lavni as she makes her entry into the stage. She is portrayed as a strong woman who even starts off her own kitchen to make ends meet when Bhau loses his job. She withstands everything from her husband being unemployed to her son’s death. I found her character one of the strongest portrayals of the strength and determination of the Indian housewife belonging to the lower class of the society.

If you are in Mumbai, you might be lucky enough to catch it at the Prithvi theatre.

Following are other reviews of this play (all links sent in by F via e-mail):
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/2006-May/000909.html
http://www.mumbaitheatreguide.com/dramas/hindi/c56p84.asp
http://www.abillioneyes.in/cotton06.htm (Poster-picture obtained from this website)

Stepping away from the play and into the reality of the affairs, FreeIndiaMedia provides a good article here – http://www.freeindiamedia.com/economy/10_april_06.html
Excerpts from the article:

Such is the display of contempt for workers in Mumbai now that the very memory of the textile workers is being wiped out with the closure of textile mills and the destruction of even the physical structures of the mills that brought the industrial revolution to this country. Right in front of the Shiv Sena’s Sena Bhavan at Shivaji Park stood the Kohinoor Mill that was run by the National Textile Corporation

With the destruction of mills and the eviction of mill workers from working class areas that are now being gentrified and “developed”, the memory of the workers may now remain only through literature, drama and other works of art.

Come to think of it, the last time I was in Mumbai, I was trying to strike down pins at a bowling alley which was set up in one of the demolished mills.

Strike 10 anyone? 56? 84?

Ranga Shankara is hosting a theatre festival from Oct 8th to Oct 15th.
It has an interesting line-up of plays including Girish Karnad’s Flowers (with Rajat Kapoor in the cast) , K K Raina’s Jameela Bai Kalaali (Ila Arun acting in it) and Atul Kumar’s Numbers in the Dark.

You can check out the schedule and read the synopsis here.

Happy times ahead!
Feels good to be in Bangalore