Electoral changes inspire euphoria. But have destructive forces been really contained?
The play uses three inter-connected plots to explore our socio-political reality from where we stand today.
A liberal upper middle class family is used both for examining liberal upper middleclass values and as a point of entry to examine the predicament of those at the lower end of our structures. Three professionals, all of who had reacted to and condemned communal carnage of Gujarat look at the polity in the new dispensation. How secular are we? Are not religious biases running deep once the suave upper layer is scratched? The wife, who works for an NGO, moves away to question the religious roots of our middle class and its obsession with money. Her work provides the link with other two stories.
A Hindi subplot cataloguing the aspirations and disappointments of lower class people seeking to make it big in the city. The protagonist questions the motives behind such migration in his decision to return.
The Punjabi subplot constitutes the heart of the play and takes its facts from the suicides of small farmers in Punjab (Rajasthan and Andhra). Mainstream stories of the Green Revolution hide and distort the tales of small people, their indebtedness, and the sale of girl children to compensate the failure of rains, foeticide, infanticide, and caste politics. Hidden sagas waiting to emerge, waiting.Directed by Sanjay Kumar, the play after premiering at SRC, had a series of adapted shows in schools, colleges and slums in and around Delhi.
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