Just like director Usha Ganguly connects with Chandi in Bayen, the contemporary man also finds resonance in the male protagonist of the play, says Chahak Mittal
Why is it that people fall in love with a literary character? Time and again, women cite a Mr Darcy or a Heathcliff or Rhett Butler as their epitome of a perfect man. This is despite the fact that as readers they are very much aware that these literary characters do not exist in reality. Yet they get involved in their lives and laugh, cry or even fall in love with them. Why do we care about these fictional characters? Why do we delve in and connect to their lives so deeply?
Theatre director Usha Ganguly believes that this is because a reader’s experience of literature is deeply affected by the emotional attachment they form with these fictional characters, which in turn shapes them and their social relationships. She says, “We are always influenced by some or the other characters and authors in our real lives.”
She too was similarly influenced when she was writing the character of Chandi for her recent direction at National School of Drama’s Bharat Rang Mahotsav, Bayen, a story originally written by Mahasweta Devi. “Chandi, the protagonist,” she laughs to say, “is someone who is very much inside me.”
She adds, “I relate to her character as an actor, a director and a woman. She represents every Indian woman. I see their trauma, their struggles and exploitation and a beautiful motherhood in her. She represents their psyche and way of living.”
She chose to direct Mahashweta Devi’s story because she has been hugely inspired by the author, her stories and characters.
“This isn’t the first time that I had picked up one of her stories as I have also directed Rudali and a few others. She always inspires me because of her social awareness and the reflection of society that can be seen in her stories. I have been equally inspired by Saadat Hassan Manto and his writings like Sarhad Paar on Partition. Words of such writers scream of life even though they were written years ago. They are relevant even today. I always like literary personalities. In case of Mahasweta Devi, she wrote about women who would represent the society’s harsh reality and its norms that were inhuman and unjustified,” says she.
It wasn’t easy to bring Bayen to life but it was always on her mind. And when the NSD committee asked her to direct a play, she says that they worked extremely hard to achieve perfection and it turned out to be a “lot of fun.” Ganguly now wants to recreate it in Bengali with her theatre group.
Since Bayen was originally written in the late 1960s, recreating that era and showing an age-old practice on the stage was a challenge too. However, Ganguly shares that the practice of declaring a woman to be a chudail or witch is shockingly still prevalent in many parts of India.
She says, “There are numerous Indian TV soaps which term a particular woman as a witch, daayen, chudail, naagin or use other synonyms for her. I feel the use of this word for women should be prohibited. When I came across some statistics, I learnt that more than 2,000 women are killed and lynched in parts of Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab and called chudails and witches. They kill multiple women or alienate them from the society in the name of cultural activities and societal norms. This is so violent and inhuman. Even today there are women who are forced to live alone.”
The director gives the example of a place that she had visited in Bengal known as Kaali Ghat. “I have seen young girls and middle-aged women there living a life of isolation after being boycotted by society in the name of rituals,” highlights she.
The play addresses and makes people aware of such brutal forms of gender inequality and societal exclusion of women fuelled by illiteracy and irrational norms. She says it reflects the plight of such women who are separated from their own children even if the latter need their mothers. The play is an important one for people to know that such practices are not something which we should be proud of.
The story puts forth yet another character, Malinder, Chandi’s husband, who abandons her as he abides by the society when everyone starts calling her a bayen (witch). Ganguly talks about how she wrote his character. She says that though Malinder initially agrees with the society’s decision to abandon her, he later also regrets his own thoughts and actions. He questions himself and repents not supporting Chandi. And following that, she says, “If you look at today’s gender scenario, you will find out that men are actually evolving to become more sensible in terms of responsibilities and understanding women. They are taking care of the household along with their wives and mothers. The Indian male is changing. He is not egoistic or violent anymore. He wants to protect and support his partner, wife, mother or sister. He needs his partner for the family’s harmony. He even understands that women’s work is as important as his. Men who think like this might account for a very low percentage in the country, but the change has begun. This is how Malinder can also relate to today’s man.”
Talking about how a written story is transformed into a stage performance, she feels that it depends on the director’s understanding of society, political and economical setup, the country, its history and traditions, and the feudal structure. “You can’t rewrite any script if you don’t have an understanding of these. You wouldn’t be able to make it contemporary. You need to have an inner eye to see the world around and then portray it through a performance,” she says.
She tells us about adding her own element in the play that wasn’t there in the original writing. “It was a whole new atmosphere created by me. I don’t like to repeat things. I presented the rituals written in the story in an all-new way. I had selected the props, costumes and their fabrics by myself. I specially went to a market in Kolkata to buy Gamcha sarees as the costumes. Even for my previous plays Chandalika and Hum Mukhtara, I had personally looked for the perfect cloth for the costumes. It gives a refreshing touch to the play.”
