Satyabrata Rout, who won the best director honour for his play Matte Eklavyaat the META awards, shared that his production describes the class and caste discrimination   faced by students in India

In 2010 when he was invited to latin America with the play that is based on Indian mythology or folklore, director Satyabrata Rout was clear about what he wanted to present. But the Herculean task was to come up with the play with the limited number of actors, five. “The company that was sponsoring us only could have taken five people so it was our major limitation. I went to Karnataka and met a guy who runs his organisation called Aadima, the term that derives its name from Aadim, meaning primitive or ancient, without any government support. He is a fantastic screenplay and is know for his work but unfortunately he faced problems just because he belongs to scheduled caste. I narrated him the idea and the concept of the play and he agreed to help us because even he was working towards removing the class and caste barriers from our society. Through him we reached to some remote areas and tribals of Karnataka and chose a narrative form of theatre. In our play the story is told as a narrative through a tribal folk form. Otherwise it was not possible to come up with the play with such a small team,” shared Rout, while he went back to the history to describe the origin of his play Matte Eklavya. The play was recently staged in Delhi as part of Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) and Rout received the best director award this year for his play that talks about the deficiencies and how students are treated differently by their teachers just because some belong to a particular cast.

Matte Eklavya means ‘Eklavya once again.’ It is the story from the Mahabharata about this boy named Eklavya, who could not have his training under Guru Dronacharya because he was not a Brahmin. Eklavya did not give up and assumes Guru Dronacharya as his teacher and learns on his own. However, when Dronacharya got to know about the boy’s brilliant skills he asked for his thumb as a Guru Dakshina, so that the boy could never master the bow and arrow. Rout has redefined this story to suit the present times. “I can find the Eklavya in modern day students as well. Some of them have the passion for learning but the teachers discriminate on the basis of caste. It was on 2008 when I went from Delhi to Hyderabad where I saw how some teachers discriminated among the students because of issues like caste and class, these issues are very prominent in South India. In 2008, two Dalit students committed suicide in our university in Hyderabad and they wrote in their suicide note that they were harassed by their teachers. later when we got to know about the performance in latin America, I thought we could build this issue in the form of the play. The script was written by me and one of my students in Delhi,” informed the director, who has been staging the play at the tribal and rural areas for the meagre sum of money.

“Eklavya had skills and he was a talented boy but he suffered just because he did not have a guide, the same happens to so many students today. It is a vital issue which was narrated through folk forms by illiterate people. More than the medium it was the message that was important and I think the message has reached out well to the people,” added the director.

The director feels that there have been some changes in our education system, but the change needs to reach the rural areas. “I am really thankful for the recognition and platform that META has given us. It was difficult to talk about such an important issue but we have found a voice and we hope to send across the message far and wide through this play,” ended the director.