A play by third year students of National School of Drama (NSD)...
Every time I watch a movie, play or read a book, there is always one thing from which I can start talking or writing about it. This time there are so many things that I don’t know where to start. Anyways...
Freedom of expression can bring out the truth so harshly and upfront to our faces that it can play with our emotions. Movements, body language, dialogues, music and atmosphere, everything was bloody free, and I mean it. There were no artistic limits set for anything. The hard rock never seemed so "in place" to me and that too in a Hindi play. Hats off to the crew!!
There is a very thin line between the place where we stop getting emotional because of emotional content of artistic creations, and the place where the artistic creations force us to get emotional. The music and atmosphere of this play were extremely real and the play crossed the thin line. I could sense at times in the play that I was forced to get emotional but the plot was real and so the presentation, therefore I didn’t mind it.
Now, let me tell you about the plot of the play. The play is based on an autobiography of a sex-worker, Nalini Zaleema. She is a documentary film maker today and actively involved to help organize the sex-workers. The play is about the circumstances through which Zameela went through and became a sex-worker, mother, and documentary film maker from a normal child in Kerala.
Only, a play like this could have done justice to Nalini Zameela. As Zameela herself says, "150 saal purani meri lakkad-daadi ke zamaane ke niyamon aur kaanon ko main kyun maaun. Samay badalaa hai to kaanun aur niyam bhi badalane chhahiye." In the same way the crew has tried to be as expressive as possible to bring out the impact and message that Zameela wants to convey.
The play was so harsh that I myself felt uncomfortable watching it. And if we think about it, we are living in such a society. There are things happening in a small area of every city that we don’t even want to see it in a theatrical recreation, let apart seeing or going through it in real. And, please note, even then we don’t want to talk about it. Irony would not converse that meaning to explain the situation which "vidambanaa" in Hindi can. "Vidambanaa hai yeh hamaare samaaj ki."
Every time I watch a movie, play or read a book, there is always one thing from which I can start talking or writing about it. This time there are so many things that I don’t know where to start. Anyways...
Freedom of expression can bring out the truth so harshly and upfront to our faces that it can play with our emotions. Movements, body language, dialogues, music and atmosphere, everything was bloody free, and I mean it. There were no artistic limits set for anything. The hard rock never seemed so "in place" to me and that too in a Hindi play. Hats off to the crew!!
There is a very thin line between the place where we stop getting emotional because of emotional content of artistic creations, and the place where the artistic creations force us to get emotional. The music and atmosphere of this play were extremely real and the play crossed the thin line. I could sense at times in the play that I was forced to get emotional but the plot was real and so the presentation, therefore I didn’t mind it.
Now, let me tell you about the plot of the play. The play is based on an autobiography of a sex-worker, Nalini Zaleema. She is a documentary film maker today and actively involved to help organize the sex-workers. The play is about the circumstances through which Zameela went through and became a sex-worker, mother, and documentary film maker from a normal child in Kerala.
Only, a play like this could have done justice to Nalini Zameela. As Zameela herself says, "150 saal purani meri lakkad-daadi ke zamaane ke niyamon aur kaanon ko main kyun maaun. Samay badalaa hai to kaanun aur niyam bhi badalane chhahiye." In the same way the crew has tried to be as expressive as possible to bring out the impact and message that Zameela wants to convey.
The play was so harsh that I myself felt uncomfortable watching it. And if we think about it, we are living in such a society. There are things happening in a small area of every city that we don’t even want to see it in a theatrical recreation, let apart seeing or going through it in real. And, please note, even then we don’t want to talk about it. Irony would not converse that meaning to explain the situation which "vidambanaa" in Hindi can. "Vidambanaa hai yeh hamaare samaaj ki."
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